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Economics

Selected Works

2010

Policy

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

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Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson Nov 2010

Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of concern, underlies this reluctance and compromises the quality of economic advice. The tension between caring about the problems, on the one hand, and writing within the existing culture of the discipline, on the other, are illustrated with examples from U.S. policymaking, behavioral economics, and the economics of climate change and global poverty. …


Risk And Prices: The Role Of User Sanctions In Marijuana Markets, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Beau Kilmer, Michael Grossman, Frank Chaloupka Dec 2009

Risk And Prices: The Role Of User Sanctions In Marijuana Markets, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Beau Kilmer, Michael Grossman, Frank Chaloupka

Rosalie Liccardo Pacula

User sanctions influence the legal risk for consumers who engage in illegal drug markets. If a reduction in user sanctions leads to an increase in consumption, drug prices will rise unless supply is perfectly elastic. In equilibrium, a change in consumption associated with decreasing user sanctions could be relatively small if supply is upward sloping. Using a novel dataset with rich transaction-level information, this paper evaluates the impact of recent changes in user sanctions for marijuana on marijuana prices. The results suggest that lower legal risks for users are associated with higher marijuana prices in the short-run, which ceteris paribus, …