Digital Commons Network^™

Environment, Disaster, And Race After Katrina, Manuel Pastor, Robert Bullard, James Boyce, Alice Fothergill, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Beverly Wright

Robert D Bullard

No abstract provided.

Promoting Investments In Intangible Organizational Assets Through Aligned Incentive Compensation Plans, Susan Hughes, Craig Caldwell, Kathy Paulson Gjerde

Craig B. Caldwell

Economic Interactions: Behavior Or Structure, Shyam Sunder

Shyam Sunder

No abstract provided.

Are Tourists Willing To Pay Additional Fees To Protect Corals In Mexico?, James F. Casey

James F Casey

Coral reefs have been referred to as the rainforests of the sea, maintaining the most diverse forms of life on earth. Unfortunately, fifty-eight percent of the world’s reefs are potentially threatened by human activity. The primary objective of this paper is to determine if tourists, visiting the Riviera Maya, Mexico are willing to pay an entrance fee to enhance coral reef protection. We use a discrete choice contingent valuation (CV) experiment with almost 400 visitors to determine a measure of compensating variation for contributing to a public trust to protect corals. Results suggest there are significant possibilities for implementing a …

Economic Growth And The Environment: A Review Of Theory And Empirics, M. Scott Taylor, William Brock

M. Scott Taylor

The relationship between economic growth and the environment is, and will always remain, controversial. Some see the emergence of new pollution problems, the lack of success in dealing with global warming and the still rising population in the Third World as proof positive that humans are a short-sighted and rapacious species. Others however see the glass as half full. They note the tremendous progress made in providing urban sanitation, improvements in air quality in major cities and marvel at the continuing improvements in the human condition made possible by technological advance. The first group focuses on the remaining and often …

Non-Monotone Incentives In A Model Of Coexisting Hidden Action And Hidden Information, Suren Basov

Suren Basov

In this paper I consider a model of coexisting moral hazard and adverse selection, similar to one considered by Guesnerie, Picard, and Rey (1989). I provide an explicit solution for the optimal incentive scheme in the case, when the effort is observed with a normally distributed error. The main observation is that in this case the optimal incentive scheme often fails to be monotone. If the monotonicity constraint is imposed on the solution for economic reasons there would exist a region of profit realizations, such that the optimal compensation will be independent of on performance.

How Have The World’S Poorest Fared Since The Early 1980s?, Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen

Martin Ravallion

We present new estimates of the extent of the developing world’s progress against poverty. By the frugal $1 per day standard, we find that there were 1.1 billion poor in 2001 — almost 400 million fewer than 20 years earlier. Over the same period, the number of poor declined by over 400 million in China, though half of this decline was in the first few years of the 1980s. The number of poor outside China rose slightly over the period. A marked bunching up of people between $1 and $2 per day has also emerged, with an increase over time …

Are There Lasting Impacts Of Aid To Poor Areas? Evidence From Rural China, Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen, Ren Mu

Martin Ravallion

The paper re-visits the site of a large, World Bank-financed, rural development program in China, 10 years after it began and four years after disbursements ended. The program emphasized community participation in multi-sectoral interventions (including farming, animal husbandry, infrastructure and social services). Data were collected on 2,000 households in project and non-project areas, spanning 10 years. A double-difference estimator of the program’s impact (on top of pre-existing governmental programs) reveals sizeable short-term income gains that were mostly saved. Only small and statistically insignificant gains to mean consumption emerged in the longer-term — though in rough accord with the gain to …

China's (Uneven) Progress Against Poverty, Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen

Martin Ravallion

While the incidence of extreme poverty fell dramatically in China over 1980-2001, progress was uneven over time and across provinces. Rural areas accounted for the bulk of the gains to the poor, though migration to urban areas helped. Rural economic growth was far more important to national poverty reduction than urban economic growth; agriculture played a far more important role than the secondary or tertiary sources of GDP. Taxation of farmers and inflation hurt the poor; local government spending helped them in absolute terms; external trade had little short-term impact. Provinces starting with relatively high inequality saw slower progress against …

Partially Awakened Giants: Uneven Growth In China And India, Martin Ravallion, Shubham Chaudhuri

Martin Ravallion

The paper examines the ways in which recent economic growth has been uneven in China and India and what this has meant for inequality and poverty. Drawing on analyses based on existing household survey data and aggregate data from official sources, the authors show that growth has indeed been uneven—geographically, sectorally and at the household-level—and that this has meant uneven progress against poverty, less poverty reduction than might have been achieved had growth been more balanced, and an increase in income inequality. The paper then examines why growth was uneven and why this should be of concern. The discussion is …

Evaluating Anti-Poverty Programs, Martin Ravallion

Martin Ravallion

The chapter critically reviews the methods available for the ex-post counterfactual analysis of programs that are assigned exclusively to individuals, households or locations. The emphasis is on the specific problems encountered in applying these methods to anti-poverty programs in developing countries, drawing on examples from actual evaluations. Two main lessons emerge. Firstly, despite the claims of advocates, no single method dominates; rigorous, policy-relevant evaluations should be open-minded about methodology, adapting to the problem, setting and data constraints. Secondly, future efforts to draw useful lessons from evaluations call for more policy-relevant data and methods than the classic (“black box”) assessment of …

Nonmarket Performance: Evidence From U.S. Electric Utilities, Jean-Philippe Bonardi, Guy Holburn, Rick Vanden Bergh

Jean-Philippe Bonardi

No abstract provided.

Simulation Of The Colombian Firm Energy Market, Peter Cramton, Steven Stoft

Peter Cramton

We present a simulation analysis of the proposed Colombian firm energy market. The main purpose of the simulation is to assess the risk to suppliers of participation in the market. We also are able to consider variations in the market design, and assess the impact of alternative auction parameters. Three simulation models are developed and analyzed. The first model (Model 1) uses historical price data from October 1995 through May 2006 to assess the performance risk of hypothetical thermal and hydro generating units. The second model (Model 2) uses historical price and operating data to assess performance risk of the …

Book Review: An Economic Approach For Water Management And Conflict Resolution In The Middle East And Beyond, Edward Barbier

Edward B Barbier

No abstract provided.

Lobbying Bureaucrats, Sven Feldmann, Morten Bennedsen

Sven Feldmann

We study how interest group lobbying of the bureaucracy affects policy outcomes and how it changes the legislature's willingness to delegate decision-making authority to the bureaucracy. We extend the standard model of delegation to account for interest group influence during the implementation stage of policy. We analyze how the decision to delegate changes when the bureaucratic agent is subject to external influence. The optimal degree of delegation as well as the extent to which interest groups influence policy outcomes differ depending on whether the system of government is characterized by unified or divided control. The result is a comparative theory …

“Natural Capital, Resource Dependency And Poverty: Implications For India.” Economic Development And Environmental Sustainability: A Dialogue On India., Edward Barbier

Edward B Barbier

No abstract provided.

Offshoring And Unemployment, Devashish Mitra, Priya Ranjan

Priya Ranjan

In this paper, in order to study the impact of offshoring on sectoral and economywide rates of unemployment, we construct a two sector general equilibrium model in which labor is mobile across the two sectors, and unemployment is caused by search frictions. We find that, contrary to general perception, wage increases and sectoral unemployment decreases due to offshoring. This result can be understood to arise from the productivity enhancing (cost reducing) effect of offshoring. If the search cost is identical in the two sectors, or even if the search cost is higher in the sector which experiences offshoring, the economywide …

Vertical Integration In Unregulated Industries With Essential Facilities, Felipe Balmaceda Assoc Prof., Eduardo Savedra Prof

Felipe Balmaceda

In this paper, we consider a market that is operated by a non-integrated monopoly upstream that owns an important essential facility and an duopolistic market downstream that is facing entry in the monopolistic upstream market. We show that: (i) for small fixed costs of building a new facility the unique equilibrium entails vertical integration for all firms and duplication of essential facilities; (ii) for an intermediate range, the unique equilibrium entails full vertical integration and a shared-facility; and (iii) for large fixed costs, the unique equilibrium entails vertical integration by the incumbent, no integration by the entrant and a shared-facility. …

Don’T Forget The Lawyers: Legal Human Capital And The Role Of Lawyers In Supporting The Rule Of Law, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

No abstract provided.

Intergenerational Mobility And Interracial Inequality: The Return To Family Values, Patrick Leon Mason

Patrick L. Mason

This paper investigates two questions. First, what is the relative importance of the components of childhood family environment – parental values versus parental class status – for young adult economic outcomes? Second, are interracial differences in labor market outcomes fully explained by differences in family environment? We find that both family values and family class status affect intergenerational mobility and interracial inequality. Consideration of racial differences in parental values and class status alters but does not eliminate the impact of race on the labor market outcomes of young adults.

Valuing Conflicting Public Information About A New Technology: The Case Of Irradiated Foods, M C. Rousu, J F. Shogren

Jason Shogren

Scientists and advocates can disagree on the value of new products or technologies, such as growth hormones, genetically modified organisms, and food irradiation. Both sides of the debate disseminate information to the public hoping to influence public opinion. This study assesses the economic value of both pro and anti public information using food irradiation as a case study. The value of information sources is estimated in isolation and in combination. In isolation, the results indicate each set of information has value. In combination, only the anti-irradiation information is found to have net positive value (persuading some consumers to purchase non-irradiated …

Chief Justice Mm Ismail Of Nagore: A Great Indian, The Pride Of Tamil Nadu And A Perfect Muslim, Vikas Kumar

Vikas Kumar

No abstract provided.

Who Is Reading Nutritional Labels? (In Greek), Andreas Drichoutis, Panagiotis Lazaridis, Rodolfo M. Nayga, Jr.

Andreas Drichoutis

No abstract provided.

Determinants Of Demand For Fruit In Greece (In Greek), Andreas Drichoutis, Stathis Klonaris, Panagiotis Lazaridis

Andreas Drichoutis

No abstract provided.

Reinforcing The Link Between Contributions And Pensions With Flexible Retirement, Juan A. Lacomba, Francisco Lagos

Francisco Lagos

In this paper, we analyze a majority voting process on the earnings-related part of pension benefits in a Social Security system with flexible retirement. We show that the aging of the population may make it easier to implement one of the proposed reforms to achieve a delay in the average retirement age of workers, to reinforce the link between contributions and pensions.

Expert Advice, Control, And Heterogeneous Beliefs, Leonidas E. De La Rosa

Leonidas Enrique de la Rosa

In this paper, I study the effects of overconfidence in an investment-decision setting. A risk-averse agent privately observes information relevant to an investment decision, which he can then report to a principal. In a standard common-priors setting, the optimal contract provides full insurance to the agent: the principal pays a fixed wage to the agent, asks him to reveal his information, and implements the efficient investment rule. When the agent overestimates the expected revenue of the project following investment, however, he is willing to "wager" on success against the (relatively pessimistic) principal, and hence bear some project risk in equilibrium. …

Market Power, Vertical Integration, And The Wholesale Price Of Gasoline, Richard J. Gilbert, Justine S. Hastings

Richard J Gilbert

This paper empirically examines the relationship between vertical integration and wholesale gasoline prices. We use discrete and differential changes in the extent of vertical integration generated by mergers in West Coast gasoline refining and retailing markets to test for incentives to raise rivals’ costs. Research design allows us to test for a relationship between vertical integration and wholesale prices, controlling for horizontal market structure, cost shocks and trends. We find evidence consistent with the strategic incentive to raise competitors’ input costs and conclude that vertical integration can have a significant impact on wholesale prices.

Dollars For Genes: Revenue Generation By The California Institute For Regenerative Medicine, Richard J. Gilbert

Richard J Gilbert

Proponents of the $3 billion ballot initiative that created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) forecast that CIRM-funded research would earn royalty income in the range of $537 million to $1.1 billion. Using data on past licensing revenues as well as expected discoveries, this paper estimates that CIRM licensing income will be only a few percent of expenditures and California’s share of this licensing income will be less than one percent of R&D expenditures in current dollars. The allocation of these relatively small revenues is of secondary importance to the greater objective of disseminating CIRM-funded stem cell technology quickly …

Theoretical Constraints On The Price-Rent Ratio And Other Insights From A New Real Estate Model, Richard H. Serlin

Richard H. Serlin

I develop a model of the real estate market with rational informed individuals who are either liquid or illiquid. The model shows bounds on the price-rent ratio and dispels some common real estate myths. Suggestions are given for empirical tests of the models implications.

Birth Order, Educational Achievement And Earnings: An Investigation Using The Psid, Jasmin Kantarevic, Stéphane Fabrice Mechoulan

Stéphane Mechoulan

We examine the implications of being early in the birth order, and whether there exists, within large families, a pattern of falling then rising attainment with respect to birth order. Unlike other studies using U.S. data, we go beyond grade for age and look at racial differences. Drawing from OLS and fixed effects estimations, we find that being first-born confers a significant educational advantage that persists when considering earnings; being last-born confers none. These effects are significant for large black families at the high school level, and for white families of any size at both high school and college levels.