Digital Commons Network^™

Desarrollo Sostenible Y Movilidad De Las Personas En Distancias Cortas: Un Análisis Comparado Entre Galicia Y Europa, Fernando González-Laxe, Federico Martín Palmero, Fernanda Miguélez Pose

Fernando González-Laxe

No abstract provided.

Higher Order Asymptotic Properties Of Qml In Beta-Arch And Mu-Arch Models, Emma M. Iglesias

Emma M Iglesias

No abstract provided.

Reducing The Global Burden Of Tuberculosis: The Contribution Of Improved Diagnostics, Emmett Keeler, Mark Perkins, Peter Small, Christy Hanson, Steven Reed, Jane Cunningham, Julia Aledort, Lee Hillborne, Maria Rafael, Federico Girosi, Christopher Dye

Emmett Keeler

Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of disease and death, with ~2 billion people infected and ~2 million deaths annually. Sputum smear microscopy (SSM) has remained the cornerstone of TB diagnosis for more than a century and is a pillar of the global strategy to control the disease, although it has significant limitations. As the epidemic continues, more attention is being paid to the impact that improving existing diagnostic methods and introducing new procedures might have in resource-limited settings. We estimated the potential global impact of better diagnostic tests, to provide guidance for health-care workers, test developers, funding agencies and …

Economic Well-Being At Older Ages: Income- And Consumption-Based Poverty Measures In The Hrs, Michael Hurd, Susann Rohwedder

Susann Rohwedder

According to economic theory, well-being or utility depends on consumption. However, at the household level, total consumption is rarely measured because its collection requires a great deal of survey time. As a result income has been widely used to assess economic well-being and poverty rates. Yet, because households can use wealth to consume more than income, an income-based measure of well-being could yield misleading results for many households, especially at older ages. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study to find income-based poverty rates which we compare with poverty rates as measured in the Current Population Survey. We …

Szerzõdési Szabadság És Paternalizmus: Adalékok A Szerzõdési Jog Közgazdasági Elemzéséhez [Freedom Of Contract And Paternalism: A Contribution To The Economics Of Contract Law] , Peter Cserne

Péter Cserne

No abstract provided.

Adding Ecological Considerations To Environmental Accounting, David A. Bainbridge

David A Bainbridge

Environmental accounting has often neglected ecological costs. These are essential to complete a true cost accounting. Ecological costs are often very large and long term and if they are ignored the costs/benefits of projects are incorrectly calculated.

Competition And Innovation, Richard J. Gilbert

Richard J Gilbert

No abstract provided.

Competition Policy For Intellectual Property; Balancing Competition And Reward, Richard J. Gilbert

Richard J Gilbert

No abstract provided.

Land Reallocation In Vietnam’S Agrarian Transition, Martin Ravallion, Dominique Van De Walle

Martin Ravallion

Liberalizing key factor markets is a crucial step in the transition from a socialist control-economy to a market economy. However, the process can be stalled by imperfect information, high transaction costs and covert resistance from entrenched interests. The paper studies agricultural land reallocation in the wake of Vietnam’s efforts to establish a free market in land-use rights following de-collectivization. Inefficiencies in the initial administrative allocation are measured against an explicit counterfactual. Land allocation responded positively but slowly to the initial inefficiencies. There is no sign that the transition favored the land rich or that it was thwarted by local officials.

The Discretion Of Judges And Corporate Executives: An Insider’S View Of The Disney Case, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

The widely publicized Disney case is perhaps the most important corporate law litigation in many decades. The case illustrates the immense discretion in the hands of trial judges in Delaware Chancery Court to let their passive corporate law ideology determine the outcome even in cases of egregious management neglect. Unfortunately, as managers, not shareholders, are the ones who decide where to incorporate and Delaware—the state of choice—depends on incorporation revenues to feed its coffers, too often this discretion is exercised to protect management at shareholder expense.

Discouraged Workers? Job Search Outcomes Of Older Workers, Nicole Maestas, Xiaoyan Li

Nicole Maestas

Many have suggested we adopt policies that explicitly encourage the elderly to work. Behind this suggestion is the assumption that if an older person desires a job, one will be found; however, little is known about the extent to which this is true, and in the Health and Retirement Study, many more respondents say they expect to work after retirement than actually undertake work. This raises an important question: To what extent can the elderly readily find suitable jobs? In the context of a theoretical job search model, we examine the decision to search for a job and the probability …

Horizontal Political Externalities: The Supply And Demand Of Disaster Management, Ben Depoorter

Ben Depoorter

This Article discusses the dynamics of shared political accountability and provides a supply- and demand-side analysis of disaster management. Because multiple levels of government share political accountability in national scale disasters, disaster management is subject to a collective action problem. Introducing the concept of horizontal political externalities, this Article explains the shortcomings of disaster management in terms of asymmetric political accountability costs for ex ante preparedness and ex post relief. In the presence of shared accountability, investments in prevention and relief by one government actor confer positive externalities upon other government actors by reducing the overall chance of being held …

A Mathematical Regression Of The U.S. Gross Private Domestic Investment 1959-2001, Byron E. Bell

Byron E. Bell

No abstract provided.

A Mathematical Regression Of The U.S. Gross Private Domestic Investment 1959-2001, Byron E. Bell

Byron E. Bell

SUMMARY OF PROJECT What did I do? A study of the role the U.S. stock markets and money markets have possibly played in the Gross Private Domestic Investment (GPDI) of the United States from the year 1959 to the year 2001 and I created a Multiple Linear Regression Model (MLRM).

The Accident Externality From Driving, Aaron S. Edlin, Pinar Karaca Mandic

Aaron Edlin

The Welfare Effects Of Pfiesteria-Related Fish Kills: A Contingent Behavior Analysis Of Seafood Consumers, George R. Parsons, Ash O. Morgan, John C. Whitehead, Tim C. Haab

George Parsons

Interpreting The Predictive Uncertainty Of Presidential Elections, Ray C. Fair

Ray C Fair

This paper argues that there is an important type of election predictive uncertainty that is not captured by polling standard errors and that can be estimated using data from political betting markets. The idea is that there are a number of possible "conditions" of nature than can exist on election day, of which one is drawn on election day. The uncertainty is which condition will be drawn. A "ranking" assumption is then proposed that greatly restricts the possible conditions of nature. This assumption is strongly supported by data from the Intrade political betting market for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. …

Welfare-Enhancing Technological Change And The Growth Of Obesity, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas J. Philipson, Jay Bhattacharya

Darius N. Lakdawalla

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property And Marketing, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas J. Philipson, Y. Richard Wang

Darius N. Lakdawalla

Patent protection spurs innovation by raising the rewards for research, but it usually results in less desirable allocations after the innovation has been discovered. In effect, patents reward inventors with inefficient monopoly power. However, previous analysis of intellectual property has focused only on the costs patents impose by restricting price-competition. We analyze the potentially important but overlooked role played by competition on dimensions other than price. Compared to a patent monopoly, competitive firms may engage in inefficient levels of non-price competition-such as marketing-when these activities confer benefits on competitors. Patent monopolies may thus price less efficiently, but market more efficiently …

The Macroeconomic Situation In And The Competitive Challenges Facing The Transition Economies, Robert C. Shelburne

Robert C. Shelburne

This presentation to the UNCTAD training course on Key Issues on the International Economic Agenda, Serbian Ministry of International Economic Relations provides a macroeconomic overview of the economic situation of the transition economies and a discussion of the important competitive challenges facing the region.

Should Good Patents Come In Small Packages? A Welfare Analysis Of Intellectual Property Bundling, Richard J. Gilbert, Michael L. Katz

Richard J Gilbert

Intellectual property owners often hold the rights to several patents, each of which is essential to make or use a product. We compare the welfare properties of package licenses, under which a licensee pays the same fee regardless of the number of technologies licensed, with component licenses, under which each technology is licensed separately and there is no quantity discount. A central finding is that a long-term package license can induce incentives to invent around patents and invest in complementary assets that are closer to their socially optimal levels than are those induced by a long-term component license. We also …

Regímenes Especiales De Importación En El Paraguay, Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

Francisco Carlos Ruiz Diaz

La aplicación de los Regímenes Especiales de Importación no armonizados, las listas de excepción al AEC y los acuerdos comerciales de preferencias arancelarias afectan la libre circulación de mercancías en el MERCOSUR e impiden avanzar hacia la consolidación institucional de la Unión Aduanera. Sin embargo, el hecho de que estos mecanismos sigan teniendo un perfil activo en propósitos de desarrollo productivo y de fomento a las exportaciones en cada uno de los países, revela las preferencias de los miembros por seguir manejando con cierta autonomía su propia Política Comercial Externa. El caso de Paraguay es el más significativo en términos …

The Existence Of Non-Elite Private Schools, Francisco Martinez Mora

Francisco Martinez-Mora

We provide an explanation to the puzzle of the existence of paid-for private schools that offer lower quality education than some tuition-free public alternatives. We consider a model of a city composed of two communities: the urban area and the suburbs. The suburban public school provides higher quality education at an implicit price: the higher tax burden plus a housing rent premium. If that price is high enough and the urban public school has a sufficiently low quality, intermediate income households live in the urban area and use a private school. Intermediate quality private schools, then, exist to serve these …

Externality Effects Of Residential Property Values: The Example Of Noise Disamenities, David Clark

David E. Clark

Studies conducted by the Federal Railroad Administration in the 1990s reveal that train whistle bans lead to higher accident rates at train crossings. However, advocates of these bans argue that they eliminate noise externalities that have a detrimental effect on residential home values. To assess this latter claim, an event study is conducted and hedonic models are estimated for three different areas in which Conrail unilaterally began ignoring local whistle bans. While the findings consistently show that proximity to rail lines has a negative and statistically important influence on home values, there is little evidence that the Conrail decision had …

Net Impact And Benefit-Cost Estimates Of The Workforce Development System In Washington State, Kevin Hollenbeck, Wei-Jang Huang

Kevin Hollenbeck

No abstract provided.

The Economics Of Teacher Quality, Darius Lakdawalla

Darius N. Lakdawalla

Concern is often voiced about the quality of American schoolteachers. This paper suggests that, while the relative quality of teachers is declining, this decline may be the result of technological changes that have raised the price of skilled workers outside teaching without affecting the productivity of skilled teachers. Growth in the price of skilled workers can cause schools to lower the relative quality of teachers and raise teacher quantity instead. Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth demonstrates that wage and schooling are good measures of teacher quality. Analysis of U.S. census microdata then reveals that the relative schooling …

Should Good Patents Come In Small Packages? A Welfare Analysis Of Intellectual Property Bundling, Richard J. Gilbert, Michael L. Katz

Richard Gilbert

Intellectual property owners often hold the rights to several patents, each of which is essential to make or use a product. We compare the welfare properties of package licenses, under which a licensee pays the same fee regardless of the number of technologies licensed, with component licenses, under which each technology is licensed separately and there is no quantity discount. A central finding is that a long-term package license can induce incentives to invent around patents and invest in complementary assets that are closer to their socially optimal levels than are those induced by a long-term component license. We also …

Demand And Supply Curves: Rotations Versus Shifts, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

There is no abstract for this brief contribution.

Judging Science: An Essay On The Unscientific Basis Of Beliefs About The Impact Of Law On Science And The Need For Better Data About Law, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

No abstract provided.

How Does Health Insurance Affect Workers’ Compensation Filing?, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Robert T. Reville, Seth A. Seabury

Darius N. Lakdawalla

About half of injured workers choose not to file workers’ compensation claims. This is thought to result from the utilization of health insurance instead of workers’ compensation. However, the data suggest that insured workers are actually less likely to file than their more vulnerable uninsured counterparts. We find that this relationship emerges as the result of employer characteristics, and in particular, whether or not employers offer health insurance to employees; this is much more important than the insurance status of workers themselves. The workplace environment may have a significant, or even a dominant, impact on filing behavior.