Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Forces Of Inequality? The Impact Of Technology And Globalisation, Mario Pianta, Leopoldo Nascia

Mario Pianta

Guest Editors' Introduction For Special Issue On "Inequality: Mechanisms And Effects", Mario Pianta, Maurizio Franzini

Mario Pianta

Innovation And Wage Polarisation In Europe, Mario Pianta, Elisabetta Croci Angelini, Francesco Farina

Mario Pianta

Candidate Competition And Voter Learning In Sequential Primary Elections: Theory And Evidence, Mattias K. Polborn, George Deltas

Mattias K Polborn

We develop a model of sequential presidential primaries in which several horizontally and vertically differentiated candidates compete against each other. Voters are incompletely informed about candidate valence and learn over time from election results in previous districts. We analyze the effects of learning about candidate quality, and the effects of candidate withdrawal on the vote shares. An empirical analysis of the 2000-2008 US presidential primaries shows that the evolution of vote shares over the sequence of contests is consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model. The withdrawal of a candidate has a bigger effect on the vote shares of …

Through The Looking Glass: The Politics Of Estate Tax Reform, Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

This brief article summarizes an argument that the estate tax reform or repeal debate has always been about money: not the government’s money from the tax, which is modest at best, but the politicians money from campaign contributions elicited to retain or repeal the tax. The article uses that theory to predict likely short term legislative developments.

Determinants Of Loan Repayment Performance In Microcredit Institutions: Evidence From Tanzania, Abel A. Kinyondo, Nathan Okurut

Abel Alfred Kinyondo

This study investigated the key factors that influence loan repayment performance among group clients of microcredit institutions (MFIs) in Tanzania. This was motivated by the fact that sustainability of MFIs is critical for poverty reduction among the poor through sustainable access to credit. Sustainability of microcredit institutions is greatly influenced by the loan repayment performance of their clients. High repayment rates enable MFIs to recover interest income and minimize loan losses which enhance profits. In turn, these profits enhance the capital base which enables microcredit institutions to increase their outreach and reduce their dependence on donors. The study was based …

Measures To Tackle Undeclared Work In 27 European Countries, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Review of range and type of policy measures used for tackling undeclared work in 27 European Union member states and an evaluation fo their transferability to other nations, sectors and/or occupations

Repaying Favours: Unravelling The Nature Of Community Exchnage In An English Locality, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

A recurring assumption in community development has been that when material support is provided on a one-to-one basis to the extended family or social and neighbourhood networks, such favours are repaid by offering help in return rather than money. Reporting a study of the community exchanges of 120 households in an English locality, however, the finding is that well over one-third of these were repaid using money. The outcome is a call for the community development literature to recognise and respond to the existence of this sphere of ‘paid favours’ which demonstrates how monetary transactions can be neither market-like nor …

Valuing Beach Closures On The Padre Island National Seashore, George R. Parsons, Ami K. Kang, Christopher G. Leggett, Kevin J. Boyle

George Parsons

We estimate the economic loss due to hypothetical beach closures on the Padre Island National Seashore on the Gulf Coast of Texas. We consider the closure of the entire park, groups of beaches in the park, and for comparison, beaches elsewhere on the coast. We estimate a linked site choice/trip frequency model of day trips. The site choice model is estimated using multinomial and mixed logit. The trip frequency model is estimated using a negative binomial regression. Using the mixed logit model, the mean per-trip loss for the closure of all Padre beaches is about $20; the loss-to-trip ratio is …

Natural Resource Endowments And The Domestic Revenue Effort, John Thornton, Fabian Bornhorst, Sanjeev Gupta

John Thornton

We examine whether there is evidence of an offset between government revenues from hydrocarbon (oil and gas) related activities and revenues from other domestic sources in a panel of 30 hydrocarbon producing countries. Our main finding is that there is an offset of about 20%, which is robust to the inclusion of control variables, the exclusion of outliers, and alternate estimation methodologies. While the impact of the offset on long-term development prospects is not clear, there is a risk of significant adjustment costs in moving to a higher level of domestic taxation once natural resources are depleted.

Ripe Standing Vines And The Jurisprudential Tasting Of Matured Legal Wines – And Law & Bananas: Property And Public Choice In The Permitting Process, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

From produce to wine, we only consume things when they are ready. The courts are no different. That concept of “readiness” is how courts address cases and controversies as well. Justiciability doctrines, particularly ripeness, have a particularly important role in takings challenges to permitting decisions. The courts largely hold that a single permit denial does not give them enough information to evaluate whether the denial is in violation of law. As a result of this jurisprudential reality, regulators with discretion have an incentive to use their power to extract rents from those that need their permission. Non-justiciability of permit denials …

Ri 506 - Economia Política Internacional, Eloi Martins Senhoras

Elói Martins Senhoras

No abstract provided.

Keeping The Global Recession In Perspective, Karl Widerquist

Karl Widerquist

The global recession has been spreading and deepening for nearly a year. It could become the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and it has captured nearly all of the attention we, our media, and our leaders pay to economic issues. Perhaps we’re paying too much attention to it. I want to convince you in this editorial that a recession—even a major depression—is not an economic problem of the first magnitude. Our most pressing economic problems are distribution, and they exist whether we are in recession or not. Recessions appear to be a major problem primarily because …

The Basic Income Guarantee And The Goals Of Equality, Efficiency, And Environmentalism, Karl Widerquist, Michael A. Lewis

Karl Widerquist

The most important issue in equality – if not in all economic policy – is the persistence of poverty. This chapter argues that anti-poverty policy needs to move away from the categorical approach towards universalism, specifically in the form of a Basic Income Guarantee. This chapter argues that the Basic Income Guarantee, in any of its various versions is the most efficient and comprehensive method to attack poverty. It can also be used as part of a strategy for environmental protection.

The Economic Lesson Of 1938, Karl Widerquist

Karl Widerquist

Economic events of 1938 are relevant to our handling of the global recession today.

Paternalism In Policy: Prospects And Limitations Of An Economic Analysis, Péter Cserne

Péter Cserne

No abstract provided.

A Közteherviselés (70/I. §) [The Constitutional Duty To Contribute To Public Expenditures. Hungary 1989-2009], Péter Cserne

Péter Cserne

This is a chapter in the 2 volume commentary on the (pre-2012) Hungarian constitution, edited by Andras Jakab. It provides a legal doctrinal analysis of the constitutional power to tax, as regulated in Art 70/I of the Constitution of the Republic of Hungary (the duty to contribute to public expenditures) and interpreted by the Hungarian Constitutional Court.

Bolhas Racionais No Indice Bovespa, Mauricio Nunes, Sergio Da Silva

Sergio Da Silva

We checked for the presence of rational bubbles in the São Paulo Stock Exchange index using both linear and nonlinear cointegration. We detected the presence of explosive and periodically collapsing bubbles, but we could not track intrinsic bubbles.

Ranking The Stocks Listed On Bovespa According To Their Relative Efficiency, Ricardo Giglio, Sergio Da Silva

Sergio Da Silva

A methodology based on the algorithmic complexity theory has been applied to assess the relative efficiency of the stocks listed on Bovespa. We provide eight alternative listings of the top ten stocks according to their efficiency rates.

Going Parochial In The Assessment Of The Brazilian Economics Research Output, Sergio Da Silva

Sergio Da Silva

I evaluate the just launched official criterion for assessing the economics research output in Brazil, called “Qualis”. I compare it with the simple journal impact factors released by RePEc. Four biases are identified: (1) left-wing journals have been favored, (2) mainstream British journals have been downgraded, (3) cross disciplinary research output has been neglected, and (4) domestic journals have been favored.

Reactions to this paper

F. S. Lee, B. C. Cronin, S. McConnel, E. Dean (2010) Research quality rankings of heterodox economic journal in a contested discipline, American Journal of Economics and Sociology 69(5), 1409-1452

J. R. Faria (2010) Most …

Strategic Considerations In The Emergence Of Private Action Rights, Reza Rajabiun

Reza Rajabiun

Grossman's Health Threshold And Retirement, Titus Galama, Arie Kapteyn, Raquel Fonseca, Pierre-Carl Michaud

Titus Galama

We formulate a stylized structural model of health, wealth accumulation and retirement decisions building on the human capital framework of health provided by Grossman. We explicitly assume a functional form of the utility function and carefully account for initial conditions, which allow us to derive analytic solutions for the time paths of consumption, health, health investment, savings and retirement. We argue that the Grossman literature has been unnecessarily restrictive in assuming that health is always at Grossman’s “optimal” health level. Exploring the properties of corner solutions we find that advances in population health (health capital) can explain the paradox that …

Competition Law And The Economy In The Russian Federation, 1990-2006, Reza Rajabiun

Reza Rajabiun

Competition Law As Development Policy: Evidence From Poland, Reza Rajabiun

Reza Rajabiun

Cross-Price Elasticity And Income Elasticity Of Demand: Are Your Students Confused?, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

The authors demonstrate that most textbooks are ambiguous at best in their treatment of cross-price elasticity and income elasticity of demand. There is also no discussion of what initiates a price increase in discussions of substitutes and complements in the textbooks examined. The authors offer a remedy for these deficiencies.