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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Does Our Values Become Worsen? — A Study Of The Effects Of Fiscal Policies On Households’ Lives In Sudan, Yagoub Elryah Dec 2014

Does Our Values Become Worsen? — A Study Of The Effects Of Fiscal Policies On Households’ Lives In Sudan, Yagoub Elryah

Yagoub Elryah (PhD)

As a result of the secession of South Sudan, Sudan has experienced the largest increases in the budget deficit, shortages of hard currencies, highest inflation rates, and debt accumulation. In this paper, we attempt to extend and contribute to prior research on the impacts of fiscal policies on households’ life in Sudan. An online data from 1999 until 2013 were used to examine the effects of fiscal policy on households’ life in Sudan. To do this, the OLS and VECM estimation procedures were considered. Our results supported hypotheses that the households’ life has become more worsen than the situation pre-secession …


El Proceso De Reforma Agraria En La República Dominicana 1979-83, Antonio V. Menéndez Alarcón Dec 2014

El Proceso De Reforma Agraria En La República Dominicana 1979-83, Antonio V. Menéndez Alarcón

Antonio V. Menéndez Alarcón

El sector rural es el prinicpal pilar de le economia de Republica Domincana, ya que representa la fuente mas grande de empleo y tiene una considerable participacion en la formacion del Producto Bruto Interno (alrededor del 20%)...


Prof. Vibhuti Patel On Gender Responsive Budgets In India, Professor Vibhuti Patel Dec 2014

Prof. Vibhuti Patel On Gender Responsive Budgets In India, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

Budget is an important tool in the hands of state for affirmative action for improvement of gender relations through reduction of gender gap in the development process. It can help to reduce economic inequalities as well as gender inequalities. Hence, the budgetary policies need to keep into consideration the gender dynamics operating in the economy and in the civil society. There is a need to highlight participatory approaches, bottom up budget, child budget, green budgeting, local and global implications of pro-poor and pro-women budgeting and inter-linkages between gender-sensitive budgeting and women’s empowerment. It is good economic sense to make national …


Pipeline Congestion And Basis Differentials, Matthew E. Oliver, Charles F. Mason, David C. Finnoff Nov 2014

Pipeline Congestion And Basis Differentials, Matthew E. Oliver, Charles F. Mason, David C. Finnoff

Charles F Mason

No abstract provided.


Jumps In Natural Gas Prices: Implications For Infrastructure, Charles F. Mason, Neil A. Wilmot Nov 2014

Jumps In Natural Gas Prices: Implications For Infrastructure, Charles F. Mason, Neil A. Wilmot

Charles F Mason

No abstract provided.


Regional Disparities In Rural And Agricultural Development In Undivided Andhra Pradesh, India, A Amarender Reddy Oct 2014

Regional Disparities In Rural And Agricultural Development In Undivided Andhra Pradesh, India, A Amarender Reddy

A Amarender Reddy

India is a federal union comprising of 28 states. The states are further sub-divided into districts. Andhra Pradesh is one of the largest states in India. The state was formed by merging three regions – Telangana, Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra – in the year 1956. In terms of development indicators measured in the mid-50s, Coastal Andhra was considered more developed, followed by the Rayalaseema region. Now people of the Telangana region are claiming that their relative backwardness was accentuated after merging with the more developed regions. In this context, this paper examines the regional disparities in agriculture in Andhra Pradesh …


Searching For The Determinants Of Climate Change Interest, Patrick Cavanagh, Corey Lang, Xinran Li, Haoran Miao, John David Ryder Oct 2014

Searching For The Determinants Of Climate Change Interest, Patrick Cavanagh, Corey Lang, Xinran Li, Haoran Miao, John David Ryder

Corey Lang

A meaningful CO2 mitigation policy is unlikely at the national level in the United States. What is currently happening and what is much more likely to occur in the future is city and regional level efforts of mitigation and adaptation. This paper aims to understand the geographic and socioeconomic characteristics of metropolitan areas and regions that lead to engagement with the issue of climate change. We use geographically explicit, internet search data from Google to measure information seeking behavior, which we take to translate into engagement, attention and interest. Our spatial hotspot analysis creates a map that potentially could be …


Senate Finance Committee Testimony On Energy Tax Reform, Gilbert E. Metcalf Sep 2014

Senate Finance Committee Testimony On Energy Tax Reform, Gilbert E. Metcalf

Gilbert E. Metcalf

Testimony presented to the full Committee at a hearing held on September 17, 2014.


Do Weather Fluctuations Cause People To Seek Information About Climate Change?, Corey Lang Jul 2014

Do Weather Fluctuations Cause People To Seek Information About Climate Change?, Corey Lang

Corey Lang

Learning about the causes and consequences of climate change can be an important avenue for supporting mitigation policy and efficient adaptation. This paper uses internet search activity data, a distinctly revealed preference approach, to examine if local weather fluctuations cause people to seek information about climate change. The results suggest that weather fluctuations do have an effect on climate change related search behavior, however not always in ways that are consistent with the projected impacts of climate change. While search activity increases with extreme heat in summer and extended periods of no rainfall and declines in extreme cold in winter, …


Willingness To Pay For Flood And Ecological Risk Reduction In An Urban Watershed, David Clark, Diane Novotny, Robert Griffin, Douglas Booth, Alena Bartosova, M Hutchinson Jul 2014

Willingness To Pay For Flood And Ecological Risk Reduction In An Urban Watershed, David Clark, Diane Novotny, Robert Griffin, Douglas Booth, Alena Bartosova, M Hutchinson

Robert Griffin

Urban watershed managers frequently must address alternative policy goals; flood control and ecological risk reduction. This study combines hydrologic models of flood control and biotic models of ecologic risk with economic models of willingness-to-pay and psychological models of risk processing and planned behavior to evaluate these two alternative policy objectives. The findings reveal that flood risk exposure, especially for those individuals who would remain outside the 100 year flood plain if the project were enacted, does influence the financial support that local residents would be willing to make to a flood control project. Other important determinants include demographic factors such …


Extension Programming In Support Of Public Policy For The Management Of Aquaculture In Common Water Bodies, Michael A. Rice Jun 2014

Extension Programming In Support Of Public Policy For The Management Of Aquaculture In Common Water Bodies, Michael A. Rice

Michael A Rice

Many countries of Asia, including Indonesia, have experienced the problem of hypoxic fish kills among fish in netpens and fish corrals in various publicly-held water bodies. Fish farming in enclosures in public water bodies attractive because of low overhead costs in comparison to farming the identical species in constructed ponds. But aerobic bacterial degradation of feed and fish feces in common waters can lead to oxygen depletion, thus causing fish kills. Mass-balance and ecological carrying capacity models and education through and extension programming can be used to inform policy makers as to the maximum biomass of farmed fish allowable before …


The Windy City: Property Value Impacts Of Wind Turbines In An Urban Setting, Corey Lang, James J. Opaluch Jun 2014

The Windy City: Property Value Impacts Of Wind Turbines In An Urban Setting, Corey Lang, James J. Opaluch

Corey Lang

This paper examines the impact of wind turbines on house values in Rhode Island. In contrast to wind farms surrounded by sparse development, in Rhode Island single turbines have been built in relatively high population dense areas. As a result, we observe 48,554 single-family, owner-occupied transactions within five miles of a turbine site, including 3,254 within one mile, which is far more than most related studies. We estimate hedonic difference-in-differences models that allow for impacts of wind turbines by proximity, viewshed, and contrast with surrounding development. Across a wide variety of specifications, the results suggest that wind turbines have no …


Ranch Level Economics And Sage-Grouse B1258.Pdf, John A. Tanaka May 2014

Ranch Level Economics And Sage-Grouse B1258.Pdf, John A. Tanaka

John A Tanaka

Th#31;e greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is a candidate for listing as an endangered species. Proposed proactive policies and conservation measures to protect the species could potentially alter grazing policies on federal lands to include reductions in allowed grazing levels and with adjustments in seasonal grazing use of federal permits - particularly during spring and fall. We use pro#30;t-maximizing models developed for Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Wyoming to estimate the economic value of public land forage to ranches that are highly dependent on public lands for seasonal grazing capacity. Optimal (pro#30;t maximizing) adjustments to reductions in allowed grazing uses of Bureau …


Livestock Development And Poverty In Pakistan: Evidence From The Punjab Province, Sharafat Ali, Najid Ahmad May 2014

Livestock Development And Poverty In Pakistan: Evidence From The Punjab Province, Sharafat Ali, Najid Ahmad

Sharafat Ali

Agriculture sector being an important and fundamental sector of the economy is the way of life for more than half of the Pakistan’s population. Its major sector is livestock sector. Livestock sector is the source of income and a safety against the crop failures or drought. Most of the rural population earns their living from this sector. Aspired from the argument that livestock has great importance in the life of the poor households, the present study is an attempt to analyze the impact of livestock sector development on poverty in Pakistan. The cross sectional data of 34 districts of Punjab …


Retail Margins Study, David W. Stonesifer, George K. Criner May 2014

Retail Margins Study, David W. Stonesifer, George K. Criner

George K. Criner

Stonesifer, David W. with George K. Criner. "Retail Margins Study," May 22, 2014. Report submitted to the Maine Milk Commission, and posted on the Maine Milk Commission web site in October of 2014.


Healing To Reverse The Apocalypse, Julianne E. Henderson Ms. Mar 2014

Healing To Reverse The Apocalypse, Julianne E. Henderson Ms.

julianne e. henderson ms.

When I presented the medicinal oil to people and explained what we are studying and aiming to do collectively in our class is to address how we would respond in the event of a crisis or if we were to find ourselves in an apocalyptic landscape. It is a given that maintaining a positive, optimistic outlook is likely to aid us in our long-term survival regardless of what level of adversity we face. This project attempts to combine an important skill, which is knowing how to heal oneself naturally with what Nature provides, with the power of our consciousness to …


Market Forces And Technological Substitutes Cause Fluctuations In The Value Of Bat Pest-Control Services For Cotton, Laura López-Hoffman, Ruscena Wiederholt, Chris Sansone, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Paul Cryan, Jay E. Diffendorfer, Joshua Goldstein, Kelsie Lasharr, John Loomis, Gary Mccracken, Rodrigo A. Medellín, Amy L. Russell, Darius Semens Feb 2014

Market Forces And Technological Substitutes Cause Fluctuations In The Value Of Bat Pest-Control Services For Cotton, Laura López-Hoffman, Ruscena Wiederholt, Chris Sansone, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Paul Cryan, Jay E. Diffendorfer, Joshua Goldstein, Kelsie Lasharr, John Loomis, Gary Mccracken, Rodrigo A. Medellín, Amy L. Russell, Darius Semens

Amy L. Russell

Critics of the market-based, ecosystem services approach to biodiversity conservation worry that volatile market conditions and technological substitutes will diminish the value of ecosystem services and obviate the "economic benefits" arguments for conservation. To explore the effects of market forces and substitutes on service values, we assessed how the value of the pest-control services provided by Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana) to cotton production in the southwestern U.S. has changed over time. We calculated service values each year from 1990 through 2008 by estimating the value of avoided crop damage and the reduced social and private costs of insecticide …


Impact Of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Mgnrega) On Rural Labour Markets, D Narasimha Reddy, A Amarender Reddy, Nagaraj N, Bantilan Mcs Jan 2014

Impact Of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Mgnrega) On Rural Labour Markets, D Narasimha Reddy, A Amarender Reddy, Nagaraj N, Bantilan Mcs

A Amarender Reddy

This study has evaluated the differentiating impact of MGNREGA on the extent of fulfilment of the basic entitlements such as days of employment, wages and earnings and the extent of coverage of social groups like dalits, adivasis and women and poverty alleviation. This study has disaggregated state level data to discern the factors that make a difference to the performance. Also some micro level scenarios are presented based on the reports of focus group discussions (FGDs) in the villages of Andhra Pradesh. There is growing evidence of an increase in agricultural wages across the country over the period between 2006-07 …


Economic Diversity In Appalachia: Statistics, Strategies, And Guides For Action, Edward Feser, Troy Mix, Mark White, Ken Poole, Deborah Markley, Erik Pages Jan 2014

Economic Diversity In Appalachia: Statistics, Strategies, And Guides For Action, Edward Feser, Troy Mix, Mark White, Ken Poole, Deborah Markley, Erik Pages

Edward J Feser

This report, commissioned by the Appalachian Regional Commission, offers a quantitative portrait of economic diversity trends in Appalachian counties and sub-regions, benchmarked to U.S. trends. The portraits draws on four complementary indexes of diversity: industrial, functional, occupational, and knowledge, with the first two based on the mix of industries in a place and the latter two based on the mix of occupations. The report also summarizes diversity trends, economic development practices, and diversification strategies in ten Appalachian counties. The ten cases offer insights into economic development practitioners’ understanding of what economic diversity means for their communities; describe how a diverse …


An Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of Farmland Protection Policy In China, Man Li Dec 2013

An Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of Farmland Protection Policy In China, Man Li

Man Li

This paper examines the effectiveness of the Basic Farmland Protection Regulation in protecting high-quality farmland from urban development in China in the first decade after it came into effect (1995‒2005). The theoretical basis for this study is a spatial urban development model with a splitting equation. The empirical evaluation is conducted with georeferenced, longitudinal data on more than 2,000 counties in the country. Results indicate that the Regulation was effective in preserving farmland with high productivity potential only during the period 1995‒2000. There is no evidence of effectiveness of the Regulation in protecting lands with good irrigation conditions or lands …


Pleasure Policies: Debating Development Plans In Southern California's Wine Country, Kevin Yelvington, Laurel Dillon-Sumner, Jason Simms Dec 2013

Pleasure Policies: Debating Development Plans In Southern California's Wine Country, Kevin Yelvington, Laurel Dillon-Sumner, Jason Simms

Jason L Simms

On 11 March 2014, the Board of Supervisors of Riverside County in southern California, USA, voted to approve the Wine Country Community Plan, culminating a nearly six-year policy and planning process that would pave the way for the expansion of the Temecula Valley’s wineries and wine tourism complex. The exercise in state-led development was a triumph for the plan’s major proponents, but this does not mean that the Plan was accepted by all elements of the community nor does it mean that the approval process was a smooth and orderly one. This article takes as its frame of reference an …


A Two Sided Carbon Story: Carbon Capture And Storage And Enhanced Oil Recovery, Juan B. Moreno-Cruz, Byung-Cheol Kim Dec 2013

A Two Sided Carbon Story: Carbon Capture And Storage And Enhanced Oil Recovery, Juan B. Moreno-Cruz, Byung-Cheol Kim

Juan B. Moreno-Cruz

We study the effects of a carbon emission tax on the interaction between carbon capture and storage (CCS) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). We consider a CO2 market where CCS firms sell their CO2 to EOR firms that use this CO2 as an input to their production process. In this economic environment, we find that the effectiveness of a carbon tax may be hampered. A carbon tax shifts out the supply curve of CO2 leading to a decline in the market price of CO2. With lower input price, oil firms are indirectly subsidized and oil production and emissions increase. Nonetheless, …


Heat Stress Increases Long-Term Human Migration In Rural Pakistan, Valerie Mueller, Clark Gray, Katrina Kosec Dec 2013

Heat Stress Increases Long-Term Human Migration In Rural Pakistan, Valerie Mueller, Clark Gray, Katrina Kosec

Katrina Kosec

No abstract provided.


Cursed Resources? Political Conditions And Oil Market Outcomes, Gilbert E. Metcalf, Catherine Wolfram Dec 2013

Cursed Resources? Political Conditions And Oil Market Outcomes, Gilbert E. Metcalf, Catherine Wolfram

Gilbert E. Metcalf

We analyze how a country’s political institutions affect oil production within its borders. We find a pronounced negative relationship between political openness and volatility in oil production, with democratic regimes exhibiting less volatility than more autocratic regimes. This relationship holds across a number of robustness checks including using different measures of political conditions, instrumenting for political conditions and using several measures of production volatility. Political openness also affects other oil market outcomes, including total production as a share of reserves. Our findings have implications both for interpreting the role of institutions in explaining differences in macroeconomic development and for understanding …


Negative Leakage, Kathy Baylis, Don Fullerton, Daniel Karney Dec 2013

Negative Leakage, Kathy Baylis, Don Fullerton, Daniel Karney

Don Fullerton

Our analytical general equilibrium model solves for effects of a small increase in carbon tax on leakage – the increase in emissions elsewhere. Identical consumers buy two goods using income from endowments that are mobile between sectors. Usually an increase in one sector’s tax raises output price, so consumption shifts to the other good, causing positive leakage. Here, we find a new negative effect not recognized in existing literature: the taxed sector substitutes away from carbon into clean inputs, so it may absorb resources, shrink the other sector, and reduce their emissions. This “abatement resource effect” can offset most or …


Can A Unilateral Carbon Tax Reduce Emissions Elsewhere?, Joshua Elliott, Don Fullerton Dec 2013

Can A Unilateral Carbon Tax Reduce Emissions Elsewhere?, Joshua Elliott, Don Fullerton

Don Fullerton

One country or sector that tries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may fear that other countries or sectors will get a competitive advantage and increase emissions. Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models such as Elliott et al (2010a,b) indicate that 15% to 25% of abatement might be offset by this “leakage.” Yet the Fullerton et al (2012) simple two-sector analytical general equilibrium model shows an offsetting term with negative leakage. In this paper, we use a full CGE model with many countries and many goods to measure effects in a way that allows for this negative leakage term. We vary elasticities …


Social, Economic, And Ethical Concepts And Methods, Charles Kolstad, Kevin Urama, Don Fullerton, Et Al Dec 2013

Social, Economic, And Ethical Concepts And Methods, Charles Kolstad, Kevin Urama, Don Fullerton, Et Al

Don Fullerton

This framing chapter describes the strengths and limitations of the most widely used concepts and methods in economics, ethics, and other social sciences that are relevant to climate change. It also provides a reference resource for the other chapters in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), as well as for decision makers.


Behavioral Approaches To Environmental Policy Analysis: A Case Study Of Offshore Wind Energy In The North American Great Lakes, Erik Edward Nordman Dec 2013

Behavioral Approaches To Environmental Policy Analysis: A Case Study Of Offshore Wind Energy In The North American Great Lakes, Erik Edward Nordman

Erik Edward Nordman

Behavioral economics, including prospect theory, offers new approaches to environmental policy analysis. The utility of behavioral approaches to environmental policy analysis is illustrated using a case study of offshore wind energy policy in Michigan, USA. Michigan has attempted to clarify the permitting process for offshore wind energy but those efforts have failed. Prospect theory suggests that Michigan legislators are, for the most part, risk averse to policy reforms as the state emerges from its “one-state recession” and into a gains domain. Legislators from some coastal districts perceive offshore wind development as a threat to coastal quality of life, are risk-seeking …


Does The Quality Of Electricity Matter? Evidence From Rural India, Ujjayant Chakravorty, Martino Pelli, Beyza Ural Marchand Dec 2013

Does The Quality Of Electricity Matter? Evidence From Rural India, Ujjayant Chakravorty, Martino Pelli, Beyza Ural Marchand

Ujjayant Chakravorty

This paper estimates the returns to household income due to improved access to electricity in rural India. We examine the effect of connecting a household to the grid and of the quality of electricity, defined as hours of daily supply. The analysis is based on two rounds of a representative panel of more than 10,000 households. We use the district-level density of transmission cables as instrument for the electrification status of the household. We find that a grid connection increases non-agricultural incomes of rural households by about 9 percent during the study period (1994-2005). However, a grid connection and a …


Food Security In Systemic Context, K. Valentine Cadieux, R. Blumberg Dec 2013

Food Security In Systemic Context, K. Valentine Cadieux, R. Blumberg

K. Valentine Cadieux

Encyclopedia topical entry.