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Selected Works

2001

Institution
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Articles 1 - 30 of 80

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Conflicts And Common Interests In Committees , Hao Li, Sherwin Rosen, Wing Suen Dec 2001

Conflicts And Common Interests In Committees , Hao Li, Sherwin Rosen, Wing Suen

hao li

Committees improve decisions by pooling independent information of members, but promote manipulation, obfuscation, and exaggeration of private evidence when members have conflicting preferences. We study how self-interest mediates these conflicting forces. When members' preferences differ, no person ever submits a report that allows perfect inference of his private information. Instead, equilibrium strategies are many-to-one mappings that transform continuous data into ordered ranks: voting procedures are the equilibrium methods of achieving a consensus in committees. Voting necessarily coarsens the transmission of information among members, but is necessary to control conflicts of interest. The degree of coarseness of the equilibrium voting procedure …

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Does Implied Volatility Imply Volatility In Bonds?, Michael T. Maloney, Eric Bertonazzi Nov 2001

Does Implied Volatility Imply Volatility In Bonds?, Michael T. Maloney, Eric Bertonazzi

Michael T. Maloney

No abstract provided.

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A Organização Comum Do Mercado De Açúcar Na União Europeia: Estrutura, Instrumentos Regulatórios E Interesses, Heitor Moura Filho Nov 2001

A Organização Comum Do Mercado De Açúcar Na União Europeia: Estrutura, Instrumentos Regulatórios E Interesses, Heitor Moura Filho

Heitor Moura Filho

The subsidies and protection structure of the sugar sectors in the European Union originated from the individual national protection systems, unified with the creation of the Common Agricultural Policy. The main form of protection for agricultural products in the EU are the Common Organisations of the Market, which fix rules for planting, sale, prices, subsidies, storage and foreign trade. The COM for Sugars is based on an intervention price, at present quite higher than international prices. To determine who benefits from this intervention price, production quotas are established and distributed to each Member-State, producer and raw-material supplier. In parallel, levies …

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Can High Prices Ensure Product Quality When Buyers Do Not Know The Sellers' Cost?, Eric Bennett Rasmusen, Timothy Perri Oct 2001

Can High Prices Ensure Product Quality When Buyers Do Not Know The Sellers' Cost?, Eric Bennett Rasmusen, Timothy Perri

Eric Bennett Rasmusen

The Klein-Leffler (1981) model of product quality does not explain why high-quality firms would dissipate the rents they earn from quality- assuring price premia, and it relies on consumers knowing the cost functions of firms. In the present paper, consumers do not know any firm's cost of producing quality goods, so high- quality firms must engage in conspicuous spending to demonstrate they earn a profitable mark-up over cost. Complete rent dissipation occurs only when high and low cost firms have the same cost of producing low quality.

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Ex Parte Declaration Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton Oct 2001

Ex Parte Declaration Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Further comments on the CMRS spectrum cap. For Leap Wireless.

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Economies And Diseconomies: Estimating Electricity Cost Functions, Michael T. Maloney Sep 2001

Economies And Diseconomies: Estimating Electricity Cost Functions, Michael T. Maloney

Michael T. Maloney

This paper presents estimates of the variable cost function of electricity generation. The cost function is estimated using a two dimensional definition of capacity utilization. Because electricity cannot be conveniently stored, generation facilities follow the load across demand cycles. Capacity utilization can be captured empirically in two ways. One is generation relative to capacity when a unit is connected to the system; the other is the percent of time the unit is disconnected. The estimated cost function shows that both dimensions affect average cost, which generally declines as capacity utilization increases.

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Trade Liberalization And Intra-Industry Trade: The Case Of The U.S. And Mexico, Robert C. Shelburne Sep 2001

Trade Liberalization And Intra-Industry Trade: The Case Of The U.S. And Mexico, Robert C. Shelburne

Robert C. Shelburne

This paper investigates how U.S.-Mexican intra-industry trade (IIT) has evolved since the creation of the NAFTA beginning in 1994. These empirical findings are of value not only for the study of the U.S.-Mexican trading relationship, but they also contain several important conclusions applicable more generally to the study of the theoretical basis for intra-industry trade and its empirical estimation. The basic conclusions of this study are: 1) Unlike the European experience after the creation of the European Common Market, and most other regional trade arrangements, trade between the U.S. and Mexico has remained mostly inter- industry trade, and the growth …

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Is Free Trade Good For The Environment, M. Scott Taylor, Werner Antweiler, Brian R. Copeland Sep 2001

Is Free Trade Good For The Environment, M. Scott Taylor, Werner Antweiler, Brian R. Copeland

M. Scott Taylor

This paper investigates how openness to international goods markets affects pollution concentrations. We develop a theoretical model to divide trade’s impact on pollution into scale, technique, and composition effects and then examine this theory using data on sulfur dioxide concentrations. We find international trade creates relatively small changes in pollution concentrations when it alters the composition of national output. Estimates of the trade-induced technique and scale effects imply a net reduction in pollution from these sources. Combining our estimates of all three effects yields a somewhat surprising conclusion: freer trade appears to be good for the environment.

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Demographic Shock And Social Security: A Political Economy Perspective, Georges Casamatta, Helmuth Cremer, Pierre Pestieau Aug 2001

Demographic Shock And Social Security: A Political Economy Perspective, Georges Casamatta, Helmuth Cremer, Pierre Pestieau

Georges Casamatta

We assume that individual voters differ not only according to age but also productivity. In the steady state, workers with wages in the intermediate range join the retired persons to form a majority and vote for a positive level of social security. When a shock decreases population growth, entrenched interests can constrain majority voting decisions and prevent reforms in the name of entitlements. We show that from a Rawlsian viewpoint it may be desirable to rely on these entitlements to protect the low wage earners of the transition generations. However, when the possibility of fixing a basic pension is introduced, …

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Fiscal Policy, Conflict, And Reconstruction In Burundi And Rwanda, Léonce Ndikumana Aug 2001

Fiscal Policy, Conflict, And Reconstruction In Burundi And Rwanda, Léonce Ndikumana

Léonce Ndikumana

The ethnic conflicts in Burundi and Rwanda have severely weakened the economies and worsened the structural fiscal imbalances of these countries. Government revenue has declined due to the erosion of the tax base and tax administration capacity. At the same time, governments have shifted the allocation of resources from capital and social expenditures to military and security spending. This paper argues that there is a strong connection between a military-intensive fiscal policy stance and the lack of political legitimacy. A narrow-based regime tends to increase spending on security to increase its chances of survival. This strategy has dire social and …

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Uniform Pricing Or Pay-As-Bid Pricing: A Dilemma For California And Beyond, Peter Cramton, Alfred E. Kahn, Robert H. Porter, Richard D. Tabors Jun 2001

Uniform Pricing Or Pay-As-Bid Pricing: A Dilemma For California And Beyond, Peter Cramton, Alfred E. Kahn, Robert H. Porter, Richard D. Tabors

Peter Cramton

Any belief that a shift from uniform to as-bid pricing would provide power purchasers substantial relief from soaring prices is simply mistaken. The immediate consequence of its introduction would be a radical change in bidding behavior that would introduce new inefficiencies, weaken competition in new generation, and impede expansion of capacity.

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Chaotic Exchange Rate Dynamics Redux, Sergio Da Silva Jun 2001

Chaotic Exchange Rate Dynamics Redux, Sergio Da Silva

Sergio Da Silva

This article generalizes the results shown in De Grauwe, Dewachter, and Embrechts (1993) in a more sophisticated framework. In their model, the speculative dynamics resulting from the interaction between chartists and fundamentalists are incorporated into a Dornbusch-style model to generate a chaotic nominal exchange rate. Here the model of Obstfeld and Rogoff (1995, 1996) replaces the Dornbusch model, and chaotic solutions are still shown to be possible for sensible parameter values.

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Isolated And Proximate Illiteracy, Srijit Mishra Jun 2001

Isolated And Proximate Illiteracy, Srijit Mishra

Srijit Mishra

This paper is a discussion of the externality that an illiterate person would get from being in proximity to a literate person.

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Why Are Japanese Judges So Conservative In Politically Charged Cases?, Eric Bennett Rasmusen, J. Mark Ramseyer Jun 2001

Why Are Japanese Judges So Conservative In Politically Charged Cases?, Eric Bennett Rasmusen, J. Mark Ramseyer

Eric Bennett Rasmusen

In politically charged cases, Japanese judges routinely implement the policy preferences of the long- time ruling Liberal Democratic Party (the LDP). That Supreme Court justices defer to the LDP simply reflects the fact that they are appointed by the LDP at very a senior level. That lower court judges defer reflects -- we hypothesize that judges who defer on sensitive political questions do better in their careers. To test this, measure the quality of the assignments that some 400 judges received after deciding various categories of cases. To test the effect of a judge's decision on his job assignments, we …

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Affidavit Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton Jun 2001

Affidavit Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Comment on modifications to installed capability market. For ISO New England.

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David Brian Robertson. Capital, Labor, And State: The Battle For American Labor Markets From The Civil War To The New Deal. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Pp. Xxii, 297. $22.95, Paper., Joshua L. Rosenbloom Jun 2001

David Brian Robertson. Capital, Labor, And State: The Battle For American Labor Markets From The Civil War To The New Deal. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Pp. Xxii, 297. $22.95, Paper., Joshua L. Rosenbloom

Joshua L. Rosenbloom

American employers today enjoy considerably greater latitude in the labor market than do employers in other industrialized economies. Laws protecting unions are weaker, employers can more easily hire and fire workers, minimum-wage laws are less binding, the government plays a smaller role in managing the labor market through public employment offices, and work and unemployment insurance programs are smaller and less costly to employers in the United States than elsewhere. In this book David Brian Robertson, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, offers an explanation for the unique pattern of labor-market governance that has …

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Overcoming The Fiscal Crisis Of The African State, Tony Addison, Léonce Ndikumana Jun 2001

Overcoming The Fiscal Crisis Of The African State, Tony Addison, Léonce Ndikumana

Léonce Ndikumana

A critical task is to construct a development state---a set of democratically-accountable institutions capable of effective policy design and implementation. The new state agenda is ambitious and resource intensive. It cannot therefore be achieved unless the fiscal crisis of the African state is resolved, especially low and distorted spending on pro-poor services, weak budgetary institutions, distortions in civil-service expenditure, and the weakness of customs and taxation institutions in raising much-needed revenue. These problems are common across SSA but they are severe in the conflict/post-conflict country group. Reform is therefore urgent, and this issue illustrates how reform---if it is well designed---can …

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A Tale Of Two Theories: Monopolies And Craft Guilds In Medieval England And Modern Imagination, Gary Richardson May 2001

A Tale Of Two Theories: Monopolies And Craft Guilds In Medieval England And Modern Imagination, Gary Richardson

Gary Richardson

No abstract provided.

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A Theory Of Conservatism, Hao Li May 2001

A Theory Of Conservatism, Hao Li

hao li

A free-rider problem arises in a group when a public decision between two alternatives must be made based on privately collected evidence, leading to insufficient effort in gathering evidence and ex ante welfare loss for the group. To alleviate the free-rider problem, the group can commit to a "conservative'' rule whereby the decision is made against the alternative favored by the group's preference or prior when evidence supports the alternative but is not preponderant. For example, if a recruitment committee is biased toward making an offer to a job candidate, either because the committee is more concerned with wrongful rejection …

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Epistemology, Social Theory, Social Research, Peter Cserne May 2001

Epistemology, Social Theory, Social Research, Peter Cserne

Péter Cserne

Review of "Ismeretelmélet, társadalomelmélet, társadalomkutatás" (Budapest: Osiris 1999), the collected papers of László Csontos (1953-1997), a pioneer of rational choice theory in Hungary.

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Lessons Learned From The Uk 3g Spectrum Auction, Peter Cramton May 2001

Lessons Learned From The Uk 3g Spectrum Auction, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

No abstract provided.

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Market Effectiveness Assessment, Peter Cramton, Jeffrey Lien May 2001

Market Effectiveness Assessment, Peter Cramton, Jeffrey Lien

Peter Cramton

No abstract provided.

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Distortionary Taxation And Labor Market Performance, Riccardo Fiorito, Favio Padrini May 2001

Distortionary Taxation And Labor Market Performance, Riccardo Fiorito, Favio Padrini

riccardo fiorito

We construct quarterly estimates of consumption, labor and capital tax rates for several Oecd countries. We use then the stylized facts methodology - and also some structural analysis - to evaluate the relation between tax rates and labor market variables. The main policy result is that reducing tx rates on factors (labor, especially) notably increases employment and labor supply but has a smaller effect on unemployment because the two effects widely compensate.

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The Role Of Product Attributes In The Agricultural Negotiations, Julie Caswell May 2001

The Role Of Product Attributes In The Agricultural Negotiations, Julie Caswell

Julie Caswell

No abstract provided.

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Environmental Controls, Scarcity Rents, And Pre-Existing Distortions, Don Fullerton, Gilbert E. Metcalf Apr 2001

Environmental Controls, Scarcity Rents, And Pre-Existing Distortions, Don Fullerton, Gilbert E. Metcalf

Don Fullerton

One might suppose that an emissions tax has an advantage over command and control (CAC) regulations since it raises revenue that can be used to cut other distorting taxes. In this paper, we show that the focus on revenue raising is misplaced. In a simple analytical general equilibrium model, we show that the same welfare effects of environmental protection can be achieved, by taxes that raise revenue, certain command and control regulations that raise no revenue, and even subsidies that cost revenue. Instead, the pre existing labor tax distortion is exacerbated by policies that generate privately-retained scarcity rents.

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The Impact Of Legalized Abortion On Crime, John Donohue, Steven D. Levitt Apr 2001

The Impact Of Legalized Abortion On Crime, John Donohue, Steven D. Levitt

John Donohue

We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly eighteen years after abortion legalization. The five states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.

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2000 Biennial Regulatory Review Spectrum Aggregation Limits For Commercial Mobile Radio Services, Wt Docket No. 01-14, Federal Communications Commission, "Declaration Of Peter Cramton,", Peter Cramton Apr 2001

2000 Biennial Regulatory Review Spectrum Aggregation Limits For Commercial Mobile Radio Services, Wt Docket No. 01-14, Federal Communications Commission, "Declaration Of Peter Cramton,", Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

No abstract provided.

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Reply Declaration Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton Apr 2001

Reply Declaration Of Peter Cramton, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

Further comments on the impact of a delayed sale of spectrum license by Pacific Communication. For American Wireless.

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Decreasing Relative Risk Aversion And Tests Of Risk Sharing, Masao Ogaki, Qiang Zhang Mar 2001

Decreasing Relative Risk Aversion And Tests Of Risk Sharing, Masao Ogaki, Qiang Zhang

Qiang Zhang

The relative risk aversion (RRA) coefficient of a household whose consumption is close to the subsistence level may be very high. For example, if consumption is exactly at the subsistence level, the household may not be willing to bear any risk. If this is the case, then the RRA coefficient must be a decreasing function of wealth for poor households. Therefore we should allow the possibility of decreasing RRA (DRRA) in testing the full risk sharing hypothesis. However, existing tests in the empirical literature are derived using preferences that exhibit either increasing or constant RRA even when they are applied …

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Bargaining With Incomplete Information, Peter Cramton, Lawrence M. Ausubel, Raymond J. Deneckere Mar 2001

Bargaining With Incomplete Information, Peter Cramton, Lawrence M. Ausubel, Raymond J. Deneckere

Peter Cramton

A central question in economics is understanding the difficulties that parties have in reaching mutually beneficial agreements. Informational differences provide an appealing explanation for bargaining inefficiencies. This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical and empirical literature on bargaining with incomplete information. The chapter begins with an analysis of bargaining within a mechanism design framework. A modern development is provided of the classic result that, given two parties with independent private valuations, ex post efficiency is attainable if and only if it is common knowledge that gains from trade exist. The classic problems of efficient trade with one-sided incomplete information …

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