Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Simple Analytics Of Performance-Based Ratemaking: A Guide For The Pbr Regulator, Peter Navarro

PETER NAVARRO

No abstract provided.

Economics In A Family Way, Ted Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

This paper is an advertisement for some facts and ideas that I think likely to lead to a richer theory of the economics of the family. The discussion references many papers from anthropology and biology. Because of the intimate connection between the family and reproduction, it should not be surprising that there is much to be learned about the economics of the family from the study of evolutionary biology. Given the increased prevalence in recent decades of unwed parenthood, divorce with sequential monogamy, and ``non-traditional'' family arrangements, it seems that anthropological studies of alternative family structures would help us to …

Economic Development And The Distribution Of Land Rents In Singapore: A Georgist Implementation, Sock-Yong Phang

PHANG Sock Yong

Independent Singapore, which has a tradition of free trade, has implemented large doses of Henry George's prescriptions. It has successfully captured land rents for redistribution through its land acquisition, public housing and other programs. These policies have been instrumental in the successful economic development of the island city state. Industrial estates on state-owned land were leased to foreign multinationals for export-oriented manufacturing which created the bulk of jobs in the sector. Commercial developments are built by the program. Affordable 99-year leasehold housing, built by the state, provided added economic incentives for employment, and helped keep inflation and wages down. Private …

Household Responses To Pricing Garbage By The Bag, Don Fullerton, Thomas C. Kinnaman

Don Fullerton

This paper employs individual household data to estimate the effect of per-unit pricing on the weight of garbage, the number of containers, the weight per can, and the amount of recycling. We also provide two indirect measures of illegal dumping. The data are based on a natural experiment that provides a unique opportunity to study human behavior in response to a change in price. On July 1, 1992, the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, implemented a program to charge $0.80 per 32-gallon bag or can of residential garbage collected at the curb. Before and after the implementation of this program, we …

Household Responses To Pricing Garbage By The Bag, Don Fullerton, Thomas C. Kinnaman

Thomas C. Kinnaman

This paper employs individual household data to estimate the effect of per-unit pricing on the weight of garbage, the number of containers, the weight per can, and the amount of recycling. We also provide two indirect measures of illegal dumping. The data are based on a natural experiment that provides a unique opportunity to study human behavior in response to a change in price. On July 1, 1992, the City of Charlottesville, Virginia, implemented a program to charge $0.80 per 32-gallon bag or can of residential garbage collected at the curb. Before and after the implementation of this program, we …

Income Prospects And Age At Marriage, Ted Bergstrom, Bob Schoeni

Ted C Bergstrom

In an earlier paper Courtship as a Waiting Game, Mark Bagnoli and I proposed a theory that explained why it is the case that in almost every society and at almost all recorded times, the average age at marriage of men exceeds that of women. An additional prediction of this model was that men who married later in life would turn out to have higher incomes when they reach maturity than those who marry young. The current paper reviews this theory and tests it with U.S. data. Consistent with our theory, we find that there is a strong positive relationship …

Un Modelo De Equilibrio General Dinámico Del Impuesto Al Activo, Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

An Appraisal Of Local Exchange And Trading Systems In The United Kingdom, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Cadillac Contracts And Up-Front Payments: Efficient Investment Under Expectation Damages, Aaron S. Edlin

Aaron Edlin

Specification Testing In Panel Data With Instrumental Variables, Gilbert E. Metcalf

Gilbert E. Metcalf

I show that specification tests for correlated fixed effects developed by Hausman and Taylor extend in an analogous way to panel data sets with endogenous regressors. Given panel data, different sets of instrumental variables can be used to construct the test. For a simple class of models, the test in many cases is asymptotically more efficient if an incomplete set of instruments is used. However, in small samples one may do better using the complete set of instruments. Monte Carlo results demonstrate the likely gains for different assumptions about the degree of between and within variance in the data.

Growing State Economies: How Taxes And Public Services Affect Private-Sector Performance, Timothy Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

No abstract provided.

Testing The Monopsony-Inefficiency Incentive For Backward Integration, Azzeddine Azzam

Azzeddine Azzam

In theory, monopsony at one stage in a vertically related market provides an incentive for backward integration into the adjacent competitive stages. By integrating backward, a monopsonist internalizes the monopsony inefficiency due to underemployment of the factor produced upstream. However, little is known about the importance of such incentive in practice. In this paper, the author provides an empirically implementable model to test the monopsony-inefficiency incentive for vertical integration. For illustration, the model is applied to the U.S. beef slaughter industry. Findings seem to support the monopsony-inefficiency incentive for backward integration by the industry into the live cattle market.

Aspects Of Singapore In The International Economy, William Rieber

William Rieber

Note: full-text not available due to publisher restrictions. Link takes you to an external site where you can purchase the book or borrow it from a local library.

The Political Economy Of Subsidized Day Care, Ted Bergstrom, Soren Blomquist

Ted C Bergstrom

This paper presents a theoretical model of political support for public provision of day care. In an economy where there are high taxes on wage income, selfish taxpayers with no children in the day care system may favor substantial public subsidies to day care because such subsidies induce mothers to join the labor force and hence pay income tax. Our model makes explicit quantitative predictions of the relation between the distribution of wages, theincome tax rate, and the subsidy rate for day care that maximizes net tax revenue from parents of small children. Applying parameter values from Sweden and the …

Market Regulation And Multimarket Rivalry, Owen R. Phillips, Charles F. Mason

Charles F Mason

Multimarket contact between duopolists in an X and a Y market is modelled with a trigger strategy. We show that mildly restrictive price-cap regulation in the X market decreases Y market quantities; but restrictive caps in the X market have a positive impact on Y market outputs. Behavior in laboratory markets confirms these propositions. Regulation that lowers X market prices by a small amount results in a statistically significant reduction in Y outputs. When the regulated X market price is reduced to the Cournot/Nash level, Y market outputs rise to a point statistically indistinguishable from the unregulated quantities.

Nonsubstitution Theorems For A Small Trading Country, Ted Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

In 1951, Paul Samuelson showed that a surprisingly rich class of economies the production possibility frontier is a linear and even with neoclassical substitution possibilities, as outputs adjust, firms continue to use inputs and outputs in the same proportions. This model is often thought to be of limited practical value since it assumes that there is only one non-produced factor, and no joint production. The single factor assumption rules out economies in which agriculture and mining are important and the lack of joint production leaves no good way to handle durable capital goods. In this paper, I extend the Samuelson …

Slope Versus Elasticity And The Burden Of Taxation, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Dwight R. Lee

Robert L Sexton

There is no abstract for this brief paper.

Garbage, Recycling, And Illicit Burning Or Dumping, Thomas C. Kinnaman

Thomas C. Kinnaman

No abstract provided.

Market Regulation And Multimarket Rivalry, Owen R. Phillips, Charles F. Mason

Owen R Phillips

Multimarket contact between duopolists in an X and a Y market is modelled with a trigger strategy. We show that mildly restrictive price-cap regulation in the X market decreases Y market quantities; but restrictive caps in the X market have a positive impact on Y market outputs. Behavior in laboratory markets confirms these propositions. Regulation that lowers X market prices by a small amount results in a statistically significant reduction in Y outputs. When the regulated X market price is reduced to the Cournot/Nash level, Y market outputs rise to a point statistically indistinguishable from the unregulated quantities.

Slope Versus Elasticity And The Burden Of Taxation, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton, Dwight R. Lee

Robert L Sexton

There is no abstract for this brief paper.

Testing For Absolute Purchaing Power Parity, Douglas G. Steigerwald, Collin Crownover, John Pippenger

Douglas G. Steigerwald

Purchasing power parity (PPP) is an equilibrium condition equating the nominal exchange rate between two countries with the relative price of an identical bundle of goods in each country. Previous time-series researchers use price indicies to study PPP, so they study relative PPP. We use new data that measures price levels, so we test absolute PPP. Price levels provide a test of absolute PPP because, unlike price indicies, do not contain a base period in which the nominal exchange rate equals the price ratio by construction. We find support for absolute PPP.

Language Orders, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

An examination of the alternatives of spontaneous order and central planning in the context of human language.

Teen Mothers And Their Educational Attainment: Some Evidence From The National Longitudinal Survey Of Youth, Michael C. Seeborg, Risa Kumazawa

Michael Seeborg

This study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate the effects of teenage motherhood on the educational attainment of young women. The results of an OLS regression with interaction terms demonstrate that the effects of teenage motherhood on education depends on the socio-economic background of the mother. Estimations show that young women from economically advantaged backgrounds sacrifice more than one year of education as a result of teenage motherhood while those from disadvantaged backgrounds sacrifice little, if any, education. Statistically significant interactions are found between teenage motherhood and several background characteristics. (J13, J24)

Can Irreversibility Explain The Slow Diffusion Of Energy Saving Technologies? (With Kevin Hassett), Gilbert E. Metcalf

Gilbert E. Metcalf

A model was developed on the effects of irreversibility on home improvement behavior. It is also considered whether it may be helpful in shedding light on the slow diffusion of new energy technologies. This work has been criticized for being of little value in studying the high discount rates applied by consumers to home-improvement purchases. It is proven that the model can generate predicted hurdle rates as high as those estimated in the literature, and thus solve the energy paradox.

Specification Testing In Panel Data With Instrumental Variables, Gilbert E. Metcalf

Gilbert E. Metcalf

I show that specification tests for correlated fixed effects developed by Hausman and Taylor extend in an analogous way to panel data sets with endogenous regressors. Given panel data, different sets of instrumental variables can be used to construct the test. For a simple class of models, the test in many cases is asymptotically more efficient if an incomplete set of instruments is used. However, in small samples one may do better using the complete set of instruments. Monte Carlo results demonstrate the likely gains for different assumptions about the degree of between and within variance in the data.

Why Have Separate Environmental Taxes?, Don Fullerton

Don Fullerton

No abstract provided.

Un Modelo De Equilibrio General Dinámico Del Impuesto Al Activo, Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu

Technological Specialization And Economic Performance In Oecd Countries, Mario Pianta, Valentina Meliciani

Mario Pianta

The paper investigates the growing sectoral specialization in technological activities of OECD countries (measured using patent data) and its impact on countries' innovative and economic performance in the 1975-1990 period. Aggregate indicators of sectoral specialization are introduced, showing the extent to which countries concentrate their innovations in few fields, or spread them across several sectors. A general positive relationship is found between the degree of specialization in technology and higher rates of growth, while specialization in electronics-related fields is not associated to better economic or technological performances. The position of individual countries in these patterns is also examined, showing that …

Measuring Technological Change Through Patents And Innovation Surveys, Mario Pianta, Daniele Archibugi

Mario Pianta

This article provides an overview of recent research using innovation surveys and patent data as indicators of technological activity. The conceptual and methodological problems of 'measuring' technology are discussed, with a classification of the types of information which can be drawn from patent databases and from surveys of both innovations and the innovative efforts of firms. The findings and the methodological strengths and weaknesses of such studies are reviewed, considering first the evidence at the firm level, second the analysis of the industrial structure and finally the evidence at the country level and the process of globalization. The overview shows …

Purchasing Power Parity, Unit Roots And Dynamic Structure, Douglas G. Steigerwald

Douglas G. Steigerwald

Recent studies of puchasing power parity (PPP) account for the possible presence of unit roots in nominal exchange rates and relative price indicies by applying standard unit-root tests to real exchange rates, which are ratios of nominal exchange rates and relative price indicies. These studies occasionally find evidence of PPP but, as a whole, the evidence is not definitive. Standard unit-root tests impose a restrictive dynamic structure between nominal exchange rates and relative price indicies. I specify and estimate a generalized dynamic structure. I reject the dynamic restrictions implicit in standard unit-root tests of PPP, and find stronger evidence of …