What are the consequences of ignoring attributes in choice experiments? Implications for ecosystem service valuation

This paper investigates the sensitivity of choice experiment values 3AL for ecosystem services to ‘attribute non-attendance’. We consider three cases of attendance, namely that people may always, sometimes, or never pay attention to a given attribute in making their choices. This allows a series of models to be estimated which addresses the following questions: To what extent do respondents ignore attributes in choice experiments? What is the impact of alternative strategies for dealing with attribute non-attendance? Can respondents reliably self-report non-attendance? Do respondents partially attend to attributes, and what are the implications of this? Our results show that allowing for the instance of ‘sometimes attending’ to attributes in making choices offers advantages over methods employed thus far in the literature.     

Do Selection Criteria Make a Difference?: Visa Category and the Labour Market Status of Immigrants to Australia

This paper assesses the role of selection criteria in the immigrant settlement process. Do skill-based immigrants have higher participation and employment rates than family-based immigrants? Does this represent a head start or a persistent labour market advantage? The Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia is used to address these questions. Generally, migrants selected for their skills have better labour market outcomes. Over time, the relative gap in participation rates increases, while the gap in employment rates decreases. Net of visa category, outcomes are better for native English speakers and for those who visited Australia prior to migration.     

The efficiency of social public expenditure in European countries: a two-stage analysis

Do European countries differ in the efficiency of their welfare policies? And which factors can account for such variability? To address these questions, we perform a two-stage efficiency analysis. First, based on a composite output indicator for social protection expenditure, we measure efficiency by means of the Free Disposable Hull and Data Envelopment Analysis techniques. Second, we perform an econometric analysis to identify the factors that can be associated to cross-country differences. We find that countries scoring higher efficiency have higher education and GDP levels, a smaller population size, a lower degree of selectivity of their welfare systems and a lower corruption level.     

Introduction to "Exchange Rates in Europe and Australasia: Fundamental Determinants, Adjustments and Policy Implications"

The papers in this issue are concerned with the behaviour of exchange rates — their fundamental determinants, adjustment processes and policy implications. The authors combine theory with empirical evidence, test hypotheses as well as show the relevance of their analysis for policy. This Introduction addresses several questions. What are the contributions of the articles to the economics of exchange rates? Are they significant in increasing our understanding of the current issues and in addressing questions of policy? How can one explain the movements in the European and the Asian currencies? What can we expect to happen to the euro with the enlargement of the euro area? Do the papers provide frameworks to guide empirical research? In this Introduction, we highlight aspects of each paper that addresses these issues.     

The Role of Economics: Creating the Sustainable Rational Agent

How are consumption decisions made? Does demand drive supply, does supply drive demand, or is it a mixture of both? Do consumption decisions implicitly include our values or are our decisions made with an assumption that what we are consuming has already factored in the long-term best interests of human health and environmental well-being? These basic questions are often unaddressed in the introductory study of economics. Instead, assumptions related to consumption and production behavior, demand, and supply are embedded as representative of consumer and producer behavioral norms, typically with minimal discussion. Could implicit assumptions promote observable behavior rather than be indicative of it? If so, could increasing awareness of the role of embedded values in demand and supply influence behaviors of consumers and producers and thereby alter economic outcomes? These questions were addressed as part of an introductory economics course case study. The purpose of the study was to raise awareness of the implications of individual purchasing decisions and to specifically initiate students in self-evaluation of their individual values and the values embedded in their individual consumption behavior. The results of the study promote the view that increasing awareness of the holistic impact of consumption behavior may be a significant catalyst to promoting sustainability.     

会员客户忠诚度的实证研究

20世纪90年代以来,国内许多商户开始对经常光顾的客户发放会员卡,通过对会员的促销商品折扣来提高会员客户的忠诚度。但这些持有会员卡的客户是忠诚的吗？他们真如商户所愿,为其带来了主要的利润贡献吗？他们的购物行为与普通客户有区别吗？本文通过对某地区一商户的调研,对上述问题进行了分析,并得出了相关的结论。     

Hypothèses de salariés non membres et financement externe pour les firmes autogérées

Among the various questions raised by theoretical studies on self-managed firms, the author considers two key issues dealing with job rigidity in these enterprises and with their ability to get external financing: should the employment of non-member workers in these firms be encouraged or not? Should the external financing of these firms be deregulated or not? These two questions are related to an important part of the literature on self-managed firms which is dedicated to their so-called perverse behaviours and to the stability of this type of production organization. The theoretical models help to understand the difficulties experienced by this type of organization and to see how and why the constraints on employment of non-member workers and on the external financing possibilities can have positive effects on self-managed firms. Among these results, those coming from the analysis of the choice of structures and production techniques help to understand the development of self-managed firms in industries which require high level production techniques and high human skills.     

Dynamic lobbying: Evidence from foreign lobbying in the U.S. Congress

How do interest groups decide which member of Congress to target when decisions are made collectively? Do lobbying strategies change as legislation advances? Answering these questions is challenging due to a lack of systematic observations of lobbying contacts. I answer these questions using a novel data set constructed from reports submitted by lobbyists on behalf of South Korea regarding its free trade agreement with the United States for 10 years. I show that a diverse set of politicians are contacted but the timing, intensity, and strategy of lobbying contacts vary by politicians' institutional positions as well as their predisposed preferences for free trade.     

三江源生态移民选择性及对三江源生态移民效果影响评析

将课题组2009年在青海省三江源地区5个移民村的调查数据和迁出区与迁入区的非移民数据进行对比,运用迁移差别指数对三江源生态移民的特征作了分析。由于是以家庭为单位的迁移,三江源生态移民在年龄、性别、文化程度、民族结构等方面的选择性不强,但生态移民的家庭规模却呈现普遍小于非移民家庭的特征,另外,生态移民迁移前草场面积和牛羊头数平均低于非移民家庭。这种选择特征不利于三江源生态移民工程保护三江源生态环境目标的实现。从今后的政策应对上提出了建议。     

Leadership and gender in groups: An experiment

We conduct a laboratory experiment to study gender differences in leadership. We strip the concept of leadership down to its most basic elements. Questions of style and evaluations of a leader based on style of leadership adopted are made irrelevant. Our leader is an average player who is distinguished merely by occupying the leadership position. Legitimacy is conferred on the leader by the special information possessed. Followers voluntarily choose whether or not to follow the better‐informed leader. The effectiveness of the leader is reduced to two simple factors: is the leader willing or not to voluntarily place him/herself in a vulnerable position to achieve an outcome beneficial to both the leader and his/her followers? Do followers trust their leaders to make the right choice? We provide experimental evidence that female leaders and followers are more cooperative than the males in most circumstances. Female leaders show a hesitation to lead in mixed‐gender environments with gender signalling in circumstances where followers' refusal to follow can significantly hurt them. The behaviour of the followers is the same toward the leaders regardless of their gender.     

Is there a plausible theory for decision under risk? A dual calibration critique

Can any prominent theory of decision under risk rationalize both small-stakes risk aversion and large-stakes risk aversion? Do some prominent theories fail to rationalize patterns of same-stakes risk aversion? How do reference payoffs enter in the answer to these questions? What would be the characteristics of a theory of decision under risk that would be immune to calibration critique? We offer a theoretical duality analysis that addresses these questions. We report dual propositions and corollaries that calibrate the implications of nonlinear transformation of probabilities or payoffs (or both). We also report several experiments that provide data on the empirical relevance of the two types of calibration patterns.     

Is Cost–Benefit Analysis Anomaly-Proof?

In this paper we examine whether cost–benefit analysis is anomaly-susceptible or anomaly-proof. To do this, we address four questions. These are, which anomalies, or problems seem most troublesome for CBA? What coping strategies does the analyst adopt to address these problems? Do these adaptation strategies create new problems? And finally, does adopting these strategies invalidate the results of CBA, or reduce the power of its advice? The anomalies we consider are (i) the observed differences between willingness to pay and willingness to accept compensation measures of value; (ii) valuation given information limits, preference uncertainty and preference construction; (iii) hypothetical market bias; (iv) risk perceptions; and (v) risk and preference reversals. We focus our discussion on the estimation of non-market environmental benefits and costs.     

Market reaction to supranational banking supervision in Europe: Do firm- and country-specific factors matter?

This paper investigates the financial market´s perception regarding the effectiveness of the Single Supervisory Mechanism in Europe. Do investors believe that centralized supervision adds value compared to multiple supervision? . Do they feel uncertain about the supervisory role of the ECB? To answer these questions, a sample of 118 European Banks has been used finding that whereas in early dates the market reaction was positive reflecting the expectation of greater stability, it turned negative at the time the scope of the supervision was limited to only a group of banks. As might be expected, the reaction is significantly more negative for the directly supervised entities, anticipating a different and more demanding style of supervision that could lead to higher cost. This negative wealth effect is intensified for banks with higher price-to-book ratios or those located in countries with more developed financial systems and better investor protection. However, solvency and productivity firm indicators or low levels of perceived corruption moderate it. This research not only highlights the doubts and uncertainty of investors about the final applications of the SSM, but it could be also useful for policy makers and regulators in order to achieve a more harmonized supervision that improves the credibility of the systems and promote financial stability.

     

International students and labour market outcomes of US-born workers*

Do international students graduating from US colleges and universities affect labour market outcomes of similarly educated native-born workers? I address this question by exploiting a change in US visa policy that results in increases in the labour supply of master’s-level international students to the US labour market in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Estimates show that increases in their labour supply via temporary work permits in a certain field reduce employment of recently graduated native-born holders of a master’s degree but increase earnings of experienced native-born holders of a master’s degree in the same field. These findings support the hypothesis of substitution between skills of similarly educated immigrants and native-born individuals in the same age group and complementarity between skills of those in different age groups.     

Anti-muslim bias in the Chinese labor market

Is there a Muslim disadvantage in economic integration to the Chinese economy? Do political mandates from the government help reduce disparities? To answer these questions, we conducted a large-scale audit study and submitted over 4000 resumes of fictitious male candidates to job advertisements for accounting and administrative positions posted by private firms, state-owned firms and foreign firms. We randomized the ethnic identities of job applicants, their academic merit, and requested salaries. Our results show that a Muslim job seeker is more than 50% less likely to receive a callback than a Han job seeker, and higher academic merit does not compensate for this bias. Importantly, we find that state-owned enterprises are equally likely to discriminate against Muslim job seekers, despite their political mandate to increase diversity. Interview evidence suggests that besides productivity concerns and outright hostility towards outgroups, bias is also driven by employer concerns over the operational costs of accommodating a diverse workforce.     

What should classical liberal political economists do?

In 1964 James Buchanan famously asked “What Should Economists Do?” He argued that economists should focus their intellectual attention on exchange and the institutions within which exchange takes place. This paper reflects on Buchanan’s message and looks at the development of that argument, and its implications in the wake of post-socialist political economy on the one hand, and the post-financial crisis of 2008 on the other. Following Buchanan, the paper argues that classical liberal political economists must embrace the intellectual and practical challenges of the day, and bring a robust theory of political economy to bear on questions of justice, questions of freedom and responsibility, and questions concerning the invisible hand and the appropriate institutional framework which results in peaceful social cooperation and productive specialization in a society of free and responsible individuals.     

The effects of (incentivized) belief elicitation in public goods experiments

Belief elicitation is an important methodological issue for experimental economists. There are two generic questions: 1) Do incentives increase belief accuracy? 2) Are there interaction effects of beliefs and decisions? We investigate these questions in the case of finitely repeated public goods experiments. We find that belief accuracy is significantly higher when beliefs are incentivized. The relationship between contributions and beliefs is slightly steeper under incentives. However, we find that incentivized beliefs tend to lead to higher contribution levels than either non-incentivized beliefs or no beliefs at all. We discuss the implications of our results for the design of public good experiments.     

On Nations’ Size and Transportation Costs*

This paper develops a noncooperative Nash model in which a closed border is opened to trade between countries that differ in size and transportation costs. the paper suggests an explanation as to why economists have not convinced policymakers to lift all barriers to free trade. the questions we pose are: Who will gain as a result of opening the borders? Is free trade beneficial to the two parties involved? Do they both share equally in the fruits of free trade? Which country, large or small, benefits most? It is shown that free trade is not beneficial to both countries.     

Innovation and knowledge-intensive business service: the contribution of knowledge-intensive business service to innovation in manufacturing establishments

It is well established that knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) firms can be innovators in their own right. It is also well established that KIBS can contribute to innovation in their client firms. This role of KIBS has been theorised, and some of the processes by which KIBS contribute to innovation have been scrutinised by way of case studies. However, there are few, if any, large-scale analyses that permit the two following questions to be addressed: (i) Do firms that use KIBS systematically introduce more innovations than those that do not? (ii) Is recourse to certain types of KIBS associated with certain types of innovation? Our survey of KIBS use across 804 manufacturing establishments in Quebec shows that KIBS contribute to their client's innovation – thereby confirming in a more general way what has been observed in case studies – but also that different types of KIBS contribute to different types of innovation.     

LOST IN TRANSLATION? TEACHER TRAINING AND OUTCOMES IN HIGH SCHOOL ECONOMICS CLASSES

Using data from a 2006 survey of California high school economics classes, we assess the effects of teacher characteristics on student achievement. We estimate value‐added models of outcomes on multiple choice and essay exams, with matched classroom pairs for each teacher enabling random‐effects and fixed‐effects estimation. The results show a substantial impact of specialized teacher experience and college‐level coursework in economics. However, the latter is associated with higher scores on the multiple‐choice test and lower scores on the essay test, suggesting that a portion of teachers' content knowledge may be “lost in translation” when conveyed to their students. (JEL A21, I21)