More Than You Can Handle: Decentralization and Spending Ability of Peruvian Municipalities

This article builds on a comprehensive dataset for Peru that merges municipal fiscal accounts with information about municipalities’ characteristics such as population, poverty, education, and local politics to analyze the leading factors affecting the ability of municipalities to execute the allocated budget. According to the existing literature and the Peruvian context, we divide these factors into four categories: the budget size and allocation process; local capacity; local needs; and political economy constraints. While we do find that all four factors affect decentralization, the largest determinant of spending ability is the adequacy of the budget with respect to local capacity. The results confirm the need for decentralization to be implemented gradually over time in parallel with strong capacity building efforts.     

ARE TELEVISION AND VIDEO GAMES REALLY HARMFUL FOR KIDS?

Are watching television (TV) and playing video games really harmful for children's development? By using a unique longitudinal dataset with detailed information on children's development and health, we examined the causal effect of hours of TV watched or of video games played on school‐aged children's problem behavior, orientation to school, and obesity. The results suggested that the answer to the question is yes, but the magnitude of the effect is sufficiently small to be considered as negligible. The results were robust to within‐twin‐fixed effects. (JEL I10, I20)     

Remittances and healthcare expenditure: Human capital investment or responses to shocks? Evidence from Peru

This paper estimates the effect of international remittances on healthcare expenditures, taking into account both the interdependence with other consumption goods and the effects of health shocks. More precisely, we assess whether the budget allocation decisions of remittance‐receiving households reveal different preferences to invest in health capital, even when the simultaneous effect that health shocks may have on the demand of remittances and on other types of nondurable expenditures is accounted for. Using data from the “Peruvian National Survey of Households,” we find that remittances have a positive impact on healthcare budget shares, net of the remittance‐related income effect and independently of the occurrance of a health shock. They also have a positive impact on housing and a negative one on other expenditure items, that is, clothing, transport, and education. Hence, our results indicate a “pure” tendency of remittance‐receiving households to devote larger shares of their budget to health capital investment, rather than to other types of consumption goods.     

和谐社会与我国公共预算资金利益博弈

无论何种政体,在公共预算中都有一定的资金分配方法,各种公共预算资金分配的不同方法的深层原因是不同利益主体在不同的政体要求下对公共预算资金合法博弈的结果,我国公共预算资金分配也不例外.本文从我国公共预算资金分配的现状出发,探讨了我国目前公共预算资金利益博弈的各种具体表现形式及今后需要改进的一些方面,以期在我国逐步建立和谐而文明的小康社会中,在公共预算资金的科学、合理、合法分配的制度化、民主化建设的过程中,提供一些参考依据.     

Budget Standards and the Poverty Line

This article reports some of the results from a recent study which, among other things, developed and costed low cost budgets for a range of Australian households. A budget standard represents what is needed, in terms of goods, services and activities, to achieve a particular standard of living and what that costs in a particular place and time. A low cost budget standard is one designed to meet basic needs at a frugal level while still allowing social and economic participation consistent with community expectations. The low cost budget standard estimates for households living in Sydney in February 1997 are somewhat higher than the Henderson poverty line, partly a reflection of the high cost of housing in Sydney, but also a consequence of the low cost standard itself being above a poverty standard. In spite of this, the budget standard relativities for different households provide an estimate of the relative needs of Australian households in the 1990s which could replace the current much-criticised equivalence scale.     

LEGISLATOR INCENTIVES IN A FRAGILE DEMOCRACY: EVIDENCE FROM BUDGET ALLOCATION IN THAILAND

This article investigates if legislators in a fragile democracy share the same local benefit seeking incentives that are observed among politicians in mature democracies. Fledgling democracies are characterized by uncertainty over the survival of democratic institutions, which may discourage elected officials' reelection effort in favor of more direct measures to gain personal payoffs. Analyses of the relationship between legislative representation and the allocation of the budget among Thailand's 76 provinces indicate that Thai legislators are directing government expenditure to their home provinces. This result suggests that politicians' self‐serving motives play an important allocation role even in a young, fragile democracy.(JEL D72, H59)     

Expenditure behavior and children's welfare: an analysis of female headed households in Jamaica

This paper presents an analysis on the expenditure behavior and children's welfare among female-headed households in Jamaica. Included in the examination of household composition are the demographic effects, endogeneity of total expenditure, the headship variable and the endogeneity of family structure. Using the 1989 Jamaican Survey of Living Conditions (SLC), expenditure estimation on over 100 goods for 3500 household was examined. This study utilized the Ordinary Least Square estimates, 2 SLC and endogeneity tests, and partnered and unpartnered household heads. Results for the demand for preventive health care were significant among older children in female-headed households, with a 4% increase in the probability of a check-up across all ages. This study presents a partial explanation of lower morbidity rates in female-headed households despite lower budget and total per capita expenditure levels. In conclusion, this study confirms the significant influence of sex and union status of the household head on household expenditure behaviors with implications for individual household members, with more positive outcomes among children despite differences in budget allocation and lower health expenditures.     

Did you really take a hit? Understanding how video games playing affects individuals

This study addresses the important and recurring question of whether playing video games is detrimental to the socio-economic development of a person. It does this by using novel data from the Taking Part Survey in England to establish whether games playing is associated with particular socio-economic characteristics and/or other forms of cultural participation. The results do not indicate any obviously negative effects of video games playing: rather, those who play are typically better educated and no less wealthier, and games players are also more likely than non-games players to participate in other forms of culture, particularly active forms of participation. These findings are reinforced when comparing the characteristics of individuals who did and did not play video games when younger.     

Market Games in Large Economies with a Finite Number of Types

We study market games derived from an exchange economy with a continuum of agents, each having one of finitely many possible types. The type of agent determines his initial endowment and utility function. It is shown that, unlike the well-known Shapley–Shubik theorem on market games (Shapley and Shubik in J Econ Theory 1:9–25, 1969), there might be a (fuzzy) game in which each of its sub-games has a non-empty core and, nevertheless, it is not a market game. It turns out that, in order to be a market game, a game needs also to be homogeneous. We also study investment games – which are fuzzy games obtained from an economy with a finite number of agents cooperating in one or more joint projects. It is argued that the usual definition of the core is inappropriate for such a model. We therefore introduce and analyze the new notion of comprehensive core. This solution concept seems to be more suitable for such a scenario. We finally refer to the notion of feasibility of an allocation in games with a large number of players. Some of the results in this paper appear in a previous draft distributed by the name “Cooperative investment games or Population games”. An anonymous referee of Economic Theory is acknowledged for his/her comments     

THE PECULIAR ECONOMICS OF HOUSING BUBBLES

Home values increase rapidly during housing bubbles generating large capital gains. High loan‐to‐value (LTV) mortgages secured by expected future home values are one way to take advantage of these capital gains. In this article, we use a simple partial equilibrium consumer theory model to explore the implications of high LTV borrowing. We find that sufficiently large expected house price growth leads to an upward‐sloping budget line when households can obtain high LTV mortgages. In this environment, the demand for housing fits neither the conventional theories of consumer goods nor that of investment goods. In fact, increases in the expected future price of housing may reduce current housing demand, whereas decreases in the effective (current) price may lead to households buying smaller homes. Moreover, high LTV loans reduce the effectiveness of monetary policy, but raise the volatility of aggregate demand. Tighter borrowing standards may help lower demand volatility at the expense of shrinking the economy. (JEL E21, R21, E52)     

The effects of changes in household demographics and employment on consumer demand patterns

This study examines to what extent changes in consumer demand patterns over the last two decades in the Netherlands can be attributed to changes in household demographics, employment and total expenditures. The dominating changes in consumer demand are decreasing budget shares of food & beverages and clothing & footwear and increasing budget shares of housing and services. The changes in households’ composition – away from the traditional one-earner family with children – together with the increase in household total expenditures account for about one-third of the decrease in the budget share of food & beverages, half of the increase in the budget shares of services and only a minor part of the increase in housing. Once controlled for budget effects, the quadrupling of the proportion of employed women with young children accounts for about one-third of the increase in the budget shares of personal & health care – including childcare – and food away, holidays & entertainment.     

Forming and Dissolving Partnerships in Cooperative Game Situations

A group of players in a cooperative game are partners (e.g., as in the form of a union or a joint ownership) if the prospects for cooperation are restricted such that cooperation with players outside the partnership requires the accept of all the partners. The formation of such partnerships through binding agreements may change the game implying that players could have incentives to manipulate a game by forming or dissolving partnerships. The present paper seeks to explore the existence of allocation rules that are immune to this type of manipulation. An allocation rule that distributes the worth of the grand coalition among players is called partnership formation‐proof if it ensures that it is never jointly profitable for any group of players to form a partnership and partnership dissolution‐proof if no group can ever profit from dissolving a partnership. The paper provides results on the existence of such allocation rules for general classes of games as well as more specific results concerning well‐known allocation rules.     

Athletic contests and individual robberies: an analysis based on hourly crime data

Using hourly data on individual robberies, this article employs a novel approach to investigate the relationship between athletic contests and individual robberies in Memphis, Tennessee, a well-known entertainment destination, with its iconic Beale Street locale, in the US. Empirical results indicate that home basketball games hosted by the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies and those hosted by the University of Memphis Tigers are associated with increases in individual robberies, while away games are not associated with such an increase. This finding is consistent with the hot spot theory of crime, as large numbers of individuals travel to the games, thus providing additional opportunities for crime.     

2013年日本政府科技相关预算分配简析

在当前科技投入稳步增长的局面下,我国有关部门需要关注和参考国外科技预算编制经验和分配重点,做好科技预算分配工作,以实现科技资源的合理有效配置,提高科技经费投入的效率。通过介绍和分析2013年日本政府科技相关预算分配情况,可供国内相关部门参考。在2013年科技相关预算分配过程中,日本政府根据“第四期科技基本计划”和“日本再生战略”,继续将加快灾后重建、推进绿色科技创新和生命科技创新作为重中之重,增加必要的研发投资预算,切实有效地推进科技创新政策,以应对当前面l临的灾后经济复兴、能源安全、老龄化社会以及可持续发展等问题。     

Real Indeterminacy of Stationary Monetary Equilibria in Centralized Economies

We show that real indeterminacy of stationary equilibria, by which the set of stationary equilibria is a continuum and the real allocation varies among equilibria, may arise in some general equilibrium models with fiat money. The conditions under which such equilibria arise are: (i) each household optimally saves a constant amount of money; and (ii) at least two households face different budget constraints. We present various models, including a decentralized money search model and a centralized model with a monopoly firm, to explain how these conditions lead to real indeterminacy. Finally, we present a policy that uniquely implements any desirable outcome.     

Nonpoint Source Pollution Control under Incomplete and Costly Information

We analyze the efficient management of nonpoint source pollution (NPS) under a limited pollution control budget and incomplete information. We focus on the tradeoff between data collection and pollution abatement efforts by incorporating information acquisition into a NPS pollution control model. Comparative static results show conditions under which (i) a favorable change in the abatement costs at one source may lead to an increase in the treatment level at all sources, and vice versa, (ii) an increase in data collection cost leads to an increase in data collection level, and (iii) an increase in the efficiency of information acquisition leads to a decrease in the level of data collection. More importantly, the model simulations illustrate that acquiring and exploiting information on heterogeneity of sediment loading distributions across polluting sources leads to a more efficient budget allocation and hence a greater reduction in pollution damage than would be the case without such information.     

AN ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL POWER DISPERSION: THE CASE OF TURKEY

This study examines the effects of fragmented governments and fiscal authorities on budget deficits in Turkey along with political business cycle effects. For econometric analysis we will use annual data from the period 1960 to 2009. This article sheds light on various dispersion indices and their use in the field of political power and fiscal performance. The results show that the power dispersion indices of governments and fiscal institutions significantly explain the increases in the ratio of budget deficit to gross national product. The article draws attention to the unification and better coordination of fiscal authorities in Turkey. The analysis has important policy implications for Turkey and other developing countries from the viewpoint of fragmented political and administrative dispersion of power and poor budget performances. (JEL P16, H72, C22, C43)     

Pareto optimality in coalition formation

A minimal requirement on allocative efficiency in the social sciences is Pareto optimality. In this paper, we identify a close structural connection between Pareto optimality and perfection that has various algorithmic consequences for coalition formation. Based on this insight, we formulate the Preference Refinement Algorithm (PRA) which computes an individually rational and Pareto optimal outcome in hedonic coalition formation games. Our approach also leads to various results for specific classes of hedonic games. In particular, we show that computing and verifying Pareto optimal partitions in general hedonic games, anonymous games, three-cyclic games, room-roommate games and B-hedonic games is intractable while both problems are tractable for roommate games, W-hedonic games, and house allocation with existing tenants.     

Collective Decisions and Competitive Markets

In a general equilibrium model, we allow for households with several, typically heterogeneous, members; households that make (efficient) collective consumption decisions where different households may use different collective decision mechanisms; yet households that operate within a competitive market environment. The interaction of two allocation mechanisms, collective decisions and competitive markets, is investigated, with a focus on the efficiency properties and decentralization possibilities of the dual allocation mechanism.     

THE IMPACT OF LOW‐INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM PARTICIPATION ON HOUSEHOLD ENERGY INSECURITY

The impact of the low‐income home energy assistance program (LIHEAP), the single largest energy assistance program available to poor households in the United States has received little rigorous attention. If LIHEAP participation significantly improves low‐income household energy security, funding cuts or eliminating the program could negatively impact the poor. This article empirically estimates the impact of LIHEAP on household energy security. The results indicate participation in LIHEAP significantly increases energy security in low‐income households. Simulations suggest that elimination of the current household energy‐assistance safety net will decrease the number of low‐income energy secure households by over 17%. (JEL I38, Q48)