In support of the new working class thesis: the case of the Irish white collar worker

This study, using data collected from 325 Irish white-collar employees in the private sector, examines the extent to which white-collar trade unionism may be regarded as a response to concern about the lack of achievement of desired levels of self-expression at work.     

Price and quantity regulation in general equilibrium

We consider a general equilibrium model with a production externality (e.g. pollution), where the regulator does not observe firm productivity shocks. We examine quantity (permit) regulation and price (tax) regulation. The quantity of permits issued by the regulator are independent of the productivity shock, since shocks are unobserved. Price regulation implies use of the regulated input is an increasing function of the productivity shock because firms take advantage of a good productivity shock by increasing input use. Thus price regulation generates higher average, but more variable, production. Therefore, we show that in general equilibrium the relative advantage of quantity versus price regulation depends not only on the slopes of marginal benefits and costs, but on general equilibrium effects such as risk aversion. The general equilibrium effects are often more important than the slopes of the marginal benefits and cost curves. In the simplest model, a reasonable risk aversion coefficient implies quantity regulation generates higher welfare regardless of the benefit function.     

Lebesgue measure and social choice trade-offs

Summary An Arrovian social choice rule is a social welfare function satisfying independence of irrelevant alternatives and transitivity of social preference. Assume a measurable outcome spaceX with its (Lebesgue) measure normalized to unity. For any Arrovian rule and any fractiont, either some individual dictates over a subset ofX of measuret or more, or at least a fraction 1–t of the pairs of distinct alternatives have their social ordering fixed independently of individual preferences. Also, for any positive integer (less than the total number of individuals), there is some subsetH of society consisting of all but persons such that the fraction of outcome pairs (x, y) that are social ranked without consulting the preferences of anyone inH, whenever no individual is indifferent betweenx andy, is at least 1–1/4.We are grateful to Roy Mathias and Daniel Waterman for help with some technical matters, and to chairman Jim Follain and the Syracuse University Economics Department for financing the exchange that launched this project. Campbell's research was funded by National Science Foundation grants, SES 9007953 and SES 9209039.     

Intraday Empirical Analysis and Modeling of Diversified World Stock Indices

This paper proposes an approach to the intraday analysis of diversified world stock accumulation indices. The growth optimal portfolio (GOP) is used as reference unit or benchmark in a continuous financial market model. Diversified portfolios, covering the world stock market, are constructed and shown to approximate the GOP, providing the basis for a range of financial applications. The normalized GOP is modeled as a time transformed square root process of dimension four. Its dynamics are empirically verified for several world stock indices. Furthermore, the evolution of the transformed time is modeled as the integral over a rapidly evolving mean-reverting market activity process with deterministic volatility. The empirical findings suggest a rather simple and robust model for a world stock index that reflects the historical evolution, by using only a few readily observable parameters. Mathematics Subject Classification: (1991) primary 90A12, secondary 60G30,62P20 JEL Classification: G10, G13     

Conservation finance and sustainable tourism: the acceptability of conservation fees to support the Tambopata National Reserve,Peru

Protected areas are key to the conservation of global biodiversity and ecosystem services; however, their success is contingent upon adequate funding. One possibility to increase funding for park management is to “sell” a wider suite of ecosystem services “produced” by protected areas, such as carbon sequestration. We conducted 420 tourist surveys to analyze willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem service benefits via a conservation fee in the Tambopata National Reserve in Peru. We also interviewed eight tour operators about their perceptions of the proposed fee. The average stated WTP was 15 USD. Sixty-six percent of tourists stated they would pay 10 USD or more, which, if actually paid, would have resulted in 318,000 USD for park management in 2015. Most respondents stated they would pay an additional fee if it supported biodiversity conservation or local ecosystem services, such as water, but less than 10% of tourists were motivated by carbon sequestration as a reason to pay the fee. Most tour operators supported the additional fee. Our findings suggest that tourists are willing to pay higher fees to support conservation but that interest in paying for additional ecosystem services from parks may not extend to global and intangible benefits such as carbon sequestration.     

Deals inside: examining restaurant operators’ motives when choosing whether to offer a flash-sale

As restaurants are the primary hospitality business represented on flash-sale sites, this study examined motivations of restaurant managers when choosing whether to utilize the promotional mediums of flash-sales. Interviews were administered as a measurement instrument. Results demonstrated restaurants which have employed flash-sales are weary of the likelihood of success and believe the flash-sales brought in established customers. Non-users indicated hesitation towards adoption of flash-sales related to low profit margins per item in their operation and the percentage split of the sale price between the firm and flash-sale provider. Findings provide keen foundational insight into the flashsale phenomenon.     

The gender gap in university enrolment: Do parents play a role beyond investing in skills?

Young men are far less likely than women to attend university across most OECD countries. I use data from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) to investigate this issue in the Canadian context, focusing on how parents might influence this gender gap. In particular, my goal is to isolate the incremental effect of parents’ valuations of education during the teenage years, holding constant the stock of skills acquired up to that point. To estimate this effect, I use a factor model based on a framework developed by Foley et al. (2014). My results confirm the importance of skills in determining the gender gap in university attendance. I also find that differences in the distribution of parental valuations of education account for 22% of the gender gap in the YITS data, pointing toward an important role that parents play, not accounted for in prior work.     

Evidence of Place: Becoming a Region in Rural Canada

The purpose of this article is to investigate whether place is emerging in practice as a critical dimension in the development of Canadian rural regions. Recently, Jones and Paasi set regional researchers the task of better understanding how regions ‘become'. In researching this question, we are particularly interested in the definition and expression of place‐based identity as a mobilizing force for regionalism. Our findings suggest that, while identity plays a critical role in fostering regional development processes, it is either too emergent or actively resisted within our research sites to be a significant force for place‐based regional development.