Evaluating Projects and Assessing Sustainable Development in Imperfect Economies

We are interested in three related questions:(1) How should accounting prices be estimated?(2) How should we evaluate policy change in animperfect economy? (3) How can we check whetherintergenerational well-being will be sustainedalong a projected economic programme? We do notpresume that the economy is convex, nor do weassume that the government optimizes on behalfof its citizens. We show that the same set ofaccounting prices should be used both forpolicy evaluation and for assessing whether ornot intergenerational welfare along a giveneconomic path will be sustained. We also showthat a comprehensive measure of wealth,computed in terms of the accounting prices, canbe used as an index for problems (2) and (3)above. The remainder of the paper is concernedwith rules for estimating the accounting pricesof several specific environmental naturalresources, transacted in a few well knowneconomic institutions.     

两位诗人及死亡

<正>追悼会1894年4月8日,般吉姆·钱德拉·恰托帕德亚(Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay),十九世纪孟加拉邦最著名的大文学家去世。他去世后三周,切塔尼亚图书馆和比顿广场图书馆俱乐部在繁星剧场(Star Theatre)组织了一场追悼会1     

Tariffs and Welfare in an Imperfectly Competitive Overlapping-Generations Model

The effect of a tariff is analyzed in a two-sector model in an uncertain-lifetimes framework. One of the sectors is monopolistically competitive. It is shown that while a tariff leads to a consumption boom and possibly a current-account surplus, its welfare effects depend on whether the homogeneous good or the differentiated good is exported by the small open economy. Welfare improves if the differentiated good is nontraded but deteriorates if the homogeneous good is nontraded.     

Pricing of off‐balance sheet debt: how do bond market participants use the footnote disclosures on operating leases and postretirement benefit plans?

In this study, we examine whether the public debt market prices information on off‐balance sheet debt arising from operating leases and postretirement plans. We find that bond‐rating agencies price off‐balance sheet debt arising from operating leases and the coefficient on off‐balance sheet debt measure of operating leases is similar to that of capital leases on the balance sheet. Regarding postretirement benefit plans, we find that bond‐rating agencies do price postretirement benefit obligations that are reported in balance sheet but do not price such obligations disclosed in footnotes. We find similar results when we examine corporate bond yields on new debt issues.