The biological reserve: The future's last stand

This article addresses the societal and cultural aspects of bioreserves and environmental restoration programmes. It begins with a discussion of bioreserves, then uses the example of a Man and Biosphere (MAB) inspired study of the US Everglades to illustrate how land has been shaped historically by culture and technology. It then demonstrates how current conflicts of values and culture, from both inside and outside the region, from interest groups with both pragmatic and emotional stances, are determining the future of an environment—the Everglades. The article thereby shows how human values and perceptions impact on the development of a sustainable Everglades, using the findings of surveys and public meetings to highlight the interests of the competing communities, ethnic and interest groups involved. If bioreserves are to survive they cannot become alienated from the people in the regions in which they are located.     

The optimistic stability of the core mapping in public goods production economies

Summary We show that in a production economy with public goods and a measure space of agents an allocation belongs to the core of the economy if and only if there exists no allocation in the core of a subeconomy that blocks it.We are indebted to Yossi Greenberg for very helpful suggestions, especially concerning the introduction of this work. We would also like to thank the referee for useful suggestions. Part of this work was done while the authors were visiting CORE, Université Catholique de Louvain. The support of CORE is gratefully acknowledged.     

Education and economic performance of occidental and oriental family farm operators

This article is an attempt to evaluate the relative effect of sociological and economic factors on economic performance of occidental and oriental family farm operators in Israel. Unusual circumstances prevail in Israel, where farm operators with modern and traditional backgrounds co-exist within a modern economy. This setting allows us to evaluate the effect of the human factor under conditions of relative independence from the organizational set-up. Economic performance has been found to be closely associated with the level of formal schooling, status of women, degree of literacy and family size.     

Tax Revenue Effects of Sectoral Growth and Public Expenditure in Uganda

This paper contributes to a growing strand of literature on the determinants of tax revenue performance in developing countries, particularly in Sub‐Saharan Africa. More specifically we estimate the tax elasticities of sectoral output growth and public expenditure. The unique features of this paper are twofold: First, we develop a simple analytical model for tax revenue performance taking into account some structural features pervasive in most developing countries with large informal sectors. Second, we test the model predictions on Ugandan time series data using ARDL bounds testing techniques. Results indicate that dominance of the agricultural and informal sectors pose the largest impediments to tax revenue performance. In addition development expenditures, trade openness, and industrial sector growth are positively associated with tax revenue performance. We propose policies to support the development of value added linkages between agricultural and industrial sectors while emphasizing the need to unlock the potentially large contributions of the informal sector with a view of widening the tax base.     

Private Value Allocations in Large Economies with Differential Information

We consider a Radner-type (e.g., Radner, 1968, Econometrica36, 31–58) pure exchange economy with differential information and a continuum of agents. We show that under appropriate assumptions the set of Aumann–Shapley private value allocations in such an economy coincides with the set of Radner competitive equilibrium allocations. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C71, D51, D82.     

A non-cooperative interpretation of bargaining sets

This paper provides a non-cooperative interpretation for bargaining sets concepts in economic environments. We investigate the implementability of the Aumann-Maschler and Mas-Colell bargaining sets, and provide mechanisms whose subgame perfect equilibrium outcomes realize these sets. These mechanisms, in contrast to general mechanisms suggested in the implementation literature, have a natural structure closely related to that of the rationale underlying the bargaining sets. Furthermore, the strategy sets consist mainly of allocations and coalitions (thus avoiding any reference to preference parameters) and are finite dimensional. Received: 17 February 1997 / Accepted: 2 February 1999     

On the Least Core and the Mas-Colell Bargaining Set

We show that the least core of a TU coalitional game with a finite set of players is contained in the Mas-Colell bargaining set. This result is extended to games with a measurable space of players in which the worth of the grand coalition is at least that of any other coalition in the game. As a consequence, we obtain an existence theorem for the Mas-Colell bargaining set in TU games with a measurable space of players. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: C71.     

Productivity and misallocation during a crisis: Evidence from the Chilean crisis of 1982

Measured total factor productivity often declines sharply during financial crises. In 1982, the Chilean manufacturing sector suffered a severe contraction in output, most of which can be accounted for by a falling Solow residual. This paper uses establishment data from the Chilean manufacturing census to examine the decline in measured TFP. To quantify the contribution of resource misallocation, I develop a measure of allocational efficiency along the lines of Hsieh and Klenow (2009) and derive the appropriate measure of aggregate productivity to which it should be compared. Across specifications, within-industry allocational efficiency either remained constant or improved in 1982, while a decline in between-industry allocational efficiency accounts for about one-third of the reduction in TFP. Industries more sensitive to domestic demand – durables and industries with low exports – experienced larger declines in measured TFP. This finding is consistent with large adjustment costs and underutilization of inputs. Reduced capital utilization played a substantial role, accounting for 25–50 percent of the decline in measured TFP.