Faddists,Enthusiasts and Canadian Divas: Broadcasting Quotas and the Supply Response

This paper constructs a model of the recorded music market to investigate the consequences of local content requirements in broadcasting for the “internationalization” of domestic music. It models the entry decisions of bands, the contracting decisions of record companies, the airplay decisions of radio stations and the radio listening and recording purchasing decisions of consumers. The paper shows that a local content quota leads, perversely, to the increased internationalization of domestic music. A quota that also requires increased broadcasting of “new” music yields an additional welfare loss but does nothing to a record company's incentives to sign up new bands.     

VALUING THE SERVICES OF CONSUMER DURABLES

Although consumer durables are treated as nondurables in most economic accounts, economists have long recognized that they could be treated as capital. If an estimate of the value of the services of consumer durables was available, it could be included in personal consumption expenditures and purchases of the durables treated as a form of investment. Such treatment would give a better picture of changes in a nation's economic welfare over time and make international comparisons more meaningful.
This article reviews the economic literature on how the services of consumer durables can be valued. It examines six alternative measures: the (1) user cost; (2) capital recovery; (3) opportunity cost; (4) market rental value; (5) cost of a substitute; and (6) cash-equivalent value measures. The first three are based on the summation of the costs of the inputs used to produce the services, although only the first two are consistent with the principle that the purchase price of a durable equals the discounted present value of its expected future benefits. The fourth and fifth measures are based on the prices of marketed services while the sixth is derived from the consumer's demand function for the good's services. The article also discusses six major issues in implementing these measures: (1) imputing a rate of return to capital; (2) measuring declines in market value (depreciation and capital gains); (3) accounting for operating expenditures; (4) adjusting for capacity utilization; (5) deflating service values; and (6) defining consumer durables.     

A Classroom Tariff-Setting Game

The author outlines a classroom tariff-setting game that allows students to explore the consequences of import tariffs imposed by large countries (countries able to influence world prices). Groups of students represent countries, which are organized into trading pairs. Each group's objective is to maximize welfare by choosing an appropriate ad valorem tariff that may be changed intermittently throughout the game. The game is built on a computable general-equilibrium model, which allows each nation's utility and terms of trade under alternative tariff regimes to be expressed quantitatively. The exercise encourages students to consider terms-of-trade improvements and efficiency losses resulting from large-country tariffs and provides a framework to discuss the Nash equilibrium of a tariff war. The game is a useful supplement to traditional teaching methods.     

Bertrand versus Cournot competition in a downstream mixed oligopoly with foreign ownership

Focusing on foreign ownership in the private firm, we examine the Cournot-Bertrand comparison in a mixed oligopolistic market with vertical market structure. We have found that if public and private firms were charged with uniform price for their inputs, then Cournot-Bertrand ranking in market outcomes confirms those obtained by Ghosh and Mitra (2010). This implies that under uniform pricing in the upstream sector, the vertical market structure does not have substantial influences on Cournot-Bertrand ranking. However, if discriminatory pricing is adopted, firm's profits, output, and social welfare are often reversed to those obtained from uniform pricing in the upstream sector. Given the closeness of products, if the share of foreign ownership is sufficiently low, social welfare in Cournot competition can exceed that of Bertrand competition, contrasting with the standard welfare ranking that Bertrand welfare is strictly higher than Cournot. This implies that Cournot competition can be more socially desirable than Bertrand in mixed oligopoly with vertical market structure if discriminatory pricing scheme is adopted by foreign upstream monopolists.     

Interregional infrastructure,competition for capital,and local public expenditure policies: Evidence from China's high-speed rail network

Interregional infrastructure promotes market integration and enhances the mobility of capital, thereby intensifying fiscal competition among local governments. Exploiting the expansion of China's high-speed rail (HSR) network as plausibly exogenous shocks, this study examines how Interregional infrastructure affects the fiscal competition among local governments. We find that after connecting with the HSR network, city governments tend to dedicate a lower proportion of public spending to consumption goods, which benefit immobile households, and invest more in productive inputs, which attract mobile firms. We also find that the negative effect of HSR connection on the proportion of consumption goods is more pronounced in peripheral cities than core cities because periphery cities face a larger increase in capital mobility due to the core–periphery effects of trade integration induced by HSR. Our findings indicate that the behavioural responses of local governments should be accounted for when assessing the social welfare of interregional infrastructure.     

Welfare effects of competitive lobbying efforts in international oligopoly markets

Conventionally, rent-seeking activities have been considered to deteriorate social welfare and to distort resource allocation. This paper examines whether rent-seeking behavior can improve social welfare by focusing on the welfare effects of firms’ competitive lobbying efforts when governments can impose market entry regulation against foreign firms. We demonstrate that competitive lobbying efforts can improve social welfare when such lobbying efforts are directed to reduce market entry barriers. In addition, social welfare can be maximized when the government shows the maximum sensitivity to the foreign firm's political contributions while maintaining competitive market structure. Moreover, it is shown that the dominant strategy for a domestic firm is to allocate more resources to R&D sectors while it is optimal for foreign firms is to exert more efforts in lobbying to reduce the market entry barriers when a government makes political economic approach in market entry regulations.     

On the welfare implications of restricting bankruptcy information

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) dictates that adverse events such as a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing must be removed from an individual’s credit record after 10 years. The intent of the law is to provide partial consumption insurance by giving an individual a fresh start. However, the law obviously weakens incentives not to default, which can result in higher interest rates that in turn reduce intertemporal insurance. Because of this tradeoff, it is unclear how long is the optimal length of time that an adverse event remains on an individual’s credit record. In this paper we assess the welfare consequences of varying the length of time that adverse events can be on one’s credit record. We calibrate the model to US data where the exclusion parameter is set to be 10 years on average. Then we run a counterfactual to find the length that maximizes ex-post economywide welfare using a consumption equivalent measure. The model predicts agents prefer to remove the bankruptcy flag after one year, though the gains are small.     

The effect of MADD on drinking–driving activities: an empirical study

Since its establishment in 1980, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) has been instrumental in directing our nation's attention to the problems associated with drinking and driving activities. Through its legislative lobbying efforts, educational and victim support activities, MADD strives to increase the expected costs and reduce the expected benefits of driving under the influence of alcohol. The object of this paper is to develop and estimate a model which assesses the consequences of MADD's efforts on the incidence of drinking and driving. Using extensive data collected in California, a simultaneous equations model is estimated. The results suggest that MADD does have a deterrent effect upon the incidence of alcohol related accidents. Moreover, the effect is found to be stronger for alcohol related accidents with a non-fatal injury relative to those with a fatality.     

DO-IT-YOURSELF AND GDP*

Do-it-yourself activities are, by definition, those for which a choice must exist between doing it oneself or hiring someone else. This means they typically involve the own account production of services, but whereas it is customary to include most goods produced on own account in GDP services are conventionally excluded. In principle, however, it is possible to envisage a comprehensive and unique measure of the total final output of all the goods and services produced within an economy whether for sale or own use. Such a measure would be better than GDP as an indicator of long term changes in economic welfare, being independent of any shifts in the ratio of market to non-market production. Moreover, it would be a homogeneous measure with clearly defined limits in contrast to improvised indices of welfare which mix economic and non-economic variables in arbitrary and subjective ways. However, the need for a measure of market output, or something very close to it such as GDP, is still as strong as ever as soon as attention is switched from measurement of long term growth to problems associated with market disequilibria, such as unemployment and inflation.     

基于自助式福利组合的知识型企业福利点数方法研究

本文以自助式福利与传统福利之比较为切入点，分析了自助式福利是福利的一种创新形式，认为基于自助式福利组合的福利点数方法是激励知识型员工的有效手段，能够实现多赢，本文构建了知识型企业福利点数方法设计模型，并对福利点数方法实施进行实例探讨。     

Monopoly,economic efficiency and unemployment

The objective of this paper is to analyze the efficiency consequences of monopoly from the perspective of an efficiency-wage model of unemployment based on Shapiro and Stiglitz (1984). An important feature of our model is that a firm can raise the probability that a shirking worker is detected by increasing its effort or investment in the monitoring of workers. Using this model we study how a monopolist's decision with regard to employment, output and monitoring is affected by exogenous variables such as job separation rate, technological advances, market size, and unemployment benefits. Furthermore, by comparing with the competitive equilibrium we find that monopoly is associated with higher unemployment rate, smaller output, and less monitoring. Surprisingly, however, monopoly does not necessarily lead to lower welfare level.     

Who Gains from Boycotts? A Welfare Analysis of Consumer Activism

This paper explores the welfare consequences of product boycotts by linking product and labor markets. Consumers' threat of boycott can affect the firm's decision such as production location, size of operation and wage rate. Such conscientious action, however, can actually result in a welfare loss of the workers of concern as well as consumers themselves. The analysis suggests that consumers set their goals by studying the labor market and coordinating with local groups rather than demanding what may seem righteous.     

A Portlander's View of Smart Growth

Metro, a regional planning authority, has written and implemented the nation's strongest and most comprehensive smart-growth plan in Portland, Oregon. For a region expected to grow in population by 80 percent in the next five decades, Metro's plan calls for a mere 6 percent expansion of land area; high-density housing in the form of apartments, mixed-use developments, and single-family homes on small lots; pedestrian-friendly design codes; 125 miles of rail transit; and almost no new highway construction. Though smart-growth advocates promise their policies will reduce congestion, clean the air, provide affordable housing, protect open space, and reduce urban-service costs, Metro's plan does the opposite of all these things. Metro planners predict its plan will quadruple the time Portlanders waste sitting in traffic by 2020 and increase smog by 10 percent. The artificial land shortage posed by the urban-growth boundary has already turned Portland from one of the nation's most affordable housing markets to one of the ten least affordable ones. The plan's demand for infill development is sacrificing valuable urban open space to protect abundant rural open space. Rail transit and high-density developments both require huge subsidies. Portlanders initially supported Metro's efforts because they were told that planning would save Portland from becoming like Los Angeles, the nation's most congested and polluted urban area. In fact, Los Angeles is also the nation's densest urban area and has the fewest miles of freeway per capita, making it the epitome of smart growth. This actually led Metro to conclude that its goal is to “replicate” Los Angeles' development patterns in Portland. The result is that Portland-area residents are increasingly hostile to Metro's plans.     

Regulation and altruism

We study optimal contracts in a regulator–agent setting with joint production, altruistic and selfish agents, limited liability, and uneasy outcome measurement. Such a setting represents sectors of activities such as education and healthcare provision. The agents and the regulator jointly produce an outcome for which they all care to some extent that is varying from agent to agent. Some agents, the altruistic ones, care more than the regulator does while others, the selfish agents, care less. Moral hazard is present due to both the agent's effort and the joint outcome that are not contractible. Adverse selection is present too since the regulator cannot a priori distinguish between altruistic and selfish agents. Contracts consist of a simple transfer from the regulator to the agents together with the regulator's input in the joint production. We show that, under the conditions of our setting and when we face both moral hazard and adverse selection, the regulator maximizes welfare with a menu of contracts, which specify higher transfers for the altruistic agents and higher regulator's inputs for the selfish agents.     

Principles versus principal: Reconciling norm compliance and shareholder value

This paper considers situations where an agent (say, a polluting firm's CEO) must allocate his nonobservable effort across two distinct tasks (say, revenue/market share enhancement and environmental stewardship), and where two principals (say, the firm's shareholders and an external stakeholder) hold diverging viewpoints on what the best allocation should be. Both characteristics of this context—multitasking and conflicting principals—are normally seen as obstacles to strengthening the agent's incentives. This paper proposes a simple arrangement, based on contingent monitoring and clawbacks, that can overcome these obstacles. Under this arrangement, the principals would end up coordinating their respective incentive schemes so that the agent considers his two tasks as complementary utility‐increasing activities. Applications to regulatory compliance, corporate social responsibility, and innovation management are briefly sketched.     

UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD WOOL MARKET: TRADE,PRODUCTIVITY AND GROWERS’ INCOMES*

Applying recent estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) growth on Australian sheep farms, we analyse the long‐run effects of TFP growth on the world wool market using a detailed model of the world wool market that treats raw wool, wool textiles and wool garments as heterogeneous commodities. The model divides the world wool market into nine regions and eight major industrial sectors capturing the extreme nature of the multistage production system through which wool passes. We find that regional sheep producer's welfare responds by between ‐0.9 per cent and 0.7 per cent assuming conservative TFP growth over the period 1995/96–2003/04. Sensitivity analysis shows the welfare effects to be robust with respect to all model parameters, but sensitive to the size of the TFP growth and the degree of TFP spill‐over. Our realistic representation of the multistage nature of the wool production system shows that wool inputs steadily decline in importance in moving from early‐ to late‐stage processing. This production structure indicates that the productivity of sheep farmers has little effect on the prices of and demand for wool garments. In contrast, trade in wool inputs is very responsive to the productivity of sheep farmers.     

Rethinking Work and Income Maintenance Policy: Promoting Gender Equality Through a Citizens' Basic Income

A citizens' basic income scheme is based on the principles of individuality, universality, and unconditionality; when combined with the notion of meeting "basic needs" it would serve to provide a minimum income guarantee for all adult members of society. However, implementation would entail radical reform of existing patterns of welfare delivery and would bring into question the institutionalized relationship between work and welfare, a basic premise of modern welfare states. To date, the debate over a citizens' basic income has emphasized its effects on labor markets, thereby displaying an androcentric bias. Although the role of women in society is central to social policy reform, the existing basic income literature is disturbingly void of any comprehensive treatment of women. No genuine discussion has taken place about the nature of women's lives and work and how these should be valued. Social policy reform should take account of all gender inequalities and not just those relating to the traditional labor market. This paper argues that the citizens' basic income model can be a tool for promoting gender-neutral social citizenship rights, but that any future marriage of justice and efficiency must first divorce work from income.     

A cost‐benefit analysis of R&D tax incentives

Abstract.  Although technical knowledge generates spillover benefits, production of technical knowledge creates congestion externalities; thus, private R&D investment could be inefficient. A computable general equilibrium model is used to rank tax incentives by their effects on research effort and measure welfare effects. Five results stand out: R&D tax credits produce relatively large increases in research effort and welfare. Lower corporate income tax rates and ITCs for downstream users of high‐tech production inputs rank second. Revenue losses from lower personal income tax rates can produce welfare losses. Ironically, ITCs for upstream producers of innovative inputs are ineffective. Incremental R&D credits dominate comprehensive credits. JEL Classification: E62, H21, O38     

Trade liberalization in environmental goods

Trade negotiations have started to pay attention to liberalization in environmental goods (EGs), whose production may require dirty intermediate goods. We construct a two-country trade model to explore the effects of trade liberalization in EGs on the local pollution, the global environment and welfare in the presence of such an environmental conundrum. We find that countries do not necessarily benefit from trade liberalization in EGs in the absence of an environmental policy. With the assistance of an upstream pollution tax, trade liberalization in EGs improves each country's welfare. This result holds independent of whether the upstream market is competitive or not, or whether we have upstream trade across countries. For asymmetric countries, trade liberalization in EGs improves the world welfare and the welfare for the country if it has a smaller demand for EGs; or experiences less damage from the production of dirty inputs; or values environment improvement more.     

要素市场扭曲对企业家寻租及创新的影响

Baumol认为企业家行为模式受到所在制度环境的影响，良好的制度环境会促进企业家从事增加社会福利的生产性活动，比如创新；而制度环境不佳会导致企业家从事攫取社会利益的非生产性活动，比如寻租。Baumol的企业家才能配置理论在中国具体情境中，是否有其适用性？以我国2009-2014年省级层面面板数据，利用各省份人均土地出让面积作为地区要素市场扭曲的工具变量，在有效控制内生性可能导致的模型估计偏误后，实证考察了要素市场扭曲对企业家寻租活动的作用效应。研究发现，转轨时期我国地区要素市场扭曲程度越深，企业家寻租活动就越多。进一步通过系数检验以及Bootstrap方法考察企业家寻租活动在地区要素市场扭曲和企业创新强度之间的中介效应，证实了“要素市场扭曲→企业家寻租活动增多→企业创新强度减弱”传导机制的存在，可为深化中国要素市场机制改革提供理论和实证支持。