How luck and performance affect stealing

This paper investigates how the way of earning payoff affects the probability of stealing. The participants who earned their payoff according to performance were three times more likely to take the (undeserved) maximum payoff than participants with randomly allocated payoff. Conditional on stealing something, most subjects steal the full amount available.     

The impact of inflation targeting: Testing the good luck hypothesis

Starting in the mid‐1980s, the level and volatility of inflation decreased across industrial countries. The inflation stabilization can be explained by a shift in monetary policy or by a lucky period of low volatility in business cycle shocks. To test the “good luck hypothesis,” we examine the inflation experience of Canada, one of the earliest and most successful adopters of an inflation targeting monetary policy. We Kalman‐filter the historical structural shocks consistent with an estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model of the Canadian economy. The estimated shocks are used to build counterfactual histories. The good luck hypothesis can explain only a minor portion of the change in the path and volatility of inflation after the shift in policy. Most of inflation and output stabilization is accounted by the impact on expectations. Unconditionally, the inflation targeting policy does not improve on the previous policy in terms of inflation volatility, but supports a more favourable trade‐off, reducing substantially output volatility.     

Equality of opportunity and luck: Definitions and testable conditions,with an application to income in France

We offer a model of equality of opportunity that encompasses different conceptions expressed in the public and philosophical debates. In addition to circumstances whose effect on outcome should be compensated and effort which represents a legitimate source of inequality, we introduce a third factor, luck, that captures the random factors whose impact on outcome should be even-handed for equality of opportunity to be satisfied. Then, we analyze how the various definitions of equality of opportunity can be empirically identified, given data limitations and provide testable conditions. Definitions and conditions resort to standard stochastic dominance tools. Lastly, we develop an empirical analysis of equality of opportunity for income acquisition in France over the period 1979–2000 which reveals that the degree of inequality of opportunity tends to decrease and that the degree of risk of income distributions, conditional on social origin, appears very similar across all groups of social origins.     

Power, growth, and the voracity effect

Why is it that resource-rich countries tend to have lower growth rates than resource-poor countries? And why is it that many countries that enjoy terms-of-trade windfalls end up with lower growth rates? To explain these puzzles, we extend the neoclassical growth model by replacing the representative agent with multiple powerful groups and by introducing a new concept, the voracity effect—a more than proportional increase in redistribution in response to an increase in the raw rate of return. We show that, in an economy with powerful groups and weak institutions, the voracity effect operates if the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is high enough. That is, there exists a negative relationship between the growth rate and the raw rate of return, which is positively related to the terms of trade. We provide some empirical evidence in support of the mechanism we propose.     

Systematic search,belated information,and the gittins' index

This paper uses multi-armed bandit methods to characterize the optimal solution of a rather complicated search problem. The job search is conducted systematically and there is belated information, that is, some aspect of the job is discerned only after the job has been tested for one period.     

Teaching in the right context: Textbook supply program,language, and learning

An ethnic gap in education is prevalent around the world. This remains the case in Vietnam, a country that has achieved phenomenal economic growth and raised the educational attainment of the public. This paper examines the impact of language policy reorientation represented by the textbook supply program in Vietnam on the ethnic gap in children's learning measured by a vocabulary test. Applying difference-in-differences estimation to the Young Lives data between 2006 and 2015, we show that the program became more effective in narrowing the ethnic gap as the education policy became reoriented toward ethnic minority children. A causal mediation analysis reveals that increased study time is possibly a moderate mediator through which the language policy reorientation helped narrow the ethnic gap for the young cohort over and above the direct impact, but this was not the case for the old cohort. This paper, therefore, alludes to the importance of delivering learning materials carefully designed for the target group to bring about meaningful behavioral changes. It also underscores the importance of teaching in the right context, corroborating the findings from recent studies on teaching at the right level.     

数量指标和质量指标理论与应用评析

在各类《统计学》教科书中,对数量指标和质量指标概念的解释不大一样,但基本的含义却是相同的.两者从概念上区别并不困难,也容易理解,但在对一些特殊问题的分析时,却不易把握,特别是在比较复杂的统计分析中,那就更不容易做出准确的判断了.怎样才能对数量指标和质量指标的应用做出科学的评价和分析.本文拟就这方面的问题做些初步探索.     

Capital,the State,and the Monetary Mode of Power: A Review of Nitzan and Bichler's Capital as Power

In their recent book Capital as Power, Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler depict capitalism as a mode of power rather than a mode of production, in which political and economic power are no longer distinct. In addition, they argue, contrary to neoclassical theory, that capital has nothing to do with productivity but instead represents power. I make three broad criticisms: first, their elimination of the distinction between economics and politics renders any empirical test of their ostensible integration impossible; second, they do not adequately define their main concepts, including capital, capitalization, capitalism, and power; and third, they do not acknowledge the possibility that the patterns they attribute to power may in fact be self-organized. This paper argues that money is a claim to wealth, not wealth itself, that it measures and distributes the power of payment, and that payments redistribute the power of ownership, including the ownership of money. Finally, I suggest that, in light of the global debt crisis, a theory of capital-as-power should examine the power of finance, which entails the privatization and concentration of the power to create money as debt.     

Nature, Power and Growth

This essay reviews the relationship between natural–resource abundance and economic growth around the world, and presents some new results. The principal reasons why resource–based production can inhibit economic growth over long periods are traced to the Dutch disease, neglect of education, rent seeking, and economic policy failures. Across a large number of countries in the period from 1965 to 1998, the share of the primary sector in the labour force is shown to be inversely related to exports, domestic and foreign investment, and education, and directly related to external debt, import protection, corruption, and income inequality. The cross–sectional data show, moreover, that the share of the primary sector in the labour force is inversely related to per capita growth across countries. None of this lies in the nature of things, however. What seems to matter for economic growth is not the abundance of natural resources per se, but rather the quality of their management, and of economic management and institutions in general.     

数量指标和质量指标理论与应用评析

在各类《统计学》教科书中,对数量指标和质量指标概念的解释不大一样,但基本的含义却是相同的。两者从概念上区别并不困难,也容易理解,但在对一些特殊问题的分析时,却不易把握,特别是在比较复杂的统计分析中,那就更不容易做出准确的判断了。怎样才能对数量指标和质量指标的应用做出科学的评价和分析。本文拟就这方面的问题做些初步探索。     

Brexit,the City and the Contingent Power of Finance

Brexit poses a profound challenge to the economic fortunes of the financial services sector in the United Kingdom (UK) because it threatens to sever access to the single market in the European Union (EU). Recognising this, the City of London’s largest financial firms and main representative bodies supported a Remain vote in the June 2016 referendum, and subsequently lobbied for a ‘soft’ Brexit policy to preserve the City’s lucrative passporting rights. Despite this, the government led by Theresa May pursued a ‘hard’ Brexit policy which threatened to leave the UK outside the single market. How can we explain the City’s apparent failure to influence the UK’s Brexit policy? We argue that whilst the UK financial sector wielded formidable latent structural power, its capacity to translate this into instrumental influence in the policy process was constrained by three factors: the political statecraft of Brexit, leading the government to downgrade the concerns of the financial industry; the reconfiguration of institutional structures, which undermined the City’s voice within government; and constraints on business organisation, caused by collective action problems and heterogeneous preferences. These three factors constitute important scope conditions which highlight the contingent power of finance in liberal market economies.