THE BECKER PARADOX AND TYPE I VERSUS TYPE II ERRORS IN THE ECONOMICS OF CRIME*

Two real‐world observations are not easily replicated in models of crime. First, although capital punishment is optimal in the standard Becker model, it is rarely observed in the real world. Second, criminal procedure and the evaluation of evidence vary across societies and historical periods, the standard of proof being sometimes very high and sometimes quite low. In this article, we develop a general equilibrium model of judicial procedure allowing for innocent persons being convicted. We show that the median voter theorem applies to this model, making judicial procedure endogenous. So formulated, the model can replicate both empirical observations.     

THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN POWER DILEMMA*

From 1984 gas‐fired power generation had been gradually increasing its share of the electricity market in Western Australia (WA) starting at 1 per cent and rising to about 50 per cent by 2008. Had it continued on this trajectory, the WA power system would have made great advances in terms of cost and environmental efficiencies given the looming commencement of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Australia from 2011. However, more recently the cost of natural gas has increased from $3/GJ to $7/GJ following the sudden collapse of the East Spar gas field in the North West Shelf. In this article, we analyse the impact of the gas price increase and demonstrate that despite being the most environmentally efficient conventional technology, natural gas combined cycle plant has been squeezed out of the market which in turn will increase forward electricity price risks to WA consumers through greater exposure to CO₂ pricing in the long run.     

THE ROLE OF THE GOLD STANDARD IN THE GIBSON PARADOX

Recent papers by Lee and Petruzzi (1986) and Barsky and Summers (1988) provide rival theories of how the Gibson Paradox could result from the impact of changes in the interest rate on the real price of gold. This paper empirically tests each model and finds more support for the Lee-Petruzzi approach than the Barsky-Summers approach. The paper also suggests that Lee and Petruzzi may have used an inappropriate method to test their model, and that both papers employed inappropriate sample periods.     

THE IMPACT OF INTRA HOUSEHOLD BALANCE OF POWER ON EXPENDITURE PATTERN: THE AUSTRALIAN EVIDENCE*

The collective approach to household behaviour models the household utility function as the weighted average of the utilities of the individual members of the household. These weights, which measure the relative bargaining power of males and females within the household, are generally regarded as fixed and exogenous. The paper extends the collective approach and estimates a model where the weights are endogenously determined. The novelty of the analysis lies in the simultaneous equations estimation of the bargaining power and the budget share equation that allow for the endogeneity of the power variable in the examination of its impact on the budget share of the various items. The estimation is conducted using data from the 1998–99 Australian Household Expenditure Survey data set. The relative bargaining power of males and females have statistically significant effects on household expenditure patterns. The analysis reveals some interesting non‐monotonic relationships between relative power and budget shares that vary a great deal between commodities.     

CARBON LEAKAGE,THE GREEN PARADOX,AND PERFECT FUTURE MARKETS*

Policies of lowering carbon demand may aggravate instead of alleviate climate change (green paradox). In a two‐period, three‐country general equilibrium model with finite endowment of fossil fuel, one country enforces an emissions cap in the first or second periods. When that cap is tightened, the extent of carbon leakage depends on the interaction of various parameters and elasticities. Conditions for the green paradox are specified. All determinants of carbon leakage resulting from tightening the first‐period cap work in the opposite direction when the second‐period cap is tightened. Tightening the second‐period cap does not necessarily lead to the green paradox.     

有效就业理论与宏观经济增长悖论

1997年以后,中国出现了经济高速增长,就业压力不减,物价走低的宏观经济增长悖论。奥肯定律失效,宏观经济关系扭曲,产出对就业和物价的影响无法正常传递,是造成两个悖论的宏观原因。有效就业理论认为,企业储备了大量的无效就业人员,有效就业率低,因而奥肯定律失效。释放或充分使用无效就业人员,企业有效就业率的提高带来劳动生产率的上升,企业有了产出扩张的激励。这是两个悖论的微观成因。较低的有效就业率源自于已有就业制度安排下劳动力的企业内部储备。     

THE POWER OF WHISPERS: A THEORY OF RUMOR,COMMUNICATION, AND REVOLUTION*

We study how rumors mobilize individuals who take collective action. Rumors may or may not be informative, but they create public topics on which people can exchange their views. Individuals with diverse private information rationally evaluate the informativeness of rumors about regime strength. A rumor against the regime can coordinate a larger mass of attackers if individuals can discuss its veracity than if they cannot. Communication can be so effective that a rumor can have an even greater impact on mobilization than when the same story is fully believed by everybody. However, an extreme rumor can backfire and discourage mobilization.     

REDUNDANCY, NATURAL TURNOVER AND THE PARADOX OF STRUCTURAL CHANGE

The properties of the labour market are such that moderate employment shifts can be accommodated by, and might even encourage, the natural movement of labour between jobs. But the scale and extent of employment adjustments in recent years has produced an altogether different response. Voluntary movement has fallen dramatically as unemployment has risen. Redundancies have increased in importance in absolute and relative terms. The pace of adjustment in recent years has reduced the natural flexibility of the labour market and has created a serious impediment to the optimal distribution of labour. Moreover, an economic doctrine which emphasizes the importance of flexibility and personal choice in the labour market, has effectively reduced both.     

THE POWER OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR

This article examines the influence exerted by the Federal Reserve chair on monetary policy decisions. We construct a voting model where the chair selects the proposal that is initially put to a vote but is subject to an acceptance constraint that incorporates the preferences of the median Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) member and the probability of counterproposals. The model is estimated by maximum likelihood using real-time data from FOMC meetings. Results for all chairs in our sample show that the chair's proposal is the result of a compromise, reflecting a stable balance of power within the FOMC.     

DIRECTED SEARCH AND THE BERTRAND PARADOX

I study a directed search model of oligopolistic competition, extended to incorporate general capacity constraints, congestion effects, and pricing based on ex post demand. In the presence of any one of these ingredients, the Bertrand paradox fails to hold. Hence, despite the emphasis that has been placed by the literature on sellers' capacity constraints as a resolution to the paradox, the existence of such constraints is only a subcase of a general class of environments where the paradox fails. Specifically, Bertrand's paradox will not arise whenever the buyers' expected utility from visiting a seller is decreasing in that seller's realized demand.     

"壶口悖论":对黄河壶口瀑布开发方式的研究

在行政区交界地带,有的资源地跨两个(或多个)行政区,各个行政区均享有对该资源开发的权力,对这种类型资源是由两个行政区(实体)分别进行开发,还是组建一个资源开发实体,由该开发实体进行统一开发,文章以地处晋陕两省交界处的黄河壶口瀑布开发为例,通过对现实中壶口瀑布的开发与如果只有一个开发主体的开发进行的比较,提出了"壶口悖论",以期对我国行政区交界地带的资源开发有所启示。     

THE NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY: ITS EXPLANATORY POWER FOR LDCs*

This paper reviews the new political economy and its relevance to explaining policymaking in the developing countries.     

UNIVERSALISM AND THE VALUE OF POLITICAL POWER

Although legislatures typically use majority rule to allocate a budget in distributive legislation, unanimous consent over the broad allocation of benefits is pervasive. I develop a game‐theoretic model where members strategically interact in a universal coalition to determine allocations, with noncooperative bargaining as a threat point for the breakdown of cooperation. To quantify the effects of political power on the agreed‐upon allocation, I structurally estimate the model using the “Bridge Bill Capital Budget” in 1992. I find that 16.73% of the budget would be allocated differently if allocations were determined only based on actual needs.     

ON THE CONCEPT OF POWER IN ECONOMICS

In this paper we start with the standard definition of power and indicate how orthodox neoclassical economics fails to handle some of the key issues of power. In Sections II and III we discuss in the context of recent advances in economic theory some of the battlefields, so to speak, for the exercise of power: bargaining games in Section II and economic organizations and capitalist authority relations in Section III. In all of this we focus on the underlying structural factors. In the last Section we discuss some problems with both the behavioral and structural concepts of power.     

ASKING ABOUT CHANGES IN HAPPINESS IN A DAILY WEB SURVEY AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR THE EASTERLIN PARADOX*

This paper investigates whether the level of happiness and integrated process of changes in happiness are the same. Using the daily data of two waves of 4 and 6 months each, we found that the level of happiness is stationary, whereas the integrated process of changes is non‐stationary with a rising trend, implying that they are different series. An examination of the causes of the difference indicated that although adaptation completely influences the level of happiness, it only partially influences the change in happiness. This may be because the latter is based on a comparison between today and yesterday.     

THE ECONOMICS OF ILLUSION*

When individuals choose not only goods, but also how to process information, there is a bias: people tend to process information so that they feel good about themselves. This bias is particularly important in voting behavior, where agents have almost no individual effect on public choice outcomes, and therefore almost no incentive for unbiased use of information. Two examples are given. In one example, an adaptation of the classic overdepletion problem, the public chooses not to counteract externalities by appropriate tax policy. In the second example public policy follows the choices of experts, contrary to the interest of the public.