The relation of risk attitudes and other-regarding preferences: A within-subjects analysis

In this paper we provide experimental evidence on the relation of individual risk attitudes and subjects׳ aversion to favorable inequality. In a within-subjects design we expand Blanco et al.׳s (2011) modified dictator game by the risk-elicitation task of Eckel and Grossman (2002). Our data show strong support for a significant negative correlation between risk tolerance and an aversion to favorable inequality. The results are independent of gender, i.e., women and men show a similar correlation in these traits.     

经济实验对社会偏好识别的研究述评

实验经济学在分配方面观察到了大量相对经典理性假设的偏离行为,并总结认为这些"公平行为"受到了若干不同性质的社会性偏好的影响。本文将社会偏好的种类分为关心结果的分配性偏好和关心行为背后意图的互惠偏好两大类,然后从经典实验中行为背后的偏好识别问题出发,总结近年来实验研究的相关发现。这些发现可以为企业和社会治理提供一些新的思路。     

浅析影响平等的自然和社会因素

平等在现实中并未充分实现的原因在于人们对影响平等的自然和社会因素的认识不同,人们一直致力于消解影响平等的社会因素,然而富有道德意义的自然因素才是影响平等实现的最终屏障,只有将影响平等的自然因素与社会因素一起考虑才能实现真正的平等.     

Heterogeneous treatment effects and mechanisms in information-based environmental policies: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment

Policymakers often rely on non-pecuniary, information-based programs to achieve social objectives. Using data from a water conservation information campaign implemented as a randomized controlled trial, we estimate heterogeneous household responses. Understanding such heterogeneity is important for improving the cost-effectiveness of non-pecuniary programs, extending them to other populations and probing the mechanisms through which the treatment effects arise. We find little evidence of heterogeneous responses to purely technical information or to traditional conservation messages that combine technical information and moral suasion. In contrast, norm-based messages that combine technical information, moral suasion and social comparisons exhibit strong heterogeneity: households that are wealthier, owner-occupied and use more water are more responsive. These subgroups tend to be least responsive to pecuniary incentives. We find no evidence that any subgroup increases their water use in response to the messages. By targeting the messages to subgroups known to be most responsive, program costs could be reduced by over 50% with only a 20% reduction in the treatment effect. Combining theory and data, we also shed light on the mechanisms through which the treatment effects arise, which has implications for program design and future research on the program's welfare effects.     

Green monetary and fiscal policies: The role of consumer preferences

We establish a two-sector model to simulate the potential effects of green fiscal poli- cies and unconventional green monetary policy on the economy during a recovery or in case of a stimulus policy. We find that instruments such as a carbon tax, an implicit tax on brown loans, and a subsidy for the purchase of green goods are all beneficial to the green sector, in contrast to green quantitative easing. A carbon tax imposed directly on firms in the brown sector is the most effective tool to reduce pollution. More importantly, the marginal effects of green instruments on the economy depend on consumer preferences. Namely, the marginal effects are the most prominent when consumers start to purchase more green goods as an increasing part of their consumption basket. Furthermore, the effects of those green policies are more effective when the elasticity of substitution between green and brown goods increases. This finding suggests that raising consumers’ awareness and ability to consume green goods reinforce the effectiveness of public policies designed for low-carbon transition of the economy.     

Existence and specific characters of rentiers: a savers-spenders theory approach

Summary. Using the savers-spenders theory developed by Mankiw (2000, AER), we propose microfoundations to the existence of rentiers in macroeconomic growth models. From an OLG model which acknowledges the great heterogeneity of consumer behavior apparent in the data, we capture the dynamic considerations of potential rentiers as a natural consequence of intertemporal utility maximization and we analyze realistic characteristics (proportion, wealth, propensity to save) of rentiers.JEL Classification Numbers: E13, D64, J22.This paper is adapted from the fourth chapter of my Ph.D Thesis. Then, I thank Alain VENDITTI, my Ph.D Supervisor and Antoine dAUTUME and Pierre PESTIEAU my Ph.D Referees. Earlier version of this paper were presented at the International conference: New perspectives on (un)stability: the role of heterogeneity at Marseille, June 7-9, 2001 and at the X-th Spring School of the Associated European Laboratory (CNRS-FNRS/CORE-GREC-GREQAM) at Aix, 2001. I thank conference participants, in particular Olivier CHARLOT, Christian GHIGLINO, Kiminori MATSUYAMA and Philippe MICHEL for suggestions, helpful comments and discussions. I also thank a referee of this journal for his constructive comments.     

The Shapley Value of a Patent Licensing Game: the Asymptotic Equivalence to Non-cooperative Results

We consider a game in characteristic form played by firms and an outside patent holder of a cost-reducing innovation. The worth of a coalition of players is the total Cournot profit the coalition can guarantee to obtain when it operates an optimal number of its firms while the complement operates any number of its firms as to minimize the profit of the coalition. Only firms in a coalition with the patent holder are allowed to use the efficient technology. We prove that when the number of firms is large, the Shapley value of the patent holder approximates the payoff he obtains in the non-cooperative auction game traditionally studied in the literature.We thank an anonymous referee for very helpful comments that significantly improved the paper. The second author is being partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Grant-in-Aid for 21 Century COE Program. He wishes to thank his advisor Yair Tauman and co-advisor Pradeep Dubey for their intellectual guidance, Akira Okada and Haruo Imai for their encouragement, and Shigeo Muto for his helpful comments to the first draft of this paper at the autumn meeting of the Japanese Economic Association in 2003.     

The lesson and warning of a crisis foretold: a political economy approach

The financial crisis, which began in summer 2007 in the USA and then spread contagiously throughout the rest of the world, is systemic in nature. Indeed, it is not a local or regional crisis. It is the inevitable starting point of a process which for more than 30 years has changed at its very roots the financial way of being and doing, thus undermining the very bases of that liberal social order which is at the core of Western civilization. The nature of the causes of the crisis is twofold: those immediate, which speak of the specific characteristics adopted in recent times by the financial markets, and those remote, which blame aspects of the cultural matrix which accompanied the transition from industrial to financial capitalism. From the moment that epoch-making phenomenon which we call globalization began to take shape, finance not only constantly increased its quota of activity in the economic sphere, but it has also progressively contributed to transform both people’s cognitive maps and their value systems. It is to this latter that one refers today in speaking of the financialization of society. The article mainly deals with the remote causes of the crisis with the aim of showing the consequences of the misleading ideology diffused by mainstream economics, from which have drunk market agents, government political authorities and controlling agencies.      

The new views on demographic transition: a reassessment of Malthus's and Marx's approach to population

The purpose of this paper is to examine the divergence of views of Marx and Malthus regarding the family and the labour market. The paper analyses the divergences between them, as well as their common features. The main divergence is the way in which the two see the interaction between man and nature. We show that their divergence of views, and the specific difference in perception of the two thinkers regarding the place of children in the family over time, is related to the alternate ways of modelling demographic transition today. We analyse the debate between these two lines of reasoning by means of a formal model that differentiate between the two views.     

Relative risk aversion, relative prudence and comparative statics under uncertainty: The case of (μ, σ)‐preferences

From the expected‐utility approach, relative risk aversion being smaller than one and relative prudence being smaller than two emerge as preference restrictions that fully determine the optimal responses of decisions under uncertainty to certain shifts in probability distributions. We characterize the magnitudes of relative risk aversion and relative prudence in terms of the two‐parameter, mean‐standard deviation approach. We demonstrate that this characterization is instrumental in obtaining comparative static results in the two‐parameter setting. We further relate our findings to the results in the expected‐utility framework.     

Contemporary Capitalism as a New Monetary Economy of Production: The Logic of Conventions,M&A,and LBOs

Social interaction models, i.e. the changing sequence of actions between individuals who modify their behavior under the influence of their peers, have rarely enjoyed as high a profile in economic analysis as they do today. However, the literature growth has not been accompanied by a process of academic consolidation. The difficulties encountered in research are largely but not entirely the result of data constraints. The main argument of this article is that the source of problems may be traceable to the lack of a complementary approach between economics and other disciplines. The difficulties presented by the deficit in academic exchange among social scientists are compounded by the current analytical framework, which still concentrates on the fundamental, but mutually exclusive, traditions of thought: homo oeconomicus and homo sociologicus. In spotlighting these ideas, this article reviews the economic body of literature on social interactions and their effect on individual unemployment status. Two directions in current research are analyzed: the impact of social (work) norms on unemployment and the role of social networks in the job search process. The theoretical and methodological challenges encountered in research suggest that the future of social interactions models might be found at the crossroads of economics and other social sciences.     

The future of farming: The value of ecosystem services in conventional and organic arable land. An experimental approach

In the current work, a novel, experimental ‘bottom-up’ approach is used to quantify the economic value of ecosystem services (ES) associated with highly modified arable landscapes in Canterbury, New Zealand. First, the role of land management practices in the maintenance and enhancement of ES in agricultural land was investigated by quantifying the economic value of ES at the field level under organic and conventional arable systems. This quantification was based on an experimental approach in contrast with earlier value transfer methods. Total economic value of ES in organic fields ranged from US $1610 to US $19,420 ha^− 1 yr^− 1 and that of conventional fields from US $1270 to US $14,570 ha^− 1 yr^− 1. The non-market value of ES in organic fields ranged from US $460 to US $5240 ha^− 1 yr^− 1. The range of non-market values of ES in conventional fields was US $50 — 1240 ha^− 1 yr^− 1. There were significant differences between organic and conventional fields for the economic values of some ES. Next, this economic information was used to extrapolate and to calculate the total and non-market value of ES in Canterbury arable land. The total annual economic and non-market values of ES for the conventional arable area in Canterbury (125,000 ha) were US $332 million and US $71 million, respectively. If half the arable area under conventional farming shifted to organic practices, the total economic value of ES would be US $192 million and US $166 million annually for organic and conventional arable area, respectively. In this case, the non-market value of ES for the organic area was US $65 million and that of conventional area was US $35 million annually. This study demonstrated that arable farming provides a range of ES which can be measured using field experiments based on ecological principles by incorporating a ‘bottom-up’ approach. The work also showed that conventional New Zealand arable farming practices can severely reduce the financial contribution of some of these services in agriculture whereas organic agricultural practices enhance their economic value.     

The Empirics of Wetland Valuation: A Comprehensive Summary and a Meta-Analysis of the Literature

Wetlands are highly productive ecosystems, providing a number of goods and services that are of value to people. The open-access nature and the public-good characteristics of wetlands often result in these regions being undervalued in decisions relating to their use and conservation. There is now a substantial literature on wetland valuation, including two meta-analyses that examine subsets of the available wetland valuation literature. We collected over 190 wetland valuation studies, providing 215 value observations, in order to present a more comprehensive meta-analysis of the valuation literature that includes tropical wetlands (e.g., mangroves), estimates from diverse valuation methodologies, and a broader range of wetland services (e.g., biodiversity value). We also aim for a more comprehensive geographical coverage. We find that socio-economic variables, such as income and population density, that are often omitted from such analyses are important in explaining wetland value. We also assess the prospects for using this analysis for out-of-sample value transfer, and find average transfer errors of 74%, with just under one-fifth of the transfers showing errors of 10% or less. † This paper has not been submitted elsewhere in identical or similar form, nor will it be during the first three months after its submission to the Publisher.     

The earnings effects of health and health-related activities: a panel data approach

We investigate the effects of health and health-related habits on earnings in China using panel data to control for unobserved heterogeneity related to individual traits and job characteristics. Health-related habits include smoking cigarettes, drinking tea, frequency of drinking alcohol and physical exercising. We find a significant and large impact of health status on earnings, controlling for schooling, experience and the unobserved individual heterogeneity and job heterogeneity. We also find that smoking has a strong negative effect on earnings net of health status, while the estimated effects of other health-related activities are statistically insignificant.     

社会网络层次与农民工工资水平——基于身份定位模型的分析

本文在身份定位模型框架下研究社会网络层次对农民工工资水平的影响。基于2009年北京市农民工调查数据的计量结果,支持了高层次社会网络影响归属该网络的农民工、使得后者工资水平提高的假设;支持了高层次社会网络除了帮助农民工找工作之外,也可以在就业后通过影响行为模式和生产率来提高工资水平的假设。本文用倾向得分匹配的平均处置效应处理可能的内生性偏误,结论通过了较为严格的稳健性检验。政府鼓励农民工构建基于城市就业和生活的新型社会关系以及高质量的社会网络,不仅可能提高农民工的劳动生产率和相应的工资水平,而且可能提高整个国家人力资本投资的回报水平和劳动生产率水平。     

The incidence of import liberalization with and without a value added tax: an application to bangladesh

This paper examines the impact of import tariffs and tariff-replacing indirect taxes on the welfare of households grouped by the size distribution of income. A computable general equilibrium model for Bangladesh is simulated to examine the removal of quantitative restrictions and tariffs as well as the replacement of trade taxes with a value added tax (VAT). Import liberalization alone expands the manufacturing sector and increases the welfare of lower income households. If a uniform VAT is placed on both imports and all non-agricultural production in order to replace the lost tariff revenue for the government, some of the gains from import liberalization are diminished. If exports are exempted from the VAT, the gains are sustained to a greater degree. With a combination of tariff liberalization, quota markups, and the VAT, the economy goes through a contraction and the welfare of all households is reduced.     

The Dynamics of a Racialized,Gendered, Ethnicized,and Economically Stratified Society: Understanding the Socio-Economic Status of Women in Zimbabwe

Feminist literature attempting to understand the status of women in Zimbabwe has seldom considered patterns of social exclusion and the dynamics of a racialized society that institutionalized racial supremacy as an ideology for organizing social life. Even now, too often we believe, feminist theorists analyze the status of women with the assumption that patriarchy is the single source of the oppression of women. Using the notion of a racialized society we account for the workings of gender oppression within the historical context of Zimbabwe. We show how in a racialized society, gender, race, ethnicity, and class operate intricately together to relegate African women to the lowest socio-economic status. Even with policies to redress earlier imbalances, women endure all forms of injustices. We focus on the informal sector as illustrative of one sector where these injustices continue.     

The origins and evolution of democracy: an exercise in history from a constitutional economics approach

In this article the conditions for the rise and fall of representative regimes are explored. High citizen mobility and unexploited opportunities for investment create the need of reassuring factor owners against the tax hunger of the State. This may lead to the emergence of representative institutions of government, a process that reverts when those conditions disappear. Factors that facilitate or restrain the mobility of citizenry are identified, mainly in the domain of military technology. Thus, a number of interrelations between production and war technologies, political development and economic performance are revealed, giving rise to an interpretation of historical evolution.

The determinants of cognitive and non-cognitive educational outcomes: empirical evidence in Spain using a Bayesian approach

This article aims to extend the literature about the role played by socio-economic and family background in educational outcomes by comparing the determinants of two different dimensions of educational output: academic achievement and non-cognitive traits. To do this, we explore the information provided by a self-report survey developed specifically for the purpose of this research. This will provide us with an innovative measure of non-cognitive performance based on particular personal traits, such as responsibility, effort, motivation and critical capacity, as well as a common measure of cognitive proficiency. We use a Bayesian approach to estimate the potential influence of multiple individual and family variables on both dimensions of educational output. From our results, we find that, despite some similarities, there are several important divergences with regard to some socio-economic variables that have been traditionally considered to be the most influential determinants of academic achievement which do not appear to have a significant impact on non-cognitive outcomes.     

The time-frequency dependence of unemployment on real input prices: a wavelet coherency and partial coherency approach

ABSTRACT

While the dependence of unemployment on real oil price and real interest rate is an important issue that has been addressed only in the time dimension, little is known about the movements of real input prices and their impact on unemployment in the time-frequency space. With a continuous wavelet coherency and partial coherency approach and monthly data of Japan and US from January 1960 to May 2017, this paper contributes to the literature by examining the characteristics of the dependence of unemployment on real input prices across frequencies and over time. The empirical results indicate that: First, a rise in real oil price leads to productivity growth slowdown and unemployment increase at the scale of 16–64 months after 1990 for Japan and 8–24 months after 2005 for US. Second, an increase in real interest rate results in higher unemployment at the 16–32-month scale before 1974 for Japan and 8–64-month scale before 2000 for US. Third, the degree of integration between labour market and energy market in US is higher than that in Japan. This study provides time-frequency evidence to the supply side hypothesis about the relationships between input prices and unemployment.