Peasant communes and factor markets in late nineteenth-century Russia

The peasant land commune was the emblematic institutional feature of agrarian Russian society before the Revolution of 1917. Economic historians have long blamed the commune for restricting household behavior in ways that contributed to Russia's economic “backwardness” by the late 19th century. Drawing on new household-level data collected from archival sources in Moscow province, this article provides the first microeconomic analysis of local factor markets and household behavior within the institutional context of the Russian peasant commune. The empirical evidence indicates that peasant households did have substantial flexibility when it came to allocating their land and labor holdings. In response to mortality shocks or lags in the communal adjustment of land, households engaged in land rentals and off-farm labor market transactions to improve upon suboptimal factor endowments. Although these findings do not imply that the resulting allocation of resources was fully efficient, they do illustrate how peasants made rational factor market transactions in a seemingly inhospitable institutional environment.     

Developing a Learning Community Approach to Business Ethics Education

In this paper we discuss a project, still in progress, that moves away from a traditional lecture based educational pedagogy. We present a team taught approach to ethics teaching that embraces a progressive philosophy of education and is focused on the development of a discussion based learning community. We describe our primary pedagogical tools of case discussion and the development of student expert role assignments as a locus, and how they relate to the learning community, course content and course objectives. Finally, we provide our preliminary review of outcomes and emerging issues.     

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How do trust and property security influence household contributions to public goods?: The case of the sloping land conversion program in China

Trust and property rights are generally considered to influence farmers' behavior regarding resource use and environmental management. Previous studies show that higher trust levels may enhance contributions to public goods. This paper investigates how trust and (land) property rights security influence the provision of one concrete public good: land protection through the Sloping Land Conservation Program in China. The analysis is based on household survey data from Ningxia Autonomous Region in China. From our questionnaire two trust factors are derived and distinguished, using factor analysis: general trust and kinship trust. Farm households are less likely to contribute to public goods when they perceive more secure land rights, but trust has mixed effects on public goods. The results show that general trust and kinship trust may rely on two opposite effects for influencing public goods provision. On the one hand, high levels of general trust may directly enhance people's willingness to provide contributions to public goods (by reduced likelihood to reconvert forest land) when farmers are aware of the positive environmental effects of the program, that's the public goods effect. On the other hand, general trust may also make it more likely that people invest more in their own private goods to pursue their own welfare (a more likely reconversion of forest land to arable land), that's the private goods effect. The final outcome depends on the size and direction of both effects. Compared to general trust, kinship trust is more inward-looking and self- or group-interested compared to more reciprocal general trust. Thus, unlike general trust, kinship trust may have no significant public goods effect on the provisioning of public goods.     

Policy Assignments for Central Bank Activities

This paper contrasts different policy assignments for central bank operations. Two types of asset market transactions (domestic, foreign) and two policy targets (interest rate, exchange rate) are examined within a portfolio-balance model. It is demonstrated that assigning domestic asset transactions to the internal target, and foreign asset transactions to the external target, produces stable policy paths, while the opposite assignment does not. [310]     

Excess Mortality In Asia Associated With Cigarette Smoking

Abstract

Cigarette smoking has reached epidemic proportions in many Asian countries, and epidemiologists predict massive increases in the number of smoking-related deaths in future decades. This information is of great interest to insurers who would like to sell coverage in these markets with smoker/nonsmoker-distinct pricing. This review examines excess mortality due to cigarette smoking in Asia as determined by a second-quarter 1998 Internet search of the world’s English-language medical literature for references published during the preceding five years. Studies to date which observed fairly low relative risks of mortality in smokers compared with nonsmokers in Asia despite a high prevalence of smoking can be explained by the fact that health outcome data represent early experience. Given similar associations between smoking and mortality in Asian and Western studies, it is likely that mortality patterns of smokers in Asia eventually will mirror those seen in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.     

The Target Zone Model, Non-Linearity and Mean Reversion: is the Honeymoon Really Over?

We estimate a target zone model for three ERM exchange rates for 1983–6 and 1987–91 by the method of simulated moments, taking account of the continuous time specification by using daily data with the interruptions of holidays and weekends. Specification tests are unable to reject the model. The estimates imply, however, an essentially linear relationship between the exchange rate and the fundamentals, with a very limited 'honeymoon effect'. Using Monte Carlo simulations, calibrated on the estimates, we find that standard tests for mean reversion of the exchange rate would largely reject the target zone model when, in fact, it held.     

THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL CAPITAL IN PRODUCTION

It is increasingly acknowledged that the financial structure of a firm is an important determinant of its production costs. This paper argues that the use of a firm's liabilities should be seen as a separate input in the production process. At the same time, the input of non-financial assets is limited to the value that is used up during the reference period. The paper elaborates on these ideas and shows their use in empirical work. It is concluded that the approach set out in this paper establishes a much closer relationship of general economic accounting and analysis to business economics.