The industrialization of space: Prospects and barriers

In the USA, and also in some Western European countries, there is noticeable business and government confidence in a larger, more productive role for private invetment in space applications. The industrialization of space is now a serious possibility. This paper examines the role of private interests in this field, explores how government can stimulate or assist private space ventures particularly through removing barriers to investment and offering incentives, and discussess the pros and cons of possible policy initiatives.     

Another Stick to Beat Teachers?

Dr Ray Robinson, of the University of Sussex, considers that the education voucher may be useful in, improving aspects of efficiency in the supply of education, but holds the proposals for its introduction to be untimely: the voucher has been presented as a measure to penalise bad teachers rather than as a stimulus to the good.     

Measuring the costs of children: an alternative approach

Problems related to the concept of the "cost of a child", more commonly known as the general equivalence scale, are reviewed. The importance of this concept is noted with regard to both theoretical and empirical studies relating to taxation, poverty, income distribution, dietary needs, income maintenance programs, supplementary and child benefits, and other social security payments. "This paper proposes a new methodology for calculating the scale using a framework which is consistent with utility theory and which overcomes the identification problem without having to enforce the arbitrary prior assumptions of recent studies. The proposed method allows easy calculation of not only the basic 'scale' parameter but also how it varies with price and reference utility. [The author illustrates] the usefulness of the procedure by estimating on U.K. budget data at two different levels of aggregation and employing two sets of quite different functional forms. The results are plausible, compare favourably with one another and, hence, confirm the robustness and usefulness of the proposed procedure."     

Uniform tariffs in general equilibrium —A simple model

In a production structure exhibiting both Heckscher-Ohlin and specific-factor features, uniform tariffs may fail to protect many import-competing sectors. Hence, for some minimum degree of protection, the feasible tariff structure tends to be asymmetric.I am indebted to two referees of this Journal for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Shadow profit maximization and a measure of overall inefficiency

Determining the profit maximizing input–output bundle of a firm requires data on prices. This paper shows how endogenously determined shadow prices can be used in place of actual prices to obtain the optimal input–output bundle where the firm’s shadow profit is maximized. This approach amounts to an application of the Weak Axiom of Profit Maximization (WAPM) formulated by Varian [(1984) The Non-parametric approach to production analysis. Econometrica 52:3 (May) 579–597] based on shadow prices rather than actual prices. At these shadow prices, the shadow profit of a firm is zero. The maximum shadow profit that could have been attained at some other input–output bundle is shown to be a measure of the inefficiency of the firm. Because the benchmark input–output bundle is always an observed bundle from the data, it can be determined without having to solve any elaborate programming problem.

Redefining the Human Development Index to Account for Sustainability

Earlier measures of growth like Gross Domestic Product per capita, or even more recent measures like the Human Development Index (HDI), failed to consider the ‘environmental’ aspect of development. Currently, countries that have accepted the sustainability challenge are finding ways to determine if they are making progress in a sustainable way by addressing the environmental aspect of development. This paper attempts to improve the HDI by adding an ‘ecological footprint to total bio-capacity ratio’ as an indicator of environmental resource use. This new index, the Environmentally Stressed Human Development Index (ESHDI) while trying to account for sustainable development, dramatically alters the original HDI rankings of countries. Some ‘high’ and ‘medium’ income countries are enduring excessive environmental stress to sustain economic development.     

R&D organization and technology transfer

In this paper we consider a Cournot duopoly model to examine the effects of licensing on R&D organization. When firms do cooperative R&D to share the cost of R&D, possibility of licensing can influence the decision on R&D organization. But, if the firms do cooperative R&D to avoid duplication in R&D process, possibility of licensing may influence the decision on R&D organization, provided one firm behaves like a Stackelberg leader in the product market.