Weight Perception and Efficiency Loss in Bilateral Trading: The Case of US and EU Agricultural Policies

This study determines the perceived weights of various producer groups by policy makers in selected sectors (wheat, corn, sugar, beef and veal, and milk), for both the US and the EU, from 1980 to 2000, in five-year intervals. Results show that the US’s weights deviate less than the EU’s, compared with the external protections, indicating that the lobbying efforts of interest groups in the US are reflected more closely in external policy design, and are therefore more efficient than those in the EU. Game simulation suggests that it is in the best interest of both blocs to choose the status quo action among various trade liberalization scenarios with the latest calculated weights.     

The Shape of ‘Rising Powers’ to Come? The Antinomies of Growth and Neoliberal Development in Turkey

ABSTRACT

The short-term GDP growth-based economic success of the BRICS has spawned a trend of grouping large emerging market economies under shared monikers. The proliferation of a wide array of labels – from MINTs to VISTAs – within political and financial circles has been accompanied by a growing scholarly interest in the study of these ‘emerging markets’ and future ‘rising powers’. This paper discusses the literature on Turkey’s ‘rising power’ status to problematise the conceptual and analytical parameters that shape these wider debates. Accordingly, I argue that the established parameters are wholly based in, and in turn reproduce, a neoliberal conception of development which prioritises a narrowly construed metric of economic progress based on GDP growth, while simultaneously ignoring the associated socio-economic and environmental costs. The paper interrogates the ways in which select macroeconomic indicators have been deployed to legitimise neoliberal reform in Turkey and utilises this case study to mount a methodological challenge to the relevant IR/IPE literatures that conceptualise ‘emerging markets’ and ‘rising powers’ from growth-oriented perspectives.     

An integrated model of downtown parking and traffic congestion

This paper is the first to look at cruising for parking from an economic perspective. We present a downtown parking model that integrates traffic congestion and saturated on-street parking; the stock of cars cruising for parking adds to traffic congestion. Two major results emerge from the model, one of which is robust. The robust one is that, whether or not the amount of on-street parking is optimal, it is efficient to raise the on-street parking fee to the point where cruising for parking is eliminated without parking becoming unsaturated. The other is that, if the parking fee is fixed at a sub-optimal level, it is second-best optimal to increase the amount of curbside allocated to parking until cruising for parking is eliminated without parking becoming unsaturated     

Pollution without subsidy? What is the environmental performance index overlooking?

Agriculture is heavily subsidized in most Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and environmental externalities can occur due to pollution caused by protectionist policies. This study examines the structure of agricultural protection in OECD countries from a chronological and comparative perspective. In addition, the policy-environment interaction is scrutinized to better explain the environmental implications of agricultural policies in the era of globalization. This paper critically evaluates the environmental performance index and recommends that this index includes polluting inputs in future calculations.     

Rising markups and optimal redistributive taxation

International Tax and Public Finance - This study explores the implications of rising markups for optimal Mirrleesian income and profit taxation. Using a stylized model with two individuals, the...     

Search less for a better price

In many markets, sellers must spend resources to learn the costs of providing goods/services. This paper considers consumer searches in such markets. The findings show that: (i) even with ex ante identical consumers and sellers, there is price dispersion in the equilibrium, (ii) despite price dispersion and minimal search costs, it could be optimal to search just two sellers and (iii) the optimal number of searches can increase with sellers' information costs.