Open Entry and Local Telephone Rates: The Economics of IntraLATA Toll Competition

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 removes state-level legal and regulatory barriers to entry that previously have proscribed facilities-based interchange carriers from entering intraLATA toll markets. Traditionally, these markets have provided excess profits that local exchange companies ostensibly have used to subsidize local telephone rates. Elimination of these entry barriers, then, raises concern that the resulting intensification of competition will force unwanted local residential rate increases. In this paper, we critically examine the local-rate-increase question both theoretically and empirically. Our analysis finds no evidence that intraLATA toll competition will adversely affect local rates.     

Firm heterogeneity and aggregate business services exports: Micro evidence from Belgium,France, Germany and Spain

This paper uses detailed micro data on services exports at the firm–destination–service level to analyse the role of firm heterogeneity in shaping aggregate services exports in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain from 2003 to 2007. We decompose the level and the growth of aggregate services exports into different trade margins paying special attention to firm heterogeneity within countries. We find that the weak export growth of France is at least partly due to poor performance by small exporters. By contrast, small exporters are the most dynamic contributors to the aggregate exports of Belgium, Germany and Spain. Our results highlight the importance of firm heterogeneity in understanding aggregate export growth.     

Aggregation of binary evaluations

We study a general aggregation problem in which a society has to determine its position (yes/no) on each of several issues, based on the positions of the members of the society on those issues. There is a prescribed set of feasible evaluations, i.e., permissible combinations of positions on the issues. This framework for the theory of aggregation was introduced by Wilson and further developed by Rubinstein and Fishburn. Among other things, it admits the modeling of preference aggregation (where the issues are pairwise comparisons and feasibility reflects rationality), and of judgment aggregation (where the issues are propositions and feasibility reflects logical consistency). We characterize those sets of feasible evaluations for which the natural analogue of Arrow's impossibility theorem holds true in this framework.     

A PORTFOLIO OF THREATS TO AMERICAN AGRICULTURE

This article outlines some of the biggest economic issues threatening the long-term survival of American farming and ranching. In general, the threats are derived from the intersection of global and local scales of decision making. International economic development, personal finance decisions, and political, social, and environmental issues are all part of the portfolio of threats. At the top of the list of threats is the bottom line. Profit margins are being squeezed, causing producers to diversify out of agriculture to earn sufficient returns to enable them to remain in agriculture as long as possible. American policy is expected to allow agriculture to continue shrinking because (1) the sector is losing its comparative advantage, and (2) it may become a deadweight loss to the economy.     

Xinjiang and China's security1

Central Asia occupies a growing role in Chinese security policy. However, an examination of China's Central Asian policies reveals that they are essentially external projections of Beijing's vital interest of internal security in neighboring Xinjiang. Accordingly, this paper examines Xinjiang's importance for China's overall security policies. Through this examination, it becomes clear that the Xinjiang problem very much resembles that of other discontented provinces within a multinational state with a continuing imperial vocation. China's problems in Xinjiang will continue, and have important repercussions for its domestic and foreign policies, and for other key issues like Taiwan.     

Impostors in the Temple,by Martin Anderson

The Teaching Innovations Program (TIP) was a six-year project funded by the National Science Foundation that gave economics instructors the opportunity to learn interactive teaching strategies for use in undergraduate economics courses. TIP participants first attended a teaching workshop that presented various teaching strategies. They then could enroll in a follow-up program of online instruction and mentoring to learn more about one or two teaching strategies. TIP participants also had the opportunity to engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning economics to share their work. A retrospective survey was administered to the participants after attending the program to obtain a longitudinal assessment of TIP. This article presents the overall survey findings and discusses the results from each TIP phase (workshop, online instruction, and scholarship).