The relationship between development, investments, insecurity and social conditions in Colombia: a dynamic approach

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between economic development, investments, savings, insecurity and social conditions in Colombian departments. Using a dynamic heterogeneous panel analysis, we study the effects of insecurity and social conditions on economic development through an estimation of panel data cointegration techniques. The models applied in this study suggest a long-term relationship among economic development, investments, savings, social conditions and insecurity. Investments, savings and human development index have a positive and significant coefficient, which indicates that these variables produce incentives for economic development, whereas GINI and homicides have a negative relationship, demonstrating that these variables undermine economic development. All findings are important in the design of strategies and policies that strengthen income distribution equality, a key factor that determines growth and development through adequate government expenditures that encourage savings and investment decisions with the aim to improve welfare and the standard of living.     

Gender Differences in Recruitment Outcomes

The paper tests the hypothesis that female applicants have a lower probability of being hired from a pool of applicants than their male counterparts. The results indicate that male and female candidates have about the same probability of being hired independently of the type of vacancy. The probability of hiring a candidate of a certain sex is therefore determined by the gender composition of the pool of applicants who have selected themselves on the basis of job characteristics, hiring standards and the type of sector. This indicates that male and female job-seekers select themselves in such a way that they have equal probabilities of being accepted.     

Regulating an externality-generating public utility: A multi-dimensional screening approach

In this paper, I present a monopoly screening model in which a firm holds private information on fixed abatement costs. Because of the nature of the optimal contracts, bunching is never optimal even with ‘n’ distinct types. A characterization of full and limited information solutions is offered and it is shown that the design standards alone determine the value of an information rent. The variable charge is completely free of any marginal information costs. This allows the variable charge to track marginal damages and thereby ensures that marginal social costs are covered. A fixed charge implements the optimal solution.     

Input versus output taxation in an experimental international economy

This paper presents the results of a policy oriented macroeconomic experiment involving an ‘international’ economy with a relatively small ‘home’ country and a large ‘foreign’ country. It compares the economic performance of two alternative tax systems: a wage tax system and a sales-tax-cum-labor-subsidy system. The two systems are applied to the small country, while the wage tax system always obtains in the large country. The main result is that the sales tax system outperforms the wage tax system, using standard economic indicators. Moreover, it turns out that under the sales tax system economic activities appear to be moving toward the ‘better’ of two theoretical equilibria. It is argued that producers’ reluctance to incur costs up-front while being uncertain about product prices can explain these results. Several pieces of evidence are provided to support this claim. The results strongly suggest that behavioral aspects should be taken into account also in applied macroeconomic models.     

Strictness of leniency programs and asymmetric punishment effect

We analyze the impact of leniency programs on the behavior of firms participating in illegal cartel agreements in a two-stage repeated game model. Our approach takes into account asymmetric punishment effect and allows to discuss the design of leniency programs in the setting with asymmetries. The main contribution of the paper is that we consider heterogeneous firms. This heterogeneity results in additional costs in case of disclosure of the cartel, which are caused by asymmetric punishments. Next, following current antitrust rules, we analyze effects of the strictness of leniency programs, which reflects the likelihood of getting a complete exemption from fine even in case many firms self-report simultaneously. Our main conclusion is that leniency programs work better for small companies, since a lower rate of law enforcement is needed in order to induce self-reporting by smaller firms, while big firms are less likely to start a cartel in the first place given the possibility of self-reporting in future. Finally, we analyze optimal enforcement strategies of the antitrust authority and conclude that the authority with limited resources should implement more generous leniency rules the more cartelized the economy is.     

Looking Ahead—Future Issues when Reflecting on the Place of the iConsumer in Consumer Law and Copyright Law

The following is a brief report of the discussion and main comments that were made during a workshop ‘The place of the iConsumer in EU and US law—protecting consumers of copyright protected content’, held in Amsterdam on 14 and 15 of December 2007. The workshop was part of a series of joint events organised by the Berkeley Centre for Law and Technology, University of California (BCLT) and the Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam on copyright and a follow-up to the conference on ‘Copyright, digital rights management technology and consumer protection’ that was held at the UC Berkeley in March 2007. The main goal of the workshop was to confront a consumer law approach with the more commonly discussed approach of internalising user-related questions directly into copyright law. To this end, a selected group of European and US experts in both fields, copyright law and consumer law, were invited. The participants were then asked to share their thoughts and views from the different fields of law with regard to a number of main statements given by the organisers. The transatlantic perspective further added to the discussion. The main purpose of this report is to point to a number of issues that, according to the workshop participants, should be taken into account in future discussions concerning the legal position of the iConsumer. This report summarises the discussion along the three statements that the organisers asked participants to consider. The report gives some background information for each of the statements, to then describe the main arguments made during the workshop, to the extent that this discussion has not already been internalised in the papers that are part of this special JCP issue.

Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Non-Tradable Income: An Experimental Analysis

Abstract. This paper reports the results of an experiment on portfolio choice in the presence of non-tradable income. The non-tradable income part could either be riskless or risky (background risk). In many cases, we observe behavior that is qualitatively consistent with the predictions of normative theory. However, correlations between financial and non-tradable wealth are neglected. The computation of aggregated risk profiles helps subjects to partly overcome the deviations from normative theory due to neglect of correlations.