Managing a scarce resource in a growing Asian economy: Water usage in Hong Kong

An econometric analysis of Hong Kong's monthly per capita water usage for the 25-year period of April 1985 through March 2010 reveals that per capita usage is insensitive to price but dependent upon past usage, per capita income, weather, and seasonal factors, with rising income countering what would otherwise be a downward trend. Given Hong Kong's current inflationary environment and large government budget surplus, these findings affirm the Hong Kong Water Supplies Department's adopted strategy of total water management towards sustainable use of water resources, in lieu of either periodic service interruption or price increases as policy instruments.     

Income Distribution in the Third World: Its Estimation Via Proxy Data

A bstract . A two-Stage least squares estimate of the distribution of income in the Third World is derived in this paper using the per capita ownership of cars, infant mortality rates, and the average daily caloric requirement along with the per capita Gross Domestic Product. Previous work by Kitznets 1955 had established a relationship between the distribution of income and GDP/CAP, but with the inclusion of the three additional "proxy" variables, the distribution of income is estimated with a great deal more precision. For example, the R-squared for the estimate of the share of income earned by the poorest 20% of households increases from 0.30 to 0.68 by incorporating the proxy variables.
Using the parameters estimated via two-stage least squares on a set of 23 countries for which the distribution of income Is known, the paper then estimates the distribution of income for a set of 43 countries for which this data is unknown. The results indicate that countries like Singapore and Sri Lanka have relatively even distributions of income for their stage of development, and countries like Brazil, Kenya, Bolivia , and Gautemala have highly skewed distributions of income for their level of GDP/CAP.     

On whether to prosecute suspected price-fixing conspi racies: A hypothesis-testing approach

This paper analyses the antitrust policy decision of whether to sue prosecute a suspected price-fixing cartel. The analysis is conducted in the Bayesian hypothesis-testing mode, using a Cournot market. framework. This approach recognizes that the decisions to instilute an investigation, file suit, or go to trial, are all binary decisions that involve testing a null hypothesis: notably. the hypothesis that the antitrust laws have not been violated versus the alternative hypothesis that they have been violated. Rejecting the null hypothesis is equivalent to electing to proceed along the prosecution path. The paper demonstrates that formalization of the decision-making process can help to enhance our understanding of the factors that underlie the various decisions, and particularly how those factors can influence the decisions, and provides guldellnes for antllrust administration under the current U. S. antitrusl laws.     

Copy watches,tailored clothes,and the structure→conduct→performance paradigm

This paper explores the classic structure → conduct → performance paradigm in the context of the industrial structure of Hong Kong. It is shown that, notwithstanding the absense of a few dominant producers and the on-going restructuring of the manufacturing sector, even in a ‘quasi-developed’ open economy such as that of Hong Kong the paradigm gleans strong empirical support.     

A comparative study of consumer information seeking: Singapore versus U.S.

Consumer information seeking behavior was studied in the U.S. and Singapore. Rank order correlations were used to determine how the two samples differ on the extent respondents sought information from the various sources and how they evaluated usefulness of information from sources. Several interesting similarities and differences were found.     

The Influence of Others on Migration Plans

The willingness to migrate and locational choice may be influenced by others’ choices or plans, particularly if the “other people,” such as family and friends, are migrants, former migrants, or potential migrants themselves. We examine the roles “other people” play in influencing an individual’s potential migration decision. In analyzing the influence of others on migration decisions, we rely on the concepts of migration networks and herd effects.