Quantity,quality and the welfare effects of US airline deregulation

In this paper we employ a method for estimationg quality-adjusted demand to calculate measures of the change in consumer suruplus due to US airline deregulation. The quality-adjusted estimates of the price elasticity of demand indicate that consumers are from 25% to 50% more sensitive to changes in air fares than unadjusted estimates would suggest. Changes in unadjusted consumer surplus overstate the net welfare gains from deregulation by roughly a factor of two, strongly suggesting that adjustments for quallity of service are essential to welfare analysis of regulatory changes in this industry     

Conflicted financial advice: disclosure revisited

We examine the impact of disclosing an advisor’s conflict of interest in providing financial advice to a client in an experiment. We find that an advisor’s conflict of interest harms the client and that disclosing the conflict harms the advisor. Unlike earlier literature, we do not find that disclosure of the advisor’s conflict of interest results in moral licensing or strategic exaggeration behaviour by the advisor nor, relatedly, that disclosure disadvantages the client.     

TESTING POVERTY LINES

In theory, a poverty line can be defined as the cost of a common (inter‐personally comparable) utility level across a population. But how can one know if this holds in practice? For groups sharing common consumption needs but facing different prices, the theory of revealed preference can be used to derive testable implications of utility consistency knowing only the “poverty bundles” and their prices. Heterogeneity in needs calls for extra information. We argue that subjective welfare data offer a credible means of testing utility consistency across different needs groups. A case study of Russia's official poverty lines shows how revealed preference tests can be used in conjunction with qualitative information on needs heterogeneity. The results lead us to question the utility consistency of Russia's official poverty lines.     

Democratization and Real Exchange Rates,

In this article, we combine two so far separate strands of the economic literature and argue that democratization leads to a real exchange rate appreciation. We test this hypothesis empirically for a sample of countries observed from 1980 to 2007 by combining a difference‐in‐difference approach with propensity score matching estimators. Our empirical results reveal a strong and significant finding: democratization causes real exchange rates to appreciate. Consequently, the ongoing process of democratization observed in many parts of the world is likely to reduce exchange rate distortions.     

Uncertainty and sustainability in the management of rangelands

We analyze a dynamic and stochastic ecological-economic model of grazing management in semi-arid rangelands. The ecosystem is driven by stochastic precipitation. A risk averse farmer chooses a grazing management strategy under uncertainty such as to maximize expected utility from farming income. Grazing management strategies are rules about which share of the rangeland is given rest depending on the actual rainfall in that year. In a first step we determine a myopic farmer's optimal grazing management strategy and show that a risk averse farmer chooses a strategy such as to obtain insurance from the ecosystem: the optimal strategy reduces income variability, but yields less mean income than possible. In a second step we analyze the long-run ecological and economic impact of different strategies. We conclude that a myopic farmer, if he is sufficiently risk averse, will choose a sustainable grazing management strategy, even if he does not take into account long-term ecological and economic benefits of conservative strategies.     

Economic globalization and the change of electoral rules

This paper takes up an argument from Ronald Rogowski about the “natural affinity” between trade and an electoral system with proportional representation. We draw on literature on the historical determinants of electoral system choice to advance the general argument that trade integration and PR are related because the adoption of PR helps to secure gains from trade. Our specific model of electoral rule changes in the age of globalization predicts that the likelihood of electoral rule change towards more proportionality increases with levels of trade integration in the world economy. The theoretical model draws on a micro model of the distributive effects of increased economic integration. Because more proportional systems are more credibly able to commit to compensate the losers of globalization processes, there will be increased demand to change the electoral system towards more proportionality under economic circumstances that increase the costs of maintaining a closed economy. In accordance with our model, our empirical tests find a positive association between (a) trade integration and the proportionality of the electoral system, (b) proportionality and social spending, and (c) global integration levels and the probability of electoral rules changes that render voting rules more proportional.     

Dynamic and asymmetric impacts of macroeconomic fundamentals on an integrated stock market

A large body of evidence indicates that macroeconomic and financial variables are dynamically interrelated. In an international setup, we analyze the transmission mechanisms of macroeconomic shocks on the stock market of a small open economy in an increasingly integrated world. We use a time-varying vector error correction model (VECM) that allows analysis of asymmetric impacts that depend on the state of the business cycle. A special focus is directed on monetary policy surprises, where we find that foreign shocks exert a strong influence on an integrated stock market, and that the stage of the business cycle heavily affects the signals of the shocks.     

Willingness to Pay for Forest Property Rights and the Value of Increased Property Rights Security

This paper studies the willingness to pay (WTP) for forest property rights in Viet Nam. We do so by asking respondents to estimate the value of two different forest property rights regimes where only the level of property security differs and all other forest plot characteristics are constant. We use this information to identify the value of the property rights security. Our results reveal that a significant number of individuals are willing to pay for an additional area of forestland but that the amount offered appears to be inadequate to compensate sellers, as very few land market transactions actually take place. The results further indicate that income relates positively to WTP, irrespective of forest property regime. Wealth, age, and ethnicity also have an impact on the amount households are willing to pay. As expected, there was a significant mark-up on the more secure right. Econometric estimates of the difference between the WTP for secure and insecure property rights show that a higher level of female education, and household age decrease the difference between the two WTP measures while the difference tends to increase as income improves. This has important policy implications, as it indicates that households tend to evaluate the property rights institutions differently.     

Historic Preservation: Preserving Value?

The creation of historic districts has become a common way to preserve historic buildings and neighborhoods. Advocates of historic districts assume that such districts augment, or at least, protect property values for homes within these districts. The existing economic literature supports this conclusion, but most studies seem to fall victim to an endogeneity bias since higher value homes are, all else equal, more likely to be included in districts. This study uses repeat-sales fixed effects (difference-in-differences) analysis to look at homes before and after the creation of districts in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy MSA between 2000 and 2007, and thus control for this endogeneity bias. Secondarily, we re-examine the effects of a Massachusetts preservation policy, the Community Preservation Act (CPA) which, in part, supports historic preservation. We find evidence that the creation of a local historic district, on average, reduces home prices for homes in that district between 11.6 and 15.5%. This indicates that any restrictions implied by the creation of a district outweigh any benefits to homeowners within the district. If, instead, census block fixed effects are employed, the analysis shows a statistically insignificant impact, the sign and magnitude of which depends on the specification. Taken together with the repeat sales result, this confirms our intuition about the importance of controlling for omitted variables and endogeneity biases. Finally, we find evidence that the CPA also lowers property values, by less than 1%, and that being in a Historic District magnifies the negative effect of the CPA.