Denmark’s Agricultural Institutions: An Instrumental Evaluation

This paper begins with a tax and a specially organized commission proposed by John R. Commons. Commons made his proposal because high tariffs were not benefiting workers. The paper contends that his proposal also applies to a current problem - the failure of trade agreements to improve working conditions. The paper bases its argument on data, standard economic reasoning, and Commons’ approach in “constructive research” to wage transactions, public purpose, limiting factors, and power imbalances.

The paper argues that Commons’ proposal could improve the evolution of American labor law and that it could ameliorate power imbalances created by laws that give corporations and trade associations a bargaining advantage over nations and organizations such as the International Labor Organization (ILO). It concludes that economic discourse could benefit from consideration of the belief behind Commons’ proposal - that costs of production passed on to consumers should include the cost of good working conditions.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME AND WEALTH IN JAPAN

This paper reviews research on the distribution of income and wealth in Japan, identifies sources of data on income and wealth, and describes limitations of these data. Evidence that Japan's poorest income groups are relatively well-off is convincing, but there is less evidence that the overall distribution of income in Japan is more equal than in other OECD countries. Agricultural policy, social welfare policy, the tax system, trends in earnings differentials, and the role of the Japanese family are among the many factors that have shaped Japan's income distribution. The rapid appreciation of the stock market and land prices during the late 1980s led to greater inequality in the distribution of wealth. Rapid population aging is expected to lead to an increase in total national wealth relative to national income which may have an adverse impact on the distribution of income.     

THE NONPROFIT SECTOR OF THE U.S. ECONOMY: A METHODOLOGICAL STATEMENT

United States input-output accounts identify and measure the interrelationships between the various industries in the United States economy. However, these accounts do not identify nonprofit activities from their for-profit counterparts in the service-producing sector. This paper, prepared by Gabriel Rudney and Paula Young, presents the methodology and summary data produced by disaggregating the service-producing industries to identify separately nonprofit activities.
The input-output accounts for 1977 produced in this study include 107 industries, but in this paper the results are summarized into 14 industries showing only nonprofit and for-profit components. The GNP and total outputs in this study are consistent with the revised input-output accounts for 1977 prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis.     

Are batteries ready for plug-in hybrid buyers?

The notion persists that battery technology and cost remain as barriers to commercialization of electric-drive passenger vehicles. Within the context of starting a market for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), we explore two aspects of the purported problem: (1) PHEV performance goals and (2) the abilities of present and near-term battery chemistries to meet the resulting technological requirements. We summarize evidence stating that battery technologies do not meet the requirements that flow from three sets of influential PHEV goals due to inherent trade-offs among power, energy, longevity, cost, and safety. However, we also show that part of this battery problem is that those influential goals are overly ambitious compared to goals derived from consumers’ PHEV designs. We elicited PHEV designs from potential early buyers among U.S. new car buyers; most of those who are interested in a PHEV are interested in less technologically advanced PHEVs than assumed by experts. Using respondents’ PHEV designs, we derive peak power density and energy density requirements and show that current battery chemistries can meet them. By assuming too aggressive PHEV goals, existing policy initiatives, battery research, and vehicle development programs mischaracterize the batteries needed to start commercializing PHEVs. To answer the question whether batteries are ready for PHEVs, we must first answer the question, “whose PHEVs?”     

Airport regulation: Does a mature industry have mature regulation?

Air transport needs to be considered as a number of separate industries. Each is at their own point of maturity. Airports in Europe are soon to be regulated as never before by the European Airport Charges Directive. The process that saw that Directive be agreed is instructive on the maturity of the airport industry and the maturity of the regulatory regime that governs it. The new Directive shows that regulation of the airport industry is maturing.     

Is there a case for replacing parking charges by road user charges?

The price of parking is often considered an important tool with which to influence transport choice but, since many local authorities have limited control over off-street charges and since parking charges have no direct impact on through traffic, its influence on overall travel demand may be limited. Road user charges, on the other hand, do appear to offer an effective means of influencing overall demand. The problem is that public acceptance of such charges is low unless some obvious “carrot” can be identified. This paper explores the possibility that the removal of parking charges might be that “carrot”. Our analysis suggests that, although the removal of parking charges would reduce revenues and dilute the reduction in demand caused by the introduction of road charges, the combined effect might, in certain circumstances, be more beneficial to the local economy and might still yield a net increase in revenue. Given the incidence of impacts, it also appears that a combined scheme would be more equitable and might stand a greater chance of achieving public acceptance than a more conventional road charging scheme. The paper identifies the circumstances in which a combined scheme might work well and outlines the detailed analysis that would be necessary to confirm this.