Coasean bargaining with symmetric delay costs

Delay costs play a role in Coasean bargaining over environmental conflicts when an injunction restricts actions until a settlement is reached. Results from the lab suggest that efficiency remained relatively robust to discrete and increasing marginal delay costs, but declined significantly with nonincreasing marginal delay costs. Bargainers appear to deal with probability and consequences separately rather than in combination as maintained by expected utility theory, and as such, neglect ends over means. How the distribution of wealth is best organized depends on perspective: constrained self-interest best organizes behavior if expected utility is maintained; pure self-interest dominates if we acknowledge the probability–consequence heuristic.     

Effectiveness of Indecent Language in Advertising on Young Adult Consumer Attitudes and Purchase Intent

This study applies both the Dual Mediation Hypothesis and Schema Congruity Theory to examine the effectiveness of mild controversial advertising executions on young adult consumer cognitions, affect, and behavior. Findings from this study suggest that advertisements featuring mild indecent language result in more positive advertisement attitudes, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions than when decent language is used. Young adult consumers also report more positive advertisement and brand attitudes, and a greater likelihood of purchase when they perceive the advertisement to be congruent with their existing schema, regardless of whether the execution is mildly controversial or noncontroversial in nature. The findings of this study are important to advertisers in the development of effective creative execution techniques.     

The Climate Policy of the European Union

There is now almost universal agreement that climate change, with potentially disastrous consequences, is happening and that it is contributed to by human activities. This Forum is dedicated to the discussion of various aspects of the European Union's climate policy, e.g. the EU's future role in the global effort to combat global warming, the efficiency of its climate strategy, the design of a new rule for sharing the corresponding burdens fairly among member states, and the interrelationships between the Union's climate policies, on the one hand, and its energy and transport policies, on the other. * and member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). The author wishes to thank Helen Bicknell (Mainz University of Applied Sciences), Oliver Deke (WBGU) and Jürgen Schmid (ISET, Department of Efficient Energy Conversion at the University of Kassel) for their helpful comments. ** This contribution is based on a Jean Monnet Lecture held at Aarhus University on 19 March 2007. The author would like to thank Harri Kalimo for valuable comments.     

The Silent Samaritan Syndrome: Why the Whistle Remains Unblown

Whistle blowing programs have been central to numerous government, legislative, and regulatory reform efforts in recent years. To protect investors, corporate boards have instituted numerous measures to promote whistle blowing. Despite significant whistle blowing incentives, few individuals blow the whistle when presented with the opportunity. Instead, individuals often remain fallaciously silent and, in essence, become passive fraudsters themselves. Using the fraud triangle and models of moral behavior, we model and analyze fallacious silence and identify factors that may motivate an individual to rationalize fallacious silence. We use a survey of graduate accounting students to test hypothesized factors that contribute to fallacious silence rationalizations in an academic setting. We find evidence that the ability to rationalize fallacious silence is related to community influences and personal traits such as awareness and moral competence.     

Why Did (Almost) No One See the Inflation Coming?

To understand the possible trajectory of inflation in 2022 and beyond, it is helpful to understand why the United States and Europe had so much inflation in 2021.

     

An annual index of Irish industrial production, 1800–1913

We assemble the Irish industrial data currently available for the years 1800–1921, the period during which the entire island was in a political union with Great Britain, and construct an annual index of Irish industrial output for 1800–1913. We also construct a new industrial price index. Irish industrial output grew by an average of 1.3 per cent per annum between 1800 and the outbreak of the First World War. Industrial growth was slightly slower than previously thought, especially during the two decades immediately preceding the Great Famine. While Ireland did not experience absolute deindustrialisation either before the Famine or afterwards, its industrial growth was disappointing when considered in a comparative perspective.     

An experimental approach to valuing new differentiated products

An experimental store was created to evaluate initial demand for locally produced and guaranteed tender steak products as a more realistic alternative to contingent valuation (CV) and dichotomous-choice experimental methods. Strengths of the approach are incentive compatibility, a realistic consumption set, and a familiar choice environment. Consumers selected among USDA Choice, premium quality, lean, guaranteed tender and locaily produced strip steaks. A double-hurdle count data model indicated initial willingness-to-pay (WTP) for locally produced steak comparable to prior CV results, but demand was highly elastic. Demand for premium quality steak crowded out demand for the guaranteed tender product, contrasting with prior dichotomous-choice experimental results.     

Telecommunications in the land of the Thunder Dragon: recent developments in Bhutan

This paper charts the development of telecommunications in Bhutan. Since the introduction of telecommunications services in 1963 Bhutan has faced many challenges as it has sought to roll out a network that covers the whole population and country. A small population, a mountainous geography, a transitional economy and a unique approach to development—Gross National Happiness—present many challenges that need to be overcome if the telecommunications industry is to develop further. Added to this is the decision of Bhutan to join the outside world through membership of the ITU, APT and WTO that has added liberalisation and privatisation to the challenges faced by Bhutan. This paper identifies two broad policy options that Bhutan could adopt—network expansion nationally or investment concentration towards urban areas. The authors conclude that due to the limited resources available to Bhutan these policies are contradictory and will take the telecommunications industry in quite different directions if adopted.     

THE EVOLUTION OF COMPETITIVENESS IN HUNGARIAN AGRICULTURE: FROM TRANSITION TO ACCESSION

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -