An extension of Mohring's model for land rent distribution

In an early paper Herbert Mohring (J. Pol. Econ., 49 (1961)) presented a model for land rent distribution yielding the well-known result that the price of land must fall with the distance from the city center to offset transportation costs. Our paper is an extension of Mohring's model in which we relax some of his drastic simplifying assumptions. This extended model has been incorporated in a method for economic evaluation of city master plans which has been applied to a Swedish city. In this method the interdependence among housing, heating, and transportation, the durability of urban structures, and the uncertainty of future demand are explicitly considered within a cost-benefit approach. Some empirical results from this pilot study concerning land rent distributions are also presented here.     

Attitudes towards immigration—Perceived consequences and economic self-interest

Using the European Social Survey 2002/3, we develop a new test of whether economic self-interest influences people's attitudes towards immigration, exploiting that people have widely different perceptions of the consequences of immigration.     

Efficient self-rationing of electricity revisited

In a recent issue of this Journal, Woo (1990) suggests a mechanism to improve on a pricing scheme initially proposed by Panzar and Sibley (1978). In this paper, we analyze Woo's mechanism. Woo claims that by activating rationing fuses only when total demand reaches system capacity, the problem of untimely curtailments is avoided. We show that this is trueonly if all consumers reach their subscribed capacity at the same temperature, which will not occur in general, and clarify the implications of this assumption on Woo's improvement of the Panzar-Sibley scheme. A slightly more complex self-rationing mechanism, which addresses the problems that we point out, is suggested.     

The International allocation of trade-tied aid: A quantative analysis for the export quota scheme in coffee

Zusammenfassung Die internationale Verteilung der Handelshilfe: eine quantitative Analyse des Systems von Exportquoten für Kaffee. - Die bisherigen Untersuchungen über die internationale Verteilung der Entwicklungshilfe haben sich haupts?chlich mit der Finanzhilfe befa▾t. Dagegen fehlen Untersuchungen über die Handelshilfe, obgleich es eine ganze Reihe von handelspolitischen Ma▾nahmen gibt, die implizite Transfers an Entwicklungsl?nder einschlie▾en. In diesem Aufsatz werden die Bestimmungsgründe für Handelshilfe theoretisch gekl?rt, und empirisches Material über implizite Schenkungen und Einnahmen wird vorgelegt, die in einer der Formen der Handelshilfe enthalten sind, n?mlich in dem System von Exportquoten auf dem Weltkaffeemarkt. Dabei wird das unterschiedliche Verteilungsmuster der Handelshilfe nach dem Internationalen Kaffeeabkommen einerseits und der offiziellen Entwicklungshilfe andererseits herausgearbeitet. Es wird gezeigt, da▾ die Verteilung der Handelshilfe davon abh?ngt, ob ein Land Kaffeeexporteur oder -importeur ist, ob es Mitglied des Abkommens ist oder nicht und wie seine Netto-Handelsposition ist. Bedürftigkeit spielt keine Rolle bei der Verteilung dieser Art von Handelshilfe.

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Résumé L’allocation internationale de l’aide assujettie au commerce: une analyse quantitative pour le systéme de quota exportatrice de café. - Les études existantes sur l’allocation internationale de l’aide ont concentré principalement sur l’aide financière. Il n’y a pas d’études sur l’allocation de l’aide assujettie au commerce (AAC) bien qu’une grande variété des mesures de politique commerciale existe qui inclut des transferts implicites en faveur des pays en voie de développement. Cette étude clarifie théoriquement les déterminants de l’AAC et présente quelque évidence empirique pour des donations et recettes implicites dans un des types de l’AAC, c’est le système de quota exportatrice dans le marché mondial de café. La structure d’allocation de l’AAC sous l’Accord International de Café et de l’assistance officielle étrangère est analysée. L’auteur démontre que la distribution des flux de l’aide des pays dépend de la question si les pays sont des exportateurs ou des importateurs de café, des membres ou non-membres de l’Accord aussi bien de leur position commerciale nette. Indigence n’est pas importante pour l’allocation de cette forme de l’AAC.

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Resumen La asignación internacional de ayuda al desarrollo ligada al comercio: un análisis cuantitativo del sistema de cuotas de exportación de café. - Los estudios existentes sobre la asignación internacional de la ayuda al desarrollo se concentran especialmente en la ayuda financiera. Faltan estudios sobre la ayuda al desarrollo ligada al comercio, a pesar de la gran variedad de medidas de política comercial que incluyen una transferencia implícita a los países en desarrollo. En este estudio se clarifican teóricamente las déterminantes de la ayuda al desarrollo ligada al comercio y se presenta evidencia empírica sobre donaciones implícitas en relación a una de las formas de ayuda ligada al comercio, el sistema de cuotas de exportación en el mercado mundial del café. Se elabora el patrón diferencial de asignación de ayuda ligada al comercio bajo el Acuerdo International del Café y la ayuda oficial. Se muestra que la distribución internacional de los flujos de ayuda depende de las siguiente características: si los países son exportadores o importadores de café, signatarios del acuerdo o no y de su posición comercial neta. La asignación de esta forma de ayuda ligada al comercio es independiente del grado de necesidad de ayuda.

     

The Predictive Power of Anisotropic Spatial Correlation Modeling in Housing Prices

This paper develops a method to capture anisotropic spatial autocorrelation in the context of the simultaneous autoregressive model. Standard isotropic models assume that spatial correlation is a homogeneous function of distance. This assumption, however, is oversimplified if spatial dependence changes with direction. We thus propose a local anisotropic approach based on non-linear scale-space image processing. We illustrate the methodology by using data on single-family house transactions in Lucas County, Ohio. The empirical results suggest that the anisotropic modeling technique can reduce both in-sample and out-of-sample forecast errors. Moreover, it can easily be applied to other spatial econometric functional and kernel forms.     

PORTFOLIO OPTIMIZATION UNDER TRACKING ERROR AND WEIGHTS CONSTRAINTS

The performance of active portfolio managers who must comply with a weights constraint is often assessed against a benchmark. The weights constraint is common as the funds are committed by their own prospectus to a minimum (or maximum) portfolio concentration. We characterize the optimal asset allocation and analyze the implications of the weights constraint on the manager's performance and on the relevance of the information ratio. We obtain that because of the weights constraint, at the optimum, the information ratio often decreases when the manager is free to deviate more from the benchmark.     

Problem structuring for transitions: The case of Swiss waste management

Transdisciplinarity is considered an appropriate approach in supporting transitions of complex socio-technical systems as such transitions demand highly contextualized real world knowledge and valuations. This holds especially true for the problem identification and structuring (initial) phase of a transition project, which aims at supporting goal formation based on a sound understanding and representation of the system's current state and its dynamics. Throughout this phase, it is important that all relevant perspectives in terms of expertise and interests are considered and adequately fed into a process of knowledge integration. This paper presents in its first part the structuring for complex transitions (SCT) procedure aiming at this requirement. The procedure has been specifically designed for problem structuring in socio-technical systems in the initial phase of a transition project. The results of the procedure provide sound inputs for the next project phases and the transition methods applied therein, but can themselves already be used as fruitful orientations in strategy development. The second part of the paper briefly outlines the application of the SCT procedure to Swiss waste management. This application involved 48 participants who reached consensus on relevant impact factors and developed a shared vision for managing a complex transition process in the area of waste management. The approach is marked by high feasibility and socially robust results.     

Zu den zwei Versicherungsbegriffen von Werner Mahr und ihrer Bedeutung in der heutigen Zeit

Werner Mahr differentiates between two notions of insurance based upon either the mutuality or the speculation principle. While Mahr however supposes that these two principles melt into the pure insurance-technological economics through the interplay of the probability principle, the differences will be stressed. In the first step, the (theoretical) distinctions are elaborated between the “ideal” insurance model of K. J. Arrow, based on the mutuality principle, and the “classical” insurance model of K. Borch, building on the speculation principle or the reserve theory according to A. Willett. In the second step, these differentiations are elucidated with the help of three examples: uncertainty about the risks, correlated risks, and macroeconomic, in particular demographic risks.