State appropriations and undergraduate borrowing: more debt,less money

When state appropriations decrease, public universities respond by raising tuition. Students borrow more in response to both tuition increases and appropriation cuts. This article investigates the feedback of how borrowing and tuition influence state appropriations. Using a panel data set of 450 four-year public universities from 1999 to 2012, we employ three-stage least squares techniques to control for the endogeneity between state appropriations, tuition and student borrowing. There is evidence that state policy-makers respond to increases in university tuition and student borrowing by decreasing future appropriation levels. After controlling for the effect of appropriations on tuition and borrowing, a one-dollar increase in student borrowing reduces state appropriations per student by $0.06, and a one-dollar increase in tuition results in a decrease of $0.45 in state appropriations per student. When universities increase tuition for reasons other than a reduction in state appropriations, policy-makers respond with a significant cut in future appropriations which could signal an incentive strategy.     

Prostitution services: an exploratory empirical analysis

This study provides an empirical analysis of the market for some male prostitution services in the UK. Flexible working hours, part-time working, and multiple job holding are considered as important labour market characteristics in this service sector. Statistical models helping explain the provision of a deviant and a more mainstream sexual service is reported, utilizing cross-section data drawn from individual prostitute advertisements. The significance of various declared intrinsic endowments of the prostitutes are examined in relation to the offer of these services, including age, ethnicity, physique, and masculine demeanour.     

The Economics Of Partner Out Trading in Sexual Markets

This paper derives a model of participation in what is commonly known as ‘adultery’. Arguably the best sex survey in the world is used to produce estimates of participation functions. The results show a great deal of support for bioeconomic models and reveal some interesting similarities and differences between the male and female equations. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Optimal regulation under imperfect enforcement: Permits,tickets, or both?

Economic activity is often regulated through both permits and tickets (subsequent inspections). We study the effectiveness of such policies where corruption and an underground economy make enforcement imperfect. In the theoretical model, asymmetric information justifies regulatory action which is enforced by corruptible bureaucrats. We find that regulation through permits alone is useless when corruption exists, while tickets still offer some benefit. Surprisingly, we also find that a system with both permits and tickets achieves welfare that is higher than that which can be achieved with only tickets—that combining the two mechanisms has an effect that is greater than the “sum of the parts.”     

What has New Zealand gained from The FTA with China?: Two counterfactual analyses†

We investigate the effects of the 2008 New Zealand (NZ)–China free trade agreement (FTA) on exports from NZ to China, and real GDP per capita in NZ using the synthetic control method to estimate the counterfactuals. NZ exports to China were more than 200% higher in 2014 than what they would have had the FTA never been signed. NZ's food and live animals exports to China were more than 180% higher in 2014 than the counterfactual. Our counterfactuals indicate a small but negative effect of the FTA on NZ's real GDP per capita between 2009 and 2012.     

How Africa can benefit from knowledge

Africa's poverty partly stems from the lack of strong scientific, technological and knowledge bases. The abundance of natural resources on the continent has been of limited value to the African people because they do not have the tools with which to turn their resources into consumable wealth. To rectify this situation, African policy makers would have to undertake various measures. First, they need to define the type of knowledge their countries require. Second, they ought to establish conditions for nurturing strategic leaders who will, in turn, seek the right forms of knowledge to tackle Africa's problems. Third, policy makers need to build the political and legal frameworks that encourage the absorption and application of scientific innovations. Fourth, African leaders ought to revamp the universities, establish regional research centres, and take capacity building more seriously. It is these measures that will facilitate Africa's meaningful participation in global knowledge flows. Above all, knowledge creation should aim at attaining human welfare, participatory democracy, peace building and socio-economic justice.