Measuring and Accounting for the Deprivation Gap of Portuguese Immigrants in Luxembourg

This paper examines the relative well‐being of Portuguese immigrants in Luxembourg by looking at indicators of material deprivation. We document material deprivation differences between immigrants and nationals—the “deprivation gap”—and measure the extent to which income differentials (and other sociodemographic differences) explain this gap using a combination of non‐parametric methods and a versatile graphical device. We find a large and significant deprivation gap against Portuguese immigrants, whatever the indicator considered. The extent to which the gap is merely a reflection of differences in income, however, depends on what deprivation items are taken into consideration. Income differences almost fully account for material deprivation differences when the latter is measured using the items included in the official EU social indicator of material deprivation. Inclusion of housing condition indicators mitigates this relationship and we then find compelling evidence that the deprivation gap is not entirely accounted for by income differentials.     

The impact of rural roads and irrigation on household welfare: evidence from Vietnam

We measure the impact of road and irrigation projects on the livelihoods of households in the poorest and most remote areas of Vietnam using difference-in-difference estimators. We find that both rural road and irrigation projects help local households improve the access to safe water and welfare measured by a wealth index. The impact of irrigation projects is found to be larger than the impact of road projects. We also find heterogeneous impacts of road and irrigation projects. Households with higher levels of education tend to benefit more from road projects, while households with lower levels of education are likely to benefit more from irrigation projects.     

A new proof of the maximum principle

Summary. We offer a new proof of the maximum principle, by using the envelope theorem that is frequently used in the standard microeconomic theory. Received: April 11, 2002; revised version: June 26, 2002 Correspondence to: K. Shimomura     

Existence of a competitive equilibrium in a one sector growth model with heterogeneous agents and irreversible investment

Summary. We prove existence of a competitive equilibrium in a version of a Ramsey (one sector) model in which agents are heterogeneous and gross investment is constrained to be non negative. We do so by converting the infinite-dimensional fixed point problem stated in terms of prices and commodities into a finite-dimensional Negishi problem involving individual weights in a social value function. This method allows us to obtain detailed results concerning the properties of competitive equilibria. Because of the simplicity of the techniques utilized our approach is amenable to be adapted by practitioners in analogous problems often studied in macroeconomics. Received: September 13, 2001; revised version: December 9, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We are grateful to Tapan Mitra for pointing out errors as well as making very valuable suggestions. Thanks are due to Raouf Boucekkine and Jorge Duran for additional helpful discussions. We also thank an anonymous referee for his/her helpful comments. The second author acknowledges the financial support of the Belgian Ministry of Scientific Research (Grant ARC 99/04-235 “Growth and incentive design”) and of the Belgian Federal Goverment (Grant PAI P5/10, “Equilibrium theory and optimization for public policy and industry regulation”). Correspondence to: C. Le Van     

A live experiment on approval voting

This paper presents a large-scale experiment on the Approval Voting rule that took place during the 2002 French presidential election. We describe the experiment and its main results. The findings are as follows: (i) Such an experiment is feasible, and very well accepted by voters. (ii) The principle of approval voting is easily understood and accepted. (iii) Within the observed political context, compared to the official first-round vote, approval voting modifies the overall ranking of candidates. (iv) The candidates Le Pen and Chirac, more than the others, were able to convert approval votes into official first-round votes. JEL Classification C93, D70, D72     

Vertical Disintegration: A Dynamic Markovian Approach

In a model where a monopolistic downstream firm (assembler) negotiates simultaneously with each of its intermediate‐input suppliers the prices of the complementary components which enter its product, we analyze the process by which the assembler separates from its suppliers as a Markov Perfect equilibrium. Due to a negative strategic effect (the prices and profits of independent suppliers decrease when their number increases), the assembler’s marginal return from keeping an upstream subsidiary is lower than the market value of an independent supplier. Separation is immediate when the downstream firm’s initial number of upstream subsidiaries is below a critical level. It is progressive in the reverse case and eventually leads to a mixed strategy whereby the assembler keeps all the remaining subsidiaries with some probability, and sells all them off in one go with the complementary probability.     

On the unique features of post-disaster humanitarian logistics

Logistic activity can be thought of as a socio-technical process whereby a social network of individuals orchestrates a series of technical activities using supporting systems such as transportation and communications. To understand the functioning of the entire system requires proper consideration of all its components. We identify seven key components: the objectives being pursued, the origin of the commodity flows to be transported, knowledge of demand, the decision-making structure, periodicity and volume of logistic activities, and the state of the social networks and supporting systems. Based on our analysis of the differences between commercial and humanitarian logistics, we pinpoint research gaps that need to be filled to enhance both the efficiency of humanitarian logistics and the realism of the mathematical models designed to support it.We argue that humanitarian logistics is too broad a field to fit neatly into a single definition of operational conditions. At one end of the spectrum we find humanitarian logistic efforts of the kind conducted in long-term disaster recovery and humanitarian assistance, where operational efficiency – akin to commercial logistics – is a prime consideration. At the other, post-disaster humanitarian logistic operations involved in disaster response and short-term recovery activities represent a vastly different operational environment, often in chaotic settings where urgent needs, life-or-death decisions and scarce resources are the norm. The huge contrast between these operational environments requires that they be treated separately.     

Too close for comfort? Distinguishing between team intimacy and team cohesion

The authors examine theory and research on team intimacy and team cohesion, and argue that the two have often been confused, merged, and used interchangeably in recent theoretical, empirical, and applied work on team effectiveness. The authors propose distinct definitions to clarify and distinguish between team intimacy and team cohesion, and suggest areas that will aid research and application. Their examination provides a framework for understanding the inconsistent findings in team effectiveness and team building research and thus helps to improve human resource management (HRM) interventions.     

The Distributional and Allocative Impacts of Virtual Labor Mobility across Time Zones through Communication Networks

Using a specific‐factors' model, with two goods (a shift‐working good and a non‐shift‐working good), three factors (capital specific to shift‐working, land specific to non‐shift‐working and labor) and two countries (Home and Foreign), which are located in different time zones, we highlight the impact of trade in labor services via communication networks on factor prices and production patterns. If two countries are identical in size, then under free trade in labor services, all workers work only in their local daytime, and night shift in each country is performed by imported labor services supplied by residents of the other country in their local daytime. Night‐time wage becomes the same as daytime wage (a wage equalization result). Other factor prices are also equalized. In both countries, capital rental rate increases, while land rent decreases. However, if two countries are different in size, trade in labor services does not equalize wages: in the large country, wages for night‐shift workers are higher than daytime wages and some residents work at night; in the small country, daytime wages become higher than night‐time wages and no one works at night, and night‐shift work is done by imported labor services from the large country. Land rent in the small country decreases. Land rent in the large country may or may not decrease, but it is always higher than in the small country. Capital rental rates in both countries are equalized and increase.     

Sharing Common Resources in Patriarchal and Status-Based Societies: Evidence from Tanzania

ABSTRACT

In rural African societies, socioeconomic differentiation linked to gender and social status exerts an important influence on the distribution of common-pool resources. Through a behavioral experiment conducted in 2008 in rural Tanzania, this contribution examines the influence of gender and social status on distribution behavior of users of self-governed common watersheds. It finds that men and women with low social status distribute water equally when water is abundant but keep larger shares when water is scarce, although low-status women try to be as fair as possible at the expense of their returns from irrigated agriculture. Men of high social status keep more than half of the available water for themselves, both in abundance and scarcity, and deprive others from sizeable returns from irrigated agriculture. Women of high social status share altruistically when water is abundant and equally when water is scarce, giving up on returns from irrigated agriculture.