State,war, and land dispossession: The multiple paths to land concentration

We focus on the role of the state in land dispossession during war. State agencies promote land accumulation not only through coercive paths, but also by combining political and market mechanisms. Each mechanism may link the state with different actors and coalitions. We illustrate how this worked in Tibú, a Colombian municipality in which violence against civilians and land accumulation took place in more or less distinct phases. The case highlights the fact that land accumulation during war is not only achieved through coercion. At the same time, it shows the importance of identifying the specific coalitions through which states establish their presence in contested territories during war. We explain such variation as resulting from the types of alliances and coalitions that the state establishes with different sets of stakeholders, and the aims pursued by coalition actors.     

Currency Substitution and Money Demand in Euroland

This paper tests the stability of the demand for money in the euro-area in the context of an open economy. A sample consisting of quarterly data covering the 1982:2–1999:3 period is considered. The main finding is that the U.S. dollar long-term interest rate plays a significant role in the European money demand relationship. This result holds for different combinations of variables forming the vector auto-regressive system and suggests that international monetary interdependency may be an important factor influencing the ECB monetary policy.This paper draws on an earlier version and was prepared while the author was at the Bank of Portugal (the usual disclaimer applies). It was presented at the 2003 Meeting of the Economic Modelling Network. The author acknowledges Luis Catela Nunes, Carlos Santos, Carlos Robalo Marques, Nuno Alves, and an anonymous referee for their helpful suggestions.     

A stochastic model of waste management with on and off site storage

When the regulatory threshold which specifies the maximum amount of waste that can be stored on site is exceeded, a waste generating firm must move waste to an off site location. Given that off site storage is costlier than on site storage, how much waste ought a firm—operating in a probabilistic environment—to produce in the time period of interest? This salient question has received insufficient theoretical attention in the extant literature. Therefore, we analyze a stochastic model with on and off site storage that is relevant to the management of a broad class of wastes. We first derive a representative waste generating firm's long run expected cost function. Next, we conduct comparative statics exercises to demonstrate the impact of key parameter changes on the firm's long run expected cost. Finally, we show that the optimal waste production level we seek is the solution to a specific cost minimization problem.     

Advantages of the social stamp for the biodiesel producer companies： The BSBIOS and OLEOPLAN cases

Biofuel has become an alternative source of energy in response to the change of the world＇s energy matrix. In Brazil, biodiesel has a highlighted status because it is obtained from different raw materials including animal or vegetable origins. In this context, trying to stimulate the social inclusion and the regional development, the federal government has been allowing some tax benefits through the Social Fuel Stamp （SCS） to the producer companies of biodiesel, since the purchasing of the raw material is from small farmers. Taking this into account, this article aims at the identification of the advantages perceived between the BSBIOS and the OLEOPLAN-two producer companies of biodiesel, located, respectively, in Rio Grande do Sul, in relation to the use of the social fuel stamp. In this case study, classified as a qualitative and of exploratory style, the data collection was done through the observation of informal conversations, visits in the companies named above, through interviews made with a pre-determined guide that allowed the application of the subject analysis technical. The analysis of the results is organized through the profile of these companies and by the identification of the advantages provided by the social fuel stamp. The results of this study show that the companies consider the social fuel stamp as fundamental and that it provides four advantages： the access to better financial conditions through the BNDES and other financial institutions; the right to compete in auctions for the biodiesel purchasing by the Petroleum National Agency, Natural Gas and Biofuel （ANP）; the exemption of taxes; and, the use of the logo of the stamp showing the social role of the company that does not represent a differentiated factor concerning the marketing strategy.     

Public, Private and Nonprofit Regulation for Environmental Quality

This paper studies the welfare implications of different institutions certifying environmental quality supplied by a monopoly. The monopolist can voluntarily certify the quality of the product through an eco-label provided either by an NGO or a for-profit private certifier (PC). The NGO and the PC may use advertisement to promote the label. We compare the NGO and PC regimes with the regime where the regulator imposes a minimum quality standard. The presence of a private certifier in the market decreases the scope for public intervention. The availability of green advertisement reinforces the above result.     

Remittances and Relative Prices

Using Mexican data, this article analyzes the impact of the workers' remittances on the cross‐section distribution of prices as well as on the evolution of individual relative prices over time for 272 consumer items. The results suggest that there are important differences in the responses of relative prices to remittances according to various categories of these items. While the relative prices of a number of nontradable service items such as housing consistently rise, the relative prices of several durable items such as furniture tend to fall in response to the remittance shock. Furthermore, remittances explain substantial variation in prices for a large number of consumer durables and services at various time horizons. The relative price responses are more volatile over time for most food items and less volatile for nonfood and service items reflecting different degrees of price flexibility.     

A field experiment on the impact of weather shocks and insurance on risky investment

We conduct a framed field experiment in rural Ethiopia to test the seminal hypothesis that insurance provision induces farmers to take greater, yet profitable, risks. Farmers participated in a game protocol in which they were asked to make a simple decision: whether or not to purchase fertilizer and if so, how many bags. The return to fertilizer was dependent on a stochastic weather draw made in each round of the game. In later rounds a random selection of farmers made this decision in the presence of a stylized weather-index insurance contract. Insurance was found to have some positive effect on fertilizer purchases. Purchases were also found to depend on the realization of the weather in the previous round. We explore the mechanisms of this relationship and find that it may be the result of both changes in wealth weather brings about, and changes in perceptions of the costs and benefits to fertilizer purchases.     

Consumer reaction to product recalls: factors influencing product judgement and behavioural intentions

In order to evaluate the factors influencing consumers’ responses to product recalls, two surveys were conducted among Brazilian automobile owners and two regression models tested. Results indicated that (i) product judgement was significantly affected by corporate social responsibility (CSR), blame attributed to the company and whether or not consumers had a car made by the brand considered; and (ii) behavioural intentions were significantly affected by CSR, consumers’ involvement with the message, perceived danger, product judgement and whether or not consumers had a car made by the brand considered. Findings revealed, however, that CSR is a better predictor of the product judgement than of the behavioural intentions, in accordance with recent studies indicating that CSR affects consumer judgements and behaviour differently. Finally, these two models are discussed and compared with previous research.     

Group Decision Making with Dispersion in the Analytic Hierarchy Process

With group judgments in the context of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) one would hope for broad consensus among the decision makers. However, in practice this will not always be the case, and significant dispersion may exist among the judgments. Too much dispersion violates the principle of Pareto Optimality at the comparison level and/or matrix level, and if this happens, then the group may be homogenous in some comparisons and heterogeneous in others. The question then arises as to what would be an appropriate aggregation scheme when a consensus cannot be reached and the decision makers are either unwilling or unable to revise their judgments. In particular, the traditional aggregation via the geometric mean has been shown to be inappropriate in such situations. In this paper, we propose a new method for aggregating judgments when the raw geometric mean cannot be used. Our work is motivated by a supply chain problem of managing spare parts in the nuclear power generation sector and can be applied whenever the AHP is used with judgments from multiple decision makers. The method makes use of principal components analysis (PCA) to combine the judgments into one aggregated value for each pairwise comparison. We show that this approach is equivalent to using a weighted geometric mean with the weights obtained from the PCA.