On the existence of equilibrium in social systems with coordination

Social systems with coordination were introduced by Vind (1983) as a general model of economic institutions. The present paper gives a general existence theorem for equilibria in social systems with coordination extending Vind's result.     

UN economic conference in Africa

The 11th session of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the second Ministerial Conference of that Organisation took place in Accra from February 19 to 23, 1973. The Commission—a regional organisation of the United Nations—has 41 independent African states as members.     

Images of economic conditions in West Germany

With data from a December 1982 survey determinants of attitudes on general and personal economic conditions in West Germany are investigated. Such attitudes are differentiated into perceptions, evaluations, and expectations. Objective private living conditions, social background variables, regional economic context, and partisan affiliations are introduced as explanatory variables. Stepwise regression analysis is applied to estimate recursive models for endogenous variables. Apart from sizeable interrelations among components of individuals' images of economic conditions the findings indicate that evaluations and expectations of the private economic situation are strongly affected by social background and personal living conditions, whereas partisan sympathies mainly influence expectations of future general economic development.     

Europe’s agricultural policy facing new alternatives

“If the right decisions are not now taken, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Community may collapse. The hour of truth has struck for agriculture.” So the Commissioner for Agriculture, Gundelach, in the spring of 1980 when appealing to the Members of the European Parliament “to support the Commission’s moderate proposals for price increases and the proposed measures for reducing the agricultural surpluses”¹. This scenario gives great topical value to findings set out in a publication, “Europe’s Agricultural Policy Facing New Alternatives”², of which we present here a summary. Its wellknown authors have tried to map out routes to a less contentious agricultural policy for the future.     

Statt einer polemischen Replik ein kurzer Appell

Ohne ZusammenfassungGerhard Bodenstein ist Professor für Betriebswirtschaftslehre, Hans Leuer Professor für Wirtschaftsrecht an der Universität — Gesamthochschule — Duisburg, Postfach 101 629, D-4100 Duisburg 1.     

International diffusion of gains from biotechnology and the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy

This paper analyses the impact of adopting or rejecting genetically modified (GM) crops in the European Union, taking into account the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In this paper the productivity impact of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) differs across crops, taking factor biased technology change into account. The transfer of knowledge across countries is modelled as a process of endogenous knowledge spill-overs. Analysis with a multi-region applied general equilibrium model shows that the CAP protects farm income and production despite non-adoption of the more productive GM crops in the EU. The EU will forgo substantial benefits in terms of economic welfare if it bans GM imports.     

Gini's coefficient of mean difference as a measure of adoption speed: theoretical issues and empirical evidence from India

This paper represents a variant on the empirical analysis of technological adoption by Griliches. It follows up on previous research regarding the potential of the Gini coefficient of mean difference as a distribution-free measure of adoption speed. A formal proof is supplied for the derivation of an empirically workable definition of the Gini. Data regarding the uptake of high-yielding wheat varieties in India are used to compare the performance of the Gini relative to that of the logistic and Weibull adoption speed coefficients. The results suggest that, for the purpose of ex-post analyses of monotonically increasing adoption processes, use of the Gini in measuring adoption speed can result in a better explanation of aggregate adoption behavior.     

Food aid: Pros and cons

Extreme poverty, drought and famine continue to afflict people in many parts of the world. Food aid has occupied a central role in the response to these problems, and there have been notable successes, yet there is doubt and criticism about the appropriateness of food aid. Is food aid doing more harm than good?     

The strong sequential core for two-period economies

The strong sequential core for two-stage economies with a possibly incomplete set of assets in period zero and trade in commodities in period one consists of those goods allocations that are in the classical core and moreover, after realization of the state of nature, in the core of the economy where executed asset contracts serve as initial endowments. The strong sequential core coincides with the classical core when all possible state-contingent contracts may serve as an asset. For finance economies it is shown that the strong sequential core is generically empty when there is an incomplete set of assets. Outside the setting of finance economies, we show that the strong sequential core can be empty even if there is a complete set of assets. If the set of constrained feasible allocations resulting from trading in assets, is enlarged to include also allocations outside the agents’ consumption sets, then a complete set of assets is sufficient for the equivalence of the resulting semi-strong sequential core and the classical core.     

Philomen Schönhagen: habilitiert und berufen. Erfolgreicher Einstieg in den (wissenschaftlichen) Höhenweg

Ohne Zusammenfassung