Outside versus inside bonds: A Modigliani–Miller type result for liquidity constrained economies

When agents are liquidity constrained, two options exist – sell assets or borrow. We compare the allocations arising in two economies: in one, agents can sell government (outside) bonds and in the other they can borrow by issuing (inside) bonds. All transactions are voluntary, implying no taxation or forced redemption of private debt. We show that any allocation in the economy with inside bonds can be replicated in the economy with outside bonds but that the converse is not true. However, the optimal policy in each economy makes the allocations equivalent.     

Public knowledge,private knowledge: the intellectual capital of entrepreneurs

This paper focuses on the innovative actions of entrepreneurs, namely their tendency to reveal the intellectual capital that results from their research efforts either in the form of public knowledge (publications) or private knowledge (patents). Using data collected by the National Research Council within the US National Academies from their survey of firm’s that received National Institutes of Health phase II Small Business Innovation Research awards between 1992 and 2001, we find that entrepreneurs with academic backgrounds are more likely to publish their intellectual capital compared with entrepreneurs with business backgrounds, who are more likely to patent their intellectual capital. We also find that, when universities are research partners, their presence complements the tendencies of academic entrepreneurs but does not offset those of business entrepreneurs.     

What Determines the Size of Aid Projects?

Over the last few years, considerable attention has focused on aid fragmentation, the proliferation of donors and projects in developing countries. Aid fragmentation has continued to increase despite international efforts to foster donor coordination. One possible implication of fragmentation is smaller aid projects, potentially with the result of more administrative work for overtaxed recipient governments per dollar of aid received.This paper makes use of AidData data on bilateral aid commitments, sector, and funding agencies to explore the determinants of project size and to better understand the forces driving aid fragmentation. To the extent that project size is driven by the sectoral composition or purpose of aid, the associated administrative costs may be justified. Variations due to other factors, e.g. a donor’s administrative structure or bureaucratic interests, provide a stronger case for reforms.     

The multiple effects of carbon values on optimal rotation

Non-consumptive benefits which increase with crop age, like keeping carbon sequestered, lengthen optimal rotation compared with rotation for timber alone. High proposed carbon prices may extend rotation indefinitely. Carbon storage in wood products reduces this tendency. Biomass as an energy source displacing fossil fuels favours rotations near those of maximum biomass productivity. Use of sawn timber to displace structural materials with high embodied carbon favours somewhat longer rotations. Effects of rotation on soil carbon, and fossil carbon volatilised in harvesting operations, are further complications. Including all carbon effects results in optimal rotations somewhat longer than those based only on timber value, but shorter than those based on timber plus forest carbon. To include all factors intuitively is not possible: balanced appraisal needs economic calculations.     

Optimal rotation with declining discount rate

In recent years it has been argued, from many perspectives, that the further into the future a value flow occurs, the lower is the appropriate discount rate for it. National governments are now beginning to authorise such declining discount rates. This viewpoint can be, and has been, formalised in various ways, and has been applied to evaluating forestry investments of given durations. When the optimal duration of investment is itself the issue, new problems arise. Lower discount rates make subsequent rotations longer than earlier ones, and for a given length more valuable than they would otherwise be. This affects the optimal length of earlier rotations, which in turn may affect the discount rate profile applicable to later ones. In the absence of analytical solutions for the optimal sequence of rotations, numerical protocols are needed. The results arising are mostly in accord with expectations. If the change of discount rate is due to expected changes of circumstance that are actually realised, then the optimal sequence of rotations will remain as initially determined. If, however, it is due merely to the particular time perspective of the present generation, rotations will be revised by future generations. This will lead to a sequence of rotations similar to that deemed optimal at the current short-term discount rate. The most important reductions in profitability caused by choosing the “wrong” discounting protocol arise from the “wrong” rate, rather than by using declining rates as such.     

Incomplete Credit Markets and Commodity Marketing Behaviour

We use a simple theoretical model of seasonal market participation in the presence of liquidity constraints and transaction costs to explain the ‘sell low, buy high’ puzzle in which some households do not take advantage of inter‐temporal price arbitrage through storage and sell output postharvest at prices lower than observed prices for purchases in the subsequent lean season. We test our model with data from western Kenya using maximum likelihood estimation of a multivariate sample selection model of market participation. Access to off‐farm income and credit indeed seem to influence crop sales and purchase behaviours in a manner consistent with the hypothesised patterns.     

Preventives Versus Treatments Redux: Tighter Bounds on Distortions in Innovation Incentives with an Application to the Global Demand for HIV Pharmaceuticals

Kremer and Snyder (Q J Econ 130:1167–1239, 2015) show that demand curves for a preventive and treatment may have different shapes though they target the same disease, biasing the pharmaceutical manufacturer toward developing the lucrative rather than the socially desirable product. This paper tightens the theoretical bounds on the potential deadweight loss from such biases. Using a calibration of the global demand for HIV pharmaceuticals, we demonstrate the dramatically sharper analysis achievable with the new bounds, allowing us to pinpoint potential deadweight loss at 62% of the global gain from curing HIV. We use the calibration to perform policy counterfactuals, assessing welfare effects of government policies such as a subsidy, reference pricing, and price-discrimination ban. The fit of our calibration is good: we find that a hypothetical drug monopolist would price an HIV drug so high that only 4% of the infected population worldwide would purchase, matching actual drug prices and quantities in the early 2000s before subsidies in low-income countries ramped up.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on “The Intersection Between Industrial Organization and Healthcare Economics”

This article introduces the special issue on the intersection between industrial organization and healthcare economics. This intersection has received increasing research interest, growing from 2% of the industrial-organization literature in 1991 to 6% in 2016. We describe the nine included articles, which cover a range of healthcare markets that include hospital services, insurance, and pharmaceuticals.