On the peer effects of star students

We estimate the effect that star students have on their siblings’ learning outcomes, measured by their high school grade point average (GPA) and their math grades. To this end, we couple administrative school data on grades with an unusual natural experiment in Peru that generates exogenous variation in the presence of star students at home. We find that star students increase their siblings’ GPA by 0.33 SDs and their math grades by 0.22 SDs. The effect size is inversely related to number of siblings, suggesting that the remaining siblings act as substitutes for the star student.     

Using Ostrom's common-pool resource theory to build toward an integrated ecosystem-based sustainable cetacean tourism system in Hawai`i

This paper explores the suitability of community-based conservation measures to complement a proposed command-and-control approach for two multi-user bays with spinner dolphins in Hawai`i, USA, which have considerable dolphin watching tourist activities and human–dolphin interactions. The paper uses Ostrom's common-pool resource theory as an analytical lens, with an assessment of the attributes of the resource and the user(s) to explore questions of governance and sustainability. In Hawai`i, spinner dolphins move predictably from offshore overnight feeding grounds into shallow bays for daytime rest, interacting frequently with humans using these bays for tourism and other social, recreational, and subsistence purposes. To reduce the current negative interactions with dolphins, managers are seeking to implement a command-and-control approach, namely time–area closures. Our analysis indicates that viewing the bay as a resource with tourism as one of many human demands, instead of specifically focusing on dolphins, reflects an ecosystem-based approach and acknowledges complex management demands. We found that while unrealistic to expect community-based conservation to spontaneously emerge here, cultivating some of Ostrom's attributes among stakeholders might lead to a more productive set of institutional arrangements that would benefit the dolphin population, with the methodology used potentially leading to a global management model.     

An exploratory study of environmental attitudes and the willingness to pay for environmental certification in Mexico

This paper explores how environmental attitudes of consumers in Mexico influence their willingness to pay a premium (or, marginal WTP) for environmentally-certified products. In addition, we also challenge the theoretical assumption that the relationship between environmental attitudes and purchasing is linear. We test our hypotheses with an analysis of marginal WTP based on a survey of 301 Mexican consumers. Using conjoint analysis to determine marginal WTP, we find support for the idea that as attitudes become more pro-environmental, they more than proportionally boost marginal WTP. We conclude our paper by discussing implications for research and practice that focus on environmental segments of consumers.     

How to design virus containment policies? A joint analysis of economic and epidemic dynamics under the COVID-19 pandemic

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - We analyze the impact of different designs of COVID-19-related lockdown policies on economic loss and mortality using a micro-level simulation...