Factors driving embodied carbon in international trade: a multiregional input–output gravity model

ABSTRACT

Concerns about the effects and consequences of climate change have notably increased in recent decades. Despite large advances in the understanding of this phenomenon, further research into the determinants of gas emissions is necessary, to shed light on the responsibilities of producers and consumers, and their potential contribution to mitigation strategies. This paper studies the trajectories and determinants of carbon embodied in world trade during a period of 15 years. Our methodology relies on a multiregional input–output model, environmentally extended. Drawing on data from the World Input–Output Database, we estimate embodied emissions in bilateral flows. Then, we assess the determinants of CO₂ emissions embodied in trade, combining input–output modelling with trade gravity panel data analysis. This paper offers a methodological approach that explains and quantifies the underlying factors of carbon trade, integrating the production and consumption perspectives and considering the geographical, structural and institutional context of countries.     

Certainty Independence and the Separation of Utility and Beliefs

Economists often operate under an implicit assumption that the tastes of a decision maker are quite stable, while his beliefs change with the availability of new information. We show that for a general class of preferences, a separation of a key component of tastes, the utility function, from the other components of the representation is possible only if the decision maker's preferences satisfy a mild but not completely innocuous condition, called ‘certainty independence’. We also outline the axiomatic characterization of the preferences that obtain such separation, which are a subset of the biseparable preferences.     

Macroeconomic interdependence under incomplete markets

This paper uses a two-country, flexible-price model with overlapping generations of infinitely lived households to study the role of net foreign asset dynamics in the propagation of productivity shocks. Absence of Ricardian equivalence ensures existence of a unique steady-state level of net foreign assets, to which the economy returns following temporary shocks. Model dynamics are significantly different from those of a setup in which terms of trade movements perform all the international adjustment and net foreign assets do not move. The difference relative to a complete markets economy in which net foreign asset movements play no role in shock transmission is smaller. It is amplified if the substitutability across goods rises and if shocks are permanent.     

Developing a tutoring module for presentation of computerized patient management problems

The simulation problem is one of the most commonly used formats in computer-assisted instruction (CAI). In medical education, a patient simulation problem is known as a patient management problem (PMP). A number of computerized PMP systems are currently available. However, to date, there is no record of PMP systems having been developed using artificial intelligence. This is noteworthy since artificial intelligence techniques could help in the generation of more effective and intelligent instructional systems.

This paper analyzes and evaluates existing instructional simulation software in clinical medicine in terms of effective educational design attributes. Components of effective PMP systems thus identified are incorporated into a computerized instructional system which uses artificial intelligence techniques for teaching problem-solving and diagnostic skills to undergraduate medical students.     

Micro-level product-market dynamics: Shared knowledge and its relationship to market development

This work draws on consumer and psychology research to explain sociocognitive aspects of product-market dynamics at a higher level of specificity than prior research. The authors extend the field’s understanding of market-shaping shared knowledge through a theory-informed discussion of how shared product knowledge comes to exist and how it changes as product markets develop. They define shared knowledge as the aspects of product representations that are common across the minds of market actors, making it possible for them to understand one another. The authors also discuss ways to track shared knowledge content that is expressed in market narratives. As the characteristics of shared knowledge are explained and linked to stages of product-market development, the authors develop a set of researchable propositions to guide future research. The theoretical arguments and propositions in this article complement extant marketing strategy research by integrating individual-level consumer theory with market evolution models. José Antonio Rosa (jose.rosa@case.edu; Ph.D., University of Michigan) is an assistant professor of marketing at Case Western Reserve University. His research interests include product markets as sociocognitive phenomena, embodied knowledge in consumer and managerial sensemaking, consumer illiteracy and coping, commitment and motivation among members of network marketing organizations, and buying group satisfaction. His research has been published in marketing and management publications, including theJournal of Marketing and theAcademy of Management Journal. Before entering academia, he worked in the automotive and information systems industries. Jelena Spanjol (jspanjol@tamu.edu; Ph.D., University of Illinois) is an assistant professor of marketing at Texas A&M University. Her research interests include product market dynamics, product portfolio management, innovation, sensemaking, and organizational and managerial cognition in marketing strategy. Her research has been published in marketing and management publications, including theJournal of Marketing and several book chapters. Before academia, she worked in the scientific software industry.     

The nature of the steady state in models of optimal growth under uncertainty

Summary. We study a one-sector stochastic optimal growth model with a representative agent. Utility is logarithmic and the production function is of the Cobb-Douglas form with capital exponent . Production is affected by a multiplicative shock taking one of two values with positive probabilities p and 1-p. It is well known that for this economy, optimal paths converge to a unique steady state, which is an invariant distribution. We are concerned with properties of this distribution. By using the theory of Iterated Function Systems, we are able to characterize such a distribution in terms of singularity versus absolute continuity as parameters and p change. We establish mutual singularity of the invariant distributions as p varies between 0 and 1 whenever . More delicate is the case . Singularity with respect to Lebesgue measure also appears for values such that . For and Peres and Solomyak (1998) have shown that the distribution is a.e. absolutely continuous. Characterization of the invariant distribution in the remaining cases is still an open question. The entire analysis is summarized through a bifurcation diagram, drawn in terms of pairs .Received: 9 April 2002, Revised: 29 October 2002, JEL Classification Numbers: C61, O41.Correspondence to: Tapan MitraThis research was partially supported by CNR (Italy) under the "Short-term mobility" program and by M.U.R.S.T. (Italy) National Group on "Nonlinear Dynamics and Stochastic Models in Economics and Finance" . We are indebted to Rabi Bhattacharya for providing us with the reference to Solomyak's (1995) paper. The present version has benefitted from comments by Mukul Majumdar and two anonymous referees.     

Judicial Branch, Checks and Balances and Political Accountability

This paper attempts to combine the political economics models on separation of powers between the legislature and the executive with public choice theories on the behavior of the judicial branch. We obtain a model of political accountability and checks and balances with up to three government branches: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. We conclude that an independent judiciary improves the political accountability of democratic systems relative to the political economics models with two government branches. An accommodating judiciary, however, changes the distribution of political rents without improving accountability.