Welfare Effects of Food Miles Labels

We assessed the consumer welfare effects of two generic food miles labels: “carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission” label and “time and number of kilometers” label. Using data from a choice experiment, our results generally suggest that a mandatory labeling policy for either type of label would have a positive welfare effect. However, a label informing consumers about the time and number of kilometers the food product has traveled provides greater positive welfare effects than a label informing consumers about the amount of CO₂ emission .     

Dividends,Taxes, and Signaling: Evidence from Germany

The higher taxation of dividends in the United States gave rise to theories that explain why companies pay dividends. Tax-based signaling models propose that the higher tax on dividends is a necessary condition to make them informative about companies' values. In Germany, where dividends are not tax-disadvantaged and in fact are taxed lower for most investor classes, these models predict that dividends are not informative. However, we find that the stock price reaction to dividend news in Germany is similar to that found in the United States. This suggests other reasons, beyond taxation, that make dividends informative.     

Rotación laboral en América Latina: Intensidad y diferencias entre países

El estudio de la rotación laboral es muy importante en América Latina, dados sus marcados ciclos económicos y su limitada cobertura de protección social. Se estima aquí la intensidad de las transiciones desde la situación de empleo en seis países latinoamericanos en las dos primeras décadas del milenio, descomponiendo las diferencias observadas y evaluando los destinos laborales de estos trabajadores. Los países analizados muestran tasas de rotación muy diferentes, lo que se explica fundamentalmente por una incidencia disímil del empleo informal y del empleo temporal. En todos los casos, gran parte de las transiciones desde el empleo tienen como destino empleos precarios o el desempleo.     

Household Intertemporal Behaviour: A Collective Characterization and a Test of Commitment

In this paper, a formal test of intra-household commitment is derived and performed. To that end, two models of household intertemporal behaviour are developed. In both models, household members are characterized by individual preferences. In the first formulation, household decisions are always on the ex ante Pareto frontier. In the second model, the assumption of intra-household commitment required by ex ante efficiency is relaxed. It is shown that the full-efficiency household Euler equations are nested in the no-commitment Euler equations. Using this result, the hypothesis that household members can commit to future allocations of resources is tested using the Consumer Expenditure Survey. I strongly reject this hypothesis. It is also shown that the standard unitary framework is a special case of the full-efficiency model. However, if household members are not able to commit, household intertemporal behaviour cannot be characterized using the standard life-cycle model. These findings have two main implications. First, policy makers can change household behaviour by modifying the decision power of individual household members. Second, to evaluate programmes designed to improve the welfare of household members, it would be beneficial to replace the standard unitary model with a characterization of household behaviour that allows for lack of commitment.