Explaining the variation in household recycling rates across the UK

Household waste recycling rates vary significantly both across and within regions of the UK. This paper attempts to explain the variation by using a new data set of waste recycling rates and policy determinants for all of the UK's 434 local authorities over the period 2006Q2 to 2008Q4. Our results suggest that the method of recycling collection chosen by policy makers is an important factor influencing the recycling rate. We also find an inverse relationship between the frequency of the residual waste collection and the recycling rate.     

A free-rider problem with a free-riding principal

In a moral hazard problem caused purely by joint production and not by uncertainty, we examine the problem faced by a principal who actively participates in production along with a group of agents. We show that, when designing the optimal output sharing rule, the principal need not look for anything more complicated than the frequently observed simple linear or piecewise linear rules. We also confirm the presence of a friction between the principal’s residual claimant role and her incentive to free-ride in the production process that prohibits her from completely mitigating the moral hazard problem. This paper is from the first chapter of my Ph.D. dissertation at The University of British Columbia, Canada, 1993. I would like to thank my thesis supervisor John Weymark for his many helpful comments and suggestions. I have also benefitted from the comments of Charles Blackorby, David Donaldson, Mukesh Eswaran, Kenneth Hendricks, Ashok Kotwal and Guofu Tan. An anonymous referee and an associate editor provided helpful suggestion. I am also grateful for the hospitality of the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi Centre, and the Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics, where parts of the paper were revised while I was a visitor. I am solely responsible for any remaining errors and omissions.     

Implementation in teams

Summary. This paper considers a team production model in which the final output is a function of one or more observable intermediate variables that are functions of the actions of the team members. When there is only one intermediate variable, our model essentially reduces to the standard models in which only the final output is observable. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for implementing an outcome. This condition imposes restrictions on the possible deviations from the outcome that can be caused by every member of the team unilaterally. As a consequence of this characterization, when there are more than one intermediate variable, we are able to show that in a broad class of problems these intermediate variables may be sufficiently informative to allow sharing rules that implement efficient outcomes. Received: March 26, 2001; revised version: August 12, 2002 RID="*" ID="*"I would like to thank Parimal Bag, Craig Brett, Greg Dow, Hugo Hopenhayn, Ashok Kotwal, Dilip Mookherjee, Santanu Roy, Sudhir Shah, Guofu Tan and John Weymark for helpful discussions on earlier versions of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Sharing Rules in Teams

We examine the problem of output sharing in a moral hazard in team situation. Although we do not consider any particular procedure, we assume that the team uses some procedure to decide a sharing rule before actual production takes place (for example, this may be a bargaining process or a team welfare maximization problem). This must take into account that the team will play a noncooperative game in the production process conditional on the chosen sharing rule. We show that the procedure for deciding the sharing rule does not have to look for anything more complicated than simple linear sharing rules. We also show that, when there is limited liability, the procedure needs to consider only the slightly more complicated piecewise linear rules. As a consequence of the linear sharing rule result, we are also able to provide a characterization of implementable outcomes. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D82, D2, C72, J54.     

The structure of decision schemes with cardinal preferences

This paper replacesGibbard’s (Econometrica 45:665-681, 1977) assumption of strict ordinal preferences by themore natural assumption of cardinal preferences on the set pure social alternatives and we also admit indifferences among the alternatives. By following a similar line of reasoning to the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theoremin the deterministic framework, we first show that if a decision scheme satisfies strategy proofness and unanimity, then there is an underlying probabilistic neutrality result which generates an additive coalitional power function. This result is then used to prove that a decision scheme which satisfies strategy proofness and unanimity can be represented as a weak random dictatorship. A weak random dictatorship assigns each individual a chance to be a weak dictator. An individual has weak dictatorial power if the support of the social choice lottery is always a subset of his/her maximal utility set. In contrast to Gibbard’s complete characterization of randomdictatorship, we also demonstrate with an example that strategy proofness and unanimity are sufficient but not necessary conditions for a weak random dictatorship.     

A reexamination of additivity of power in randomized social preference

We show that Barberá and Sonnenscheins (1978) power function becomes additive if we replace the Paretian condition by nonimposition and monotonicity. Since these conditions are very much in the spirit of Arrow (1951), our result sharpens the analogy to Arrows theorem.Received: 29 November 2001, Accepted: 4 May 2003, JEL Classification: D71Shasikanta Nandeibam: I would like to thank Professor Prasanta Pattanaik for very helpful discussions. I have also benefitted from the comments and suggestions of an associate editor. The usual disclaimer applies.