Do Air Quality Alerts Affect Household Migration?

This article examines the effect of air quality information on immigration and emigration of households in California counties by measuring the change in the number of air quality alert days. Based on panel data for 2000–2014, I find evidence suggesting that more frequent air quality alerts reduce the rate of population growth in a county by decreasing immigration of households. This is driven by “Unhealthy” air alerts, which signals weaker air quality than “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.” The negative impacts on immigration are larger for high household income counties and are strongest when there is a sharp increase in the number of air quality alerts.     

Flood Risk and Salience: New Evidence from the Sunshine State

A growing literature finds evidence that flood risk salience varies over time, spiking directly following a flood and then falling off individuals' cognitive radar in the following years. In this article, we provide new evidence of salience exploiting a hurricane cluster impacting Florida that was preceded and followed by periods of unusual calm. Utilizing residential property sales across the state from 2002 through 2012, our main estimate finds a salience impact of ?8%, on average. The salience effect persists when we base estimation only on spatial variation in prices to limit confounding from other simultaneous changes due to shifting hedonic equilibria over time. These effects range from housing prices decreases of 5.4–12.3% depending on the year of sale. Understanding flood risk salience has important implications for flood insurance and disaster policy, the benefits transfer literature, and, more broadly, our understanding of natural disaster resilience. JEL Classification: Q51, Q54, R21     

A REVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE ON FARMER COOPERATIVES: PERFORMANCE,OWNERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE,FINANCE, AND MEMBER ATTITUDE

The empirical literature on farmer cooperatives is now fast emerging and developing in the areas of performance, ownership and governance, finance, and member attitude. We discuss 56 peer‐reviewed publications to illustrate the main findings and conclusions while outlining challenges and opportunities for future research. Generally, cooperative membership is found to positively impact price, yield, input adoption, income, and other indicators of member performance, yet there is growing evidence of an uneven distribution of benefits for small and large producers. In terms of structure, evidence of a causal relationship of ownership and governance to performance has been elusive, yet there are now many findings of inherent equity and long‐term debt constraints, often in the context of consolidation to drive scale and scope economies. Further inefficiency is observed to be driven by increased heterogeneity in member attitudes and objectives, in particular in terms of commitment and participation. Thus, overall, empirical work portrays farmer cooperatives as flawed and complex business organizations which nonetheless have a strong positive impact on its members. While applied research may progress in various directions, a general improvement in empirical methodologies is needed to allow robust analysis of mixed objectives in dynamic environments.     

Carbon tax simulations using a household demand model

The main objective of this paper is to analyse consumer response and welfare effects due to changes in energy or environmental policy. To achieve this objective we formulate and estimate an econometric model for non-durable consumer demand in Sweden that utilises micro- and macro-data. In the simulations, we consider two revenue neutral scenarios that both imply a doubling of the CO₂ tax; one that returns the revenues in the form of a lower VAT and one that subsidise public transport. One conclusion from the simulations is that the CO₂ tax has regional distribution effects, in the sense that household living in sparsely populated areas carry a larger share of the tax burden.     

Technical Efficiency Estimates of Scottish Agriculture: A Note

Within the UK there has been a lack of studies of technical efficiency at the Scottish level. This note compares the results obtained using Scottish data with a recent study by Hadley [Journal of Agricultural Economics (2006) Vol. 57, pp. 81–100] for English and Welsh farms. Four major sectors are investigated, namely: (i) cereals, (ii) dairy, (iii) sheep and (iv) beef over the period 1989 to 2004. Some distinct differences in efficiencies, returns to scale and causes of efficiency are found.     

Markets and pro-poor agricultural growth: insights from livelihood and informal rural economy models in Malawi

This article presents the development of a set of programming models describing the major features of different rural livelihoods and of the informal rural economy they together make up in Malawi. The models allow for differentiated responses by different household types to change and for the partial equilibrium effects of consequent supply, demand, and price adjustments in labor and grain markets. The models provide insights into the relations between own‐farm and nonown‐farm activities in different households' livelihoods and in the informal rural economy as a whole, and are used to investigate possible impacts of increasing cash crop prices and of a more open rural economy. Impacts of these changes on the poor are found to be critically dependent upon supply and demand elasticities in labor and grain markets, but the poor could potentially suffer significant losses from increased openness of the local economy leading to increased expenditure by less poor households on imported goods and services.     

Intertemporal Equity and Hartwick's Rule in an Exhaustible Resource Model*

In a standard exhaustible resource model, it is known that if, along a competitive path, investment in the augmentable capital good equals the rents on the exhaustible resource (known as Hartwick's rule), then the path is equitable in the sense that the consumption level is constant over time. In this paper, we show the converse of this result: if a competitive path is equitable, then it must satisfy Hartwick's rule.     

Global instability in experimental general equilibrium: the Scarf example

Scarf (Int. Econ. Rev. 1 (1960) 157) proposed a model of dynamic adjustment in which the standard tatonnement price adjustment process orbits around, rather than converges to, the competitive equilibrium. Hirota (Int. Econ. Rev. 22 (1981) 461) characterized the price paths. We explore the predictions of Scarf's model in a non-tatonnement experimental double auction. The average transaction prices in each period do follow the path predicted by the Scarf and Hirota models. When the model predicts convergence the data converge; when the model predicts orbits, the data orbit in the direction predicted by the model. Moreover, we observe a weak tendency for prices within a period to follow the path predicted by the model.     

Trends in British public investment

British public investment has declined sharply both as a share of GDP and as a share of government spending since the 1970s. Only part of this decline is explained by privatisation, which transferred some public investment to the private sector. More important was the very large and permanent reduction in public house‐building between the mid‐1970s and the early 1980s. Between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the rate of public investment recovered somewhat, but after that time it declined again, reaching a record low in 1999. The most recent decline in public investment has affected a range of central government programmes, and it has not been significantly offset by investment under the Private Finance Initiative. The government now plans to increase investment spending, although levels look set to remain low by historical standards for some time to come.