Thomas Hodgskin,Rational Optimist

Long considered a ‘Ricardian socialist’, Thomas Hodgskin is rarely read as the perceptive observer of the Industrial Revolution that he was. His most famous pamphlet, Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital, has been interpreted as anticipating some central tenets of Marxism. If we abandon this well‐established interpretation, however, we can better appreciate Hodgskin's acute reading of the process of industrialisation unfolding before his eyes. Unlike most socialists, Hodgskin had no sympathy for machine breakers and actually understood the importance of the entrepreneurial function. Moreover, he thought mechanisation and improvement in the tools available for workers would not dispossess them but, on the contrary, would raise their living standards. Hodgskin's ‘optimism’ shows that in the 1820s someone who was deeply concerned with the future of the working classes could nonetheless develop a reasoned sympathy for industrialisation — rather than merely oppose technological innovation and long for a mythical past.     

Squatting as a transition problem in South Africa

This paper applies principles of transition to land tenure and squatting in South Africa. Political transition in South Africa reassigned political property rights, which produced contestable, and rent‐seeking incentives for squatting as a means to privatize land and redistribute wealth. Government failure to establish and protect private property rights in a squatter camp resulted in common‐pool problems that resisted private and public resolution with consequent rent dissipation and social loss. In response to this retreat from duty, informal agents emerged to claim their own share of the prize. Without enforceable rules of capture, the growth of squatter camps in South Africa will continue. JEL classification: D7, H8, K1, K4, R1, R4.     

A Critique of the Legal and Philosophical Case for Rent Control

Rent control is an economic abomination. It diverts investments away from residential rent units, it leads to their deterioration, it is responsible for urban decay such as in the South Bronx, it does not help poor tenants, it is a horrendous means of income redistribution. Yet this economic regulation is beloved of intellectuals (hot beds of pro rent control sentiment are Berkeley, Ann Arbor and Cambridge) particularly in the legal and philosophical communities. The present article is dedicated to an exploration and rejection of the arguments in behalf of rent control which emanate from this source.     

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.     

Climate change, irrigation, and Israeli agriculture: Will warming be harmful?

This paper utilizes a Ricardian model to test the relationship between annual net revenues and climate across Israeli farms. The study finds that it is important to include the amount of irrigation water available to each farm in order to measure the response of farms to climate. With irrigation water omitted, the model predicts climate change is strictly beneficial. However, with water included, the model predicts that only modest climate changes are beneficial while drastic climate change in the long run will be harmful. Using the AOGCM Scenarios we show that farm net revenue is expected to increase. Although Israel has a relatively warm climate a mild increase in temperature is beneficial due to the ability to supply international markets with farm product early in the season.     

Vacancies and Rent Dispersion in a Stochastic Search Model with Generalized Tenant Demand

I model imperfect information, derive a downward sloping market demand curve, and explain vacancies in a partial equilibrium model of a rental housing market. Tenants can be completely described by an exogenous demand curve, perhaps arising from differences in income, preferred location, or tastes, and view vacant units based on a stochastic arrival of rental information. Free entry of these landlords induces excess rental housing capacity (equilibrium vacancies). I determine the equilibrium distribution of rents for vacant units, show that this rent distribution may be discontinuous, and explore the equilibrium vacancy rate to changes in exogenous parameters. The resulting characterization of equilibrium distributions of rents may be amenable to econometric modeling exploring the relationship between market rents and vacancies.     

行业间工资差异和垄断租金分享

以产业门类为基准测算的中国行业间工资差异明显且自1988年以来呈现逐步上升趋势，随着产业细分，行业间工资差异进一步提高。对劳动市场工资决定的理论分析表明，行业间工资差异主要源于各行业就业人员的人力资本差异和可能的垄断租金分享。实证研究中发现，就业人员性别、年龄和教育等就业人员特征只能解释行业平均报酬变差系数的60％左右，其余部分源于垄断行业的租金分享。其中，技术／知识型市场垄断行业租金分享比例不高，但非竞争性垄断行业普遍获得了超额报酬，约占其行业高工资的50％以上。后者超额报酬和超水平高福利主要源于相关行业无偿或低成本的自然资源占用和国有资产经营、攫取消费者福利、成本膨胀亏损的财政或社会公众补贴，因此要从其垄断机理和初次分配制度上改革以建立公平收入分配秩序。     

论政府信用失缺及其解决措施

从寻租的角度,主要运用政府官员和民众之间所形成的囚犯困境博弈,分析政府官员腐败产生的机制及原因,并提出相应的解决措施。     

Rent Seeking with Efforts and Bids

We introduce bids in a rent-seeking contest. Players compete for a prize. Apart from exerting lobbying efforts, they also submit a bid which is payable only if they win the prize. We show that our model has a unique Nash equilibrium in pure strategies, in which each active player submits the same bid, while the sum of all efforts equals that bid. In equilibrium there is underdissipation of rent.     

Open access,common property and scarcity rent in fisheries

Open access resources are frequently not managed efficiently, resulting in falling stock levels and a declining income for fishermen. In the late 1970's, the policy response to this problem was the implementation of 200-mile fishing zones, which enabled the European Union to formulate and implement the Common Fisheries Policy, aimed at (among other things) conservation and distribution of available stocks. In Germany, this shift from an open access regime towards a common property regime had favourable outcomes. The trend of falling prices was reversed. The conclusion was that intertemporal efficiency had increased as a result of (inter)governmental policy. Apparently, a wedge was formed between price and marginal harvesting costs, implying that scarcity rent had returned as a component of prices.