the environmental kuznets curve environmental protection policy and income distribution abstract the effect of economic growth on pollution emissions differs substantially among high income countries i address this issue by analyzing public environmental policy decisions individual heterogeneity relative income effect and the political framework in which policy decisions are taken determine the emergence of the downward sloping segment of the environmental kuznets curve ekc income inequality produces a gap between the country s ability to pay for environmental protection and a country s willingness to pay i test this result by using oecd data on public r d expenditure for environmental protection the conclusion is that contrary to the ek hypothesis moments of the income distribution function other than the mean may be important for the emergence of a virtuous path of sustainable growth in high income countries

optimal pricing and return policies for perishable commodities this paper considers the pricing decision faced by a producer of a commodity with a short shelf or demand life a hierarchical model is developed and the results of the single period inventory model are used to examine possible pricing and return policies the paper shows that several such policies currently in effect are suboptimal these include those where the manufacturer offers retailers full credit for all unsold goods or where no returns of unsold goods are permitted the paper also demonstrates that a policy whereby a manufacturer offers retailers full credit for a partial return of goods may achieve channel coordination but that the optimal return allowance will be a function of retailer demand therefore such a policy cannot be optimal in a multi retailer environment it is proven however that a pricing and return policy in which a manufacturer offers retailers a partial credit for all unsold goods can achieve channel coordination in a multi retailer environment this article was originally published in marketing science volume 4 issue 2 pages 166 176 in 1985

designing supply contracts contract type and information asymmetry this paper studies the value to a supplier of obtaining better information about a buyer s cost structure and of being able to offer more general contracts we use the bilateral monopoly setting to analyze six scenarios three increasingly general contracts wholesale pricing schemes two part linear schemes and twopart nonlinear schemes each under full and incomplete information about the buyer s cost structure we allow both sides to refuse to trade by explicitly including reservation profit levels for both for the supplier this is implemented through a cutoff policy we derive the supplier s optimal contracts and profits for all six scenarios and examine the value of information and of more general contracts our key findings are as follows first the value of information is higher under two part contracts second the value of offering two part contracts is higher under full information and third the proportion of buyers the supplier will choose to exclude can be substantial

who are the unemployed evidence from the united kingdom using the uk labour force survey 2005 2012 we analyse heterogeneity among non employment subgroups in future employment hazards based on the results we propose alternative measures of unemployment that include out of the labour force subgroups with similar or higher hazards to the officially unemployed

the added worker effect the term added worker effect usually refers to a temporary increase in the labor supply of married women whose husbands have become unemployed this paper presents a new approach to the empirical study of the added worker effect which emphasizes the role of employment uncertainty and credit constraints in generating short run participation and employment patterns the estimates are based on employment transition probabilities rather than static measures of labor supply and are used in a dynamic simulation of changes in the employment and participation rates of wives following an exogenous increase in unemployment among their husbands the results show a small but significant added worker effect at least for white families and suggest that the apparent disagreement among previous studies may stem from different approaches to measuring responses to a transitory event such as an unemployment spell

the impact of customer returns on pricing and order decisions abstract in this paper we address the simultaneous determination of price and inventory replenishment when customers return product to the firm we examine cases when the quantity of returned product is a function of both the quantity sold and the price in single and multi period problems with and without uncertainty in demand we derive results for optimal prices and order quantities and discuss how the firm should change price and inventory quantities in order to mitigate the negative effects of returns from customers

pricing and the news vendor problem a review with extensions in the newsvendor problem a decision maker facing random demand for a perishable product decides how much of it to stock for a single selling period this simple problem with its intuitively appealing solution is a crucial building block of stochastic inventory theory which comprises a vast literature focusing on operational efficiency typically in this literature market parameters such as demand and selling price are exogenous however incorporating these factors into the mode l can provide an excellent vehicle for examining how operational problems interact with marketing issues to influence decision making at the firm level in this paper we examine an extension of the newsvendor problem in which stocking quantity and selling price are set simultaneously we provide a comprehensive review that synthesizes existing results for the single period problem and develop additional results to enrich the existing knowledge base we also review and develop insight into a dynamic inventory extension of this problem and motivate the applicability of such models

coordinating a decentralized supply chain with customer returns and price dependent stochastic demand using a buyback policy abstract we investigate a decentralized supply chain that consists of a manufacturer and a retailer where the retailer simultaneously determines the retail price and order quantity while experiencing customer returns and price dependent stochastic demand we propose an agreement between the manufacturer and the retailer that includes two buyback prices one for unsold inventory and a second for customer returns and show that this type of easy to implement agreement can achieve perfect supply chain coordination and be a win win for both manufacturer and retailer when a complementary profit sharing agreement is included

income inequality and the environment aggregation bias in environmental kuznets curves abstract the environmental kuznets curve assumes an inverted u shaped relation between environmental damage and per capita income recently it has been argued in the literature that in addition to income levels the inequality in the distribution of power and income is positively related to environmental degradation we provide an additional argument based on simple aggregation for including a measure of income dispersion in empirical analyses when the relationship between environmental damage and household income is concave e g resembles an environmental kuznets curve then income inequality is negatively related to total environmental damage results from an empirical analysis of cross national variation indicate that the aggregation effect can run counter to and outweigh the political economy effect for some environmental indicators

the measurement of labor force dynamics with longitudinal data the labour market activity survey filter this article explores the measurement of labor force dynamics using longitudinal data focusing in particular on the canadian labour market activity survey lmas which represents a potential advance in longitudinal data collection because it measures aspects of dynamics not available in existing panel data such as the panel study of income dynamics and the national longitudinal survey we examine the implications of the lmas questionnaire structure the lmas filter for the study of labor market dynamics and undertake simulations to provide a quantitative assessment of the importance of this filter for labor force spells and transitions between labor force states

product quality and return policy in a supply chain under risk aversion of a supplier abstract this study aims to identify the relationship between return policy and product quality decisions in a decentralized system we consider a supply chain situation as in a retail or oem supply chain system where a buyer decides a return policy for consumers and delegates the product quality decision to a supplier we consider the supplier s different risk attitudes whether risk averse or risk neutral a penalty contract is introduced to control the supplier s hidden action conveying external failures due to returns to the supplier we show the conditions for supply chain coordination and demonstrate that product quality enhancement needs to precede a generous return policy setting in view of the prevalent business environment and current supply chain management practices moreover we indicate the optimal conditions for a generous return policy setting without quality enhancement

optimal decisions for sellers considering valuation bias and strategic consumer reactions abstract in the online market for new and innovative products valuation bias commonly occurs between the initial valuation before purchase and the true valuation after purchase as a result of the consumer s lack of knowledge regarding the product valuation bias works in a complex manner on the one hand positive valuation bias increases the seller s demand while on the other hand it can also cause consumers to return their purchases which results in losses for the seller this paper first investigates the effect of the bias on the seller s optimal pricing the optimal price is determined always to increase strictly in the valuation bias if and only if the valuation bias does not exceed the consumer s return cost this result remains true regardless of whether the seller decides on the stocking quantity in addition to the valuation bias we consider strategic consumer reactions to the bias in two selling periods namely the advance period and the spot period our analysis finds that the seller s selling strategies e g pre announcing pricing trends are significantly affected by the relationship between valuation bias and the strategic consumer s estimation of the bias in addition though the optimal selling period is either the advance selling term or the spot selling term the seller does not need to provide for both periods sequentially we also determine that the unannounced pricing trend strategy and the announced non increasing pricing trend strategy are equivalent when the seller faces strategic consumers

the income environment relationship evidence from a binary response model abstract the empirical environmental kuznets curve ekc literature is vast but far from conclusive many authors have analysed the existence of an ekc for various pollutants others have used the ekc framework to identify country characteristics that help to explain the income environment relationship in this framework environmental degradation is analysed using a second or third order polynomial in income and a limited number of control variables some authors question whether this standard framework is appropriate this paper proposes an alternative to study the specific characteristics of countries that have experienced economic growth and an improving environment at the same time we estimate a binary response model and find an ekc like relation between the probability that a country s environment improves with economic growth and per capita gdp our evidence further suggests that the level of environmental damage is an important explanatory variable we also confirm the importance of an open political system these results indicate that the binary response model could be a valuable alternative to test which country specific characteristics are associated with a negative ier

stoking the fires co2 emissions and economic growth abstract we examine the relationship between economic development and carbon dioxide emissions a greenhouse gas central to global warming predictions estimates derived from global panel data suggest a diminishing marginal propensity to emit mpe carbon dioxide as gdp per capita rises despite this global carbon dioxide emissions growth will continue at 1 8 percent per annum for the foreseeable future a result that is not sensitive to average output growth instead emissions growth continues because output and population will grow most rapidly in lower income nations with high mpes this latter feature emphasizes the distributional consequences of policies to reduce emissions

unemployment and nonemployment heterogeneities in labor market states abstract the determination of how to distinguish between unemployment and nonparticipation is important and controversial the conventional approach employs a priori reasoning together with self reported current behavior this paper employs an evidence based classification of labor force status using information about the consequences of the behavior of the nonemployed we find that marginal attachment defined as desiring work although not searching is a distinct labor market state lying between those who do not desire work and the unemployed furthermore important heterogeneities exist within these nonemployment states two subsets of nonparticipants both engaged in waiting display behavior similar to the unemployed

on credible delegation by oligopolists a discussion of distribution channel management several papers in the recent marketing literature have suggested that delegation in distribution e g the use of independent middlemen helps manufacturers to precommit strategically to profit enhancing competitive actions further the literature suggests that the profitability of such actions depends on market structure we challenge these conclusions here this is done in two steps first we perform an analysis of the entire class of models which have been used in the literature using internally consistent assumptions about market structure and contracting the only subgame perfect equilibrium is one in which all distribution channels have infinitely many levels of delegation obviously this is not what we see in the real world next we relax a key hidden assumption namely that all intra channel agreements are observable to competitors without this assumption the usual results unravel unless channel members can offer credible guarantees that unobservable agreements do not exist the strategic effects of delegation disappear since these guarantees are virtually impossible to maintain credibly we would expect to reject the hypothesis in the earlier literature relating channel structure to competition in an empirical study controlling for observability we conclude that mechanisms other than strategic ones must be responsible for the existence of delegated channels and make some suggestions about promising avenues for future theory research in channel structure

economic growth and emissions reconsidering the empirical basis of environmental kuznets curves abstract recent empirical research indicates that certain types of emissions follow an inverted u or environmental kuznets curve ekc as income grows this regularity has been interpreted as a possible de linking of economic growth and patterns of certain pollutants for developed economies in this paper the empirical basis of this result is investigated by considering some statistical particularities of the various ekc studies performed it is argued that the inverted u relationship between income and emissions estimated from panel data need not hold for specific individual countries over time based on insights from intensity of use analysis in resource economics an alternative growth model is specified and estimated for three types of emissions co2 nox and so2 in four countries netherlands uk usa and western germany it is found that the time patterns of these emissions correlate positively with economic growth and that emission reductions may have been achieved as a result of structural and technological changes in the economy sustainable growth is defined as the rate of economic growth that does not lead to growth in emissions its rate is calculated for each type of emission and country based on estimated parameter values the resulting indicators reflect a balance between the positive influence of growth and negative influence of structural change and technological progress on emission levels

does the ilo definition capture all unemployment the labour market status of many non working persons is at the boundary between unemployment and inactivity like the unemployed they seek and are available for work unlike them their last search action was not recent enough to meet the ilo definition of unemployment in this paper we examine by non parametric tests how the transition probabilities of these out of the labour force job seekers differ from those of the unemployed as well as the other non participants first using data from the european community household panel we show that in most eu countries these job seekers constitute a distinct labour market state second we rely on information only available in the italian labour force survey to derive a measure of search intensity which we use to break down the out of the labour force job seekers on the basis of their transition probabilities the most active are indistinguishable from the unemployed

reexamining the empirical evidence for an environmental kuznets curve this paper uses an updated and revised panel data set on ambient air pollution in cities worldwide to examine the robustness of the evidence for the existence of an inverted u shaped relationship between national income and pollution we test the sensitivity of the pollution income relationship to functional forms to additional covariates and to changes in the nations cities and years sampled we find that the results are highly sensitive to these changes and conclude that there is little empirical support for an inverted u shaped relationship between several important air pollutants and national income in these data

a quantity discount approach to supply chain coordination abstract quantity discounts provide a practical foundation for inventory coordination in supply chains however typical supply chain participants may encounter difficulties in implementing the coordination policy simply because 1 specified lot size adjustments may deviate from the economic lot sizes and 2 the buying firm may face amplified overstocking risks related to increased order quantities the main objective of this study is to develop a quantity discount model that resolves the practical challenges associated with implementing quantity discount policies for supply chain coordination between a supplier and a buyer the proposed buyer s risk adjustment b ra model allows the supplier to offer discounts that capitalize on the original economic lot sizes and share the buyer s risk of temporary overstocking under uncertain demand the analytical results suggest that the proposed b ra discount approach is a feasible alternative for supply chain coordination under uncertain demand conditions

revenue sharing and vertical control in the video rental industry revenue sharing contracts in which retailers pay a royalty on sales to their suppliers are now widely used in the video rental industry we show that revenue sharing is valuable in vertically separated industries in which demand is either stochastic unpredictable or variable e g systematically declining downstream inventory is chosen before demand is realized and downstream firms engage in intrabrand competition unlike two part tariffs revenue sharing achieves the first best outcome by softening retail price competition without distorting retailers inventory decisions our theories are also consistent with trends in prices and availability following retailers adoption of revenue sharing contracts

the predictive power of the term structure of interest rates in europe and the united states implications for the european central bank abstract this paper examines the relationship of the term structure of interest rates to monetary policy instruments and to subsequent real activity and inflation in both europe and the united states the results show that monetary policy is an important determinant of the term structure spread but is unlikely to be the only determinant in addition there is significant predictive power for both real activity and inflation the yield curve is thus a simple and accurate measure that should be viewed as one piece of useful information which along with other information can be used to help guide european monetary policy

estimating a structural search model the transition from school to work this paper presents a finite horizon search model that is econometrically implemented using all of the restrictions impli ed by the theory following a sample of male high school graduates fr om the youth cohort of the national longitudinal surveys from graduat ion to employment search parameters are estimated reservation wages and offer probabilities are estimated to be quite low simulations a re performed of the impact of changing the parameters on the expected duration of unemployment copyright 1987 by the econometric society

efficient supply contracts for fashion goods with forecast updating and two production modes we examine the problem of developing supply contracts that encourage proper coordination of forecast information and production decisions between a manufacturer and distributor of high fashion seasonal products operating in a two mode production environment the first production mode is relatively cheap but requires a long lead time while the second is expensive but offers quick turnaround we focus on contracts of the form w1 w2 b wherewi is the wholesale price offered for production modei andb is a return price offered for items left over at the end of the season we find that such a contract can coordinate the manufacturer and distributor to act in the best interest of the channel the pricing conditions needed to ensure an efficient solution vary depending on the degree of demand forecast improvement between periods and the manufacturer s access to forecast information we also examine whether these conditions ensure a pareto optimal solution with respect to two traditional production settings

coordination mechanisms of supply chain systems supply chain management scm has become an important management paradigm as supply chain members are often separate and independent economic entities a key issue in scm is to develop mechanisms that can align their objectives and coordinate their activities so as to optimize system performance in this paper we provide a review of coordination mechanisms of supply chain systems in a framework that is based on supply chain decision structure and nature of demand this framework highlights the behavioral aspects and information need in the coordination of a supply chain the identification of these issues points out several directions of future research in this area

the effect of risk aversion on distribution channel contracts implications for return policies the return policy is often used in retailing supply chains however it is controversial in judging their practical value in the literature various theoretical and modeling explanations of why the return policy is used in practice and is preferred by the retailer and manufacturer have been put forth the literature focusing on the channel agents risk attitudes to explain the adoption seems to have led to the conclusion that the two agents preferences for adopting the full return policy over the no return policy are always in conflict and thus the risk attitudes do not explain the adoption of return policy in practice in this paper we reinvestigate this issue we first identify two distinct phases of risk averseness high or low for each of the two agents we show distinct behaviors of how the wholesale price and order size are set in each phase then we show that the full return policy can be preferred over the no return policy by both the agents if both of them are high risk averse this implies that the agents risk attitudes can explain the adoption of return policy this is a new theoretical result which is contrary to the existing understanding in the literature our result highlights the importance and intricacy of channel policies especially when the risk attitudes of agents are considered

the determinants of atmospheric so2 concentrations reconsidering the environmental kuznets curve this analysis explores the effects of income and the spatial intensity of economic activity on the atmospheric concentration of sulfur dioxide the results indicate that there is a u shaped relation between income and atmospheric concentration of so2 and an inverted u shaped relation between the spatial intensity of economic activity and so2 concentrations these results suggest that the spatial intensity of economic activity rather than income provides the impetus for policies and technologies that reduce so2 emissions based on this result the atmospheric concentration of so2 in developing nations may decline faster than indicated by previous analyses the potential for this decline depends on the rate at which income grows relative to population the trade off between the effects of income gains and the spatial intensity of economic activity on the atmospheric concentration of so2 is consistent with the notion that some environmental problems can be ameliorated by slowing population growth and increasing income levels

the right to return this article studies the allocation of responsibility for unsold inventory provision for which is made in practically every distribution contract the two extreme cases are the consignment contract which allocates all the burden to the manufacturer and the no return contract in which retailers purchase the merchandise outright and assume responsibility for unsold inventory contract choices are shown to vary across countries industries products and types of transactions the article identifies six main factors affecting this choice optimal inventory policy in a stochastic retail demand environment relative advantage in disposing of the unsold inventory optimal risk allocation incentives to invest in promotions and provide services to increase consumer demand information asymmetry and costs associated with the consignment contract per se several testable implications are presented and the choice of contracts in the publishing industry is shown to be consistent with the predictions of the model

unemployment behaviour evidence from the cps work experience survey this chapter is empirical and descriptive rather than theoretical it examines the cps unemployment experience data which gives the number of weeks of unemployment and the number of spells of unemployment experienced by a sample of people in a year this chapter focuses on both the entry rate or frequency probability of entering and the exit rate or duration probability of exiting of unemployment spells for it is on both the entry and exit rates that the level and distribution of unemployment depends the conclusion is that entry rates and differences in entry rates across people are of primary importance in explaining unemployment experience

analyzing structure of two echelon closed loop supply chain for pricing quality and recycling management abstract this paper analyzes the effects of recycling and product quality level on pricing decision in a two echelon closed loop supply chain clsc where demand is sensitive with price and quality level of the product under stackelberg game setting this paper considers three possible collection activities of used product for recycling viz retailer led collection manufacturer led collection and third party led collection it is found that third party s involvement in used product collection activity is always disadvantageous in this proposed model cost parameters of the reverse channel play an important role in determining best channel structure quality level and price of the product directly vary with recycling a threshold of collection effort determines which party between manufacturer and retailer can provide the best quality product at least price to resolve channel conflict and to distribute surplus profit the concepts of sub game perfect equilibrium and alternative offer bargaining strategy are used the analysis reveals that the subgame perfect equilibrium retail price cuts out channel conflict and depicts particular profit split irrespective of the offering party the proposed model is also justified by illustrating numerical examples

the environmental kuznets curve semi parametrically revisited this paper re examines the existence of an environmental kuznets curve ekc across countries using a semi parametric regression estimator which places no restrictions on the functional form our results using cross country panel data on sulfur and carbon dioxide strongly suggest that the relationship between wealth and environmental degradation is not bell shaped as suggested by an ekc rather that there is a positive link for the very poorest countries and no clear relationship for richer countries

disability retirement and unemployment substitute pathways for labour force exit an empirical test for the case of germany this paper studies the determinants of disability retirement and unemployment of older workers two labour market phenomena which the german public discussion combines under the label of early retirement the implicit assumption that these two mechanisms are exchangeable pathways into permanent retirement is tested using panel data the transition rates from employment into disability retirement and into unemploymentare estimated and compared statistical tests reject the hypothesis that disability retirement and unemployment are substitutes

trade the pollution haven hypothesis and the environmental kuznets curve examining the linkages abstract this paper examines the extent to which the ekc inverted u relationship can be explained by trade and specifically the migration or displacement of dirty industries from the developed regions to the developing regions the pollution haven hypothesis phh using detailed data on north south trade flows for pollution intensive products the evidence for the phh is assessed emissions of 10 air and water pollutants are then estimated controlling for trade openness structural change and dirty north south trade flows evidence of pollution haven effects is found although such effects do not appear to be widespread and appear to be relatively small compared to the roles played other explanatory variables

causality between income and emission a country group specific econometric analysis abstract empirical studies of the environmental kuznets curve ekc examine the presence or otherwise of an inverted u shaped relationship between the level of pollution and the level of income customarily in the diagram of ekc the level of income is shown on the horizontal axis and that of pollution on the vertical axis thus it is presumed that the relationship between income and pollution is one of unidirectional causality with income causing environmental changes and not vice versa the validity of this presumption is now being questioned it is being asserted that the nature and direction of causality may vary from one country to the other in this paper we present the results of a study of income co 2 emission causality based on a granger causality test to cross country panel data on per capita income and the corresponding per capita co 2 emission data briefly our results indicate three different types of causality relationship holding for different country groups for the developed country groups of north america and western europe and also for eastern europe the causality is found to run from emission to income for the country groups of central and south america oceania and japan causality from income to emission is obtained finally for the country groups of asia and africa the causality is found to be bi directional the regression equations estimated as part of the granger causality test further suggest that for the country groups of north america and western europe the growth rate of emission has become stationary around a zero mean and a shock in the growth rate of emission tends to generate a corresponding shock in the growth rate of income in contrast for the country groups of central and south america oceania and japan a shock in the income growth rate is likely to result in a corresponding shock in the growth rate of emission finally causality being bi directional for the country groups of asia and africa the income and the emission growth rates seemed to reinforce each other

manufacturer s return policies and retail competition manufacturers returns policies are a common feature in the distribution of many products the obvious rationale for returns policies is insurance practitioners not surprisingly have a different perspective and view returns as a cost of doing business in this paper we study the strategic effect of returns policies on retail competition and highlight its profitability implications for a manufacturer the setting for our research is the distribution of products with uncertain demand limited shelf lives and retail competition our objective is to provide a better understanding of when manufacturers should adopt returns policies the insights are obtained with a model based on the economics of strategy and decision making under uncertainty we show that when retailing is competitive and there is no uncertainty in demand a returns policy subtly induces retailers to compete more intensely the provision of a returns policy reduces retail prices without affecting wholesale prices thereby reducing retailer margins and improving manufacturer profitability the intuition is that with a returns policy cournot like levels of retail stocks cannot be sustained each retailer will order stocks so that it will not be constrained by stocks and so intensifying retail competition when however demand is uncertain and there is a single retailer a returns policy encourages the retailer to over stock and so decreases upstream manufacturer profits while the provision of a returns policy leads to lower retail margins the optimality of returns policy depends on the overall uncertainty and marginal cost a returns policy reduces the dispersion in retail prices between the high and low states of demand and the range of retail prices in the returns case is contained within the range of retail prices for the no returns case in the general setting when there are competing retailers and demand is uncertain there is a trade off for the manufacturer between the benefits more intense retail competition and the costs excessive stocking of a returns policy we find that a manufacturer should accept returns when the marginal production cost is sufficiently low and demand uncertainty is not too great to validate the results of our theory we conduct an empirical test with data from a major u s retailer the tests confirm our prediction that a returns policy intensifies retail competition and reduces retailer margins our theory and empirical test should interest practitioners and researchers in distribution especially those concerned with managing retail competition

measuring the equilibrium effects of unemployment benefits dispersion we analyze the impact of unemployment benefits and minimum wagesusing an equilibrium search model which allows for dispersion ofbenefits and productivity levels job to job transitions andstructural and frictional unemployment the estimation method usesreadily available aggregate data on marginal distributions ofunemployment durations as well as wages and benefit levels different causes of structural and frictional unemployment areinvestigated we investigate the efficiency of the imposition of asingle benefit level for all household types and the introductionof an earned income tax credit

economic growth trade and energy implications for the environmental kuznets curve abstract the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis asserts that pollution follows an inverted u path with respect to economic growth the ekc has been explained in terms of structural changes in the composition of economic output and increased environmental regulation at higher income levels while some authors have incorporated the impact of trade policy orientation on the ekc the impact of the actual movement between countries of goods that embody pollution has not been considered this paper attempts to econometrically quantify the effect using pooled cross country and time series data the ekc hypothesis is examined with respect to commercial energy consumption the source of many serious environmental problems it was found that while both industrializing and industrialized countries have added to their energy requirements by exporting manufactured goods the growth has been substantially higher in the former at the same time industrialized countries have been able to reduce their energy requirements by importing manufactured goods exports of manufactured goods by industrialized countries has thus been an important factor in generating the upward sloping portion of the ekc and imports by industrialized countries have contributed to the downward slope

smooth transition pollution income paths abstract we explore the idea of regime switching as a new methodological approach in the analysis of the emission income relationship the basic idea is that when some threshold is passed the economy could move smoothly to another regime with the emission income relationship being different between the old and the new regime the methodology is applied to a panel dataset of us state level sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions sulfur dioxide emissions are found to smoothly peak at a relatively late stage of economic development and then smoothly decrease at high levels of income however for the nitrogen oxide emissions environmental pressure tends to rise with economic growth then slows down but does not decline with further growth

economic growth international trade and air pollution a decomposition analysis abstract this study analyzes the impact of economic growth and international trade on the level of air pollution this is done by the estimation of the structural equation model with two factors describing the structure of economic activity and air pollution intensity it is further assumed that there is causal link between these two factors and that they are influenced by per capita income international trade intensity and the freedom house index the estimation results suggest that in the developing countries analyzed both international trade and per capita income lead to changes in the structure of economic activity and as a consequence to the increase in air pollution in addition the estimation results suggest that the impact of economic growth on air pollution intensity varies between the developing and developed countries in the developing countries this impact occurs through the change of the structure of economic activity while in the developed countries this impact is mainly direct and occurs through the sum of the scale effect and income effect the positive sign of this impact suggests the dominance of the scale effect over the income effect

defining unemployment in developing countries evidence from trinidad and tobago the international labour organisation ilo argues for relaxing the standard definition of unemployment in developing countries by eliminating the requirement that a person be actively searching for a job we examine whether such an extension of the standard definition is appropriate in the case of trinidad and tobago t t specifically we use the trinidad and tobago labour force survey to examine whether active job search is important in determining the labour market transitions of the non employed our results indicate that in trinidad and tobago males who under the standard criteria would be considered out of the labour force because they report willingness to work but are not currently searching for a job are appropriately classified as unemployed further evidence suggests that this may be because job search may not be as meaningful in rural as it is in urban areas c 2003 elsevier b v all rights reserved

shared savings contracts for indirect materials in supply chains channel profits and environmental impacts there are many materials for which the quantity needed by a firm is at best indirectly related to the quantity of final product produced by that firm such as solvents in manufacturing processes or office supplies for any such indirect materials an inescapable incentive conflict exists the buyer wishes to minimize consumption of these indirect materials while the supplier s profits depend on increasing volume both buyer and supplier can exert effort to reduce consumption hence making the overall supply chain more efficient however no supplier will voluntarily participate unless contract terms are fundamentally revised this can be done through a variety of shared savings contracts where both parties profit from a consumption reduction this paper analyzes several such contracts currently in use for chemicals purchasing we show that such contracts can always increase supply chain profits but need not lead to reduced consumption we analyze equilibrium effort levels consumption and total profits and show how these change with the contract parameters we find that the goals of maximizing joint profits and minimizing consumption are generally not aligned also surprisingly a decrease in a cost parameter can lead to a decrease in profits it may be necessary but is always possible to renegotiate the shared savings contract to reap the benefits of a cost decrease

examining trends of criteria air pollutants are the effects of governmental intervention transitory despite its growth in other areas of economics time series econometric methods have not beenwidespread in the area of environmental andresource economics we illustrate one use oftime series methods by examining the time pathof us nitrogen oxide nox emission dataover the period 1900 1994 the analysishighlights that proper time series methods canaid in optimal regulatory policy as well asdeveloping empirical verification of theoriesput forth to explain economic phenomena inaddition several interesting results emerge first we find that the emissions seriescontains both a permanent and random component second if one attributed all of the emissionsreductions to regulatory policy interventionanalysis suggests that the 1970 clean air act caa did not merely have transitory effects but permanently influenced the noxemission path in terms of total regulatoryimpact an upper bound on the emissions saveddue to the 1970 caa is in the range of27 48

new evidence on whether unemployment and out of the labor force are distinct states this paper focuses on the question of whether people who are out of the labor force olf should be included in unemployment measures if people who are olf can obtain jobs as often as the people who are unemployed then there is no real distinction between the two states of nonemployment surprisingly there has been very little effort surrounding this issue in the past clark and summers 1982 conclude that for teenagers unemployment and olf are not distinct states while flinn and heckman 1982a find the opposite for white male high school graduates the methodology adopted in this paper enables one to use incomplete transition data on unemployment and olf and to obtain estimates of the full transition matrix between three labor force states that are not possible with standard methods new evidence for high school graduates is presented by gender and it is found that while for young women the two states are distinct for young men they are not

the impact of customer returns and bidirectional option contract on refund price and order decisions abstract this study investigates the impacts of customer returns and a bidirectional option contract on a newsvendor firm s refund price and order decisions the stochastic demand is refund price sensitive we show that the optimal refund price increases with the option price and decreases with both the wholesale and exercise prices while the optimal order quantity increases with the exercise price but decreases with both the wholesale and option prices furthermore we illustrate that in the presence of customer returns the optimal refund price and order quantity decrease the firm should cut the refund price and order more products if a bidirectional option contract is available we identify the conditions under which a firm should offer a full partial or no refund policy we also show that a bidirectional option contract can reduce the negative impact of customer returns and enhance the firm s profit especially under high demand uncertainty

revisiting environmental kuznets curves through the energy price lens abstract the goal of this paper is to provide new insights to elucidate the inconclusive results from the environmental kuznets curve ekc empirical literature for the first time in empirical literature an econometric analysis includes the relative prices for several energy sources the paper provides strong evidence on the relevance of energy prices to co 2 emissions accordingly one reason for the lack of agreement in the ekc literature may be the absence of energy prices in empirical exercises the presence of relative energy price changes in the econometric specification confirms a monotonic and positive relationship between co 2 and gross domestic product gdp therefore we may conclude that there is a decoupling process but without reaching any turning point on that relationship the policy implications are straightforward direct climate action by policy makers is required to break the positive relationship between co 2 and gdp that conclusion has been reinforced by the reduction of energy prices since the middle of 2014 otherwise the trend in energy prices may reverse the relative decarbonisation processes accounted for in recent years in major developed countries

two birds with one stone female labor supply fertility and market childcare abstract the correlation between the female labor force participation rate fpr and the total fertility rate tfr has switched from negative to positive in some developed countries in this paper we show how increasing the substitutability between maternal time and market childcare can raise both fpr and tfr and provide an explanation for the change in the tfr fpr correlation simulations of a life cycle model of married women s work and fertility decisions indicate that the fpr increases whereas the tfr is u shaped with regard to substitutability the dynamic relationship depends on the relative strength of behavioral and composition effects greater substitutability allows working women to have more children but it also attracts less productive women to enter the labor force who trade childbirths for labor supply the findings imply that raising substitutability to a sufficiently high level can achieve the two seemingly conflicting goals increasing female labor force participation and fertility rates

comment managing channel profits comment in a recent paper in this journal jeuland and shugan jeuland a s shugan 1983 managing channel profits marketing sci 2 summer 239 272 proposed a quantity discount schedule as a way of coordinating a channel as they put it on p 253 of their paper a quantity discount schedule which would fix the retailer s and hence the manufacturer s profits to some fixed linear function of total channel profits would lead the channel to maximize profits the purpose of this note is to show that a quantity discount schedule is not necessary for channel coordination

greenhouse gases emissions growth and the energy mix in europe the importance of energy on greenhouse gases ghg emissions is reflected by the fact that 65 of said emissions in the world are currently due to the use and production of energy however most empirical emission models are found within the environmental kuznetz curve ekc framework which focuses on the relationship between emissions and economic development ang s 2007 2008 papers are some of the exceptions that simultaneously study the relationship between emissions growth and energy with respect to ang s research we contribute on two important aspects first while ang uses a particular country as the study and use time series techniques we take advantage of a panel data set of 24 european countries between 1990 and 2006 and use a dynamic panel data dpd framework second the impact of energy consumption on emissions would depend on the primary energy mix and on the final use of this energy and we consider both factors in the model

buyback contracts with price dependent demands effects of demand uncertainty chapter 2 examines buyback contracts in a supplier retailer supply chain where the retailer faces a price dependent downward sloping demand curve subject to uncertainty compared with classical research a fundamental difference of this research lies in its analytical examination of the effects of demand uncertainty on the applicability of buyback contracts to this end the research seeks to characterize the buyback contract model in terms of only demand uncertainty level with such a new research perspective some new and interesting findings are obtained for such issues as how demand uncertainty level affects the applicability of buyback practice and how to apply this practice to improve supply chain members own interests or the supply chain system s efficiency the research in this chapter demonstrates that the uncertainty level inherent in market demand can be a critical factor influencing the applicability of supply chain contracts as well as the contract s administrative cost cachon 2003 and the uncertainty type marvel and peck 1995

on the robustness of alternative unemployment measures abstract the unemployment rate is one of the most important economic indices this article extends the work of feng and hu 2013 and examines the effects of potential misclassifications in labor force statuses on the different bureau of labor statistics bls unemployment measures compared to the official us unemployment rate u 3 the broader measure u 6 is more robust to such classification errors in the survey data that are used to calculate unemployment rates if one prefers the definitions of u 3 then we offer an approach to use reported unemployment measures to proxy for the unobserved true u 3

stigma effects of nonemployment i introduction it is well known that longer durations of past nonemployment are associated with longer durations of future nonemployment 1 two explanations have been offered in the literature to interpret this phenomenon heterogeneity and the effect of workers employment histories the heterogeneity explanation argues that individuals differ in certain observed and unobserved characteristics and that these differences affect the duration of their periods of nonemployment however these individuals are unaffected by the mere experience of nonemployment because individuals with longer spells of nonemployment in the past are more likely to have characteristics that make them remain nonemployed they are likely to experience longer spells of nonemployment than others in the future the work history explanation argues that the mere experience of longer spells of nonemployment in the past raises the chance of longer spells of nonemployment in the future two theoretical explanations have been offered to explain this structural relationship human capital decay and stigma human capital decay suggests that nonemployed workers lose vital work experience and on the job training or suffer from human capital decay that reduces their future employability stigma suggests that potential employers infer the unobserved components of the workers quality from their history of employment and nonemployment in particular past nonemployment sends a negative signal to potential employers that lowers the probability of future reemployment 2 the ability to distinguish between heterogeneity and the effect of work history is a crucially important policy issue if the observed correlation between the duration of successive nonemployment spells reflects heterogeneity across individuals then a given individual enjoys the same chance of reemployment no matter how long or short his periods of past nonemployment have been in this case chronic nonemployment is a problem of a population subgroup and traditional training programs targeted toward the chronically nonemployed would be an appropriate policy tool moreover the programs could be targeted at individuals with the characteristics associated with a high risk of chronic nonemployment however if the observed correlation reflects the effect of work history anyone who happens to have experienced long periods of nonemployment in the past has a high probability of experiencing long periods of nonemployment in the future thus phelps 1972 argues that short term macroeconomic policies that alleviate unemployment will also lower aggregate unemployment rates in the long run 3 i argue however that an appropriate policy depends on the cause of the work history effect if the effect reflects human capital decay then short term macroeconomic policies to alleviate unemployment and traditional government training programs to help the unemployed restore lost skills are appropriate if the effect reflects stigma active short term macroeconomic policies may not be necessary to lower aggregate unemployment rates in the long run because stigma effects are likely to be weaker when nonemployment is experienced during a severe recession than when it is experienced during a moderate recession an appropriate policy would aim at aiding the flow of accurate information on the quality of stigmatized workers in the private sector for instance the government might subsidize potential private sector employers costs of screening job applicants who established poor work histories during a period of moderate recession alternatively it might sponsor private sector internship and training programs for such workers 4 although both the duration and frequency of nonemployment determine the individual s nonemployment rate the duration is empirically far more important than the frequency 5 because an understanding of the determinants of the duration of nonemployment is crucial to both economic theory and policymaking an enormous number of empirical studies have addressed the issue

note the role of returns policies in pricing and inventory decisions for catalogue goods manufacturers often use returns policies to encourage retailers to stock and price items more aggressively we focus on the effect that such policies have on both a retailer s and a manufacturer s profits when the retailer must commit prior to the selling season to both a stocking quantity and a price at which to sell an item such a commitment is often necessary for retailers who sell primarily through catalogues

the measurement of unemployment an empirical approach although the unemployment rate is one of the most widely cited and closely monitored economic statistics the definition and measurement of unemployment remain controversial an important issue is whether non employed persons who display a marginal attachment to the labor force for example those who are available for and desire work but are not searching for work should be classified as unemployed or non participants although this issue has been extensively debated it has never been tested empirically this paper carries out empirical tests of this and related hypotheses using a unique longitudinal data set from canada we find within the marginally attached a waiting group whose behavior indicates that they would be more appropriately classified as unemployed rather than out of the labor force the remainder of the marginally attached exhibit behavior between that of the unemployed and the balance of non participants suggesting that the desire for work among non searchers conveys substantial information about labor force attachment and future employment status our methods also apply to heterogeneity within the unemployed and we investigate behavioral variation linked to differences in job search methods and reasons for entry into unemployment although those using passive job search do exhibit behavior somewhat distinct from active searchers our results reject the practice of classifying passive job searchers as out of the labor force overall our results indicate that the non employed are very heterogeneous so that any single division into unemployment and out of the labor force is unlikely to fully capture the variety of degrees of labor force attachment this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

income inequality and pollution a reassessment of the environmental kuznets curve abstract improvements in some measures of air and water quality can accompany rising per capita income as illustrated by the so called environmental kuznets curve for pollution variables which show such a relationship we hypothesize that a more equitable distribution of power contributes to these outcomes by enhancing the influence on policy of those who bear the costs of pollution relative to the influence of those who benefit from pollution generating activities an empirical analysis of international variations in seven indicators of air and water quality supports this hypothesis literacy political rights and civil liberties are found to have particularly strong effects on environmental quality in low income countries

a structural explanation of recent changes in life cycle labor supply and fertility behavior of married women in the united states abstract this study documents and explains important changes in the life cycle labor supply and fertility behavior of married women in the united states from the 1950s to more recent cohorts the younger cohorts relative to the 1950s supply more labor at earlier stages of the life cycle delay motherhood to later stages without reducing the fertility rate and upon childbearing show a greater tendency to stay out of the labor force in a life cycle model for married couples in which a household makes decisions on fertility as well as labor supply consumption and savings all the behavioral changes are jointly and quantitatively explained by a combination of changes in various labor supply fertility determinants with the increased returns penalties to work non work experience being the dominant contributor the results survive a series of robustness tests including endogenizing education choice and assortative marriage

detailed estimation of worklife expectancy for the measurement of human capital accounting for marriage and children abstract measuring an individual s human capital at a point in time as the present actuarial value of expected net lifetime earnings has a lengthy history calculating such measures requires accurate estimates of worklife expectancy here worklife estimates for men and women in the usa categorized by educational attainment race marital status parental status and current labour force status are presented race has a much larger impact on the worklife expectancy of men than women education is associated with larger worklife differentials for women the association between marriage and worklife expectancy is significant but of opposite sign for men and women married women men have a lower higher worklife expectancy than single women men parenthood is associated with a reduction in the worklife expectancy of women the association is smaller and varies from positive for some education marital status groups to negative for others for men

channel coordination using product returns for a supply chain with stochastic salvage capacity abstract we examine returns policy in a newsboy framework unlike the prior literature however we assume that both supplier and retailer have limited and stochastic salvage capacities we first analyze the case of integrated supply chain in which the agents decisions are fully coordinated for the joint profits the result prescribes a partial returns policy in which the retailer returns a part of the leftovers to the supplier and liquidates the remainder through its clearance sale in a decentralized system the supplier should motivate the retailer to duplicate the outcome of the integrated system in choosing order and returns quantities we propose three coordination contracts of which each uses two benefit transfer schemes as an incentive to the retailer instead of using a single benefit scheme as in the prior literature all three effectively coordinate the supply chain the supplier as a stakelberg leader chooses the most profitable one since each contract yields the different shares of the agents profits

the environmental kuznets curve does one size fit all abstract this paper uses a new panel data set on state level sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from 1929 1994 to test the appropriateness of the one size fits all reduced form regression approach commonly used in the environmental kuznets curve literature empirical results provide initial evidence that an inverted u shape characterizes the relationship between per capita emissions and per capita incomes at the state level parameter estimates suggest however that previous studies which restrict cross sections to undergo identical experiences over time may be presenting statistically biased results

the quantity flexibility contract and supplier customer incentives consider a supply chain consisting of two independent agents a supplier e g a manufacturer and its customer e g a retailer the latter in turn serving an uncertain market demand to reconcile manufacturing procurement time lags with a need for timely response to the market such supply chains often must commit resources to production quantities based on forecasted rather than realized demand the customer typically provides a planning forecast of its intended purchase which does not entail commitment benefiting from overproduction while not bearing the immediate costs the customer has incentive to initially overforecast before eventually purchasing a lesser quantity the supplier must in turn anticipate such behavior in its production quantity decision this individually rational behavior results in an inefficient supply chain this paper models the incentives of the two parties identifying causes of inefficiency and suggesting remedies particular attention is given to the quantity flexibility qf contract which couples the customer s commitment to purchase no less than a certain percentage below the forecast with the supplier s guarantee to deliver up to a certain percentage above under certain conditions this method can allocate the costs of market demand uncertainty so as to lead the individually motivated supplier and customer to the systemwide optimal outcome we characterize the implications of qf contracts for the behavior and performance of both parties and the supply chain as a whole

is there an environmental kuznets curve for sulfur abstract most existing estimates of the environmental kuznets curve ekc for sulfur which use samples of mainly high income countries indicate a maximum emissions turning point at middle to lower high income levels of gdp per capita we use a larger and more globally representative sample than previous sulfur ekc studies we find that sulfur emissions per capita are a monotonic function of income per capita when we use a global sample and an inverted u shape function of income when we use a sample of high income countries a model estimated in first differences results in a monotonic ekc when estimated with both high income and global samples reductions in emissions are time related rather than income related

demand disruption and coordination of the supply chain with a dominant retailer this paper develops two coordination models of a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer one dominant retailer and multiple fringe retailers to investigate how to coordinate the supply chain after demand disruption we consider two coordination schedules linear quantity discount schedule and groves wholesale price schedule we find that under the linear quantity discount schedule the manufacturer only needs to adjust the maximum variable wholesale price after demand disruption for each case of the disrupted amount of demand the higher the market share of the dominant retailer the lower its average wholesale price and the subsidy will be under the linear quantity discount schedule while the higher its fraction of the supply chain s profit will be under groves wholesale price schedule when the increased amount of demand is very large and production cost is sufficiently low linear quantity discount schedule is better for the manufacturer however when the production cost is sufficiently large groves wholesale price schedule is always better we also find that the disrupted amount of demand largely affects the allocation of the supply chain s profit