the environmental economic impact of woodland a two stage hedonic price model of the amenity value of forestry in britain woodland is an important part of the environment providing economic benefits through its use in commercial timber production and through its value as an amenity as well as providing recreation for visitors woodland is also important to local residents for whom it provides leisure opportunities and a source of aesthetic enjoyment it is well known that the price of a house may reflect a household s willingness to pay to live near an environmental amenity such as a forest and to gain access to it the nature of this relationship may be examined by applying the hedonic price technique an econometric method which investigates house prices and the variation in structural and environment characteristics over space this study uses a two stage hedonic price model to explore the impact of forest type on house price and to estimate the demand for broadleaved woodland for a sample of houses adjacent to forestry commission land

transaction costs in the theory of unemployment this paper addresses the problem of accounting theoretically for the persistence of large scale unemployment it briefly reviews some of the well known shortcomings of the keynesian account based upon sticky wages and prices and upon robert clower s 1965 concept of effective demand arguing that these shortcomings can be seen as a failure explicitly to integrate transaction costs into the theory of unemployment the main constructive contribution of the paper is an example of a simple macro model along the lines of robert barro and herschel grossman 1971 in which transaction costs are made explicit an essential part of this example is an externality of the sort suggested by peter diamond 1982 the example provides an account of persistent unemployment with many keynesian features yet without some of the keynesian shortcomings in particular it assumes perfect wage and price flexibility

producer s dilemma experiments abstract embedding profit motivated producers in a simple macroeconomic model creates a system where expansion by one producer is unprofitable but coordinated expansions are profitable in this system any level of aggregate demand is a potential equilibrium the ruling equilibrium is determined by expectations rather than close the model with behavioral assumptions behavioral observations are made of subjects in this incentive environment

the effects of monetary policy at different stages of economic development abstract the effects of monetary policy vary significantly across countries in particular recent empirical work finds evidence of a tobin effect in high income countries and a reverse tobin effect in less developed economies we present a neoclassical growth model where money is required for investment and consumption purposes in contrast to standard cash in advance models the reliance on cash is inversely related to the extent of capital formation in this setting we demonstrate that the effects of monetary policy depend on the level of development in particular inflation adversely affects capital formation at low levels of income because there is a high reliance on cash and a high cost of capital by comparison the financial system operates more efficiently in advanced countries consequently monetary policy generates a tobin effect

the ghost of extinction preservation values and minimum viable population in wildlife models abstract the inclusion of a minimum viable population in bioeconomic modeling creates at least two complications that are not resolved by using a modified logistic growth function the first complication can be dealt with by choosing a different depensational growth function the second complication relates to the inclusion of the in situ benefits of wildlife into the analysis knowledge about the magnitude of the in situ benefits provides no guide for policy about conservation management simply knowing that people are willing to pay a large amount each year to protect a species says nothing about whether one should manage habitat to protect or enhance the species numbers unless the species is in imminent danger of extinction if willingness to pay is to be a guide it needs to be better tied to population numbers especially the minimum viable population

seasonal solow residuals and christmas a case for labor hoarding and increasing returns in aggregate unadjusted data measured solow residuals exhibit large seasonal variations total factor productivity grows rapidly in the fourth quarter at an annual rate of 16 percent and regresses sharply in the first quarter at an annual rate of 24 percent how much of the total seasonal variation in the measured solow residual can be explained by christmas the answer to this question is surprising with increasing returns and time varying labor effort christmas is sufficient to explain the seasonal variation in the solow residual consumption average productivity and output in all four quarters our analysis of seasonally unadjusted data uncovers important roles for labor hoarding and increasing returns that are difficult to identify in adjusted data prescott 1986 has argued that the variability of solow s residual is a reasonable estimate of the variability of exogenous technology shocks when solow s residual is measured using seasonally unadjusted data for the postwar u s economy it exhibits large seasonal variations growing rapidly in the fourth quarter at an annual rate of 16 percent and falling sharply in the first quarter at an annual rate of 24 percent this paper starts from the premise that it is implausible to attribute seasonal variation of this magnitude to changes in the state of technology we present a model in which all seasonal fluctuations arise from a single demand shift christmas this demand shift together with misspecification of the traditional production function leads to large seasonal variation in the solow residual we consider two candidates for misspecification labor hoarding and external increasing returns to scale even when technological growth is aseasonal either candidate in isolation can induce spurious seasonality in the solow residual our general equilibrium analysis indicates that 1 the economy s seasonal patterns in all four quarters may be a response simply to a fourth quarter consumption demand shift and 2 a combination of labor hoarding and external increasing returns is important for replicating these patterns in aggregate quantity variables for the postwar u s economy since our analysis identifies important roles for labor hoarding and increasing returns these results have implications for nonseasonal macroeconomic models indeed our analysis im

how are product demand changes transmitted to the labour market in the traditional keynesian and classical models the transmission of product demand changes to the labor market generally involves wage price sluggishness or countercyclical real wage movements in practice however real wages are often acyclical or procyclical and wages and prices are flexible over periods of several years this paper examines the main channels whereby product demand can affect employment under these conditions the analysis suggests that the effectiveness of demand management policies under wage price flexibility depends significantly on the availability of a limited number of supply side transmission channels copyright 1994 by royal economic society

pilot project on sustainability management accounting with the styrian automobile cluster abstract the paper is based on a project with the styrian automobile cluster in austria and selected member companies in six companies the environmental management costs as well as further costs for health and safety risk management and other social issues were assessed less tangible items and external effects are addressed starting with the efforts to assess the financial effects of the sustainability performance indicators provided by the global reporting initiative gri for sustainability reporting the un dsd united nations division for sustainable development method for environmental management accounting ema was enlarged by several other cost categories this paper describes these and the experiences from the pilot projects the two major cost drivers are the purchase costs of non product output and the costs related to lost working days because of sick leave and accidents and the overtime pay to make up for these lost working days the work of the environmental health and safety ehs department helps to reduce these costs the cost assessment scheme allows one to better understand the relationships between costs for treatment of undesired effects due to unimplemented protection measures and lost material purchase value in comparison to the prevention costs which mainly consist of the internal management departments and related external consultants the assessment of sustainability management costs is of interest for organisations which already publish a sustainability report and want to more accurately assess the financial effects of such aspects addressed via ema it is also useful for small and medium sized companies which use the assessment as a starting point to shape their ehs system the main benefits are more accurate data and better arguments for investment appraisal or performance indicators as well as improved consistency of information and management systems that should help them to improve their environmental social and economic performance

the information content of quantity signals and downward inflexible prices it is shown that nonmarket clearing prices can persist in noncooperative nash competition among firms when the dis semination of information depends critically on the flexibility of pr ices the key to this explanation is that the value of the informatio n revealed by quantity signals when prices are fixed can be greater t han the short run profit obtained by an instantaneous price adjustmen t copyright 1987 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

optimal climate policy is a utopia from quantitative to qualitative cost benefit analysis abstract the dominance of quantitative cost benefit analysis cba and optimality concepts in the economic analysis of climate policy is criticised among others it is argued to be based in a misplaced interpretation of policy for a complex climate economy system as being analogous to individual inter temporal welfare optimisation the transfer of quantitative cba and optimality concepts reflects an overly ambitious approach that does more harm than good an alternative approach is to focus the attention on extreme events structural change and complexity it is argued that a qualitative rather than a quantitative cba that takes account of these aspects can support the adoption of a minimax regret approach or precautionary principle in climate policy this means implement stringent ghg reduction policies as soon as possible

automobiles and the national industrial recovery act evidence on industry complementarities this paper investigates the automobile industry code negotiated in 1933 and modified in 1935 under the national industrial recovery act the amended code contained a provision calling for automobile producers to alter the timing of new model introductions and the annual automobile show as a means of regularizing employment in the industry our analysis of this period provides evidence against the hypothesis that changes in fundamentals led to the dramatic changes in the seasonal pattern of production and sales starting in 1935 instead it appears that the national industrial recovery act succeeded in coordinating activity on an alternative nash equilibrium

money supply variability in a macro model of monopolistic competition the effects of changes in money supply variability are examined for a macro model of monopolistic competition increases in money supply variability raise demand uncertainty causing individual firms to produce more for inventory in addition expected profits decrease inducing a number of firms to leave the economy aggregate income then falls in spite of an increase in firm level production the result on aggregate income is standard but the results on inventories and the number of firms in the economy distinguish this monopolistic macro model empirically from conventional macro models when changes in money supply variability occur

the invisible hand plays dice multiple equilibria in sects markets religious participation is much more widespread in the united states than in europe while europeans tend to view sects more suspiciously than americans we propose an explanation for these patterns without assuming differences in preferences or market fundamentals we study a religious market where both demand and supply of spiritual services are endogenous such markets may have multiple equilibria further equilibria with more sects result in higher welfare and lower membership costs as secular societies tend to host on average more demanding sects

unemployment labour markets and structural change in eastern europe labour markets in eastern europe michael burda unemployment is a major concern in the transforming economies of central and eastern europe the modern flow approach to labour markets suggests both that unemployment is an important component of the transformation process and that the labour market institutions adopted will influence the rate of unemployment in the long run to date eastern european countries exhibit considerable divergences in several of these institutions especially in unemployment benefit systems collective bargaining structures and active labour market policies an aggregate matching function is successfully estimated for data from czech and slovak employment offices emerging labour markets in the east function not so differently from those in the west the implied dynamics make both big bang and benign neglect unattractive strategies for transformation a mixed bang is more appropriate quantitative evidence about the effects on unemployment of different labour market institutions in oecd countries is used to make long term projections of equilibrium rates of unemployment in central and eastern europe given the labour market institutions now in place there with the possible exception of the czech republic high unemployment is likely to be pervasive and persistent

cost benefit analysis values wellbeing and ethics an indigenous worldview analysis abstract in cost benefit analysis cba values are often invoked to discuss maximization strategies that produce the highest state of social wellbeing expressed in terms of utility also the conception of preferences is what individuals reveal as contributing to their wellbeing however as cba ignores the empirically testable facts of how preferences are constituted practical question arises about the legitimacy of the values themselves in contributing to welfare maximization this paper seeks to uncover the meaning of wellbeing from lessons drawn from an extensive field study conducted with a group of indigenous people in malaysia between 2008 and 2011 it concludes that despite decades of conceptual and analytical refinement the price based cba is still limited in the practical world of evaluation because of the real difficulties it encountered in assessing the non use and indirect use components of environmental assets that are non subjectively distinguishable or are not traded in the market also in ignoring individuals value judgment and the various meanings of wellbeing from different socio cultural backgrounds cba tends to lead to welfare distortions to address these theoretical and practical deficiencies it is necessary to embrace the heterodox school of ecological economics focusing on the social cultural and biophysical aspects of valuation processes

underemployment equilibrium with rational expectations in this paper i use some recent work in the microeconomics of imperfect information to construct a macro model the microeconomic theory suggests that atomistically competitive firms face kinked demand curves in this model there is a range of aggregate equilibria consistent with correct information i then show that individual firms can face a free rider problem in trying to move from one equilibrium to another by changing the price level monetary policy is not subject to this problem even if the policy is fully anticipated

double counting in hedonic and travel cost models agency is responsible for reducing pollution in a lake the pollution causes economic damage because the lake is less attractive for fishing and swimming evidence of the influence of pollution can be found through judicious sifting of the prices of houses near the lake and from reduced recreational use of the lake the administrator of the environmental agency responsible for the lake wants to reduce the pollution in the lake but cognizant of scarce resources wants some evidence that the expensive investment in publicly owned treatment works will yield commensurate benefits consequently she contracts with two economists for research on the benefits of environmental improvements one will study the damages from the perspective of the housing market the other will study the damages through the demand for recreation when the environmental administrator receives the estimates of damages from the two economists should she add them together this is the basic question explored in this paper both travel cost models of recreation demand and hedonic models of housing can produce measures of pollution damages when applied to the same polluted resources do travel cost models and hedonic models measure the same damage this analysis is similar in spirit but much simpler than that of rosen 1979 and roback 1982 the latter work examines an equilibrium when the wage and the land price are affected by amenity levels the use of hedonic models to value access is not new the spatial equilibrium model of a city can be viewed as a predecessor of the hedonic price model in this model formalized by alonso 1964 the land rent gradient represents a tradeoff between commuting time and space in the hedonic context nelson 1977 shows how the demand for commuting time and the price of housing interact to influence housing prices accessibility in some form as a proxy for travel time is a popular attribute of houses in hedonic models the issue addressed in this paper has relevance for litigation and for policy it arises in cases of cercla comprehensive environmental response compensation and liability act concerned with the recovery of natural resource damages freeman 1987 describes a case where a hazardous substance released into new bedford harbor apparently had an impact on the housing market near the harbor and on the recreational use of the harbor this impact was studied with both a hedonic model and a travel cost model double counting is also a relevant issue when access to resources which are valued for their recreational returns are addressed in a hedonic framework

an extreme keynesian macro economic model with formal micro economic foundations this paper presents a formal general equilibrium model of a monetary economy in which agents decision rules are derived from the underlying preferences technology endowments and information firms face kinked demand curves for the reason given by j stiglitz 1979 customers know the price at their current firm but not at other firms the results are compatible with extreme keynesian macroeconomic predictions as presented by g woglom 1982 there is no automatic tendency to full employment and a change in the money supply may cause a permanent change in real output with no change in prices

limited rationality and strategic complements the implications for macroeconomics this paper considers the implications of heterogeneity in information processing abilities for macroeconomic models that exhibit strategic complements the latter is the same concept that has received much attention in the recent macro literature under the headings keynesian coordination problems and positive trading externalities we consider environments in which agents vary in terms of their ability to form expectations and ask whether it is the sophisticated agents or the naive agents who have a disproportionately large effect on macroeconomic equilibrium we find that if macroeconomic interaction exhibits strategic complementarity then it is the naive agents who have a disproportionate impact

governmental initiatives the unido united nations industrial development organization test approach abstract experience drawn from several ema environmental management accounting and mfca material flow cost accounting case studies shows that establishing an input output balance in values and volumes on a regular basis is still a challenge as current accounting information systems simply don t offer the opportunities needed to easily integrate the data requirements of iso 14051 into financial and cost accounting stock management and production planning the paper visualizes the linkages between current information systems and where there are common recommendations regarding input output balancing it draws on experiences from small and medium sized companies smes in developed and transitional countries most of them have been performed within the unido united nations industrial development organization test approach which assists smes in performing cleaner production projects based on a mass balance assessment implementing as well an environmental management system to ensure continual implementation and improvement the paper goes on to argue that first the input output balance should be regularly implemented on the system boundary of the company within the financial accounting and stock management system before more detailed systems on the level of processes should be attempted as the later needs much more complex adoptions to cost accounting and production planning information systems

the keynesian recovery although modem macro economic analysis has almost immortalized keynes s is lm framework it has largely ignored the central message of the general theory this is attributable at least in part to keynes s failure to provide a clear concept of market organization as an alternative to the walrasian auction paradigm recent developments however in the theory of search and transaction externalities may ultimately provide that missing concept also work on indeterminacy in rational expectations models may direct the profession s attention away from wage stickiness and back towards the intertemporal co ordination problems that keynes saw as lying at the root of unemployment la reprise keynesienne meme si l analyse macroeconomique moderne a presque immortalis6 le cadre d analyse is lm de keynes elle a en gros ignore le message central contenu dans sa theorie generale cela est attribuable au moins en partie au fait que keynes n a pas propose une notion claire d organisation du marche qui puisse remplacer le paradigme de l encan a la walras cependant certains developpements recents dans la theorie des cofuts de la recherche d un emploi des cofuts de transaction et des effets extemes que ce phenomene entraine pourraient fournir un des ces jours le chainon manquant i1 se pourrait aussi que les travaux sur l indetermination dans les modeles d anticipations rationnelles puissent aider a faire que l attention des membres de la profession economiste cesse d etre braquee sur les problemes de rigidit6 des salaires pour se fixer de nouveau sur les problemes de coordination intertemporelle qui etaient pour keynes au coeur du probleme du chomage it is an honour to be giving the harold innis memorial lecture for 1986 i m especially happy to be giving it in 1986 because this is the fiftieth anniversary of keynes s general theory of employment interest and money and i d like to take this occasion to speak on the subject of the influence keynes s central the 1986 harold innis memorial lecture presented at the canadian economics association meetings in winnipeg 29 may 1986 robert clower david laidler michael parkin and douglas purvis provided useful comments on the original lecture canadian journal of economics revue canadienne d economique xix no 4 november novembre 1986 printed in canada imprime au canada 0008 4085 86 626 641 1 50 canadian economics association this content downloaded from 157 55 39 244 on fri 17 jun 2016 05 48 33 utc all use subject to http about jstor org terms the keynesian recovery 627 message in the general theory has had on contemporary macro economics and the influence it is likely to have in coming years if i had been asked to address this subject five or ten years ago i would have made the lecture very short although the keynesian is lm apparatus was still the main organizing device of all intermediate macro textbooks and of most policy oriented economists keynesian theoretical ideas had virtually disappeared from the leading journals having been displaced by unkeynesian ideas such as perfect wage flexibility perfect foresight the absence of involuntary unemployment the pareto optimality of business cycle fluctuations and so forth keynesian policy advice had become downright disreputable in some academic circles and was clearly on the defensive everywhere as for the status of keynesian ideas in society at large keynes once expressed the wish that some day economists could get themselves thought of as humble competent people on a level with dentists 1930 332 by 1979 keynesian economists had become thought of the way i used to think of my dentist when i was ten years old with a mouth full of cavities and he could see no reason for using novocaine not humble or competent but a menace to society who was all the more dangerous because of his belief that he knew better than others what was good for them and because he now had his hands on some of the crucial policy instruments since 1979 the public status of keynesian ideas has fallen even further the madmen in authority are now distilling their frenzy from other defunct economists but i see signs of some recovery in the status of those ideas within the discipline of economics signs that at least they aren t yet completely dead what i d like to argue is that there is an important aspect of keynes s central message that was never incorporated into the mainstream of macro economic theory that the failure to incorporate this aspect is largely responsible for the decline of keynesian theoretical ideas but that some recent theoretical developments offer hope that that failure may finally be rectified

a simple macroeconomic model with monopolistic firms this paper presents a simple macroeconomic model in which firms outputs are imperfect substitutes and explores the macroeconomic implications of monopolistic competition the model is classical in some respects but keynesian in others multiple or unstable equilibria are not unlikely permanent price controls will in principle be desirable since they allow a permanent and efficient increase in aggregate output small costs of price adjustment may induce large deviations of output from the natural rate fiscal policy will generally affect aggregate output but the sign and magnitude of the government expenditure multiplier cannot be determined a priori

the welfare cost of unemployment in quebec harberger s triangle meets okun s gap using duality theory under rationing the authors derive a measure of the aggr egate welfare cost of cyclical unemployment which takes into account the value of additional nonmarket activities promoted by unemploymen t this measure is then applied to the quebec economy using benchmar k general equilibrium data for 1980 comparisons are made between the results obtained from the author s welfare measure and from the redu ction in gnp as measured by okun gap according to their simulations the overestimating bias of the cost of cyclical unemployment in que bec as measured by okun gap varies between 3 and 20 percent depend ing on the assumptions used the bias is more important however whe n a permanent increase in the unemployment rate is simulated

responders versus non responders a new perspective on heterogeneity this paper considers the implications of a particular type of heterogeneity one which characterizes a large number of economic environments but that has not received any systematic treatment in the literature the authors refer to this heterogeneity as responders versus nonresponders the paper begins by providing a general framework for the analysis of environments characterized by this heterogeneity and then shows how this framework can be used to help understand a wide variety of economic environments particular applications considered are near rationality network externalities and models of reputation copyright 1991 by royal economic society

valuing environmental factors in cost benefit analysis using data envelopment analysis abstract environmental cost benefit analysis ecba is used for the social evaluation of investment projects and policies that involve significant environmental impacts economic valuation of environmental impacts forms one of the critical steps of ecba we develop a new method for this purpose which does not require price estimation for environmental impacts using stated or revealed preference methods our approach is based on data envelopment analysis dea which is modified to ecba by using absolute shadow prices instead of relative prices we also discuss how the method can be used for sensitive analysis in ecba we illustrate the method by means of a hypothetical numerical example

the amenity value of woodland in great britain a comparison of economic estimates forests produce benefits over and above the revenue yielded from timber and other wood based products most important among these may be the recreational benefits for visitors which have been examined in several studies total benefits for residents are perhaps more accurately captured in property values since ceteris paribus the price of a house reflects willingness to pay to live near an environmental amenity such as a forest to gain access to it and also the amenity non use value of the forest in so far as it creates a pleasant landscape however the total non priced value of forestry is not the sum of hpm and itcm benefit estimates recreational benefits will typically be less and will be subsumed in the hpm estimates since the hedonic price is partly induced by the value of recreational access

monopolistic competition transaction costs and multiple equilibria abstract this paper analyzes the role of transactions costs in a macroeconomic model of monopolistic competition if there is sufficient increasing returns to scale in transaction technology the economy exhibits multiple equilibria even if the production technology is constant or decreasing returns to scale

value of recreational fishing in the brazilian pantanal a travel cost analysis using count data models abstract recreational fishing value of the brazilian pantanal is measured using travel cost method tcm we compare non linear poisson and negative binomial count data models to estimate recreational fishing trip demands the count data and truncated models are used primarily to account for non negative integer and truncation properties of recreational fishing trips as suggested by the recreation valuation literature the results reveal that non linear and truncated count data models perform relatively well in our study the economic values of recreational fishing in terms of consumer surplus cs are derived using non linear and truncated models we estimate the cs values from 540 54 to 869 57 per trip resulting in the total social welfare estimate range from 35 to 56 million the study demonstrates a relatively high value of recreational fishing in the pantanal in comparison to similar studies conducted in other parts of the world the findings of this study would be important for resource management decisions in the pantanal and could serve as a reference in valuing similar resources in other ecosystems around the world

expanding material flow cost accounting framework review and potentials abstract existing research argues that impressive environmental and economic benefits can be and have been achieved with material flow cost accounting mfca this paper examines the body of literature on mfca and identifies a limited application of mfca in comparison to its potential application examining the scope of mfca shows that the methodological proposals and applications are largely focused on production related decisions so far the growing but still limited body of research on mfca has not been linked with the conceptual developments in environmental management accounting ema by conducting a literature review based on the ema framework additional decision situations and decision makers are identified and the potential benefits of expanding mfca are discussed this paper provides a research agenda both for developing mfca tools and subsequently for spreading them to new areas where they can contribute to the sustainable development of organizations the economy and society practitioners could benefit from this paper by considering additional areas of applications for mfca in the specific settings of their company