inequality reduction through the income tax income taxation typically has an inequality reducing impact this would be explained by theory were it the case that all income units were taxed according to a common progressive schedule but this is not so we lack a theoretical explanation for the observed finding this paper explains how income taxes that take nonincome attributes such as marital status into account can act to reduce overall income inequality copyright 1993 by the london school of economics and political science

the social structure of a national securities market in this article a national securities market the stock options market is characterized as a social structure represented by the networks of actors who traded options on the floor of a major securities exchange trading among actors exhibited distinct social structural patterns that dramatically affected the direction and magnitude of option price volatility the argument that this market is socially structured is constructed in four parts behavioral assumptions about the nature of economic actors models of micronetworks models of macronetworks and price consequences in the ideal typical model of the market actors are assumed to be hyperrational and never to act opportunistically with these behavioral assumptions the micronetworks of actors should be expansive a condition which would result in undifferentiated and homogeneous macronetworks such macronetworks would tend to reduce the volatility of option prices but in the empirical market studied here actors are subject to bounded rationality a

reassessment of the tiebout model abstract the tiebout model has been the reference point for the classical approach to fiscal federalism its emphasis on mobility benefit taxation and the advantages of fiscal competition have informed fiscal federalism since the seminal contributions of musgrave and oates this paper reviews the influence that the tiebout model has had on fiscal federalism and argues that while its insights remain relevant for local government it is far from compelling as a positive description of or a normative prescription for fiscal federalism at the state level some aspects of alternative approaches are presented which lead to different perspectives than tiebout inspired ones

dynamics and determinants of energy intensity in the service sector a cross country analysis 1980 2005 we present a detailed analysis of energy intensity developments across 23 service sectors in 18 oecd countries over the period 1980 2005 we find that the shift towards a service economy has contributed to lower overall energy intensity levels in the oecd but this contribution would have been considerably larger if the service sector had realized the same degree of energy efficiency improvements as the manufacturing sector in most oecd countries energy intensity levels in services tend to decrease relatively slow especially after 1995 if we control this trend for the impact of structural changes within the services sector by means of a decomposition analysis we find that in about one third of the oecd countries energy intensity levels in services have increased over time the impact of structural changes on aggregate energy intensity dynamics in services has increased considerably after 1995 highlighting a relatively poor energy efficiency performance within a wide range of service sectors we show that the introduction of information and communication technology ict plays a potentially important role here using panel data regression analysis we find a limited role for energy prices in explaining variation in energy productivity while climate conditions clearly impact energy productivity

needs and targeting this paper shows that when in the manner of the recent targeting literature the resources available for poverty relief are allocated across heterogeneous groups so as to minimize a well behaved index of aggregate poverty the optimal response to an increase in the needs of some group may be to reduce the resources allocated to it necessary and sufficient conditions for optimally targeted benefits to be inversely related to needs are established under two polar forms of poverty alleviation strategy pure contingency and strict means testing and the wider methodological implications of this possibility discussed copyright 1992 by royal economic society

an economic analysis of acting white this paper formalizes a widely discussed peer eect entitled acting white acting white is modeled as a two audience signaling quandary signals that induce high wages can be signals that induce peer group rejection without peer eects equilibria involve all ability types choosing dierent levels of education acting white alters the equilibrium dramatically the possibly empty set of lowest ability individuals and the set of highest ability individuals continue to reveal their type through investments in education ability types in the middle interval pool on a common education level only those in the lower intervals are accepted by the group the model s predictions t many stylized facts in the anthropology and sociology literatures regarding social interactions among minority group members

sacrifice and stigma reducing free riding in cults communes and other collectives this paper presents an economic analysis of religious behavior that accounts for the continuing success of groups with strange requirements and seemingly inefficient prohibitions the analysis does not presuppose any special motives for religious activity rather religion is modeled as a club good that displays positive returns to participatory crowding the analysis demonstrates that efficient religions with perfectly rational members may benefit from stigma self sacrifice and bizarre behavioral restrictions the model also addresses sacrifice in nonreligious social clubs fraternities communes political parties work groups and families

means testing versus universal provision in poverty alleviation programs this paper contrasts the use of means tested and universal schemes in the alleviation of poverty using a class of poverty measures the authors illustrate the trade off from the fact that means testing is costly to both the government and the claimant while universal provision entails a leakage to the nonpoor the paper provides numerical as well as analytical results copyright 1990 by the london school of economics and political science

interfirm relationships and informal credit in vietnam trading relations in vietnam s emerging private sector are shaped by two market frictions the difficulty of locating trading partners and the absence of legal enforcement of contracts examining relational contracting we find that a firm trusts its customer enough to offer credit when the customer finds it hard to locate an alternative supplier a longer duration of trading relationship is associated with larger credit as is prior information gathering customers identified through business networks receive more credit these network effects are enduring suggesting that networks are used to sanction defaulting customers

optimal taxation under regional inequality abstract we study how regional productivity differences and labor mobility shape optimal mirrleesian tax transfer schemes when tax schedules are not allowed to differ across regions productivity enhancing inter regional migration exerts a downward pressure on optimal marginal tax rates when regionally differentiated taxation is allowed marginal tax rates in high low productivity regions should be corrected downwards upwards relative to the benchmark without migration simulations of the productivity differences between metropolitan and other areas of the us indicate that migration affects the optimal tax transfer schedule more strongly in the regionally differentiated rather than in the undifferentiated case

credit markets in northern nigeria credit as insurance in a rural economy this article addresses the issues of imcomplete markets and imperfect information in the context of credit markets in rural northern nigeria in much recent theoretical literature the problems of moral hazard and adverse selection are assumed to be decisive for the organization of agrarian institutions in contrast it is found that in the four villages surveyed credit transactions take advantage of the free flow of information within rural communities information asymmetries between borrower and lender are unimportant and their institutional consequences the use of collateral and interlinked contracts are absent credit transactions play a direct role in pooling risk between households through the use of contracts in which the repayment owed by the borrower depends on the realization of random production shocks by both the borrower and the lender

china s changing energy intensity trend a decomposition analysis china experienced a dramatic decline in energy intensity from the onset of economic reform in the late 1970s until 2000 but since then the rate of decline slowed and energy intensity actually increased in 2003 most previous studies found that most of the decline was due to technological change but disagreed on the role of structural change to the best of our knowledge no decomposition study has investigated the role of inter fuel substitution in the decline in energy intensity or the causes of the rise in energy intensity since 2000 in this paper we use logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi techniques to decompose changes in energy intensity in the period 1980 2003 we find that 1 technological change is confirmed as the dominant contributor to the decline in energy intensity 2 structural change at the industry and sector sub industry level actually increased energy intensity over the period of 1980 2003 although the structural change at the industry level was very different in the 1980s and in the post 1990 period 3 structural change involving shifts of production between sub sectors however decreased overall energy intensity 4 the increase in energy intensity since 2000 is explained by negative technological progress 5 inter fuel substitution is found to contribute little to the changes in energy intensity

energy intensity and its determinants in china s regional economies abstract this paper contributes to the existing literature as well as policy debates by examining energy intensity and its determinants in china s regional economies the analysis is based on a comprehensive database of china s regional energy balance constructed for this project through its focus on regional china this study extends the existing literature which mainly covers nationwide studies it is found in this paper that energy intensity declined substantially in china the main contributing factor is the improvement in energy efficiency changes in the economic structure have so far affected energy intensity modestly thus there is considerable scope to reduce energy intensity through the structural transformation of the chinese economy in the future

the lmdi approach to decomposition analysis a practical guide in a recent study ang energy policy 32 2004 compared various index decomposition analysis methods and concluded that the logarithmic mean divisia index method is the preferred method since the literature on the method tends to be either too technical or specific for most potential users this paper provides a practical guide that includes the general formulation process summary tables for easy reference and examples

ethnic ties in trade relationships and the impact on economic performance the case of small scale producers in the handloom sector in ethiopia abstract this article analyses the importance of ethnic ties in trade relationships of small scale producers in the handloom sector in ethiopia using both a non parametric and a parametric statistical method it is shown how various socio economic characteristics of producers lead to ethnic ties with traders it is also shown that ethnic ties affect the performance of producers negatively apparently the positive effect of ethnic ties through the reduction of transaction costs arising from market imperfections does not outweigh the negative effects of closed social networks

tagging and taxing the optimal use of categorical and income information in designing tax transfer schemes this paper explores aspects of the optimal design of tax transfer schemes that involve elements of both tagging the use of categorical benefits and means testing income relation of benefits simulations suggest a striking qualitative dissimilarity between the group specific schedules optimally imposed on poorer and richer groups broadly speaking the optimal marginal tax rate is decreasing in income among the latter but increasing among the former this latter observation potentially important for policy runs counter to the conventional wisdom from previous simulations the reconciliation we argue lies in the role played in optimal tax design by the revenue constraint

the behavior of worker cooperatives the plywood companies of the pacific northwest using data collected by the authors on the largest and most durable of worker owned firms in u s manufacturing this paper is addressed to two questions first are the responses of cooperatives to changes in their economic environment different from those of conventional firms it appears that cooperatives are more inclined to adjust pay than employment second how profitable has membership in the cooperatives been using information on share prices the authors find membership to have been extremely profitable and in this sense the prices of co ops shares have been underpriced the riskiness of cooperative memberships is discussed copyright 1992 by american economic association

optimal non linear income taxation for the alleviation of income poverty there has been much discussion recently of structuring tax and transfer programs to ensure that resources go to the poor with minimal leaks to the nonpoor the poor have no incentive to earn income with 100 percent marginal tax rates but how high or low the marginal rate of taxation should be and how they should vary with income is a complex issue and opinions vary social security schemes that withdraw benefits represent an extremely high effective marginal tax rate other schemes call for relatively low marginal tax rates at the bottom of the income distribution which tax transfer schedule does most to reduce poverty the issue is one of optimal nonlinear income taxation the authors show that one of the key theoretical results of the welfarist literature is overturned if it is desirable for everybody to work the optimal marginal tax rate on the very poorest individuals is strictly negative they argue that the nonwelfarist perspective points toward lower marginal tax rates in the lower part of the income distribution than does the welfarist perspective but numerical simulations suggest that the effect is of limited quantitative significance using conventional functional forms and parameter values optimal marginal tax rates on the poor are in the 60 70 percent range

modelling oecd industrial energy demand asymmetric price responses and energy saving technical change abstract the industrial sector embodies a multifaceted production process consequently modelling the derived demand for energy is a complex issue made all the more difficult by the need to capture the effect of technical progress of the capital stock this paper is an exercise in econometric modelling of industrial energy demand using panel data for 15 oecd countries over the period 1962 2003 exploring the issue of energy saving technical change and asymmetric price responses although difficult to determine precisely it is tentatively concluded that the preferred specification for oecd industrial energy demand incorporates asymmetric price responses but not exogenous energy saving technical change

energy intensity a decomposition and counterfactual exercise for latin american countries abstract this paper investigates trends in energy intensity over the last 40 years based on a sample of 75 countries it applies the fisher ideal index to decompose the energy intensity into the relative contributions of energy efficiency and economic structure then the determinants of these energy indexes are examined through panel data regression techniques special attention is lent to latin american countries lac by comparing its performance to that of a similar set of countries chosen through the synthetic control method when analyzed by income level energy intensity has decreased in a range between 40 and 54 in low and medium income countries respectively efficiency improvements drive these changes while the structural effect does not represent a clear source of change the regression analysis shows that per capita income petroleum prices fuel energy mix and gdp growth are main determinants of energy intensity and efficiency while there are no clear correlations with the activity component in the case of lac the energy intensity decreased around 20 which could be interpreted as an under performance however the counterfactual exercise suggests that lac has closed the gap with respect to its synthetic control

persistent parochialism trust and exclusion in ethnic networks decentralized groups such as close knit residential neighborhoods and ethnically linked businesses often achieve high levels of cooperation while engaging in exclusionary practices that we call parochialism we investigate the contribution of within group cultural affinity to the ability of parochial groups to cooperate in social dilemmas we analyze parochial networks in which the losses incurred by not trading with outsiders are offset by an enhanced ability to enforce informal contracts by fostering trust among insiders we show that there is a range of degrees of parochialism for which parochial networks can coexist with an anonymous market offering unrestricted trading opportunities

energy intensity developments in 40 major economies structural change or technology improvement this study analyzes energy intensity trends and drivers in 40 major economies using the wiod database a novel harmonized and consistent dataset of input output table time series accompanied by environmental satellite data we use logarithmic mean divisia index decomposition to 1 study trends in global energy intensity between 1995 and 2007 2 attribute efficiency changes to either changes in technology or changes in the structure of the economy and 3 highlight sectoral and regional differences we first show that heterogeneity within each sector across countries is high these general trends within the sectors are dominated by large economies first and foremost the united states in most cases heterogeneity is lower within each country across the different sectors regarding changes of energy intensity at the country level improvements between 1995 and 2007 are largely attributable to technological change while structural change is less important in most countries notable exceptions are japan the united states australia taiwan mexico and brazil where a change in the industry mix was the main driver behind the observed energy intensity reduction

energy efficiency in the manufacturing sector of the oecd analysis of price elasticities abstract we examine the role prices have on energy efficiency in the oecd manufacturing sector between 1980 and 2009 we employ a two step procedure first we decompose manufacturing energy intensity change into two driving effects efficiency and structural change the second step uses panel time series regression techniques to estimate the impacts of prices on the effects driving manufacturing energy intensity the advantage of using these techniques is that they account for heterogeneity and cross section dependence in the data something recent energy intensity research has emphasised the results from this decomposition support existing findings that efficiency is the major driver for observed reduction in energy intensity further the second stage results indicate that rising prices improve efficiency importantly these effects vary across countries

us and them the origin of identity and its economic implications we investigate the origins of identity and the innate proclivity to draw a distinction between insiders and outsiders we propose an evolutionary explanation we argue that identity arises because it facilitates survival in an evolutionary setting we endogenize preferences and demonstrate that the evolutionarily stable preferences fashioned by natural selection would draw a distinction between insiders and outsiders we then work out the implications of such preferences in two contemporary scenarios one entailing rent seeking behavior and the other involving public good provision our results are in conformity with empirical evidence

factors shaping aggregate energy intensity trend for industry energy intensity versus product mix understanding the mechanisms of change of energy consumption in industry has attracted much attention since the 1973 world oil crisis a popular line of research has been to decompose changes in the aggregate energy intensity of industry to give the relative impacts arising from energy intensity change and product mix change using a decomposition technique many empirical studies covering a large number of countries have been reported the main objective of this paper is to put together the empirical results reported in these studies in a coherent framework and identify possible systematic features of particular interest are the basic trends in this line of research the relative importance of energy intensity change and product mix change possible variations over time and between country groups in the energy impacts of these changes and inconsistencies in findings among studies an overview of the decomposition technique including its strengths weaknesses and role in industrial energy consumption studies is also presented

changes in energy efficiency in australia a decomposition of aggregate energy intensity using logarithmic mean divisia approach abstract this paper provides an empirical estimation of energy efficiency and other proximate factors that explain energy intensity in australia for the period 1978 2009 the analysis is performed by decomposing the changes in energy intensity by means of energy efficiency fuel mix and structural changes using sectoral and sub sectoral levels of data the results show that the driving forces behind the decrease in energy intensity in australia are efficiency effect and sectoral composition effect where the former is found to be more prominent than the latter moreover the favourable impact of the composition effect has slowed consistently in recent years a perfect positive association characterizes the relationship between energy intensity and carbon intensity in australia the decomposition results indicate that australia needs to improve energy efficiency further to reduce energy intensity and carbon emissions

thy neighbor s keeper the design of a credit cooperative with theory and a test economists now appreciate that resource allocation in less economically developed economies is profoundly influenced by non firm economic institutions however our theories of non firm institutions often suggest different answers to many questions including those of policy this paper illustrates a method for discriminating between alternative theories using data from german credit cooperatives from the nineteenth and early twentieth century germany we build a model of credit cooperatives designed to provide monitoring incentives and test this using nineteenth century data authors

structural change and convergence of energy intensity across oecd countries 1970 2005 abstract this paper uses new and unique data derived from a consistent framework of national accounts to compute and evaluate energy intensity developments across 18 oecd countries and 50 sectors over the period 1970 2005 we find that across countries energy intensity levels tend to decrease in most manufacturing sectors in the service sector energy intensity decreases at a relatively slow rate with diverse trends across sub sectors a decomposition analysis reveals that changes in the sectoral composition of the economy explain a considerable and increasing part of aggregate energy intensity dynamics a convergence analysis reveals that only after 1995 cross country variation in aggregate energy intensity levels clearly tends to decrease driven by a strong and robust trend break in manufacturing and enhanced convergence in services moreover we find evidence for the hypothesis that across sectors lagging countries are catching up with leading countries with rates of convergence that are on average higher in services than in manufacturing aggregate convergence patterns are almost exclusively caused by convergence of within sector energy intensity levels and not by convergence of the sectoral composition of economies

transfers targeting and poverty poverty ravi kanbur in spite of poverty alleviation programmes in the uk and the us poverty still exists in both countries and a significant share of welfare funds do not even reach the poor this is partly because funds are simply limited and shrinking but there are also fundamental problems in designing programmes of poverty alleviation maximum effectiveness would seem to suggest that transfers ought to be targeted as precisely as possible at those who most need them unfortunately this is socially costly for two reasons first means based transfers imply that the poor face a very high marginal tax rate sometimes in excess of 100 which is a major disincentive to work effort the second difficulty is the stigma attached to means testing and the low take up rate this may induce this article presents the salient features of the us and uk poverty programmes discusses the principles behind poverty alleviation and considers various reform proposals among the alternatives is the idea of shifting even further away from means testing towards contingent benefits making transfers dependent on the characteristics most often associated with poverty the author argues that the present programmes reflect some essential considerations on which it is possible to build and that wholesale reform would be inappropriate nor is it clear that public support exists for a major extension of transfers to the poor indeed existing inefficiencies may be part of the price of public acceptance of the transfer programmes already in place

energy intensity and firm growth abstract using micro level data we attempt to identify the causal relationship between improvement decline in energy intensity and firm growth in six countries namely france germany japan korea the u k and the u s and 21 manufacturing industries during the period 1991 to 2005 we run a panel regression of firm growth using the inverse of a country and industry specific relative energy intensity rei measure with the corresponding industrial sector in the reference case the u s industry in addition to the inverse of the traditional energy intensity measure ei after controlling several firm industry and country variables we find that ei and rei may have somewhat different impacts on firm growth in terms of profits and capital accumulation when we control the heterogeneity in industrial dependence on energy firm profits in the industry club with lower rei grow faster than the six country average compared to the six country case we find that the efficient use of energy inputs has made a smaller contribution to firm growth in korea

the comparison of multi dimensioned distributions of economic status the literature on inequality measurement has been largely concerned with single dimensioned indicators this paper explores some of the issues which arise when there are several dimensions to inequality and these are not readily reduced to a single index concentrating particularly on the two dimensioned case we make use of results on multi variate stochastic dominance in portfolio theory extending these and applying them to the measurement of inequality the use of the dominance conditions is illustrated by an application to the international distribution of income and life expectancy

an empirical analysis of energy intensity and the role of policy instruments abstract the reduction of energy intensity is important for sustainable economic growth especially in non oecd countries where energy demand growth is high understanding the impact of policies on energy intensity can help policy makers to reduce energy intensity using empirical methods and cross country data from 44 countries over the period 1990 2016 we study the determinants of energy intensity the common correlated effects mean group estimator is employed since it addresses nonstationarity cross sectional dependence and heterogeneity all three of which exist in the data both gdp per capita and economy wide energy prices are shown to be negatively associated with energy intensity the empirical results provide evidence that several policy instruments are effective in reducing energy intensity i standards and labeling ii government direct investment iii strategic planning and support iv fiscal measures taxes and v grants and subsidies the duration of the policy is more important than the mere existence of the policy in demonstrating the policy s effectiveness

whose money is it anyway ingroups and distributive behavior abstract price theory is often used to explain reactions to rebates and subsidies that are meant to encourage charitable giving this paper describes the results of a laboratory experiment that tests standard price theory alongside an alternative perspective based on research on the perceptions and behavior of ingroups using a modified dictator game we find that rebates that decrease the price of giving only increase amounts given when they are exogenously funded by the experimenters when rebates are funded by members of one s group the decreased price of giving does not lead to increased amounts given the result suggests that the presence of an ingroup mentality can mediate the relationship between giving and price

how do industrialization and trade openness influence energy intensity evidence from a path model in case of bangladesh abstract nowadays multifaceted interdependence between macroeconomic variables results in an extended list of factors that have diverse impacts on energy intensity thus sustaining energy intensity at a desired level demands advanced studies to investigate the multifarious influences of its factors and ensure proactive measures to deal with them this paper aims to set up a path model to analyze the direct and indirect impacts of industrialization and trade openness on energy intensity in bangladesh the results corroborate that industrialization has a direct positive influence on energy intensity where trade openness shows a direct negative effect on it and both industrialization and trade openness have negative indirect impact on energy intensity through technological innovation and economic growth respectively in case of individual total impacts only industrialization affects energy intensity positively where trade openness technological innovation and economic growth negatively do based on the empirical results some policy implications regarding energy intensity and effects of its factors on it are also presented

decomposition of us manufacturing energy intensity and elasticities of components with respect to energy prices this paper proposes an analysis of changes in the us manufacturing energy intensity between 1974 and 1998 the starting point is a three term decomposition of an intensity index which evaluates annually the respective contributions of changes in industrial structure efficiency gains at the sectoral level and substitution between energy resources to aggregate productivity improvements then we study the time paths followed by each of these three components using spectral analysis techniques we show that they behave very differently as the structural influence plays a part mainly in the short run substitution between energy resources acts principally in the long run and the changes in sectoral intensity cause both trend variations and cyclical ones finally we focus on the effect of energy price evolution on each of the three components allowing energy price rises and decreases to have asymmetric effects we estimate both the long run impacts and the short run adjustments

heterogeneity stratification and growth macroeconomic implications of community structure and school finance this paper examines how socioeconomic stratification and alternative systems of education finance affect inequality and growth agents interact through local public goods or externalities school funding neighborhood effects and economywide linkages complementary skills knowledge spillovers sorting families into homogeneous communities often minimizes the costs of existing heterogeneity but mixing reduces heterogeneity faster integration therefore tends to slow down growth in the short run yet raise it in the long run a move to state funding of education presents society with a similar intertemporal trade off local and global complementarities play major roles in determining the efficient social and educational structures copyright 1996 by american economic association

self selection and pareto efficient taxation abstract this paper analyses the set of pareto efficient tax structures the formulation of the problem as one of self selection not only shows more clearly the similarity between this problem and a number of other problems such as the optimal pricing of a monopolist which have recently been the subject of extensive research but also allows the derivation of a number of new results we establish i under fairly weak conditions randomization of tax structures is desirable ii if different individuals are not perfect substitutes for one another in production then the general equilibrium effects until now largely ignored in the literature of changes in the tax structure may be dominant in determining the optimal tax structure in particular if the relative wage of high ability and low ability individuals depends on the relative supplies of labor the optimal tax structure entails a negative marginal tax rate on the high ability individuals and a positive marginal tax rate on the low ability individuals the marnitude of which depends on the elasticity of substitution iii if individuals differ in their preferences pareto efficient taxation may entail negative marginal tax rates for high incomes while iv if wage income is stochastic the marginal tax rate at the upper end may be 100 our analysis thus makes clear that the main qualitative properties of the optimal tax structure to which earlier studies called attention are not robust to these attempts to make the theory more realistic