bayesian endogeneity bias modeling we propose to model endogeneity bias using prior distributions of moment conditions the estimator can be obtained both as a method of moments estimator and in a ridge penalized regression framework we show the estimator s relation to a bayesian estimator

assessing the impact of crop diversification on farm poverty in india summary crop diversification into high value crops hvcs can be a strategy to improve livelihood outcomes for farmers using data from a nationally representative survey we establish that households diversifying toward hvcs are less likely to be poor the biggest impact being for smallholders furthermore using continuous treatment matching we establish the relationship between degree of diversification share of area dedicated to hvc and poverty growers of hvcs need to allocate at least 50 area to hvcs to escape poverty effect of diversification on poverty is in general positive but it withers after a threshold probably because of constraints i e capital on smaller farms and labor on larger ones

the illusory effects of saving incentives on saving the authors evaluate research on how tax based saving incentives iras and 401 k s affect saving previous research overstates the impact of the incentives on saving by failing to account for several issues households with saving incentives have stronger tastes for saving than others saving incentives have interacted with debt nonfinancial assets financial markets and pensions and saving incentives represent pretax balances whereas taxable accounts represent posttax balances accounting for these issues essentially eliminates the impact of saving incentives on saving the authors conclude that little if any of the contributions to existing saving incentives have raised saving

formative experiences and portfolio choice evidence from the finnish great depression we trace the impact of formative experiences on portfolio choice plausibly exogenous variation in workers exposure to a depression allows us to identify the effects and a new estimation approach makes addressing wealth and income effects possible we find that adversely affected workers are less likely to invest in risky assets this result is robust to a number of control variables and it holds for individuals whose income employment and wealth were unaffected the effects travel through social networks individuals whose neighbors and family members experienced adverse circumstances also avoid risky investments

innovation in europe a tale of networks knowledge and trade in five cities this paper identifies four groups of theory that seek to explain the relationships between innovation and space these are traditional agglomeration theory networking learning and new competitiveness theory evidence on the last three most recent theories is sought by analysing the results of comparable surveys of innovative firms in amsterdam london milan paris and stuttgart the empirical results show that differences occur in the external relationships between firms and the global economy with respect to specific innovation projects broadly speaking the main differences identified show that in regional cities such as stuttgart and milan innovative activities are more linked to their regional and national economies than they are in the international world cities such as paris and london this suggests that attempts to generalize the network paradigm on industrial production are premature at least as far as innovation is concerned conversely the data demonstrate the significance of trading syste

intra household gender disparity in school choice evidence from private schooling in india abstractthis paper explores gender inequality within households in the decision of private versus government school choice in india using a three period longitudinal dataset on rural households from uttar pradesh a northern state of india this paper estimates a household fixed effects model and finds that there is an intra household gender bias of 6 percentage points in private school enrolment among children aged 6 16 years contrary to the trend in overall enrolment the gender gap in private school choice is rising over time and is more pronounced in villages with a larger cost difference between private and government schooling this finding remains robust even after controlling for average school quality and considering potential endogeneity of the cost variables

caught in a productivity trap a distributional perspective on gender differences in malawian agriculture in targeting poverty gains sub saharan african governments have emphasized the alleviation of gender differences in agricultural productivity the empirical studies on the gender gap however have frequently used data that were limited regarding geographic and topical coverage and or details on intra household dynamics the study provides a nationally representative analysis of the gender gap in malawi and decomposes it for the first time at the mean and at selected points of the agricultural productivity distribution into i a portion driven by gender differences in levels of observable attributes the endowment effect and ii a portion driven by gender differences in returns to the same set of observables the structure effect sequentially the authors unpack the relative contributions of different factors towards the gender gap and suggest future research priorities to inform policy interventions the authors find that while female managed plots are on average 25 percent less productive 82 percent of this differential is explained by differences in endowments mainly due to high value crop cultivation and levels of household adult male labor inputs the factors driving the structure effect include child dependency ratio and effectiveness of household adult male labor and inorganic fertilizer the gender gap increases across the productivity distribution ranging from 22 percent at the 10th percentile to 37 percent at the 90th percentile while it is explained predominantly by the endowment effect in the first half of the distribution the contribution of the structure effect towards the gender gap increases steadily above the median standing at 34 percent at the 90th percentile

using selection on observed variables to assess bias from unobservables when evaluating swan ganz catheterization distinguishing causal effects from correlations is a key objective of research regardless of field even in medicine controlled experiments are not always practical or ethical in economics and we suspect in most other fields identification strategies based upon observational data are rarely bulletproof in their landmark study a f connors et al 1996 use propensity score matching methods with an extremely rich set of demographic characteristics and health status measures to assess whether swan ganz catheterization 1c 2 a widely used device for monitoring intensive care unit icu patients raises or lowers mortality in their sample of icu patients they find that receiving c within the first 24 hours raises mortality rates casting serious doubt on the value of this procedure for critically ill patients jay bhattacharya azeem m shaikh and edward vytlacil 2007 2008 hereafter bsv observe that since c recipients are sicker on many observed dimensions propensity score matching which ignores selection on unobservables might overstate the negative consequences of c they apply a set of bounds estimators including an extension of shaikh and vytlacil 2004 that incorporates prior information that weekend applications of recent methodology in project evaluation

spatial structure of agricultural production in china the spatial structure of county level agricultural production in china in 1999 is analysed a convenient simple method that corrects for both spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity in the input output relationships using spatial lag models and an allowance for the response coefficients to vary across relatively homogeneous regions are described empirical results suggest an abundant labour supply and extensive use of agricultural machinery reflected in its declining price although mechanization is relatively new machines have replaced fertilizer in agricultural production in the north northeast northwest and east regions while irrigation and fertilizer are the significantly important inputs in the central and southwest regions

empirical analysis of macroeconomic time series var and structural models abstract var and structural econometric models have complementary roles in the modelling of macroeconomic time series a constant parameter var provided it is statistically well specified constitutes a valid basis for testing hypotheses of dynamic specification exogeneity and a priori structure thus facilitating model evaluation as well as suggesting a potentially efficient model development strategy deterministic e g trends and regime shifts and stochastic e g integrated variables non stationarities are analysable within this framework and the johansen maximum likelihood procedure for cointegrated systems is used in an analysis of the determination of earnings prices productivity and unemployment in the u k

does competition from private surgical centres improve public hospitals performance evidence from the english national health service abstract this paper examines the impact of a government programme which facilitated the entry of for profit surgical centres to compete against incumbent national health service hospitals in england we examine the impact of competition from these surgical centres on the efficiency measured by pre surgery length of stay for hip and knee replacement patients and case mix of incumbent public hospitals we exploit the fact that the government chose the broad locations where these surgical centres independent sector treatment centres or istcs would be built based on local patient waiting times not length of stay or clinical quality to construct treatment and control groups that are comparable with respect to key outcome variables of interest using a difference in difference estimation strategy we find that the government facilitated entry of surgical centres led to shorter pre surgery length of stay at nearby public hospitals however these new entrants took on healthier patients and left incumbent hospitals treating patients who were sicker this paper highlights a potential trade off that policymakers face when they promote competition from private for profit firms in markets for the provision of public services

disproportional control rights and the governance role of debt we examine the governance role of debt in the context of u s based dual class ownership structures we hypothesize that the use of debt alleviates the conflict between shareholder classes by balancing the power of controlling insiders we document that dual class firms have higher leverage and a greater propensity to issue private debt they also more frequently use cash sweeps and performance based covenants dual class firms with greater agency conflicts and a greater need to access the capital market appear to rely more extensively on debt these findings are consistent with controlling insiders bonding against the agency costs associated with dual class ownership the governance role of debt is further corroborated by the valuation effect of debt for dual class companies private debt issuances trigger greater positive market reactions to the inferior dual class stock in relation to both the superior dual class stock and a matched sample of single class firms further leverage attenuates the previou

pride and prejudice using ethnic sounding names and inter ethnic marriages to identify labour market discrimination labour markets discriminate against workers with particular ethnic sounding names we use non random sorting into interethnic marriage and salient differences between sephardic and ashkenazi surnames to evaluate the causal impact of sephardic affiliation on wages using the 1995 israeli census we estimate the effect of a sephardic sounding surname on wages we first compare the wages of israeli jewish males born to sephardic fathers and ashkenazi mothers sa who are more likely to carry a sephardic surname with the wages of israeli jewish males born to ashkenazi fathers and sephardic mothers as we find that israeli labor markets discriminate based on perceived ethnicity sa workers earn significantly less than their as counterparts we then exploit the custom of women to adopt their husbands surnames to disentangle actual ethnicity from the ethnicity perceived by the market consistent with ethnic discrimination based on surnames we find that it is father in law s ethnicity rather than father s ethnicity that shapes female wage rates finally we find that labor markets discriminate based on surname only when those names provide additional information about ethnicity when ethnicity can be discerned from skin tone surnames do not provide additional explanatory power with respect to wages

lifetime earnings and the vietnam era draft lottery evidence from social security administrative records errata the randomly assigned risk of induction generated by the draft lottery is used to construct estimates of the effect of veteran status on civilian earnings these estimates are not biased by the fact that certain types of men are more likely than others to service in the military social security administrative records indicate that in the early 1980s long after their service in vietnam had ended the earnings of white veterans were approximately 15 percent less than the earnings of comparable nonveterans copyright 1990 by american economic association

chief executive officer equity incentives and accounting irregularities this study examines whether chief executive officer ceo equity based holdings and compensation provide incentives to manipulate accounting reports while several prior studies have examined this important question the empirical evidence is mixed and the existence of a link between ceo equity incentives and accounting irregularities remains an open question because inferences from prior studies may be confounded by assumptions inherent in research design choices we use propensity score matching and assess hidden omitted variable bias within a broader sample in contrast to most prior research we do not find evidence of a positive association between ceo equity incentives and accounting irregularities after matching ceos on the observable characteristics of their contracting environments instead we find some evidence that accounting irregularities occur less frequently at firms where ceos have relatively higher levels of equity incentives

workers of the world unite franchise extensions and the threat of revolution in europe 1820 1938 abstract we test the hypothesis that the extension of the voting franchise in europe was related to the threat of revolution we contend that international diffusion of regime contention and information about revolutionary events happening in neighboring countries generate the necessary variation in the perceived threat of revolution using two samples of european countries covering the period from 1820 to 1938 we find robust evidence which is consistent with the threat of revolution hypothesis we also find some evidence that war triggered suffrage reform

endogeneity bias modeling using observables this paper proposes an alternative solution to the endogeneity problem by explicitly modeling the joint interaction of the endogenous variables and the unobserved causes of the dependent variable as a function of additional observables we derive identification of the parameters develop an estimator and establish its consistency and asymptotic normality

balanced variable addition in linear models this paper studies what happens when we move from a short regression to a long regression in a setting where both regressions are subject to misspecification in this setup the least squares estimator in the long regression may have larger inconsistency than the least squares estimator in the short regression we provide a simple interpretation for the comparison of the inconsistencies and study under which conditions the additional regressors in the long regression represent a balanced addition to the short regression

the effect of male migration on employment patterns of women in nepal what is the impact of male migration on the labor market behavior of women in nepal the instrumental variable full information maximum likelihood method is applied to data from the 2004 nepal household survey to account for unobserved factors that could simultaneously affect men s decision to migrate and women s decision to participate in the labor market the results indicate that male migration has a negative impact on the level of the labor market participation by women in the migrant sending household there is evidence of substantial heterogeneity based on both observable and unobservable characteristics in the impact of male migration the findings highlight the important gender dimension of the impact of predominantly male migration on the well being of sending households strategies for economic development in nepal should take into account such gender aspects of the migration dynamics

the effect of sibling sex composition on women s education and earnings this paper documents the impact of siblings on the education of men and women born in the united states between 1920 and 1965 we examine the effect of the number and sex composition of a boy or girl s siblings on that child s educational attainment we find that throughout the century women s educational choices have been systematically affected by the sex composition of her siblings and that men s choices have not women raised only with brothers have received on average significantly more education than women raised with any sisters controlling for household size since sibling sex composition affects women s educational attainment and plausibly may be unrelated to other determinants of earnings it may provide a useful instrument for education in earnings functions for women our results suggest that standard estimates significantly underestimate the return to schooling for women

the economic consequences of unwed motherhood using twin births as a natural experiment social scientists have long concluded that premarital childbearing exacerbates problems of both poverty and family instability out of wedlock and adolescent childbearing may reduce a mothers educational attainment lower the probability of her eventual marriage increase her probability of welfare recipiency and decrease family income the authors use an exogenous fertility event the birth of twins to estimate the economic effects of unplanned births the approach compares the economic outcomes of women experiencing premarital twin first births to those experiencing premarital single first births in the attempt to identify the consequences of an unplanned birth upon womens future fertility and marital decisions education labor force participation labor earnings welfare receipt and poverty status 1970 and 1980 us census micro data are used to identify twin births to unmarried women analysis found large short term effects of unplanned births on labor force participation poverty and welfare recipiency among unwed mothers but not among married mothers furthermore most adverse economic effects of unplanned motherhood dissipate over time for whites but larger and more persistent negative effects weigh upon black unwed mothers

selection on observed and unobserved variables assessing the effectiveness of catholic schools in this paper we measure the effect of catholic high school attendance on educational attainment and test scores because we do not have a good instrumental variable for catholic school attendance we develop new estimation methods based on the idea that the amount of selection on the observed explanatory variables in a model provides a guide to the amount of selection on the unobservables we also propose an informal way to assess selectivity bias based on measuring the ratio of selection on unobservables to selection on observables that would be required if one is to attribute the entire effect of catholic school attendance to selection bias we use our methods to estimate the effect of attending a catholic high school on a variety of outcomes our main conclusion is that catholic high schools substantially increase the probability of graduating from high school and more tentatively attending college we find little evidence of an effect on test scores

sectoral cointegration structural break and agriculture s role in the chinese economy in 1952 92 a var approach a var model is constructed to study the sectoral cointegration relationship in china as a primary sector of the economy agriculture is found to be a growth engine throughout the data period 1952 92 although its contribution to gdp declined steadily over time this evidence is consistently found in both the long run and the short run models of a var in contrast the growth of non agricultural sectors had little effect on agriculture in 1952 77 however a structural break is found under the economic reforms 1977 92 when industry and other non agricultural sectors started to cause agriculture to grow

negative publicity and catholic schools i introduction catholic education makes up a large part of the united states k 12 educational system catholic schools educate over one third of all private school students more elementary and secondary students than all other religious schools combined national center for education statistics nces 2007 however catholic education is becoming less prevalent between 1990 and 2007 the number of catholic schools decreased by 14 from 8 719 to 7 498 while enrollment declined by 7 from 2 498 870 to 2 320 651 1 the mainstream media has covered this trend beginning with closings in the early 1990s foderaro 1990 private schools enroll 11 of elementary and secondary school students 39 of private school students enroll in catholic schools 2 catholic schools historically have served a predominantly urban minority population with some success research generally finds modest gains in educational attainment particularly for minority students e g altonji et al 2005 evans and schwab 1995 neal 1997 there is evidence that catholic schools raise student academic achievement and reduce adolescent risky behaviors figlio and ludwig 2000 figlio and stone 2000 3 the current decline in catholic schooling reflects diminished opportunities for students to enroll in alternatives to public schools this decline is particularly troubling for the low income urban minority students who have particularly benefited from catholic schools in the past neal 1997 the decline in private schooling options also lowers the level of competition among schools the decrease in competition may worsen the outcomes of public school students hoxby 1994 we consider potential explanations for the decline in catholic schooling in the united states changing demographics changing income levels and public awareness of sexual abuse and allegations immigration into and within the united states particularly of the traditionally catholic hispanic population likely affected demand for catholic schooling o keefe 1996 suggests that falling income per capita near existing catholic schools led to school closings further the negative publicity from the sexual abuse crisis in the catholic church may have impacted the availability of and demand for catholic schooling using diocese level panel data on catholic schooling we empirically examine the importance of each of these factors we develop two proxy measures of negative publicity based on the press coverage and on plausibly public notifications of abuse allegations we find that negative publicity is associated with a reduction in the availability of catholic schools however its effect is small allegations related to the abuse cases account for about 5 of the decline in catholic schools changing demographics particularly increases in the hispanic population explain a larger proportion of the current decline in catholic schooling ii an overview of catholic school enrollment and catholic schools in the united states the catholic church is organized into dioceses and archdioceses each administered by a bishop or archbishop there are 175 of these in the united states with each state and the district of columbia having at least one dioceses for the most part follow county lines texas with 14 is the state that has the most dioceses the average state has approximately 3 5 dioceses catholic schools tend to be operated with financial backing from the local diocese in combination with revenue from tuition and direct donations diocesan support ranges from a low of around 5 of school funding coming from dioceses in the south and west to a high of about 50 in the midwest gero and meitler 2003 figure 1 presents the percent of school aged children enrolled in catholic schools and the number of catholic schools for 1990 to 2007 4 the number of catholic schools declined in the early 1990s the decline slowed in the mid 1990s and accelerated again around 2004

supply chains and economic development insights from the indian dairy sector with almost three quarters of the labor force depending on agriculture in india kick starting agricultural growth is considered crucial for pro poor development more specifically dairy production which is labor intensive but does not heavily rely on access to land is generally expected to offer better prospects for income growth to the poorest among rural households however most policies aimed at increasing dairy production are based on ad hoc observations with hardly any micro level evidence using a unique primary dataset on 1000 rural households in andhra pradesh this paper investigates the dairy production system addressing three main research questions first we look at the typical profile of a dairy farmer and we find that both family traditions in dairy and owning even a small piece of land play a role in determining participation in dairy while land size does not matter second we show that dairy production is strongly and positively associated with improvement in rural livelihoods in terms of income per capita but that this positive relation only holds for larger dairy farms in a third step we look at the determinants of farm growth and we find that households having higher shares of graded dairy animals have grown more after 2005

catholic schooling and further education abstract using new estimation methods and data i find that catholic schooling substantially increases years of schooling by 0 42 to 0 47 the estimates are robust to various specifications that account for potential selection bias

life cycle schooling and dynamic selection bias models and evidence for five cohorts of american males this paper examines an empirical regularity found in many societies that family influences on the probability of transiting from one grade level to the next diminish at higher levels of education we examine the statistical model used to establish the empirical regularity and the intuitive behavioral interpretation often used to rationalize it we show that the implicit economic model assumes myopia the intuitive interpretive model is identified only by imposing arbitrary distributional assumptions onto the data we produce an alternative choice theoretic model with fewer parameters that rationalizes the same data and is not based on arbitrary distributional assumptions

gender agricultural production and the theory of the household virtually all models of the household assume that the allocation of resources is pareto efficient within many african households agricultural production occurs on many plots controlled by different members of the household pareto efficiency implies that factors should be allocated efficiently across these plots i find in contrast that plots controlled by women are farmed much less intensively than similar plots within the household controlled by men the estimates imply that about 6 percent of output is lost because of inefficient factor allocation within the household the paper suggests a new approach to modeling intrahousehold allocation consistent with the empirical results

making friends or making things interfirm transactions in the sheffield metal working cluster the paper comprises an examination of the material inputs of a sample of 70 small firms in the sheffield metal working cluster and an assessment of the extent to which purchases are accompanied by face to face embodied transactions it is shown that there are no significant differences between the level of embodied transactions accompanying local intra cluster material links and those associated with non local flows it seems that on this measure at least and within this cluster the sheffield metal working cluster lacks the dense network of embodied transactions with local suppliers suggested in the wider literature the lower than expected measures of embodied transactions suggest that one of the mechanisms for the transfer of knowledge between buyers and suppliers within an industrial cluster is poorly developed in this particular case

the effects of child bearing on married women s labor supply and earnings using twin births as a natural experiment we use exogenous variations in fertility due to twin births to measure the impact of an unplanned child on married women s labor supply and earnings although the overall effects of an unplanned birth on labor supply are small we find significant effects in the years immediately following the unplanned birth especially in 1970 we estimate that declining fertility explains between 6 and 13 percent of the increase in married women s labor supply between 1970 and 1980 twin births are also associated with a substantial short run loss in earnings this effect persists longer than the labor supply effects though it does eventually disappear

land tenure differences and investment in land improvement measures theoretical and empirical analyses this article develops a theoretical framework to examine the relationship between land tenure arrangements and households investment in soil improving and conservation measures it then analyzes this relationship with a multivariate probit model based on detailed plot level data from villages in the brong ahafo region of ghana a major hypothesis tested is that investment in productivity enhancing and conservation techniques are influenced by land tenure arrangements the theoretical analysis and empirical results generally reveal that land tenure differences significantly influence farmers decisions to invest in land improving and conservation measures the findings also show that tenure security does affect farm productivity

revisiting marshall s agglomeration economies technological relatedness and the evolution of the sheffield metals cluster potter a and watts h d revisiting marshall s agglomeration economies technological relatedness and the evolution of the sheffield metals cluster regional studies according to alfred marshall firms receive increasing returns from a trinity of agglomeration economies a local pool of skilled labour local supplier linkages and local knowledge spillovers this article re examines the mechanisms underlying marshall s agglomeration economies in the sheffield metals cluster wherein marshall discovered them despite the cluster s decline empirical evidence is found that the mechanisms underlying marshallian agglomeration economies continue to occur within the surviving metals industry however upon closer examination marshallian agglomeration economies have evolved to become more prevalent amongst plants that use related metals technology the results highlight the importance of technological relatedness to cluster survival

children and their parents labor supply evidence from exogenous variation in family size although theoretical models of labor supply and the family are well developed there are few credible estimates of key empirical relationships in the work family nexus this study uses a new instrumental variable the sex composition of the first two births in families with at least two children to estimate the effect of additional children on parents labor supply in the united states instrumental variables estimates using the sex mix are substantial but smaller than the corresponding ordinary least squares ols estimates moreover unlike the ols estimates the female labor supply effects estimated using sex mix instruments appear to be absent among more educated women and women with high wage husbands we also find that married women who have a third child reduce their labor supply by as much as women in the full sample while there is no relationship between wives child bearing and husbands labor supply excerpt

the twin instrument fertility and human capital investment twin births are often used as an instrument to address selection of women into fertility however recent work shows selection of women into twin birth such that while ols estimates tend to be downward biased twin iv estimates will tend to be upward biased this is pertinent given the emerging consensus that fertility has limited impacts on women s labour supply or on investments in children using data for developing countries and the united states to estimate the trade off between fertility and children s human capital we demonstrate the nature and size of the bias in the twin iv estimator and estimate bounds on the true parameter

incentives and the supply of effective charter schools charter school funding is typically set by formulas that provide the same amount for all students regardless of advantage or need in this paper i present evidence that this policy skews the distribution of students served by charters towards low cost populations by influencing where charter schools decide to open and whether they survive i develop and estimate an empirical model of charter school supply and competition to evaluate the effects of funding policies that aim to correct these incentives to do this i recover estimates of cost differentials across student populations by linking charter school effectiveness at raising student achievement with unique records of charter school expenditures gathered from florida i then leverage revealed preference with the exit and location choices of charter schools in an entry game to uncover how charter schools respond to competitive and financial incentives the results indicate that a cost adjusted funding formula would significantly increase the share of charter schools serving disadvantaged students with little reduction in the aggregate effectiveness of the sector

viewpoint an extended class of instrumental variables for the estimation of causal effects we examine how structural systems can yield observed variables instrumental in identifying and estimating causal effects we provide an exhaustive characterization of potentially identifying conditional exogeneity relationships and demonstrate how structural relations determine exogeneity and exclusion restrictions that yield moment conditions supporting identification this provides a comprehensive framework for constructing instruments and covariates we introduce notions of conditioning and conditional extended instrumental variables xivs these permit identification but need not be traditional instruments as they may be endogenous we distinguish between observed xivs and proxies for unobserved xivs a main message is the importance of sufficiently specifying causal relations governing the unobservables les auteurs examinent comment des systemes structurels peuvent engendrer des variables observees instrumentales dans l identification et l estimation d effets de causalite on fournit une caracterisation exhaustive des relations d exogeneite conditionnelle potentiellement porteuses d identification et on demontre comment des relations structurelles determinent les restrictions d exogeneite et d exclusion qui engendrent les conditions de moment qui supportent l identification cela fournit un cadre comprehensif pour construire instruments et covariables on introduit des notions de variables instrumentales etendues conditionnantes et conditionnelles xivs celles ci permettent l identification mais n ont pas aetre des instruments traditionnels parce qu elles peuvent etre endogenes on distingue entre les xivs observees et les variables concomitantes avec les xivs non observees un message central est l importance de suffisamment specifier les relations causales qui gouvernent les non observables

an analysis of industrial agricultural interactions a case study in pakistan abstract this paper empirically analyzes the relationship between pakistan s industrial and agricultural sectors pakistan was chosen because of its status of a semi industrialized country with heavy dependence on the agricultural sector the relationship between cotton production and industrial growth is also evaluated due to the prominence of this crop in pakistani agriculture the results indicate that these sectors are complementary yet industry tends to benefit more from agricultural growth than vice versa the timing of this information is critical as pakistan s policy makers now face major agricultural policy reforms in their quest for continued industrial development

partners forever an empirical study of relational ties in two small firm clusters many researchers take as axiomatic the proposition that economic action in clusters is embedded in dense durable and trust based social networks it is suggested here that the bias towards high trust enduring relations obscures the competitive dynamics of networks even where co operation can be identified drawing attention to the competitive motives underlying the construction of social networks an investigation is made into the duration and brokering of dyadic relations in business owners advice networks the analysis of 668 dyadic ties in a population of 113 small business owners in two textile and clothing clusters in germany reveals considerable variation in the duration of social relations and the likelihood that they were formed through third party brokers many of whom were direct competitors creating more ephemeral links the findings suggest that marketless conceptions of social networks in clusters need to be balanced with a stronger concern for the role of competition in the social embe

evaluating marginal policy changes and the average effect of treatment for individuals at the margin this paper develops methods for evaluating marginal policy changes we characterize how the effects of marginal policy changes depend on the direction of the policy change and show that marginal policy effects are fundamentally easier to identify and to estimate than conventional treatment parameters we develop the connection between marginal policy effects and the average effect of treatment for persons on the margin of indifference between participation in treatment and nonparticipation and use this connection to analyze both parameters we apply our analysis to estimate the effect of marginal changes in tuition on the return to going to college

spatial proximity and firm survival in a declining industrial district the case of knitwear firms in baden wu rttemberg the literature on small firm networks in industrial districts postulates the importance of territorial proximity for business innovation and regional development but empirical research to test this proposition is sparse while there is some research on the extent of interfirm co operation little is known about the performance outcomes of co operation i develop competing hypotheses from institutional ecological and random action theories concerning the survival chances of firms located in geographic proximity and test them with data on the complete population of knitwear firms in baden wurttemberg germany for the period from 1960 to 1998 proportional hazard estimates show that location in clusters of firms in the same industry increased business failure rates and location in diversified clusters of firms operating in complementary industries reduced failure rates the empirical results are most consistent with the ecological model of localized competition in resource environments la documentation

household inequality entrepreneurial dynamism and corporate financing economic theories provide conflicting hypotheses on how wealth inequality affects entrepreneurial dynamism to empirically investigate its impact we construct local measures of household wealth inequality based on financial rents home equity and 1880 farmland we identify its effects on entrepreneurship by instrumenting it with land distribution under the 1862 homestead act or us states removal of death taxes wealth inequality decreases firm entry and exit and the proportion of high tech businesses across metropolitan statistical areas there is also less redistribution into public goods supportive of entrepreneurship such as schooling and the judiciary income per capita consequently grows more slowly

is low priced primary care bad for quality evidence from australian general practice we examine whether patients perceptions of general practitioner gp care varies by the price paid for consultations australian consumer survey data from 2275 individuals were used to analyse the relationship between price and patient experience of gp care using both standard models for count data and a latent class model that distinguishes between patients with high and low quality experiences we find no evidence that lower prices have a negative impact on patients perceptions of gp quality nevertheless some patient characteristics such as age gender and health status play a significant role in quality of care perceptions the results show that australian patients have not had to compromise gp quality as expressed in terms of patient experience when seeking low priced care this supports the view that there are sufficient checks and balances on the gp sector in australia to ensure positive patient experiences even for low cost gp consultations

estimating the distortionary effects of ethnic quotas in singapore using housing transactions abstract desegregation is a key policy issue in many countries i investigate a residential desegregation program in singapore the ethnic housing quotas i show that choice restrictions imposed on apartment blocks above the quota limits constrained could have distortionary effects causing price and quantity differences for constrained versus unconstrained blocks i test these predictions by hand matching more than 500 000 names in the phonebook to ethnicities to calculate ethnic proportions at the apartment block level i can then investigate differences for constrained and unconstrained blocks close to the quota limits and test for sorting around the limits i find that price differences are between 3 and 5 quantity effects are economically significant translating to longer time on market durations selection cannot fully explain these results my results point to challenges in achieving desegregation using quantity restrictions

finishing high school and starting college do catholic schools make a difference in this paper we consider two measures of the relative effectiveness of public and catholic schools finishing high school and starting college these measures are potentially more important indicators of school quality than standardized test scores in light of the economic consequences of obtaining more education single equation estimates suggest that for the typical student attending a catholic high school raises the probability of finishing high school or entering a four year college by thirteen percentage points in bivariate probit models we find almost no evidence that our single equation estimates are subject to selection bias