fishing effort its testing specification and internal structure in fisheries economics and management abstract the concept of fishing effort is central to fisheries economics and management however effort is an aggregate index of inputs which can be consistently formed only under the condition on production technology of homothetic separability of inputs this paper develops the conditions under which effort can be consistently formed it then provides the first empirical test for effort and jointness in inputs in a fishery by estimating a multiproduct function for the new england otter trawl fleet after not rejecting input output separability and rejecting nonjointness in inputs the construction of a superlative index for effort is demonstrated through estimating a translog production function the implications of effort s internal structure for fisheries management are then considered

is the current regulation of the viii division european anchovy optimal this paper sets out to assess the workability of the regulation currently in force in the european anchovy fishery of the viii division particular attention is paid to the importance of the institutional regime in the allocation of natural resources the study uses a bio economic approach and takes into account the fact that not only the european union and the individual countries involved but also some of the resource users or appropriators intervene in its management in order to compare the effectiveness of the rules which at the various levels have been set up to restrict exploitation of the resource the anchovy fishery is simulated in two extreme situations open access and sole ownership the results obtained by effective management will then be contrasted with those obtained from the maximum and zero profit objectives related with the two above mentioned scenarios thus if the real data come close to those derived from the sole ownership model it will have to be acknowledged that the rules at present in force are optimal if on the other hand the situation more closely approach the results obtained from the open access model we will endeavour in our conclusions to provide suggestions for economic policy measures that might improve the situation in the fishery

valuing the attributes of renewable energy investments increasing the proportion of power derived from renewable energy sources is becoming an increasingly important part of many countries s strategies to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions however renewable energy investments can often have external costs and benefits which need to be taken into account if socially optimal investments are to be made this paper attempts to estimate the magnitude of these external costs and benefits for the case of renewable technologies in scotland a country which has set particularly ambitious targets for expanding renewable energy the external effects we consider are those on landscape quality wildlife and air quality we also consider the welfare implications of different investment strategies for employment and electricity prices the methodology used to do this is the choice experiment technique renewable technologies considered include hydro on shore and off shore wind power and biomass welfare changes for different combinations of impacts associated with different investment strategies are estimated we also test for differences in preferences towards these impacts between urban and rural communities and between high and low income households

modeling individual preferences for energy sources the case of iv generation nuclear energy in italy the planned re introduction of nuclear energy in italy was abandoned in the aftermath of the fukushima nuclear accident twenty years earlier soon after the chernobyl accident italians had also voted against nuclear energy however a new nuclear energy technology i e fourth generation is under research and development this paper investigates its social acceptance by means of a robust methodology employing 1 choice experiments 2 structural equation modeling and 3 information treatments within an online nation wide survey results show a great deal of preference heterogeneity the majority of the sampled respondents oppose new nuclear plants in italy with some not willing to accept any monetary compensation at all however another segment of respondents more confident that fourth generation nuclear energy goals will be achieved show a modest support towards the implementation of new nuclear projects additional variables were found to affect opposition

preferences for mitigation of the negative impacts of the oil and gas industry in the niger delta region of nigeria we examine nigerian preferences for the mitigation of negative impacts associated with oil and gas production using a discrete choice experiment we analyse the data using a bayesian infinite mixtures model which given its flexibility can approximate an array of existing model specifications including the mixed logit and finite mixture specifications the application of this model to our data suggest multimodality in the marginal willingness to pay distributions associated with mitigation policy characteristics individuals are willing to pay for mitigation of negative impacts but are not necessarily willing to trade off very large increases in unemployment or poverty to achieve these benefits

financial incentives to mobilise local citizens as investors in low carbon technologies a systematic literature review abstract mobilising greater levels of private finance through local citizen investment in low carbon technologies can help bridge the capital shortfall to meeting climate objectives while also building societal support for the low carbon transition within this context we undertake a systematic review of literature assessing the impact of technology specific economic and financial incentives promoting greater levels of investment in low carbon technologies from local citizen investors both individuals and community groups we focus in particular on the impact of feed in tariffs compared to quota schemes grants tax incentives and soft loans the analysis suggests that local citizen investors do not necessarily act in an economically rational manner in response to these incentives it underscores the importance of understanding the preferences of target demographics the local context as well as the characteristics of the technologies in question and suggests interventions should be considered as part of wider policy packages while identifying challenges to be overcome through instrument design we find that feed in tariffs grants and tax incentives can be successful in mobilising greater levels of investment from local citizen investors but that soft loans tend to be less effective as a stand alone instrument the review identifies areas meriting further exploration in this emerging field of research

the optimal management of north sea herring abstract a discrete time dynamic bioeconomic model for a fish resource is developed the objective is maximization of discounted net revenues subject to changes in stock size the model of population dynamics is described by a delay difference equation natural growth and recruitment are related to stock size with recruitment taking place with a time lag conditions characterizing the optimal stock level are derived the model is applied to north sea herring estimates of the optimal stock level are given and optimal trajectories derived due to the schooling behaviour of herring it is shown that open access may cause stock extinction

oligarchy democracy inequality and growth abstract this paper analyses the dynamics of inequality democratization and economic development in a political economy model of growth where education is both the engine of growth and a determinant of political participation in a context with imperfect capital markets we investigate the incentives for an educated oligarchy to subsidize the poor s education and to initiate a democratic transition we characterize the equilibrium patterns of political institutions income distribution and growth as a function of the initial income and inequalities in particular we identify circumstances under which the elite promotes the endogenous emergence of a middle class for purely political economy reasons a simple linear infinite horizon framework is then presented in this setting we discuss the importance of historical dependence for long run social stratification and redistribution

estimating willingness to pay for renewable energy in south korea using the contingent valuation method the importance of renewable energy as a response to climate change is universally acknowledged however its successful implementation requires public approval and cooperation this study aims to identify the level of renewable energy acceptance in korea by estimating korean consumers additional willingness to pay wtp using the contingent valuation cv method which is the most widely used to analyze consumer preferences the estimation results indicate that korean consumers are willing to pay an additional usd 3 21 per month for electricity generated with renewable energy however wtp in korea is low relative to other advanced nations indicating that these values could be influenced through policies aimed at improving knowledge and acceptance of renewable energy sources among korean consumers

bargaining in legislatures bargaining in legislatures is conducted according to formal rules specifying who may make proposals and how they will be decided legislative outcomes depend on those rules and on the structure of the legislature although the social choice literature provides theories about voting equilibria it does not endogenize the formation of the agenda on which the voting is based and rarely takes into account the institutional structure found in legislatures in our theory members of the legislature act noncooperatively in choosing strategies to serve their own districts explicitly taking into account the strategies members adopt in response to the sequential nature of proposal making and voting the model permits the characterization of a legislative equilibrium reflecting the structure of the legislature and also allows consideration of the choice of elements of that structure in a context in which the standard institution free model of social choice theory yields no equilibrium

production economics and optimal stock size in a north atlantic fishery this paper contains an analysis of a fishery production function and an empirical analysis of the north sea herring fishery an intertemporal profit function is defined by introducing stock dynamics and the concept of a sole resource manager some new results with respect to the relationship between the optimal stock level and production technology are derived estimates of the optimal stock level for herring are also presented

political selection and persistence of bad governments we study dynamic selection of governments under different political institutions with a special focus on institutional flexibility a government consists of a subset of the individuals in the society the competence level of the government in office determines collective utilities e g by determining the amount and quality of public goods and each individual derives additional utility from being part of the government e g rents from holding office we characterize the dynamic evolution of governments and determine the structure of stable governments which arise and persist in equilibrium in our model perfect democracy where current members of the government do not have veto power over changes in governments always leads to the emergence of the most competent government however any deviation from perfect democracy to any regime with incumbency veto power destroys this result there is always at least one other less competent government that is also stable and can persist forever and even the least competent government can persist forever in office we also show that there is a nonmonotonic relationship between the degree of incumbency veto power and the quality of government in contrast in the presence of stochastic shocks or changes in the environment a regime with less incumbency veto power has greater flexibility and greater probability that high competence governments will come to power this result suggests that a particular advantage of democratic regimes with a limited number of veto players may be their greater adaptability to changes rather than their performance under given conditions finally we show that royalty like dictatorships may be more successful than junta like dictatorships because in these regimes veto players are less afraid of change

a theory of political transitions we develop a theory of political transitions inspired by the experiences of western europe and latin america nondemocratic societies are controlled by a rich elite the initially disenfranchised poor can contest power by threatening revolution especially when the opportunity cost is low for example during recessions the threat of revolution may force the elite to democratize democracy may not consolidate because it is redistributive and so gives the elite an incentive to mount a coup highly unequal societies are less likely to consolidate democracy and may end up oscillating between regimes and suffer substantial fiscal volatility

willingness to pay for renewable energy primary and discretionary choice of british households for micro generation technologies this paper documents the policy context of renewable energy production in the european union the research adopts a choice experiment approach to investigate households wtp for these renewable energy technologies in the uk the micro generation technologies comprise solar photovoltaic micro wind solar thermal heat pumps and biomass boilers and pellet stoves the study compares the results from conditional and mixed logit models which estimate the distribution of utility coefficients and then derives wtp values as a ratio of the attribute coefficient to the price coefficient with a model in which the wtp distribution is estimated directly from utility in the money space the results suggest that whilst renewable energy adoption is significantly valued by households this value is not sufficiently large for the vast majority of households to cover the higher capital costs of micro generation energy technologies

marine trade offs comparing the benefits of off shore wind farms and marine protected areas the drive to increase renewable electricity production in many parts of europe has led to an increasing concentration of new wind energy sites at sea this results in a range of environmental impacts which should be taken into account in a benefit cost analysis of such proposals in this paper we use choice modeling to investigate the relative gains and losses from siting new windfarms off the coast of estonia relative to the option of creating a new marine protected area we find that while respondents are generally opposed to converting marine shoals to conventional wind farms and prefer the establishment of marine protected areas instead benefits from constructing environmentally friendly wind farms an alternative program which is also considered by the government are not statistically different with respect to consumers welfare to those associated with creating a new marine protected area methodologically the paper makes a contribution by showing the ability of the latent class mixed logit model to represent both within and between class preference heterogeneity and thus its power to provide a more sophisticated representation of preference heterogeneity than stand alone latent class or mixed logit approaches the paper also presents the first use of the latent class mixed logit model in willingness to pay space for environmental goods

analyzing korean consumers latent preferences for electricity generation sources with a hierarchical bayesian logit model in a discrete choice experiment generally consumers use electricity without considering the source the electricity was generated from since different energy sources exert varying effects on society it is necessary to analyze consumers latent preference for electricity generation sources the present study estimates korean consumers marginal utility and an appropriate generation mix is derived using the hierarchical bayesian logit model in a discrete choice experiment the results show that consumers consider the danger posed by the source of electricity as the most important factor among the effects of electricity generation sources additionally korean consumers wish to reduce the contribution of nuclear power from the existing 32 11 and increase that of renewable energy from the existing 4 32

political losers as a barrier to economic development per capita income in many sub saharan african countries such as chad and niger is less than 1 30th of that of the united states most economists and social scientists suspect that this is in part due to institutional failures that stop these societies from adopting the best technologies a particularly interesting historical example comes from the diffusion of railways in the 19th century while railways are regarded as a key technology driving the industrial revolution there were large lags in their diffusion for example in 1850 the united states had 14 518 km of track britain 9 797 km and germany 5 856 km in the russian and hapsburg empires there were just 501 km and 1 357 kim respectively all data from brian r mitchell 1993 why do societies as in this example fail to adopt the best available technologies one answer is that existing powerful interest groups block the introduction of new technologies in order to protect their economic rents and societies are able to make technological advances only if they can defeat such groups economic monopolies may be one example a monopolist might wish to block the introduction of a new technology by a rival that will capture the market this idea which we call the economic losers hypothesis was discussed by simon kuznets 1968 developed at length by joel mokyr 1990 in the context of technology adoption and formalized by per krusell and jose victor rios rull 1996 and stephen l parente and edward c prescott 1997 related ideas are widely discussed in the literature on international trade policy with many formal models e g gene m grossman and elhanan helpman 1994 there are problems with this story however first despite the intuitive appeal of the idea there are relatively few instances where major economic change was blocked by economic losers mokyr 1990 emphasizes the attempts of many skilled artisans to block the introduction of new machines the most famous example is the luddites skilled weavers who were thrown out of work by mechanization interestingly however many of these groups including the luddites were ultimately unable to block economic progress equally important the economic losers hypothesis relies on the presumption that certain groups have the political power to block innovation but if so why not use this power to simply tax the gains generated by the introduction of the new technology this might be because there are limits on the nature of fiscal instruments though it seems plausible that groups with sufficient political power to block innovation would be able subsequently to lobby effectively for redistribution a more important reason however may be that the introduction of new technology and economic change more generally may simultaneously affect the distribution of political power we argue that the effect of economic change on political power is a key factor in determining whether technological advances and beneficial economic changes will be blocked in other words we propose a political loser hypothesis we argue that it is groups whose political power not economic rents is eroded who will block technological advances if agents are economic losers but have no political power they cannot impede technological progress if they have and maintain political power i e are not political losers then they have no incentive to block progress it is therefore agents who have t discussant gene grossman princeton university

consumers willingness to pay for green electricity a meta analysis of the literature at present electricity generated from power plants using renewable sources costs more than electricity generated from power plants using conventional fuels consumers bear these expenses directly or indirectly through higher prices for renewable energy or taxes the number of studies published over the last few years focusing on people s preferences for renewables has increased steadily making it more and more difficult to identify key explanatory factors that determine people s willingness to pay wtp for renewables we present results of a meta regression on valuation of consumer preferences for a larger share of renewable energy in their electricity mix our meta regression results reveal a number of important factors that explain the differences in wtp values for renewable energy different valuation methods show widely different values with choice experiments producing the highest estimates our results further indicate that consumers wtp for green electricity differs by source with hydropower being the least valued variables that are often omitted from primary valuation studies are important in explaining differences in values these variables describe individual and household characteristics as well as information on the type of power plant that will be replaced by renewables further the marginal effect of a survey conducted in the us is pronounced we also assess the potential for using the results for out of sample value transfer and find a median error of 21 c 2015 elsevier b v all rights reserved

wind power externalities a meta analysis this study presents the first quantitative meta analysis of the non market valuation literature on the external effects associated with wind power production a data set of 60 observations drawn from 32 studies is constructed the relative economic values of different types of externalities as well as the impact of various methodological and sample characteristics on welfare estimates are examined the results indicate a significant effect of visual externalities on welfare estimates in both directions i e a positive effect of visual improvements and a negative effect of deteriorations this finding corresponds to predictions of the importance of visual impacts in the social science literature external effects of wind power on biodiversity mainly birds do not affect welfare estimates indirect externalities caused by conventional sources of electricity that can be avoided by wind power such as a the reduction of air pollution do neither have a significant impact on welfare measures methodologically we find substantial but inelastic income effects and for choice experiments clear evidence of sensitivity to scope from a policy point of view our results suggest that a policy mix combining a promotion of wind turbines with another green policy facilitates expansion of wind energy

has new business creation in russia come to a halt abstract successful transformation of centrally planned economies requires not just the privatization of the existing firms but also the formation of new ones new entrants serve to correct for the central planners neglect of such sectors as services and consumer goods and their bias in favor of large firms indeed central european economies have been experiencing a rapid rate of new business creation as measured by the change in the number of small firms russia also experienced a short period of explosive growth in the number of new business however since 1994 net new business formation has stagnated this paper looks into the possible causes of this phenomenon official data on the change in the number of small businesses which serve as a proxy for net new business formation arouse justified suspicion because of the frequent changes in the definition of small enterprise like everywhere in the world some russian registered firms do not become operational and some firms that have ceased operations do not legally disband if the share of these dead souls in the total count of small firms changes over time and official statistics does not adjust its count accordingly the data may show the opposite of the actual processes this paper analyzes russian data collection procedures and other evidence and concludes that stagnation in the new business formation is a real phenomenon rather than a statistical artifact the difficulty in finding out the causes of stagnation is that empirical studies focus on the existing businesses and miss those that should have been born but were not the problems faced by the incumbents and frustrated entrants may well be different the likely causes of the end of new business creation are the increased tax and regulatory burden combined with plunder by the numerous tax and regulatory authorities other possible explanations involve the incumbents use of the authorities and or racketeers to erect barriers against new entrants

inefficiency in legislative policymaking a dynamic analysis this paper develops an infinite horizon model of public spending and taxation in which policy decisions are determined by legislative bargaining the policy space incorporates both productive and distributive public spending and distortionary taxation the productive spending is investing in a public good that benefits all citizens e g national defense and the distributive spending is district specific transfers e g pork barrel spending investment in the public good creates a dynamic linkage across policymaking periods the analysis explores the dynamics of legislative policy choices focusing on the efficiency of the steady state level of

valuation of environmental and societal trade offs of renewable energy sources abstract use of renewable energy sources is one solution to decrease green house gas emissions and the use of polluting fossil fuels renewables differ in their environmental and societal impacts and to design sound renewable energy policy societies need to assess the trade offs between alternative sources to enable the evaluation and comparison of renewable energy production alternatives in finland this paper applies the choice experiment to elicit the monetary information on people s preferences for four renewable energy sources wind power hydro power and energy from crops and wood and considers four impacts of energy production effects on biodiversity local jobs carbon emissions and household s electricity bill the nested logit analysis reveals that higher income male gender young age and pro environmental attitude increase the probability to choose renewable energy instead of the current energy mix wind power is on average the most popular renewable energy technology but regional differences exist biodiversity deterioration should be avoided the national aggregate willingness to pay based on stated preferences rather than preferences revealed by actual market behavior for a combination of renewable energy technologies that corresponds to finland s climate change and energy policy is over 500 million euros

willingness to pay lip service applying a neuroscience based method to wtp for green electricity abstract consumers willingness to pay wtp represents a central question for providers of renewable energy most studies on the subject have used contingent valuation and choice experiments however all empirical designs employed to date suffer from serious biases such as strategic behavior we introduce a novel neuroscience based approach to renewable energy related wtp research neuropricing which eliminates some of these biases we tested consumers wtp for two different green electricity products and found wtp for these products to be about 15 above that for a non green electricity tariff our results suggest that neuropricing is indeed able to eliminate strategic behavior moreover this approach allows for wtp studies with much smaller sample sizes than traditional methods require the neuroscience methodology can be used by researchers and marketers alike not only for testing the effects of product attributes on wtp but also for evaluating wtp effects of specific messages in marketing communications thus it may lead to a better understanding of consumer behavior and hence facilitate more successful marketing of renewable energy

cooperative and non cooperative exploitation of the arcto norwegian cod stock a two agent model for the exploitation of the arcto norwegian cod stock is developed to investigate the economic benefits that can be realized from the resource and the effect of exploitation on stock sustainability under cooperation and non cooperation the two agents are identified in this study as a trawl fishery versus a coastal fishery unlike in munro 1979 where conflicts in the management strategies of agents arise from differences in the perceptions of the discount factor fishing effort costs and consumer preferences here conflicts arise mainly from the differences in fishing gear and grounds and the age group of cod targeted by the two agents using a game theoretic framework we show that given available data the optimum optimorum is obtained under cooperation with side payments and no predetermined harvest shares in which case the coastal fishery buys out the trawl fishery however sensitivity analysis shows that if the price premium assumed for mature cod is taken away the trawl fishery takes over as the producer of the optimum optimorum

price augmenting returns to scale an application to nonseparable two stage technologies parameters to be estimated is small and since imposing regularity conditions in the estimation of these technologies is straightforward we illustrate the technique by estimating the nonseparable two stage leontief ces cost function using the familiar berndt wood khaled time series data on u s manufacturing output and compare our results with the familiar single stage translog cost function

choosing how to choose self stable majority rules and constitutions constitutional arrangements affect the decisions made by a society we study how this effect leads to preferences of citizens over constitutions and ultimately how this has a feedback that determines which constitutions can survive in a given society constitutions are stylized here to consist of a voting rule for ordinary business and possibly a different voting rule for making changes to the constitution we define an equilibrium notion for constitutions called self stability whereby under the rules of a self stable constitution the society would not vote to change the constitution we argue that only self stable constitutions will endure we prove that self stable constitutions always exist but that most constitutions even very prominent ones may not be self stable for some societies we show that constitutions where the voting rule used to amend the constitution is the same as the voting rule used for ordinary business are dangerously simplistic and there are many societies for which no such constitution is self stable we conclude with a characterization of the set of self stable constitutions that use majority rule for ordinary business

us consumers willingness to pay for green electricity abstract we analyze us consumers demand for environmental attributes of deregulated residential electricity services using results from a survey designed to elicit consumers willingness to pay for such attributes and using results from a hedonic analysis of actual price premiums charged for green electricity in several deregulated markets survey results suggest that many population segments are willing to pay for decreased air emissions even if there is no alteration in fuel source furthermore several groups are willing to pay significantly more when emissions reductions stem from increased reliance upon renewable fuels the hedonic analysis suggests that several product features not considered in the survey help explain real price premiums including fuel mix from newly created renewable generation capacity green e certification brand name and state of offer while survey and hedonic results are not easily compared due to limitations of the survey both point to similar values for key environmental attributes though the survey results are likely to overstate actual willingness to pay in sum the results suggest that consumer driven purchases can in part support the future of renewable generation capacity in the united states though reliance upon other policy alternatives may be needed if energy prices spike

persistence of power elites and institutions we construct a model to study the implications of changes in political insti tutions for economic institutions a change in political institutions alters the distribution of de jure political power but creates incentives for investments in de facto political power to partially or even fully offset change in de jure power the model can imply a pattern of captured democracy whereby a democratic regime may survive but choose economic institutions favoring an elite the model provides conditions under which economic or policy outcomes will be invariant to changes in political institutions and economic institutions them selves will persist over time jel d02 d72 the domination of an organized minority over the unor ganized majority is inevitable the power of any minority is irresistible as against each single individual in the majority who stands alone before the totality of the organized minor ity at the same time the minority is organized for the very reason that it is a minority

what do customers want from improved residential electricity services evidence from a choice experiment abstract improvements in customer satisfaction as well as product service quality represent a common objective of all businesses and electricity services are no exception using choice experiments and a mixed logit model this study quantitatively analyzes customers preferences and their marginal willingness to pay for improved residential electricity services the study provides an ex ante evaluation of customers acceptance of hypothetical electricity services according to the results customers consider the electricity bill and the electricity mix as the two most important attributes when choosing their electricity services customers are willing to pay 2 2 more in the average electricity bill an additional monthly electricity bill of krw 1 064 usd 0 96 for a significant increase in the share of renewable energy which is far less than the actual cost of achieving this renewable target therefore it is better to maintain the current electricity mix in principle and the renewable share should be gradually expanded instead of making a sudden change in the electricity mix in addition customers are willing to pay krw 6 793 usd 6 15 more to reduce blackouts once in a year and krw 64 year usd 0 06 year to reduce a minute of each blackout

biofuel policies and the environment do climate benefits warrant increased production from biofuel feedstocks abstract we examine whether climate benefits warrant policies promoting biofuel production from agricultural crops when other environmental impacts are accounted for we develop a general economic ecological modelling framework for integrated analysis of biofuel policies an economic model of farmers decision making is combined with a biophysical model predicting the effects of farming practices on crop yields and relevant environmental impacts they include ghg emissions over the life cycle nitrogen and phosphorus runoff and the quality of wildlife habitats we apply our model to crop production in finland we find that under current biofuel production technology the case for promotion of biofuels is not as evident as has been generally thought only reed canary grass for biodiesel is unambiguously desirable whereas biodiesel from rape seed and ethanol production from wheat and barley cause in most cases negative net impacts on the environment suggested policies in the us and the eu tend to improve slightly the environmental performance of biofuel production

economic evaluation of environmental externalities in china s coal fired power generation abstract serious environmental externalities exist in china s power industry environmental economics theory suggests that the evaluation of environmental externality is the basis of designing an efficient regulation the purposes of this study are 1 to identify chinese respondents preferences for green development of electric power industry and the socio economic characteristics behind them 2 to investigate the different attitudes of the respondents towards pollution and co2 reduction 3 to quantitatively evaluate the environmental cost of china s coal fired power generation based on the method of choice experiments ce and the 411 questionnaires with 2466 data points we found that chinese respondents prefer pm2 5 so2 and nox reduction to co2 reduction and that the environment cost of coal fired power plants in china is 0 30 yuan per kwh in addition we found that the socio economic characteristics of income education gender and environmental awareness have significant impacts on respondents choices these findings indicate that the environmental cost of coal fired power generation is a significant factor that requires great consideration in the formulation of electric power development policies in addition importance should also be attached to the implementation of green power price policy and enhancement of environmental protection awareness

comparative politics and public finance we propose a model with micropolitical foundations to contrast different political regimes compared to a parliamentary regime the institutions of a presidential congressional regime produce fewer incentives for legislative cohesion but more separation of powers these differences are reflected in the size and composition of government spending a parliamentary regime has redistribution toward a majority less underprovision of public goods and more rents to politicians a presidential congressional regime has redistribution toward powerful minorities more underprovision of public goods but less rents to politicians the size of government is smaller under a presidential regime this last prediction is consistent with cross country data

history lessons institutions factor endowments and paths of development in the new world the explanations offered for the contrasting records of long run growth and development among the societies of north and south america most often focus on institutions the traditional explanations for the sources of these differences in institutions typically highlight the significance of national heritage or religion we in contrast argue that a hemispheric perspective across the wide range of colonies established in the new world by the europeans suggests that although there were many influences factor endowments or initial conditions had profound and enduring effects on the long run paths of institutional and economic development followed by the respective economies

a dynamic theory of public spending taxation and debt this paper presents a dynamic political economy theory of public spending taxation and debt policy choices are made by a legislature consisting of representatives elected by geographically defined districts the legislature can raise revenues via a distortionary income tax and by borrowing these revenues can be used tofinance a national public good and district specific transfers interpreted as pork barrel spending the value of the public good is stochastic reflecting shocks such as wars or natural disasters in equilibrium policy making cycles between two distinct regimes business as usual in which legislators bargain over the allocation of pork and responsible policy making in which policies maximize the collective good transitions between the two regimes are brought about by shocks in the value of the public good in the long run equilibrium tax rates are too high and too volatile public good provision is too low and debt levels are too high in some environments a balanced budget requirement can improve citizen welfare

do juntas lead to personal rule january 2009although almost half of the world s population lives under nondemocratic regimes thequestions of how policy decisions are made and how power changes hands in nondemocra cies have received relatively little attention in the political economy literature a popularview forcefully articulated by gordon tullock 1987 is that because there are no stronginstitutions ensuring consensus and regulating the election and succession of leaders non democratic regimes rapidly degenerate into personal rule where a single dictator dominatesevery aspect of decision making tullock writes empirically the junta characteristicallyshrinks to one man p 144 and continues to explain this as the result of dynamic in teractions among the members of the junta he suggests that there will typically be anaccumulation of power by one of the junta members if this upstart member succeeds hebecomes the sole ruler if he fails he is eliminated by the other members of the junta this process continues until one member is standing tullock thus concludes it can beseen that this process would tend over time to lead the junta into becoming just one manthrough the gradual exclusion of individuals who had failed in plotting or the success of anindividual who had not p 145 tullock s account like that of many others implicitly recognizes that politics in non democratic and weakly institutionalized societies should be conceptualized as one of thedynamic coalition formations there are no rules that ensure orderly transitions of powerand no checks against some members of the ruling coalition eliminating or sidelining others however formal models of dynamic coalition formation in nondemocratic societies have notbeen developed until recently in this paper we draw on our work on dynamic coalition formation daron acemoglu georgy egorov and konstantin sonin 2008a and investigate tullock s conjecture formally 1

stock size harvesting costs and the potential for extinction the case of sealing starting in the 1960s considerable opposition to the canadian and norwegian harp seal hunt off newfoundland developed it was alleged that the seal hunt was unethical and that the seal population had been seriously depleted the purpose of this paper is to analyze the production function for the seal hunt based on data for the norwegian seal hunt particular attention is paid to the question whether free entry to the fishery will cause overexploitation this depends critically on the characteristics of the production function in particular the extent to which harvesting costs depend on stock size

the monopoly of violence evidence from colombia many states in latin america africa and asia lack the monopoly of violence even though this was identified by max weber as the foundation of the state and thus the capacity to govern effectively in this paper we develop a new perspective on the establishment of the monopoly of violence we build a model to explain the incentive of central states to eliminate nonstate armed actors paramilitaries in a democracy the model is premised on the idea that paramilitaries may choose to and can influence elections since paramilitaries have preferences over policies this reduces the incentives of the politicians they favor to eliminate them we then investigate these ideas using data from colombia between 1991 and 2006 we first present regression and case study evidence supporting our postulate that paramilitary groups can have significant effects on elections for the legislature and the executive next we show that the evidence is also broadly consistent with the implication of the model that paramilitaries tend to persist to the extent that they deliver votes to candidates for the executive whose preferences are close to theirs and that this effect is larger in areas where the presidential candidate would have otherwise not done as well finally we use roll call votes to illustrate a possible quid pro quo between the executive and paramilitaries in colombia language en

small streams diverse sources who invests in renewable energy in finland during the financial downturn this article addresses the investment gap in renewable energy sources identified by several authors examining the case of a country finland which introduced policy measures to diversify its renewable energy portfolio we analyse the development of investments in renewable heat and power in response to new policy measures and contextual factors during the downturn period 2009 2013 we investigate investor heterogeneity i e the diversity of logics employed by different types of res investors in spite of a severe financial recession we find an emergence of new sources of investment among these new investor types we find diversity in investment drivers and available options these include investors mobilized by the feed in tariff to seek profitable targets and investors such as real estate owners investing in heat pumps for their own use and benefiting from low interest rates we find that the diversification of investors supports the diversification in res sources and brings in new investors undeterred by the financial downturn our findings imply that policy makers should recognize that the responses to distinct incentives and pressures vary by investor types this also means that a mix of policies is required to maximize the contribution of different sectors to filling the renewable energy investment gap

barriers to investment in polarized societies i present a tractable dynamic model of political economy where disagreements about the composition of public spending result in implementation of short sighted policies the relative price of investment to consumption is excessively large in equilibrium due to over taxation investment rates are too low which slows down growth along the transition in the long run this results in output consumption and welfare being inefficiently low the larger is the degree of polarization the greater is the inefficiency political stability mitigates the effects of polarization by making the incumbent internalize the dynamic inefficiencies introduced by the choice of growth retarding policies

specification and estimation of nonseparable two stage technologies the leontief ces and the cobb douglas ces a two stage technology is a sequential production process that first uses pri mary inputs to produce intermediate inputs and then uses theintermediate inputs to produce final output in this paper the authors show that two stage technologies provide a general procedure for combining production functions or cost functions to obtain new specifications suitable for empirical production analysis they investigate two new cost functions for which the input demand systemssatisfy global regularity conditions in a wide range of nondegenerate cases using six data sets the authors estimate thesetwo input demand systems both with and without imposing global regularity conditions and find that one of them performs well copyright 1987 by university of chicago press

why did the west extend the franchise democracy inequality and growth in historical perspective during the nineteenth century most western societies extended voting rights a decision that led to unprecedented redistributive programs we argue that these political reforms can be viewed as strategic decisions by the political elite to prevent widespread social unrest and revolution political transition rather than redistribution under existing political institutions occurs because current transfers do not ensure future transfers while the extension of the franchise changes future political equilibria and acts as a commitment to redistribution our theory also offers a novel explanation for the kuznets curve in many western economies during this period with the fall in inequality following redistribution due to democratization i introduction the nineteenth century was a period of fundamental political reform and unprecedented changes in taxation and redistribution britain for example was transformed from an oligarchy run by an elite to a democracy the franchise was extended in 1832 and then again in 1867 and 1884 transferring voting rights to portions of the society with no previous political representation the decades after the political reforms witnessed radical social reforms increased taxation and the extension of education to the masses moreover as noted by kuznets inequality which was previously increasing started to decline during this period the gini coefficient for income inequality in england and wales had risen from 0 400 in 1823 to 0 627 in 1871 but fell to 0 443 in 1901 two key factors in the reduction in inequality were the increase in the proportion of skilled workers williamson 1985 and the redistribution of income toward the poorer segments of the society for example taxes rose from 8 12 percent of national product in 1867 to 18 8 percent by 1927 and the progressivity of the tax system increased substantially see lindert 1989

testing for input substitution in a regulated fishery input restrictions are commonly used to prevent rent dissipation in fisheries this paper examines whether these schemes are successful by calculating the degree of input substitution between restricted and unrestricted inputs conventional elasticities of substitution cannot be used when the firm faces controls on the use of some inputs in this case the appropriate measure of substitution the elasticity of intensity must be used data from the british columbia salmon fishery provide evidence of input substitution possibilities for two vessel types these results call into question the usefulness of input control schemes

estimation of cost functions in a data poor environment the case of capacity estimation in fisheries fisheries economic analysis is often handicapped by the lack of adequate data to undertake robust econometric analyses in this study a translog cost function was required to estimate the potential direction of adjustment in a uk fleet segment if a new regulatory regime was introduced however the available data were not appropriate for such estimation data envelopment analysis dea was used to modify the data subsequently used in the estimation of the long run cost function the resulting model appears robust and is consistent with economic theory and the supporting evidence produced using dea

institutions and growth in limited access societies we build a dynamic political economy model with a two class society workers and the elite in which the elite formation the innovation rate and fiscal policy are endogenous the model generates a mapping between institutions and patterns of growth consistent with empirical evidence ex ante when facing constraints in choosing institutions the elite may delegate policy control to some of its members even though such delegation exacerbates the conflict within the elite and causes policy failures committing to such institutional arrangements prevents more harmful outcomes such as rapid entry and subsequent deterioration of the elite s economic and political power

estimating the elasticity of substitution between restricted and unrestricted inputs in a regulated fishery a probit approach abstract catch effort vessel and skipper characteristic data for a sample of boats involved in the tasmanian rock lobster fishery in the 1983 1984 season are used to estimate a fishing effort production function nested in a cobb douglas fishery production function the initial effort function is translog but tests suggest that the ces form cannot be rejected the vessel s choice of fishing ground is modeled by a probit equation the output from which is included in the ols estimation of the production function the elasticity of substitution between the inputs which are restricted by regulation and the other inputs is of particular interest as it determines whether input restriction is an efficient form of regulation for the fishery the results suggest a value significantly less than unity

public regulation and the structure of production in multiproduct industries an application to the new england otter trawl industry this article considers the problem of managing multispecies fishing industries as one of regulating the production of individual multiproduct firms the multispecies new england otter trawl industry is examined within this framework empirical results derived from estimating a multiproduct profitfunction indicate that management consistent with the structures ofmultiproduct production and costs would directly regulate inputs little support is provided for applying the traditional bioeconomic model to the fishery studied

hydropower externalities a meta analysis this paper presents a meta analysis of existing research related to the economic valuation of the external effects of hydropower a database consisting of 81 observations derived from 29 studies valuing the non market impacts of hydropower electricity generation is constructed with the main aim to quantify and explain the economic values for positive and negative hydropower externalities different meta regression model specifications are used to test the robustness of significant determinants of non market values including different types of hydropower impacts the explanatory and predictive power of the estimated models is relatively high whilst controlling for sample and study characteristics we find significant evidence for public aversion towards deteriorations of landscape vegetation and wildlife caused by hydropower projects there is however only weak evidence of willingness to pay for mitigating these effects the main positive externality of hydropower generation the avoidance of greenhouse gas emission positively influences welfare estimates when combined with the share of hydropower in national energy production sensitivity to scope is detected but not linked to specific externalities or non market valuation methods

fishing effort validation and substitution possibilities among components the case study of the viii division european anchovy fishery command and control regulation programmes particularly input constraints typically fail to achieve stated objectives because fishermen may substitute unregulated for regulated inputs it is thus essential to have an understanding of the internal structure of production technology a primal formulation is used to estimate a translog production function at the vessels level that includes fishing effort and fisherman s skill the flexibility of the selected functional permits the analysis of the substitution possibilities among inputs by estimating the elasticity of substitution with no prior constraints particular attention is paid to the empirical validation of fishing effort as an aggregate input which implies either the acceptance of the joint hypothesis that inputs making up effort are weakly separable from the inputs out of the subgroup or considering that effort is an intermediate input produced by a non separable two stage technology cross sectional data from the spanish purse seine fleet op

democratization or repression abstract regimes controlled by a rich elite often collapse and make way for democracy amidst widespread social unrest such regime changes are often followed by redistribution to the poor at the expense of the former elite we argue that the reason why the elite may have to resort to full scale democratization despite its apparent costs to themselves may be that lesser concessions would be viewed as a sign a weakness and spur further unrest and more radical demands the elite may therefore be forced to choose between repression and the most generous concession a transition to full democracy

rising wages mechanization and the substitution between capital and labor evidence from small scale farm system in china this article aims to investigate major factors that led to the observed pace of mechanization and the substitution between labor and machines in rural china we used commodity wise province level panel data for more than a quarter of a century from 1984 to 2012 the analysis demonstrated a dramatic increase in real agricultural wages in recent years especially after 2003 in contrast to a relatively stable real machine price the relative price of machines against agricultural labor has declined in an accelerating way which contributed to the observed rapid introduction of machines the elasticity of substitution between labor and machines was large in some commodities which contributed to a fast substitution of labor by machines

technical efficiency effects of input controls evidence from australia s banana prawn fishery this paper provides the first ex post estimates of the effects of input controls on technical efficiency in a fishery using individual vessel data from the northern prawn fishery of australia for the years 1990 1996 and 1994 2000 stochastic production frontiers are estimated to analyse the efficiency impacts of input controls on engine and vessel size the results indicate that technical efficiency is increasing in a measure of vessel size and engine capacity that was controlled by the regulator from 1985 to 2001 and decreasing in an unregulated input gear headrope length the study shows that fishers have substituted from regulated to unregulated inputs over the period 1990 2000 and technical efficiency has declined coincident with increasing restrictions on vessel size and engine capacity the decline in technical efficiency indicates that the goal of the regulator to increase economic efficiency has not been realized

productivity measurement in common property resource industries an application to the pacific coast trawl fishery this article measures total factor productivity in industries that exploit resources held in common particular attention is paid to the valuation and specification of in situ commonproperty resources in a neoclassical production technology catchability of the resource and variations in economic capacity utilization an empirical analysis of the open access pacific coast trawl fishing industry demonstrates that disentangling the productivity residual from changes in resource abundance its catchability and variations in capacity utilization hones the productivity residual to finer precision lowering mean productivity growth by about hak removing biological noise from highly variable resources is also important the results are related to aprogram limiting the number of vessels and can contribute to sustainable resource management whenever resources are held in common

a simple model of inefficient institutions this paper develops a simple model of economic and political institutions that lead to poor aggregate economic performance in the model economy groups with political power the elite choose policies to increase their income and to directly or indirectly transfer resources from the rest of society to themselves the resulting equilibrium is generally inefficient because of three distinct mechanisms 1 revenue extraction 2 factor price manipulation and 3 political consolidation in particular the elite may pursue inefficient policies to extract revenue from other groups they may do so to reduce the demand for factors coming from other groups in the economy thus indirectly benefiting from changes in factor prices finally they may try to impoverish other groups competing for political power the elite s preferences over inefficient policies translate into inefficient economic institutions the notable exception to this general picture emerges when long term investments are important thus creating a commitment holdup problem whereby equilibrium taxes and regulations are worse than the elite would like them to be from an ex ante point of view in this case economic institutions that provide additional security of property rights to other groups can be useful

rural versus urban preferences for renewable energy developments development of renewable energy resources such as wind farms and hydro electric schemes are being promoted as a new method of expanding and diversifying employment in rural areas however such energy projects are associated with a range of environmental impacts which might be detrimental to other economic activities such as those based on nature tourism the authors use a choice experiment to quantify peoples preferences over environmental and employment impacts that may result from the deployment of renewable energy projects in rural areas of scotland focussing in particular on any differences between the preferences of urban and rural dwellers and on heterogeneity within these groups rural and urban households are shown to have different welfare gains which are dependent on the type of renewable energy technology and on the scale of project under consideration

rich enough to go renewable but too early to leave fossil energy abstract typically environmental kuznets curve ekc studies on energy concentrate on the emissions produced from energy production or consumption and neglect the aspect of exhaustion of a natural resource which is an irreversible result against any definition of sustainability and intergenerational equity this paper investigates whether there is an environmental kuznets curve for renewable energy whether there should be one and if there is what it should stand for for this reason the paper employs balanced panel data for 33 european member and candidate state countries that produce crude oil natural gas coal and renewable energy for the years 1990 2010 to investigate the relationship between their scale of economic activity fossil energy production and the production of renewable energy results from random effects models together with arellano bond estimator models identify the u shape for the environmental kuznets curve only for renewable energy and coal production a theoretical justification on the mechanisms possibly driving the environmental kuznets curve for renewable energy are also discussed