socio economic characteristics and the effect of taxation as a health policy instrument abstract this paper analyses the quantitative effects of using economic instruments in health policy on the basis of price elasticities calculated from estimated demand systems the nutritional effects of various taxation schemes are compared for households in different age groups and social classes focusing on the consumption of saturated fats fibre and sugar it is generally found that the impact of price instruments is stronger for lower social classes than in other groups of the population with regard to age groups it is mostly the youngest that decrease their demand for saturated fat in response to price changes while it is mostly the middle aged who exhibit price responsiveness in their demand for sugar these groups are however not considered as key target groups for dietary regulation thus tax instruments may be effective in improving diets on average but the design of the instruments and the targeting of vulnerable groups with special needs should be done with care it should be noted that a tax on a single nutrient or food may have undesired effects on the demand for other food components though this may be avoided by introducing taxes subsidies on several food products simultaneously

an exploration of the positive effect of inequality on common property forests abstract this paper analyzes the household level forces driving the positive impact of inequality on common property forest cover in mexico a game theoretic model demonstrates that when common property goods are complementary to private inputs in production an increase in wealth inequality can lead to a decrease in exploitation of the commons data from 350 mexican common properties show that as inequality increases those on the lower end of the land distribution are less likely to use the commons the data also show a negative correlation between inequality and poverty alternative hypotheses for these results are considered

property rights and the utilisation of wetlands abstract this paper argues that successful conservation of wetlands is fundamentally determined by the institutions and property rights associated with resource management decisions thus an understanding of property rights regimes the constraints which they impose on users of wetlands resources and the distribution of benefits of use among users and non users are essential if the economic values of wetland ecosystems and functions are to be realised we outline relevant theoretical perspectives on property rights and the sustainable utilisation of natural resources we argue that wetland resources tend to have unique property rights regimes due to their ecological characteristics namely their multiple resource characteristics the indivisible nature of these resources and the seasonal and cyclical nature of different wetland resource components case studies of property rights regimes in indonesia and vietnam are presented these show that wetland resources are often managed as common pool resources and that state appropriation of resources or the imposition of private property rights can contribute to unsustainable utilisation or conversion of wetlands to other uses

qualitative assessment of eco labels on fresh produce in flanders belgium highlights a potential intention performance gap for the supply chain abstract when it comes to making sustainable food purchasing choices consumers trust on information provided to them by eco labels this article studies the labels for fresh produce available to consumers in flanders belgium concluding that the existing labelling landscape fails at enabling consumers to make adequate decisions for purchasing environmentally sound food a consumer survey supports the need for additional information on the sustainability of fruits and vegetables a potential intention performance gap is found for producers and in the wider sense for the entire supply chain since current labels found on fresh produce are input or practice based labels farmers adhering to those labels can be considered as having the intention to produce sustainably however this intention alone cannot guarantee good environmental performance in order to close the potential intention performance gap for the supply chain and provide more adequate information to consumers we conclude that performance based labels covering the entire food chain of fresh produce using the life cycle assessment approach lca and including situational parameters such as time of consumption origin and production and distribution mode are indispensable

implications of ethnic diversity ethnically differentiated societies are often regarded as dysfunctional with poor economic performance and a high risk of violent civil conflict the author distinguishes between dominance in which one group constitutes a majority and fractionalization in which there are many small groups in terms of overall economic performance the research shows that both theoretically and empirically fractionalization is normally unproblematic in democracies although it can be damaging in dictatorships in terms of the risk of civil war the author shows that both theoretically and empirically fractionalization actually makes societies safer while dominance increases the risk of conflict a policy implication is that fractionalized societies are viable and secession should be discouraged

design of a climate tax on food consumption examples of tomatoes and beef in sweden abstract this study examined appropriate design of efficient climate taxes on consumption of food by constructing a simple theoretical model and exemplifying the results using the examples of tomatoes and beef in sweden the theoretical results showed that for the tax to be efficient i existing taxes on greenhouse gases ghgs should be considered when calculating the climate impact in order to avoid double taxation and ii taxes should be differentiated between ghg here carbon dioxide co2 methane ch4 and nitrous oxide n2o because of their differing climate impacts the calculations of climate taxes on tomatoes and beef in sweden indicated considerable differences in the tax level depending on whether conditions i and ii were considered or not the commonly applied approach in the literature on climate taxes on food i e taxing carbon dioxide equivalents co2e using global warming potential over 100 years gwp100 and neglecting existing taxes on ghg emissions results in a tax that is 1 4 2 8 times higher than the efficient tax for tomatoes and a tax that is between 30 lower and 20 higher than the efficient tax for beef despite the relatively low variations in the climate tax on beef estimated reduction in emissions from beef ranged between 23 and 35 depending on choice of tax the price increases on food due to a climate tax and associated effects on emissions can thus show large variation depending on the tax calculation method

assessing the importance of health and nutrition related factors on food demand a variable preference investigation the importance of health nutrition related factors and demographics on food consumption is assessed based on consumer demand using a variable preferences approach results of the models show that diet disease individual s race region of residence urbanization education and perceived importance of taste influence the consumption of various food groups economic and policy implications of the results are discussed in the paper

consumer response to commodity specific and broad based promotion programs for fruits and vegetables generic promotion activities have traditionally been used for individual agricultural commodities yet there is renewed interest in implementing a mandatory broad based promotion program for all fruits and vegetables here we use data from an experiment that introduce subjects to various promotional efforts for fruits and vegetables to estimate the shift and rotational effects of advertising econometric results indicate that commodity specific promotional efforts may not be effective at increasing demand for fruits and vegetables after controlling for various demographic differences among treatments our results show that consumers valuation of fruits and vegetables was highest among subjects exposed to broad based advertisements copyright 2011 oxford university press

endogeneity in brand choice models applications of random utility models to scanner data have been widely presented in marketing for the last 20 years one particular problem with these applications is that they have ignored possible correlations between the independent variables in the deterministic component of utility price promotion etc and the stochastic component or error term in fact marketing mix variables such as price not only affect brand purchasing probabilities but are themselves endogenously set by marketing managers this work tests whether these endogeneity problems are important enough to warrant consideration when estimating random utility models with scanner panel data our results show that not accounting for endogeneity may result in a substantial bias in the parameter estimates

decentralisation and accountability in infrastructure delivery in developing countries many developing countries are experimenting with decentralisation of public service delivery to elected local governments instead of bureaucrats appointed by a central government we study the resulting implications in a theoretical model in which the central government is uninformed about local need and unable to monitor service allocations bureaucrats charge bribes for services as monopoly providers resulting in underprovision of services especially for the poor local governments are directly responsive to their citizens needs but may be subject to capture by elites effects of decentralisation on service volumes efficiency and equity are analysed under different financing arrangements for local governments the theme of the 2004 world development report is summarised by its opening paragraph too often services fail poor people in access in quantity in quality but the fact that there are strong examples where services do work means governments and citizens can do better how by putting poor people at the center of service provision by enabling them to monitor and discipline service providers by amplifying their voice in policymaking and by strengthening the incentives for providers to serve the poor problems of accountability associated with traditional modes of delivery involving centralised bureaucracies include cost padding service diversion limited responsiveness to local needs limited access and high prices charged especially to the poor 1 many developing countries have thus begun to experiment with initiatives to increase accountability of service providers by providing greater control rights to citizen groups these include decentralisation of service delivery to local governments community participation direct transfers to households and contracting out delivery to private providers and ngos the programmes include a wide range of infrastructure services water sanitation electricity telecommunications roads and social services education health and welfare programmes countries where such trends have gathered

beggar thy neighbor advertising theory and application to generic commodity promotion programs profits from generic advertising by a producer group often come partly at the expense of producers of closely related commodities the resulting tendency toward excessive advertising is exacerbated by check off funding to analyze this beggar thy neighbor behavior we compare a scenario where different producer groups cooperate and choose their advertising expenditures jointly to maximize the sum of profits across the groups and a scenario where they optimize independently in an illustrative example using 1998 data for u s beef and pork the noncooperatively chosen expenditure on beef and pork advertising is more than three times the cooperative optimum copyright 2001 oxford university press

an empirical assessment of endogeneity issues in demand analysis for differentiated products this article explores the issue of price and expenditure endogeneity in empirical demand analysis the analysis focuses on the u s carbonated soft drink market we test the null hypothesis that price and expenditures are exogenous in the demand for carbonated soft drinks using an almost ideal demand system aids specification we strongly reject exogeneity for both prices and expenditures we find that accounting for price expenditures endogeneity significantly impacts demand elasticity estimates we also evaluate the implications of endogeneity issues for testing weak separability over the last few decades strong linkages between economic theory and econometric methods have stimulated much empirical analysis of consumer behavior e g deaton and muellbauer 1980b the basic approach involves estimating marshallian demand functions expressing quantities consumed as functions of prices and household expenditures the usual practice is to treat prices and expenditure as exogenous variables in this article we question the validity of these exogeneity assumptions especially when focusing on the demand for differentiated products 1 this is particularly important to the extent that food consumption typically involves differentiated products in market economies we also examine the interactions between endogeneity of prices expenditure in demand systems and the testing for weak separability of consumer preferences

units of measurement and the stone index in demand system estimation the stone index typically used in estimating linear almost ideal demand systems is not invariant to changes in units of measurement which may seriously affect the approximation properties of the model a modification to the stone index or use of a regular price index instead are both desirable practices in estimating linear ai models

farm subsidies and obesity in the united states national evidence and international comparisons abstract many commentators have claimed that farm subsidies have contributed significantly to the obesity epidemic by making fattening foods relatively cheap and abundant but u s farm policies have generally small and mixed effects on farm commodity prices which in turn have even smaller and still mixed effects on the relative prices of more and less fattening foods other factors have had much more influence on reducing the farm prices of food commodities and the consumer prices of food such that any effects of u s farm policies on u s obesity patterns must have been negligible moreover while many arguments can be made for changing u s farm subsidies even entirely eliminating the current programs could not be expected to have a significant influence on obesity rates international evidence reinforces this finding the countries that support their farmers most strongly tend to have relatively low obesity rates in these countries the main support for farmers comes through trade barriers and higher consumer prices which like u s policies for sugar dairy orange juice and beef discourage consumption and reduce obesity in contrast with agricultural subsidies agricultural r d has had a significant effect in the past on the relative price of food commodities and food and has the potential to influence obesity patterns in the future but r d policy is a very blunt instrument for pursuing public health policy objectives

prices and quality effects in cross sectional demand analysis a conceptual clarification of the sources and meaning of cross sectional price variability is used to motivate a theoretical and econometric framework for the estimation of cross sectional demand functions quality effects are distinguished from supply related price variability to identify cross sectional demand for disaggregated food commodities an empirical application using data from the 1977 78 nationwide food consumption survey indicates that parameter differences resulting from a failure to adjust cross sectional prices for quality effects are likely to be small for relatively homogenous disaggregated food commodities in demand analysis with cross sectional household budget data it is usually assumed that prices are constant allen and bowley prais and houthakker george and king given this assumption engel functions are estimated where expenditure or quantity is regressed on income or total expenditures family size and other demographic characteristics the assumption that cross sectional price effects are absent or are captured adequately by spatial and temporal dummy variables has not been evaluated empirically whether cross sectional price effects can be treated in this manner has implications for the specification of cross sectional demand functions as well as the estimation of engel functions there is a considerable literature on estimating price elasticities with cross sectional data most of the applications utilize timeseries cross sectional data annual or quarterly household consumption surveys and

quality quantity and spatial variation of price this paper develops and implements a method for estimating price elasticities of demand using cross sectional household survey data geographically clustered households report unit values which when corrected for quality effects and for measurement error indicate the underlying spatial variation in prices and can be matched to variation in demand patterns a simple model of quality choice is proposed while the correction for measurement error exploits the clustered design of such surveys data from a 1979 household survey from the ivory coast are used to estimate price elasticities for beef meat fish cereals and starches copyright 1988 by american economic association

environmental impacts of changes to healthier diets in europe food consumption causes together with mobility shelter and the use of electrical products most life cycle impacts of consumption meat and dairy are among the highest contributors to environmental impacts from food consumption a healthier diet might have less environmental impacts using the e3iot environmentally extended input output database developed in an eu study on environmental impacts of products eipro this paper estimates the difference in impacts between the european status quo and three simulated diet baskets i e a pattern according to universal dietary recommendations the same pattern with reduced meat consumption and a mediterranean pattern with reduced meat consumption production technologies protein and energy intake were kept constant though this implies just moderate dietary shifts impact reductions of up to 8 were possible in reduced meat scenarios the slightly changed food costs do not lead to significant first order rebound effects second order rebounds were estimated by applying the capri partial equilibrium model this analysis showed that european meat production sector will most likely respond by higher exports to compensate for losses on the domestic meat market higher impact reductions probably would need more drastic diet changes 2011 elsevier b v

is local food more environmentally friendly the ghg emissions impacts of consuming imported versus domestically produced food with the increased interest in the carbon footprint of global economic activities civil society governments and the private sector are calling into question the wisdom of transporting food products across continents instead of consuming locally produced food while the proposition that local consumption will reduce one s carbon footprint may seem obvious at first glance this conclusion is not at all clear when one considers that the economic emissions intensity of food production varies widely across regions in this paper we concentrate on the tradeoff between production and transport emissions reductions by testing the following hypothesis substitution of domestic for imported food will reduce the direct and indirect greenhouse gas ghg emissions associated with consumption we focus on ruminant livestock since it has the highest emissions intensity across food sectors but we also consider other food products as well and alternately perturb the mix of domestic and imported food products by a marginal equal amount we then compare the emissions associated with each of these consumption changes in order to compute a marginal emissions intensity of local food consumption by country and product the variations in regional ruminant emissions intensities have profound implications for the food miles debate while shifting consumption patterns in wealthy countries from imported to domestic livestock products reduces ghg emissions associated with international trade and transport activity we find that these transport emissions reductions are swamped by changes in global emissions due to differences in ghg emissions intensities of production therefore diverting consumption to local goods only reduces global emissions when undertaken in regions with relatively low emissions intensities for non ruminant products the story is more nuanced transport costs are more important in the case of dairy products and vegetable oils overall domestic emissions intensities are the dominant part of the food miles story in about 90 of the country commodity cases examined here

economic and health effects of fruit and vegetable advertising evidence from lab experiments abstract this study investigates consumer response to various types of advertising for fruits and vegetables a food category which health officials uniformly agree is significantly under consumed in the united states using an adult non student subject pool of 271 participants in an economic experiment consumers response to different types of fruit and vegetable advertising is measured empirically this study finds that broad based advertising which is generic advertising for the entire fruit and vegetable category increases consumer willingness to pay by an average of 24 6 the simulation model shows that broad based advertising for fruits and vegetables either alone or as a hybrid with individual commodity specific campaigns e g apple advertising would reduce average caloric intake per person by approximately 1800 kcal per year the results of this study may contribute to new public policy initiatives that aim to reduce diet related illnesses and obesity which have become increasingly prevalent in the united states

the energy efficiency of local food systems a comparison between different modes of distribution abstract the possible contribution of local sales chains to the reduction of energy consumption has been hotly debated in recent years some authors establish a link between the reduction of distances traveled by food and lower energy consumption due to transportation while others hold that local supply chains have a poor energy performance this article engages this debate by comparing the rates of energy consumption attributable to different modes of distribution of fruits and vegetables in a region of france by studying actors actual practices we show that the establishment of local food systems leads to organizational efforts at the local level or in the form of geographically centralized networks which allow energy expenditures linked to distribution to be minimized the studied chains performances are variable from 13 5 to 44 8 goe gram of oil equivalent per euro of product bringing them close to long chains in the best examples comparison with other research underscores the diversity of methods which are put in place they also show that energy performance remains very dependent on where the study was conducted ultimately this study invites us to better analyze the ways in which actors collaborate to optimize energy expenditures relative to the distribution of food products in local sales chains

five a day a price to pay an evaluation of the uk program impact accounting for market forces we provide an ex post assessment of the uk 5 a day information campaign where the positive effects of information are disentangled from potentially conflicting price dynamics using 4 years of data from the expenditure and food survey between 2002 and 2006 we estimate that the 5 a day program has lifted fruit and vegetable consumption by 0 3 portions on average we also provide quantitative evidence of a differentiated impact by income group ranging from 0 2 to 0 7 portions all impacts are larger than those observed by simply comparing pre policy and post policy intakes

decentralizing antipoverty program delivery in developing countries we study the effects on accountability in government service delivery of decentralizing administration of an antipoverty program while governments at both central and local levels are vulnerable to antipoor policy biases owing to political capture centralized delivery systems are additionally prone to bureaucratic corruption owing to problems in monitoring bureaucratic performance decentralizing the delivery system promotes cost effectiveness and improves intraregional targeting at low program scales but interregional targeting may deteriorate as central grants to high poverty regions shrink owing to high capture of local governments by local elites in such regions

ten years of five a day policy in the uk nutritional outcomes and environmental effects abstract this paper estimates the impact of policy measures aimed at increasing fruit and vegetable f v consumption in the uk over more than a decade evaluating changes in purchased quantities and estimating the corresponding greenhouse gas emissions ghges we use a counterfactual scenario analysis to isolate the effects of the policy from the influences of evolving prices incomes and socio demographic factors our estimates suggest that the positive effects of the promotion campaigns on f v purchases about half a portion per adult equivalent per day still persist 10 years after the start of the policy implementation and we find no evidence of a wearout effect we also provide suggestive evidence that the dietary adjustment which accompanies the increase in f v intakes translates into a relevant reduction in ghges by an average amount of 3 3kg of co2e per adult equivalent per month

risk arbitrage in takeovers this article studies the role of risk arbitrageurs in takeovers and the source of their advantage we show how the presence of arbitrageurs affects the value of the target shares since arbitrageurs are more likely to tender therefore an arbitrageur has the informational advantage of knowing he bought shares in equilibrium the number of arbitrageurs buying shares and the price they pay are determined endogenously we also present several empirical implications including the relationship among trading volume takeover premium liquidity of the shares and the number of risk arbitrageurs investing in one particular deal copyright 2002 oxford university press

decentralization of governance and development all around the world in matters of governance decentralization is the rage even apart from the widely debated issues of subsidiarity and devolution in the european union and states rights in the united states decentralization has been at the center stage of policy experiments in the last two decades in a large number of developing and transition economies in latin america africa and asia the world bank for example has embraced it as one of the major governance reforms on its agenda for example world bank 2000 burki perry and dillinger 1999 take also the examples of the two largest countries of the world china and india decentralization has been regarded as the major institutional framework for the phenomenal industrial growth in the last two decades in china taking place largely in the nonstate nonprivate sector india ushered in a landmark constitutional reform in favor of decentralization around the same time it launched a major program of economic reform in the early 1990s on account of its many failures the centralized state everywhere has lost a great deal of legitimacy and decentralization is widely believed to promise a range of benee ts it is often suggested as a way of reducing the role of the state in general by fragmenting central authority and introducing more intergovernmental competition and checks and balances it is viewed as a way to make government more responsive and efe cient technological changes have also made it somewhat easier than before to provide public services like electricity and water supply relatively efe ciently in smaller market areas and the lower levels of government have now a greater ability to handle certain tasks in a world of rampant ethnic cone icts and separatist movements decentralization is also regarded as a way of diffusing social and political tensions and ensuring local cultural and political autonomy these potential benee ts of decentralization have attracted a very diverse range

history social divisions and public goods in rural india we examine the influence of three historically important sources of social divisions on the availability of public goods in rural india colonial power landowner peasant relations as determined by the land tenure system and social fragmentation based on the hindu caste system and the presence of sizable religious minorities using data on public goods from 1991 we find that regions that were under british colonial power in the pre independence period and those where agrarian power was concentrated in the hands of landlords have lower access to these goods as do areas with high levels of social fragmentation jel h41 p16

the impact of tax reforms designed to encourage healthier grain consumption in this paper we simulate the effects of tax reforms aimed at encouraging healthier grain consumption we use a rich data set on household grain consumption in 2003 from the market research institute gfk sweden combined with information on the nutritional content of the consumption we estimate behavioral parameters which are used to simulate the impact on the average household of tax reforms entailing either a subsidy on commodities particularly rich in fiber or a subsidy of the fiber density in grain products our results suggest that to direct the fiber intake towards nutritional recommendations reforms with a substantial impact on consumer prices are required regardless of the type of subsidy implemented the increase in the intake of fiber is accompanied by unwanted increases in nutrients that are often overconsumed fat salt and sugar funding the subsidies by taxing these nutrients or less healthy commodities helps to counteract such developments

capturing the value of forest carbon for local livelihoods abstract we contribute to the debate on the social implications of carbon forestry projects by showing that tradeoffs exist between social benefits of projects and their cost effectiveness large scale industrial plantations and strict forest protection are economically viable but pose the highest social risks socially beneficial projects are less cost effective because of their higher transaction costs enabling policies are also required for their success regulation of carbon markets will therefore be required to reduce social risks and enhance benefits we propose a number of regulatory and proactive measures and justify them on the basis of market imperfections and concepts of sustainable development

effect of eating seasonal on the carbon footprint of swedish vegetable consumption abstract the advice on climate smart food consumption given by authorities and ngos includes the recommendation to eat seasonal foods however no clear definition of seasonality is given in the literature this study investigated how the carbon footprint of yearly per capita consumption of tomatoes and carrots in sweden was affected by seasonal consumption according to interpretations of seasonality found in communications from swedish ngos and authorities the results showed that the carbon footprint of carrot and tomato consumption was strongly affected by consuming according to either a strict definition of seasonality which excluded both production in heated greenhouses and long distance transport or a definition which only allowed swedish produce the reduction potential was approximately 60 but the consumption pattern was also highly restrictive with e g tomatoes only being consumed during three months according to the strictest definition the reduction from eating only swedish products was not due primarily to characteristics commonly associated with seasonal production shorter transport or low energy demand in cultivation but to the use of renewable fuel instead of fossil energy the methodology chosen in this study resulted in carrots having a more distinct season than tomatoes since the energy use for heating greenhouses which are needed all year round in cold climates was evenly allocated across all tomatoes harvested during one year while the carbon footprint of carrots was assumed to increase with time due to increased energy demand for storage and storage losses hence modern production techniques challenge the traditional concepts of seasonality on an absolute scale including the whole food sector the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from eating seasonal is limited as emissions from vegetable production make up a minor proportion of the total emissions from food consumption

fruit and vegetable consumption patterns a segmentation approach in this article we study the heterogeneity of fruit and vegetable consumption patterns in france a finite mixture of aids models is used to describe food demand patterns revealing different preferences over distinct classes we obtained six different clusters which reflect specific socio demographic characteristics and different income and price elasticities this approach is appropriate for targeting specific public nutritional policies our main results show that unlike the other clusters in which the usual price and income policy tools may be used the lowest income cluster with the lowest consumption remains insensitive to economic variables

reflections on the socio economic correlates of health income education occupation age sex marital status and ethnicity are all correlated with health in one context or another this paper reflects on the difficulties encountered in deriving robust scientific conclusions from these correlations or drawing reliable policy applications interactions among the variables nonlinearities casual inference and possible mechanisms of action are discussed strategies for future work are suggested and researchers are urged to pay special attention to possible interactions among health genes and socio economic variables

heterogeneity and collective management evidence from common forests in himachal pradesh india summary this paper conducts a statistical investigation into the impact of differences in economic benefits wealth and social classes within the community on collective management of forests there are two key results first social parochialism is not a pre requisite for collective management of forests moderate levels of social diversity are associated with low collective management but at high levels of social diversity collective management is high second moderate wealth heterogeneity is beneficial however at high levels and in the presence of benefit heterogeneity it decreases collective management similarly benefit heterogeneity reduces collective management if wealth heterogeneity also exists these results run counter to the dominant understanding of heterogeneity but may be seen as alternate explanations under a specific socioeconomic context

competing bids target management resistance and the structure of takeover bids we examine the structure of initial takeover bids and the frequency of observing competing bids and target management resistance we find the use of cash is not consistently correlated with the frequency of competition or resistance and that the cost of acquiring information about a target is associated with the likelihood of competition and resistance a high bid premium appears to deter competing offers and is also associated with a lower likelihood of resistance finally target management resistance is associated with an increased likelihood of a competing offer arising and a larger increase in target shareholder wealth between the initial public announcement and outcome dates relative to the not resisted subsample for both successful and unsuccessful acquisition proposals article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

true world income distribution 1988 and 1993 first calculation based on household surveys alone the paper derives world income or expenditure distribution of individuals for two years 1988 and 1993 it is the first paper to calculate world distribution for individuals based entirely on household survey data from 91 countries and adjusted for differences in purchasing power parity between the countries measured by the gini index inequality increased from an already very high 63 in 1988 to 66 in 1993 the increase was driven more by rising differences in mean incomes between the countries than by rising inequalities within countries the most important contributors were rising urban rural differences in china and slow growth of rural incomes in south asia compared to several large developed market economies

environmental income and rural livelihoods a global comparative analysis this paper presents results from a comparative analysis of environmental income from approximately 8000 households in 24 developing countries collected by research partners in cifor s poverty environment network pen environmental income accounts for 28 of total household income 77 of which comes from natural forests environmental income shares are higher for low income households but differences across income quintiles are less pronounced than previously thought the poor rely more heavily on subsistence products such as wood fuels and wild foods and on products harvested from natural areas other than forests in absolute terms environmental income is approximately five times higher in the highest income quintile compared to the two lowest quintiles

high value forests hidden economies and elite capture evidence from forest user groups in nepal s terai abstract this paper argues that the policy on decentralised forest management in nepal informed by experiences from the middle hills overlooks the complexity and conflictual potential of establishing effective and equitable user groups in the terai our case study evidence from west central terai suggests that the combination of high forest value and weak institutional control mechanisms create opportunities for local elites to siphon off substantial shares of the benefits generated by valuable local forests the rents created by autonomous fug policies give rise to stark distributional biases a scramble for control and institutional instability we estimate the extent of elite capture and argue that institutional reform needs are intimately linked to controlling what we call the hidden economy of forest user groups

the effects of a fat tax on french households purchases a nutritional approach this article assesses the effects of a fat tax on the nutrients purchased by french households across different income groups this is done by making a preliminary estimation of price elasticities using a complete demand system on household scanner data and by calculating nutrient elasticities using estimated price elasticities we find that a fat tax has small and ambiguous effects on nutrients purchased by french households and a slight effect on body weight in the short run with a greater effect in the long run such a tax generates substantial tax revenue but is highly regressive

market based conservation and local benefits the case of argan oil in morocco abstract market based approaches to biodiversity conservation gained popularity in the 1990s the success of these strategies hinges on first the successful creation or expansion of target markets and second the beneficial involvement of local stakeholders in these markets so that improved incentives induce conservation this paper evaluates these two key elements in the case of argan oil commercialization in southwestern morocco the principal finding is that even when locals appear well positioned to reap ex post benefits one can reject the hypothesis that successful resource commercialization necessarily stimulates local development and reduces poverty most locals participate only superficially in the new and expanded markets for argan oil and the benefits that do trickle down to local households appear to be regressively distributed both regionally and between households the key lies in understanding how opening or expanding markets may induce endogenous product differentiation that easily excludes locals especially the poor and how ex ante market access a variable commonly correlated with wealth conditions households capacity to participate in market induced producer windfalls

economic assessment of nutritional recommendations abstract the effect of consumers compliance with nutritional recommendations is uncertain because of potentially complex substitutions to lift this uncertainty we adapt a model of consumer behaviour under rationing to the case of linear nutritional constraints dietary adjustments are derived from information on consumer preferences consumption levels and nutritional contents of foods a calibration exercise simulates for different income groups how the french diet would respond to various nutrition recommendations and those behavioural adjustments are translated into health outcomes through the dietron epidemiological model this allows for the ex ante comparison of the efficiency equity and health effects of ten nutritional recommendations although most recommendations impose significant taste costs on consumers they are highly cost effective with the recommendations targeting salt saturated fat and fruits and vegetables f v ranking highest in terms of efficiency most recommendations are also economically progressive with the exception of that targeting f v

estimating the shadow prices of so2 and nox for u s coal power plants a convex nonparametric least squares approach abstract weak disposability between outputs and pollutants defined as a simultaneous proportional reduction of both outputs and pollutants assumes that pollutants are byproducts of the output generation process and that a firm can freely dispose of both by scaling down production levels leaving some inputs idle based on the production axioms of monotonicity convexity and weak disposability we formulate a convex nonparametric least squares cnls quadratic optimization problem to estimate a frontier production function assuming either a deterministic disturbance term consisting only of inefficiency or a composite disturbance term composed of both inefficiency and noise the suggested methodology extends the stochastic semi nonparametric envelopment of data stoned described in kuosmanen and kortelainen 2011 applying the method to estimate the shadow prices of so 2 and no x generated by u s coal power plants we conclude that the weak disposability stoned method provides more consistent estimates of market prices

property rights regimes and natural resources a conceptual analysis the term common property resource is an example of a term repeatedly used to refer to property owned by a government or by no one it is also used for property owned by a community of resource users such usage leads to confusion in scientific study and policy analysis in this paper we develop a conceptual schema for arraying property rights regimes that distinguishes among diverse bundles of rights ranging from authorized user to claimant to proprietor and to owner we apply this conceptual schema to analyze findings from a variety of empirical settings including the maine lobster industry

getting consumers to eat more whole grains the role of policy information and food manufacturers the 2005 dietary guidelines were unique because they offered quantitative recommendations for consumption of whole grains this case study examines the hypothesis that the changed recommendations were responsible for the recent increase in retail sales and consumption of whole grain food products we find that release of the dietary guidelines and related media attention did increase availability and sales of whole grain foods a large impact on consumption occurred through reformulation of existing products induced by competition among food suppliers this study reveals the key role product reformulation plays in inter firm competition and in realization of dietary changes recommended by public

a cost benefit analysis of the eu 20 20 2020 package the european commission did not publish a cost benefit analysis for its 2020 climate package this paper fills that gap comparing the marginal costs and benefits of greenhouse gas emission reduction the uncertainty about the marginal costs of climate change is large and skewed and estimates partly reflect ethical choices e g the discount rate the 2010 carbon price in the eu emissions trading system can readily be justified by a cost benefit analysis emission reduction is not expensive provided that policy is well designed a condition not met by planned eu policy it is probably twice as expensive as needed costing one in ten years of economic growth the eu targets for 2020 are unlikely to meet the benefit cost test for a standard discount rate 3 pure rate of time preference the benefit cost ratio is rather poor 1 30 so that benefits need to be very much higher or costs very much lower than typically assumed to justify the 2020 targets only a very low discount rate 0 prtp would justify the 20 emission reduction target for 2020

does food safety information impact u s meat demand a theoretical model of consumer response to publicized food safety information on meat demand is developed with an empirical application to u s meat consumption evidence is found for the existence of pre committed levels of consumption seasonal factors time trends and contemporaneous own and cross commodity food safety concerns the average demand response to food safety concerns is small especially in comparison to price effects and to previous estimates of health related issues this small average effect masks periods of significantly larger responses corresponding with prominent food safety events but these larger impacts are short lived with no apparent food safety lagged effects on food safety concerns in the united states have dramatically increased in the past decade with regard to incidences of contaminated meat products concerns have arisen because contaminated meat products can result in serious risk to the well being and health of consumers contamination comes from a myriad of sources including but not limited to outbreaks of listeria monocytogenes escherichia coli e coli and salmonella centers for disease control and prevention food safety problems are not isolated to the united states as other unsafe contaminates in meats have emerged across the world including highly publicized outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy bse in europe the potential impacts of publicized food safety events on consumer s demand for meat products in the united states include own effects on the demand for the contaminated meat involved as well as cross effects impacting the demand for other meats the objective of this article is to investigate whether publicized food safety concerns surrounding beef pork and poultry chicken and turkey have impacted meat consumption food safety indices are constructed separately for beef pork and poultry

an assessment of the potential consumption impacts of who dietary norms in oecd countries the member countries of the world health organization who have recently endorsed its global strategy on diet physical activity and health the strategy emphasises the need to limit the consumption of saturated fats and trans fatty acids salt and sugars and to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables in order to combat the growing burden of non communicable diseases this paper attempts a broad quantitative assessment of the consumption impacts of these norms in oecd countries using a mathematical programming approach we find that adherence to the who norms would involve a significant decrease in the consumption of vegetable oils 30 dairy products 28 sugar 24 animal fats 30 and meat pig meat 13 5 mutton and goat 14 5 and a significant increase in the human consumption of cereals 31 fruits 25 and vegetables 21

price movements as indicators of tender offer success this paper examines movements in the prices of target stocks as predictors of the ultimate success or failure of tender offers an empirical investigation of 100 cash tender offers during the years 1976 to 1981 leads to the conclusion that with few exceptions market prices are well calibrated i e the current target price during the offer period measures the expected discounted stock price at the conclusion date the market s probability predictions improve monotonically over time

modeling country default risk as a latent variable a multiple indicators multiple causes mimic approach we study the determinants of country default risk by applying a multiple indicators multiple causes mimic model this accounts for the fact that country default risk is an unobservable variable whereas existing regression based approaches typically use only one of several possible country default risk indicators as the dependent variable the mimic model enables us to consider several indicators at once the simultaneous consideration of sovereign yield spreads and standard and poor s p ratings may help to improve the identification of the latent country default risk our results confirm most of the literature s main findings regarding important determinants of country default risk refute others and provide new evidence to controversial questions

welfare and sustainability effects of dietary recommendations the paper develops a framework combining a model of rational behaviour under dietary constraints an epidemiological model of diet related mortality and a life cycle analysis model of environmental impact which permits the ex ante assessment of dietary recommendations in multiple sustainability dimensions i e taste cost welfare effect deaths avoided reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and acidification it is applied to compare in a french context the relative effects and efficiency of six popular sustainable diet recommendations the results confirm the synergies between the health and environmental dimensions healthy eating recommendations usually have a positive effect on the environment although some exceptions exist most of the sustainable diet recommendations appear highly cost effective but those most commonly promoted on health grounds e g targeting consumption of salt fruits and vegetables and saturated fat rank highest in terms of overall efficiency moreover the valuation of benefits indicates that in most cases health benefits are significantly larger than environmental benefits overall the analysis reveals some under investment in the promotion of sustainable diet recommendations in france the general lack of enthusiasm in policy circles for informational measures promoting behavioural change may reflect unrealistic expectations about the speed and magnitude of dietary change rather than an objective assessment of the efficiency of those measures

determining the impact of food price and income changes on body weight we develop a theoretical model to identify conditions under which price and income changes are most likely to change weight although it is intuitive that raising the price of high calorie food will decrease consumption of such goods it is not clear that such an outcome will actually reduce weight our empirical analysis demonstrates a case where a tax on food away from home a food intake category blamed for much of the rise in obesity could lead to an increase in body weight a finding which emphasizes the need to employ economic modeling when developing public policy to reduce obesity

subdividing the commons distributional conflict in the transition from collective to individual property rights in kenya s maasailand summary this paper suggests that explanations of property rights transformation need to move beyond models of relative price change and state enforcement to include accounts that accommodate conflict and competition among actors and the possibility that state actors may not provide the enforcement that is often taken for granted the transition from collective to individualized holdings in kenya s maasailand is burdened with politics and procedural problems that can undermine the gains anticipated in that move moreover in semi arid ecological settings individualization results in unstable land holdings necessitating re contracting and reaggregation by individual parcel owners

benefit sharing among local resource users the role of property rights skewed distributions of benefits from natural resources can fuel social exclusion and conflict threatening sustainability this paper analyzes how user group property rights to harvest forest products affect the distribution of benefits from those products within user groups we argue that groups with recognized harvesting rights share benefits more equally among group members than groups without such rights we test this argument with data from 350 forest user groups in 14 developing countries our results suggest that securing harvesting rights for local user groups can contribute to more equal benefit sharing especially in ethnically homogenous groups

quadratic engel curves and consumer demand this paper presents a model of consumer demand that is consistent with the observed expenditure patterns of individual consumers in a long time series of expenditure surveys and is also able to provide a detailed welfare analysis of shifts in relative prices a nonparametric analysis of consumer expenditure patterns suggests that engel curves require quadratic terms in the logarithm of expenditure while popular models of demand such as the translog or the almost ideal demand systems do allow flexible price responses within a theoretically coherent structure they have expenditure share engel curves that are linear in the logarithm of total expenditure we derive the complete class of integrable quadratic logarithmic expenditure share systems a specification from this class is estimated on a large pooled data set of u k households models that fail to account for engel curvature are found ro generate important distortions in the patterns of welfare losses associated with a tax increase

an options based approach to forecast competing bids evidence for canadian takeover battles during takeover battles a tender offer provides a call option right to the target s shareholders it guarantees the offered price but maintains the chance of a higher offer we present an options based approach to estimate the probability and expected value of higher competing takeover bids using target stock price data analysing canadian takeover battles in the period 1997 to 2007 we find that during the 5 trading days prior to the occurrence of an increased takeover bid the estimated probability of a higher bid exceeds 80 on average and the expected value of a potential competing bid almost matches the realized value

shopping around how households adjusted food spending over the great recession over the great recession real wages stagnated and unemployment increased concurrently food prices rose sharply outstripping growth in food expenditure and leading to a reduction in calories purchased this has led to concern about rising food poverty we study british households to assess how they adjusted to changes in the economic environment we show they switched to cheaper calories implying food consumption was smoother than expenditure we use longitudinal data to quantify the way households lowered their per calorie spending and show they done this in part by increasing shopping eort and without lowering the nutritional quality of