control of accumulating stock pollution by heterogeneous producers abstract this paper presents a framework to determine optimal resource allocation over time for the production of a good by heterogeneous producers who generate a stock externality we analyze the optimal intertemporal and quality specific combination of abatement strategies at the source source abatement given by a change in the intensity intensive margin of production and in the chosen technology extensive margin and or removal of existing pollution stock stock abatement the results show how the specifications of the production and the emission functions affect technology adoption and the design of the optimal intertemporal combination of source and stock abatement strategies moreover the paper shows that regulation at the intensive margin cannot be considered as a substitute for a regulation at the extensive margin the paper employs the so called two stage solution approach for solving the resulting quality distributed intertemporal optimal control problem

a comparison of determinants of urban rural and farm poverty in costa rica abstract the lack of progress on reducing poverty in third world countries and its growth during the 1980s show that one of the fundamental goals of development has not been met addressing the renewed concern with poverty requires knowledge about the factors affecting poverty this paper uses logistic regression analysis to estimate the effects of variables on urban rural farm and nonfarm poverty among households in costa rica results show the complexity of the issue and imply policies to expand education through the secondary level to create more opportunities for rural off farm employ

job search and the effect of urban structure on unemployment and married female participation rates a model of urban job search is presented concentrating on the skill level of the seeker the implications for the effect of urban structure on intra urban unemployment and married female participation rate differentials are examined it is found using census data for greater london that urban structure represented by the intra urban distribution of jobs per worker as derived from the job search model has the predicted effects on unemployment and participation rates after allowing for other determinants of these rates the paper concludes with some implications for urban manpower policy

cereal marketing liberalization in tanzania abstract there is considerable evidence that cereal market liberalization in tanzania has been a success in spite of poor roads shortage of capital and vehicles and lack of market infrastructure and standardized measures the legal status of the private sector is unclear however and public sector policies still favour a heavy official involvement in the marketing system farm gate prices for maize fall off rapidly as one moves away from the primary marketing centres but on farm storage of maize poses farmers no insuperable difficulties successful implementation of liberalization calls for clarity and consistency in government policy the reform of financial services the sale of unused storage capacity to the private sector the more active involvement of farmers in the liberalized system the strengthening of extension services and a policy for regulating interannual price variations

mechanization and agricultural technology evolution agricultural intensification in sub saharan africa typology of agricultural mechanization in nigeria in sub sahara african ssa countries like nigeria anecdotal evidence indicates that the cost of manual farming activities has been rising with potential causes including the growing urban sector as well as rural non farm economies oseni and winters 2009 which often raises rural farming wages reardon et al 2000 while rising rural wages may help some farmers benefit through increased off farm income earning activities farmers getting higher returns from farming than non farm activities may lose from higher labor costs when high labor costs have negative effects on agricultural productivity and the welfare of smallholder farm households effective support for mechanization may be critical demand for mechanization may be determined by various factors including

search unemployment in an overlapping generations setting this paper constructs an overlapping generations model in which the steady state equilibrium is characterized by the existence of search unemployment this dynamic general equilibrium model captures the possible existence of search unemployment in the long run despite the absence of exogenous shocks furthermore it allows for the wage offers distribution to be determined endogenously the effect of partial revelation of information on the existence of search unemployment in the long run is examined it is shown that search unemployment may be eliminated in the long run despite the persistence of the state of imperfect information this paper develops an overlapping generations model in which the steady state equilibrium is characterized by search unemployment 2 unemployment is created via a rational rejection of available wage offers in favor of further search for potentially more attractive offers the proposed dynamic general equilibrium model allows for the existence of long run search unemployment despite the absence of exogenous shocks and permits the presence of an endogenously determined nondegenerate wage offer distribution 3 the paper analyzes the trade off between revelation of information and the level of search unemployment in the long run in the absence of external disturbances the level of search unemployment would be expected to decrease as information becomes available in particular if information is fully revealed search unemployment is naturally eliminated exploring the likelihood of the existence of long run search unemployment in a deterministic world this study provides an example of partial revelation of information which eliminates search unemployment in the long run despite the persistence of the state of imperfect information 4 the proposed model presents a discrete infinite time horizon world where economic activity is conducted under imperfect information in every period a single homogeneous good is produced using two factors capital and labor in the production process the aggregate endowment of labor is exogenously given in

trading responses to food market liberalization in tanzania abstract trading has been the only marketing function in tanzania to shift rapidly and efficiently from parastatal institutions to private institutions private traders have made a major contribution to the movement of maize from producing areas including to some extent remote surplus areas to urban consumer centres and to consumer price stabilization traders however do not keep interseasonal stocks and do not own means of transport there are very few or no barriers to entering the maize market but there is evidence of barriers to expansion above certain business levels larger traders may benefit from economies of scale in the form of lower transport costs and lower purchasing prices this article identifies the following as primary factors in accelerating the development of private trading the development of marketplaces and storage structures access to credit facilities for both traders and transporters and long term infrastructural policies to reduce transport costs

unemployment and urban labour markets two quite distinct views on how metropolitan labour markets work have co existed for over three decades both claim empirical support and after a brief period of confrontation they continue to co exist today giving quite conflicting signals to policy makers according to the first model the urban labour market consists of a number of spatially defined sub markets so that local unemployment exists primarily because of deficiencies in highly localised demand for labour by this argument unemployment rates remain high in the absence of a renewed supply of appropriate jobs within short commuting distances of the jobless the solution according to this model is to attract private and public sector production into such areas in contrast a second model views the city as a single market in which transactions between labour and capital take place regardless of the location of residence and employment sites according to this perspective the spatial incidence of unemployment simply reflects the residential

labor shortages on small landholdings in malawi implications for policy reforms abstract a simple linear programming model of representative smallholder households is used to investigate the sources of relative scarcity of labor and land in malawi the paradox of on farm labor shortages on small landholdings can be explained by the multiple constraints smallholders face these multiple constraints including lack of finance concerns for food security and others lead to suboptimal allocations of household resources in turn the low returns to labor and land contribute to household food insecurity and a vicious cycle of poverty the findings of the paper provide a clear signal to policymakers and research and extension institutions that these constraints are all linked and addressing one cannot be effective without addressing the others

substantive issues in the definition of localities evidence from sub group local labour market areas in the west midlands coombes m g green a e and owen d w 1988 substantive issues in the definition of localities evidence from sub group local labour market areas in the west midlands reg studies 22 303 318 local labour market areas llmas are now widely accepted as the most appropriate areal units for analyses of spatial patterns of employment and unemployment the most commonly used set of llmas in britain are the travel to work areas ttwas of the department of employment these areas are increasingly being used for locality studies that encompass not only labour and demand trends but also their social and political implications however ttwas are defined on the basis of aggregate commuting patterns which generalize substantial differences in the journey to work behaviour of different sections of the workforce this paper compares the ttwas as revised in 1984 with llmas defined using the same methodology for four sub groups of the labour force with differing skill levels in the west midlands the numb

deindustrialization adjustment the world bank and the imf in africa abstract to date most of the analysis of structural adjustment has focused on the agricultural sector comparatively little has been written on the relationship between structural adjustment and industry yet arguably given the limitations of an agriculturally based economy africa requires some form of industrialization to augment living standards in the long run the paper attempts to sketch out and analyze the world bank imf model of industrial adjustment a number of serious deficiencies are found in the model including weaknesses in its methodological foundation inconsistencies in the components and impediments linked to structure and class that will constrain the adjustment process overall it is suggested that the world bank imf model is likely to deindustrialize the existing manufacturing base without encouraging any significant replacement

the impact of structural adjustment programs on manufacturing lessons from nicaragua abstract since 1988 nicaragua has applied structural adjustment programs including stabilization and liberalization measures as of 1991 these measures succeeded in combating inflation but they did not lead to increased production nor to an improved trade balance the nicaraguan manufacturing sector was especially vulnerable because of a decade long lack of investment and the non market environment in which firms operated in the 1980s the combination of trade liberalization with an overvalued exchange rate and financial liberalization had in particular negative effects on manufacturing production and investment in addition specific industrial policies are necessary to increase manufacturing competitiveness

dynamic monopsony and structural change examines at the microeconomic level the assumption that the rate of change of the labor supply to a firm depends on the wage paid by the firm concept of dynamic monopsony response in terms of the optimal wage path to different product prices properties of the optimal path from ebsco

agricultural marketing and pricing reform a review of experience abstract south africa like many other countries has in the past pursued a highly interventionist policy in agricultural marketing and pricing but has recently embarked on a process of at least partial liberalization the paper reviews the reasons for nature of and impact of marketing reform in sub saharan africa and elsewhere it concludes that the results of reform have in general been positive although implementation has been more difficult and time consuming than originally expected in part because of interest group politics and in part because of its inherent complexity the paper highlights some issues of particular relevance to south africa s current political and economic transition

market reform and private trade in eastern and southern africa abstract this article reviews the experience of market reform in eastern and southern africa and highlights some key lessons learned a distinction is drawn between countries whose policy regime before reform was favourable to food production and those whose policies were unfavourable and alternative reform paths are described the two key issues emerging are the role of the public sector after reform for which there is still no clearly appropriate model and how the strong short term response of the private sector to trading opportunities can be transformed into investment post reform markets have been competitive but operate under tight constraints with little evidence of significant capital accumulation critical research issues to inform policy making are identified

peru s return toward an open economy macroeconomic complications and structural questions abstract the peruvian program of stabilization and liberalization initiated in august 1990 has been more extreme than those in mexico in the 1980s or in chile in the pinochet period it has involved exceptionally high costs potentially constructive changes are interacting with each other in ways adverse for recovery of production employment and exports it could worsen the country s persisting strains of poverty and violence or could on the contrary help answer them depending on how liberalization is pursued comparisons with other liberalization programs especially with the two different versions used in chile point to alternatives that might be helpful for peru and for the design of such programs in other countries

seeking guidelines for poverty reduction in rural zambia abstract poverty profiles typically provide policy makers with information about the characteristics of the poor without giving guidance as to the types of programs best suited for reducing poverty a method is described in this paper for extending the typical poverty profile to analyze and quantify the constraints faced by poor smallholders in rural areas the method is applied to rural zambia where poverty is widespread and deep the extension provides timely information for the design of poverty reducing policies

poverty and basic needs fulfilment in africa during structural change evidence from cote d ivoire abstract much attention is given in the literature to the evolution of social indicators during periods of structural adjustment and economic reform this paper argues that these processes are not distribution neutral from the point of view of basic needs fulfilment and that hence the focus should not be on aggregate indicators but on the distribution of beneficiaries of social services and changes in this distribution evidence is presented for cote d ivoire during the second half of the 1980s a period of intense structural change which shows that the poorest absorbed the bulk of the decline in basic needs fulfilment as a result of structural change this was the case for almost all aspects of basic needs and occurred regardless of the overall trend in the social indicators

supply response in an agrarian economy with non symmetric gender relations abstract there is a growing recognition that gender relations matter for supply response to devaluation and other structural adjustment policies in sub saharan africa but most household models that introduce gender differentiation nevertheless preserve an essential symmetry between male and female household members and do not capture elements of subordination or coercion in male female relations this paper seeks to contribute by developing a model based on stackelberg type equations in which the husband occupies the position of firstmover reflecting his power to set the parameters for women s choices the model is contextualized with reference to tanzania

a reason for quantity regulation in a variety of situations governments regulate undesirable activities by controlling quantities rather than charging taxes blue laws prohibit all liquor sales on sundays rather than impose higher taxes on that day zoning restrictions limit commercial construction in residential areas rather than charge for nuisance to neighbors anti smoking and anti trust laws restrict rather than tax particular conduct fishing and hunting rules allow hunting during particular time periods rather than tax the catch pollution controls impose limits rather than tax emissions quantity regulations are common in the financial sphere as well in the united states banking regulations for many years prohibited interstate banking as well as ownership of investment banks by commercial banks in many countries commercial banks are limited in the amount of various activities they can pursue such as real estate investments or borrowing in foreign currency in some countries banking laws prohibit all lending to the parties related to the owners of the bank the so called related lending rather than impose liability rules on loans to related parties that are found to be fraudulent or unsafe rafael la porta et al 2000 despite this common practice economists generally prefer taxes and liability rules to quantity controls and property rights rules robert ellickson 1973 louis kaplow and steven shavell 1996 1997 nathaniel keohane et al 1998 as the instrument for reducing undesirable conduct when explaining why quantity regulations are so pervasive they first make the political economy argument that quantity restrictions are favored by incumbent firms that wish to deter entry james buchanan and gordon tullock 1975 but this argument is not general it does not explain such quantity restrictions as blue laws and hunting and fishing regulations which affect all market participants equally some academics also argue that because certain activities such as smoking are seen as morally wrong by the community their level is regulated at zero in other instances however such as pollution and hunting positive but limited levels of activity are allowed inconsistent with the moral argument that the reason for quantity regulation is the special attraction of zero in this paper we present an alternative reason for quantity regulations one from the perspective of a benevolent government we begin with the observation of gary becker and george stigler 1974 that law enforcement is not free but is fundamentally an economic problem throughout human history and throughout the world today there are chronic problems of under enforcement witness the low level of tax compliance in much of the developing world and over enforcement by politically motivated prosecutors or regulators an analysis of pigouvian taxes versus quantity restrictions must recognize that in reality neither policy is free and automatic to enforce in general the choice of policies itself can facilitate or discourage enforcement in two ways first policies can shape the incentives for enforcement second policies can influence the costs of enforcement in our earlier work glaeser and sheifer 2000 glaeser et al 2001 we have focused on incentives and shown that quantity regulations can be used as an optimal instrument to raise the rewards to law enforcers for identifying violations here we focus not on the incentives for the enforcers but on the costs of finding violations these costs are often lower in the case of quantity restrictions we show that even when quantity regulations unlike taxes restrict some socially efficient conduct the reduced costs of identifying violations can enhance enforcement and overall efficiency such reliance of quantity regulation is especially important when private enforcement is crucial as in the case of enforcing department of economics harvard university cambridge ma 02138 we thank the national science foundation for financial support and louis kaplow for extremely helpful comments

has recovery begun africa s adjustment in the 1980s revisited this article reviews the 1989 debate between the world bank and the economic commission for africa over africa s adjustment and on the basis of most recent statistics concludes that there is little evidence that the region is in throes of a recovery some countries however did relatively better than others in the 1980s and an attempt is made to account for differences in performance it is concluded that success in adjustment results not from world bank international monetary fund programs as such but rather from policy coherence accompanied by healthy movement in key variables namely the real exchange rate and public development expenditure

the east asian miracle study does the bell toll for industrial strategy the world bank s east asian miracle study1 has been anticipated with considerable interest by the development community it was intended not least by the japanese government that financed it to be an objective re examination of the role of government interventions in economic particularly industrial development it reflected a widespread unease that the bank was too strongly committed to a neoliberal view of the development process 2 this approach evolved over the 1980s drawing mainly upon evidence from east asia and fuelled by a shift in mainstream economics and political perceptions in the leading developed countries it formed the basis of the bank s subsequent lending and policy advice and was at the core of the structural adjustment programs that have shaped policy in many developing countries this review confines itself to the study s analysis of industrial policy concentrating on the approach and the analysis of the established nies the four tigers

the intra urban unemployment gradient the influence of location on unemployment this paper explores the influence of location on unemployment differentials within australia s largest city sydney it is suggested that spatial frictions impede the search processes of unemployed residents the most important friction is related to physical accessibility to work despite suburbanisation in sydney the concentration of job opportunities is still far greater in the centre than elsewhere the second friction concerns information flows the formal information network about job vacancies seems to service the inner area better than the fringe suburbs as the analysis used data of 1976 and 1981 the possibility of involuntary unemployment must be considered this creates a third spatial factor firms preferences for residents of areas close to their vacancies with involuntary unemployment firms often have many similar candidates for single vacancies and may be particular in their standards of recruitment together these three spatial factors imply a positive intra urban unemployment gradien

liberalization and privatization in tanzania and zambia abstract poststructural adjustment policies currently being emphasized by the world bank international monetary fund and donors in tropical africa are liberalization and privatization of the economies in theory both of these policies will allow firms to operate more efficiently and the economy to be more competitive and market oriented this paper focuses on the short run effects of these policies how governments are initiating them and what segments of the population are benefiting losing the programs are sufficiently new in tropical africa that the literature contains little analysis a recent visit to tanzania and zambia provides the basis for this review of the experiences in these two countries

food poverty profile applied to kenyan smallholders that can be used to test conflicting hypotheses this paper analyzes data from the first kenyan integrated rural survey irs i household expenditure data collected by the central bureau of statistics to estimate the magnitude distribution of and factors associated with food poverty among kenyan small farmers the analysis uses a new methodology with three improvements over previous empirical studies 1 food poverty is estimated using an additively decomposable measure that allows poverty to be distributed among population subgroups 2 the food poverty line is based on observed dietary preferences in response to regional food prices and 3 the food poverty measure is adjusted to use regional food poverty lines without sacrificing its theoretical properties or decomposability this paper consists of two main parts section ii reviews the methodology underlying the setting of the regional food poverty line on the basis of a detailed integrated rural survey of kenyan smallholders the cost of food consumption corresponding to the recommended dietary allowance rda of calories is computed since this food poverty line was calculated on the basis of the observed diet consumed it presumably reflects the prevailing regional food preferences and prices faced by households consuming around the calorie rda level the next part of section ii presents a food poverty measure that in addition to satisfying the major fundamental properties of such measuresis decomposable and allows regional food poverty deprivation to be estimated

understanding the failure of imf reform the zambian case abstract political resistance to international monetary fund imf reform in developing countries has become a major obstacle to reform implementation the zambian case in which the roots of resistance to reform were present in a developmentalist model long before the arrival of the imf suggests that the current analysis of political will and resistance to interest group pressure needs to be strengthened by a more profound conceptualization of the political economic regime of countries attempting reform when examined in this larger political economic context the zambian case further makes clear the need for support for political as well as economic change during the reform process

theories of institutions and economic reform in africa abstract the paper presents and critically examines the theories of institutions that can be used as a guide to economic reform in africa three approaches to institutions are initially discussed the model of structural adjustment new institutional economics and the old institutionalist tradition five institutions related to the development of markets in africa are examined from the three perspectives the institutions include property rights including their role in agriculture money and financial institutions prices and markets firms and industrial organization and markets and states the main conclusion of the paper is that structural adjustment due to its neoclassical roots is basically ainstitutional and therefore ill equipped to promote the development of markets in africa while new institutionalism provides interesting insights it is also limited by its neoclassical economic foundations thus if african governments desire to promote market reform they would be best advised to consult the old institutionalist literature particularly the very interesting recent work of proponents of this tradition

food marketing liberalization and trader entry evidence from madagascar abstract food marketing liberalization was expected to induce massive trader entry and competitive markets in africa despite evidence of trader entry enterprise expansion remains difficult and many claim market power persists though perhaps in different hands this paper confronts this puzzle of substantial market entry that might not foster competition data from madagascar reveal distinct groups within rural food marketing channels separated by intraindustry mobility barriers that limit entry to a few niches moreover individuals place within the rural marketing network is defined largely by a priori social identity so the experience of food marketing liberalization varies across socially distinct subpopulations

women in the labour markets of the london region a model of dependence and constraint this paper uses a simultaneous equations model of labour and housing market relationships in the london metropolitan region in order to illuminate some of the specific characteristics of female labour markets in an explicitly spatial context in addition to restricted female commuting fields two significant sets of spatial constraint were identified firstly the residential location of married women tended to depend on access to male not female employment opportunities and secondly limited access to owner occupation tended to restrict the residential mobility of non married women nevertheless responsiveness to local demand conditions of married women s participation rates on the one hand and non married women s migration on the other rendered local female unemployment comparatively less sensitive to employment change

effect of seasonal food shortage on agricultural production in zambia abstract this paper examines the role of household food stocks in influencing patterns of seasonal labor demand by small farmers in chipata district of zambia and in shaping their production profile more generally the seasonal pattern of stock drawdown is linked with those for food consumption nutrition and labor input in this unimodal agricultural cycle it is found that low levels of food stocks in the post harvest period and their availability during the heavy work period in the rainy season can reduce the area planted as well as the use of non household agricultural labor by households the significance of food as wage good possibly as a result of public policies that have reduced the growth of rural food markets is also a factor in this process it is argued that small farmers with low food stocks may be unable to adopt labor intensive agricultural technologies unless they can increase their effective demand for labor possibly through dry season food for work programs or consumption credit schemes

the spatial variation in unemployment and labour force participation rates of male and female workers lillydahl j h and singell l d 1985 the spatial variation in unemployment and labour force participation rates of male and female workers reg studies 19 459 469 this paper investigates the spatial patterns of male and female unemployment and labour force participation rates the theoretical underpinnings for differences in work and residential choices for males and females are reviewed census tract data from five metropolitan areas in the united states are examined we find that no significant pattern exists for overall labour market activity however when male and female unemployment and participation rates are analysed separately significant and dissimilar spatial patterns exist for each hence returns from relocating industry improving transportation investing in human capital or providing job information need to be evaluated in sex specific terms

job proximity and the urban employment problem do suitable nearby jobs improve neighbourhood employment rates due to a scarcity of small area jobs data much of the spatial mismatch literature has not directly addressed the impact of nearby jobs on neighbourhood employment rates such analysis is particula

economic institutions and comparative economic development a post colonial perspective summary existing literature suggests that either colonial settlement conditions or the identity of colonizer were influential in shaping the post colonial institutional environment which in turn has impacted long run economic development these two potential identification strategies have been treated as substitutes we argue that the two factors should instead be treated as complementary and develop an alternative and unified iv approach that simultaneously accounts for both settlement conditions and colonizer identity to estimate the potential causal impact of a broad cluster of economic institutions on log real gdp per capita for a sample of former colonies using population density in 1500 as a proxy for settlement conditions we find that the impact of settlement conditions on institutional development is much stronger among former british colonies than colonies of the other major european colonizers conditioning on several geographic factors and ethno linguistic fractionalization our baseline 2sls estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in economic institutions is associated with a three fourth standard deviation increase in economic development our results are robust to a number of additional control variables country subsample exclusions and alternative measures of institutions gdp and colonizer classifications we also find evidence that geography exerts both an indirect and direct effect on economic development

the relationship between wages and firm size an information theoretic analysis the paper derives a positive relationship between the size of establishments and their average wage levels together with a continuous wage distribution from a model where firm sizes are endogenous a fraction of the workers are imperfectly informed from friends about firms wage strategies and the rest search among firms at random the greater the share of workers that are informed the higher is the average wage level and the smaller is the difference between firms wage levels costly interfirm labor mobility is in general shown to be socially excessive copyright 1987 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

exploitative briefcase businessmen parasites and other myths and legends assembly traders and the performance of maize markets in eastern and southern africa summary small scale assemblers are both the most vilified and least understood actors in food value chains in sub saharan africa drawing on data from kenya zambia malawi and mozambique this article explores how maize assemblers influence the market access conditions of small scale farmers assembly markets for maize are found to be highly competitive in terms of the number of traders operating and marketing margins farmers market access conditions in remote areas are particularly improved by the operation of assembly traders direct state operations in markets have sometimes unintentionally exacerbated market access conditions for farmers through their effects on rural assembly markets while smallholder farmers face important marketing challenges the brightest prospects for effectively addressing them require greater support for the development of competitive assembly markets rather than supplanting them

coase versus the coasians who should enforce laws or contracts judges or regulators many coasians though not coase himself advocate judicial enforcement we show that the incentives facing judges and regulators crucially shape this choice we then compare the regulation of e nancial markets in poland and the czech republic in the 1990s in poland strict enforcement of the securities law by a highly motivated regulator was associated with a rapidly developing stock market in the czech republic hands off regulation was associated with a moribund stock market i introduction at the heart of economists traditional skepticism about government regulation is the coase theorem coase 1960 the theorem states that when property rights are well dee ned and transaction costs are zero market participants will organize their transactions in ways that achieve efe cient outcomes when they can do so it is not necessary for the government to engage in corrective actions through taxes regulations or even legal rules financial markets are often used to demonstrate the coase theorem s case against regulation advocates of the regulation of these markets point to a variety of potential failures such as the ability of security issuers to expropriate both potential and existing investors through misrepresentation or proe t diversion investors fear of such expropriation prevents e rms from raising external funds and keeps efe cient projects from being undertaken not so reply the coasians they point out that most securities transactions take place between sophisticated adults and that both the buyers and the issuers of securities have available to them a vast range of private arrangements to achieve efe ciency including contracts such as corporate charters certie cation by intermediaries and various forms of bonding such contracts render most laws and regulations unnecessary stigler 1964 easterbrook and fischel 1991

equilibrium wage distributions the observation that different firms charge different prices for what appears to be the same commodity or pay different wages for what appears to be equivalent labour has long been explained in economics by a reference to imperfect information this paper is concerned with characterising market equilibrium with imperfect information we do not present a general theory rather we develop in some detail an example of importance in its own right imperfect information in the labour market several properties of our example in particular the existence of equilibria with price wage dispersion unemployment excess supply of labour positive profits multiple equilibria and the nonoptimality or some of all of the equilibria are of more general validity other results may not be this paper is concerned with two kinds of imperfect information a individuals may not know the wage paid in any particular firm or whether there is a vacancy in any particular firm until they apply for a job 1 b there are several characteristics besides the wage rate associated with a job which are important to the individual some like the normal length of a work week become known when the individual applies for the job information about other characteristics e g personalities of colleagues is acquired only gradually there is one important difference between the two kinds of imperfect in

infrastructure incentives and institutions abstract expensive infrastructure is ineffective if it doesn t travel the last mile in nineteenth century new york and modern africa disease has spread when urbanites chose not to use newly built sanitation infrastructure to save money either subsidies or pigouvian fines can internalize the externalities that occur when people don t use sanitation infrastructure but with weak institutions subsidies generate waste and fines lead to extortion our model illustrates the complementarity between infrastructure and institutions and shows how institutional weaknesses determine whether fines subsidies both or neither are optimal contrary to becker 1968 the optimal fine is often mild to reduce extortion

urban economics for the developing world an introduction this is an introduction to the special issue of the journal of urban economics on urbanization in developing countries past and present we argue that the rapid urbanization and the rise of cities in the developing world demand new avenues of research and much more research to deal with the urban issues facing billions of people across the world that current work barely covers this issue contains papers which move in that direction and signals a commitment by the journal to pursue this agenda