consumer stated purchasing preferences and corporate social responsibility in the wood products industry a conjoint analysis in the u s and china the impacts of disclosed level of corporate social responsibility csr domestic versus imported origin and type of construction on consumers stated wood product purchasing preferences were examined in the u s and china hierarchical logit models based on a bayesian framework were utilized to test the magnitude and statistical significance of each wood product attribute using survey data results indicate that u s and chinese respondents a were more likely to choose products from manufacturing companies with a higher level of csr rating compared with an unknown one b preferred domestically manufactured wood products compared to imported ones and c expressed higher interest in wood products made of solid wood compared with composites in terms of demographics respondents higher education levels corresponded with higher preferences for products from companies with the highest five star csr rating in the u s statistically significant income effects were detected only in the chinese sample when respondents indicated their purchasing preferences for wood products with three star or five star csr levels implications for improving wood products companies managerial performance and suggestions for future studies are provided

sequential labor decisions under uncertainty an estimable household model of west african farmers this paper reports estimates of the structural parameters of a stochastic control model that describcs the labor decisions of small farmers in burkina faso west africa the focus of the estimation is on measuring flexibility in production and intertemporal substitutability in consumption full information maximum likelihood estimates of the primitive parameters of the model are computed even though optimal labor decision rules cannot be derived analytically vuong s non nested model specification test shows that this method yields parameter estimates that are superior to those derived by assuming that farmers solve a deterministic control problem the low levels of agricultural labor effort commonly observed in the survey area are shown to be a consequence both of the low productivity of labor in archaic rainfed agriculture and of farmers awareness that in the absence of a labor market overly ambitious production plans lead to seasonal manpower constraints to meet rainfed farmers concerns agricultural research institutes and extension services should factor flexibility into their research agendas

occupational choice and the process of development this paper models economic development as a process of institutional transformation by focusing on the interplay between agents occupational decisions and the distribution of wealth because of capital market imperfections poor agents choose working for a wage over self employment and wealthy agents become entrepreneurs who monitor workers only with sufficient inequality however will there be employment contracts otherwise there is either subsistence or self employment thus in static equilibrium the occupational structure depends on distribution since the latter is itself endogenous we demonstrate the robustness of this result by extending the model dynamically and studying examples in which initial wealth distributions have long run effects in one case the economy develops either widespread cottage industry self employment or factory production employment contracts depending on the initial distribution in the other example it develops into prosperity or stagnation

feebates rebates and gas guzzler taxes a study of incentives for increased fuel economy abstract us fuel economy standards have not been changed significantly in 20 years feebates are a market based alternative in which vehicles with fuel consumption rates above a pivot point are charged fees while vehicles below receive rebates by choice of pivot points feebate systems can be made revenue neutral feebates have been analyzed before this study re examines feebates using recent data assesses how the undervaluing of fuel economy by consumers might affect their efficacy tests sensitivity to the cost of fuel economy technology and price elasticities of vehicle demand and adds assessments of gas guzzler taxes or rebates alone a feebate rate of 500 per 0 01 gallon per mile gpm produces a 16 percent increase in fuel economy while a 1000 per 0 01 gpm results in a 29 percent increase even if consumers count only the first 3 years of fuel savings unit sales decline by about 0 5 percent but sales revenues increase because the added value of fuel economy technologies outweighs the decrease in sales in all cases the vast majority of fuel economy increase is due to adoption of fuel economy technologies rather than shifts in sales

a retrospective look at rescuing and restructuring general motors and chrysler the rescue of the us automobile industry amid the 2008 2009 recession and financial crisis was a consequential controversial and difficult decision made at a fraught moment for the us economy both of us were involved in the decision process at the time but since have moved back to academia more than five years have passed since the bailout began and it is timely to look back at this unusual episode of economic policymaking to consider what we got right what we got wrong and why in this article we describe the events that brought two of the largest industrial companies in the world to seek a bailout from the us government the analysis that was used to evaluate the decision including what the alternatives were and whether a rescue would even work the steps that were taken to rescue and restructure general motors and chrysler and the performance of the us auto industry since the bailout we close with general lessons to be learned from the episode

economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries this study provides an introduction to this special issue of the journal of development studies on economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries in addition to providing a conceptual framework it outlines how the contributions fit into the extant literature a series of regularities emerge across these studies the poor consist of those who are always poor poor at all dates and those who move in and out of poverty with the latter group tending to be strikingly large such movements in and out of poverty are apparent when looking at poverty in either absolute or relative terms changes in returns to endowments can be a potent source of increased incomes finally seemingly transitory shocks can have long term consequences the study concludes by drawing out the policy implications of these regularities

the real effects of liquidity during the financial crisis evidence from automobiles illiquidity in short term credit markets during the financial crisis might have severely curtailed the supply of nonbank consumer credit using a new data set linking every car sold in the united states to the credit supplier involved in each transaction we find that the collapse of the asset backed commercial paper market reduced the financing capacity of such nonbank lenders as captive leasing companies in the automobile industry as a result car sales in counties that traditionally depended on nonbank lenders declined sharply although other lenders increased their supply of credit the net aggregate effect of illiquidity on car sales is large and negative we conclude that the decline in auto sales during the financial crisis was caused in part by a credit supply shock driven by the illiquidity of the most important providers of consumer finance in the auto loan market these results also imply that interventions aimed at arresting illiquidity in short term credit markets might have helped contain the real effects of the crisis

effects of family background on earnings and returns to schooling evidence from brazil we investigate whether omitted family background variables are responsible for high returns to schooling estimated in brazil returns to schooling fall by about one third when parental schooling is added to wage equations surprisingly the schooling of fathers in law has larger effects on wages than the schooling of fathers on the basis of a model of assortative mating we interpret this as evidence that parental characteristics represent unobservable worker attributes rather than nepotism in the labor market we conclude that the family background bias in returns to schooling is modest and need not imply returns to family connections

from correlates and characteristics to causes thinking about poverty from a chronic poverty perspective summary poverty and poverty reduction are currently the central concerns of development discourse and policy despite recent theoretical advances poverty analysis continues to be dominated by an income consumption conception of poverty we argue for understandings of poverty that go beyond measurement led conceptualizations to more adequately expose the causes of poverty chronic poverty is one such concept its focus on poverty duration and dynamics highlights the forms of social relations that produce poverty and which are often embedded within political institutions and economic structures poverty reduction does not simply require good policy it requires creating the capacity of poorer people to influence and hold accountable those who make policies

impacts of long range increases in the fuel economy cafe standard i introduction and background in 1975 the u s government enacted legislation regulating the fuel efficiency of new motor vehicles the apparent objective of this law is to reduce american dependence on foreign oil after large increases in the price of petroleum in the late 1990s and with continued conflict in the middle east corporate average fuel economy cafe standards once again became a topic of interest a number of proposals for changing the cafe standards were discussed in congress in early 2002 culminating in a defeat in the senate of an amendment that would have required a 50 increase in the relevant cafe standards in place of that increase the senate voted to require the executive branch to examine the impact of further increases in the cafe standard this work evaluates the long term economic implications of raising the standard by 3 0 miles per gallon mpg above current levels in industry parlance this approach is sometimes referred to as technology forcing i choose 3 0 mpg because it reflects the focus of a may 2001 report by the vice president s task force on energy policy and because it reflects several legislative proposals in congress 1 the long term refers to a length of time such that manufacturers can adjust vehicle technologies and powertrain designs to reduce the amount of fuel required to move a given amount of mass or to achieve a given amount of performance or acceleration per gallon of fuel consumed previous work on cafe standards such as kleit 1990 and thorpe 1997 focused on short term responses to higher cafe standards where technology forcing was not an option for manufacturers the analysis is conducted under two different scenarios the first scenario is that cafe standards are not binding in the current marketplace the second scenario takes account of the current impact of cafe standards and then analyzes the costs and benefits of increasing the standards the costs of cafe standards are broken down into two areas the changes in consumer and producer surplus and the increase in externalities caused by the increased driving that higher cafe standards induce the plan of this article is as follows section ii reviews the history of cafe standards and briefly discusses the rationale for the regulation section iii develops a model in which the current cafe standard is assumed to be nonbinding section iv provides estimates of the impacts for a long term 3 0 mpg cafe increase under the assumption that the current standard is not binding section v then revises the model to take into account the arguably more realistic assumption that the existing cafe standard was in fact binding it then reports estimates for a long term 3 0 mpg increase section vi provides a brief cost benefit analysis of cafe increases and section vii provides a summary and conclusion ii background on automobile fuel economy standards a brief history of the cafe program the cafe program as enacted in 1975 called for all manufacturers selling more than 10 000 autos per year in the united states to reach the mandated cafe levels cafe levels rose from 19 0 mpg in 1978 to 27 5 mpg in 1985 and later years a manufacturer s domestic and foreign cars are placed in separate cafe categories based on the domestic context of the vehicle if a car has over 75 american context it is considered domestic and placed in the domestic pool otherwise it is placed in the foreign car pool see kleit 1990 for a discussion light trucks pickup trucks sport utility vehicles suvs and minivans were placed in a different cafe pool than cars when cafe standards were originally passed these vehicles represented a small fraction of the relevant market by 2001 however such vehicles made up approximately one half of the sales of personal vehicles in 2001 light trucks were required to reach 20 7 mpg there is no domestic and foreign division in the cafe regulation for light trucks

persistent expected and innate poverty estimates for semi arid rural south india 1975 1984 this paper uses nine years of panel data on 170 rural households in southern india to calculate intertemporal measures of poverty these include measures of 1 expected poverty that identify households likely to remain poor on average during any year 2 innate poverty that identify households that are poor owning to deep rooted characteristics that cannot easily be changed in the short run and 3 persistent poverty that identify households whose incomes fall below a fixed poverty line over a number of years the poverty rates estimated for the sample with the three measures are 61 percent 48 percent and 22 percent respectively c 1993 academic press inc copyright 1993 by oxford university press

testing for the survey mode effect on contingent valuation data quality a case study of web based versus in person interviews this paper addresses the lack of empirical evaluation of the use of web based surveys in the context of contingent valuation surveys we compare using a case study in person interviews with web based surveys regarding response rate information additivity effects and respondents attitudes towards paying the web based survey had a much lower response 5 1 than the in person interviewing 84 we find the web based contingent valuation surveys to be neither more susceptible to information additivity effects nor more prone to zero protest responses we conclude in favor of the use of web based surveys namely in portugal where the number of internet users is rapidly increasing although further research efforts are required on their use

poverty comparisons over time and across countries in africa abstract we use demographic and health surveys dhs to compare poverty at two or more points in time within and between african countries our welfare measure is an index resulting from a factor analysis of various household characteristics durables and household heads education an advantage of this measure is that for intertemporal and intraregional comparisons we need not rely on suspect price deflators and currency conversion factors the wide availability and similarity of questionnaires of the dhs facilitate comparisons over both time and countries our results generally show declines in poverty during the previous decade largely due to improvements in rural areas

clearing the air the costs and consequences of higher cafe standards and increased gasoline taxes abstract concerns about energy security and climate change have sparked legislators interest in reducing gasoline consumption by increasing corporate average fuel economy cafe standards using an empirically rich simulation model and cost estimates for anticipated fuel economy technologies we estimate annual costs of reducing long run gasoline consumption by 10 via a 3 8 miles per gallon increase in the standards and the potential cost savings from allowing manufacturers to buy and sell fuel economy credits maximum gasoline savings would be realized only after all existing vehicles were replaced or 14 years in our model a gasoline tax would produce greater immediate savings by encouraging people to drive less and eventually to choose more fuel efficient vehicles we demonstrate the advantage of a tax by comparing the cost of the higher cafe standards over the first 14 years against the cost of a gasoline tax that would save the same amount of gasoline over that time

measuring the impact of negative demand shocks on car dealer networks the goal of this paper is to study the behavior of consumers dealers and manufacturers in the car sector and present an approach that can be used by managers and policy makers to investigate the impact of significant demand shocks on profits prices and dealer networks more specifically we investigate consumer demand substitution patterns and price decisions across different cars and dealer locations to identify dealerships with low margins or high fixed costs and measure the value of closing down dealerships for manufacturers we apply our model empirically to the san diego area using a transactional data set with information about the locations of dealers and consumers as well as manufacturer and retail prices we find strong consumer disutility for travel and find that dealers have local demand areas that are shared with a small set of competitors we show that a reduction of market demand by 30 over two years similar to the economic crisis of 2008 2009 results in an annual drop in prices of approximately 11 we discuss this price drop in the context of the 2009 federal policy measure known as the car allowance rebate system program we compare predictions and actual dealership closings in the general motors and chrysler dealer networks as an application of our approach

climate change policy what do the models tell us very little a plethora of integrated assessment models iams have been constructed and used to estimate the social cost of carbon scc and evaluate alternative abatement policies these models have crucial flaws that make them close to useless as tools for policy analysis certain inputs e g the discount rate are arbitrary but have huge effects on the scc estimates the models produce the models descriptions of the impact of climate change are completely ad hoc with no theoretical or empirical foundation and the models can tell us nothing about the most important driver of the scc the possibility of a catastrophic climate outcome iam based analyses of climate policy create a perception of knowledge and precision but that perception is illusory and misleading jel c51 q54 q58

willingness to pay for e85 from corn switchgrass and wood residues abstract willingness to pay wtp for e85 automotive fuel blend of 85 ethanol and 15 gasoline was estimated from a contingent choice exercise contained in a national survey of consumers the choice exercise included e85 blends from three different feedstock sources corn grain switchgrass and wood wastes and an e10 blend 10 ethanol and 90 gasoline with corn grain as the ethanol feedstock results from the study indicate willingness to pay a premium for e85 from switchgrass compared with e10 from corn concerns about land use for food versus fuel had a negative impact on wtp for e85 from corn grain while greater concerns about fuel security relative to the environment had a positive impact

conjoint effect of environmental labeling disclosure of forest of origin and price on consumer preferences for wood products in the us and uk abstract a study that conjointly analyzed the effects of environmental labeling disclosure of forest of origin and price on consumer preferences for wood products was conducted in the us and the uk a choice based elicitation tool was used to mimic a real life situation where a single product was selected over a set of options data collected were analyzed using a conditional logit model certification issued by a government agency or an environmental non government organization both had a favorable effect on consumer preference over a non certified option the most relevant implication of our findings was the negative effect that disclosing information about a product coming from tropical forests had on consumer preferences even compared to a product of unknown origin a decline in product preference was observed along higher price premiums as expected the degree of sensitivity to price changes was affected by demographic characteristics model coefficients were used to estimate market shares of tropical wood products under different scenarios in both countries scenarios explored the effect of environmental certification and price premiums on product market shares

on measuring child costs with applications to poor countries the theoretical basis for measuring child costs is discussed and detailed consideration is given to two straightforward procedures for calculation engel s food share method and rothbarth s adult good method each of these methods embodies different definitions of child costs so that the same empirical evidence can generate quite different estimates depending on the method used it is shown that true costs are generally overstated by engel s method and understated by rothbarth s procedure although the latter unlike the former can provide a sensible starting point for cost measurement our estimates from sri lankan and indonesian data suggest that children cost their parents about 30 40 percent of what they spend on themselves

are some groups more vulnerable to macroeconomic shocks than others hypothesis tests based on panel data from peru abstract which socio economic groups are most vulnerable to welfare declines during a macroeconomic shock after clarifying the difference between poverty and vulnerability this paper presents an analytical framework and applies it to panel data from peru major findings are 1 households with better educated heads are less vulnerable 2 female headed households are no more vulnerable than male headed households 3 households with more children are more vulnerable 4 transfer networks that assist the poor in relatively stable periods do not protect them during a major shock unless they originate from outside peru and 5 peru s social security program is targeted neither to vulnerable nor to poor households but other transfer programs are better targeted

distributional and efficiency impacts of increased us gasoline taxes we examine the impacts of increased us gasoline taxes in a model that links the markets for new used and scrapped vehicles and recognizes the consider able heterogeneity among households and cars household choice parameters derive from an estimation procedure that integrates individual choices for car ownership and miles traveled we find that each cent per gallon increase in the price of gasoline reduces the equilibrium gasoline consumption by about 0 2

the choice theory approach to market research this paper surveys economic choice theory stressing developments that permit use of data from psychometric and conjoint experiments to produce market demand forecasts alternatives to the widely used multinomial logit model are summarized and a new method for estimating multinomial probits is described an integration of choice models with attitudinal scaling and perceptual mapping within a latent variable system is described estimation of such systems under either random effects or fixed effects descriptions of heterogeneity across individuals is discussed issues in the use of choice models to describe responses from conjoint experiments are presented new regression diagnostic tests for the consistency of multinomial logit representations are discussed

effect of distance on the preservation value of water quality in the past dozen years an extensive body of literature has developed on the willingness to pay for water quality in particular its recreation use and nonuse preservation values this paper illustrates a procedure for estimating the effect of distance on the preservation value of environmental quality using the contingent valuation approach the case considered is the potential degradation of water quality due to coal mining activity in the flathead river drainage system montana the analysis supports a negative association for this particular study area the effect of distance on preservation value was considered both directly and indirectly through its effect on visits 36 references 2 tables

automakers short run responses to changing gasoline prices abstract we provide empirical evidence that automobile manufacturers use cash incentives to offset how gasoline price fluctuations affect the expected fuel expenses of automobile buyers regressions based on a database of incentives over 2003 to 2006 suggest that on average manufacturers offset 40 of the change in relative fuel costs between vehicles due to gasoline price fluctuations the results highlight that carbon taxes and emissions trading programs likely would generate substantial substitution within vehicle classes and studies that ignore manufacturer discounting likely underestimate consumer demand for fuel economy the results also have implications for the optimal design of feebate programs

poverty in palanpur the meaning and identification of poverty are examined using three indicators of standard of living in the north indian village of palanpur the first is intended as a measure of apparent prosperity based on the personal assessments of investigators after intensive field work in the village over the full agricultural year 1983 84 the other two are income in 1983 84 and a measure of permanent income obtained by averaging incomes from four surveys conducted over a twenty six year interval a comparison of these three indicators shows that income measured in any one year may give a misleading impression of the incidence of poverty the risk of poverty for households is calculated vulnerability is high among low caste households and those which are involved in agricultural labor categories however are not homogeneous for example whereas the landless and widows are more likely to be poor some of such households are quite well off it is argued that poverty in a good agricultural year is a better indicator of sustained poverty than poverty in a bad year occupational mobility out of agricultural labor is low and changes in the distribution of land are largely accounted for by demographic processes such as household splits

exploring the drivers side of the blend wall u s consumer preferences for ethanol blend fuels abstract analysis of stated preferences from over 2300 u s respondents shows that general attitudes nationwide favor the use of ethanol as a motor fuel but a sizeable segment 20 indicated strong unwillingness to buy ethanol blend fuels results from a discrete choice experiment analyzed using mixed logit regressions show that all else constant price per gallon and miles per gallon dominated preferences for fuel attributes but ethanol content made the average consumer more likely to choose a blend fuel findings provide strong evidence of heterogeneity in preferences driven by attitudes but also affected by age and income at a point of price per mile equivalence for ethanol and gasoline in a market where gasoline e20 and e85 were available with no regulatory supply or technological constraints e85 would dominate market share in this case ethanol would account for 56 of volume of motor fuels consumed our results show a high level of consumer substitutability of gasoline with ethanol and willingness to choose high ethanol blend fuels which could help expand ethanol use beyond the current regulatory and technological limits of the blend wall

the effect of distance on willingness to pay values a case study of wetlands and salmon in california most contingent valuation studies in the literature utilized a pre determined geographic market area for their sample frame in other words they did not include variables that would measure the extent of the geographic areas over which to aggregate willingness to pay these studies implicitly assumed that the effects of geographic distance were moot an assumption that could have led to an understatement of the aggregate benefit values computed in these studies the overall goal of this study was to determine if distance affects willingness to pay for public goods with large non use values the data used came from a contingent valuation study regarding the san joaquin valley ca respondents were asked about their willingness to pay wtp for three proposed programs designed to reduce various environmental problems in the valley a logit model was used to examine the effects of geographic distance on respondents willingness to pay for each of the three programs results indicate that distance affected wtp for two of the three programs wetlands habitat and wildlife and the wildlife contamination control programs we calculate the underestimate in benefits if the geographic extent of the public good market is arbitrarily limited to one political jurisdiction

prices credit markets and child growth in low income rural areas in this paper it is argued that fluctuations in child growth in rural areas of bangladesh during and after severe floods in i988 can provide insight into the structure of credit markets a model of intertemporal resource allocation is developed and euler equations relating growth patterns of children to the cost of borrowing by household are then derived from the model the evidence indicates that although some of the variation in growth patterns over the relevant period may be attributed to variation in illness and the price of rice growth patterns for children in landless households were influenced by credit market imperfections this paper links two prominent strands of research in economic development the first strand examines the extent to which households in poor rural economies are able to protect themselves from the adverse weather and other shocks that importantly influence earnings in underdeveloped areas while it has long been thought that credit market imperfections and other forms of market failure make it difficult for poor individuals in these economies to smooth consumption both within and across years there remains some question about the magnitude and pervasiveness of these imperfections while there is evidence that fluctuations in economic conditions result in inefficient allocation of resources e g morduch 1990 rosenzweig and wolpin i993 some recent papers have emphasised the fact that consumption patterns of households in the same village comove in a manner consistent with the idea that a substantial fraction of idiosyncratic variation in income is effectively

assessing the extent and nature of chronic poverty in low income countries issues and evidence discussions of chronic poverty have mostly considered its monetary dimensions with current evidence suggesting that such poverty is much more transient than chronic but chronic poverty is a real and important phenomenon potentially more important quantitatively than it first appears once account is taken of different methodological approaches and inevitable measurement difficulties the chronic poor have distinctive characteristics such as lack of assets or high dependency rates which may account for their persistent poverty the paper argues that it is also necessary to develop concepts of chronic poverty further covering relevant nonmonetary dimensions and not just relying on panel data

what do we learn from the price of crude oil futures summary despite their widespread use as predictors of the spot price of oil oil futures prices tend to be less accurate in the mean squared prediction error sense than no change forecasts this result is driven by the variability of the futures price about the spot price as captured by the oil futures spread this variability can be explained by the marginal convenience yield of oil inventories using a two country multi period general equilibrium model of the spot and futures markets for crude oil we show that increased uncertainty about future oil supply shortfalls under plausible assumptions causes the spread to decline increased uncertainty also causes precautionary demand for oil to increase resulting in an immediate increase in the real spot price thus the negative of the oil futures spread may be viewed as an indicator of fluctuations in the price of crude oil driven by precautionary demand an empirical analysis of this indicator provides evidence of how shifts in the uncertainty about future oil supply shortfalls affect the real spot price of crude oil copyright 2010 john wiley sons ltd

income mobility in rural india this paper offers a detailed analysis of income mobility in rural india during 1968 1969 to 1970 1971 it focuses on 1 the pattern of upward income mobility among a section of the cultivating poor and 2 some of the key factors that enabled them to overcome poverty the analysis is based on a panel survey of 4118 rural households from the additional rural income survey the author assumes that 16 rupees per person per month at 1960 1961 prices constitutes an upper limit for a minimum daily calorie requirement in rural areas the analysis shows that out of those poor in 1968 over 1 2 ceased to be poor over 12 became poorer and about 36 remained poor without becoming poorer in 1970 out of the not poor in 1968 over 3 4 remained not poor while the remaining became poor in 1970 with the exception of the cultivating not poor who remained not poor all other categories reported substantial income changes in their average incomes during the period in question while the absolutely impoverished earned much lower incomes there were others particularly the poor ceased to be poor who registered impressive income gains comparison of the base year income levels of the 3 subsets of the cultivating poor suggested that on average the poorest of the poor fared better than the moderately poor this conclusion was further supported by an analysis of income mobility within a subset comprising the cultivating poor who ceased to be poor the bulk of these were relatively low income households that earned substantially higher incomes

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

the intergenerational transmission of automobile brand preferences we document a strong correlation in the brand of automobile chosen by parents and their adult children using data from the panel study of income dynamics this correlation could represent transmission of brand preferences across generations or it could result from correlation in family characteristics that determine brand choice we present a variety of empirical specifications that lend support to the former interpretation and to a mechanism that relies at least in part on state dependence we then discuss implications of intergenerational brand preference transmission for automakers product line strategies and for the strategic pricing of vehicles to different age groups

how large is the extent of the market for public goods evidence from a nationwide contingent valuation survey to assess the extent of the geographic area over which to sum vertically the public good benefits of removing two dams and restoring salmon populations households were surveyed throughout the us households were asked a dichotomouschoice contingent valuation question regarding their willingness to pay higher federal taxes for ten years to remove the dams and restore salmon populations while the distance from the site of the dam removal is statistically significant and negative in the logit willingness to pay equation benefits per household fall off slowly and the extent of the market is nationwide with a majority of households living outside the immediate area of the dam the rest of the us households reflect 97 of the national benefits for dam removal and salmon restoration this example suggests that failure to account for the national public good market can result in a serious underestimate of the value of public goods

enduring poverty and the conditions of childhood lifecourse and intergenerational poverty transmissions abstract in this paper we explore the conditions of childhood that can lead to poverty throughout the lifecourse and affect transfers of poverty to the next generation the largely inconclusive evidence base surrounding lifecourse and intergenerational poverty transmission is reviewed before a discussion of the key social processes and contexts that impact on childhood lifecourse and intergenerational poverty prioritized issues nutrition childcare and guidance education child work and aspirations and attitudes are explored within the context of unicef s basic framework of survival protection development and participation the paper concludes with an analysis of elements of the wider environment critical to enabling action in childhood to break poverty cycles

consumption insurance an evaluation of risk bearing systems in low income economies the hypothesis of full risk sharing can be taken to data from low income countries and evaluate formal and informal financial systems in many contexts idiosyncratic risks are high so credit insurance arrangements could be beneficial statistical tests reveal that households in southern india take advantage of these possibilities villages in cote d ivoire and countries in thailand do not do as well the paper includes an empirical description of the devices used to smooth consumption and a theoretical discussion of private information and incentives on ideal operating systems the full information and mechanism design frameworks provide benchmarks for policy analysis

simpler is better predicting consumer vehicle purchases in the short run abstract when agencies such as the us environmental protection agency epa establish future greenhouse gas emissions standards for new vehicles forecasting future vehicle purchases due to changes in fuel economy and prices provides insight into regulatory impacts we compare predictions from a nested logit model independently developed for us epa to a simple model where past market share predicts future market share using data from model years 2008 2010 and 2016 the simple model outperforms the nested logit model for all goodness of prediction measures for both prediction years including changes in vehicle price and fuel economy increases bias in forecasted market shares this bias suggests price increases are correlated with unobserved increases in vehicle quality changes in preferences or brand specific changes in market size but not cost pass through for 2010 past shares predict better than a nested logit model despite a major shock the economic disruption caused by the great recession observed share changes during this turbulent period may offer upper bounds for policy changes in other contexts the largest observed change in market share across the two horizons is 6 6 for manufacturers in 2016 and 3 4 for an individual vehicle in 2010

new vehicle characteristics and the cost of the corporate average fuel economy standard by 2016 the corporate average fuel economy cafe standard will increase by 40 this article focuses on the medium run effects of fuel economy regulation we estimate consumers willingness to pay for vehicle characteristics we employ a novel empirical strategy that accounts for the characteristics endogeneity by using variation of engine models used in vehicle models the results imply that consumers value an increase in power more than an increase in fuel economy simulations of the effects of an increase in the cafe standard suggest that regulatory costs are significantly smaller in the medium run than in the short run

sources of ethnic inequality in vietnam vietnam s ethnic minorities who tend to live mostly in remote rural areas typically have lower living standards than the ethnic majority how much is this because of differences in economic characteristics such as education levels and land rather than low returns to characteristics is there a self reinforcing culture of poverty in the minority groups reflecting patterns of past discrimination the authors find that differences in levels of living are due in part to the fact that the minorities live in less productive areas characterized by difficult terrain poor infrastructure less access to off farm work and the market economy and inferior access to education geographic disparities tend to persist because of immobility and regional differences in living standards but the authors also find large differences within geographical areas even after controlling for household characteristics they find differences in returns to productive characteristics to be the most important explanation for ethnic inequality but the minorities do not obtain lower returns to all characteristics there is evidence of compensating behavior for example pure returns to location even in remote inhospitable areas tend to be higher for minorities though not high enough to overcome the large consumption difference with the majority the majority ethnic group s model of income generation is a poor guide on how to fight poverty among ethnic minority groups nor is it enough to target poor areas to redress ethnic inequality policies must be designed to reach minority households in poor areas and to explicitly recognize behavior patterns including compensating behavior that have served the minorities well in the short term but intensify ethnic inequalities in the longer term it will be important to open up options for minority groups both by ensuring that they are not disadvantaged in labor markets for example and by changing the conditions that have caused their isolation and social exclusion

too poor to be green consumers a field experiment on revealed preferences for firewood in rural guatemala the paper reports on a field experiment that investigates whether households in guatemala are willing to surrender a small material gain in order to buy legal rather than illegal firewood given the ineffectiveness of command and control policies to curb the problem of illegal logging in guatemala the experiment assesses the potential viability of market oriented solutions local consumers in developing countries are generally believed to be too poor to pay a premium for green ethical products therefore little information has been gathered on willingness to pay wtp for such products and its determinants in non affluent consumer markets while our experiment on firewood consumption in central guatemala only implies a weak and indirect test of wtp for green products the results indicate that it is premature if not unwarranted to assume that the poor are not ready to make pro ethical choices in the marketplace moreover we find that information on the legal procedures for firewood extraction significantly affects consumer choice between legal and illegal firewood

estimation of random coefficient demand models two empiricists perspective we document the numerical challenges we experienced estimating random coefficient demand models as in berry levinsohn and pakes 1995 using two well known data sets and a thorough optimization design the optimization algorithms often converge at points where the first and second order optimality conditions fail there are also cases of convergence at local optima on convergence the variation in the values of the parameter estimates translates into variation in the models economic predictions price elasticities and changes in consumer and producer welfare following hypothetical merger exercises vary at least by a factor of 2 and up to a factor of 5

green public procurement of certified wood spatial leverage effect and welfare implications certified and conventional products are not traditional substitute goods green public procurement stimulates certification globally but not in each region public procurement of the cheaper unsustainable product does not maximise welfare increasing the price premium for certified wood creates a trade barrier the high costs of forest certification exclude vulnerable producers

the effects of the corporate average fuel efficiency standards in the us this paper examines the effects of the corporate average fuel economy standards cafe on automobile sales prices and fuel consumption first a discrete choice model of automobile demand and a continuous model of vehicle utilization are estimated using micro data from the consumer expenditure survey for 1984 1990 next the demand side model is combined with a model of oligopoly and product differentiation on the supply side with these elements in place the effects of the cafe regulation are assessed through simulations and compared to the effects of alternative policy instruments such as an increase in gasoline tax

market driven automotive industry compliance with fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards analysis based on consumer choice this study explored factors that affect market driven compliance with both corporate average fuel economy cafe and greenhouse gas ghg standards together called the national program in the united states for phase i 2012 2016 and phase ii 2017 2025 we considered a consumer choice based simulation approach using the ma3t model to estimate the market acceptance of fuel efficiency fe technologies and alternative fuel technologies as reflected by new sales of light duty vehicle ldv because both full and extremely low fe valuations are common in the literature we use a moderate assumption of a 10 year perceived vehicle lifetime at a 7 annual discount rate in the baseline and include both extreme views 5 years and 15 years in the sensitivity analysis the study focuses on market driven compliance and therefore excludes manufacturers cross subsidization the model results suggest that the ldv industry is able to comply with both standards even without cross subsidization and with projected high technology cost mainly thanks to the multiple credit programs and technology advancements the compliance robustness while encouraging however is based on moderate market assumptions such as annual energy outlook 2016 reference oil price projection and moderate fe consumer valuation sensitivity analysis results reveal two significant risk factors for compliance low oil prices and consumers fe undervaluation

do monetary and nonmonetary indicators tell the same story about chronic poverty a study of vietnam in the 1990s this paper investigates whether monetary and nonmonetary indicators tell the same story about chronic poverty using a unique panel data from vietnam in the 1990s defining chronic poverty as occurring when an individual is monetarily poor stunted malnourished or out of school in both waves of the panel the overlap and correlation between subgroups of the chronically poor are shown to be modest some but not all nonmonetary indicators are more persistent and complement monetary indicators of chronic poverty taking account of the multiple dimensions of chronic poverty cannot be a simple additive exercise

smoothing consumption by smoothing income hours of work responses to idiosyncratic agricultural shocks in rural india while research has demonstrated that farm households in developing economies are able to protect consumption from idiosyncratic crop shocks little evidence shows how this is achieved this paper examines the extent to which labor markets allow households to shift labor from farm to off farm employment and the extent to which such a shift explains the observed lack of correlation between consumption and idiosyncratic crop shocks the empirical analysis uses a novel measure of the idiosyncratic crop income shock which utilizes information on start of season cropping choices to more accurately estimate household expectations of weather

issues in measuring and modeling poverty economists have relied heavily on household incomes or expenditures normalized for differences in household specific prices and demographics in their research and policy advice related to poverty and inequality recognizing the conceptual and empirical problems that confound such measures does not mean that they should be ignored instead it indicates the need for supplementary measures to capture the missing items implementing a genuinely multidimensional approach will often make the welfare rankings of social states more difficult but that fact points to the nonrobustness of low dimensional rankings this may have its own policy ramifications with the possibility of correspondence between policy instruments and welfare objectives the model types used to understand the poverty and inequity determination processes will be affected not only will there be more dependent variables to consider but variables will have potentially complex relationships these relationships will often be hard to empirically disentangle despite richer integrated and longitudinal data sets such data open rich and relevant agenda for research into the dynamics of poverty along multiple dimensions a simultaneous attack on these issues from all three fronts measurement modeling and data offers hope of establishing a credible empirical foundation for public action in fighting poverty

market share dynamics and the persistence of leadership debate this paper introduces a novel analysis of the classic persistence of leadership question and applies it to a newly constructed dataset for japanese manufacturing the analysis rests on an appeal to an empirical scaling relationship between current market share and the variance of changes in market share this relationship provides a powerful model selection criterion for candidate models of market share dynamics it also makes it feasible even in small datasets to test directly for the properties of the first passage times corresponding to loss of leadership

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

effect of experimental design on choice based conjoint valuation estimates in this article we investigate the effect of several commonly used experimental designs on willingness to pay in a monte carlo environment where true utility parameters are known all experimental designs considered in this study generated unbiased valuation estimates however random designs or designs that explicitly incorporated attribute interactions generated more precise valuation estimates than main effects only designs a key result of our analysis is that a large sample size can substitute for a poor experimental design overall our results indicate that certain steps can be taken to achieve a manageably sized experimental design without sacrificing the credibility of welfare estimates

risk financial markets and human capital in a developing country this paper explores the link between financial market incompleteness and human capital accumulation we examine how child school attendance responds to seasonal fluctuations in the income of agrarian households using panel data from rural india to pinpoint market imperfections we study responses to aggregate and idiosyncratic as well as to anticipated and unanticipated income shocks our main finding is that seasonal fluctuations in school attendance are a form of self insurance but one which does not result in a substantial loss of human capital on average

the dynamics of welfare gains and losses an african case study this article uses panel survey data for cote d ivoire to investigate the determinants of welfare gains and losses of households over time a first difference model is estimated which takes account of initial conditions for urban areas it was found that human capital is not only a key explanatory factor for levels of welfare but also the most important endowment to explain welfare changes over time in rural areas physical capital especially land and farm equipment mattered most household size and composition and socioeconomic characteristics of the household also affected welfare changes policy implications are discussed

choice modelling and its potential application to tropical rainforest preservation abstract loss of rainforest occurs in part because of a global market failure problem markets routinely transmit signals about international demands for forest products such as timber but fail to transmit signals about demands for preservation to make efficient resource allocation choices decision makers need some framework to estimate the non use values that might be held by an international community for rainforest preservation non market valuation techniques can be used for this purpose but framing and other problems limit the application of the contingent valuation method cvm an alternative technique choice modelling cm appears to hold some promise because it can be used to model complex situations and to frame choices consistent with real life choices in this paper a cm experiment to assess the values that australians hold for rainforest conservation in vanuatu is reported the experiment disguises effectively the issue of interest rainforest conservation in vanuatu within a pool of other conservation locations also the experiment demonstrates that choice tradeoffs may involve a variety of environmental and socio economic factors rather than be concentrated on some monetary tradeoff the results demonstrate that a variety of predictive and valuation tools can be gained from a cm experiment and suggest that further development is warranted

ten years of q squared implications for understanding and explaining poverty summary over the past decade there have been a number of initiatives to promote a more systematic integration of quantitative and qualitative or q squared approaches to poverty analysis in the global south and a large body of literature had emerged the objective of the article is to present a selective review of this empirical work with a view to demonstrate the value it has added for understanding and explaining poverty the evidence strongly suggests that q squared approaches have aided our understanding of the characteristics of the poor and the causes of poverty

the effects of fiscal stimulus evidence from the 2009 cash for clunkers program we evaluate the impact of the 2009 cash for clunkers program on short and medium run auto purchases our empirical strategy exploits variation across u s cities in ex ante exposure to the program as measured by the number of clunkers in the city as of summer 2008 we find that the program induced the purchase of an additional 370 000 cars in july and august 2009 however we find strong evidence of reversal high clunker counties bought fewer autos in the 10 months after the program expired which offset most of the initial purchases we find no evidence of an effect on employment house prices or household default rates in cities with higher exposure to the program jel codes h20 e62 copyright 2012 oxford university press

saving in developing countries theory and review in the literature on economic development much of the interest in saving has been focused on the relation between saving and growth but saving is not only about accumulation it is about smoothing consumption in the face of volatile and unpredictable income and helping to ensure the living standards of poor people whose lives are difficult and uncertain this paper develops a model of households which cannot borrow but which accumulate assets as a buffer stock to protect consumption when incomes are low such households dissave as often as they save do not accumulate assets over the long term and have on average very small asset holdings but their consumption is markedly smoother than their income much of the evidence is as consistent with this view of saving as it is incosistent with standard views of smoothing over the life cycle and with explanations of the link between saving and growth in terms of life cycle saving behavior consumption smoothing is also a useful way of thinking about government policy where volatility in the world prices of taxed commodities can generate sharp fluctuations in government revenues as well as reallocations of revenue between the private and public sectors many important policy issues in developing countries hinge on issues of consumption and smoothing and research on these issues is currently likely to be more productive than work on the relation between saving and growth

the effect of vehicle fuel economy standards on technology adoption abstract many countries are tightening passenger vehicle fuel economy standards this paper provides the first empirical evidence on the effects of fuel economy standards on technology adoption we investigate changes in the rate and direction of technology adoption that is the extent to which technology is used to increase fuel economy at the expense of other vehicle attributes we find that recent changes in u s and european standards have both increased the rate of technology adoption and affected the direction of technology adoption producers reduced horsepower and torque compared to a counterfactual in which fuel economy standards remained unchanged we estimate opportunity costs from reduced horsepower and torque to be economically significant relative to the gains from fuel savings

the great recession and credit trends across income groups abstract in this paper we document trends in credit use across income groups in the period surrounding the great recession we investigate trends in access to different credit markets including mortgages home equity automobiles and student loans we disentangle growth rates of new market entrants from the aggregates and analyze overall as well as within county growth rate differentials across income strata our findings may provide insight into the financial well being of different income groups in the context of the great recession

has the development gap between the ethnic minority and majority groups narrowed in vietnam evidence from household surveys using household data for rural northern vietnam between 1993 and 2014 we find that the ethnic minority group continued to lag behind the majority group in various development indicators despite the overall improvement in living standards our regression and decomposition analyses show that the structural differences between the two groups are an important cause of persistent development gap however the nature of structural differences changed over time and no single source of structural difference explains the persistent gap we argue that more minority appropriate policies are needed to lift poor minority households out of poverty further and reduce the development gap

are consumers myopic evidence from new and used car purchases abstract we investigate whether car buyers are myopic about future fuel costs we estimate the effect of gasoline prices on short run equilibrium prices of cars of different fuel economies we then compare the implied changes in willingness to pay to the associated changes in expected future gasoline costs for cars of different fuel economies in order to calculate implicit discount rates using different assumptions about annual mileage survival rates and demand elasticities we calculate a range of implicit discount rates similar to the range of interest rates paid by car buyers who borrow we interpret this as showing little evidence of consumer myopia jel d12 h25 l11 l62 l71 l81

product differentiation and oligopoly in international markets the case of the u s automobile industry this paper develops and estimates a model of the u s automobile industry on the demand side a discrete choice model is adopted that is estimated using micro data from the consumer expenditure survey the estimation results are used in conjunction with population weights to derive aggregate demand on the supply side the automobile industry is modelled as an oligopoly with product differentiation equilibrium is characterized by the first order conditions of the profit maximizing firms the estimation results are used in counterfactual simulations to investigate two trade policy issues the effects of the ver and exchange rate pass through