the expansion of modern agriculture and global biodiversity decline an integrated assessment the world is banking on a major increase in food production if the dietary needs and food preferences of an increasing and increasingly rich population are to be met this requires the further expansion of modern agriculture but modern agriculture rests on a small number of highly productive crops and its expansion has led to a significant loss of global biodiversity ecologists have shown that biodiversity loss results in lower plant productivity while agricultural economists have linked biodiversity loss on farms with increasing variability of crop yields and sometimes lower mean yields in this paper we consider the macro economic consequences of the continued expansion of particular forms of intensive modern agriculture with a focus on how the loss of biodiversity affects food production we employ a quantitative structurally estimated model of the global economy which jointly determines economic growth population and food demand agricultural innovations and land conversion we show that even small effects of agricultural expansion on productivity via biodiversity loss might be sufficient to warrant a moratorium on further land conversion

estimation of the structure and elasticities of mexican imports in the period 1961 1979 abstract this paper examines the changing structure of mexican imports over the period 1961 1979 and its relationship to the acceleration of imports in 1978 1979 it is found that the more lenient policies adopted by the government in that period seem to be associated with the higher import levels a review of mexican policy with respect to foreign trade in 1980 seems to be consistent with the results reported in this paper

assessing long term fiscal developments a new approach abstract we use a new approach to assess long term fiscal developments by analyzing the time varying behaviour of the two components of government spending and revenue responsiveness and persistence a feature not captured by automatic stabilisers we are able to infer about the sources of fiscal deterioration improvement drawing on quarterly data we estimate recursively these components within a system of government revenue and spending equations using a three stage least square method for eight european union countries plus the us the results suggest that significant changes in the fiscal stance including those related to the current crisis are reflected in the estimates of persistence and responsiveness

the induced innovation hypothesis and u s public agricultural research applicability of the induced innovation hypothesis that a change in relative input prices induces innovation to economize use of the increasingly expensive input hicks 1932 is examined for u s public agricultural research a reduced form test is developed using input prices from the agricultural production sector expenditures from the public research sector aimed at developing new technology to save specific agricultural inputs and variables to control for innovation marginal cost differences and nonhomotheticity unlike recent demand side studies that soundly reject the induced innovation hypothesis for agriculture support for the hypothesis is found for several input pairings through these tests of public agricultural research using state level panel data

growth and distribution a test of the induced innovation hypothesis for the korean economy this study investigates technical change biases and their effects on distribute shars in korea we are particularly concerned with whether technical change biases have been induced by changes in relative factor prices accompanied by rapid economic growth in korea our test results show that technical change in korea has been biased in the direction in the direction for saving labour and using capital thus rendering support to the induced innovation hypothesis these findings are roughly in parallel with empirical studies on the induced innovation hypothesis for the us and japanese economies the similar pattern in technical change biases between korea and the two advanced economies is noteworthy in light of their basic differences in factor endowments another salient feature of our empirical analysis is that the price corrected labour share in korea has continually shrunk in the process of rapid economic growth which has been partly precipitated by factor price disorting policies

financial markets shutdown and reaccess we employ a discrete time parametric duration model on a group of 121 countries over the period 1970 2011 and find that the probability of the end of financial markets shutdown and reaccess falls as these events become longer we also show that 1 shutdown episodes are longer when economic prospects are poor and the degree of financial openness falls the chief executive has been in office for long periods and the country has a default history and 2 spells of reaccess tend to be longer when economic growth improves and financial openness increases there are neither government crises nor government instability and the country did not default in the past jel c41 g15

self command in practice in policy and in a theory of rational choice an increasingly familiar occurrence for obstetricians is being asked by patients to withhold anesthesia during delivery the physician often proposes that a facemask be put beside the patient who may inhale nitrous oxide as she needs it but some determined patients ask that no such opportunity be provided if gas is available they will use it and they want not to be able to the request is interesting for decision theory and raises questions of ethics policy and physician responsibility even if the woman is merely making a mistake if she simply does not know how painful labor will be and how glad she will be even in retrospect if the pain is relieved but some women who make this request have had earlier deliveries during which they demanded anesthesia and received it they are acquainted with the pain they anticipate asking for relief and they want it withheld when they do they expect to regret afterwards any recourse to anesthesia this particular instance of attempted selfdenial has features that are special but many that are common the woman is so far as we know in good health physically and mentally she anticipates a transient period when her usual values and preferences will be suspended or inaccessible she has reasons for wanting to frustrate her own wishes at the critical time she needs cooperation she may ratify her choice afterward by expressing herself grateful that no anesthesia was offered even when requested there are ethical dilemmas and legal issues and there is conflict if say the husband disagrees with the physician in the delivery room about what his wife really wants

fiscal stabilizations when do they work and why abstract this paper studies the determinants and channels through which fiscal contractions influence the dynamics of the debt to gdp ratio and gdp growth using data from a panel of oecd countries the paper shows that the success of fiscal adjustments in decreasing the debt to gdp ratio depends on the size of the fiscal contraction and less on its composition the rate of growth of output matters too but higher gdp growth does not drive the success of a fiscal stabilization in contrast whether a fiscal adjustment is expansionary depends largely on the composition of the fiscal maneuvre in particular stabilizations implemented by cutting public spending lead to higher gdp growth rates the effects of the composition on growth work mostly through the labor market rather than through agents expectations of future fiscal policy finally the evidence suggests that successful and expansionary fiscal contractions are not the result of accompanying expansionary monetary policy or exchange rate devaluations

a quantitative theory of political transitions we develop a quantitative theory of repeated political transitions driven by revolts and reforms in the model the beliefs of disenfranchised citizens play a key role in determining revolutionary pressure which in interaction with preemptive reforms determine regime dynamics we study the quantitative implications of the model by fitting it to data on the universe of political regimes existing between 1946 and 2010 the estimated model generates a process of political transitions that looks remarkably close to the data replicating the empirical shape of transition hazards the frequency of revolts relative to reforms the distribution of newly established regime types after revolts and reforms and the unconditional distribution over regime types

business cycle duration dependence a parametric approach this paper reexamines duration dependence in u s business cycles using parametric hazard models positive duration dependence would indicate that expansions or contractions are more likely to end as they become older this paper provides statistically significant evidence of positive duration dependence for expansions before world war ii and contractions after world war ii the evidence is stronger than in earlier research utilizing nonparametric techniques because certain nonparametric techniques have low statistical power against the type of duration dependence found in this paper evidence is also presented suggesting that expansions became longer on average after world war ii while contractions became shorter copyright 1991 by mit press

testing the induced innovation hypothesis an error correction model of south african agriculture abstract this paper applies cointegration techniques to a model of induced innovation based on the two stage constant elasticity of substitution ces production function this approach results in direct tests of the inducement hypothesis which are applied to data for south african commercial agriculture for the period 1947 1991 south african data is used because the policy changes have been substantial enough that the factor and price ratios have turning points rather than being monotonic the time series properties of the variables are checked cointegration is established and an error correction model ecm constructed allowing factor substitution to be separated from technological change finally the ecm formulation is subjected to causality tests which show that both the factor price ratios and r d and extension expenditures are granger prior to the factor saving biases of technological change thus each stage of the analysis corroborates the inducement hypothesis however straightforward price inducement is only part of the explanation of changes in factor ratios policy induced innovation in response to tax concessions and subsidised credit is also present

terms of trade shocks and structural adjustment in a small open economy abstract a three sector three factor general equilibrium model of dutch disease is developed providing yet another explanation for the expansion of the manufacturing sector in most of the oil exporting countries and the concurrent decline in their agricultural sectors in the 1970s the sectoral structure of the oil exporting small open economy is altered by an increase in its national income the spending effect and in the world price of manufactured goods relative to agricultural products the world price effect while both effects undermine the agricultural sector the world price effect may offset the negative impact of the spending effect on the manufacturing sector resulting in its expansion the short run analysis is of the standard jones specific factors model in the long run the capital rental and the price of the non traded good are determined by world prices and the transfer argument for the dutch disease real appreciation the rise in the relative price of the non traded good due to higher income completely disappears also demand effects alter non traded and manufacturing output but have no impact on the agricultural sector the world price effect is the sole cause of the decline in the agricultural sector in the long run

induced innovation and marginal cost of new technology abstract lacking data on development and implementation costs for input saving technologies we develop a nonparametric procedure to estimate relative differences in marginal technology costs for technical change to be consistent with the induced innovation hypothesis we apply it to u s agriculture

housing market cycles and duration dependence in the united states and canada housing wealth is a large component of households total wealth and plays an important role in aggregate business cycles in this article we explore data on real house price cycles at the aggregate level and city level for the us and canada using a panel of 137 cities we examine the duration and characteristics of housing market cycles in north america we find that north american housing cycles are long averaging 5 years of expansion and 4 years of contraction we estimate a discrete time survival model with a probit specification for house price expansions and contractions this model allows us to test for duration dependence we find that us housing market expansions have positive duration dependence since their exit probabilities increase with duration while contractions seem to have no duration dependence canadian house price cycles did not exhibit duration dependence standard determinants of house prices interest rates income and population growth are included as controls

global factors uncertainty weather conditions and energy prices on the drivers of the duration of commodity price cycle phases abstract we investigate the role of global factors in explaining the length of commodity price cycle phases using a continuous time weibull duration model and data for a panel of 33 countries over the period 1980q1 2015q4 we find evidence of increasing constant positive duration dependence for commodity price booms and busts normal time spells global macroeconomic conditions in particular inflation economic policy uncertainty and monetary policy actions significantly affect the duration of all commodity price cycle phases global environmental conditions also impact the duration of commodity price booms with a rise in average temperature rainfall increasing reducing their length a rise in the number of military conflicts around the globe is associated with shorter booms and busts finally we find that a rise in oil prices is linked with longer booms and shorter busts

uniform and non uniform second best input taxes we investigate second best input based taxes foragricultural nonpoint pollution control when marketprices are endogenous and production isheterogeneous theoretically we derive the optimalforms of taxes which take account of heterogeneity non uniform taxes and a tax which does not auniform tax empirically we use a multi factor market equilibrium simulation model to determineoptimal tax rates and associated equity effects particularly differences in landowner gains lossesacross a heterogeneous region when market prices areendogenous second best tax policies result inpecuniary externalities that affect existingenvironmental externalities in particular thepecuniary externalities amplify the effect of producerheterogeneity on determination of sub regionaldifferences in tax rates and returns to land particularly for the uniform policy with endogenousprices the uniform tax rate is considerably higherthan any of the non uniform rates and ironically thenon uniform taxes result in less dispersion oflandowner gains across sub regions than the uniformtax

profits and politics coordinating technology adoption in agriculture abstract this paper examines the political economy of government led coordination of economic activity in a simple two sector model in which individuals choice of agricultural technology affects industrialization we demonstrate the existence of multiple equilibria the economy is either characterized by the use of a traditional agricultural technology and a low level of industrialization or the use of a mechanized technology and a high level of industrialization relative to the traditional technology use of the mechanized technology increases output but leaves some population groups worse off we show that the distributional implications of choosing the mechanized technology restrict the possibility of pareto improving coordination by an elected policy maker even when we allow for income redistribution

dictators walking the mogadishu line how men become monsters and monsters become men history offers many examples of dictators who worsened their behavior significantly over time like zimbabwe s mugabe as well as dictators who displayed remarkable improvements like rawlings of ghana the authors show that such mutations can result from rational behavior when the dictator s flow use of repression is complementary to his stock of wrongdoings past wrongdoings then perpetuate further wrongdoings and the dictator can unintentionally get trapped in a repressive steady state where he himself suffers from ex post regret this then begs the question why such a dictator would ever choose to do wrong in the first place the authors show that this can be explained from the dictator s uncertainty over his degree of impunity in relation to wrongdoing which induces him to experiment along this dimension this produces a setting where any individual rising to power can end up as either a moderate leader or as a dreaded tyrant since derailment is accidental and accompanied by ex post regret increasing accountability can be in the interest of both the public and the dictator

chaotic interest rate rules a growing empirical and theoretical literature argues in favor of specifying monetary policy in the form of taylor type interest rate feedback rules that is rules whereby the nominal interest rate is set as an increasing function of inflation with a slope greater than one around an intended inflation target this paper shows that such rules can easily lead to chaotic dynamics the result is obtained for feedback rules that depend on contemporaneous or expected future inflation the existence of chaotic dynamics is established analytically and numerically in the context of calibrated economies the battery of fiscal policies that has recently been advocated for avoiding global indeterminacy induced by taylor type interest rate rules such as liquidity traps are shown to be unlikely to provide a remedy for the complex dynamics characterized in this paper

induced innovations and farm mechanization cal change in agriculture then they come mainly from the public agent of farm technology the agricultural research system the research system should be held responsible for the social consequences of farm mechanization and it should be budgeted and directed accordingly on the other hand if mechanization and exit from farming are caused mostly by external price and wage changes the responsibility of the research system is limited principally to technology improvement in this note we discuss the newly emerging tradition of induced innovation and its relation to the alternative explanations of machine labor substitution in agriculture we first clarify the conceptual basis of the induced innovation hypothesis and the related innovation possibility function second we call into question the validity of some of the empirical applications we argue that an incomplete conceptualization of the induced innovation idea has led to invalid empirical tests and to inappropriate implications on the causes of american farm mechanization

why is there no revolution in north korea the political economy of revolution revisited the paper critically assesses the acemoglu robinson approach to revolutions as it is focused on inequality of wealth or income rather than on collective action problems we show that income inequality is not a sufficient and not even a necessary condition for a revolution to occur rather a necessary condition for a revolution is that any subpopulation can expect net benefits from it for which inequality is not a precondition as a result a certain structure of commitment devices or their absence rather than inequality is crucial for explaining why revolutions sometimes occur and sometimes not

labor productivity measurement in japanese agriculture 1956 1990 abstract this paper investigates the factors responsible for a drastic decline in the growth rate of labor productivity of the agricultural sector for the 1956 1990 period this investigation is carried out by a newly devised procedure which decomposes the growth rate of labor productivity into 1 the total substitution effect which consists of the effects due to factor price changes and biased technological change and 2 the tfp effect composed of the effects due to scale economies and technological progress based on empirical estimation of the translog cost function it was found that the total substitution effect contributed to the growth of labor productivity much more than the tfp effect did for the period under question

trends and projections for bangladeshi food production an alternative viewpoint abstract this article analyses growth in bangladeshi food production and yields by reviewing past evidence and critically examining the contribution of james k boyce general statistical evidence is considered on whether the past growth rate is being sustained the evidence suggests that past growth is unlikely to continue data from a recent field survey in two different areas of bangladesh add weight to this view on both ecological and economic grounds it seems likely that bangladesh s ability to feed its population will continue to decline

a flexible model of factor biased technological change an application to japanese agriculture abstract results indicate that when restrictive assumptions on production structure and parameter constancy are avoided and quality adjusted flow variables employed an explanation of factor biased technological change emerges that is consistent with observed patterns of factor use while substitution possibilities during this period were limited biol nearly as strong a substitute for labor as for land technological change was found to be significantly labor saving and using in biological inputs and machinery and only weakly land saving descriptions of pre world war ii technology as primarily land saving miss the significant contribution of labor saving technology in agricultural transformation and ignore the dynamics of inter sectoral factor demand

protection of property rights and growth as political equilibria abstract this paper presents a survey of the literature on property rights and economic growth different theoretical mechanisms that relate property rights to economic development are discussed lack of protection of property rights can result in slow economic growth through different channels expropriation of private wealth corruption of civil servants excessive taxation and barriers to adoption of new technologies the origins of property rights are also considered different theories are illustrated but more attention is paid to the social conflict view and its success and limitations the second part of the paper illustrates relevant empirical works on property rights and growth

democrats dictators and demonstrators 1 introduction a sizable amount of recent empirical literature has focused on the relation between democracy and economic growth however most of these papers such as barro 1996 helliwell 1994 and the studies summarized in przeworski and limongi 1993 concentrate on the relationship between levels of democracy and economic growth this article focuses on the relationships among democratic movements governmental responses to these movements and economic growth democratic movements provide a distinct perspective from analyzing the relationship between levels of democracy and economic variables democratic movements by definition focus on collective action and are reflective of the wishes of large segments of society whereas many actual changes in democracy occur through behind the scenes maneuvers of political elites sometimes but not always in response to popular movements 1 additionally a democratic movement can fail if repression of the movement succeeds as in burma now myanmar in 1988 and china in 1989 in these and other repressed movements although a large segment of society has expressed a desire for a more democratic form of government the existing government has indicated that it is prepared to resist those demands this tension between the actual level of democracy and the level desired by citizens presumably has economic consequences in addition to the consequences of the actual level of democracy of course repression is not the only outcome of democratic movements for example democratic movements in eastern europe in 1989 90 with the partial exception of romania led to concessions and democratic reforms by the governments involved the focus of this article includes both repressed and successful democratic movements as well as democratic transitions that occurred without widespread democratic movements in this article i provide an enhanced version of the data set of democratic movements in minier 2001 incorporating a classification of the government s response to each movement using these data i address two main questions first what are the effects of a democratic movement on the economy specifically how does a democratic movement affect economic growth and given that a democratic movement has occurred what are the economic ramifications of a government s response to that movement in particular does the choice of repression versus concessions affect subsequent growth second democratic transitions do not always require a widespread democratic movement how do subsequent economic conditions differ between countries that become democratic through a democratic movement and countries in which no movement occurs 2 ii background democratic movements relate to both political instability and democracy previous empirical studies have established that political instability is negatively correlated with economic growth and that the level of democracy is positively correlated with income levels although the relationship between democracy and growth is more ambiguous 3 the related theoretical literature has focused on the probability of success for a revolution or insurrection more generally as in grossman 1991 and roemer 1985 or the probability that a government grants democratic concessions as in rosendorff 2001 and acemoglu and robinson 2000 political instability can be measured in a number of ways londregan and poole 1990 use whether or not a coup d etat occurs alesina et al 1996 expand this to include constitutional changes general economic growth studies that include a measure of political instability such as barro 1991 generally use some combination of the average number of revolutions coups and political assassinations in this article i provide additional insight into the relationship between political instability and economic growth by investigating a distinct form of political instability democratic movements

on the timing of political regime changes in resource dependent economies we consider a resource dependent economy initially ruled by the elite the transition from the autocratic to a more democratic regime takes place only if the citizens decide to revolt against the elite the occurrence of a revolution primarily depends on the autocratic regime vulnerability and the level of inequalities both being driven by the elite s redistribution and repression policies first we show that when a political transition is inevitable the elite choose the maximum rate of redistribution to lengthen their period in office second we find that the duration of the autocratic regime is linked to resource abundance and how it relates to the elite s policies more resources lead to a shorter reign of a redistributive regime which may not be the case of a repressive regime finally we interpret the arab spring sequence in light of our findings

economic inequality and its socioeconomic impact abstract income inequality is of fundamental interest not only to economists but also to other social scientists a substantial literature in economics and the social sciences has investigated the relationship between income inequality and economic growth and a variety of social phenomena the links between inequality and economic growth are explored as well as those between inequality and such key social variables as political conflict education health and crime the analysis in this paper follows a two step process first a review of the empirical evidence relating inequality to growth and to each of the above social variables is undertaken second the various causal mechanisms that have been proposed in the social science literature to explain those links are surveyed

searching for non linear effects of fiscal policy evidence from industrial and developing countries several recent studies suggest that the response of national saving to scal policy may be non linear in this paper we use two data sets to search for the circumstances in which such non linear response may arise a sample of oecd countries already used in previous studies and a sample of developing countries using more recent world bank data we nd that in both samples non linear e ects tend to be associated with large and persistent scal impulses in the oecd sample the non linearity of the response is stronger for scal contractions than for expansions an increase in net taxes has no e ect on national saving during large scal contractions while it has a positive e ect in less pronounced contractions high or rapidly growing public debt does not appear to be a good predictor of non linear e ects in the world bank sample of developing countries non linearities in the response national saving to scal policy are not limited to large scal contractions and also tend to occur in periods in which debt is accumulating rapidly regardless of its initial level 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classixcation e21 e62 h31

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

fiscal policy in good times and bad in the 1980s several countries with large government debt or deficit implemented substantial and in some cases drastic deficit cuts contrary to widespread expectations in many cases private consumption boomed rather than contracted this paper shows that in times of fiscal stress shocks to government revenues and especially expenditure have very different effects on private consumption than in normal times

globalization and the politics of natural resources much political science scholarship including important work in this journal has explored the implications of natural resource endowments particularly oil and other highly valuable export commodities on political and economic outcomes although the first wave of literature emphasized the negative effects of these resources more recent work emphasizes how domestic institutions can condition the relationship sometimes leading to positive effects in this special issue the authors expand this literature in two important ways first they renew attention on the international dimensions of this relationship exploring how trade migration foreign investment and other global forces influence the effects these resources have on countries second they link the study of the globalization natural resources nexus to broader debates in international and comparative political economy such as how domestic institutions shape the impact of globalization and how economic factors affect the political survival of r

infrastructure and aggregate agricultural productivity international evidence a relationship has long been recognized between a country s agricultural development and its investment in infrastructure capital such as transportation and communication facilities that is not directly related to the agricultural production process the relevant literature spans adam smith s proposition that the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market the work of von thtinen numerous studies by historians and economic historians and the work of economists such as schultz kuznets wharton owens and johnston and kilby to mention a few despite the apparently widespread recognition and acceptance that a relationship exists between agricultural development and infrastructural development few if any empirical studies test this as a hypothesis and provide estimates of the magnitude of such a relationship 2 the aim of this paper is to utilize 1965 aggregate agricultural production data and the concept of the aggregate production function to study the effects of transportation and communication infrastructure on aggregate agricultural productivity the aggregate data come from 47 less developed countries ldcs and 19 developed countries dcs the sample countries are listed in the appendix the use of intercountry comparisons for development studies dates to clark and the pioneering work of kuznets and it has been exploited econometrically by chenery 3 an important contribution to the study of international agricultural productivity was made by hayami and ruttan who showed that an aggregate agricultural production function that accounts for intercountry differences in resource endowments technical modern inputs and human capital can explain a large proportion of the variation in aggregate agricultural output across more and less developed agricultures 4 evenson and kislev modified hayami and ruttan s model by including a variable measuring each country s investment in agricultural research 5 essentially the same

us monetary policy and sectoral commodity prices abstract using a structural var svar model we examine the effects of the monetary policy of the united states on sectoral commodity prices including the non fuel commodity prices food prices beverage prices prices of agricultural raw materials prices of metals and prices of fuel energy commodities and macroeconomic activity the empirical evidence suggests that a u s monetary contraction leads to an immediate rise in the broad commodity price index which possibly reflects an aggregation bias greater expected inflation and speculation high production costs or some overshooting due to overreactions then the response erodes after six quarters as the positive interest rate shock vanishes and higher interest rates and liquidity drainage take traction despite this the aggregate price response masks the existence of significant heterogeneity in the price responses of the different types of commodity sectors more specifically a positive interest rate shock leads to i an initial pop in the price returns of the non fuel commodities which later reverses path and becomes negative as in the case of the prices of agricultural raw materials ii a positive and persistent rise in the volatile food prices iii a fall in the beverage prices and iv a persistent reduction in the prices of metals and the prices of energy prices our results also remain globally intact with respect to alternative specifications and identification schemes as well as to unconventional monetary policy effects similar results are also found when commodity futures prices are used we conclude that policymakers should recognize the source of sector inflation before embarking on contractionary monetary policy the design of core inflation targeting is also preferable to headline inflation targeting

south north trade and southern growth bleak prospects from the structuralist point of view abstract a three country three commodity model is developed to illustrate the dynamics of growth among the north the south and opec one conclusion is that the southern growth rate will be increased by faster growth of northern capital with a steady state response coefficient of unity however if the steady state is perturbed by increases in northern productivity or the oil price then the coefficient becomes less than one in the short run higher capital flows from north to south increase the former s growth rate but may have only marginal impact on growth in the south higher productivity in the south will slow its growth rate and reduce its terms of trade when the engel elasticity of northern demand for its exports is less than one these and other results follow from surplus labor in the south and its dependent position in international trade from which it will be difficult to escape

green revolution land reform and household income distribution in the philippines income of agricultural households consists of returns to labor capital and land from farming supplemented mainly by labor earnings from nonfarm sources agricultural technology affects farmers income through its effect on factor demands and factor prices which in turn induce changes in the allocation of farmers own resources to different uses income from farming is also affected by village institutions such as land tenure which governs the distribution of income between landlords and tenants as well as resource allocations

an error correction model of induced innovation in uk agriculture cointegration techniques are applied to a model of induced innovation based on the two stage constant elasticity of substitution ces production function this approach results in direct tests of the inducement hypothesis which are applied to agricultural data for the united kingdom from 1953 to 2000 the time series properties of the variables are checked cointegration is established and an error correction model ecm constructed which attempts to separate factor substitution from technological change finally the ecm formulation is subjected to causality tests which show that the factor price ratio for chemicals and land is granger prior to the factor saving bias of technological change however long run relative prices are not causally prior to the machinery labour ratio this results from perturbations in the user cost of machinery caused by oil price shocks thus the induced innovation hypothesis iih may explain long run transformations like the mechanical and fertilizer revolutions that

testing for indeterminacy an application to u s monetary policy reply this paper considers a prototypical new keynesian model in which the equilibrium is undetermined if monetary policy is passive the likelihood based estimation of dynamic equilibrium models is extended to allow for indeterminacies and sunspot fluctuations we construct posterior weights for the determinacy and indeterminacy region of the parameter space and estimates for the propagation of fundamental and sunspot shocks according to the estimated model u s monetary policy post 1982 is consistent with determinacy whereas the pre volcker policy is not we find that before 1979 indeterminacy substantially altered the propagation of shocks

market based systems for reducing chemical use in agriculture in the united states this study uses a computable general equilibrium cge model of the u s economy to estimate the economic effects of agricultural fertilizer and pesticide input reductions on individual farm sectors and on the economy as a whole the costs of reducing agricultural chemicals using a market based approach and a command and control approach are compared the real cost to society of restrictng fertilizer and pesticide use by 20 percent across all uses is estimated to be 2 3 billion a market based approach that would provide incentives to reduce chemical use in the most cost efficient manner would be about 10 percent less costly

identifying booms and busts in house prices under heterogeneous expectations we introduce heterogeneous expectations in a standard housing market model linking housing rental levels to fundamental buying prices using quarterly data we estimate the model parameters for eight different countries us uk nl jp ch es se and be we find that the data support heterogeneity in expectations with temporary endogenous switching between fundamental mean reverting and trend following chartists beliefs based on their relative performance for all countries we identify temporary house price bubbles amplified by trend extrapolation and crashes reinforced by fundamentalists the qualitative predictions of such non linear models are very different from standard linear benchmarks with important policy implications the fundamental price becomes unstable e g when the interest rate is set too low or mortgage tax deductions too high giving rise to multiple non fundamental equilibria and or global instability

research and extension expenditures and productivity in japanese agriculture 1960 1990 abstract this paper investigates the cause for the decline in the growth of productivity in japanese agriculture since the late 1960s for this objective it investigates the effects of research and extension r e activities on the extent and the direction of the bias of technological change in japanese agriculture for the period 1960 1990 based on the translog cost function framework empirical results show that the cost reducing effects of r e measured in terms of the absolute value of the cost r e elasticity increased slightly from 0 194 in 1960 to 0 205 in 1965 and then decreased consistently to 0 110 in 1990 this finding is broadly consistent with the finding of the decline or slowdown in agricultural productivity since the late 1960s the bias due to r e was found to be toward labor intermediate inputs and other inputs saving on the one hand and machinery and land using on the other labor saving and machinery using biases are consistent with the hicksian induced innovation hypothesis

fiscal consolidations quality economic conditions and success recent research has demonstrated theimportance of good quality of fiscaladjustments for the success of governmentbudget consolidations we extend thisapproach to analyze the importance of theeconomic conditions in which fiscalconsolidations are started for theirsuccess the cyclical positions of thedomestic and international economy theinitial debt level and the stance of fiscalpolicy in the oecd are all importantdeterminants of the likelihood of fiscalconsolidations they also affect thegovernment s choice of consolidationstrategy making them importantdeterminants of the success of fiscalconsolidations in contrast the monetarypolicy stance plays only a negligible rolefor fiscal consolidations we use theanalysis to test for any maastricht effectson the performance of european governmentsduring the 1990s such effects are weak atbest and occurred only during the firsthalf of the decade

welfare impacts of alternative public policies for agricultural pollution control in an open economy a general equilibrium framework a general equilibrium approach is used to evaluate the welfare impacts of alternative policies for reducing agricultural pollution in an open economy with preexisting distortions caused by income taxes and agricultural subsidies the policies examined here include the removal of distortionary agricultural subsidies we find that even though these distortions are small compared to others in the economy removing them and imposing nitrogen reduction subsidies and or output taxes can enhance welfare and reduce nitrogen pollution thereby leading to a substantial double dividend the relative efficiency of the alternative policies examined here depends on the level of the nitrogen reduction target copyright 2008 oxford university press

economic risk and political risk in fiscal unions a fiscal programme that redistributes income from rich to poor individuals indirectly redistributes tax revenues from regions hit by a favou rable shock to regions hit by an unfavourable one centralised fiscal redistribution has therefore been advocated as a way to insure individuals against region specific shocks in this paper we argue that a centralised fiscal policy while reducing the uncertainty on the tax base may create additional uncertainty on the tax rate using a simple model we show that the higher uncertainty on the policy instrument might more than offset the lower uncertainty on the tax base several countries around the world are breaking up e g the former soviet union and in others regional movements are becoming more vocal in demanding more autonomy e g italy spain at the same time several western european countries are integrating in a supernational community fiscal policy issues and in particular the level of centralisation of fiscal decisions are important considerations in the formation or collapse of political jurisdictions or of federations of regions and countries 1 a long tradition in public finance argues that a centralised fiscal system can reach more efficient outcomes by better internalising the numerous externalities associated with both the expenditure and the revenue sides of fiscal policy particularly when factors are mobile this line of argument applies to both the provision of public goods gordon 1983 and to redistributive fiscal policy pauli 1973 ladd and doolittle 1982 brown and oates 1987 a counter argument to this conclusion is developed in perotti 1997 who shows that in the presence of differences in say labour markets or the administration of fiscal policy centralised redistribution can lead to a more inefficient allocation of resources a second argument in favour of centralised fiscal policy is based on the insurance properties of redistribution when different countries are hit by

specification of production functions for analyzing technical change and factor inputs in agricultural development abstract this paper focuses on some vital issues involed in specifying the number of variables to be included in agriculture s production function and on the functional form that the agricultural production function should assume in the context of a computable general equilibrium model when land and intermediate inputs seeds and fertilizers as well as capital and labor are included modeling the agricultural sector can best be done in a more disaggregated format than simple cobb douglas or ces specifications after examining the transcendental logarithmic production function the paper proposes to adopt nested ces specifications on the basis of empirically observed elasticities of substitution

precision guided or blunt the effects of us economic sanctions on human rights this study analyzes the consequences of economic sanctions for the target country s human rights situation we offer a political economy explanation for different types of human rights infringements or improvements in reaction to economic shocks caused by sanctions based on that explanation we derive hypotheses linking sanctions to four types of human rights economic rights political and civil rights basic human rights and emancipatory rights we use endogenous treatment regression models to test those hypotheses by estimating the causal average treatment effect of us economic sanctions on each type of human rights within a uniform empirical framework unlike previous studies we find no support for adverse effects of sanctions on economic rights or basic human rights once the endogenous selection of sanctioned countries is modelled with respect to women s rights our findings even indicate a positive effect of sanctions that is associated with improvements in women s economic rights only our results for political rights and civil liberties suggest significant deterioration under economic sanctions we conclude that it is important to account for the potential endogeneity of economic sanctions and to distinguish different dimensions of human rights as the effects of economic sanctions along those dimensions may vary considerably

foreign exchange constraints and growth possibilities in the ldcs abstract we analyse the influence of foreign exchange constraints on output growth in the ldcs by studying the effect that these constraints have on the speed of adjustment of both investment and import activities we model the speed of adjustment of investment as a function of available foreign exchange resources and allow for imperfect substitutability between the domestic and the foreign capital stocks

business cycle duration dependence reconsidered sichel estimated a weibull hazard model using the national bureau of economic research business cycle chronology and found evidence of duration dependence only for prewar expansions and postwar contractions the article updates the postwar sample through the end of the most recent expansion and uses a generalized weibull model that provides much greater flexibility at the expense of one additional parameter this model finds evidence of duration dependence for all samples and is statistically superior to the conventional weibull model for all samples except postwar contractions

biased technological change and factor demand in postwar japanese agriculture 1958 84 abstract the objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of factor substitutions in postwar japanese agriculture by shedding special light on biased technological change such biased technological change is first measured then associated with the movements of factor prices and then tested for the hicksian induced innovation hypothesis in addition a decomposition analysis is carried out in order to quantitatively examine the importance of the biased effects for determining changes in factor cost shares and factor proportions during the 1958 84 period a slightly modified stevenson greene model of the translog cost function is employed this model has at least two important advantages over ordinary translog cost functions first it incorporates time into the model such that all coefficients of the ordinary translog cost function may change over time this is more realistic than the ordinary translog cost function which assumes that all coefficients are constant over the period of estimation another attractive feature is that it enables us to test the induced innovation hypothesis directly the model is applied to the 1958 84 period by making use of farm level data the results show that technological change was biased towards saving labor and other inputs and using machinery intermediate inputs and land this biased technological change is found to be in principle consistent with the induced innovation hypothesis furthermore it is shown through decomposition analyses that the biased technological change had significant impacts on changes in factor cost shares and factor proportions during these years the empirical results of this study imply that technological change in japanese agriculture has in general proceeded in a manner consistent with factor endowments conditions since the late 1950s an implication of this study for agriculture in less developed countries is that agricultural policies seeking development through technological progress should be carried out so as to take advantage of peculiar factor endowments conditions in the individual countries

induced bias of technical change in agriculture the united states and japan 1880 1980 because of extreme differences in factor endowments and price ratios among factors between the united states and japan both countries have experienced sharply different patterns of factor use and productivity growth in agriculture for the past 100 years of modern economic growth in this study the method of testing the hicksian hypothesis of induced innovation was developed using the two level ces production function the model was applied to the historical data of u s and japanese agricultural development for 1880 1980 the results were consistent with the hypothesis that different patterns of technical change in the two countries were induced by differences in the levels and the movements in relative factor prices

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

democracy rent seeking public spending and growth abstract does democratization imply faster growth less corruption and less inefficiency past studies yield ambiguous results on the effects of democracy on economic performance and growth we develop a simple two sector endogenous growth model that shows both very young and mature democracies grow faster than countries in mid stages of democratization producing a u effect this effect results from the pattern of rent seeking as it diverts from the provision of public goods rent seekers act as monopolistic competitors initially more democracy increases their number raising aggregate rents however rents per rent seeker fall with the number of rent seekers due to this crowding effect and the increased competition among rent seekers aggregate rents fall in mature democracies thus rents show an inverted u effect in relation to democracy we find fairly robust supportive evidence for the latter

shocks and government beliefs the rise and fall of american inflation working paper 2004 22 september 2004 abstract the authors use a bayesian markov chain monte carlo algorithm to estimate a model that allows temporary gaps between a true expectational phillips curve and the monetary authority s approximating nonexpectational phillips curve a dynamic programming problem implies that the monetary authority s inflation target evolves as its estimated phillips curve moves the authors estimates attribute the rise and fall of post world war ii inflation in the united states to an intricate interaction between the monetary authority s beliefs and economic shocks shocks in the 1970s altered the monetary authority s estimates and made it misperceive the tradeoff between inflation and unemployment that misperception caused sharp rise in inflation in the 1970s the authors estimates indicate that policy makers updated their beliefs continuously by the 1980s policy makers beliefs about the phillips curve had changed enough to account for fed chairman paul volcker s conquest of u s inflation in the early 1980s jel classification e3 e5 key words updating beliefs policy evaluation self confirming equilibrium nash inflation ramsey outcomes i introduction today many statesmen and macroeconomists believe that inflation can largely be determined by a government monetary authority then why did the federal reserve board preside over high us inflation during the late 1960s and the 1970s and why under paul volcker did it rapidly bring inflation down during the early 1980s this paper answers these questions by estimating a model that features a particular process that makes a procession of economic shocks induce the monetary authority to alter its model of inflation unemployment dynamics the phillips curve at each date t the monetary authority updates its beliefs about the phillips curve and then recomputes a first period action recommended by a phelps problem a discounted dynamic programming problem that minimizes the expected value of a discounted quadratic loss function of inflation and unemployment 1 the monetary authority pursues the same objectives at each date using the same structural model with only its estimates of that model changing over time 2 this model of the systematic part of inflation puts the monetary authority s beliefs about the phillips curve front and center 3 we assume that the monetary authority s model of the phillips curve deviates in two subtle but important ways from what it would be in a rational expectations model e g kydland and prescott 1977 the first deviation is that while the true phillips curve is like kydland and prescott s we assume that the monetary authority omits the public s expected rate of inflation from its phillips curve by itself this omission need not prevent the outcomes of our model from coinciding with those of kydland and prescott s nor need it imply that the government s model is wrong in a way that could be detected from even an infinite sample whether the monetary authority s model is wrong in a statistically detectable way depends on how we allow the monetary authority to reestimate the parameters of its model in particular if the monetary authority were to believe that the coefficients of its phillips curve are constant over time then its estimates would converge to ones that support a self confirming equilibrium sce after convergence its estimated phillips curve would correctly describe occurrences along the sce path for inflation and unemployment such an after convergence version of our model has little hope of explaining the rise and fall of us inflation that model would have inflation fluctuating randomly around a constant sce level that coincides with kydland and prescott s time consistent suboptimal i e excessive level 4 this outcome motivates our second subtle deviation from a rational expectations equilibrium

what determines the duration of a fiscal consolidation program abstract this paper assesses the determinants of the length of fiscal consolidation using annual data for 17 industrial countries over the period 1978 2009 relying on a narrative approach to identify fiscal consolidation episodes we show that fiscal variables such as the budget deficit and the level of public debt and economic factors such as the degree of openness the inflation rate the interest rate and per capita gdp are crucial for the fiscal consolidation process additionally we employ duration analysis over a set of consolidation spells and find that as time goes by the likelihood of a fiscal consolidation ending is higher however the hazard function is not monotonic indeed it increases until the eighth or ninth year and starts decreasing afterwards we also find that i spending driven consolidations are shorter than tax driven consolidations ii both types of consolidation are longer in non european countries than for european countries and iii the size of the consolidation program in percentage of gdp does not significantly affect duration all in all our results support the importance of cuts in government spending as a way of bringing economies into a sustainable path for public debt moreover they highlight the role played by a fiscal framework that imposes discipline in governments as a device to credibly shorten the length of fiscal consolidation episodes

spillovers from the oil sector to the housing market cycle we assess the spillovers from the oil sector to the housing market cycle using quarterly data for 20 net oil exporting and importing industrial countries and employing continuous and discrete time duration models we do not uncover a statistically significant difference in the average duration of booms and normal times in the housing markets of those net oil importers and net oil exporters similarly the degree of exposure to commodity price fluctuations does not seem to significantly affect the housing market cycle however we find that housing booms are shorter when oil prices increase than housing busts when oil prices decrease we also show that the net oil importers are more vulnerable to protracted housing slump episodes than the net oil exporters

the green paradox and budgetary institutions abstract we examine oil production strategies in response to the rise of alternative energy in context of saudi arabia and the united states in a unified simultaneous equation model sem over the period 1976 2015 we investigate the extent to which budget balance behaviour explains the nature of oil production strategies we find that green regulations have a positive impact on u s oil production while an inverse relationship holds for saudi arabia we argue that the nature of budgetary institutions prevents saudi arabia from following a profit maximising behaviour saudi arabia is incentivised to ensure political cohesion through adopting a procyclical fiscal policy rather regulators seem incentivised to channel surplus towards individuals to gain popularity in the united states a thriving shale oil industry is a plausible rationale for u s production strategies also known as a weak green paradox this is problematic for climate change initiatives to reduce global emissions climate experts may wish to pay more attention to the supply side of oil markets when designing decarbonisation plans the results challenge conventional wisdom of the green paradox neglecting the role of incentive structure between different types of oil producers

fiscal policy in real time in this paper i estimate the ex ante or intentional cyclical stance of fiscal policy in oecd countries i use the fiscal plans reported at the time of budgeting together with other information available to fiscal policy makers in real time indeed fiscal plans might be significantly different from ex post outcomes because governments do not have complete control over their implementation which is influenced by several exogenous factors when fiscal policy rules are estimated using real time data i show in this paper that oecd countries have often planned a counter cyclical fiscal stance especially during economic expansions this contrasts with conventional findings based on actual data which tend to point towards a cyclicality or pro cyclicality forecast errors for the government structural balance and the output gap play a central role in explaining the differences between estimates based on ex ante and ex post data

the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy we investigate the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy using a bayesian structural vector autoregression b svar approach we identify fiscal policy shocks via a partial identification scheme but also i include the feedback from government debt ii look at the impact on the composition of output iii assess the effects on asset markets iv use quarterly data and v analyse empirical evidence from the us the uk germany and italy the results show that government spending shocks in general have a small effect on gross domestic product gdp lead to important crowding out effects have a varied impact on housing prices and generate a quick fall in stock prices government revenue shocks generate a mixed effect on housing prices and a small and positive effect on stock prices the empirical evidence also suggests that it is important to explicitly consider the government debt dynamics in the model

technology adoption and agricultural price policy market interventions such as price supports or fertilizer subsidies can lead to gains from speeding up adoption of new technologies but the policies distort resource allocation a framework is developed for optimizing policies in light of the adoption allocation trade off based on adoption coefficients and production parameters from third world agriculture levels and duration of policies are estimated sensitivity analyses are performed gains are small at best and may be zero or negative in view of farmer costs of adjustment and deadweight losses from taxes profit technology adoption if new technologies are desirable why not use price supports or input subsidies to encourage faster technology adoption while frequently raised in policy deliberations this question has received little serious analysis particularly neglected has been the conflict or trade off between a gains in output as producers switch from old to new technologies and b the losses from resource use distortions brought about by price policies when output prices are raised or prices of inputs such as fertilizer are lowered the

tales of fiscal adjustment fiscal adjustments why they can be expansionary this paper examines the evidence on fiscal adjustments in oecd countries from the early 1960s to today the results shed light on the recently observed phenomenon of fiscal tightening that produces non keynesian expansionary effects one interpretation is that a serious fiscal tightening increases demand wealth rises when future tax burdens decline and when interest rates decline credibility is restored and inflation or default risks abate both consumption and investment rise for this effect to produce an expansion the tightening must be sizeable and occur after a period of stress when the budget is quickly deteriorating and public debt is building up another interpretation emphasizes the supply side typically a fiscal consolidation based on tax increases is short lived to be long lasting it must include cuts in public employment transfers and government wages to be politically possible such a policy must be supported by trade unions these measures result in more efficient labour markets and boost the supply side based both on statistical evidence and on a detailed analysis of ten cases of major fiscal adjustment this article provides cautious support to the supply side view without denying a more limited role for the demand side channel alberto alesina and silvia ardagna

toward an alternative explanation for the resource curse natural resources immigration and democratization why do many resource rich countries maintain autocratic political regimes the authors proposed answer focuses on the causal effect of labor imports or immigration using the logic offered by ace

global population growth technology and malthusian constraints a quantitative growth theoretic perspective we structurally estimate a two sector schumpeterian growth model with endogenous population and finite land reserves to study the long run evolution of global population technological progress and the demand for food the estimated model closely replicates trajectories for world population gdp sectoral productivity growth and crop land area from 1960 to 2010 projections from 2010 onwards show a slowdown of technological progress and because it is a key determinant of fertility costs significant population growth by 2100 global population reaches 12 4 billion and agricultural production doubles but the land constraint does not bind because of capital investment and technological progress

detrending and business cycle facts a user s guide this note argues that it is hardly the case that the profession is fully aware that the application of di erent filters to the data leads to di erent outcomes and that we have enough evidence to claim that these di erences are unimportant to evaluate the fit models to the data 1998 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classification b41 e32

geographic aggregation and induced innovation in american agriculture the induced innovation hypothesis is tested for the usa and western regions using cointegration procedures an error correction model separates short run and long run effects of relative price changes a significant difference in the elasticities of factor substitution along the isoquant and the innovation possibility curve implies induced innovation the estimated results support the hypothesis for washington the pacific northwest and the western region but not for the nation corroborative tests of weak exogeneity fail to support the hypothesis in any of the geographic units changes in output level and research investment do not significantly bias agricultural technology in the usa

oil price effects in theory and practice abstract the present paper contains an investigation of the international repercussions of oil price effects the analysis develops a theoretical model to study the effects of oil price changes on real income prices and international trade in a three region model dcs opec ldcs the comparative statics analysis indicates that oil price effects cannot be determined unambiguously unless information about structural parameters and policy reactions is also provided to estimate the quantitative effects of oil price changes the analysis relies on dynamic simulations of an econometrically estimated version of the theoretical model such a model is subject to a sensitivity analysis providing quantitative information about the international transmission of oil price effects

trends and projections for bangladeshi food production rejoinder to m alauddin and c tisdell abstract this rejoinder considers the issues raised in an article by m alauddin and c tisdell on foodgrain production in bangladesh a comparison of official output statistics and a revised data series constructed by j k boyce methodological problems in growth rate estimation and the ustainability of bangladeshi foodgrain production in the author s view the key constraint on agricultural growth in bangladesh is the inability of cultivators to achieve effective water control within the framework of an inequitable agrarian structure

biological technology and land productivity fertilizers and food production in india abstract this paper attempts to develop for the first time a rigorous and innovative definition of biological technical change btc btc for which fertilizers are used as proxy and land labor substitution are quantified by the method of indirect least squares from aggregate time series data on wheat and rice production in india the conclusion that emerges from this analysis is that the contribution of btc more specifically fertilizers to foodgrain production in india is quite low this raises important policy questions related to finding alternatives to widely held beliefs on how to increase food production and alleviate world hunger

why is fiscal policy often procyclical many countries especially developing ones follow procyclical fiscal policies namely spending goes up taxes go down in booms and spending goes down taxes go up in recessions we provide an explanation for this suboptimal fiscal policy based upon political distortions and incentives for less than benevolent government to appropriate rents voters have incentives similar to the starving the leviathan classic argument and demand more public goods or fewer taxes to prevent governments from appropriating rents when the economy is doing well we test this argument against more traditional explanations based purely on borrowing constraints with a reasonable amount of success

dutch disease economics and oil syndrome an empirical study abstract this paper integrates the existing dutch disease models of an oil boom into a reduced form three sector model and estimates it for five developing oil exporting countries having significant agricultural and manufacturing sectors time series annual data for the period 1966 1986 are used for algeria ecuador indonesia nigeria and venezuela their output composition is altered by an increase in their oil revenues the spending effect and in the world price of manufactured goods relative to agricultural products the world price effect both effects expand the manufacturing sectors of these countries and contract their agricultural sectors the spending effect expands their nontraded sectors whereas the world price effect may expand or contract them the opposite results are implied for the oil collapse of the 1980s

social spending and automatic stabilizers in the oecd the macroeconomic literature on automatic stabilization tends to focus on taxes and dismiss the relevance of government expenditure except for unemployment compensation our results go sharply contrary to this view we engage in an empirical analysis of 21 oecd countries from 1982 to 2003 and find that age and health related social expenditure as well as incapacity and sick benefits all react to the cycle in a stabilizing manner while possibly new in the macro literature this conforms to many results in studies in labour economics the policy implications are broad since much previous analysis of discretionary fiscal policy rests on official figures for automatic stabilization there are also major implications for efforts to incorporate automatic fiscal policy in simulation models julia darby and jacques melitz

booms busts and normal times in the housing market we assess the existence of duration dependence in the likelihood of an end in housing booms busts and normal times using data for 20 industrial countries and a continuous time weibull duration model we find evidence of positive duration dependence suggesting that housing market cycles have become longer over the last decades then we extend the baseline weibull model and allow for the presence of a change point in the duration dependence parameter we show that positive duration dependence is present in booms and busts that last less than 26 quarters but that does not seem to be the case for longer phases of the housing market cycle for normal times no evidence of change points is found finally the empirical findings uncover positive duration dependence in housing market booms of european and non european countries and housing busts of european countries in addition they reveal that while housing booms have similar length in european and non european countries housing busts are typically shor

information cascades and revolutionary regime transitions we combine acemoglu and robinson s model of the economic origins of democracy with lohmann s model of political mass protest this allows us to analyse the economic causes of political regime change based on the microfoundations of revolution we are able to derive conditions under which democracy arises peacefully when it occurs only after a revolution and when oligarchy persists we model these possibilities in a world of asymmetric information where information cascades are possible and where these cascades may involve errors in the sense that they make everyone worse off

agricultural production technologies with systematic and stochastic technical change a production system modeling tool is developed that implements recent work on autoregressive and endogenous stochastic production technologies associated with generalized fechner thurstone gft optimizing functions a gft class production system is used to evaluate the empirical support for technology specifications inherent in the neoclassical theoretic structure of an agricultural production region little likelihood support is found for zero serial correlation elimination of systematic technology changers from the production system strict neoclassical production technologies hicks neutral technical change or zero homogenous factor demand functions

global economic growth and agricultural land conversion under uncertain productivity improvements in agriculture we study how stochasticity in the evolution of agricultural productivity interacts with economic and population growth at the global level we use a two sector schumpeterian model of growth in which a manufacturing sector produces the traditional consumption good and an agricultural sector produces food to sustain contemporaneous population agriculture demands land as an input itself treated as a scarce form of capital in our model both population and sectoral technological progress are endogenously determined and key technological parameters of the model are structurally estimated using 1960 2010 data on world gdp population cropland and technological progress introducing random shocks to the evolution of total factor productivity in agriculture we show that uncertainty optimally requires more land to be converted into agricultural use as a hedge against production shortages and that it significantly affects both optimal consumption and population trajectories

political economy in a changing world we provide a general framework for the analysis of institutional dynamics in an environment in which payoffs and political powers change stochastically assuming that economic and political institutions as well as individual types can be ordered and preferences and the distribution of political power satisfy natural single crossing increasing differences conditions we prove existence of a pure strategy markov voting equilibrium provide conditions for its uniqueness and present a number of comparative static results we then use this framework to study the dynamics of political rights and repression in the presence of threats from extremist groups and the dynamics of collective experimentation

induced innovation in u s agriculture time series direct econometric and nonparametric tests the hypothesis of induced innovation is tested for u s agriculture using a high quality state level panel data set and three disparate testing techniques time series direct econometric and nonparametric we find little support for the hypothesis that conclusion is robust across testing techniques however as with all empirical tests of this hypothesis conducted to date ours focus only on the demand side of the hypothesis the hypothesis could have been rejected simply because the marginal cost of developing and implementing input saving technologies for the relatively expensive inputs is greater than for the relatively cheap inputs copyright 2009 oxford university press

stagflationary effects of monetary stabilization policies a quantitative analysis of south korea this paper presents a macro model of the korean economy that focuses on short run macro economic adjustment and more in particular on the transmission channels of monetary policy between the financial and the real sector of the economy in addition to the usual link between monetary policy and aggregate demand via investment the link between monetary policy and the supply side of the economy via the financing of working capital with borrowed funds is incorporated this link can potentially reverse the short run impact of tight money on inflation and aggregate the impact on output both export prices and domestic prices show a significant sensitivity to cost of financing working capital this credit supply side link gives a stagflationary bias to restrictive credit policies the empirical relevance of this phenomenon is strongly supported by the simulation results derived with the model structurally section 2 of the paper focuses on the real sector part of the model section 3 discusses the financial sector in section 4 different monetary stabilization packages are simulated using the model presented in sections 2 and 3 and alternative policy measures are discussed the simulation runs show strong short run stagflationary effects of tight money policies