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

economics and the family match or mismatch a review of beckers a treatise on the family the author reviews and evaluates beckers a treatise on the family which concerns a the allocation of roles and resources and distribution of income within families b the formation dissolution growth and structure of families and c the implications of these analyses for inequality and social mobility in the present paper beckers approach and substantive conclusions regarding the role of theory and empirical evidence in the study of economics and the family are critically examined it is suggested that while beckers discussion is a source of many useful insights the theory does not attempt a systematic treatment of the transition from traditional to modern types of family excerpt

policy for the adoption of new environmental monitoring technologies to manage stock externalities abstract with the development of modern information technologies relying on nanotechnologies and remote sensing a number of systems can be envisaged that allow for monitoring of the negative externalities generated by producers consumers or travelers road pricing schemes or individual emission meters for automobiles are two examples we analyze a dynamic model of stock pollution when the regulator has incomplete information on emissions generated by heterogeneous agents our contribution is to explicitly study a decentralized policy for adoption of monitoring equipment over time we determine the second best tax rates the pattern of monitoring technology adoption and identify conditions for the voluntary diffusion of monitoring technologies over time simulations show the welfare gains compared to alternative policies

exchange rate volatility and intervention implications of the theory of optimum currency areas we show that variables pointed to by the theory of optimum currency areas ocas help to explain patterns of exchange rate variability and intervention across countries but oca considerations affect exchange market pressures and intervention in different ways exchange market pressures mainly reflect asymmetric shocks while intervention largely reflects the variables that oca theory suggests cause countries to value stable exchange rates small size and the extent of trade links intervention and exchange market pressure also vary with the structure of the international monetary system

budget balancing incentive mechanisms abstract a p xepapadeas j environ econom management20 113 26 1991 developed a pollution abatement incentive mechanism that both reduces the information requirements of a regulator and is budget balancing drawing only on the social gains from pollution abatement to encourage firm compliance this paper demonstrates that contrary to xepapadeas the budget balancing system of random penalties cannot be used to induce compliance with the regulator s objectives if firms are risk neutral however the mechanism can be successfully applied if firms are sufficiently risk averse e rasmusen rand j econom 18 428 435 1987

spanish regions and the macroeconomic benefits of the european monetary union c osta i f ont j and t remosa i b alcells r 2003 spanish regions and the macroeconomic benefits of the european monetary union reg studies 37 217 226 this paper empirically examines the extent to which regions within the same country differ in their exposure to a common currency we estimate an optimum currency areas oca index based on the main theoretical macroeconomic determinants we use data from the spanish regions for the period 1992 98 and germany is taken as a numeraire results allow us to forecast whether sharing the same currency is equally suitable for regions differing in the relevant oca determinants despite being equally exposed to national specific shocks the results suggest three main findings first relatively large more diversified and open regions are best prepared to share the same currency second real exchange rate differs significantly between spanish regions although these differences remain smaller than those between countries third whereas at the regional le

state dependent enforcement to foster the adoption of new technologies harrington j public econ 37 29 53 1988 shows that a suitable strategy for regulators to make enforcement more efficient is to target surveillance resources according to past compliance records such scheme generates enforcement leverage as non compliance triggers greater future scrutiny increasing the expected costs of non compliance beyond the avoidance of immediate fines in this paper we propose an improved transition structure for the audit framework in which targeting is based not only on firms past compliance record but also on adoption of environmentally superior technologies we show that this transition structure would not only foster the adoption of new technology but also increase deterrence by changing the composition of firms in the industry toward an increased fraction of cleaner firms that pollute and violate less

guilty until proven innocent regulation with costly and limited enforcement abstract we consider optimal regulations for a polluting firm when regulators cannot observe emission control costs and can only observe emissions via costly monitoring fines or subsidies for enforcing compliance are also limited the optimal regulations resemble a deposit refund system the firm reports its emissions and pays an initial tax based on this report if the firm is monitored it receives a rebate when actual and reported emissions coincide the enforcement constraints and the firm s rights determine whether the incentives to reduce emissions are optimally provided by varying the rebate for compliance the monitoring probability or the initial tax

does trade integration cause convergence abstract using a business cycle model we analyse the conditions for trade integration to produce economic convergence we find large stable economies with integrated structures are likely to diverge but smaller more volatile or less well integrated economies will converge the symmetry of shocks is unimportant

sticky labor in spanish regions abstract migration among spanish regions has fallen significantly since the 1970s in spite of large and widening regional unemployment rate differentials in this paper i argue that this evolution is the result of a large increase in the national unemployment rate the reduction in regional dispersion in other economic variables due in part to important institutional changes since 1975 and the rise of migration from richer to poorer regions or affluent migration

the new economics of regulation ten years after the new economics of regulation is an application of the principal agent methodology to the contractual relationship between regulators and regulated firms after a critique of the traditional paradigms of regulation from the point of view of information economics a canonical model of regulation under asymmetric information is developed a survey of the main results obtained in the new economics of regulation is then provided in particular concerning the implementation of optimal contracts by a menu of linear contracts the dichotomy between pricing and cost reimbursement rules the auctioning of incentive contracts the dynamics of contracting under limited commitment and the hierarchical problems in regulation empirical implications are then discussed and avenues of further research are described in the conclusion

macroeconomic effects of catalan fiscal deficit with the spanish state 2002 2010 according to eurostat regional data for the period 1996 1999 catalan convergence with the eu s most dynamic regions has been blocked in this paper with the aim to analyse how catalonia can converge with the eu in the forthcoming years some simulations of catalan gdp growth in the 2010 horizon have been estimated considering different reduction scenarios of catalan fiscal deficit with the spanish state between 7 9 of catalan yearly gdp looking at the results obtained the current catalan stagnation will persist for the next few years if the above mentioned fiscal deficit does not change thus catalonia will only converge with most dynamic eu regions if there is a significant reduction of catalan fiscal deficit with the spanish state

optimal pricing of environmental and natural resource use with stock externalities abstract underlying some of the most pressing environmental problems are the interlinked resource and environmental stock externalities with threshold effects using a simple dynamic model it is shown how in the face of such externalities the static market based policy instruments such as pigouvian taxes should be modified it is shown that even if for an initial period there is going to be no pollution stock damage the optimal policy still requires that abatement begins immediately and at increasing rates simulation of the model for the case of fossil fuel burning and the consequent global warming shows that the optimal carbon tax and therefore the optimal control strategy is particularly sensitive to changes in the marginal abatement cost and the level of fossil fuel demand policy simulations contrast the optimal control policy with and estimate the welfare losses from alternative policies deriving from arbitrary tax paths the latter include i a no tax policy ii a constant carbon tax rate iii the european community s proposed carbon tax path and iv a delayed optimal tax path

a damage based tax mechanism for regulation of non point emissions in a recent paper segerson 1988 proposed a novel incentive mechanism for stochastic non point emissions based on ambient pollution concentrations in nature for specification of the mechanism when the damage function is nonlinear the regulator must know polluters cost and emission functions the mechanism also gives incentives to form coalitions among polluters which if they are formed render the mechanism inefficient in this paper we propose a revised mechanism which eliminates the need for knowledge of polluters cost and emission functions and reduces the probability of coalition forming a standards and pricing version of the revised mechanism with both properties mentioned is also developed

the regulation of non point source pollution under imperfect and asymmetric information abstract this paper develops a bayesian framework for discussing the role of information in the design of non point source pollution control mechanisms an ambient concentration tax is examined allowing for spatial transport among multiple zones imposition of the tax requires costly measurement of concentrations in selected zones and the selection of zones for measurement must be undertaken without perfect information regarding several parameters of the problem potentially crucial information issues discussed include a the impact of asymmetric priors regarding fate and transport b the cost of measuring ambient concentration and c the optimal acquisition of information regarding fate and transport

environmental policy under imperfect information incentives and moral hazard abstract when net emissions of individual polluters cannot be efficiently monitored then emissions charges controls on emissions levels or subsidies for emissions reduction are not effective as environmental policy instruments this paper proposes instruments that can be applied in such limited information situations these instruments take the form of contracts between a pollution control agency and individual polluters the contracts include a combination of fines and subsidies that induces dischargers to follow optimal environmental policies in the absence of individual monitoring

incentives precision technology and environmental protection abstract this paper calls for a reevaluation of the pollution problem in order to devise efficient strategies for its control it contends that a fundamental cause of pollution is inefficiency in input use during the production process this inefficiency manifests itself as input waste and polluting residues precision technologies can increase the effectiveness of inputs used in production and reduce pollution generation despite their potential economic and ecological benefits adoption of precision technologies has been slow this paper presents a conceptual framework to identify and analyze the specific factors that affect their diffusion among microunits these include various heterogeneous characteristics of microunits prices which do not reflect the relevant scarcities due to distortionary regulatory policies and lack of institutional mechanisms for efficient allocation of inputs and outputs it rationalizes the observed variations in the appropriate choice of technology across microunits and argues for the need to broaden the range of incentive based instruments for environmental protection beyond pollution taxes

quality disclosure and certification theory and practice this essay reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on quality disclosure and certification after comparing quality disclosure with other quality assurance mechanisms and describing a brief history of quality disclosure we address two sets of theoretical issues first why don t sellers voluntarily disclose through a process of unraveling and given the lack of unraveling is it desirable to mandate seller disclosure second when we rely on certifiers to act as the intermediary of quality disclosure do certifiers necessarily report unbiased and accurate information we further review empirical evidence on these issues with a particular focus on healthcare education and finance the empirical review covers quality measurement the effect of third party disclosure on consumer choice and seller behavior as well as the economics of certifiers jel d18 k32 l15 m31

favorite sons intergenerational wealth transfers among politicians in this paper we investigate the degree of occupational following in politics and its impact upon the career success and behavior while in office of both sons and fathers we find that sons follow into their politician fathers footsteps to a degree surpassed in the general population only among farmers and self employed proprietors there is substantial indirect evidence which suggests that following is motivated to a large extent by the transfer of valuable name recognition and voter loyalty

occupational inheritance in agriculture it used to be common if not expected that a son would grow up and take over the family business or follow in his father s footsteps today we still observe varying degrees of occupational inheritance in business politics the arts and other occupations however blau and duncan find that farmers inherit their occupation at a rate five times greater than the next highest category of occupational inheritors despite a growing concern about the future of the family farm there seem to be no successful attempts to explain why occupational mobility studies consistently find higher rates of intergenerational occupational mobility among farmers than among other groups in this paper we attempt to explain the tendency of farmers to be sons of farmers by itself the preponderance of family farms is not particularly surprising it is interesting that ownership of these farms tends to remain within families across generations moreover sons of farmers tend to become farmers rather than rent or

observability and choice of instrument mix in the control of externalities abstract in controlling environmental externalities pigouvian taxes are an appropriate instrument when individual emissions can be monitored while ambient taxes are deemed appropriate to control non point source pollution when the ambient pollution but not individual emissions can be monitored this paper shows that under uncertainty the efficient regulatory scheme for non point source pollution is a mix of pigouvian and ambient taxes the pigouvian fees are imposed on emissions revealed by the polluting firms in exchange for a lower ambient tax thus a non point source case can be gradually transformed into a point source case