general equilibrium modelling of the direct and indirect economic impacts of water quality improvements in the netherlands at national and river basin scale abstract the main objective of the study presented in this paper is to estimate the direct and indirect economic impacts of water quality policy scenarios in the netherlands focusing on the reduction of emission levels of nutrients and a number of eco toxicological substances for this purpose an applied general equilibrium age model consisting of 27 production sectors is extended to water through the inclusion of substitution elasticities between labour capital and emissions to water in the sectors production functions the macro economic costs of a 10 20 and 50 reduction of the emission levels in the year 2000 of ten priority substances in the eu water framework directive vary between 0 2 and 9 4 of net national income nni a large share of the total economic costs are borne by important sources of pollution like commercial shipping the chemical and metal industry however important spin off effects due to adaptation take place in the tertiary service sector besides the estimation of the economy wide impacts of water quality improvements the novelty of the study presented here is found in the downscaling of national and sector results to river basin level and the estimation of shadow prices for water polluting substances through the introduction of an emission permits market

inequality resource depletion and welfare accounting applications to indonesia and costa rica abstract ahluwalia and chenery noted that the standard measures of gdp growth imply distributional weights that place greater weight on the income of richer income groups and proposed distribution neutral and pro poor alternatives more recently pilot studies by the world resources institute wri have questioned the sustainability of gdp growth and have introduced natural resource modifications to national income accounting to date no studies have undertaken both revisions concurrently creating a revised measure based on gdp but corrected for both distributional bias and resource depletion such a measure is derived in this paper and its impact illustrated with data from indonesia and costa rica the countries studied by the wri

is diversity detrimental ethnic fractionalization public goods provision and the historical legacies of stateness existing research has shown that highly diverse countries tend to provide less public goods this article argues by contrast that the relationship is spurious both contemporary ethnic heterogeneity and low public goods provision represent legacies of a weakly developed state capacity inherited from the past classical theories of state formation are then tested to show that favorable topography and climate high population densities as well as a history of warfare are conducive to state formation using an instrumental variable approach i show that previous ethnic diversity is not consistently an impediment to the formation of indigenous states and thus to contemporary public goods provision empirically this article uses three different measurements of public goods provision and data on pre colonial levels of state formation in asia and africa to test these various hypotheses

government incentive strategies and private capital participation in china s shale gas development abstractshale gas development investments are uncertain and irreversible in the initial stage in china flexible incentive strategy is needed for governments to guide private capital participation at different development stages this study aims to provide analysis governments can use to encourage private investment in shale gas projects according to its plans in an extended real options framework a social benefits variable is introduced to determine the threshold of social benefits that determine whether the government will choose a deferred or instant incentives strategy by considering the efficiency factor we show the optimal arrangements of two kinds of incentives tax cuts and production subsidies to implement incentive targets the results indicate that current market demand and social benefits are the key factors that affect the government s choice of incentive strategy we also find that the optimal level of incentives either tax cuts or production subsidies are independent of current market

politics and efficiency of separating capital and ordinary government budgets we analyze a golden rule that separates capital and ordinary account budgets and allows a government to finance only capital items with debt many national governments followed this rule in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and most u s states do today we study an overlapping generations economy where majorities choose durable and nondurable public goods in each period when demographics imply even moderate departures from ricardian equivalence the golden rule substantially improves efficiency examples calibrated to u s demographics show greater improvements at the state level or with nineteenth century demographics than under current national demographics

the political economy of linguistic cleavages article i nfo this paper uses a linguistic tree describing the genealogical relationship between all 6912 world languages to compute measures of diversity at different levels of linguistic aggregation by doing so we let the data inform us on which linguistic cleavages are most relevant for a range of political economy outcomes rather than making ad hoc choices we find that deep cleavages originating thousands of years ago lead to better predictors of civil conflict and redistribution the opposite pattern emerges when it comes to the impact of linguistic diversity on growth and public goods provision where finer distinctions between languages matter 2011 elsevier b v all rights reserved

economywide impacts of climate change on agriculture in sub saharan africa two possible adaptation scenarios to climate change for sub saharan africa are analyzed under the sres b2 scenario the first scenario doubles the irrigated area in sub saharan africa by 2050 compared to the baseline but keeps total crop area constant the second scenario increases both rainfed and irrigated crop yields by 25 for all sub saharan african countries the two adaptation scenarios are analyzed with impact a partial equilibrium agricultural sector model combined with a water simulation module and with gtap w a general equilibrium model including water resources the methodology combines the advantages of a partial equilibrium approach which considers detailed water agriculture linkages with a general equilibrium approach which takes into account linkages between agriculture and nonagricultural sectors and includes a full treatment of factor markets the efficacy of the two scenarios as adaptation measures to cope with climate change is discussed due to the limited initial irrigated area in the region an increase in agricultural productivity achieves better outcomes than an expansion of irrigated area even though sub saharan africa is not a key contributor to global food production rainfed irrigated or total both scenarios help lower world food prices stimulating national and international food markets

sustainability and the intergenerational distribution of natural resource entitlements abstract the paper describes an olg economy with a single exhaustible resource that has amenity value the steady states of this economy form a continuum implying path dependency we compare three policy scenarios first a zero extraction policy of enforced conservation that avoids environmental degradation possibly at the expense of intertemporal efficiency second a grandfathering policy that endows the present generations with all resources and that ensures efficiency but cannot prevent a persistent decline in lifetime utility from one generation to the next third a trust fund policy where future generations receive claims for the natural resource of the three only the trust fund ensures efficiency and protects welfare of all generations

gains of integrating sector wise pollution regulation the case of nitrogen in danish crop production and aquaculture abstract this paper extends the orani g computable general equilibrium model with an externality market the externality market is modelled with a limited number of pollution permits that are traded between representative firms in different sectors the model is applied to identify the gains of a common nitrogen regulation system for danish agriculture crop and aquaculture production common regulation across the two sectors is found to increase gdp by euro 32 million corresponding to 2 2 of their initial gdp contribution the direct effect in the two sectors is euro 39 million where the spill over effect is 7 million full use of recirculation technology in aquaculture entails a further increase in gdp to 106 million the introduction of a common regulatory system and recirculation technology simultaneous with a reduction of the common nitrogen cap of 17 6 corresponding to the current policy objectives is found to increase gdp by 52 million 4 1 of their initial contribution hence introducing a common regulatory system and taking advantage of the new technology more than counterbalances the negative socio economic effect of a cap reduction the analysis points to the importance of introducing more coherent regulatory frameworks that include all polluters under the same regulatory system

computable general equilibrium model analysis of economywide cross effects of social and environmental policies in chile abstract the analysis of the linkages between development policies and social and environmental variables is a neglected area within the development literature this paper focuses on the key interrelations among the economic social and environmental elements of the sustainable development triangle a thorough review is undertaken of both social and environmental policies in chile underlining important economic growth and reforms using the static cge model ecogem chile the economywide impacts of several environmental social and combined policies are simulated for the chilean economy six different policies are simulated three environmental policies that impose different taxes on pm10 so 2 and no 2 emissions respectively the same tax on pm10 in a context of high unemployment one social policy that increases government transfers to households and a mixed social environmental policy package where the environmental tax on pm10 and the social transfer policy are simulated simultaneously the results show that environmental tax policies may have negative social effects using real disposable income by quintiles as proxy the impacts depend on the use of the new revenues and the status of employment taxing pm10 emission yields better environmental results than taxing so 2 and no 2 social policies do not show negative environmental impacts combined environmental and social policies improve results thus specific compensating social policies would improve environmental policy acceptance while also reducing poverty or strong income distribution disparities the evidence suggests that environmental policies may have social impacts but not vice versa the results show that the ecogem chile model is useful for analyzing systematically and holistically different economywide policies and their impact on the chilean economy winners and losers may be identified as well as the potential magnitude of gains and losses the results obtained are not all straightforward due to indirect effects

heterogeneity returns to scale and collective action i analyze the effects of resource inequality and valuation heterogeneity on the provision of public goods with increasing or decreasing returns to scale in production the existing literature typically takes the agents characteristics as given and known to the researcher in contrast this paper compares collective action provision across groups of agents with resources and valuations for the public good drawn from different known joint distributions specifically i characterize the expected equilibrium public good level as function of various distributional properties and moments a resource valuation distribution that first order stochastically dominates another distribution always results in higher expected public good provision level independent of the production technology with decreasing returns to scale in the public good production higher resource inequality results in higher expected provision with increasing returns the same result holds when the mean resource level is relatively low but expected provision decreases in inequality when the mean resource level is high a parallel result holds for agents valuations l auteur analyse les effets de l inegalite des ressources et de l heterogeneite dans l evaluation de biens publics dont la production se fait avec des rendements croissants et decroissants a l echelle la litterature specialisee suggere habituellement que les caracteristiques des agents sont donnees et connues du chercheur a contrario ce memoire compare l action collective de groupes d agents dont les ressources et les evaluations du bien public sont tirees de distributions conjointes connues specifiquement le niveau d equilibre anticipe du bien public est fonction de divers moments et proprietes de ces distributions une distribution conjointe ressources evaluations qui en domine une autre au sens stochastique de premier ordre resulte toujours en un niveau de bien public anticipe plus eleve quelle que soit la technologie de production quand les rendements a l echelle sont decroissants une inegalite de ressources plus grande resulte en un niveau de bien public anticipe plus eleve quand les rendements sont croissants le meme resultat s ensuit si le niveau moyen de la ressource est relativement bas mais le niveau de bien public anticipe decroit quand le niveau moyen de la ressource est eleve des resultats paralleles sont notes pour ce qui est des evaluations du bien public par les agents

wealth inequality and collective action abstract we study the effect of inequality in the distribution of endowments of private inputs e g land wealth that are complementary in production with collective inputs e g contribution to public goods such as irrigation and extraction from common property resources on efficiency in a class of collective action problems we focus on characterizing the joint surplus maximizing level of inequality making due distinction between contributors and non contributors in a framework that allows us to consider a wide variety of collective action problems ranging from pure public goods to impure public goods to commons we show that while efficiency increases with greater equality within the groups of contributors and non contributors so long the externalities positive or negative are significant there is an optimal degree of inequality between these groups

immigration ethnic diversity and political outcomes evidence from denmark i study the impact of immigration and increasing ethnic diversity on political outcomes in immigrant receiving countries focusing on immigration and election outcomes in danish municipalities 1981 2001 a rich set of control variables isolates ethnic diversity eects from those of other immigrant characteristics and a novel iv strategy based on historical housing stock data addresses issues of endogenous location choices of immigrants increases in local ethnic diversity lead to right ward shifts in election outcomes by shifting electoral support away from traditional big government left wing parties and towards anti immigrant nationalist parties in particular these eects appear in both local and national elections

dynamic sustainability assessment the case of russia in the period of transition 1985 2008 abstract russia has experienced twenty years of economic and social change which had a substantial impact on the regional and sectoral patterns of the development of its economy infrastructure the quality of the environment and the well being of its people the current economic revival offers new opportunities and presents new challenges for the sustainable development of russia the paper employs the un sustainable development framework of indicators and assesses sustainability of russia using multi criteria evaluation methods namely the uncertainty randomization multi criteria evaluation method analysis and synthesis of parameters under information deficiency aspid the analysis covers economic environmental and social trends in russia s development in 1985 2008 and assesses sustainability of this development from the point of view of multiple criteria the results show the potential of employment of multi criteria methods for the sustainability assessment at the macro level and offer useful insights into multidimensional nature of sustainability and the role of priority setting in the evaluation process such an analysis reveals the degree of harmoniousness of sustainable development policy it shows how different sets of priorities determine the outcome of multidimensional analysis of sustainability and could potentially help in assessing progress and designing new policy instruments this paper is one of the first to apply multi criteria methods to the macro sustainability analysis in the dynamic setting

building and managing facilities for public services abstract we model alternative institutional arrangements for building and managing facilities for provision of public services including the use of the private finance initiative pfi by exploring the effects on innovative investment activity by providers the desirability of bundling the building and management operations is analyzed and it is considered whether it is optimal to allocate ownership to the public or the private sector we also examine how the case for pfi is affected by the voluntary or automatic transfer of ownership from the private to the public sector when the contract expires asset specificity and service demand risk play critical roles

public private partnerships in micro finance should ngo involvement be restricted this paper examines public private partnerships in micro finance whereby ngos can help in channelizing credit to the poor both in borrower selection as well as in project implementation we argue that a distortion may arise out of the fact that the private partner i e the ngo is a motivated agent we find that whenever the project is neither too productive nor too unproductive reducing such distortion requires unbundling borrower selection and project implementation with the ngo being involved in borrower selection only further we compare and contrast two alternative credit delivery mechanisms the linkage mechanism which is the focus of this paper with the grameen one

some remarks on the system of integrated environmental and economic accounting of the united nations abstract the publication of the system of integrated environmental and economic accounting seea by the united nations marked a decisive advance in the discussion of environmental accounting and will have a great influence on the design of national environmental accounting systems seea contains a great variety of definitions methods and procedures before this important system will be adopted on a broad basis it may be useful to point out certain basic problems connected with it in this article we will concentrate on two main problem areas first the fundamental incompatibility of economic and ecological spatial and time scales and second the questionable emphasis placed on data artificially generated with the help of hypotheses rather than on data based on empirical observations the following discussion leads to the consequence that monetary valuations of environmental facts should be avoided because of the incompatibility of economic and ecological scales the authors propose to renounce to a large extent full integration of these two aspects instead one should concentrate on the two following aims development of a classification for a systematic description of the anthropogenic alterations of environmental factors and a compilation of a variety of coordinated indicators which at widely differing aggregation levels and with a wide range of methods and scales would help to observe changes in environmental quality over time within at least a rough framework

auditing and property rights third party auditprovides incentives to an agent whose actions affect the value of an asset when audit intensity and outcome are unverifiable we show that with interim participation constraints the optimal mechanism may use only the auditor s report disregarding the agent s information furthermore the auditor obtains the asset and the agent a monetary compensation when a high asset value is reported this suggests regulating renewable resources or utility networks by giving entrants the option to buy the right to use the asset at a predetermined price and financially rewarding incumbents for good performance

optimal regulation of network expansion we model the optimal regulation of continuous irreversible capacity expansion where a regulated firm has private information about capacity costs investments are financed from the firm s cash flows and demand is stochastic the optimal mechanism can be implemented as a revenue tax that increases with the level of the price cap if the asymmetric information has large support then the optimal mechanism consists of a laissez faire regime for low cost firms that is the firm s price cap corresponds to that of an unregulated monopolist and it is not taxed this maximal distortion at the top is necessary to provide information rents as direct subsidies are not feasible

environmental valuation under sustainable development environmentalism has evolved since the 1960 s from a concern with the preservation of wilderness in the american experience to a concern over pollution of human habitat throughout the industrialized world northern anxiety spread to the loss of tropical rainforests and biodiversity in the south where environmentalism evolved further in an encounter with indigenous interpretations conditions and priorities by the late 1980 s climate change emerged as a central issue in a now global discourse on the relationship between environment and development the principle of sustainable development that current needs are to be met as fully as possible while ensuring that the life opportunities of future generations are undiminished relative to present is now widely accepted this paper illustrates that incorporating environmental values per se in decision making will not bring about sustainability unless each generation is committed to transferring to the next sufficient natural resources and capital assets to make development sustainable 11 refs 3 figs

moral hazard incentive contracts and risk evidence from procurement deadlines and late penalties are widely used to incentivize effort tighter deadlines and higher penalties induce higher effort but increase the agent s risk we model how these contract terms affect the work rate and time to completion in a procurement setting characterizing the efficient contract design using new micro level data on minnesota highway construction contracts that includes day by day information on work plans hours worked and delays we find evidence of ex post moral hazard contractors adjust their effort level during the course of the contract in response to unanticipated productivity shocks in a way that is consistent with our theoretical predictions we next build an econometric model that endogenizes the completion time as a function of the contract terms and the productivity shocks and simulate how commuter welfare and contractor costs vary across different terms and shocks accounting for the traffic delays caused by construction switching to a more efficient contract design would increase welfare by 22 5 of the contract value while increasing the standard deviation of contractor costs a measure of risk by less than 1 of the contract value

separation of regulators against collusive behavior we show that the separation of powers in regulation may act as a commitment against the threat of regulatory capture splitting regulatory tasks and monitoring technologies among several nonbenevolent regulators may reduce their discretion in engaging in socially wasteful activities when regulators make collusive offers that are accepted by the agent whatever his characteristics competition between regulators relaxes collusion proofness constraints and improves social welfare this result is robust to different specifications of the agent s preferences and to the timing of the game as long as one insists on safe side contracting offers we also discuss how separation affects both allocative efficiency and the distribution of rents in the economy

ethnic heterogeneity and public goods provision in zambia evidence of a subnational diversity dividend the diversity debit hypothesis that ethnic diversity has a negative impact on social economic and political outcomes has been widely accepted in the literature indeed with respect to public goods provision the focus of this article the conventional wisdom holds that a negative relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and public goods provision is so well established empirically that future research should abandon examination of whether such a relationship exists and focus instead on why it exists that is on the mechanisms underlying a negative relationship this article challenges the conventional wisdom on empirical grounds it demonstrates at the sub national level strong evidence for a diversity dividend that is a positive relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and some measures of public goods provision in particular welfare outcomes related to publicly provided goods and services building on the literature the article draws on new analysis at district level for zambia using a new dataset compiled by the authors from administrative budget and survey data which cover a broader range of public goods outcomes than previous work including information on both budgetary and welfare outcomes the article explores why relationships may differ for sub national budgetary and welfare outcomes considering separate models for each analysis shows results to be robust across a variety of alternative specifications and models given the more nuanced relationship between ethnic diversity and public goods provision documented the article argues that the key task for future work is not to address why the relationship is negative but to study under what conditions such direction holds true and the mechanisms that underlie a diversity dividend it concludes by considering key explanatory hypotheses against the zambian data to identify promising areas for such theory development more broadly while the diversity debit hypothesis highlights the costs of diversity and could be interpreted as providing support for polices that minimize it the findings in this article are consistent with a view that diversity can be good for communities not only for normative reasons but also because under some conditions it can support concrete welfare gains

bio economic modeling of water quality improvements using a dynamic applied general equilibrium approach an integrated bio economic model is developed to assess the impacts of pollution reduction policies on water quality and the economy emission levels of economic activities to water are determined based on existing environmental accounts these emission levels are built into a dynamic economic model for the dutch economy and subsequently coupled to a national water quality model the modular approach has the advantage that the impacts on the economy and water quality are evaluated simultaneously but each within their own domain based on the appropriate scale and level of detail the dynamic nature of the economic model allows us to also evaluate a derogated water policy as foreseen in the european water framework directive the indirect costs of different water quality improvement policy scenarios are at least as high as the direct costs related to investments in pollution abatement technology the stricter the policy scenario the more important the role of economic adjustment and restructuring mechanisms at the macro economic level significant water quality improvements can be achieved through stringent domestic emission reductions however reaching water quality standards is highly dependent on water quality improvement policy in surrounding river basin countries and climate change

bundling decisions in procurement auctions with sequential tasks abstract this paper investigates the principal s bundling decision during a procurement auction for a project consisting of two sequential tasks in which task externality exists and information arrives sequentially we show that although increasing the number of bidders in the market for the second task always tilts the principal s choice toward unbundling increasing the number of consortiums that can perform both tasks tilts the principal s preference toward bundling if the externality is negative

the welfare impacts of an invasive species endogenous vs exogenous price models abstract the fixed prices models used to measure damages from invasive species typically overestimate financial impacts these fixed price assessments do not address key behavioral modifications that lower costs as people adapt by changing their mix of inputs and outputs given new economic circumstances using the invasive emerald ash borer agrilus planipennis in ohio as a motivating example we develop a computable general equilibrium model that accounts for these behavioral responses we estimate annual damages from the beetle to be about 70 million an order of magnitude less than the 400 900 million in damages estimated using a fixed price model damages are lower because people adapt through price and income adjustments that occur after ash trees are devastated from the emerald ash borer

economic valuation of the vulnerability of world agriculture confronted with pollinator decline there is mounting evidence of pollinator decline all over the world and consequences in many agricultural areas could be significant we assessed these consequences by measuring 1 the contribution of insect pollination to the world agricultural output economic value and 2 the vulnerability of world agriculture in the face of pollinator decline we used a bioeconomic approach which integrated the production dependence ratio on pollinators for the 100 crops used directly for human food worldwide as listed by fao the total economic value of pollination worldwide amounted to 153 billion which represented 9 5 of the value of the world agricultural production used for human food in 2005 in terms of welfare the consumer surplus loss was estimated between 190 and 310 billion based upon average price elasticities of 1 5 to 0 8 respectively vegetables and fruits were the leading crop categories in value of insect pollination with about 50 billion each followed by edible oil crops stimulants nuts and spices the production value of a ton of the crop categories that do not depend on insect pollination averaged 151 while that of those that are pollinator dependent averaged 761 the vulnerability ratio was calculated for each crop category at the regional and world scales as the ratio between the economic value of pollination and the current total crop value this ratio varied considerably among crop categories and there was a positive correlation between the rate of vulnerability to pollinators decline of a crop category and its value per production unit looking at the capacity to nourish the world population after pollinator loss the production of 3 crop categories namely fruits vegetables and stimulants will clearly be below the current consumption level at the world scale and even more so for certain regions like europe yet although our valuation clearly demonstrates the economic importance of insect pollinators it cannot be considered as a scenario since it does not take into account the strategic responses of the markets

ethnic diversity social sanctions and public goods in kenya abstract this paper examines ethnic diversity and local public goods in rural western kenya the identification strategy relies on the stable historically determined patterns of ethnic land settlement ethnic diversity is associated with lower primary school funding and worse school facilities and there is suggestive evidence that it leads to poor water well maintenance the theoretical model illustrates how inability to impose social sanctions in diverse communities leads to collective action failures and we find that school committees in diverse areas do impose fewer sanctions on defaulting parents we relate these results to the literature on social capital and economic development and discuss implications for decentralization in less developed countries

an index of sustainable economic welfare isew for chile abstract chile has experienced a period of strong economic growth the gross domestic product gdp has doubled in the past 12 years however income inequality remains relatively the same as in the 1960s the economic growth is primarily attributed to the exports of natural resources which accounts for 80 of total exports however the gdp fails to account for the loss of natural capital and non marketed services the objective of this paper is to more clearly indicate the status of the chilean economy in terms of welfare using the index of sustainable economic welfare isew designed by daly and cobb 1989 the isew provides corrections to the gdp that includes income inequalities household labor and damage to natural capital this index has been applied in several case studies for developed countries in general the results show that isew runs parallel with gdp until the 1970s when a decline in welfare occurs due to a loss in natural capital this study is the first attempt to utilize the isew for the purpose of analyzing whether or not similar trends exist for chile a developing country the isew for chile grew at a much slower annual rate over the past 30 years compared with gdp 0 16 vs 2 9 the chilean isew parallels the gdp until the 1980s a decline in the isew then occurs showing that chile is not on a sustainable path and that there is a strong link between economic growth and the depletion of natural resources

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

can the west save africa in the new millennium the western aid effort toward africa has surged due to writ ings by well known economists a celebrity mass advocacy campaign and decisions by western leaders to make africa a major foreign policy priority this survey contrasts the predominant transformational approach west comprehensively saves africa to occasional swings to a marginal approach west takes one small step at a time to help individual africans evaluation of one step at a time initiatives is generally easier than that of transformational ones either through controlled experiments although these have been oversold or simple case studies where it is easier to attribute outcomes to actions we see two themes emerge from the literature survey 1 escalation as each successive western transformational effort has yielded disappointing results as judged at least by stylized facts since again the econometrics are shaky the response has been to try an even more ambitious effort and 2 the cycle of ideas rather than a progressive testing and discarding of failed ideas we see a cycle in aid ideas in many areas in africa with ideas going out of fashion only to come back again later after some lapse long enough to forget the previous disappointing experience both escalation and cyclicality of ideas are symptomatic of the lack of learning that seems to be characteristic of the transfor mational approach in contrast the marginal approach has had some successes in improving the well being of individual africans such as the dramatic fall in mortality

pandering and pork barrel politics abstract we develop a model of pork barrel politics in which a government official tries to improve her reelection chances by spending on targeted interest groups the spending signals that she shares their concerns we investigate the effect of such pandering on public spending pandering increases spending relative to a non accountable official one who does not have to run for reelection if either the official s overall spending propensity is known or if it is unknown but the effect of spending on the deficit is opaque to voters by contrast an unknown spending propensity may induce the elected official to exhibit fiscal discipline if spending is transparent

does access to formal agricultural credit depend on caste summary this paper analyzes whether caste impedes access to formal agricultural credit in india credit is provided mainly through cooperative and commercial banks using national data we find that cooperative banks discriminate against lower caste borrowers and find weak evidence that commercial banks instead bias lending in their favor in accordance with affirmative action policies we compare the organizational structures of the two types of bank and explain discrimination by cooperative banks in terms of interest group capture at the district level by showing that discrimination takes place in those districts where higher castes dominate

where is the value in valuing pollination ecosystem services to agriculture abstract current national and global scale monetary valuation of pollination services do not accurately estimate the contribution of wild pollinators to agricultural production first ecosystem wild pollination services remain largely bundled with those of managed pollinators this problem is compounded by the fact that the dependency of crops on pollination a key parameter used in current valuations does not reflect variation in pollinator density crop cultivars and growing conditions that exist in practice over half of the 153 billion of estimated global pollination service value in 2005 is based on estimates of pollinator dependency from crops with fewer than three field studies that measure actual levels of pollinator activity and corresponding fruit set the resulting uncertainty may be most distorting when applied to widely planted intensive oilseed crops furthermore current valuations are underpinned by simplistic assumptions regarding the likelihood of pollinator decline and the impact on agricultural prices although efforts to motivate wild pollinator protection through their ecosystem service value remain highly circumscribed by conceptual and empirical limitations we identify the need to go beyond technical solutions and develop a critical framework that could account for why pollinator conservation has come to be predominantly justified in these terms to begin with

a theory of bot concession contracts in this paper we discuss the choice for build operate and transfer bot concessions when governments and firm managers do not share the same information regarding the operation characteristics of a facility we show that larger shadow costs of public funds and larger information asymmetries entice governments to choose bot concessions this result stems from a trade off between the government s shadow costs of financing the construction and the operation of the facility and the excessive usage price that the consumer may face during the concession period the incentives to choose bot concessions increase as a function of informational asymmetries between governments and potential bot concession holders and with the possibility of transferring the concession project characteristics to the public authority at the termination of the concession

history institutions and economic performance the legacy of colonial land tenure systems in india we analyze the colonial land revenue institutions set up by the british in india and show that differences in historical property rights institutions lead to sustained differences in economic outcomes areas in which proprietary rights in land were historically given to landlords have significantly lower agricultural investments and productivity in the post independence period than areas in which these rights were given to the cultivators these areas also have significantly lower investments in health and education these differences are not driven by omitted variables or endogeneity problems they probably arise because differences in historical institutions lead to very different policy choices

progress influence and perspectives of emergy theories in china in support of environmentally sound economic development and equitable trade emergy accounting and synthesis developed by howard odum in the 1980s accounts for both the work of nature and that of humans as part of it in generating products and services since the 1990s when odum s system theories and emergy approach were introduced to china a great attention was paid to them since they appeared to chinese scholars very important comprehensive and rich with application opportunities to china s economic development and environmental management until now more than 150 papers related to emergy theories were published in chinese scientific journals more than 20 dissertations presented in all chinese universities and a large number of emergy based papers were authored by chinese scholars in international journals also several reports dealing with emergy evaluation of different provinces of china were presented to local governments for decision making emergy theories were applied to valuation of ecosystems and eco industrial parks as well as to studies of benefits cost analysis and feasibility of ecological engineering meanwhile a series of monographs and translated books related to emergy theories were published in china some of which are used as text books in chinese universities and institutes compared with the great potential of emergy application there are many new fields that should be addressed in china including assessing the environmental impact of processes based on matching of high quality and low quality resources establishing new frameworks and systems for environmental accounting evaluating natural capital and services and applying research results to the process of decision making and finally studying the patterns and the available development options of china regional eco economic systems c 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

ethnic segregation and public goods evidence from indonesia this article contributes to the study of ethnic diversity and public goods provision by assessing the role of the spatial distribution of ethnic groups through a new theory that we call spatial interdependence we argue that the segregation of ethnic groups can reduce or even neutralize the diversity penalty in public goods provision that results from ethnic fractionalization this is because local segregation allows communities to use disparities in the level of public goods compared with other communities as leverage when advocating for more public goods for themselves thereby ratcheting up the level of public goods across communities we test this prediction on highly disaggregated data from indonesia and find strong support that controlling for ethnic fractionalization segregated communities have higher levels of public goods this has an important and underexplored implication decentralization disadvantages integrated communities vis a vis their more segregated counterparts

village elections public goods investments and pork barrel politics chinese style a key issue in political economy concerns the accountability that governance structures impose on public officials and how elections and representative democracy influence the allocation of public resources in this paper we utilise a unique set of survey data set from nearly 2450 randomly selected villages describing china s recent progress in village governance reforms and its relationship to the provision of public goods in rural china between 1998 and 2004 two sets of questions are investigated using an empirical framework based on a theoretical model in which local governments must decide to allocate fiscal resources between public goods investments and other expenditures the empirical analysis both in the descriptive and econometric analyses suggests that when the village leader is elected directly ceteris paribus the provision of public goods rises compared to when the leader is not elected directly by villagers thus in this way it is possible to conclude that democratisation at least at the village level in rural china appears to increase the quantity of public goods investment second we seek to understand the mechanism that is driving the results also based on the survey data we find that when village leaders who had been directly elected were able to implement more public projects during their terms of office they as the incumbent were more likely to be re elected in this way we argue that the link between elections and investment may be a rural china version of pork barrel politics

public private partnerships and government spending limits abstract we consider public private partnerships in which a public official selects a project that is then developed and operated by a private contractor we derive optimal public accounting rules when the official s choice among projects is biased by ideology or social ties or because of pandering to special interests we give particular emphasis to how the rules should constrain the official s incentive to understate the costs of her pet projects in the basic model we show that the optimal accounting rule takes the form of a budget cap with a project s expected cost modified to reflect the official s distortionary incentives if the project can be partially financed privately then fixed price contracts can serve to curb political misbehavior by securitizing public sector liabilities we also consider the possibility that development and operations are each handled by different contractors such unbundling deprives public accountants of forward information about future costs but can prevent the official from funneling hidden future rents to contractors

environmental capital and sustainable income basic concepts and empirical tests building on the basic tenet of environmental accounting a simple keynesian framework is adapted for the determination of sustainable income the adaptation involves the formulation of linear as well as nonlinear frameworks of income determination these frameworks are empirically demonstrated for the u s economy by integrating standard macroeconomic data with macroenvironmental data the analysis includes the derivation of sustainable income paths and the evaluation of wages and technology management policies for jointly achieving full employment and sustainable income the results indicate efficiency improvements in the utilization of environmental capital and possible convergence between the sustainable and actual income paths copyright 1997 by oxford university press

the macroeconomic cost of catastrophic pollinator declines we develop a computable general equilibrium cge approach to assess the macroeconomic impacts of productivity shocks due to catastrophic losses of pollination ecosystem services at global and regional scales in most regions producers of pollinator dependent crops end up benefiting because direct output losses are outweighed by increased prices while non agricultural sectors experience large adverse indirect impacts resulting in overall losses whose magnitudes vary substantially by comparison partial equilibrium analyses tend to overstate the costs to agricultural producers understate aggregate economy wide losses and overstate the impacts on consumers welfare our results suggest an upper bound on global willingness to pay for agricultural pollination services of 127 152 billion

an analysis of the stability and growth pact we use a stylised model to analyse the stability and growth pact for countries that have formed the european monetary union emu in our model shortsighted governments fail to internalise the consequences of their debt policies for the common inflation rate fully therefore while governments have no incentive to sign a stability pact in the absence of a monetary union they do so with monetary union to restrain this externality with uncertainty a monetary union combined with an appropriately designed pact will be strictly preferred to autonomy with differences in initial conditions conflicts of interest arise we study the nash bargaining solution

adjusted forest accounts for china abstract so far there is no unified rule on the incorporation of degradation of environmental capital into national income accounting procedure net national product is currently derived by deducting from gross product the depreciation of man made capital only deducting depreciation of natural capital in national income can provide a better indicator of the green net national product the contribution of this paper is to show how one can use two methodologies in deriving green net national product this paper estimates the depreciation of forest resources in national accounts for china from 1976 to 1992 the procedure of calculation is described in the paper by valuing the changes of forest resources two alternative approaches are used the net price approach and the user cost approach by using the net price approach both physical and monetary accounts are computed to derive forest depreciation in the user cost approach 0 5 and 10 discount rates are used to derive the depreciation measuring sustainability is proceeded by the level of net investment both approaches show that the development of the forest sector is not sustainable due to the negative net investment

targeting public goods to the poor in a segregated economy an empirical analysis of central mandates in rural india abstract while local governments are increasingly being vested with control over funds for public goods concern over the capture of decentralized funds by local elites has led decentralization to be combined with central mandates which require a certain proportion of funds to directly benefit the poor if local capture is pervasive however central mandates may not be effective despite the popularity of this combination of decentralization and centralized control there is little empirical evidence which separately identifies their effect on investment in public goods and hence assesses the effectiveness of central mandates this paper provides such evidence using data collected by the authors for the north indian state of punjab an economy where economic conditions facilitate such an analysis we find that central mandates are effective enhancing intra village equality in expenditure on public goods this finding informs the debate on the equity effects of centralized versus decentralized programs

measuring sustainable development some empirical evidence for france from eight alternative indicators abstract this paper presents results from a time series analysis of eight measures of development and or sustainability for france the measures chosen are green national net product genuine savings ecological footprint indicator of sustainable economic welfare genuine progress indicator pollution sensitive human development indicator sustainable human development indicator and french dashboard on sustainable development a theoretical description of each index highlights their advantages and drawbacks underlining the fact that no indicator is perfect and no one can give an exhaustive view of sustainable development therefore the analysis of various indicators is necessary to evaluate sustainable development with accuracy empirical results of measures of well being show that french development was improving between 1990 and 2000 concerning sustainability indicators support different conclusions it seems that french development was weakly sustainable but unsustainable in the strong sense over the period examined

us and them the origin of identity and its economic implications we investigate the origins of identity and the innate proclivity to draw a distinction between insiders and outsiders we propose an evolutionary explanation we argue that identity arises because it facilitates survival in an evolutionary setting we endogenize preferences and demonstrate that the evolutionarily stable preferences fashioned by natural selection would draw a distinction between insiders and outsiders we then work out the implications of such preferences in two contemporary scenarios one entailing rent seeking behavior and the other involving public good provision our results are in conformity with empirical evidence

a measure of sustainable national income for the netherlands abstract we present calculations on the sustainable national income sni indicator first proposed by hueting which corrects net national income nni for the costs to bring back environmental resource use to a sustainable level using an applied general equilibrium age model specifying 27 production sectors we calculate different variants of sni for the netherlands in 1990 given a set of pre determined sustainability standards the age model is extended with emissions and abatement cost curves based on large data sets for nine environmental themes the model combines the advantages of a top down approach the age model with the information of a bottom up approach the environmental data and data on emissions reductions costs the presented numerical results show that in 1990 dutch sni is about 50 below nni though many uncertainties are still present in the data and the model the enhanced greenhouse effect is the most expensive environmental theme

between ostrom and nordhaus the research landscape of sustainability economics abstract we survey the emerging research area of sustainability economics through a quantitative full text analysis of peer reviewed journal publications from 1987 to 2013 to identify relevant contributions we draw on existing definitions of sustainability economics for a keyword based identification strategy a combined focus on a the human nature relationship b the long term uncertain future c normative orientation towards sustainability and d economic analysis our analysis of a random subsample of 343 relevant papers reveals that i sustainability economics is a rapidly developing research area ii while theoretical contributions shaped the area in earlier years applied work now constitutes the largest share of contributions iii the research landscape can be clustered into eleven research clusters these range from participatory governance of social ecological systems associated with the work of elinor ostrom to questions of intertemporal allocation and distribution applied to climate economics associated with the work of william nordhaus iv the research area is broad in scope and heterogeneous and there is relatively little interaction between important clusters v relevant contributions are published in more than 100 journals ten journals publish half of all contributions led by ecological economics and 40 appear in non economics journals underscoring the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue

financing infrastructure in developing countries this article develops a theoretical framework to analyse options for financing infrastructure in developing countries we build a basic model that gives motivations for using a combination of public finance private debt and private equity the model is then extended in a number of ways to examine factors that are important for developing countries we focus in particular on key institutional weaknesses that are often important for infrastructure investment overall we show that such weaknesses can be key in determining financing choices but that they do not all push in the same direction financing schemes must therefore be adapted to consider the institutional limitations that are most pertinent in any given context

the effects of ageing and an environmental trust fund in an overlapping generations model on carbon emission reductions most currently employed integrated assessment models for climate change are of a dynastic nature they employ the ramsey rule linking the interest rate economic growth and the rate of pure time preference this paper argues that although a dynastic framework might be convenient for economic analysis it is restrictive and can be misleading overlapping generations models which do not employ the ramsey rule are more flexible and may give results different from those derived from dynastic models with the integrated assessment model alice 2 0 it is shown how various assumptions on demographic change and public institutions can affect the interest rate thereby influencing the efficient greenhouse gas emission reductions it is concluded that dynastic integrated assessment models are in many respects inappropriate for providing policy makers with quantitative figures about the costs of carbon dioxide emissions and their desirable reduction levels 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

resource use and technological progress in agriculture a dynamic general equilibrium analysis we analyze the global effects of economic and population growth and the impact of a slowdown in agricultural total factor productivity tfp on agriculture and forest resources using a dynamic multi region computable general equilibrium model with land use and cover detail given the current consensus about the growth of the world economy our results suggest that food security will not be threatened and agricultural activities will not encroach on forest resources over the next decade a slowdown in agricultural tfp growth might lead to higher crop prices in all regions with south east asia facing the steepest increases a slowdown in agricultural tfp growth also might be accompanied by higher conversion rates of forestland to farmland as well as by greater environmental or ecological damages on the remaining forestland

mitigating economic risk from climate variability in rain fed agriculture through enterprise mix diversification abstract climate variability and its increase with climate change pose substantial economic risks to agriculturalists and hence limit their ability to respond to global challenges such as food security enterprise mix diversification is the most common and is widely regarded as the most effective strategy for mitigating multiple sources of short term economic risk to agricultural enterprises however assessments of enterprise mix diversification as a strategy for mitigating climate risks to ensure long term viability of agricultural enterprises are sparse using the lower murray region in southern australia as a case study we combined apsim modelling with monte carlo simulation probability theory and finance techniques to assess the extent to which enterprise mix diversification can mitigate climate induced variability in long term net returns from rain fed agriculture we found that diversification can reduce the standard deviation by up to a 200 ha 1 or 52 of mean net returns increase the probability of breaking even by up to 20 and increase the mean of 10 of worst probable annual net returns conditional value at risk by up to a 100 ha 1 we conclude that enterprise mix diversification can also be an effective strategy for hedging against climate induced economic risk for agriculturalists in marginal areas

green accounting in imperfect market economies the idea of measuring the national welfare level by using the green nnp net national product has gained much attention lately this paper summarizes the research on social accounting in imperfect market economies by putting the results into a unified framework the main contribution of the paper is to relate the form of the national welfare measure to the functioning of the economic system and therefore to explicitly address the informational requirements implicit in social accounting

the politics of government decision making a theory of regulatory capture the paper develops an agency theoretic approach to interest group politics and shows the following 1 the organizational response to the possibility of regulatory agency politics is to reduce the stakes interest groups have in regulation 2 the threat of producer protection leads to low powered incentive schemes for regulated firms 3 consumer politics may induce uniform pricing by a multiproduct firm 4 an interest group has more power when its interest lies in inefficient rather than efficient regulation where inefficiency is measured by the degree of informational asymmetry between the regulated industry and the political principal congress

free riding and ethnic heterogeneity abstract this paper provides a new explanation for lower levels of public good provision in heterogeneous societies compared to their homogeneous counterparts social sharing norms force rich individuals to share part of their income with their poor relatives but do not apply across different ethnic groups because there is a more extensive redistribution in more homogeneous societies the cost of contributing to the public good is lower the model predicts the level of public goods provision and welfare monotonically decreases with the number of different ethnic groups

using cost observation to regulate firms the paper emphasizes the use of accounting data in regulatory or procurement contracts when the supplier 1 has superior information about the cost of the project and 2 invests in cost reduction the main result states that under risk neutrality the supplier announces an expected cost and is given an incentive contract linear in cost overruns this optimal contract moves toward a fixed price contract as the announced cost decreases an investment choice is then introduced and the use of a rate of return regulation is studied

heterogeneous preferences and in kind redistribution theory and evidence abstract this paper examines the impact of social heterogeneity on in kind redistribution we contribute to the previous literature in two ways we consider i the provision of several public goods and ii agents different not only in income but also in their preferences over the various goods provided by the public sector in this setting both the distribution and size of goods provision depend on the heterogeneity of preferences our main result is that preference heterogeneity tends to decrease in kind redistribution while income inequality tends to increase it an empirical investigation based on united states census bureau data confirms these theoretical findings

tribal mobilization fragmented groups and public goods provision in jordan diversity has been blamed for poor public goods provision in a number of different contexts it is associated with reduced spending on services meager rates of tax collection and poor policies i argue in this article however that in semidemocratic or authoritarian countries where political parties are weak diversity can be an important source of electoral competition leading to better services in diverse communities where multiple identity groups are politically mobilized candidates are forced to seek the support of voters outside of their group who are more likely to vote based on qualifications than on group affiliation resulting in better public officials who provide superior services moreover i find internal group fragmentation to be important in understanding the impact of heterogeneity on public goods provision candidates in areas where only one identity group is politically mobilized but where that group is politically fragmented will also seek votes from other groups within the comm

evaluating policy interventions with general equilibrium externalities abstract we report on the results of analytical and numerical models that describe the effects of non separable externalities or public goods on public policies with important general equilibrium consequences in the numerical exercise we calibrate a general equilibrium model with non separable air quality benefits in order to measure the excess burden and total net benefits of transportation and energy taxes in the 1995 u s economy the change in the physical level and the economic value in air quality associated with a given policy is a function of the substitution patterns between air quality and market goods that we assume the size of the deadweight loss due to pre existing distortions such as a tax on labor income is substantially affected by these substitution patterns

forced coexistence and economic development evidence from native american reservations there are large differences in economic development across native american reservations today this paper asks whether these differences can be in part explained by the forced integration of historically autonomous sub tribal bands in the 19th century to measure forced integration i combine anthropological data on intra tribal political integration in pre reservation times with historical information on the constituent bands of each reservation exploring variation in how politically integrated tribes were before reservations and variation in how politically integrated reservations were at the time of their formation i find that forced integration lowers per capita incomes today by about 30 percent to account for potential selection into forced integration i exploit historical mining rushes as a source of exogenous variation in the government s incentive to combine bands onto reservations the iv strategy confirms the baseline results i also provide quantitative evidence on the channels through which forced integration affects incomes today

effects of us biofuel policies on us and world petroleum product markets with consequences for greenhouse gas emissions abstract us biofuel policy includes greenhouse gas reduction targets regulators do not address the potential that biofuel policy can have indirect impacts on greenhouse gases through its impacts on petroleum product markets and scientific research only partially addresses this question we use economic models of us biofuel and agricultural markets and us and world petroleum and petroleum product markets to show that discontinuing biofuel tax credits and ethanol tariff lower biofuel use could lead to increased us petroleum product use and a reduction in petroleum product use in other parts of the world the net effect is lower greenhouse gas emissions under certain assumptions we show that biofuel use mandate elimination can have positive or negative impacts on greenhouse gas emissions the magnitude and the direction of effects depend on how us biofuel trade affects biofuel in other countries with different emissions context that determines how important use mandates are in the first place who pays mandate costs and the price responsiveness of global petroleum supplies and uses however our results show that counter intuitive effects are possible and discourage broad conclusions about the greenhouse gas impacts of removing these elements of us biofuel policy

automatic responses of crop stocks and policies buffer climate change effects on crop markets and price volatility abstract climate change has the potential to affect crop prices and price volatility however the economic models used in prior assessments largely do not include known automatic stabilizing factors crop storage can stabilize prices and u s crop policy tends to provide support that moves opposite prices we quantify effects of circa 2050 climate forcing on the inter annual variability of u s corn belt corn and soybean yields using statistical crop models and climate scenarios from regional and global climate models climate change generally reduces mean yields and increases the inter annual variability of yields in the midwestern u s using these yield impacts and an economic model with automatic market stabilizers we find only modest increases in price volatility although individual producers and states are negatively affected by the yield reductions the aggregate effect for all corn and soybean producer returns can be positive because of price increases moreover agricultural policies based on price levels or revenue variation offset some of the impacts of market variation on farm income our results differ from other recent results and temper concerns that increasing climate instability necessarily translates to greater uncertainty about agricultural commodity uses including as food and biofuels in the near future

water competition through the water energy nexus assessing the economic impacts of climate change in a mediterranean context abstract the impacts of climate change on water resources availability are expected to be adverse especially in drier climate regions such as the mediterranean increased water scarcity will exacerbate competition for water resources not only between sectors but also between countries sharing transboundary river basins due to the mutual dependence of the energy sector on water resources and of the water services provision sector on energy inputs the water energy nexus is acknowledged as a major challenge for the near future with hydropower representing one of the most direct links in this nexus the aim of this paper is to assess the economy wide impacts of the concurrent effects of climate change driven impacts on water availability and the sectoral and regional competition for scarcer water resources in order to accomplish that goal an integrated modelling approach is developed where a computable general equilibrium model including raw water as a production factor is linked to times pt a bottom up model of the energy sector a case study is provided for the mediterranean country of portugal results for 2050 show that macroeconomic impacts are significant and encompass important inter sectoral differences that in turn depend on the degree of competition between sectors impacts are stronger when water consumption by spanish sectors is considered as this intensifies water scarcity in portugal thus the paper allows to gain insight in the broader water energy economy nexus and the additional costs that the dependence on water resources availability in transboundary river basins represents to an economy both aspects being of utmost importance for climate adaptation and energy policy making

colonialism landlords and public goods provision in india a controlled comparative analysis what is the impact of colonialism on public goods provision this article examines india once the world s largest colony while recent studies of the indian case are divided they overwhelmingly r

repeated auctions of incentive contracts investment and bidding parity with an application to takeovers this article considers a two period model of natural monopoly and second sourcing the incumbent supplier invests in the first period after observing the incumbent s first period performance the buyer may break out in the second period the investment may or may not be transferable to the second source and it may be monetary or take the form of human capital we determine whether the incumbent should be favored at the reprocurement stage and how the slope of his incentive scheme should evolve over time we find that the gains from second sourcing are not so large as one might hope finally we reinterpret the second source as a raider and the breakout as a takeover we discuss the desirability of defensive tactics and obtain a rich set of testable implications concerning the size of managerial stock options the extent of defensive tactics the firm s performance and the probability of a takeover

good bad and ugly colonial activities do they matter for economic development levels of development vary widely within countries in the americas we argue that part of this variation has its roots in the colonial era when colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country we present evidence consistent with the view that bad activities those that depended heavily on labor exploitation led to lower economic development today than good activities those that did not rely on labor exploitation our results also suggest that differences in political representation but not in income inequality or human capital could be the intermediating factor between colonial activities and current development

the cost of segregation in social networks abstract this paper investigates the welfare effect of income redistribution in the private provision of public goods on networks we first show that the welfare effect of income redistribution is determined by bonacich centrality then we develop an index based on the network structure of interactions which roughly speaking measures the welfare effect of income redistribution confined to a component of contributors the proposed index vanishes when applied to large components of contributors that display special segregated interactions which suggests an asymptotic neutrality of redistributive policies

a review of limitations of gdp and alternative indices to monitor human wellbeing and to manage eco system functionality abstract the misuse of gross domestic product as a measure of public wellbeing results from the idea that economic growth is always synonymous with enhanced quality of life disregarding the fact that the economy profits from natural social and human capital in order to monitor progress towards sustainability and increased well being governments working closely with scientists developed new metrics that go further than income and material wealth there are several candidates for revisions of the gross domestic product based on a comprehensive literature review this paper identified several possible indicators that intend to adjust supplement or substitute for gross domestic product two main approaches were identified the first uses gross domestic product as foundation to build a complete index and includes proposals to greening gross domestic product socializing the indices and including it in a more comprehensive index the second approach relates to efforts to redefine the indicators with the use of environmentally oriented indicators and socially oriented measures challenges to measure development welfare and wellbeing are discussed to provide a wide angle view of efforts to develop measures of social economic ecological status and progress beyond the current very narrow gross domestic product it was recognized an urgent need for guidance for the development of governance regimes designed to change from short term decision making processes to those which support the multi decade planning and implementation processes that are needed to guide the transition to post fossil carbon societies this comprehensive review covers a wide range of topics from problems of gdp to challenges and thoughts about indicators the review shows that if mankind is concerned with the sustainable development of the planet as a whole then progress indicators measured only in monetary or social terms are limited and restricted to the weak or the medium sustainability model and must be complemented by biophysical indicators it is time to change the global knowledge of what progress really is changing the discussion from growth to sustainable development and human well being

long term substitutability between environmental and man made goods abstract substitutability between environmental and man made goods plays a major role in the sustainability debate the notion of substitutability covers a continuous spectrum with perfect substitutability at one end and poor substitutability at the other in this paper it is shown that if economic growth sustains a sharp distinction emerges between perfect and poor substitutability without any intermediate interpretation of substitutability if poor substitutability prevails environmental resources will eventually constitute the major part of total consumption value we relate our results to baumol s disease and assess the implications of this phenomenon for the compensation of environmental losses

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

untested hypotheses in non renewable resource economics the present paper reviews the literature on the empirical implications of the hotelling rule and suggests directions for further research in this area

on the colonial origins of agricultural development in india a re examination of banerjee and iyer history institutions and economic performance abstractbanerjee and iyer find that districts which the british assigned to landlord revenue systems systematically underperform districts with non landlord based revenue systems in agricultural performance after the onset of the green revolution in the mid 1960s based on colonial documents archival research and the work of historians we correct a mis interpretation of the land revenue system in central provinces which bi characterise as landlord based the historical evidence suggests that this region should be attributed to a mixed landlord non landlord based revenue system using a more appropriate classification we find no evidence that agricultural performance of indian districts in the post independence period was adversely affected by the landlord land revenue system

the life cycle of regulatory agencies dynamic capture and transaction costs the dynamics of regulation is analysed in a model where regulatory capture comes from the repeated interaction between an interest group and a regulatory agency regulatory institutions offer a framework for this dynamic process they put constraints on the interest group s influence the dynamics of regulation and its long run outcome depend on the political principal s the regulator s and the regulated firm s time preferences and their information some foundations for the transaction costs of side contracting used in the standard literature on collusion are provided those transaction costs are linked to the precise nature of regulatory institutions

culture ethnicity and diversity we investigate the empirical relationship between ethnicity and culture defined as a vector of traits reflecting norms attitudes and preferences using surveys of individual values in 76 countries we find that ethnic identity is a significant predictor of cultural values yet that within group variation in culture trumps between group variation thus in contrast to a commonly held view ethnic and cultural diversity are unrelated we explore the correlates of cultural diversity and of the overlap between culture and ethnicity finding that the level of economic development is positively associated with cultural diversity and negatively associated with the overlap between culture and ethnicity finally although only a small portion of a country s overall cultural heterogeneity occurs between groups this does not imply that cultural differences between groups are irrelevant indeed we find that civil conflict becomes more likely when there is greater overlap between ethnicity and culture

electoral uncertainty income inequality and the middle class we investigate how electoral competition affects the income distribution in society we utilise a standard probabilistic voting setup where parties compete at two stages our model delivers that greater electoral competition in a district results in equalisation of incomes therein we check for these relationships using data from indian national elections which are combined with consumption expenditure data rounds from the national sample survey organization 1987 8 and 2004 5 to yield a district level panel our ols 2 sls and iiv analyses consistently inform that close elections lead to lower inequality and polarisation indicating a larger middle class