price pass through and the minimum wage this paper tests a textbook consequence of competitive markets that an industry wide increase in the price of labor is passed on to consumers through an increase in prices using several data sources on restaurant prices i explore the price impact of minimum wage hikes in canada and the united states particular attention is paid to the timing of these price responses to gauge the stickiness of minimum wage cost shocks i find that restaurant prices generally rise with changes in the wage bill and that this response is concentrated in the quarter surrounding the month during which the legislation is enacted

tariff policy and entry with cost based informational asymmetries i introduction how does the presence of incomplete information alter the usual effects of trade policy recognition that incomplete information characterizes most decision making processes that take place within an international setting has stimulated an emerging body of literature which addresses this question particularly germane to the present study are those papers which introduce an informational asymmetry into an international model of imperfect competition the majority of this literature examines the sensitivity of optimal strategic trade policies to information failures within a brander spencer 1985 model where the domestic and foreign firm compete for export sales to a third market and either the domestic or foreign government employs export subsidies examples include works by brainard and martimort 1997 collie and hviid 1993 maggi 1995 and qiu 1994 another study collie and hviid 1994 allows for domestic consumption and considers optimal import tariff policy in the presence of a foreign monopolist in general optimal trade policy in the presence of informational failures is found to differ from that under complete information the emphasis of the present study is not on the conduct of optimal trade policy but rather on how the introduction of an informational asymmetry alters the realized impact of trade policy on quantities and welfare 1 specifically we examine the effects of import tariff policy within a standard two period model of entry where the costs of the domestic firm are proprietary information the incumbent domestic firm recognizes the threat of a potential foreign rival entering exporting to the domestic market where the latter is uninformed of the cost structure of the domestic firm as is well known from the industrial organization literature the incumbent domestic firm may have an incentive to change its time period one behavior so as to signal information on costs to the foreign firm in an effort to deter entry see milgrom and roberts 1982 in specifying the degree of knowledge possessed by domestic policymakers we adopt the premise that informational deficiencies on the part of policymakers are likely to be quite acute in trade policy formation indeed as brander 1995 notes it is reasonable to suppose that governments are less informed on market conditions and firm characteristics than firms themselves in contrast to previous studies however we also assume that policymakers either cannot acquire information or if they are able to cannot respond by altering policy here the formation of trade policy does not reflect or incorporate full information and thus cannot provide signals to the other uninformed party the foreign firm moreover because policymakers cannot alter policy the foreign firm perceives the tariff rate as credibly fixed the inability to incorporate information into trade policy is especially relevant for situations where policymakers are subject to previously negotiated trade agreements here even should uninformed policymakers subsequently acquire information on domestic cost structure they will be unable to respond our emphasis on the realized effects of tariff policy reflects this information structure to conduct optimal policy government must hold complete information on markets and firm characteristics at the time policy is set as in collie and hviid 1993 1994 or be able to acquire it through signaling or a screening mechanism as in qiu 1994 and brainard and martimort 1997 2 when policymakers lack the ability to acquire or respond to such information optimal policy is not a consideration what is of interest to policymakers in this situation is the response of domestic output and imports to a given tariff rate at the outset of the game then there is a tariff rate set previously by domestic policymakers who were uninformed of domestic costs since the foreign firm cannot infer domestic cost structure by merely observing the tariff rate set by uninformed policymakers any signaling that takes place is on the part of the domestic firm

the investor specific price of renewable energy project risk a choice experiment with incumbent utilities and institutional investors abstract renewable energy investments in germany have recently soared trebling the output of wind and solar power generation in only ten years while incumbent utilities have lagged behind in terms of investment new entrants have significantly contributed to this growth existing literature has primarily focused on explaining the lethargy of incumbents former investments although there is a growing need to investigate recent investment drivers to secure the necessary power plant capacity at a moderate cost from incumbents and new entrants alike to close this gap a choice experiment involving 1 659 investment choices by 52 european professional investors was conducted in significant contrast to the case with altruistic investors this survey underlines the importance of using financial incentives to attract professional investors given full exposure to electricity price risk incumbent utilities would facilitate projects at a 3 04 risk premium whereas institutional investors demand 6 61 generally incumbent utilities and institutional investors are equally attracted by low risk projects however when risk increases institutional investors are more hesitant to become involved while incumbent utilities confidently navigate these higher risk projects

dumping adjustment costs and uncertainty abstract domestic demand uncertainty in the presence of adjustment costs can cause profit maximizing firms to sell output abroad at a loss firms may dump output at prices below long run marginal and average productions costs with probability arbitrarily close to one the model predicts dumping is particularly likely in process industries such as steel closed form dumping solutions and interesting comparative statics are obtained also the effect of domestic competition on dumping is examined i find domestic competition increases total dumping although a monopolist maximizing output subject to a zero expected profit constraint will dump more than a competitive industry

financial incentives to mobilise local citizens as investors in low carbon technologies a systematic literature review abstract mobilising greater levels of private finance through local citizen investment in low carbon technologies can help bridge the capital shortfall to meeting climate objectives while also building societal support for the low carbon transition within this context we undertake a systematic review of literature assessing the impact of technology specific economic and financial incentives promoting greater levels of investment in low carbon technologies from local citizen investors both individuals and community groups we focus in particular on the impact of feed in tariffs compared to quota schemes grants tax incentives and soft loans the analysis suggests that local citizen investors do not necessarily act in an economically rational manner in response to these incentives it underscores the importance of understanding the preferences of target demographics the local context as well as the characteristics of the technologies in question and suggests interventions should be considered as part of wider policy packages while identifying challenges to be overcome through instrument design we find that feed in tariffs grants and tax incentives can be successful in mobilising greater levels of investment from local citizen investors but that soft loans tend to be less effective as a stand alone instrument the review identifies areas meriting further exploration in this emerging field of research

quantitative restrictions in the presence of cost based informational asymmetries this study introduces a cost based informational asymmetry into a two period model where a domestic incumbent firm s behavior in the first period affects the entry decision of a foreign firm in the second period the effects of import quota policy within this environment are examined and compared to the standard full information effects when quota quantities are set exogenously the standard effects of quota policy may be significantly altered depending on whether or not policy induces the domestic firm to signal cost structure for example higher quotas may discourage foreign entry because of the induced signaling effects of quota policy recognition that incomplete information is the rule rather than the exception when decisionmakers interact in an international setting has stimulated an emerging literature on the effects of trade policy in the presence of informational failures particularly germane to the present study are those papers that introduce an informational asymmetry into an international model of imperfect competition the majority of this literature examines the sensitivity of optimal strategic trade policy to information failures within a brander spencer 1985 model where the domestic and foreign firms compete for export sales to a third market and either the domestic or foreign government employs export subsidies collie and hviid 1993 qiu 1994 maggi 1995 brainard and martimort 1997 wright 1998 collie and hviid 1994 on the other hand allow for domestic consumption and consider optimal import policy in the presence of a foreign monopolist analysis that focuses on the positive effects of trade policy in the presence of informational failures is more limited one such example is a study by hartigan 1994 which considers the effects of antidumping duties to date however there has been no analysis of how and whether the introduction of an informational failure alters the effects of quantitative restrictions to trade the aim of the present study is to extend the existing literature by examining the effects of a quantitative restriction to trade in the presence of a cost based informational asymmetry within a standard two period entry model 2 during the initial time period a domestic firm supplies the home market and

the role of export subsisies when product quality is unknown abstract we explore the role of export subsidies when foreign goods are initially of unknown quality to domestic consumers absent export subsidies entry of high quality firms may be blocked by their inability to sell at prices reflecting their true quality export subsidies can break this entry barrier and increase welfare moreover even when high quality firms find it possible to signal their quality to consumers through an introductory pricing strategy a rolefor government policy can arise the signal low introductory price transfers surplus from foreign producers to domestic consumers and can be avoided with an appropriate export tax subsidy policy

antidumping protection and r d competition in recent years antidumping protection has spread throughout the world evidence shows that antidumping often targets r d intensive sectors raising a con cern that it may adversely affect worldwide investments in r d we investigate this issue in a model of reciprocal dumping extended to a two stage game in which two firms first choose r d levels and then compete in prices we find that when a single government institutes antidumping law the protected firm decreases investment in r d while the constrained firm invests more when both governments engage in antidumping actions both firms invest more in r d than under free trade jel classification f12 f13

agriculture s contribution to the renewable energy sector policy and economics do they add up abstract this paper reviews on farm renewable energy re production and the associated feed in tariff fit policies in germany usa canada denmark and the netherlands and the impact these policies have on renewable energy implementation with particular focus on agricultural lands a recent fit policy implemented in nova scotia is examined and used as a case study to assess the potential affect these policies might be expected to have on re implementation within the province several scenarios are developed based on the existing policy structure to provide a critical review of the policy and to identify potential modifications that might provide an increase in the implementation of re

who pays for the minimum wage this paper analyzes the eects of a large 60 and persistent increase in the minimum wage instituted in hungary in 2001 we propose a new approach to estimating the employment eects of a minimum wage increase that exploits information on the distribution of wages before and after the policy change we infer the number of jobs destroyed by comparing the number of pre reform jobs below the new minimum wage to the excess number of jobs paying at and above the new minimum wage our estimates imply that the higher minimum wage had at most a small negative eect on employment and so the main eect was pushing up wages we then use data on a large panel of firms to evaluate the economic incidence of the minimum wage increase contrary to theoretical models that attribute the small employment eects of minimum wage changes to monopsonistic wage setting we find no evidence that the rise in the minimum wage led to lower profitability among low wage employers instead we find that the costs of the minimum wage were largely passed through to consumers

how effective is the minimum wage at supporting the poor this study investigates the antipoverty efficacy of minimum wage policies proponents of these policies contend that employment impacts are negligible and suggest that consumers pay for higher labor costs through imperceptible increases in goods prices adopting this empirical scenario the analysis demonstrates that an increase in the national minimum wage produces a value added tax effect on consumer prices that is more regressive than a typical state sales tax and allocates benefits as higher earnings nearly evenly across the income distribution these income transfer outcomes sharply contradict portraying an increase in the minimum wage as an antipoverty initiative

dumping and dynamic competition abstract when the current output level affects future production costs domestic and foreign profit maximizing firms may set prices below current costs to gain experience antidumping enforcement which poses a barrier to below cost sales by foreign rivals changes the payoff structure of competition and alters the equilibrium decisions of both foreign and domestic firms a comparison of the nash equilibria with and without antidumping rules shows that these rules change market outcomes even when they do not appear to be binding ex post this positive analysis of antidumping enforcement complements previous studies that have considered the motivation for dumping

the effect of minimum wages on employment a factor model approach this paper resolves issues in the minimum wage employment debate by using factor model econometric methods to address concerns related to unobserved heterogeneity recent work has shown that the negative effects of minimum wages on employment found using traditional methods are sensitive to the inclusion of controls for regional heterogeneity and selection of states that experience minimum wage hikes leaving the two sides of the debate in disagreement about the appropriate approach factor model methods are an ideal solution for this disagreement as they allow for the presence of multiple unobserved common factors which can be correlated with the regressors these methods provide a more exible way of addressing concerns related to unobserved heterogeneity and are robust to critiques from either side of the debate the factor model estimators produce minimum wage employment elasticities that are much smaller than the traditional ols results and are not statistically different from zero these results hold for many specications and two datasets that have been used in the minimum wage employment literature a simulation shows that unobserved common factors can explain the different estimates seen across methodologies in the literature

do minimum wage increases influence worker health this study investigates whether minimum wage increases impact worker health in the united states we consider self reported measures of general mental and physical health we use data on lesser skilled workers from the 1993 to 2014 behavioral risk factor surveillance survey among men we find no evidence that minimum wage increases improve health instead we find that such increases lead to worse health outcomes particularly among unemployed men we find both worsening general health and improved mental health following minimum wage increases among women these findings broaden our understanding of the full impacts of minimum wage increases on lesser skill workers jel i1 i11 i18

domino dumping i competitive exporters when exporting firms face the prospect of voluntary export restraints they have an incentive to export more than with no prospect of a voluntary export restraint since greater exports lead to larger license allocations in the event of a voluntary export restraint export country governments incentives differ leading either to export tax or subsidy depending on the circumstances the prospect of one departure from free trade thus leads to another a domino effect antidumping enforcement will ordinarily not eliminate and ironically may increase dumping copyright 1992 by american economic association

let s do it ourselves individual motivations for investing in renewables at community level renewable energy communities have multiplied the last years in many countries even in contexts that the structural conditions are not favorable the paper analyses individual motivations for partaking in local renewable projects and generating energy jointly in an investment community in order to inform policy debates on how to support such communities to do so we applied a socio psychological approach for studying renewable energy communities in germany and the netherlands our results show that mainly gain such as decreasing energy costs and normative such as addressing climate change considerations played a role in the decision but in the background hedonic motivations were also present such as having fun and integrating in a community each of the groups examined emerged in already existing strong communities where trust was relatively high which seems to be an important condition for the realization of local energy projects consequently we argue that tailor made incentives addressing the different types of motivations can be more effective for the support and spread of renewable energy communities

three is a crowd exploring the potential of crowdfunding for renewable energy in the netherlands there is a huge gap between demand and supply of finance for energy transitions and the financial and economic crisis have had a negative impact in the already meagre funds for transforming the energy system towards renewable sources in this paper we explore whether crowdfunding for renewable energy as a novel sociotechnical practice developed in a niche has the potential to break through and transform both the energy and the financial regimes utilising the multi level perspective theory we empirically investigate crowdfunding platforms linked to renewable electricity projects in the netherlands the main conclusion is that the volume of crowdfunding today is low but the dynamic of these projects holds potential there is limited indication of learning processes until now as well as limited support from regime actors pointing at a low level of niche stabilization and break through potential which may however be related to the early stage of development of crowdfunding in the netherlands on the other hand the heterogeneity of crowdfunders is very promising platforms dedicated to renewable electricity exclusively and with an investment based business model seem to be the most successful we show how governmental market regulation and support mechanisms are shaping crowdfunding as a business model and discuss the implications for other countries

dumping at less than marginal cost abstract the traditional analysis of dumping in an export market treats the term merely as a synonym for price discrimination in an international context crucially it does not predict that goods will be sold overseas at price less than marginal cost this paper explores the possibility that dumping can occur in the more obvious lay sense of selling at less than marginal cost it suggests three reasons why this may occur in circumstances of uncertainty pursuance of managerial goals and strategic entry deterrence in the first of these the traditional prediction of reduced surplus for domestic consumers is no longer assured

social impacts of community renewable energy projects findings from a woodfuel case study there is much current interest in the potential of community based renewable energy projects to contribute to transition towards low carbon energy systems as well as displacing fossil fuel consumption by increasing renewable energy generation projects are expected to have a range of social impacts which may result in additional positive sustainability outcomes these include potential to increase acceptance of renewable energy developments awareness of renewable and sustainable energy technologies and issues uptake of low carbon technologies and sustainable pro environmental behaviours to date however there has been little investigation of whether and how these impacts occur this paper presents results from qualitative research investigating the social impacts of a community woodfuel project as experienced by project participants and other local stakeholders findings show projects can raise awareness of renewable energy technologies and increase uptake of renewables overall the case study project successfully changed the local social context for development of woodfuel heating reducing risk for all involved in the future development of this sector particularly in the immediate locality there was some evidence of increased engagement with wider sustainability issues but this was limited to direct participants suggesting local projects need to be supported by wider systemic change to maximise impacts

dumping and signaling abstract a model of predatory dumping based upon incomplete and asymmetric information is developed the foreign firm may induce exit by the home firm through acting like a low cost competitor irrespective of its actual costs the home firm must infer the foreign firm s cost through its export price by tying the export price to the price that the foreign firm charges in the foreign market a home county antidumping law raises the cost of signaling low production costs to the home producer the law has signal enhancing or inhibiting effects which may adversely affect the home firm with ambiguous welfare consequences

the minimum wage and the great recession evidence of effects on the employment and income trajectories of low skilled workers abstract we estimate the minimum wage s effects on low skilled individuals employment and income trajectories following the great recession our approach exploits two dimensions of the data we analyze first we compare individuals in states that were fully bound by the 2007 to 2009 increases in the federal minimum wage to individuals in states that were not second we use variation in the minimum wage s bite across skill groups to separate our samples into target and within state control groups using the 2008 panel of the survey of income and program participation we find that binding minimum wage increases had significant negative effects on the employment and income growth of targeted workers although there are important limitations to our research designs our estimates are robust to adopting a range of alternative strategies to construct our analysis samples and to account for variation in the great recession s underlying severity across states in aggregate our estimates suggest that this period s minimum wage increases reduced aggregate employment rates by at least half of a percentage point in states that were bound by the federal minimum wage increases because our estimates are large relative to what one would infer from past research we emphasize the relevance of the historical episode we analyze

revisiting the techno economic analysis process for building mounted grid connected solar photovoltaic systems part two application part one in this two part paper identified monte carlo analysis as an improved approach over traditional deterministic techno economic methods for solar pv prosumers in deregulated markets in this

dumping as a signal of innovation in the r d intensive industries where technologies change rapidly an innovative foreign firm may need to export greater than normal quantities to signal the level of the new technology it possesses we find that such actions lead to sales below cost if the foreign firm has a relatively poor reputation for innovation has a sufficiently high discount factor or possesses a new technology that significantly cuts its cost we also show that antidumping reduces the costs of signaling benefits the home firm and may raise the profit to the foreign firm in the pre duty period

a survey of the effects of the minimum wage on prices abstract it is well established in the literature that minimum wage increases compress the wage distribution firms respond to these higher labour costs by reducing employment reducing profits or raising prices while there are hundreds of studies on the employment effect of the minimum wage there are merely a handful of studies on its profit effects and only a couple of dozen studies on its price effects furthermore a comprehensive survey on minimum wage price effects is not available in the literature given the policy relevance of this neglected issue in this paper we summarize and critically compare the available evidence on the effects of minimum wages on prices

the spending and debt response to minimum wage hikes abstract immediately following a minimum wage hike household income rises on average by about 250 per quarter and spending by roughly 700 per quarter for households with minimum wage workers most of the spending response is caused by a small number of households who purchase vehicles furthermore we find that the high spending levels are financed through increases in collateralized debt our results are consistent with a model where households can borrow against durables and face costs of adjusting their durables stock jel d12 d14 d91 j38

domestic uncertainty and foreign dumping this paper investigates the links between uncertainty in a firm s home market and below cost dumping in foreign markets the form that uncertainty takes is shown to determine the likelihood and expected magnitude of dumping a number of forms of uncertainty are indicated to impart a pro dumping bias to firms output decisions a consequence is that risk neutral firms may plan to sell some output abroad even though firms know with certainty that exports can never cover marginal cost

a signal jamming theory of predation we propose a new theory ofpredation based on signal jamming in our model the predator s characteristics are common knowledge while the entrant is uncertain of his own future profitability the entrant uses his current profit to decide whether to remain in the market and the predator preys to jam or interfere with this inference problem thus our model differs from those based on reputation effects in which the predator preys to signal information about himself

repeated games and the reciprocal dumping model of trade abstract a repeated game version of the basic brander and krugman 1983 model is analyzed in the brander krugman model rivalry among oligopolistic firms gives rise to international trade it is now shown that no trade which is welfare reducing when transportation costs are negligible is a strong nash equilibrium of the supergame the threat strategies that support no trade the discount rate and the crucial role of transportation costs are discussed extending the branderkrugman analysis in a natural way

the local aggregate effects of minimum wage increases using variation in minimum wages across cities and controlling for differences in business cycle factors and long run local economic trends we find that following minimum wage increases both prices and nominal spending rise modestly these gains are larger for certain subcategories of goods such as food away from home and in locations where low wage workers account for a larger share of employment further minimum wage increases are associated with reduced total debt among households with low credit scores higher auto debt and increased access to credit

revisiting the minimum wage employment debate throwing out the baby with the bathwater we revisit the minimum wage employment debate which is as old as the department of labor in particular we assess new studies claiming that the standard panel data approach used in much of the new minimum wage research is flawed because it fails to account for spatial heterogeneity these new studies use research designs intended to control for this heterogeneity and conclude that minimum wages in the united states have not reduced employment we explore the ability of these research designs to isolate reliable identifying information and test the untested assumptions in this new research about the construction of better control groups our evidence points to serious problems with these research designs we conclude that the evidence still shows that minimum wages pose a tradeoff of higher wages for some against job losses for others and that policymakers need to bear this tradeoff in mind when making decisions about increasing the minimum wage

what are community energy companies trying to accomplish an empirical investigation of investment motives in the german case community energy has become an increasingly important issue in academia and in energy policy circles worldwide citizens jointly investing in and operating renewable energy installations have played an essential role in countries such as germany or denmark building on and extending previous studies we collect survey data on investment motives for a stratified random sample of german community energy companies structural variables are selected using a socio ecological technical systems framework this study aims to identify differences within the community energy sector to better understand investment behaviour and the effects of policy changes despite the small sample coverage at the individual member level the preliminary results of this study suggest that first community energy forms a specific type of social investment and that second there are significant differences between community energy companies especially regarding the assessment of the return motive this motive plays a more prominent role in limited partnerships than in cooperatives and for community wind than for companies focusing on solar or biomass while these and other factors are highly interrelated our data indicate that the social setting and geographical and climatic conditions are the critical ones here these findings may guide further research

supply constraints and housing market dynamics abstract although the volatility of house prices is often ascribed to demand side factors constraints on housing supply have important and little studied implications for housing dynamics i illustrate the strong relationship between the volatility of house prices and the regulation of new housing supply i then employ a dynamic structural model of housing investment to investigate the mechanisms underlying this relationship i find that supply constraints increase volatility through two channels first regulation lowers the elasticity of new housing supply by increasing lags in the permit process and adding to the cost of supplying new houses on the margin second geographic limitations on the area available for building houses such as steep slopes and water bodies lead to less investment on average relative to the size of the existing housing stock leaving less scope for the supply response to attenuate the effects of a demand shock my estimates and simulations confirm that regulation and geographic constraints play critical and complementary roles in decreasing the responsiveness of investment to demand shocks which in turn amplifies house price volatility

the effect of minimum wages on low wage jobs we estimate the eect of minimum wages on low wage jobs using 138 prominent state level minimum wage changes between 1979 and 2016 in the u s using a dierence in dierences approach we first estimate the eect of the minimum wage increase on employment changes by wage bins throughout the hourly wage distribution we then focus on the bottom part of the wage distribution and compare the number of excess jobs paying at or slightly above the new minimum wage to the missing jobs paying below it to infer the employment eect we find that the overall number of low wage jobs remained essentially unchanged over the five years following the increase at the same time the direct eect of the minimum wage on average earnings was amplified by modest wage spillovers at the bottom of the wage distribution our estimates by detailed demographic groups show that the lack of job loss is not explained by labor labor substitution at the bottom of the wage distribution we also find no evidence of disemployment when we consider higher levels of minimum wages however we do find some evidence of reduced employment in tradable sectors we also show how decomposing the overall employment eect by wage bins allows a transparent way of assessing the plausibility of estimates

minimum wage shocks employment flows and labor market frictions we provide the first estimates of the effects of minimum wages on employment flows in the u s labor market identifying the impact using policy discontinuities at state borders we find that minimum wages have a sizable negative effect on employment flows but not stocks separations and accessions fall among affected workers we interpret our findings using a job ladder model in which minimum wage increases can reduce job to job transitions we find that a standard calibration of the model generates predicted relative magnitudes of the employment stock and flow elasticities that are very close to our reduced form estimates