what drives deregulation economics and politics of the relaxation of bank branching restrictions this paper investigates private interest public interest and political institutional theories of regulatory change to analyze state level deregulation of bank branching restrictions using a hazard model we find that interest group factors related to the relative strength of potential winners large banks and small bank dependent firms and losers small banks and the rival insurance firms can explain the timing of branching deregulation across states during the last quarter century the same factors also explain congressional voting on interstate branching deregulation while we find some support for each theory the private interest approach provides the most compelling overall explanation of our results

the economics of a blend mandate for biofuels a biofuel blend mandate may increase or decrease consumer fuel prices with endogenous oil prices depending on relative supply elasticities biofuel tax credits always reduce fuel prices tax credits result in lower fuel prices than under a mandate for the same level of biofuel production if tax credits are implemented alongside mandates then tax credits subsidize fuel consumption instead of biofuels this contradicts energy policy goals by increasing oil dependency co 2 emissions and traffic congestion while providing little benefit to either corn or ethanol producers these social costs will be substantial with tax credits costing taxpayers 28 7 billion annually by 2022 copyright 2008 oxford university press

what drives corporate social performance the role of nation level institutions based on whitley s national business systems nbs institutional framework we theorize about and empirically investigate the impact of nation level institutions on firms corporate social performance csp using a sample of firms from 42 countries spanning seven years we construct an annual composite csp index for each firm based on social and environmental metrics we find that the political system followed by the labor and education system and the cultural system are the most important nbs categories of institutions that impact csp interestingly the financial system appears to have a relatively less significant impact we discuss implications for research practice and policymaking

are women really that happy at work australian evidence on the contented female this article investigates the apparent paradox of females possessing higher levels of job satisfaction compared to their male counterparts despite possessing worse employment outcomes postulating that the female workforce is heterogeneous by age education and the presence of children we create four groups the aggregated young and childless young with children and the educated the article finds statistical evidence of significant gender differences though not uniformly so econometric results however paint a muddier picture indicating that statistical results alone should not be used to categorically report incidences of gender differences in job satisfaction sample selection bias results also evince sub group heterogeneity and require further study the determinants of job satisfaction vary between measures and sub groups though not necessarily so across gender in sum the article finds that the paradox does exhibit itself for the aggregated and young and childless sub groups but is largely absent for the young with children group as well there is a clear bifurcation in job satisfaction between genders for the educated sub group this suggests that employed females should not be viewed as a monolithic bloc in the labour force

gasoline price volatility and the elasticity of demand for gasoline abstract we examine how gasoline price volatility impacts consumers price elasticity of demand for gasoline results show that volatility in prices decreases consumer demand for gasoline in the intermediate run we also find that consumers appear to be less elastic in response to changes in gasoline price when gasoline price volatility is medium or high compared to when it is low moreover we find that when we control for variance in our econometric model gasoline price elasticity of demand is lower in magnitude in the long run

compliance path and impact of ethanol mandates on retail fuel market in the short run past studies have examined the impact of ethanol mandates with a long run perspective and were thus able to assume away short run rigidities and some of the specifics of the biofuel mandates these studies have been of limited use in informing current policy debates because the short to medium run reality is one of strong regulatory and infrastructure rigidities that restrict how ethanol can be consumed in the united states our objectives in this paper are to provide a more coherent framework than currently exists to model and understand how compliance with ethanol mandates in the short run cannot be met with conventional gasoline blends how compliance impacts fuel prices and consumer and producer welfare and also to measure the size of the transfer that occurs between refineries and ethanol producers through the market s renewable identification numbers rins in a model calibrated to 2015 data we find that the effects of increasing ethanol mandates that are physically feasible are close to zero on the retail price of gasoline this result is robust to different gasoline prices supply elasticities and export demand elasticities increased mandates can have a large negative effect on the price of high level ethanol gasoline blends such as e85 if the mandates are increased to approach consumption capacity

the outlook for us oil dependence abstract oil dependence is defined as a dynamic problem of short and long run market power the potential monopoly power of an oil cartel depends on its market share and the elasticities of oil supply and demand while the economic vulnerability of oil consuming states depends most directly on the quantity of oil imported and the oil cost share of gross domestic product gdp of these factors only the market share of the organization of petroleum exporting countries opec cartel and the rate of growth of world oil demand are clearly different than they were 25 years ago opec still holds the majority of world oil and in the future will regain market share a hypothetical 2 year supply reduction in 2005 2006 similar in size to those of 1973 1974 or 1979 1980 illustrates the potential benefits to opec and harm to the us economy of a future oil price shock opec s revenues are estimated to increase by roughly 0 7 trillion while the us economy loses about 0 5 trillion strategic petroleum reserves seem ineffective against a determined multi year supply curtailment increasing the market s price responsiveness by improving the technologies of oil supply and oil demand can greatly reduce the costs of oil dependence each element of this interpretation of the oil dependence problem is well supported by previous studies this paper s contribution is to unite these elements into a coherent explanation and to point out the enormously important implications for energy policy

interpreting societal culture value dimensions societal cultural value dimension scholarship can both learn from and inform the family of interrelated approaches to culture research in ib that appear in recent commentaries it can exchange insights about societal values and meaning systems with neo institutional and institutional logics research it can also exchange insights with dual processing cognition theories that are used to understand individuals in an international context by treating societal culture values and institutional characteristics as essential to interpreting personal values and attitudes rather than merging them integrating culture related specialties by exchanging insights can promote the further development of research in each of these societal and individual level fields

anticipation tax avoidance and the price elasticity of gasoline demand summary least squares estimates of the response of gasoline consumption to a change in the gasoline price are biased toward zero given the endogeneity of gasoline prices a seemingly natural solution to this problem is to instrument for gasoline prices using gasoline taxes but this approach tends to yield implausibly large price elasticities we demonstrate that anticipatory behavior provides an important explanation for this result gasoline buyers increase purchases before tax increases and delay purchases before tax decreases rendering the tax instrument endogenous including suitable leads and lags in the regression restores the validity of the iv estimator resulting in much lower elasticity estimates copyright 2016 john wiley sons ltd

dynamic demand and optimal opec pricing an empirical investigation abstract the demand for energy and in particular the demand for oil is very sluggish given this dynamic description of demand a monopoly or a dominant cartel may either apply a volatile or a stable price policy in order to maximize profits in particular earlier works of fromholzer and wirl derive that the shape of the equilibrium demand function determines whether a price is stable or volatile more precisely a concave demand relation induces a smooth and a convex relation leads to a volatile strategy this theory is empirically tested for the demand for opec oil

business actors political resistance and strategies for policymakers abstract existing energy policies remain well short of achieving a rapid transformation to a low carbon system of energy supply one of the principal reasons has been political resistance from incumbent fossil fuel industries while numerous studies have demonstrated the influence of business actors across multiple policy domains less work has examined the behaviour of business actors in individual energy centric industries namely the oil gas coal utility and renewable industries accordingly this paper examines the role of business actors in the us energy sector and asks what should policymakers do drawing on new empirical data primarily semi structured interviewers with business actors across the us energy sector this paper argues that there are specific strategies policymakers can employ to help overcome the resistance from incumbent fossil fuel industries specifically these are to entrench and build existing interests via targeted sector specific policies exploit inter industry and intra industry divisions and shift existing interests with policies that induce changes in industry investment and structure

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

the renewable fuel standard in competitive equilibrium market and welfare effects we construct a tractable multi market equilibrium model designed to evaluate alternative biofuel policies the model integrates the u s agricultural sector with the energy sector and it explicitly considers both u s ethanol and biodiesel production the model provides a structural representation of the renewable fuel standard rfs policies and it uses the arbitrage conditions defining the core value of renewable identification number prices to identify the relevant competitive equilibrium conditions the model is parameterized based on elasticities and technical coefficients from the literature to represent observed 2015 data the model is simulated to analyze alternative scenarios including repeal of the rfs projected 2022 rfs mandates and optimal second best mandates the results confirm that the current rfs program considerably benefits the agriculture sector but also leads to overall welfare gains for the united states mostly via beneficial terms of trade effects implementation of projected 2022 mandates which would require further expansion of biodiesel production would lead to a considerable welfare loss relative to 2015 mandate levels constrained second best optimal mandates would entail more corn based ethanol and less biodiesel than currently mandated

genetically modified crops and product differentiation trade and welfare effects in the soybean complex a partial equilibrium four region world trade model for the soybean complex is developed in which roundup ready rr products are weakly inferior substitutes to conventional ones rr seeds are priced at a premium and costly segregation is necessary to separate conventional and biotech products solution of the calibrated model illustrates how incomplete adoption of rr technology arises in equilibrium the united states argentina brazil and the rest of the world row all gain from the introduction of rr soybeans although some groups may lose the impacts of rr production or import bans by the row or brazil are analyzed u s price support helps u s farmers despite hurting the united states and has the potential to improve world efficiency

welfare impacts of alternative biofuel and energy policies an open economy equilibrium model is derived to investigate the effects of energy policy on the u s economy with emphasis on corn based ethanol a second best policy of a fuel tax and ethanol subsidy is found to approximate fairly closely the welfare gains associated with the first best policy of an optimal carbon tax and tariffs on traded goods the largest economic gains to the u s economy from these energy policies arise from their impact on u s terms of trade particularly in the oil market conditional on the current fuel tax an optimal ethanol mandate is superior to an optimal ethanol subsidy copyright 2011 oxford university press

commodity storage and the market effects of biofuel policies the author 2016 legislation passed in 2007 by the u s congress increased by about 1 3 billion bushels the net amount of corn required to be processed annually into ethanol for motor fuel use we estimate that corn prices were about 30 higher from 2006 to 2014 than they would have been without this demand increase we develop a partially identified structural vector autoregression model our identification strategy is unique in the literature because it enables us to estimate the effects of transitory shocks such as weather separately from the effects of persistent shocks such as the increased ethanol mandate moreover by only partially identifying our model we show how to generate robust conclusions without strong identifying assumptions

world oil market or mayhem the world oil market is regarded by many as a puzzle why are oil prices so volatile what is opec and what does opec do where are oil prices headed in the long run is peak oil a genuine concern why did oil prices spike in the summer of 2008 and what role did speculators play any attempt to answer these questions must be informed and disciplined by economics such is the purpose of this essay to illuminate recent developments in the world oil market from the perspective of economic theory

community comparisons and subjective well being in a divided society using a south african data set the paper poses six questions about the determinants of subjective well being much of the paper is concerned with the role of relative concepts we find that comparator income measured as average income of others in the local residential cluster enters the household s utility function positively but that income of more distant others others in the district or province enters negatively the ordered probit equations indicate that as well as comparator groups based on spatial proximity race based comparator groups are important in the racially divided south african society it is also found that relative income is more important to happiness at higher levels of absolute income potential explanations of these results and their implications are considered

some inconvenient truths about climate change policy the distributional impacts of transportation policies abstract climate policy has favored costly measures that implicitly or explicitly subsidize lowcarbon fuels we simulate four transportation sector policies cap and trade cat ethanol subsidies a renewable fuel standard rfs and a lowcarbon fuel standard our simulations confirm that alternatives to cat are 2 5 to 4 times more costly but are amenable to adoption due to right skewed distributions of gains we analyze voting on the waxman markey wm cat bill conditional on a district s cat gains a district s rfs gains are negatively correlated with the likelihood of voting for wm our analysis supports campaign contributions as a partial mechanism

applied general equilibrium welfare analysis harberger has long advocated a particular technique for measuring the sum of all effects of an intervention both in the intervened in and related markets the technique is to calculate consumer and producer surplus changes behind demand and supply curves that are explicitly general equilibrium ge that is along curves that hold constant demand and supply conditions in related markets but not prices by calculating surplus changes with respect to such curves one simulates the equilibrium price paths in other markets resulting from the intervention and captures the sum of the welfare effects several authors have elaborated on harber

measuring energy security can the united states achieve oil independence stochastic simulation of the direct economic costs of oil dependence in an uncertain future is proposed as a useful metric of oil dependence the market failure from which these costs arise is imperfect competition in the world oil market chiefly as a consequence of the use of market power by the organization of the petroleum exporting countries opec cartel oil dependence costs can be substantial it is estimated that oil dependence costs to the us economy in 2008 will exceed 500 billion other costs such as military expenditures or foreign policy constraints are deemed to be largely derivative of the actual or potential economic costs of oil dependence the use of quantifiable economic costs as a security metric leads to a measurable definition of oil independence or oil security which can be used to test the ability of specific policies to achieve oil independence in an uncertain future

reducing petroleum consumption from transportation diesel fuels alone account for 60 percent of oil consumption the economic argument for seeking to reduce this level of consumption of petroleum based liquid ment for seeking to reduce this level of consumption of petroleum based liquid fuel begins with the externalities associated with high levels of u s consumption of fuel begins with the externalities associated with high levels of u s consumption of petroleum based fuels petroleum based fuels

does britain or the united states have the right gasoline tax this paper develops an analytical framework to assess the second best optimal level of gasoline taxation taking into account unpriced pollution congestion and accident externalities as well as interactions with the broader fiscal system we provide calculations of the optimal taxes for the us and the uk under a variety of parameter scenarios under our central parameter values the second best optimal gasoline tax is 1 01 gal for the us and 1 34 gal for the uk current tax rates are much lower than this in the us and higher in the uk the calculations are moderately sensitive to alternative parameter assumptions the congestion externality is the largest component in both nations revenue raising needs also play a significant role as do accident externalities and local air pollution potential welfare gains from reducing the current uk tax rate are estimated at nearly one fourth the production cost of all gasoline used in the uk even larger gains could be achieved by switching to a tax on vehicle miles with equal revenue yield for the us the welfare gains from optimizing the gasoline tax are smaller but those from switching to an optimal tax on vehicle miles are very large

dynamics of pro market institutions and firm performance we analyze how pro market institutions affect firm performance in emerging markets integrating transaction costs and signaling theory we advance three arguments first we separate four dynamic components of pro market institutions intensifying and fading pro market reforms and intensifying and fading pro market reversals second we propose an asymmetric dynamic view whereby not only intensifying reforms but also fading reversals improve firm performance while not only fading reforms but also intensifying reversals reduce performance finally we argue that more efficient firms perform better under each of the dynamics we test these arguments on a sample of 1092 firms from 34 emerging markets during 1998 2011

the role of fairness in wage determination neoclassical wage theory is based on the premise that a worker s utility is based on his own wage and his own hours of work without reference to the wages and hours of others this article reviews anecdotal evidence that the wages of others are a powerful force in determining worker satisfaction such that utility goes down when the wages of others go up the resulting comparisons are a powerful force in determining wage structure but do not exclude ultimate effect of neoclassical wage determinants

second best biofuel policies and the welfare effects of quantity mandates and subsidies abstract the quest for biorenewable energy sources is held to justify a number of government interventions including support policies for biofuels such as those responsible for the recent rapid growth of us ethanol production this article provides an analytical assessment of such policies we construct a general equilibrium open economy model that captures the rationale typically invoked to justify government intervention in this setting to alleviate the environmental impact of energy consumption and to decrease us energy dependence on foreign sources the model is used to study both the positive and normative implications of alternative policy instruments including the subsidies and mandates specified by the 2007 energy independence and security act from a positive perspective we find that biofuels mandates are equivalent to a combination of fuel taxes and biofuels subsidies that are revenue neutral from a welfare perspective we show that biofuels mandates dominate biofuels subsidies and that combining fuel taxes with mandates would be welfare enhancing

culture and institutions how economic freedom and long term orientation interactively influence corporate social responsibility studies of international differences in firm behavior tend to consider either institutional or cultural factors focusing on corporate social responsibility csr we conjecture that not only both institutions and culture need to be taken into account but also the interaction between these two sets of factors we theorize that the institutions associated with economic freedom in combination with the cultural trait long term orientation positively influences csr practices panel data of 5023 companies from 41 countries confirm this expectation this finding pertains both to long term orientation at the level of the society and at the level of the company our findings support calls for more attention to interactive effects of cultures and institutions

u s oil dependence 2014 is energy independence in sight abstract the importance of reducing u s oil dependence may have changed in light of developments in the world oil market over the past two decades since 2005 increased domestic production and decreased oil use have cut u s import dependence in half the direct costs of oil dependence to the u s economy are estimated under four u s energy information administration scenarios to 2040 the key premises of the analysis are that the primary oil market failure is the use of market power by opec and that u s economic vulnerability is a result of the quantity of oil consumed the lack of readily available economical substitutes and the quantity of oil imported monte carlo simulations of future oil market conditions indicate that the costs of u s oil dependence are likely to increase in constant dollars but decrease relative to u s gross domestic product unless oil resources are larger than estimated by the u s energy information administration reducing oil dependence therefore remains a valuable goal for u s energy policy and an important co benefit of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions

comparing capitalisms understanding institutional diversity and its implications for international business this paper examines the role of institutional analysis within the field of international business ib studies within ib institutions matter but the view of institutions tends to be thin utilizing summary indicators rather than detailed description and thus approaches institutions as unidimensional variables that impact on particular facets of business activity this paper argues that ib research would be usefully advanced by greater attention to comparing the topography of institutional landscapes and understanding their diversity a number of alternative case based approaches are outlined that draw on a growing comparative capitalisms literature in sociology and political science the paper develops a number of empirical examples to show the utility and limits of these approaches for ib scholars

a note on opec market power and oil prices a static model of opec as a cartel with a fringe group of competitive producers is used to define short and long run monopoly price curves as a function of opec s market share a static model is used on the grounds that oil as adelman has argued is not a depletable resource in the sense of the hotelling theory but is more like a normal good that can be produced with application of labour capital resources and technology a rational cartel will choose prices that lie between the two curves the shapes of the curves depend on the world price elasticity of demand for oil and on the supply response rate of competitive oil producers as opec s market share increases the distances between the two curves increase rapidly this could lead to an unstable market since any price between the two curves would be obtainable in the short run in the long run prices above the long run price curve will result in a loss of market share for the cartel except in a growing market reducing the cartel s market power future work will extend the model to consider dynamic pricing strategies as a function of the cartel s discount rate and world market response rate

crop supply dynamics and the illusion of partial adjustment we use field level data to estimate the response of corn and soybean acreage to price shocks our sample contains more than 8 million observations derived from satellite imagery and includes every cultivated field in iowa illinois and indiana we estimate that aggregate crop acreage responds more to price shocks in the short run than in the long run and we show theoretically how the benefits of crop rotation generate this response pattern in essence farmers who change crops due to a price shock have an incentive to switch back to the previous crop to capture the benefits of crop rotation our result contradicts the long held belief that agricultural supply responds gradually to price shocks through partial adjustment we would not have obtained this result had we used county level panel data standard econometric methods applied to county level data produce estimates consistent with partial adjustment we show that this apparent partial adjustment is illusory and we demonstrate how it arises from the fact that fields in the same county are more similar to each other than to fields in other counties this result underscores the importance of using models with appropriate micro foundations and cautions against inferring micro level rigidities from inertia in aggregate panel data our preferred estimate of the own price long run elasticity of corn acreage is 0 29 and the cross price elasticity is 0 22 the corresponding elasticities for soybean acreage are 0 26 and 0 33 our estimated short run elasticities are 37 larger than their long run counterparts

global biofuels key to the puzzle of grain market behavior these jumps in the prices of these three major grains have also revealed the these jumps in the prices of these three major grains have also revealed the chaotic state of economic analysis of agricultural commodity markets economists chaotic state of economic analysis of agricultural commodity markets economists and scientists have engaged in a blame game apportioning percentages of responand scientists have engaged in a blame game apportioning percentages of responsibility for price spikes to bewildering lists of factors which include a surge in meat sibility for price spikes to bewildering lists of factors which include a surge in meat consumption caused by unprecedented increases of income of the vast populations consumption caused by unprecedented increases of income of the vast populations of china and india idiosyncratic regional droughts and fi res speculative bubbles a of china and india idiosyncratic regional droughts and fi res speculative bubbles a new fi nancialization of grain markets the slowdown of global agricultural research new fi nancialization of grain markets the slowdown of global agricultural research spending jumps in costs of energy and fertilizers shifts in interest rates the decline spending jumps in costs of energy and fertilizers shifts in interest rates the decline of the dollar the surge in biofuels demands bans on genetically modifi ed plants of the dollar the surge in biofuels demands bans on genetically modifi ed plants and climate change several observers have claimed to identify a perfect storm in and climate change several observers have claimed to identify a perfect storm in the grain markets in 2007 2008 a confl uence of some of the factors listed above the grain markets in 2007 2008 a confl uence of some of the factors listed above the continuing confused state of the economics of grain price volatility may the continuing confused state of the economics of grain price volatility may seem odd after all grain markets have many of the features of textbook competiseem odd after all grain markets have many of the features of textbook competitive models the products are relatively uniform their primary producers and tive models the products are relatively uniform their primary producers and ultimate consumers are atomistic price takers prices and outputs in the united ultimate consumers are atomistic price takers prices and outputs in the united states and other developed countries are unusually well measured by the standards states and other developed countries are unusually well measured by the standards of most goods and services in the world economy with data freely available from of most goods and services in the world economy with data freely available from

world oil demand s shift toward faster growing and less price responsive products and regions abstract using data for 1971 2008 we estimate the effects of changes in price and income on world oil demand disaggregated by product transport oil fuel oil residual and heating oil and other oil for six groups of countries most of the demand reductions since 1973 74 were due to fuel switching away from fuel oil especially in the oecd in addition the collapse of the former soviet union fsu reduced their oil consumption substantially demand for transport and other oil was much less price responsive and has grown almost as rapidly as income especially outside the oecd and fsu world oil demand has shifted toward products and regions that are faster growing and less price responsive in contrast to projections to 2030 of declining per capita demand for the world as a whole by the u s department of energy doe international energy agency iea and opec we project modest growth our projections for total world demand in 2030 are at least 20 higher than projections by those three institutions using similar assumptions about income growth and oil prices because we project rest of world growth that is consistent with historical patterns in contrast to the dramatic slowdowns which they project

country level institutions firm value and the role of corporate social responsibility initiatives drawing on transaction cost theories and the resource based view of a firm we posit that the value of corporate social responsibility csr initiatives is greater in countries where an absence of market supporting institutions increases transaction costs and limits access to resources using a large sample of 11 672 firm year observations representing 2445 unique firms from 53 countries during 2003 2010 and controlling for firm level unobservable heterogeneity we find supportive evidence that csr is more positively related to firm value in countries with weaker market institutions we also provide evidence on the channels through which csr initiatives reduce transaction costs we find that csr is associated with improved access to financing in countries with weaker equity and credit markets greater investment and lower default risk in countries with more limited business freedom and longer trade credit period and higher future sales growth in countries with weaker legal institutions our findings provide new insights on non market mechanisms such as csr through which firms can compensate for institutional voids

opec behavior a test of alternative hypotheses since interpretations of past and future oil price patterns depends on the model chosen the author tests and compares alternative theories of opec as a first step in validating the choice on any one model the results show that among opec countries the partial market sharing cartel model is the only model not rejected by at least some of the 11 members and gives the best explanation of production in comparison with 11 non opec countries the competitive model could not be rejected for 10 of the 11 non opec producers this raises the question of why if opec is a cartel friedman s predictions have not come true and introduces new questions for future research 19 references 3 tables

unilateral co2 reductions and carbon leakage the consequences of international trade in oil and basic materials a recursively dynamic general equilibrium model featuring six world regions with trade in energy and non energy goods is used to simulate the period from 1990 through 2100 in 10 year intervals the simulations explore the effect of unilateral action by the oecd to curb global co2 emissions unilateral cuts create incentives for free riding by non participating regions so that global emissions are reduced by less than the amount that the oecd cuts back its regional emissions carbon leakage occurs through two channels first basic materials production increases in unconstrained regions resulting in increased carbon intensity of gdp second reductions in oecd oil imports cause the world oil price to fall leading to an increased energy intensity in the non participant regions in this paper we use a general equilibrium model to assess the extent to which these two mechanisms reduce the effectiveness of oecd reductions in curbing global co2 concentrations

2008 presidential address institutions economic freedom and cross country differences in performance this address describes the history of the economic freedom of the world efw project and the development of the efw index this index is a measure of the extent to which the institutions and policies of various countries are coordinated by personal choice voluntary exchange open markets and clearly defined and enforced property rights the index contains 42 different components and is currently available for 141 countries data for approximately 100 countries are available back to 1980 the efw index incorporates many of the elements that new institutional economists argue are important sources of growth thus it facilitates empirical investigation of the institutional theory of growth and crosscountry comparisons of economic performance in this regard the paper considers 10 propositions that have been addressed with the index and what has been learned from this analysis

foreign subsidiary csr as a buffer against parent firm reputation risk this study examines the influence of parent firm reputation risk on the level of corporate social responsibility activities of foreign subsidiaries we first argue that a strong reputation risk spillover occurs from parent firms to their foreign subsidiaries due to the high visibility of multinationals the control of parent firms over their subsidiaries and the liability of foreignness associated with foreign firms in host countries then we argue that subsidiaries may resort to csr in their host country to reduce the spillover effect thus we hypothesize a positive relationship between parent firm reputation risk and foreign subsidiary csr activities moreover we explore several contingency factors at both the parent firm and subsidiary levels that affect the extent of spillover and the need for subsidiaries to use csr as a buffer against parent firm reputation risk we find that the positive relationship between parent firm reputation risk and foreign subsidiary csr activities is weaker for foreign subsidiaries that directly report to the parent firm with longer operations in the host country and larger institutional distance between host and home countries using a unique sample of subsidiaries of large multinationals in china from 2009 to 2016 we find general support for our arguments

logistic growth curve modeling of us energy production and consumption abstract this research used four parameter multi cycle logistic growth curve models on us energy information agency annual data from 1949 to 2015 to produce fixed condition forecasts of us energy production and consumption to 2040 these models and forecasts were used to assess the ability of us energy production sources to meet demand to anticipate production and technology challenges and to make general policy recommendations the logistic fixed condition forecasts indicated the ongoing increases in total us energy production dominated by crude oil and natural gas production will likely peak in 2017 at 95 0 quadrillion quad btu then rapidly decrease through 2040 at 36 2 quad btu while total us energy consumption indicated an ongoing plateau at 98 1 quad btu new growth cycles not evident in the 2015 data will certainly occur mitigating the decline in energy production before 2040 however without adequate foresight and preemptive action it is possible that new production growth would not be adequate to reverse the decline given historical growth trends therefore in addition to continued increases in energy efficiency reductions in use and implementation of carbon management technologies direct effort towards the sustainable development of substantial new growth cycles in all energy production sources through adequate investment of resources should be a priority of the us energy industry policy makers and the public alike

what do consumers believe about future gasoline prices a full understanding of how gasoline prices affect consumer behavior frequently requires information on how consumers forecast future gasoline prices we provide the first evidence on the nature of these forecasts by analyzing two decades of data on gasoline price expectations from the michigan survey of consumers we find that average consumer beliefs are typically indistinguishable from a no change forecast justifying an assumption commonly made in the literature on consumer valuation of energy efficiency we also provide evidence on circumstances in which consumer forecasts are likely to deviate from no change and on significant cross consumer forecast heterogeneity

the adoption of state electricity regulation the role of interest groups this paper examines the adoption of state electricity regulation around the beginning of the 20th century i model this decision as a hazard rate to determine what influenced the adoption of state regulation i find that adoption is positively correlated with capacity shortages greater wealth and lower residential electricity penetration rates these results suggest that state regulation responded to regulatory inefficiencies and residential consumer interests in addition adoption rates were higher in states that had a strong industrial and coal mining presence these results are consistent with the interest group and contracting theories of regulation states began replacing municipal regulation of electric utilities with state regulation in 1907 despite the long history surprisingly little is known about the causes of the regime shift in this paper i estimate a hazard model that defines the probability of adopting state regulation as a function of variables that measure the potential benefits and costs of a number of interest groups the shortage of installed capacity and concurrent levels of electricity prices and profits the results shed light on which theories of regulation are most consistent with the data i find evidence that is consistent with the interest group theory of regulation which began with peltzman 1976 and the contracting theory of regulation attributed to priest 1993 the interest group theory of regulation centers around private interest group competition regulators respond to the pressures of interest groups one testable implication of the interest group theory is that if state regulation benefited a certain class of consumers such as residential consumers at the expense of another class of consumers the

on the effectiveness of tradable performance based standards abstract two types of emission trading programs are allowed under the us federal clean power plan cpp mass based cap and trade c t program and the performance based trading program while a c t sets a total emission cap for a region a performance based program under cpp relies on trading the emission rate credits ercs which represent an equivalent mwh of energy generated or saved with zero associated co 2 emissions to reduce emission costs this paper examines the theoretical properties of the tradable performance based policy and compares it to a c t program we distinguish two kinds of tradable performance based policy 1 a regional policy under which all states are subject to a regional performance based standard and 2 a state by state policy under which each state adopts its performance based policy within a regional power market while trading of ercs is allowed our findings indicate that under a state by state policy power prices across states could be different even without any transmission congestion reflecting varying stringency of tradable performance based standards among states within an interconnected market we also identify a counterintuitive result that even if ercs trading is allowed under the state by state performance policy the permit prices could diverge two models are simulated in our analysis three state and the pennsylvania jersey maryland pjm regional power market while the three state example allows us to illustrate the theoretical properties of the policies the pjm based simulation allows us to gauge the performance of the policies our pjm analysis shows that a c t policy is the most effective while the comparison between a regional and state by state tradable performance policy is ambiguous

the demand for ethanol as a gasoline substitute abstract this paper estimates household preferences for ethanol e85 as a gasoline e10 substitute i develop a theoretical model linking the shape of the ethanol demand curve to the underlying distribution among households of willingness to pay for ethanol i estimate the model using instrumental variables techniques and data from many retail fueling stations i find that a 0 10 per gallon increase in ethanol s price relative to gasoline leads to a 12 16 decrease in the quantity of ethanol demanded my findings imply that preferences for ethanol are heterogeneous and that a substantial fraction of households are willing to pay a premium for the fuel this reduces substantially the simulated efficiency cost of an ethanol content standard since some households choose ethanol without large subsidies mitigating deadweight losses

the political economy of the fair labor standards act of 1938 this paper examines the congressional passage of the american minimum wage law the fair labor standards act of 1938 voting on the act is modeled as a function of the concentration of the constituencies for minimum wage legislation north south differentials and legislator ideology it is shown that the house radically altered the final content of the bill abandoning a proposed wages and hours board with discretionary powers to determine minimum wages in favor of a flat rate following the objections of several interest groups north south divisions over the bill had little influence over congressional voting and the influence of constituent groups increased relative to legislators ideology as the bill became an important election issue

votes or money theory and evidence from the us congress abstract this paper investigates the relationship between the size of interest groups in terms of voter representation and the interest group s campaign contributions to politicians we uncover a robust hump shaped relationship between the voting share of an interest group and its contributions to a legislator this pattern is rationalized in a simultaneous bilateral bargaining model where the larger size of an interest group affects the amount of surplus to be split with the politician thereby increasing contributions but is also correlated with the strength of direct voter support the group can offer instead of monetary funds thereby decreasing contributions the model yields simple structural equations that we estimate at the district level employing data on individual and pac donations and local employment by sector this procedure yields estimates of electoral uncertainty and politicians effectiveness as perceived by the interest groups our approach also implicitly delivers a novel method for estimating the impact of campaign spending on election outcomes we find that an additional vote costs a politician on average 145

pass through of the policy induced e85 subsidy insights from hotelling s model abstract we build a structural model of imperfect competition for a retail market that supplies both low ethanol e10 and high ethanol e85 gasoline blends the model permits us to study some impacts of the e85 subsidy induced by the u s renewable fuel standard specifically how the pass through of this subsidy to retail prices is affected by market power the model is rooted in hotelling s horizontal differentiation framework which is extended to also represent the imperfect substitutability between e10 and e85 a vertical product differentiation attribute the model naturally captures two sources of imperfect competition in the fuel market refueling stations market power arising from their spatial location and limited availability of e85 stations we derive both analytical and numerical solutions for nash equilibrium outcomes under various scenarios in our baseline parameterization when the penetration of e85 stations is incomplete we find that the pass through rate is about 0 7 complete penetration of e85 stations leads to near complete pass through notwithstanding the market power enjoyed by stations because of their spatial location with monopolistic market power e g collusion however with full penetration of e85 stations the pass through rate is lower moreover when market power only arises from location differentiation duopoly model with full penetration of e85 the pass through rate converges to one as the subsidy gets large whereas it converges to zero if a station has exclusivity in selling e85 partial penetration of e85 or there is collusion monopoly power from collusion

the economic effects of climate change greenhouse gas emissions are fundamental both to the world s energy system and to its food production the production of co2 the predominant gas implicated in climate change is intrinsic to fossil fuel combustion specifically thermal energy is generated by breaking the chemical bonds in the carbohydrates oil coal and natural gas and oxidizing the components to co2 and h2o one cannot have cheap energy without carbon dioxide emissions similarly methane ch4 emissions an important greenhouse gas in its own right are necessary to prevent the build up of hydrogen in anaerobic digestion and decomposition one cannot have beef mutton dairy or rice without methane emissions climate change is the mother of all externalities larger more complex and more uncertain than any other environmental problem the sources of greenhouse gas emissions are more diffuse than any other environmental problem every company every farm every household emits some greenhouse gases the effects are similarly pervasive weather affects agriculture energy use health and many aspects of nature which in turn affects everything and everyone the causes and consequences of climate change are very diverse and those in low income countries who contribute least to climate change are most vulnerable to its effects climate change is also a long term problem some greenhouse gases have an atmospheric life time measured in tens of thousands of years the quantities of emissions involved are enormous in 2000 carbon dioxide emissions alone and excluding land use change were 24 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide tco2

determinants of opec production implications for opec behavior we estimate models that identify the economic and organizational determinants of crude oil production by individual opec nations to clarify the interpretation of econometric results we model production with specifications that resolve the statistical ordering of variables and estimate models with techniques that can cope with stochastic trends in the time series we also analyze the short run dynamics for asymmetries that may carry important insights about opec behavior results indicate that quotas are an important determinant of production and their effects generally are symmetric which implies that opec is an organization that influences production and ultimately prices real prices generally have a positive effect on production and the size of this effect may depend on spare capacity which implies that opec behaviors also embody competitive elements finally all nations other than saudi arabia show some form of production sharing behavior which may imply that opec shares mismatches between the call for opec production and opec quotas

job satisfaction and preference drift most empirical studies do not find that higher wages lead to more job satisfaction in this paper we argue that the insignificant effect of wages on job satisfaction is due to preference drift we adapt the standard ordered response model to allow for preference shifts the empirical results support the hypothesis of preference drift in job satisfaction

firms corporate social responsibility behavior an integration of institutional and profit maximization approaches understanding firms behavior across countries a key concern in the international business literature requires the joint consideration of both institutional influences and firms profit maximization goals in the corporate social responsibility csr area however researchers have utilized theories that take into account only one or the other institutional theory which explains csr as legitimacy seeking activities in line with national level institutions or economic based approaches that consider csr effects only in terms of firm profitability while an institutional argument implies convergence in csr behavior among firms in similar institutional contexts profit maximization logic treats csr as a firm specific behavior we integrate these perspectives by demonstrating the moderating effects of firms economic motivations for seeking legitimacy on the relationship between institutional environment and csr responsiveness we argue that variations in firms economic visibility and economic vulnerability can bring about differences in their need for societal goodwill and in turn their legitimacy seeking findings on a database of apparel firms employee related csr across 23 countries support this overall argument the integration of such fundamentally different theoretical perspectives allows us to contribute new theoretical insights to international business on the influence of national institutions on firms behavior

oil demand shocks reconsidered a cointegrated vector autoregression abstract we reconsider the conclusions about the importance of oil demand shocks and the unimportance of supply shocks reported by kilian 2009 we investigate whether the proxy for worldwide real economic activity dry bulk maritime freight costs represents anything more than transportation costs by analyzing the relation between these costs and oil prices the meaning of this variable is critical because transportation costs appear on both sides of the equations estimated by kilian directly as dry bulk maritime freight costs and as part of the measure for oil prices we also investigate the effects of representing oil supply with an aggregate of opec and non opec production because they likely use different criteria to chose output finally we investigate kilian s use of the first difference of supply while the other variables in his model are represented as levels the results suggest that opec and nonopec nations use different criteria to set output and that reductions increases in opec production raise lower oil prices the elements of the cointegrating relations their loadings and impulse response functions suggest that the positive relation between dry bulk maritime freight costs and oil prices simply represents the effect of higher oil prices on transportation costs sensitivity analyses suggest that these differences are caused by including transportation costs in the measure of oil prices aggregating opec and non opec productions and using a very long lag length to estimate the var together these results suggest that conclusions about the importance of demand shocks and the unimportance of supply shocks are not robust to alternative specifications that are consistent with many empirical findings about the world oil market

a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence this paper presents a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence political equilibrium depends on the efficiency of each group in producing pressure the effect of additional pressure on their influence the number of persons in different groups and the deadweight cost of taxes and subsidies an increase in deadweight costs discourages pressure by subsidized groups and encourages pressure by taxpayers this analysis unifies the view that governments correct market failures with the view that they favor the politically powerful both are produced by the competition for political favors

voter influence and big policy change the positive political economy of the new deal what conditions cause major policy changes under representative government this article addresses that question by providing a theoretically grounded analysis of a massive policy change the new deal it explains how the economic problems of the early 1930s initiated changes on several dimensions of policy federal spending labor market regulation and civil rights the article concludes by considering the broader lessons learned from the political economy of the new deal

measuring global gasoline and diesel price and income elasticities abstract price and income elasticities of transport fuel demand have numerous applications they help forecast increases in fuel consumption as countries get richer they help develop appropriate tax policies to curtail consumption help determine how the transport fuel mix might evolve and show the price response to a fuel disruption given their usefulness it is understandable why hundreds of studies have focused on measuring such elasticities for gasoline and diesel fuel consumption in this paper i focus my attention on price and income elasticities in the existing studies to see what can be learned from them i summarize the elasticities from these historical studies i use statistical analysis to investigate whether income and price elasticities seem to be constant across countries with different incomes and prices although income and price elasticities for gasoline and diesel fuel are not found to be the same at high and low incomes and at high and low prices patterns emerge that allow me to develop suggested price and income elasticities for gasoline and diesel demand for over one hundred countries i adjust these elasticities for recent fuel mix policies and suggest an agenda of future research topics

are contributors rational untangling strategies of political action committees empirical public choice literature and casual observation suggest that the behavior of political action committees is remarkably unsophisticated meaning that pacs give to those legislators who would support their interests anyway thus it is suggested that contributor behavior deviates from rational behavior which is a cornerstone of economic analysis in this paper a switching regression model is estimated that allows for strategies of pacs to vary for different contribution recipients i analyze the behavior of farm pacs over three election cycles in contrast to previous findings i find that contributor behavior is not inconsistent with rational behavior contributors who attempt to influence the voting behavior of members of congress give the most money to legislators whose constituency interest suggests that they are likely to be undecided on how to vote and pacs give less money to legislators who represent districts with larger farm populations because those legislators are likely to vote in con

evaluating u s oil security and import reliance abstract we examine the literature that considers the consequences of u s reliance on imported oil we take an approach that covers many ideas about the costs arising from u s reliance on imported oil and we identify which of those ideas have broad support in the economics literature and which ideas have only limited support we also quantify the costs of u s reliance on imported oil using two approaches one is fairly narrow conforms to the economics view of externalities and yields small cost estimates the other is relatively expansive is favored by some policy analysts and yields much larger cost estimates we estimate these costs as expected u s economic losses over a time horizon from 2010 through 2035 while taking into account world oil market conditions market power probable oil supply disruptions and the oil market response to those supply disruptions

policy shocks and market based regulations evidence from the renewable fuel standard the renewable fuel standard mandates large increases in u s biofuel consumption and is implemented using tradable compliance credits known as rins in early 2013 rin prices soared causing the regulator to propose reducing future mandates we estimate empirically the effect of three policy shocks that reduced the expected mandates in 2013 we find that the largest of these shocks decreased the value of the fuel industry s 2013 compliance obligation by 7 billion we then study the effects of the shocks on commodity markets and the market value of publicly traded biofuel firms results show that the burden of the mandate reductions fell primarily on advanced biofuel firms and commodity markets of the marginal compliance biofuel we argue that the policy shocks reduced the incentive to invest in the technologies required to meet the future objectives of the rfs and discuss alternative policy designs to address the problems that arose in 2013

multilevel models in international business research multiple level or mixed linear modeling mlm can simultaneously test hypotheses at several levels of analysis usually two or three or control for confounding effects at one level while testing hypotheses at others advances in multi level modeling allow increased precision in quantitative international business ib research and open up new methodological and conceptual possibilities however they create new challenges and they are still not frequently used in ib research in this editorial we outline some key methodological issues for the uses of mlm in ib including criteria sample size and measure equivalence issues we then examine promising directions for future multilevel ib research considering comparative opportunities at nation multiple nation cluster and within nation region levels including large multilevel databases we also consider its promise for mne research about semi globalization interorganizational effects across nations clusters within nations and teams and subsidiaries within mnes

the impact of societal cultural values and individual social beliefs on the perceived effectiveness of managerial influence strategies a meso approach this paper reports the findings of a 12 nation study designed to test empirically the relationships between societal cultural values individual social beliefs and the perceived effectiveness of different influence strategies the relationships between three types of broad influence strategy persuasive assertive and relationship based and four dimensions of individual beliefs cynicism fate control reward for application and religiosity were examined three of project globe s cultural values in group collectivism uncertainty avoidance and future orientation were selected to investigate their direct effects on the rated effectiveness of influence strategies and their possible interaction with dimensions of individual beliefs results showed that different dimensions of individual social beliefs predict the perceived effectiveness of the three types of influence strategy and that cultural values can moderate the strength of the relationship between these dimensions of individual social beliefs and the perceived effectiveness of influence strategies

assessing the u s oil security premium abstract world oil supply disruptions lead to u s economic losses increased oil consumption increases the vulnerability of the economy to oil supply disruptions but it matters where the additional oil is produced increased production from stable producers can dampen future oil price shocks whereas increased production from unstable producers can exacerbate future oil price shocks because oil is fungible u s pricing and import policies can differentiate only between domestic and imported oil rather than between stable and unstable sources the economic losses associated with oil supply disruptions gdp losses and some transfers abroad are externalities that can be quantified as oil security premiums we estimate these premiums by taking into account projected world oil market conditions probable oil supply disruptions the market response to oil supply disruptions and the resulting u s economic losses

emissions taxes versus intensity standards second best environmental policies with incomplete regulation the best emissions tax or emissions cap may be an inferior instrument under incomplete regulation leakage without leakage an intensity standard regulating emissions per unit of output is inferior due to an implicit output subsidy this inefficiency can be eliminated by an additional consumption tax with leakage an intensity standard can dominate the optimal emissions tax since the implicit output subsidy prevents leakage the addition of a consumption tax improves an intensity standard s efficiency may prevent leakage and may be efficient comparing intensity standards to output based updating shows that the latter dominates if updating is sufficiently flexible