a simple estimator for simultaneous models with censored endogenous reggressors this paper presents a simple two step estimator for models with censored endogenous regressors and sample selection bias the approach unifies the literature on censored endogenous regressors and sample selection bias and provides extensions the procedure employs generalized residuals to adjust for the inconsistency caused by the endogeneity of the censored regressors the paper also provides two new tests of weak exogeneity an empirical example examining the trade off between fringe benefits and wages indicates that the estimation procedure works well a monte carlo experiment suggests that the proposed tests have good power properties copyright 1993 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

efficient and durable decision rules with incomplete information we compare six concepts of efficiency for economies with incomplete information depending on the stage at which individuals welfare is evaluated and on whether incentive constraints are recognized an example is shown in which an incentive efficient decision rule may be unanimously rejected by the individuals in the economy we define durable decision rules which can resist such unanimous rejection and show that efficient durable decision rules exist

efficient mechanisms for bilateral trading we consider bargaining problems between one buyer and one seller for a single object the seller s valuation and the buyer s valuation for the object are assumed to be independent random variables and each individual s valuation is unknown to the other we characterize the set of allocation mechanisms that are bayesian incentive compatible and individually rational and show the general impossibility of ex post efficient mechanisms without outside subsidies for a wide class of problems we show how to compute mechanisms that maximize expected total gains from trade and mechanisms that can maximize a broker s expected profit journal of economic literature classification number 026

optimal nonparametric estimation of first price auctions this paper proposes a general approach and a computationally convenient estimation procedure for the structural analysis of auctioni data considering first price sealed bid auction models within the independent private value paradigm we show that the underlying distribution of bidders private values is identified from observed bids and the number of actual bidders without any parametric assumptions using the theoiy of minimax we establish the best rate of uniform convergence at which the latent density of private values can be estimated nonparametrically from available data we then propose a two step kernel based estimator that converges at the optimal rate

multiple round timber auction design and simulation this paper presents a multiple round timber auction simulation developed in order to study various configurations of auction design in this study simultaneous sequential timber auctions are modelled and analysed using agent based simulation technology as there are many individual items in the auction to be sold the auction designer defines several rounds that are sequential at pre defined intervals at each round the auction designer announces several simultaneous auctions since bidders are offered different items at each round a mathematical linear programing model for selecting the best set of items to bid for is presented different bidding patterns are simulated and compared in various setup configurations the most advanced of these strategies are adaptive and use agent learning capability the comparisons include the success rate of winning the auction and the winning price per m3 this study suggests an efficient bidding pattern for bidders to bid in order to achieve to their goal and increase their profit similarly in order to increase profit the auctioneer i e the government needs to control several auction parameters including the number of auctions per year the lot size the auction periodicity and the number of bidders this study also suggests parameters configurations that to maximise revenue for the auctioneer

women ask for less only from men evidence from bargaining in the field abstract data from a tv show provide the opportunity to study gender differences and gender interaction effects in bargaining with sizable stakes a proposer and a responder who is selected by the proposer bargain over a fixed pie proposers are in a stronger bargaining position because they have a positive outside option and information on the size of the pie while responders have neither the matching between male proposers and female responders stands as the most favorable for proposers women as responders demand less only from male proposers which explains the difference in earnings

old problems in the new solutions politically motivated allocation of program benefits and the new fertilizer subsidies summary fertilizer subsidies have been reinstituted in many african countries with innovations seeking to avoid the downsides of past programs the new subsidy paradigm however does not address how to curtail political manipulation which exacerbated inefficiencies of previous programs this paper analyzes whether politics affected voucher allocations in ghana s 2008 fertilizer subsidy program we find that more vouchers were targeted to districts that the ruling party had lost in the previous presidential elections and more so in districts that had been lost by a higher percentage margin this evidence shows that a significant threat to the efficiency of fertilizer subsidies remains

testing for price anomalies in real estate auctions this paper reports on the results of an auction sale of 83 condominium apartment units in new jersey at the auction every unit was hammered down but unknown to the 2 348 registered bidders 40 of the sales fell through prices in the subsequent sale of condominium units in face to face negotiations resulted in identical units selling for 13 less than they fetched at auction and the discount was largest for those units hammered down early in the auction these results are inconsistent with the usual predictions from the theory of common value auctions and suggest that uninformed bidders in this auction may have been the subject of a winner s curse which generated considerable profit for the seller this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from ano this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

a trait based model of the potential demand for a genetically engineered food crop in a developing economy we predict the potential demand of smallholder farmers for genetically transformed varieties of a food crop the cooking banana of the east african highlands farmer demand for planting material is derived in an agricultural household model that accounts for variety traits and missing markets the demand for candidate host varieties is predicted using a zero inflated poisson zip regression system the fitted model is used to illustrate the sensitivity of farmer demand for improved planting material to a investments in research and development represented by the effectiveness of gene insertion and expression and b other public investments in education extension and market infrastructure that support diffusion by comparing the characteristics of agricultural households we demonstrate that the choice of host variety can have social consequences favoring one rural population compared with another clients for transgenic banana planting material are likely to be poorer subsistence oriented farmers in areas greatly affected by biotic constraints a model of this type might be useful in assessing the investments needed to support the systematic dissemination of improved planting material the approach can be generalized to other crop biotechnologies for smallholder farming systems particularly in developing economies

structural estimation of the affiliated private value auction model we consider the structural estimation of the affiliated private value apv model in first price sealed bid auctions the model allows for bidders individual efficiencies and opportunity costs while permitting dependence among bidders private values through affiliation we establish the nonparametric identification of the apv model characterize its theoretical restrictions and propose a computationally convenient and consistent two step nonparametric estimation procedure for estimating the joint private value distribution from observed bids using simulated bid data we provide a step by step guide on how to implement our procedure and show the good behavior of our estimator in small samples

dis incentivizing sustainable intensification the case of zambia s maize fertilizer subsidy program abstract poor and declining soil fertility is a major constraint to increased cereal yields in sub saharan africa while input subsidy programs isps for inorganic fertilizer are a popular and expensive tool used by african governments to increase smallholder farmers cereal yields far fewer resources are devoted to promoting other soil fertility management sfm practices that can improve soil health increase cereal yield response to inorganic fertilizer and support sustainable agricultural intensification moreover little is known about how isps affect farmers use of such sfm practices we examine whether and to what extent household participation in zambia s maize fertilizer subsidy program affects the household s use of fallowing intercropping crop rotation and animal manure using nationally representative panel survey data from zambian smallholder farm households we find that zambia s maize fertilizer subsidy program reduces the probability and extent of fallowing and intercropping of maize with other crops in addition we find some evidence that the program induces an increase in continuous maize cultivation on the same plot over time however the weight of the evidence suggests no statistically significant isp effects on the use of animal manure the analysis uses the mundlak chamberlain device to control for time invariant unobserved heterogeneity and addresses concerns related to the endogeneity of selection into the subsidy program with an instrumental variables control function approach overall our results suggest that zambia s maize fertilizer subsidy program may have dis incentivized sustainable intensification rather than promoted it

collusion under asymmetric information when applied to groups the revelation principle postulates a bayesian nash behavior between agents their binding agreements are unenforceable or the principal can prevent them at no cost we analyze instead a mechanism design problem in which the agents can communicate between themselves and collude under asymmetric information we characterize the set of implementable collusion proof contracts both when the principal offers anonymous and nonanonymous contracts after having isolated the nexi and the stakes of collusion we proceed to a normative analysis perform some comparative statics discuss our concept of collusion proofness and provide some insights about transaction costs in side contracting

bargaining with asymmetric information an empirical study of plea negotiations this paper empirically investigates how sentences to be assigned at trial impact plea bargaining the analysis is based on the model of bargaining with asymmetric information by bebchuk 1984 i provide conditions for the nonparametric identification of the model propose a consistent nonparametric estimator and implement it using data on criminal cases from north carolina employing the estimated model i evaluate how different sentencing reforms affect the outcome of criminal cases my results indicate that lower mandatory minimum sentences could greatly reduce the total amount of incarceration time assigned by the courts but may increase conviction rates in contrast the broader use of non incarceration sentences for less serious crimes reduces the number of incarceration convictions but has a very small effect over the total assigned incarceration time i also consider the effects of a ban on plea bargains depending on the case characteristics over 20 percent of the defendants who currently receive incarceration sentences would be acquitted if plea bargains were forbidden

the price effects of increased competition in auction markets bidding theory predicts low er selling winning bids higher buying winning bids as numbers of bidders incre ase alternative versions predict that winning bids fall rise with the second order statistic the maximum order statistic or 1 n the authors test these pre dictions using data on underwriters spreads on tax exempt bonds offshore oil t racts and national forest timber they estimate winning bids using general vari ables for the product and dummies for 1 2 11 bidders in all cases mor e bidders meansignificantly lower selling winning bids the expected maximum order statistic fits better than either the second order statistic or1 n in te n out of twelve cases copyright 1987 by mit press

the home selling problem theory and evidence this paper formulates and solves the problem of a homeowner who wants to sell their house for the maximum possible price net of transactions costs including real estate commissions the optimal selling strategy consists of an initial list price with subs equent weekly decisions on how much to adjust the list price until the home is sold or withdrawn from the market the solution also yields a sequence of reservation prices that determine whether the homeowner should accept bids from potential buyers who arrive stochastically over time with an expected arrival rate that is a decreasing function of the list price this model was developed to provide a theoretical explanation for list price dynamics and bargaining behavior observed for a sample of homeowners in england in a new data set introduced by

timber sale auctions with random reserve prices this paper analyzes first price sealed bid auctions of standing timber organized by the french forest service office national des forets onf a feature of these auctions is that they are held wi

optimal bidding in auctions from a game theory perspective abstract the game theoretic perspective in auction bidding has provided a powerful normative framework for the analysis of auctions and it has generated an impressive volume of research contributions tracing this research we review key recent advances which have greatly expanded our understanding of the operation of auctions and produced a more accurate analysis of mechanism design and optimal bidding we follow various experimental studies which have shown that the predictive power of auction theory remains in many cases limited for this reason we concentrate on research themes which enhance the applicability of auction theory leading to more realistic descriptions of bidding behaviors we identify important innovations which expand the environment of auction bidding and carry us beyond rational decision making we conclude providing directions of future research and discussing their implications

game theory econometric models application to procurements in the space industry abstract this paper presents a structural econometric analysis of procurements in the space industry we analyse bidimensional tenders in price and quality the econometric specification assumes that bidders use nash equilibrium strategies these strategies are derived analytically or computed by monte carlo procedures

bridging theories on environmental governance insights from free market approaches and institutional ecological economics perspectives abstract due to methodological problems and their practical limitations the criticism of neoclassical environmental economics is increasing the goal of this paper is to stress the differences and similarities between the two competing alternative approaches institutional ecological economics and free market approaches to environmental protection to encourage their interactions towards a possible synthesis in the future

learning by doing and learning from others human capital and technical change in agriculture household level panel data from a nationally representative sample of rural indian households describing the adoption and profitability of high yielding seed varieties hyvs associated with the green revolution are used to test the implications of a model incorporating learning by doing and learning spillovers the estimates indicate that i imperfect knowledge about the management of the new seeds was a significant barrier to adoption ii this barrier diminished as farmer experience with the new technologies increased iii own experience and neighbors experience with hyvs significantly increased hyv profitability and iv farmers do not fully incorporate the village returns to learning in making adoption decisions

dynamic bargaining with transaction costs a buyer and seller alternate making offers until an offer is accepted or someone terminates negotiations the seller s valuation is common knowledge but the buyer s valuation is known only by the buyer impatience to reach an agreement comes from two sources the traders discount future payoffs and there are transaction costs of bargaining equilibrium behavior involves either immediate trade delayed trade or immediate termination depending on the size of the gains from trade and the relative bargaining costs this contrasts with the pure discounting model where termination never occurs and the pure transaction cost model where delayed trade never occurs

empirical testing of auction theory given the state of affairs in auction theory there is at least one model for instance to support any position one would care to take concerning the revenue of sealed bid vs open auctions it should not come as a surprise that a fair amount of empirical work in auctions is underway this paper reports the results of some recently completed research i first discuss papers in which the predictions being tested derive directly from the pure theory of auctions and then papers in which the predictions arise out of an application of auction theory to a related institution

bargaining under incomplete information this paper presents and analyzes a bargaining model of bilateral monopoly under uncertainty under the bargaining rule proposed the buyer and the seller each submit sealed offers that determine whether the good in question is sold and the transfer price the nash equilibrium solution of this bargaining game implies an offer strategy of each party that is monotonic in its own reservation price and depends on its assessment of the opponent s reservation price issues of relative bargaining advantage and efficiency are examined for a number of special cases finally we discuss the appropriateness of the nash solution concept

can crop purchase programs reduce poverty and improve welfare in rural communities evidence from the food reserve agency in zambia the last decade has seen a resurgence of parastatal crop marketing institutions in sub saharan africa many of which cite improving food security and incomes as key goals however there is limited empirical evidence on the welfare effects of these programs this article considers one such program the zambian food reserve agency fra which purchases maize from smallholder farmers at a pan territorial price that typically exceeds maize market prices in surplus production areas using both fixed effects and an instrumental variables approach combined with correlated random effects we estimate the effects of the fra s maize marketing activities on smallholder farm household welfare results suggest that fra activities have positive direct welfare effects on the small minority of smallholder households that are able to sell to it however the results also suggest negative indirect fra effects as higher levels of fra activity in a district are associated with higher levels of poverty

why ecological economics needs to return to its roots the biophysical foundation of socio economic systems abstract ecological economics was formally established in 1989 with the ambitious vision of developing a new economic paradigm embedding the social and economic systems in the biophysical world ecological economics had its roots in the biophysical understanding of economics that pioneers of the field georgescu roegen 1971 odum 1971 daly 1977 jansson 1984 martinez alier 1987 and others developed while studying the thermodynamic bedrocks shared by natural and social systems subsequently however ecological economics has explicitly but controversially adopted a big umbrella approach to methodological pluralism focusing more on topics such as valuing nature and its functions rather than attempting to understand and quantify the biophysical roots of economic activities biophysical economics was established in response to these concerns focusing more on developing analyses and models of the transformations of nature to generate wealth and approached mostly from an energy and material flows perspective the present paper argues that to achieve its original vision ecological economics must return to its biophysical roots collaboration between the two fields will help the next generation of thinkers to address the socio ecological challenges of the 21st century requiring an energy transformation called for by aspirations such as the green new deal and the un sustainable development goals

bayesian inference in structural second price common value auctions structural econometric auction models with explicit game theoretic modeling of bidding strategies have been quite a challenge from a methodological perspective especially within the common value framework we develop a bayesian analysis of the hierarchical gaussian common value model with stochastic entry introduced by bajari and hortacsu a key component of our approach is an accurate and easily interpretable analytical approximation of the equilibrium bid function resulting in a fast and numerically stable evaluation of the likelihood function we extend the analysis to situations with positive valuations using a hierarchical gamma model we use a bayesian variable selection algorithm that simultaneously samples the posterior distribution of the model parameters and does inference on the choice of covariates the methodology is applied to simulated data and to a newly collected dataset from ebay with bids and covariates from 1000 coin auctions we demonstrate that the bayesian algorithm is very effici

alternating offer bargaining with two sided incomplete information i study alternating offer bargaining games with two sided incomplete information about the players discount rates for both perfect bayesian equilibrium and a rationalizability style notion i characterize the set of expected payoffs which may arise in the game i also construct bounds on agreements that may be made the set of expected payoffs is easy to compute and incorporate into applied models my main result is a full characterization of the set of perfect bayesian equilibrium payoffs for games in which the distribution over the players discount rates is of wide support yet is in a weak sense close to a point mass distribution i prove a lopsided convergence result each player cannot gain from a slight chance that she is a strong type but the player can suffer greatly if there is a slight chance that she is a weak type

impacts of subsidized hybrid seed on indicators of economic well being among smallholder maize growers in zambia we test the hypotheses that subsidies on hybrid seed change maize production total household income the severity of poverty and relative deprivation among smallholder maize growers in zambia the analysis contributes to the literature by measuring the quantitative effects of seed as compared to fertilizer subsidies on indicators of household well being rather than input demand we apply a combination of econometric approaches to a nationally representative balanced panel of smallholder maize growing households and invoke the chain rule to generate quantitative estimates of impacts per kilogram of subsidized seed our findings demonstrate that in the initial years of the program subsidized seed enhanced the well being of smallholder maize growers according to each indicator but by small magnitudes simple calculations suggest high private and social benefit cost ratios when benefits are measured in terms of household income although magnitudes are sensitive to seed price and administrative costs

adverse selection and renegotiation in procurement as was shown by dewatripont optimal long term contracts are generally not sequentially optimal the parties ex post renegotiate them to their mutual advantage this paper fully characterizes the equilibrium of a simple two period procurement situation and studies the extent to which renegotiation reduces ex ante welfare i a central result is that like in the non commitment case the second period allocation is optimal for the principal conditionally on his posterior beliefs about the agent ii the first period allocation exhibits an increasing amount of pooling when the discount factor grows iii with a continuum of types it is never optimal to induce full separation the paper also analyzes whether renegotiated long term contracts yield outcomes resembling those under either unnegotiated long term contracts or a sequence of short term contracts and it links the analysis with the multiple unit durable good monopoly problem

the dynamics of incentive contracts the paper studies a simple two period principal agent model in which the principal updates the incentive scheme after observing the agent s first period performance the agent has superior information about his ability the principal offers a first period incentive scheme and observes some measure of the agent s first period performance cost or profit which depends on the agent s ability and unobservable first period effort the relationship is entirely run by short term contracts in the second period the principal updates the incentive scheme and the agent is free to accept the new incentive scheme or to quit the strategies are required to be perfect and updating of the principal s beliefs about the agent s ability follows bayes rule the central theme of the paper is that the ratchet effect leads to much pooling in the first period first for any first period incentive scheme there exists no separating equilibrium second when the uncertainty about the agent s ability is small the optimal scheme must involve a large amount of pooling the paper also gives necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of partition equilibria and looks at the effect of cost uncertainty

modeling and analysis of an auction based logistics market we consider a logistics spot market where the transportation orders from a number of firms are matched with two types of carriers through a reverse auction in the spot market local carriers compete with in transit carriers that have lower costs in order to analyze the effects of implementing a logistics spot market on these three parties firms local carriers and in transit carriers and also the effects of various system parameters we develop a two stage stochastic model we first model the auction in a static setting and determine the expected auction price based on the number of carriers engaging in the auction and their cost distributions we then develop a continuous time markov chain model to evaluate the performance of the system in a dynamic setting with random arrivals and possible abandonment of orders and carriers by combining these two models we evaluate the performance measures such as the expected auction price price paid to the carriers distribution of orders between local and in transit carriers and expected number of carriers and orders waiting at the logistics center in the long run we present analytical and computational results related to the performance of the system and discuss operation of such a logistics spot market in turkey

an efficient ascending bid auction for multiple objects when bidders exhibit multi unit demands standard auction methods generally yield inefficient outcomes this article proposes a new ascending bid auction for homogeneous goods such as treasury bills or telecommunications spectrum the auctioneer announces a price and bidders respond with quantities items are awarded at the current price whenever they are clinched and the price is incremented until the market clears with private values this dynamic auction yields the same outcome as the sealed bid vickrey auction but has advantages of simplicity and privacy preservation with interdependent values this auction may retain efficiency whereas the vickrey auction suffers from a generalized winner s curse

the approach of ecological economics this paper discusses the major tenets of ecological economics including value pluralism methodological pluralism and multi criteria policy assessment ecological economics offers viable alternatives to the theoretical foundations and policy recommendations of neoclassical welfare economics a revolution in neoclassical economics is currently taking place and the core assumptions of welfare economics are being replaced with more realistic models of consumer and firm behaviour this paper argues that these new theoretical and empirical findings are largely ignored in applied work and policy applications in environmental economics as the only heterodox school of economics focusing on the human economy both as a social system and as one imbedded in the biophysical universe and thus both holistic and scientifically based ecological economics is poised to play a leading role in recasting the scope and method of economic science

markets and pro poor agricultural growth insights from livelihood and informal rural economy models in malawi this article presents the development of a set of programming models describing the major features of different rural livelihoods and of the informal rural economy they together make up in malawi the models allow for differentiated responses by different household types to change and for the partial equilibrium effects of consequent supply demand and price adjustments in labor and grain markets the models provide insights into the relations between own farm and nonown farm activities in different households livelihoods and in the informal rural economy as a whole and are used to investigate possible impacts of increasing cash crop prices and of a more open rural economy impacts of these changes on the poor are found to be critically dependent upon supply and demand elasticities in labor and grain markets but the poor could potentially suffer significant losses from increased openness of the local economy leading to increased expenditure by less poor households on imported goods and services

zambia s input subsidy programs over the last decade subsidies for fertilizer and hybrid maize seed have re emerged as a cornerstone of the government of the republic of zambia s grz s agricultural development and poverty reduction strategies this article reviews the farmer input support programme fisp and other grz input subsidy programs since structural adjustment it then synthesizes existing and presents new empirical evidence on the programs targeting outcomes and effects results suggest that although 73 of smallholder households cultivate less than 2 hectares of land and that these households constitute 78 of the smallholder farms below the us 1 25 capita day poverty line the majority 55 of fisp fertilizer goes to households that cultivate larger areas other factors constant wealthier households receive more subsidized inputs subsidized fertilizer promotes maize intensification and extensification at the expense of fallow land but an additional kg of subsidized fertilizer only raises maize output by 1 88 kg on average as a result of low maize fertilizer response rates poor targeting crowding out and diversion of fertilizer intended for the program financial benefit cost ratios for fisp fertilizer are well below one the article concludes with recommended reforms to fisp including that it be downsized and the savings invested in known drivers of pro poor agricultural growth

micro level welfare impacts of agricultural productivity evidence from rural malawi this article analyses the micro level welfare impacts of agricultural productivity using a two wave nationally representative panel data from rural malawi welfare is measured by various dimension

the poverty impacts of improved cowpea varieties in nigeria a counterfactual analysis adoption of improved agricultural technologies has long been recognized as critical for reducing poverty through increased productivity incomes and asset accumulation using a nationally representative survey data from a sample of over 1500 households in nigeria this paper evaluates the impacts of adoption of improved cowpea varieties on income and asset poverty reduction using an endogenous switching regression model the results showed that adoption of improved cowpea varieties increased per capita household income and asset ownership by 17 and 24 percentage points respectively the results based on the observed and counterfactual income and asset distributions further showed that adoption reduced both income poverty and asset poverty by 5 percentage points the paper concludes with a discussion of the policy options for increasing adoption and impacts of improved cowpea varieties in nigeria

econometrics of first price auctions in this paper we propose an estimation method for the empirical study of theoretical auction models we focus on first price sealed bid and descending auctions and we adopt the private value paradigm where each bidder is assumed to have a different private value only known to him for the object that is auctioned following mcfadden 1989 and pakes and pollard 1989 our proposed method is based on simulations specifically the method relies on a simulated nonlinear least squares objective function appropriately adjusted so as to obtain consistent estimates of the parameters of interest we illustrate the proposed method by studying a market of agricultural products where descending auctions are used our analysis takes into account heterogeneity of the auctioned objects and the fact that only the winning bid is observed we estimate the parameters that characterize the distribution of the unobserved private values for each auctioned object

the welfare effects of bundling in multichannel television markets we measure how the bundling of television channels affects short run welfare we estimate an industry model of viewership demand pricing bundling and input market bargaining using data on ratings purchases prices bundles and input costs we conduct simulations of a la carte policies that require distributors to offer individual channels for sale to consumers we estimate that negotiated input costs rise by 103 0 percent under a la carte these higher input costs offset consumer benefits from purchasing individual channels mean consumer and total surplus change by an estimated 5 4 to 0 2 percent and 1 7 to 6 0 percent respectively jel d12 l11 l51 l82 m31

disrupting demand for commercial seed input subsidies in malawi and zambia summary this study uses nationally representative household level panel data from malawi and zambia to identify the determinants of subsidized maize seed and fertilizer receipt and to estimate how input subsidies affect households commercial purchases of improved maize seed varieties in both countries we find that households in areas where the ruling party won the last presidential election acquire significantly more subsidized inputs than other households results also indicate that each additional kilogram of subsidized maize seed acquired by a household reduces its commercial improved maize seed purchases by 0 58 kg in malawi and by 0 49 kg in zambia on average

the effect of household wealth on the adoption of improved maize varieties in zambia abstract production and price risks that could render input use unprofitable sometimes prevent rural households from benefiting from input technological change the household s ability to cope with such risks and hence benefit from input technological change is often positively related to its wealth or stock of productive assets empirical evidence however suggests a non linear relationship between wealth and adoption of new agricultural technologies so that within a rural community households on the lower wealth continuum behave differently from those on the higher level using farm level data collected from 300 randomly selected households in three districts of zambia in 2004 2005 crop season this paper first stratifies households into poorly and well endowed households based on their access to productive assets and estimates separate double hurdle models for the adoption of improved high yielding maize ihym varieties for each group the results show that factors influencing the adoption and use intensity of ihym varieties differ between the two groups this draws attention to the need for recommending wealth group specific interventions to increase the adoption and use intensity of such varieties and their subsequent impacts on food security and general livelihoods of the households the explicit testing for the possibility that differences in household wealth affect the way in which other variables influence adoption decisions is the paper s unique contribution to the adoption literature

beyond homo economicus evidence from experimental economics environmental policies are generally based on a model of the human actor taken from neoclassical economic theory this paper reports on laboratory experiments suggesting weaknesses in this model and describes alternative models correcting these weaknesses one finding is that economic actors tend to be hyperbolic as opposed to exponential discounters who discount the immediate future at a higher rate than the more distant future another finding is that economic actors are not self regarding but rather in many circumstances are strong reciprocators who come to strategic interactions with a propensity to cooperate respond to cooperative behavior by maintaining or increasing cooperation and respond to free riders by retaliating against the offenders even at a personal cost and even when there is no reasonable expectation that future personal gains will flow from such retaliation we discuss some implications for policy analysis 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

bargaining with optimism identification and estimation of a model of medical malpractice litigation we study a model of bargaining with optimism where players have heterogeneous beliefs about the final resolution beliefs and bargaining surplus are identified from the settlement probability and the distribution of accepted transfers using data from medical malpractice lawsuits in florida we estimate doctor and patient beliefs and the distribution of potential compensation we find that patients are more optimistic and doctors more pessimistic when the severity of injury is higher and the joint optimism diminishes as severity increases we quantify the increase in settlement probability and the reduction in accepted settlement offers under counterfactual caps on the total compensation

the ecological economics of economic democracy abstract ecological economics is at a sharp crossroads today mostly due to the unprecedented scale of the intertwined social and ecological crises we face we argue that the discipline should engage with the thinking and practices around alternatives to capitalism more substantially as this is essential and invaluable for the discipline s ability to contribute to a just and sustainable future we outline an agenda for future ecological economics research on economic alternatives that are shaped by the concrete ways in which economic democracy deals with issues of uncertainty complexity and value incommensurability and contribute to a kind of political economy that ecological economics would advocate we lay out how this question could be operationalised within the context of allocation and exchange i e alternatives to market production and investment i e alternatives to capitalist firm and economic subjectivities i e alternatives to self interest

identification and estimation of stochastic bargaining models stochastic sequential bargaining models merlo and wilson 1995 1998 have found wide applications in different fields including political economy and macroeconomics due to their flexibility in explaining delays in reaching an agreement this paper presents new results in nonparametric identification and estimation of such models under different data scenarios

auctioning and bargaining an econometric study of timber auctions with secret reservation prices this article considers a first price sealed bid auction at which the seller s reservation price is not announced in advance we allow for a second round of bargaining and consider the nash bargaining outcome when the object is unsold after the auctioning round we characterize the bidders and seller s bayesian nash equilibrium strategies the distributions of the buyers and seller s private values are estimated by nonlinear least squares from auction data on standing timber while solving numerically the differential equations characterizing the seller s and buyers equilibrium strategies the performance of the estimated model is then compared to a model in which the players behave myopically

what are the effects of input subsidy programs on maize prices evidence from malawi and zambia an important hypothesized benefit of large scale input subsidy programs in africa is that by raising maize production the subsidies should put downward pressure on retail maize prices to the benefit of urban consumers and the rural poor who tend to be net food buyers to inform debates related to this rationale for input subsidies this study estimates the effects of fertilizer subsidies on retail maize prices in malawi and zambia using market or district level panel data covering the 2000 2001 to 2011 2012 maize marketing years results indicate that roughly doubling the size of malawi s subsidy program reduces maize prices by 1 2 2 5 on average in zambia roughly doubling the scale of the country s subsidy program reduces maize prices by 1 8 2 8 on average the results are robust across countries and model specifications and indicate that the fertilizer subsidy programs in malawi and zambia have had a minimal effect on retail maize prices

identification and estimation of auction models with unobserved heterogeneity in many procurement auctions the bidders unobserved costs depend both on a common shock and on idiosyncratic private information assuming a multiplicative structure i derive sufficient conditions under which the model is identified and propose a non parametric estimation procedure that results in uniformly consistent estimators of the cost components distributions the estimation procedure is applied to data from michigan highway procurement auctions private information is estimated to account for 34 of the variation in bidders costs it is shown that accounting for unobserved auction heterogeneity has important implications for the evaluation of the distribution of rents efficiency and optimal auction design

sustainability in a post keynesian growth model for an open economy the paper expands the bop constraint growth model and kaldorian regimes productivity and demand regimes in order to include some of the concerns raised by ecological economics in post keynesian models for open economies the demand regime is modified by taking into account porter s hypothesis which suggests that environmental innovations spurred by environmental policies can foster competitiveness as a result the equilibrium bop constrained rate of growth increases leading to a different version of thirlwall s law which opens room for analyzing the impact of environmental innovations on convergence between developing and developed economies the productivity regime in turn considers the growth and employment implications of innovations in labor productivity standard innovations and environmental efficiency environmental innovations it is argued that the fiscal policy and composition of public expenditure matter for long run growth employment and sustainability

where ricardo and mill rebut and confirm arguments of mainstream economists supporting globalization most noneconomists are fearful when an emerging china or india helped by their still low real wage rates outsourcing and miracle export led developments cause layoffs from good american jobs this is a hot issue now and in the coming decade it will not go away prominent and competent mainstream economists enter into the debate to educate and correct warm hearted protestors who are against globalization here is a fair paraphrase of the argumentation that has been used recently by alan greenspan jagdish bhagwati gregory mankiw douglas irwin and economists john or jane doe spread widely throughout academia yes good jobs may be lost here in the short run but still total u s net national product must by the economic laws of comparative advantage be raised in the long run and in china too the gains of the winners from free trade properly measured work out to exceed the losses of the losers this is not by mysterious fuzzy magic but rather comes from a sharing of the trade induced rise in total global vectors of the goods and services that people in a democracy want never forget to tally the real gains of consumers alongside admitted possible losses of some producers in this working out of what schumpeter called creative capitalist destruction correct economic law recognizes that some american groups can be hurt by dynamic free trade but correct economic law vindicates the word creative destruction by its proof sic that the gains of the american winners are big enough to more than compensate the losers

bidding and renegotiation in procurement auctions abstract in this paper we study renegotiation in procurement auctions a procurer with private valuation announces a project which can be completed by many firms these firms submit bids which may be renegotiated upon later in the equilibrium we characterize the probability of renegotiation is decreasing in both the cost of renegotiation and the number of firms we conclude that the initial bids are more than cheap talk these prices serve simultaneously as bids to win the contract and signals of the firms costs finally we compare our model to other renegotiation models in the literature

does storage technology affect adoption of improved maize varieties in africa insights from malawi s input subsidy program abstract to date there is limited knowledge of how having access to post harvest storage technology affects a smallholder african farmer s decision to adopt higher yielding improved maize varieties this is a key issue because higher yielding varieties are known to be more susceptible to storage pests than lower yielding traditional varieties we address this question using panel data from malawi and incorporating panel estimation techniques to deal with unobserved heterogeneity our results indicate that acquiring chemical storage protectants after the previous harvest is associated with a statistically significant and modest positive impact on the probability of adopting improved maize total area planted to improved maize varieties and share of area planted to improved maize varieties in the next planting season we also find that the storage chemical subsidy is associated with significant crowding out of commercial storage chemical purchases as farmers who acquire subsidized chemicals are more than 50 percentage points less likely to purchase commercial chemicals on average these findings have implications for maize adoption and input subsidy policies and they indicate that researchers extension staff and policy makers should consider post harvest issue when promoting adoption of improved varieties

welfare impacts of improved chickpea adoption a pathway for rural development in ethiopia we analyse the impact of improved chickpea adoption on welfare in ethiopia using three rounds of panel data first we estimate the determinants of improved chickpea adoption using a double hurdle model we apply a control function approach with correlated random effects to control for possible endogeneity resulting from access to improved seed and technology transfer activities to instrument for these variables we develop novel distance weighted measures of a household s neighbours access to improved seed and technology transfer activities second we estimate the impact of area under improved chickpea cultivation on household income and poverty we apply a fixed effects instrumental variables approach where we use the predicted area under cultivation from the double hurdle model as an instrument for observed area under cultivation we find that improved chickpea adoption significantly increases household income while also reducing household poverty finally we disaggregate results by landholding to explore whether the impact of adoption has heterogeneous effects adoption favoured all but the largest landholders for who the new technology did not have a significant impact on income overall increasing access to improved chickpea appears a promising pathway for rural development in ethiopia s chickpea growing regions

the shallow or the deep ecological economics movement ecological economics and its policy recommendations have become overwhelmed by economic valuation shadow pricing sustainability measures and squeezing nature into the commodity boxes of goods services and capital in order to make it part of mainstream economic financial and banking discourses there are deeper concerns which touch upon the understanding of humanity in its various social psychological political and ethical facets the relationship with nature proposed by the ecological economics movement has the potential to be far reaching however this is not the picture portrayed by surveying the amassed body of articles from this journal or by many of those claiming affiliation a shallow movement allied to a business as usual politics and economy has become dominant and imposes its preoccupation with mainstream economic concepts and values if instead ecological economists choose a path deep into the world of interdisciplinary endeavour they will need to be prepared to transform themselves and society the implications go far beyond the pragmatic use of magic numbers to convince politicians and the public that ecology still has something relevant to say in the 21st century author s abstract

do input subsidy programs crowd in or crowd out commercial market development modeling fertilizer demand in a two channel marketing system many governments in developing countries distribute fertilizer at subsidized prices in an effort to stimulate small farmers agricultural productivity and food security prior fertilizer demand studies have largely failed to account for the effects of government programs on farmers commercial purchases using a double hurdle model and nationally representative rural household panel data in zambia we distinguish between these sources and measure the contemporaneous crowding in and crowding out effects of government input programs on commercial fertilizer sales where the private sector is relatively active and average wealth is higher areas seemingly more likely to be targeted by government programs results indicate that subsidies have substantially crowded out the private sector in some cases to the point that such programs could actually lower overall fertilizer use on the other hand in poorer areas where the private sector is relatively inactive subsidies help to generate demand and crowd in private sector retailers empirical studies explicitly modeling farmers fertilizer purchase behavior within a dual marketing framework can provide important insights for agricultural policy discussions in developing countries

the impact of reserve prices on the perceived bias of expert appraisals of fine art we examine whether the expert appraisals provided to bidders before major art auctions are unbiased indicators of market value despite a strong grounding in theory this aspect of optimal auction design has been frequently challenged in previous empirical research particularly in the market for fine art we adopt a valuation benchmark that incorporates sellers reservation prices as well as high bids and recognize latent censoring due to works that fail to make reserve although the auction houses never divulge sellers reserve prices which are therefore unobservable we exploit the fact that they can be observed indirectly via their impact on buy in rates using the set of french impressionist paintings brought to auction from 1985 to 2001 we estimate the distribution of seller reserve prices establish their link to a proper valuation benchmark and isolate the selection bias due to bought in works on the perceived market value of fine art works brought to auction after controlling for the impact of reservation prices and considering all works brought to auction and therefore all works appraised we find no evidence of bias in the experts pre sale estimates

ecological economics at a crossroads during the past decade theoretical and empirical advances in neoclassical economics have resulted in the virtual rejection of the two pillars of traditional welfare economics rational economic man and perfect competition surprisingly many ecological economists are moving closer to the discredited neo walrasian welfare model just at the time it is being replaced within the mainstream we call for a return to the roots of ecological economics and an engagement with current developments in mainstream theory this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

efficient sequential bargaining suppose that a seller and a buyer have private valuations for a good and that their respective utilities from a trading mechanism are given by us and ub these utilities are determined by the valuation for the good by whether a trade occurs and by the price which is paid consider the problem of maximizing e us 1 ub for some weight in the unit interval it is shown in this article that if is sufficiently close to zero or one then the maximum value of this objective function attainable by a static revelation mechanism can be arbitrarily closely approximated by equilibria of the sequential bargaining games in which only a single player makes offers that is the welfare bound implied by the revelation principle is virtually attainable in offer counteroffer bargaining the main condition needed for this result is a monotone hazard rate assumption about the distribution of types a class of examples is presented in which the result holds for all i e the entire ex ante pareto frontier

estimating a bargaining model with asymmetric information evidence from medical malpractice disputes this article uses a unique data set on medical malpractice disputes in florida to estimate the parameters of a bargaining game with asymmetric information the main findings of the article suggest that the bargaining game can replicate most of the qualitative and quantitative features of the data the article also simulates alternative policy regimes to quantify the effects of possible tort reforms such as imposing limits on contingency fees and caps on jury awards

to bargain or not to bargain the role of fixed costs in price negotiations abstract retailers routinely allow consumers to negotiate a discount off the posted price especially for big ticket items such as home appliances furniture automobiles and real estate as well as on online platforms such as amazon ebay and alibaba the profitability of such a strategy relative to selling only at posted prices depends on consumers willingness to initiate a negotiation and ability to negotiate a discount in this paper we incorporate a consumers decision of whether or not to negotiate into a demand model the decision to negotiate hinges on how the expected discount from negotiation compares to the magnitude of a non pecuniary cost that the consumer incurs by initiating the negotiation this cost has implications for consumer demand and firm profitability the current study shows how this cost can be non parametrically identified separately from consumers ability to get a discount and marginal utility of income the application of this model to individual level data on refrigera

sealed bid versus open auctions the evidence data from u s forest service timber auctions are used to test vickrey s original proposition that sealed bid and open auctions yield equal revenue models for the high bid in an auction are specified and estimated using three different procedures ordinary least squares two stage least squares and maximum likelihood the second two procedures include a second equation which accounts for the forest service s auction choice and therefore control for selection bias these two procedures which unlike ordinary least squares yield consistent estimators imply a statistically and economically insignificant difference in high bids between sealed bid and open auctions

bilateral trade with the sealed bid k double auction existence and efficiency for k in the unit interval the k double auction determines the terms of trade when a buyer and a seller negotiate transfer of an item the buyer submits a bid b and the seller submits an offer s trade occurs if b exceeds s at price kb 1 k s we model trade as a bayesian game in which each trader privately knows his reservation value but only has beliefs about the other trader s value existence of a multiplicity of equilibria is proven for a class of trader s beliefs for generic beliefs however these equilibria are shown to be ex ante inefficient

on delay in bargaining with one sided uncertainty recently attention has been given to a model of two person bargaining in which the parties alternate making offers and there is uncertainty about the valuation of one party the purpose of the analysis has been to identify delay to agreement with a screening process where agents with relatively lower valuations distinguish themselves by waiting longer to settle we point out a fundamental difficulty with this program by demonstrating that the assumptions used in the literature allow for delay only in so far as the time between offers is significant

the second generation of ecological economics how far has the apple fallen from the tree this paper examines the discourse produced in the academic journal ecological economics from its inception in 1989 and compares this discourse with that of the field of environmental economics i used methods for discourse analysis alceste and iramuteq on 6308 abstracts of papers published in four journals namely ecological economics the journal of environmental economics and management environmental values and environmental and resource economics published between 1989 and 2013 the results suggest that the discourses of ecological economics and environmental economics have grown closer over time the semantic classification of co occurrent terms used in ecological economics indicates increasing significance of the notions of ecosystem services and of monetary valuation i argue that this trend is parallel to costanza s career path which suggests the rise of a tacit recognition of the new environmental pragmatic scientific approach i conclude with some of the implications for ee of promoting this kind of discourse to such an extent

the identity of ecological economics retrospects and prospects the paper first reveals the relevance of ecological economics in the time of a triple crisis ecological social and economic and promotes it as a distinct paradigm comprised of two interconnected and interdependent aspects the qualitative framework within which it operates and the quantitative models and techniques it uses to observe ecosystem resilience measure progress towards sustainability and evaluate policies while acknowledging the progress that has so far been made the paper argues that divergences in understanding the meaning and content of ecological economics hinder its effectiveness and influence on real world policy making and calls for a unified framework as a common ground that would strengthen the field and direct research the implication of this position then follows pointing out what has so far been missing from the ecological economics analysis and what should be done for it to become a more problem oriented and policy relevant alternative copyright oxford university press

an exogeneity test for a simultaneous equation tobit model with an application to labor supply a test of weak exogeneity in the simultaneous equation tobit model is proposed and illustrated using a female labour supply model estimated using cross section data the test statistic can be simply output from any standard tobit maximum likelihood package and is asymptotically efficient the procedure provides consistent estimators for the simultaneous tobit model whose asymptotic covariance matrix is a simple extension of the usual tobit formula we also provide the lagrange multiplier test of weak exogeneity this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

cropland allocation effects of agricultural input subsidies in malawi summary we measure the impacts of malawi s farm input subsidy program on the cropland allocation decisions of farmers in kasungu and machinga districts in central and southern malawi using a two step regression strategy to control for endogenous selection into the program we find positive correlations between participation in the program and the amount of land planted with maize and tobacco furthermore results suggest that participating households simplified crop production by allocating less land to other crops e g groundnuts soybeans and dry beans our findings have implications for policies aimed at promoting both food self sufficiency and crop diversification in low income settings 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved