engendering foreign direct investment family structure labor markets and international capital mobility abstract in this paper i develop a theoretical foundation for analyzing how gender roles in the household affect foreign direct investment in a developing country context it is argued that the extent to which women and men share the costs of social reproduction at the household level is a central determinant of women s labor supply and the profitability of investment i combine a model of family structure with a structuralist macroeconomic model to investigate the effects of various public policies on women s wages and employment a major goal is to specify the constraints imposed by international capital mobility on the prospects for increased equality and living standards for women

global feminization through flexible labor abstract the emphasis on structural adjustment and labor flexibility in both developing and industrialized economies is rapidly altering the nature of employment women are being substituted for men and many forms of work are being converted into the kinds of jobs traditionally geared to women international data on recent trends in female economic activity reveal that new types of labor data are needed to highlight the mechanisms of control over workers and the actual economic forms of vulnerability to which women are exposed the paper concludes by posing questions that challenge the traditional concerns of donors and policy makers in many developing countries

sdg 8 decent work and economic growth a gendered analysis abstract sdg 8 calls for promoting sustained inclusive and sustainable economic growth full and productive employment and decent work for all even as it highlights the importance of labour rights for all it also makes visible some significant tensions we note for example that despite many critiques of narrow economic measures of growth the focus here remains on gdp and per capita growth this is problematic we argue because the gdp productive boundary excludes much of social reproductive work this puts sdg8 in tension with sdg 5 which calls for the recognition of the value of unpaid care and domestic work there has been a significant increase in the rate of working women in the formal and informal sector however there has not been a subsequent gender shift in the doing of social reproductive work in this paper we argue sdg 8 s focus on decent work and economic growth is inadequate that productive employment and decent work for all men and women by 2030 needs to take into account the value and costs of social reproduction we trace key historical debates on work to argue that both gender and labour rights have to underpin sdg 8 if its promise of inclusive sustainable and decent work is to be realized

economic globalization and women s employment the case of manufacturing in mexico sociological research has been generally critical of the effects of economic globalization on developing countries however greater worldwide economic integration may have created new employment o

the costs of missing the millennium development goal on gender equity abstract at the millennium summit the world community pledged to promote gender equality and chose as a specific target the achievement of gender equity in primary and secondary education by the year 2005 in every country of the world based on the findings from a growing empirical literature that suggests that gender equity in education promotes economic growth reduced fertility child mortality and undernutrition we estimate what the costs in terms of growth and forgone fertility mortality and undernutrition reduction will be for the 45 countries that are on current projections unlikely to meet the target our estimates suggest that by 2005 the countries that are off track are likely to suffer 0 1 0 3 percentage points lower per capita growth rates as a result will have 0 1 0 4 more children per woman and by 2015 an average of 15 per 1 000 higher rates of under five mortality and 2 5 percentage points higher prevalence of underweight children under five sensitivity analyses suggest that the results are quite robust to using different specifications and approaches to estimating these losses

women and globalization a study of 180 countries 1975 2000 how do rising levels of international interconnectedness affect social economic and political conditions for women research on gender and international relations frequently offers clear propositions but seldom submits them to broad quan titative testing this article begins to fill that gap we advance the hypothesis that on balance and over time increasing cross national exchange and communication lead to improvements in women s status and equality economic aspects of global ization can bring new opportunities and resources to women but equally important globalization promotes the diffusion of ideas and norms of equality for women in an analysis of 180 countries from 1975 to 2000 employing cross sectional time series regression techniques we examine the impact of several measures of global ization on women s levels of life expectancy literacy and participation in the economy and parliamentary office international trade foreign direct investment membership in the united nations un and world bank and ratification of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women cedaw are asso ciated with improved conditions for women how do rising levels of international interconnectedness affect the social eco nomic and political conditions for women competing hypotheses are easy to identify indeed research on gender and international relations sometimes offers clear propositions but seldom submits them to broad quantitative testing this article begins to fill that gap we expect to find a considerably mixed picture some women will benefit from globalization and some will be hurt the status of women will improve in some respects but not others nevertheless we advance the hypothesis that on balance and over time increasing cross national exchange

hedonic price indexes for spreadsheets and an empirical test for network externalities in this article i first estimate hedonic price equations for computer spreadsheet programs and then use the analysis to empirically test whether network externalities exist in this industry the study shows that consumers are willing to pay a significant premium for spreadsheets that are compatible with the lotus platform and for spreadsheets that offer links to external databases and a similar premium for spreadsheets that offer local area network externalities finally the quality adjusted real price of computer spreadsheets declined by approximately 15 per year from 1986 to 1991

relating inertia and experience in technology markets an analysis of households personal computer choices this article empirically analyses how households pc purchasing behaviours change with market experience we find that households generally exhibit inertia in their pc purchases the level of inertia is increasing as a function of experience on the pc market and for households switching brands the likelihood of buying a lesser known brand increases with experience regardless of the brand of the previous purchase these findings are consistent with the predictions of a simple learning model and extend our understanding of how market experience affects purchasing behaviour to an important technology product with implications that may apply to other similar products

advertising as information an empirical note lamm r mcfall unionism and prices in the food retailing industry journal of labor research 3 winter 1982 69 79 marion bruce w willard f mueller ronald w cotterill frederick e geithman and john r schmelzer the food retailing industrv market structure profits and prices new york praeger 1979a the price and profit performance of leading food chains a merican journal of a gricultural economics 61 aug 1979b 420 433 salinger michael a tobin s q unionization and the concentration profits relationship rand journal of economics 15 summer 1984 159 170 voos paula b and lawrence r mishel the union impact on profits evidence from the supermarket industry working paper no 88 north central project 117 university of wisconsin madison oct 1985 the union impact on profits evidence from industry price cost margin data journal of labor economics 4 jan 1986 105 133

economic insights from internet auctions this paper surveys recent studies of internet auctions four main areas of research are summarized first we survey several studies that document and attempt to explain the frequently observed sniping or last second bidding behavior in these auctions second we summarize several methods proposed to quantify the distortions caused by asymmetric information in these markets most notably due to the winner s curse third we explore research about the role of reputation mechanisms installed to help combat these distortions finally we discuss what internet auctions have to teach us about auction design

economic restructuring gender and the allocation of time abstract a significant aspect of economic life takes place in an area of production largely ignored in standard macroeconomic analysis namely the household production of nonmarketed goods and services these household produced goods and services are vital for social reproduction and human development moreover there is a dynamic interaction between their production and that of the market economy as household members especially women must allocate their time between the two sets of economic activities section 2 provides some stylized facts about the nature and scope of nonmarket activities taking place within the household unit and how they relate to the market economy methodological issues concerning the measurement of the production of nonmarketed goods and services and of time use patterns are discussed in section 3 sections 4 and 5 examine the empirical evidence regarding the intensity of time devoted to nonmarket and market work by women and the resulting consequences on their well being as well as on the development of children there are longterm serious economic and welfare consequences of these responses that make such a topic an urgent one for both academics and policy makers alike a summary of the major points raised concludes the paper

network effects software provision and standardization in this paper we examine the software provision decision of software firms the provision decision by software firms determines the value and hence the market share of competing hardware technologies we show how the provision decision by software firms determines whether multiple hardware technologies are supported in equilibrium or whether there is de facto standardization with only one hardware technology supplied with software in equilibrium we show that when consumers place a high value on software variety there is a suboptimal amount of standardization by the market

the effect of export oriented growth on female labor market outcomes in turkey using data from two rounds of an official household labor force survey this paper analyzes the impact of export oriented growth strategy on female labor force participation and employment in urban turkey controlling for both supply side and demand side factors while the long term economic growth at the province level is found to have a significant positive effect on both the employment and participation of women the impact of export orientation is not as strong and is more pronounced in the case of nonmarried women

gender norms and intrahousehold allocation of labor in mozambique a cge application to household and agricultural economics we model intrahousehold dynamics in two rural provinces of mozambique through the lens of computable general equilibrium cge methods the main features of our modeling framework are as follows a a household social accounting matrix that captures allocation of labor and resources and transfers among household members b the explicit use of social norms in labor allocation across gender c a mechanism that links agricultural production to time poverty d identification of leisure as a commodity that is being produced simulation results and sensitivity analyses show how social norms interact with the allocation of labor and resources at the household level to impact farm production or limit the gains from technological improvements

the effect of trade openness on women s welfare and work life summary this study of 134 countries analyzes whether women are generally the losers or winners of globalization the results show that economic integration does not directly improve women s life expectancies women s access to primary and secondary education may improve slightly although women s welfare does not seem to improve more than that of men on the other hand economic integration does influence women s professional lives in developing countries trade openness increases female labor force participation in industrialized states it decreases the share of working women trade openness in developed countries increases the number of women employed in the service sector while in developing states it increases the number of women working in industrial jobs and in agriculture

what s in a picture evidence of discrimination from prosper com abstract we find evidence of significant racial disparities in a new type of credit market known as peer to peer lending loan listings with blacks in the attached picture are 25 to 35 percent less likely to receive funding than those of whites with similar credit profiles despite the higher average interest rates charged to blacks lenders making such loans earn a lower net return compared to loans made to whites with similar credit profiles because blacks have higher relative default rates these results provide insight into whether the discrimination we find is taste based or statistical

the digital provide information technology market performance and welfare in the south indian fisheries sector when information is limited or costly agents are unable to engage in optimal arbitrage excess price dispersion across markets can arise and goods may not be allocated efficiently in this setting information technologies may improve market performance and increase welfare between 1997 and 2001 mobile phone service was introduced throughout kerala a state in india with a large fishing industry using microlevel survey data we show that the adoption of mobile phones by fishermen and wholesalers was associated with a dramatic reduction in price dispersion the complete elimination of waste and near perfect adherence to the law of one price both consumer and producer welfare increased

customer return policies for experience goods this paper studies the economic rationale for customer return policies by focusing on the experience goods aspect of many products return policies allow consumers to defer their purchasing decisions until after they gain some experience with goods in so doing they insure consumers against ex post loss which allows a monopoly seller to charge more than otherwise it is shown that the seller adopts the return policy when consumers are highly risk averse or retail costs are high consumers are strictly better off under the return policy but there is too little adoption of the policy in equilibrium copyright 1996 by blackwell publishing ltd

entry versus success in the labor force young women s employment in sri lanka abstract in this paper we contribute to the understanding of women s labor force behavior in developing societies through a household level analysis of young single women in sri lanka we argue that in the context of saturated and imperfect labor markets of asian societies such as sri lanka it is important to 1 a differentiate between labor force participation and employment 2 b consider familial and cultural factors in addition to the standard determinants of labor supply and demand and 3 c examine the labor force activity of the current generation of single women in sri lanka where unemployment among young women is widespread our results strongly support the strategy of differentiating between labor force participation and employment that the determinants of these components of the employment process function in different ways is best illustrated by our findings regarding the effects of education higher education levels lead to greater labor force participation but highly educated women are also more likely to be unemployed than to be employed in addition our findings show that the labor market behavior of young women is shaped by familial expectations and resources in terms of the protected role of young daughters in the household cultural differences in the acceptability of young women working across ethnic groups the necessity for women to work across social classes and classbased advantages in access to information and channels that facilitate job acquisition

an objective measure of search versus experience goods i introduction search goods and experience goods have been part of the lexicon of economics for twenty years now during this time a substantial body of research has been influenced by nelson s 1970 and 1974 papers which enlarged upon stigler s 1961 seminal paper despite the appeal of the search versus experience dichotomy to members of the economics profession empirical development and application of the concepts involved has not been impressive 1 stigler 1961 argued that consumers efforts to acquire information about the quality or performance of products and vendors are a function of expected benefits and costs nelson s 1970 1974 work attempted to measure the expected benefits and to a lesser extent expected costs to consumers of acquiring product and vendor information unfortunately although this search versus experience dichotomy now is part of economists conventional wisdom it has led to little empirical analysis beyond nelson s investigations the root problem seems to be a lack of agreement over the definition of a search good versus an experience good to nelson 1970 the latter is one whose qualitative characteristics are not ascertainable by buyer inspection prior to purchase thus information about the product s quality or performance can be obtained only through buying and using the item we can however ascertain performance information about search goods prior to purchase porter s 1976 analysis of the acquisition of product information by consumers classified items as convenience and non convenience goods the former are characterized by low unit price and high frequency of purchase the opposite holds for non convenience goods the low unit price of convenience goods implies that relevant performance information will be acquired via sampling experience even though one might be able to acquire the information from other sources but at higher cost an experience good is not such by design rather by virtue of consumer choice in the face of varying informational costs thus porter s measure of the incentive to acquire product vendor information is product price as opposed to nelson s ad hoc search experience dichotomy using porter s classification meisel 1979 argues that the degree to which consumers efforts to acquire information take the form of search rather than sampling experience depends on the expected costs and benefits for any given product similarly laband 1986 argues that consumer demand for product and vendor information in advance of purchase is affected by both price and frequency of purchase nelson s classification scheme is at odds with his definitions for example he regards food as an experience item although much relevant information about it is available prior to purchase 2 product classification is admittedly ambiguous e g jewelry and silverware in fact the search vs experience classification more logically represents the two extremes of product classification with most items falling somewhere in between by subdividing experience goods into durable and nondurable categories nelson 1974 validates this assertion given this ambiguity it is understandable that empirical research in this nexus of producer consumer interaction has been limited to use the search experience classification for empirical analysis one must either borrow nelson s existing scheme which is limited in product coverage or create new product classifications which are of dubious merit on the other hand the porter meisel analyses which do provide the micro foundations of consumer behavior in the face of uncertain product vendor quality have never supplanted or integrated nelson s work into their broader framework the purpose of this paper is to bridge these two strands of the advertising as information literature i argue that the discussion of search versus experience goods and more importantly the behavior of buyers and sellers is driven by the cost to the buyer of a disappointing purchase

advertising as information further evidence in the past 30 years the economics of information has become an important feature of the revolution in modern microeconomic theory the seminal literature includes theoretical advances by stigler 10 nelson 7 8 spence 9 and darby and karni 1 in an original approach laband 3 tests the proposition that the supply of product quality signals increases with a rise in the expected marginal return to consumers utilizing yellow pages advertisements in various urban settings in later expositions laband 4 5 provides further evidence of the durability of the informational content and the differences in information provision of television and commercial advertisements for different types of goods the present paper extends and provides alternatives to laband s tests of the impact of time costs faced by consumers on the informational content of advertising this study employs a supplementary category to laband s of credence goods developed in the literature 2 6 and analyzes the impact of income as a proxy for time and information costs with a unique intra city data set from new york city and los angeles

a theory of prostitution prostitution is low skill labor intensive female and well paid this paper proposes a marriage market explanation to this puzzle if a prostitute compromises her marriage market prospects she will have to be compensated for forgone marriage market opportunities we discuss the link between poverty and prostitution and show that prostitution may decrease with male income if wives and prostitutes are drawn from the same pool of women we point to the role of male sex ratios and males in transit in sustaining high levels of prostitution and we discuss possible reasons for its low reputation and implications for marriage patterns

the bidder s curse traditional explanations for the popularity of auctions are efficiency and revenue maximization we argue that another reason is the potential for overbidding i e buyers bidding above their willingness to pay outside the auction the auction mechanism ensures that even if only few buyers overbid they affect prices and allocations we employ a novel approach to identify overbidding in the field comparing auction prices to simultaneous fixed prices for identical items on the same ebay webpage we argue that fixed prices provide an upper bound for auction bids in a detailed data set of board game auctions we find that the final price exceeds the simultaneous fixed price in 42 percent of the auctions the result is not explained by differences in item quality shipping costs or seller reputation prior auction experience does not eliminate overbidding the finding replicates in a second broad data set of a cross section of auctions 48 percent overbidding the substantial fraction of overbid auctions is induced by a small number of bidders only 17 percent ever bid above the fixed price using a simple model of second price auctions with alternative fixed prices we show that transaction costs of switching between auctions and fixed prices cannot explain the results given that even the expected auction price is higher than the fixed price consistent with limited attention the closer the fixed price is listed relative to an auction the less likely are overbids this effect is strongest for bidders first bids when they are likely to examine the auction and fixed price listings more closely

gender awareness in modeling structural adjustment abstract the macroeconomic models underpinning the design of structural adjustment programs are gender blind this paper discusses strategies for introducing gender analysis into these models and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the models from a gender perspective it concludes that besides being blind to gender the models are also blind to the waste of resources and impoverishment that stems from deficient aggregate demand undemocratic decision making and directly unproductive expenditures that buttress male power this waste is however likely to be diminished by moves to more egalitarian systems of gender relations entailing changes in the structure of entitlements and the social matrix in which macroeconomic processes are embedded

economic reform structural adjustment and female labor force participation in buenos aires argentina abstract female labor force participation lfp has recently increased in the metropolitan area of buenos aires in a remarkable way this increase has been a result neither of improvements in the conditions of labor supply nor due to the diversification of the structure of occupational opportunities available for women using cross sectional and panel data i show that most of the growth in female lfp can be explained as a response to increasing unemployment and job instability associated with the implementation of structural adjustment policies since 1991 i argue that more women have decided to look for work as a way to reduce households economic uncertainty

patriarchal norms religion and female labor supply evidence from turkey summary despite significant structural and social change the share of women working or seeking jobs in turkey has declined this paper focuses on the role of social conservatism as a constraint for women s labor force participation using 2008 demographic and health survey data in analyzing labor supply model i incorporate cultural constraints specifically the sexual division of labor in the household and broader gender ideology into the analysis i find that both patriarchal norms and religiosity are negatively associated with female labor force participation and that the impact of patriarchal norms is statistically significant after controlling for endogeneity

cge models and development policy analysis problems pitfalls and challenges the purpose of this paper is to specify characteristics of computable general equilibrium cge models that are most likely to be useful for policy analysis in developing countries in the first part of the paper alternative criteria for distinguishing cge models are assessed we suggest that cge models with clear microeconomic structure contribute the most to sound policy formulation by helping analysts to understand essential relationships relevant to particular policy configurations the second part of the paper describes how a neoclassical economic model can be extended to address a variety of policy issues in developing countries

gender inequality and economic growth a cross country analysis abstract this paper investigates empirically the determinants of economic growth for a set of semi industrialized export oriented economies in which women provide the bulk of labor in the export sector the primary hypothesis tested is that gender inequality which contributes to women s relatively lower wages was a stimulus to growth via the effect on exports during 1975 95 empirical analysis shows that gdp growth is positively related to gender wage inequality in contrast to recent work which suggests that income inequality slows growth evidence also indicates that part of the impact of gender wage inequality on growth is transmitted through its positive effect on investment as a share of gdp

advertising as special service provision under non price vertical restraints exclusive territories in beer distribution this article presents statistical evidence which supports lester telser s 1960 hypothesis that when vertical restraints are made illegal intrabrand competition results which diminishes the provision of point of sale special services this results because of the public goods problem exhibited by the special services increased special service provision by the national manufacturer must then substitute for the special service provision left unfilled by the wholesaler evidence relating to the efficacy of such substitution is also presented

network externality an uncommon tragedy economists have defined network externality and have examined putative inframarginal market failures associated with it this paper distinguishes between network effects and network externalities where the latter are market failures the authors argue that while network effects are important network externalities are theoretically fragile and empirically undocumented some network externalities are merely pecuniary network ownership or transactions among network participants can internalize some network effects the type of market failure that has been associated with these externalities is a transition problem that has little to do with externality

the online shadow of offline signals which sellers get contacted in online b2b marketplaces this article extends the understanding of what impels buyers to contact particular sellers in online business to business b2b marketplaces which are typically characterized by sparse social structures and concomitant limitations in observing social cues integrating an institutional perspective with signaling theory our core argument is that offline seller characteristics that are visible online in particular geographic location and legal status convey credible signals of seller behavior because they provide buyers with information on sellers local institutional quality and the institutionally induced obligations and controls acting on sellers using unique data from a large italian online b2b marketplace between the fourth quarter of 1999 and july 2001 we find that both sellers local institutional quality and their legal statuses affect a buyer s likelihood of contacting a seller moreover consistent with the idea that a buyer s own local institutional quality generates a relevant reference point against which sellers are evaluated we find that a buyer is progressively more likely to contact sellers the higher their local institutional quality relative to the buyer jointly our findings imply that in online b2b marketplaces signals conveyed by sellers geographic locations and legal statuses may constitute substantive sources of competitive heterogeneity and market segmentation

employment and poverty during economic restructuring the case of bogota colombia bogota is seemingly a positive example of what restructuring and sensible macroeconomic policy can bring to latin america despite liberalisation and a vast increase in the number of people seeking work unemployment rates have fallen large numbers of new jobs have been created principally in the informal sector there seems little real doubt that since 1970 poverty in bogota has become both less common and less serious however if there is less poverty it is principally because of demographic change adults form a larger proportion of the labour force and more of those adults are working poverty has been cut by the huge rise in labour participation fewer people are hungry but people are also a great deal busier nor has the degree of income inequality been reduced

competition between networks a study of the market for yellow pages this paper estimates the importance of network effects in the market for yellow pages i estimate three simultaneous equations consumer demand for usage of a directory advertiser demand for advertising and a publisher s first order condition derived from profit maximizing behaviour estimation shows that advertisers value consumer usage and that consumers value advertising implying a network effect i find that internalizing network effects would significantly increase surplus as an application i consider whether the market benefits from monopoly which takes advantage of network effects or oligopoly which reduces market power i find that a more competitive market is preferable copyright 2004 wiley blackwell

constrained geographical mobility and gendered labor market outcomes under structural adjustment evidence from egypt summary we examine in this paper the evolution of gender gaps in labor market outcomes during structural adjustment and explore the extent to which widening gaps can be attributed to women s more limited geographical mobility using comparable household surveys carried out in 1988 and 1998 we show that gender gaps in access to wage and salary employment and in earnings have widened during this period especially in the nongovernmental sector we attribute these changes at least in part to women s more limited geographical mobility we show that women s commuting rates are not only much lower than those of men but also have remained stagnant in a period where males were having to travel significantly more to obtain jobs outside the government

price quality and reputation evidence from an online field experiment we examine the link between price quality seller claims and seller reputation in internet auctions after purchasing actual baseball cards and having them professionally graded we find that some buyers in the online graded market are misled by incredible claims of quality they pay higher prices but do not receive better quality and in fact are defrauded more often online seller reputation is effective for identifying good faith sellers but conditional on completed auctions reputable sellers do not provide better quality evidence also suggests that high claim sellers target less experienced buyers we attribute these patterns to two loopholes in the ebay rating system we benefited from the comments of austan goolsbee raphael thomadsen john shea dan vincent david reiley larry ausubel peter cramton v joseph hotz jeff smith jimmy chan vincent crawford mark duggan and attendees at numerous seminars and conferences we are particularly grateful to seth sanders and john list for their constructive advice at the early stage of the research to timothy bresnahan rachel kranton and thomas hubbard for their detailed suggestions in reshaping earlier versions and to editor ariel pakes and two anonymous referees for their careful readings special thanks to eight friends who acted as our agents in purchasing baseball cards in retail markets and to numerous sports card store owners who shared their insights on the sportscard industry excellent research assistance from randy alexander moore and krzysztof fizyta is gratefully acknowledged any remaining errors are ours

gender wage inequality and export led growth in south korea this article investigates the relationship between gender wage inequality and export led growth in south korea the persistent gender wage gap in korea s manufacturing sector is found to be linked to women s segregation in the country s major export industries where real wage growth has lagged productivity growth despite favorable market conditions that might drive up women s wages relative to those of men the interaction of state and firm level hiring training and promotion practices that structure women s and men s employment opportunities differently appear to have resulted in a relatively weaker fall back position for women in labour markets econometric results are consistent with the hypothesis that women s weaker fall back position limits their ability to bargain for wage increases commensurate with productivity growth further evidence is presented which links gender wage inequality to the growth of korean exports

business strategies and the small professional firm evidence from the conveyancing market this paper examines the use of business strategies by firms of solicitors in england although still often seen as the epitome of the traditional profession recent deregulation and liberalisation of the legal services market has forced solicitors to consider the use of more business like approaches to the operations of their firms using the framework provided by john kay it is possible to identify distinctive capabilities among some firms in the provision of conveyancing despite the fact that this is a relatively routine service provided mainly by small professional firms the use of reputation is crucial here analysis of the conduct of sample firms suggests that business strategies can be identified with respect to pricing and advertising and that the advertising behaviour of law firms closely matches the predictions of relevant economic theory the paper concludes that it is meaningful to speak of strategy among at least some small professional firms

missing carbon reductions exploring rebound and backfire effects in uk households households are expected to play a pivotal role in reducing the uk s greenhouse gas ghg emissions and the uk government is encouraging specific household actions to help meet its targets however due to the rebound effect only a portion of the ghg emission reductions estimated by simple engineering calculations are generally achieved in practice for example replacing short car journeys by walking or cycling reduces consumption of motor fuels but this frees up money that may be spent on for example purchasing extra clothes or flying on vacation alternatively the money may be put into savings since all of these options lead to ghg emissions total ghg savings may be less than anticipated indeed in some instances emissions may increase a phenomenon known as backfire we estimate that the rebound effect for a combination of three abatement actions by uk households is approximately 34 targeting re spending on goods and services with a low ghg intensity reduces this to a minimum of around 12 while re spending on goods and services with a high ghg intensity leads to backfire our study highlights the importance of shifting consumption to lower ghg intensive categories and investing in low carbon investments

spatial aspects of deregulation in the market for legal services love j h stephen f h gillanders d d and paterson a a 1992 spatial aspects of deregulation in the market for legal services reg studies 26 137 147 since the early 1980s there has been a consistent policy of deregulating the legal profession in the uk however there has been little recognition that there are spatially distinct markets for legal services which may vary in their responses to policy initiatives this paper explores the implications of solicitor advertising and of licensed conveyancers in twenty seven geographical markets in england and wales evidence is presented which suggests that certain types of advertising have the effect of reducing the level of quoted conveyancing fees and that the removal of the solicitors conveyancing monopoly has also had some effect on quoted fees possible policy implications are discussed love j h stephen f h gillanders d d et paterson a a 1992 des aspects geographiques de la liberalisation du marche des services juridiques reg s

export orientation and female share of employment evidence from turkey abstract we investigate the relationship between export orientation and female share of employment in the turkish manufacturing sector during 1983 85 following the onset of export led industrialization policies using plant level data we find that female share of employment in a plant increases with the export to total output ratio of its sector the contribution of the study to the literature is its use of plant level data for a large number of plants enabling us to control for other determinants of female share of employment such as workers skill composition at the plant level

a shoven whalley model of a small open economy an illustration with philippine tariffs abstract this paper describes an applied general equilibrium model of a price taking economy in both imports and exports sector specific factors are incorporated to avoid complete specialization problems a hicksian composite traded good market is used for achieving trade balance in the model foreign and domestic goods are assumed perfect substitutes for illustration philippine tariffs and export taxes are analyzed using the model

mexican agricultural trade under the gatt expected effects from partially lifting tariff barriers on the mexican agricultural sector are investigated using a restricted profit function rpf approach short run and intermediate run effects of the implementation of gatt minimum tariff provisions on mexican agricultural trade are examined specification tests reveal the appropriateness of the rpf approach that exports should not be aggregated with non traded production into a single output and that the farm sector behaves as an almost price taking profit maximizing firm policy simulations suggest important short run changes in agricultural trade and chemical use and intermediate run changes in agricultural trade labour wage chemical use capital investments and net farm income

the impact of crisis stabilization and structural adjustment on women in lima peru abstract structural adjustment and stabilization policies have been implemented in various latin american countries besieged by debt crisis and high inflation recent development literature has suggested that the negative effects of such policies are borne disproportionately by the poor of these countries and more specifically by poor women empirical studies are lacking however and the connection between the crises and women is not always clear the present study attempts to contribute to the literature on the subject by analyzing the situation of women in lima peru using data on the cost of living poverty levels unemployment and underemployment job segregation and discrimination and female wages relative to male wages the study tries to analyze whether women have been more negatively affected by the peruvian crisis and structural adjustment policies than men the findings do indeed suggest that the economic crisis is severe for all but that it is particularly harsh on lima s women

did installed base give an incumbent any measurable advantages in federal computer procurement this research examines the relative strength and significance of the status of incumbent contractor in federal computer procurement one finding as expected is that an agency is likely to acquire a system from an incumbent vendor another finding perhaps more interesting is that the in compatibility between a buyer s installed base and a potential system also influences the vendor choice a result that may be the first econometric measurement of the competitive effects of incompatibility an illustration of this thesis comes from ibm s experience new evidence shows however that ibm s apparent disadvantage with government agencies is largely due to incompatibilities in ibm s product line

prostitution services an exploratory empirical analysis this study provides an empirical analysis of the market for some male prostitution services in the uk flexible working hours part time working and multiple job holding are considered as important labour market characteristics in this service sector statistical models helping explain the provision of a deviant and a more mainstream sexual service is reported utilizing cross section data drawn from individual prostitute advertisements the significance of various declared intrinsic endowments of the prostitutes are examined in relation to the offer of these services including age ethnicity physique and masculine demeanour

face value information and signaling in an illegal market author affiliation trevon d logan the ohio state university and nber 410 arps hall 1945 north high street columbus oh 43210 usa e mail logan 155 osu edu corresponding author manisha shah dagger university of california los angeles and nber 3250 public affairs building los angeles ca 91195 e mail manishashah ucla edu acknowledgment we would like to thank george akerlof rodney j andrews raj arunachalam andrea a cann lisa d cook brahima coulibaly scott cunningham angus deaton avinash dixit claudia d goldin karla hoff joseph kaboski simon loertscher joseph m newhard christina paxson john pepper ruth peterson patricia reagan seth sanders ebonya washington nathan woodfork three anonymous referees and numerous seminar participants who provided helpful suggestions the usual disclaimer applies 1 introductionformal enforcement is often seen as the cornerstone of contract design while information can overcome the problems of asymmetric information akerlof 1970 spence 1973 principals are unlikely to engage agents unless the information conveyed is credible and verifiable while the use of formal institutions such as courts is rare relative to the volume of transactions the standard argument is that the presence of formal institutions gives contracts their authority in schelling s 1960 classic terminology the power to sue and be sued gives parties the ability to make credible enforceable commitments a prerequisite to most transactions without means of redress the information that principals and agents share would a priori have little value numerous studies have documented how informal networks long term relationships and reputations overcome problems of asymmetric information indeed researchers have developed large literatures that look at limited contractibility hart 1995 tirole 1999 and situations in which formal enforcement is costly greif 1993 to consider the additional mechanisms that must be in place if existing institutions are lacking or unable to mediate disputes however the literature has not developed an empirical answer to whether the value of information without formal enforcement approaches its value when formal enforcement is present in this article we ask two questions i are formal enforcement mechanisms necessary for the information that principals and agents share to have value ii if not then what is the value of information in an environment without formal enforcement ideally we would like to analyze an illegal market to answer these questions illegal markets rule out the possibility that market function or variation in the information environment is due to the presence of formal enforcement similarly in an illegal market the information that principals and agents convey to one another may not be credible or verifiable and misrepresentation is not likely to be punished the problem is that most illegal markets have coarse information environments it is therefore challenging to obtain information on prices quantities and consumer and producer behavior making empirical answers to these questions especially difficult we overcome these problems by analyzing an illegal market with a rich information structure the online market for male sex work we begin with a general description of this seldom studied market we then document the ways in which the clients of male sex workers informally police the market by informing other clients of deceptive sex workers and by reviewing sex workers on independent client owned web sites the informal policing in the market raises the cost of misrepresentation for would be fraudulent escorts and rewards the truthful self disclosure of honest escorts encouraging truthful self disclosure we further exploit this institutional knowledge to identify the specific information clients treat as signals of escort quality

feminization of the labor force the effects of long term development and structural adjustment abstract using crosscountry data pooled for 1985 and 1990 we analyze the relationship between women s share of the labor force and the processes of long term economic development and macroeconomic changes associated with structural adjustment we find that the relationship between long term development and women s share of the labor force is u shaped controlling for the feminization u we also find that structural adjustment policies have led to an increase in feminization of the labor force via worsening income distribution and increased openness

the gendered labor market impacts of trade liberalization evidence from brazil this paper investigates gender differences in the impact of brazil s trade liberalization on labor market outcomes to identify the causal effect of trade reforms the paper uses difference in difference estimation exploiting variation across microregions in pre liberalization industry composition the analysis finds that trade liberalization reduced male and female labor force participation and employment rates but the effects on men were significantly larger thereby tariff reductions contributed to gender convergence in labor force participation and employment rates gender differences are concentrated among the low skilled population and in the tradable sector where male and female workers are most likely to be imperfect substitutes

asymmetric information adverse selection and online disclosure the case of ebay motors since the pioneering work of akerlof 1970 economists have been aware of the adverse selection problem that information asymmetries can create in used goods markets the remarkable growth in online auctions of used goods where buyers generally purchase sight unseen therefore poses a puzzle i argue that given a means for credible information disclosure sellers will voluntarily disclose their private information to buyers through online media this limits information asymmetries and adverse selection to test this theory i examine the role of information in a large online used car market ebay motors i nd that sellers selectively disclose information that information asymmetries are reduced by these disclosures and that online media such as photos text and graphics provide a rich environment for information disclosure

socioeconomic context family regimes and women s early labor market experience the case of colombia and venezuela abstract this paper compares the early labor market experience of mature and young cohorts of women in bogota and caracas the cross country cross cohort comparisons demonstrate the importance of both rising women s human capital and family regimes to women s labor market behavior while divorce was a central stimulus of women s work in both contexts the more stable patriarchal family regime in bogota more strongly conflicted with employment than the matrifocal and flexible pattern in caracas results also show important changes in the dynamics of female employment as younger cohorts exhibit more intermittent and unstable employment patterns

long term trends in the world economy the gender dimension abstract this paper considers the implications of long term trends in the international economy for the relative employment and income of men and women in developed and developing countries we find that given a persistent gender division of labor mass unemployment in the north is due to different forces operating on men and women the rate of growth of men s jobs has fallen because of deindustrialization but men have not withdrawn from the labor force at a comparable rate women have been entering the labor force in feminized jobs at a faster rate than they have been created in the south women have largely taken traditionally feminized jobs in the labor intensive export oriented growing manufacturing sectors in latin america entry has been largely in the service sector men have been losing jobs in agriculture and domestic manufacturing the paper proposes that the optimal solution to the mass unemployment problem in the north as well as in the south and the apparent competition for jobs between the north and the south and between men and women lies in achieving a trend increase in the growth rate of oecd and world aggregate demand and output but such a trend rise in the long term rate of growth of demand would only be possible if there were new cooperative institutional arrangements within and between countries in such arrangements women need to have an important independent role

price and advertising signals of product quality we present a signaling model based on ideas of phillip nelson in which both the introductory price and the level of directly uninformative advertising or other dissipative marketing expenditures are choice variables and may be used as signals for the initially unobservable quality of a newly introduced experience good repeat purchases play a crucial role in our model a second focus of the paper is on illustrating an approach to refining the set of equilibria in signalling games with multiple potential signals

network effects without network externalities abstract the network externalities hypothesis postulates that consumers prefer to purchase brands which are bought by more consumers compared with brands with a low market share in this paper we show that increasing returns to scale in the production of complementary products can substitute for the network externalities assumption we develop a model for the computer industry in which the production of complementary software requires a large fixed cost of development relative to the cost of duplicating and marketing the software the increasing returns to scale in the production of software yields consumers behavior which is very similar to consumers who have preferences exhibiting network externalities

matching and sorting in online dating using data on user attributes and interactions from an online dating site we estimate mate preferences and use the gale shapley algorithm to predict sta ble matches the predicted matches are similar to the actual matches achieved by the dating site and the actual matches are approximately efficient outof sample predictions of offline matches i e marriages exhibit assortative mating patterns similar to those observed in actual marriages thus mate pref erences without resort to search frictions can generate sorting in marriages however we underpredict some of the correlation patterns search frictions may play a role in explaining the discrepancy

an economic theory of vertical restraints vertical restraints imposed by manufacturers on the prices locations and sales of retail firms represent a puzzling departure from the simple price mediated exchange of conventional markets in this article we analyze the theoretical basis for these restraints in a setting where retailers inform consumers and are imperfectly competitive and where a manufacturer has some monopoly power we identify three potential externalities affecting retailers decisions these externalities lead to the failure of simple uniform price contracts to coordinate the incentives of retailers with the objective of maximizing combined manufacturer and retailer profits we identify the packages of vertical restraints that are minimally sufficient under various conditions to neutralize the externalities and to achieve the joint profit maximum

customer return policies for experience goods the impact of product price and consumer search costs on seller provided informational cues the present article provides an extension of previous theoretical arguments regarding customer return policies for experience goods logit regressions presented here suggest the importance of the full cost to consumers of a purchase mistake as proxied by experience goods prices and the time costs to consumers associated with search in the seller s decision to produce information in advertisements regarding return policies the evidence points out that sellers do respond in their decisions to produce information in a manner that reduces the total cost of voluntary exchange and maximizes seller profits

advertising restrictions and concentration the case of malt beverages the relationship between state imposed advertising restrictions and state level market concentration in the malt beverage industry is examined the authors find that the presence of proscriptions on price advertising significantly increases market concentration at the state level both absolutely and relative to a measure of national concentration the evidence also indicates that banning local nonprice advertising in addition to price advertising yields no marginal significant change in either measure of state level concentration analysis of individual brewers market shares suggests that large national brewers gain at the expense of smaller brewers when price advertising is restricted copyright 1995 by mit press

macroeconomic consequences of cyclical and secular changes in feminization an experiment at gendered macromodeling abstract this paper analyzes the macroeconomic implications of cyclical and secular movements in the feminization of the labor force and changes in the intensity of female household labor we assume that a rise in the feminization of the labor force stimulates investment while a rise in the intensity of female household labor raises savings we examine the interaction of these two effects in the context of a dynamic keynesian growth cycle model and assess the likelihood of a structurally adjusting economy experiencing a recovery through feminization our analysis shows that for a gender based recovery to succeed the impact of feminization of the labor force on investment must be stronger than the impact a rising intensity of female household labor has on savings our analysis shows that high and high middleincome countries are more likely to benefit from feminization processes

a gendered value chain approach to codes of conduct in african horticulture codes of conduct covering the employment conditions of southern producers exporting to european markets mushroomed throughout the 1990s especially in the horticulture sector linking uk and european supermarkets with export firms in africa the majority of employment in this sector is informal a significant proportion of which is female this paper explores the gender sensitivity of codes currently applied in the african export horticulture sector from an analytical perspective that combines global value chain and gendered economy approaches through an analysis of these two approaches it develops a gender pyramid which provides a framework for mapping and assessing the gender content of codes of conduct the pyramid is applied to codes that cover employment conditions in three commodity groups and countries exporting to european markets south african fruit kenyan flowers and zambian vegetables and flowers it concludes that the gender sensitivity of codes needs to be greatly enhanced if they are to adequately address employment conditions relevant to informal and especially women workers

secular changes in the gender composition of employment and growth dynamics in the north and the south abstract in a simple theoretical exercise the paper shows that gender relations matter in the standard analysis of trade liberalization and economic growth it utilizes a model with the two differential equations phase diagram technique which enables us to examine the cumulative interaction between economic growth and changes in the female share of employment the model shows that changes in the gender composition of employment caused by a new global division of labor between the north and the south can thwart the economic benefits customarily associated with trade liberalization in both regions

applied general equilibrium models for energy studies a survey the importance of energy in any economy developed or underdeveloped became clear after the first oil shock in 1973 since then different studies were carried out to formulate energy policies and to study their impact on the economies since energy policy issues are related to various aspects of the economy such as price formation output determination income generation and distribution consumption behaviour government operation etc a coherent and systematic mechanism is required for such analysis by offering such a framework of analysis age models gained popularity among energy modellers in the 1980s the environmental issues have gained importance and the focus shifted towards curbing and containing emissions of environmentally unfriendly gases resulting from the use of energy age models because of their capability to capture the complexities of the economy have found relevance in analysing the economic impacts of controlling pollution and greenhouse gases this paper surveys the literature on such general equilibrium models as applied to energy studies and reports their special features evolution through time as well as their limitations

prostitutes and brides in a seminal paper lena edlund and evelyn korn 2002 introduce a puzzling stylized fact that prostitution is low skilled labor intensive female and well paid and offer a provocative explanation sex workers draw a compensating differential due to the foregone opportunity to sell their fertility in the marriage market in so doing they not only provide the first formal model of occupational choice involving prostitu tion they also draw an intriguing link between the labor market and the marriage market that holds for only one occupation when a woman chooses to become a sex worker she relinquishes the compensation she would otherwise receive in marriage since taboos prevent prostitutes from marrying thus even in settings where prostitu tion is legal it must draw an earnings premium beyond drawing considerable media attention the richness of the edlund korn model has made

shine bright like a diamond a hedonic model of grading and pricing an experience good diamonds are generally evaluated on the basis of sensory characteristics such as carat weight colour clarity and cut however given the experience goods nature of diamonds few consumers grasp how the sensory characteristics of these stones are evaluated by the gemological grading laboratories that independently issue diamond reports this study extends prior research by determining whether diamonds graded by certain gemological laboratories are subject to pricing premiums or discounts in online retail markets regression models employing a sample of 169 483 real time diamond offerings from online diamond retailers e g blue nile james allen and adiamor find significant price discounts attributable to diamonds graded by the european gemological laboratory usa in relation to diamonds graded by the gemological institute of america gia and significant price premiums attributable to diamonds graded by the american gem society in relation to diamonds graded by the gia

the economic theory of vertical restraints the types of contracts arising in a typical vertical manufacturer retailer relationship are more sophisticated than a simple uniform price in addition to setting per unit prices manufacturers and retailers also revert to non linear pricing and non price instruments these instruments or contracts are referred to as vertical restraints and can take the form of franchise fees resale price maintenance exclusive dealing exclusive territories and slotting allowances the use and the effects of one type of instrument versus another depend crucially on specific market assumptions upstream and downstream and on the division of bargaining power between manufacturers and retailers this paper surveys the industrial organization literature on retail pricing and shows that vertical restraint instruments have important effects on producer and consumer prices market structure efficiency and welfare

gavel to gavel congressional television coverage as political advertising the impact of c span on legislative sessions kamal p upadhyaya this article examines the effect of television on the length of legislative sessions at the federal level in the united states data from the u s congress during the period 1972 96 are employed during part of which time each house of congress received significant television coverage by c span and c span2 evidence from a parks regression suggests that the presence of c span has increased house sessions by 88 250 hours and the presence of c span2 has increased senate sessions by a striking 252 431 hours other things constant additional estimates suggest that house sessions are about two minutes longer per bill introduced under the eye of c span and senate sessions are about four minutes longer per bill introduced in the presence of c span2 longer sessions which represent low cost forms of advertising for incumbents are not without costs to taxpayers we estimate that these costs lie somewhere between 16 million and 392 million in real terms per session of congress jel d72 h11 i introduction as grain and goff 1988 point out the number of political watchers c span junkies seems to be on the rise from a 1986 estimate of 40 million since 1986 the grain and goff 1988 study has been the only significant empirical study of the impact of television on representative democracy despite the potential availability of relevant data and statistical techniques the purpose of the present article is to partially fill the void concerning the impact of television on the democratic process by concentrating on the effect of television on the length of legislative sessions in the u s congress this study makes use of a voter shopping construct that analyzes political services as search experience goods and employs data from the u s house of representatives and the u s senate during the period 1972 96 during some of which time each branch of congress received significant television coverage by c span or c span2 ii product classifications and the provision of political services as grain and goff 1988 point out the theory of product advertising parallels the theory of information as in stigler 1961 and nelson 1970 1974 these articles define search goods as goods for which consumer judgments about quality or performance can be made prior to purchase and experience goods as those for which consumer judgments about product quality performance can be made only after purchase nelson points out that information regarding experience good search good quality can be obtained by consumers at high cost low cost for experience goods ads contain cues indirect on the reputation of the seller which is verifiable at low cost and from which the buyer can make inferences regarding product quality 1 crain and goff 1988 point out that one point of view in the literature holds that political services are like search goods because candidates records are available to voters for verification and evaluation at low cost on the other hand it might be costly for voters to gather information on candidates prior to an election and or difficult for voters to draw inferences about the future behavior of politicians which suggests that political services are experience goods crain and goff 1988 11 in this regard any technological advancement that changes the costs of information gathering by voters will alter the nature of political services as in crain and goff 1988 19 because televising legislative proceedings lowers the cost of evaluating a politician s advertised qualities against his or her actual qualities political services would be more like search goods it is within this framework that we analyze the impact of television on the length of legislative sessions however we argue that there are differences in this regard with state level legislatures which were analyzed by crain and goff 1988 and the u

globalization and gender wage inequality in china summary this paper uses an enterprise population level dataset to investigate the link between globalization and gender inequality in the chinese labor market we find that foreign and exporting firms employ more female workers than domestic nonexporters foreign participation and export orientation within the same region and industry significantly encourage female employment and reduce the gender wage gap furthermore we show that while a large gender wage gap exists for foreign and exporting firms it mainly reflects the difference in gender productivity gender wage discrimination is observed only among private nonexporting firms overall our results highlight the importance of globalization in encouraging female employment and reducing gender discrimination

international capital flows identifying the gender dimension abstract this paper explores the main issues involved in examining the gender impact of international capital flows to developing countries it argues that at the macroeconomic level women lose more than men from slow and or unstable economic growth financial crises and meltdowns and even more so the longer and deeper the economic downturn because without a social security system the family and women have many additional burdens women should formulate an agenda of their own with respect to international monetary reform and some proposals are outlined in this respect including those involving capital controls