forest incomes and rural livelihoods in chiradzulu district malawi abstract this paper examines forest income among rural dwellers in one of malawi s most densely populated districts chiradzulu 160 households were interviewed in two sites only 20 km apart purposely selected on the basis of access to a forest reserve people are extremely poor with 97 having incomes of less than 1 usd day forest income constitutes around 15 of total income only non farm income 47 and agriculture 28 rank higher the poorest segment depends more on forest income than the least poor group but the medium income group exhibits the highest dependence fuelwood constitutes the major source of such income followed by fodder the incomes mainly support current consumption people with better access to the forest reserve have higher total income forest income and relative forest income as revealed through a gini coefficient analysis forest resources have an important income equalizing effect across rural households a particular group of resource poor farmers 8 1 of sample with little access to agricultural land and a high representation of female heads derives an average of 65 of their income from the forest an important policy lesson is that restricting people s access to forest resources can have substantial effects on household livelihoods and welfare and would serve to increase income inequalities in the area livelihood researchers should now recognize the substantial income from forest resources

activity choice labor allocation and forest use in malawi this article examines the determinants of activity choice affecting forest use among low income households in malawi data from three villages are used to estimate a system of household labor share equations for maize production forest employment and non forest employment a system estimation approach is used to identify factors influencing the competing and synergistic livelihood strategies which households undertake at the forest margin results from constrained maximum likelihood estimation indicate heightened incentives to degrade forests when returns to forest use are high factors reducing forest pressure include favorable returns to non forest employment secondary education of the household head and wealth

does trading non timber forest products drive specialisation in products gathered for consumption evidence from the brazilian amazon abstract diversification is a hallmark of family based rural production but what happens when autarkic rural communities integrate into markets economic theory predicts that households will maintain diversified strategies when faced with risk however many studies have claimed that openness to markets drives specialisation to enhance returns nevertheless there is little evidence about the association between trade in non timber forest products ntfps and the diversity of ntfps consumed relying on a household survey and systematic observations of brazilian amazonian caboclos we evaluated whether exposure to ntfp markets effort and cash income correlates with the diversity of ntfps consumed richness and simpson diversity the results were conflicting first there was variation across ntfp subtypes although the variety richness of terrestrial ntfps consumed vegetables and hunted animals was greater in households trading ntfps the richness of fish consumed was lower because fishing could not be pursued concurrently with activities related to ntfp trade second the observed effects differed across indicators of diversity which shows that intensification in the use of a few resources may occur third the associations with alternative definitions of exposure to the ntfp market also differed these results indicate that ntfp markets do not necessarily undermine local consumption diversity

measuring the forest and income impacts of forest user group participation under malawi s forest co management program abstract we evaluate the impacts of forest user group participation under malawi s forest co management program on forest clearing and household income we use panel data collected in 2002 and 2009 in two districts of malawi we employ a two step regression strategy to control for endogenous selection into the program using propensity score weighting and propensity score analysis with non parametric regression we find that the program lowered the rate and extent of forest clearing we also find that the program had no discernible impact on household forest incomes suggesting that the program helped achieve environmental goals without compromising household livelihoods

cointegration structural breaks and the demand for money in bangladesh this article allows for endogenous structural breaks in the cointegration equation and investigates if there is a stable demand for money for bangladesh we have used the gregory and hansen framework and found that there was an intercept shift and a well determined and stable demand for money in bangladesh exists

ex ante and ex post labor supply response to risk in a low income area abstract this paper tests for ex ante and ex post labor supply responses to weather risk for rural indian farm households the analysis uses panel data on 2115 households spanning 13 states in rural india merged with a 22 year series of district level rainfall data ex ante households facing riskier distributions of rainfall are more likely to participate in the labor market ex post unexpectedly bad weather and low rainfall increase labor force participation

input subsidy programs in sub saharan africa a synthesis of recent evidence input subsidy programs have once again become a major plank of agricultural development strategies in africa ten african governments spend roughly us 1 billion annually on input subsidy programs isps amounting to 28 6 of their public expenditures on agriculture this article reviews the microlevel evidence on isps undertaken since the mid 2000s we examine the characteristics of subsidy beneficiaries crop response rates to fertilizer application and their influence on the performance of subsidy programs the impacts of subsidy programs on national fertilizer use and the development of commercial input distribution systems and finally the impact of isps on food price levels and poverty rates the weight of the evidence indicates that the costs of the programs generally outweigh their benefits findings from other developing areas with a higher proportion of crop area under irrigation and with lower fertilizer prices factors that should provide higher returns to fertilizer subsidies than in africa indicate that at least a partial reallocation of expenditures from fertilizer subsidies to r d and infrastructure would provide higher returns to agricultural growth and poverty reduction however because isps enable governments to demonstrate tangible support to constituents they are likely to remain on the african landscape for the foreseeable future hence the study identifies ways in which benefits can be enhanced through changes in implementation modalities and complementary investments within a holistic agricultural intensification strategy among the most important of these are efforts to reduce the crowding out of commercial fertilizer distribution systems and programs to improve soil fertility to enable farmers to use fertilizer more efficiently the challenges associated with achieving these gains are likely to be formidable

money and financial markets introduction money and financial markets mark p taylor part 1 assessing the literature money demand analysis an outline keith cuthbertson david barlow financial market analysis an outline ronald macdonald and mark p taylor part 2 money demand studies money demand in five major countries estimating and interpreting error correction models james m boughton modelling broad and narrow money a study using cointegration martin brookes et al endogenous financial innovation and the demand for mo peter westaway and david walton money demand in high inflation countries a south american perpsective kate phylakis and mark p taylor the demand for money in four countries in the interwar period a study using monthly data jonathan slow et al part 3 money and financial markets some news on covered interest arbitrage mark p taylor patricia fraser monitoring bank risk a market based approach david miles stephen hall information interest rates and the volatility of asset prices laurence copeland richard c stapleton the decision to disclose research and development expenditure in the presence of a takeover threat jane black ian tonks persistence in stock market returns a disaggregated perspective roanld macdonald david power global capital market integration and the current account michael artis tamim bayoumi financial disorder and the theory of crisis e p davis part 4 new directions in financial market analysis neural networks and asset prices paul ormerod chartists fundamentalists and the transmission of opinion alan kirman

the dynamics of statistical discrimination this article demonstrates how learning dynamics select among equilibria in a statistical discrimination model of employment the static market model exhibits multiple equilibria the belief revision dynamics generate a markov market process which in the long run is mostly near one and only one of the static equilibria regardless of initial conditions usually policy effects appear in comparative statics where the equilibrium set moves with different policies but here policy is also seen to effect which equilibrium is selected even when it has no comparative statics effect at all social scientists have identified self fulfilling expectations as an important source of discrimination in labour markets and other social exchanges various theories highlight the role of negative racial attitudes in creating social outcomes that in turn help to perpetuate the initial beliefs in this account discriminatory outcomes appear as an equilibrium of beliefs and behaviour among sociologists merton 1948 is one source for this view 1 a similar view of discrimination was put forward by myrdal 1944 who referred to an equilibrium of beliefs and behaviour as the principle of cumulation and less abstractly as the vicious circle myrdal observes that social systems may have multiple equilibria and that different equilibria may be more or less robust to perturbations remedial policies he notes might work by destabilising one equilibrium in favour of another

prices credit markets and child growth in low income rural areas in this paper it is argued that fluctuations in child growth in rural areas of bangladesh during and after severe floods in i988 can provide insight into the structure of credit markets a model of intertemporal resource allocation is developed and euler equations relating growth patterns of children to the cost of borrowing by household are then derived from the model the evidence indicates that although some of the variation in growth patterns over the relevant period may be attributed to variation in illness and the price of rice growth patterns for children in landless households were influenced by credit market imperfections this paper links two prominent strands of research in economic development the first strand examines the extent to which households in poor rural economies are able to protect themselves from the adverse weather and other shocks that importantly influence earnings in underdeveloped areas while it has long been thought that credit market imperfections and other forms of market failure make it difficult for poor individuals in these economies to smooth consumption both within and across years there remains some question about the magnitude and pervasiveness of these imperfections while there is evidence that fluctuations in economic conditions result in inefficient allocation of resources e g morduch 1990 rosenzweig and wolpin i993 some recent papers have emphasised the fact that consumption patterns of households in the same village comove in a manner consistent with the idea that a substantial fraction of idiosyncratic variation in income is effectively

relating seasonal hunger and prevention and coping strategies a panel analysis of malawian farm households relative to chronic hunger seasonal hunger in rural and urban areas of africa is poorly understood this paper examines the extent and potential correlates of seasonal hunger in malawi using panel data from 2011 2013 we find that both urban and rural households report seasonal hunger in the pre harvest months certain strategies to smooth consumption including crop storage and livestock ownership are associated with fewer months of hunger in addition we find that malawian households that experience seasonal hunger harvest their crops earlier than average a short term coping mechanism that can reduce the crop s yield and nutritional value possibly perpetuating hunger

stability of the money demand function in asian developing countries previous studies that estimated the money demand function in asian developing countries either employed traditional estimation techniques or recently popularized cointegration technique while the first group suffers from spurious regression problems the second group interpreted their finding of cointegration as a sign of stability of estimated parameters this study after incorporating the cusum and cusumsq tests into cointegration analysis shows that in some asian countries even though real m1 or m2 monetary aggregates are cointegrated with their determinants the estimated parameters are unstable

nonmarket institutions for credit and risk sharing in low income countries the design credit and risk institutions in low income countries provides one of the most exciting testing grounds for theories of contracting with imperfect information and limited enforcement this paper reviews some of the recent literature with a special focus on nonmarket institutions that cope with risk and provide credit this literature attempts to bring together insights from economic theory especially information economics contract theory and mechanism design theory however it is also applied being motivated by the circumstance of the poor countries that their authors have visited and studied

an alternative approach to the american demand for money with a decade of evidence behind it the profession seems to have agreed on the fact that a structural break shifted the american demand for money shortly after 1973 it is difficult to pinpoint the source of the trouble precisely let alone to explain the event with an econometric model in their survey judd and scadding 1982 tentatively concluded that financial innovation is the source of the problem while this conclusion has not been universally accepted the instability of the money demand function is largely taken as a given stylized fact the primary goal of this article is to provide an alternative solution to the case of the missing money using the methods of hendry 1979 it should be stressed at the outset that as this paper deals with a problem in the applied literature it is unabashedly empirical in nature the paper attempts to explain an empirical difficulty without presenting a new theoretical model of money demand rather in the context of the standard transactions demand theory for narrow money a number of questions are analyzed with an atypical econometric model was there actually a shift or a series of shifts in the demand for money if not why have other investigators concluded that there was in fact a shift most importantly what function seems to be the most reasonable approximation to the data generation process during the period in question

the demand for m1 in the u s a 1960 1988 estimated u s m1 demand functions appear unstable regularly breaking down over 1960 1988 e g missing money great velocity decline m1 explosion we propose a money demand function whose arguments include inflation real income long term bond yield and risk t bill interest rates and learning curve weighted yields on newly introduced instruments in m1 and non transactions m2 the model is estimated in dynamic error correction form it is constant and with an equation standard error of 0 4 variance dominates most previous models estimating alternative specifications explains earlier breakdowns showing the model s distinctive features to be important in accounting for the data

the search for a stable money demand function a survey of the post 1973 literature phe question of whether the demnand function for money is stable is one of the most important recurring issues in the theory and application of macroeconomic policy what is being sought in a stable demand function is a set of necessary conditions for money to exert a predictable influence on the economy so that the central bank s control of the money supply can be a useful instrument of economic policy as such the notion of a stable demand function appears to involve three key elements e g john t boorman 1976 p 317 and david e w laidler 1977 pp 34 35 first the demand for money relation should be highly predictable in a statistical sense as measured by the usual goodness of fit statistics precision of estimated coefficients and presumably its ability to forecast accurately out of sample second a stable demand function for money has relatively few arguments a relationship that requires knowledge about a large number of variables in order to pin it down is in effect not predictable finally the variables that appear as arguments in the function should represent significant links to spending and economic activity in the real sector in sum a stable demand function for money means that the quantity of money is predictably related to a small set of key variables linking money to the real sector of the economy the importance of a stable money demand function for monetary policy can be illustrated with the standard is lm model in which interest rates and gnp are the endogenous variables in this context a stable demand function for money translates into a well defined relationship between money interest rates and gnp

asset smoothing consumption smoothing and the reproduction of inequality under risk and subsistence constraints abstract a growing literature asks whether low wealth agents can accumulate assets over time or whether they are trapped in poverty this paper develops a stochastic dynamic programming model with endogenous asset price risk to explore savings and portfolio decisions in a resource poor environment characterized by risk and subsistence constraints optimal portfolio strategies are found to bifurcate despite divisible assets and fully rational agents wealthier agents acquire a higher yielding portfolio and pursue conventional consumption smoothing poorer agents acquire a less remunerative portfolio and pursue asset smoothing rather than consumption smoothing asset based risk coping thus results in positive correlation between initial wealth and portfolio rate of return

when to pay adjusting the timing of payments in pes design to the needs of poor land users abstract a neglected issue in the design of payments for ecosystem services pes is the timing of payments to ecosystem service providers over the course of the year we hypothesise that timing should matter to poor land users with limited options to save money in regions dominated by subsistence farming seasonal fluctuations of food supply and peaks in expenses during the year due to cultural events such as circumcisions and funeral ceremonies that occur in specific months if land users value payments differently at different time points throughout the year the provision of ecosystem services can be increased for the given financial resources if payments are made at a point in time when land users need those most we conducted a choice experiment in the mahafaly plateau in southwestern madagascar an area which meets the aforementioned criteria to test the importance of the time of receipt of payments we found that respondents are willing to accept less money if they receive it in months of food shortage unlike if they receive it at the time of cultural events we conclude that the cost effectiveness of pes in regions with the above mentioned characteristics can be increased by selecting the appropriate timing to pay ecosystem service providers

will affirmative action policies eliminate negative stereotypes a key question concerning affirmative action is whether the labor market gains it brings to minorities can continue without it becoming a permanent fixture in the labor market the authors argue that this depends on how the policy affects employers beliefs about the productivity of minority workers they study the joint determination of employer beliefs and worker productivity in a model of statistical discrimination in job assignments the authors prove that even when identifiable groups are equally endowed ex ante affirmative action can bring about a situation in which employers correctly perceive the groups to be unequally productive ex post copyright 1993 by american economic association

the role of forest related income in household economies and rural livelihoods in the border region of southern china quarterly socioeconomic data from 240 households are used to study the links between forest related income and rural livelihoods in southern china results show average forest related income shares of 31 5 which was predominantly derived from cultivated non timber sources forest related income was important to households at all income levels although lower income households were more dependent due to a lack of other sources higher income households monopolized off farm income and had more land than low income households forest related income could be increased by making forest land more accessible to the poor improving productivity and removing constraints to smallholder engagement in timber marketing

discrete choice with social interactions this paper provides an analysis of aggregate behavioural outcomes when individual utility exhibits social interaction effects we study generalized logistic models of individual choice which incorporate terms reflecting the desire of individuals to conform to the behaviour of others in an environment of noncooperative decisionmaking laws of large numbers are generated in such environments multiplicity of equilibria in these models which are equivalent to the existence of multiple self consistent means for average choice behaviour will exist when the social interactions exceed a particular threshold local stability of these multiple equilibria is also studied the properties of the noncooperative economy are contrasted with the properties of an economy in which a social planner determines the set of individual choices finally a likelihood function based on the theoretical model is given and conditions for the econometric identifiability of the model are established

collective reputation and the dynamics of statistical discrimination previous literature on statistical discrimination explained stereotypes based on the existence of multiple equilibria in which principals have difierent self conflrming beliefs about difierent social groups arrow 1973 coate and loury 1993 however the literature has not provided an account of where the principals prior beliefs come from moreover the static models dominating the literature do not ofier relevant information about the dynamic paths that lead to each equilibrium this paper develops a dynamic version of statistical discrimination in which economic players forwardlooking behaviors determine the dynamic paths to each equilibrium deflning group reputation as the objective information shared by principals regarding the average characteristics of agents belonging to each group this study identifles groups as advantaged or disadvantaged based on their initial reputation states and provides conditions by which a group can switch from one reputation state to another by understanding this dynamic structure of reputation evolution we examine the strategy that well coordinated principals may voluntarily utilize to maximize their proflts helping the group in the reputation trap to improve its skill investment rate

economic shocks diversification and forest use in uganda we investigate household outcomes arising from economic shocks in rural uganda focusing on patterns of income diversification and forest use and the role of assets in shaping ex post response to shocks income poor households and those with below average landholdings are observed to have more diversified income portfolios than their cohorts households encountering above average losses tend to have more diversified income portfolios subsequent to the losses larger negative shocks are associated with greater use of the forest in subsequent periods especially among asset poor households findings suggest that development of better safety nets would reduce both vulnerability and forest pressure

money demand income elasticity in advanced and developing countries new evidence from meta analysis this article extends the meta analysis presented in knell and stix 2005 2006 to investigate the possible sources of variations in empirical findings about the income elasticity of money demand in advanced and developing countries in the case of advanced countries we find that the income elasticities of money demand are significantly higher if broader definitions of the monetary aggregates are used in addition financial reforms and wealth seem to have significantly reduced the estimates of the income elasticity however we achieved quite different findings for the developing countries it appears that the broader definitions of monetary aggregates seem to produce income elasticity estimates that are only marginally higher than the narrower aggregates while the wealth financial reform impacts on income elasticity are statistically insignificant weakly significant both seems to have reduced the income elasticity estimates only marginally moreover some contrasting results between advanced and

the demand for money a dynamic rational expectations model macroeconomic modelling generally has widely adopted the use of forwardlooking variables in behavioural relationships studies of the demand for money being something of an exception the aim of this paper is to provide preliminary empirical results of a model which explicitly incorporates expectations of the future into the demand function for narrow money the approach adopted is the modelling of the demand for money within a multi period costs of adjustment framework under the assumption of rational expectations agents are assumed to pursue a target or long run level of money balances which is itself a function of prices income and interest rates this results in an empirical specification which consists of both backwardlooking and forward looking components the model is estimated using uk data for the period i963i i983iii the remainder of the paper is divided into four sections in section i we outline the framework in which our model is derived in the following section we discuss the econometric techniques used and in section iii we present our empirical results a final section concludes

equilibrium selection in imperfectly competitive economies with multiple equilibria this paper investigates the selection of an equilibrium in an economy with multiple pareto ranked nash equilibria a history dependent selection criterion is proposed which induces correlated behavior in equilibrium even though agents are playing one shot games and disturbances are not correlated over time the model economy may experience prolonged periods in which a low productivity technology is in use and then as a consequence of a large real disturbance may switch to an alternative equilibrium in which a high productivity technology is utilized thus the model qualitatively matches observations of serially correlated movements in output and employment and generates procyclical productivity though there are no exogenous technology shocks copyright 1994 by royal economic society

can income programs reduce tropical forest pressure income shocks and forest use in malawi summary seasonal household data from malawi are used to study links between income shocks and forest use a tobit model is estimated to examine whether household forest use responds to receipt of a positive income shock delivered as a technology assistance package and the characteristics of households reliant on forests for shock coping results show households experiencing an income boost had lower forest extraction compared to households that did not receive such a shock ceteris paribus we find households most dependent on forests for natural insurance are those located near woodlands and headed by an individual who is relatively young and male 2005 published by elsevier ltd

on the reinterpretation of money demand regressions a stylized fact concerning estimated money demand relationships is that lagged dependent variables have high explanatory power and large estimated coefficients which is hard to explain at a theoretical level marvin s goodfriend 1985 suggests that this may be due to the presence of serially correlated measurement errors in the independent variables the author demonstrates how consistent estimates of the short run demand function can be obtained even if the goodfriend hypothesis is accepted and also how the hypothesis might be tested application of the suggested test using the goldfeld 1973 data set leads to decisive rejection of the hypothesis copyright 1994 by ohio state university press

real wages inflation and labour productivity in australia this paper presents an analysis of real wages inflation and labour productivity interrelationships using cointegration granger causality and most importantly structural change tests applications of tests to australian data over the 1965 2007 period corroborate the presence of a structural break in 1985 and show that a 1 percent increase in manufacturing sector real wages led to an increase in manufacturing sector productivity of between 0 5 and 0 8 percent comparable estimates for the effect of inflation on manufacturing sector productivity have limited statistical significance granger causality test results suggest that real wages and inflation both granger cause productivity in the long run

the role of money supply shocks in the short run demand for money abstract previous money demand models are either inconsistent with contemporaneous adjustment of the price level to expected changes in the nominal money supply or imply implausible interest rate fluctuations in response to innovations in nominal money we propose a shock absorber money demand model in which money supply shocks affect the synchronization of asset transactions and so engender a temporary increase or decrease in desired money holdings expected changes do not engender such fluctuations in real money inventories in simultaneous estimates for eight industrial countries the shock absorber model proved empirically superior

permanent and transitory components in macroeconomic fluctuations fluctuations in real gnp have traditionally been viewed as transitory deviations from a deterministic time trend the purpose of this paper is to review some of the recent developments that have led to a new view of output fluctuations and then to provide some additional evidence using post war quarterly data it is hard to reject the view that real gnp is as persistent as a random walk with drift we also consider the hypothesis that the recent finding of persistence are due to the failure to distinguish the business cycle from other fluctuations in real gnp we use the measured unemployment rate to decompose output fluctuations we find no evidence for the view that business cycle fluctuations are more quickly trend reverting this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

nonlinear equilibrium correction in u s real money balances 1869 1997 several theoretical models of money demand imply nonlinear functional forms for the aggregate demand for money characterized by smooth adjustment toward long run equilibrium in this paper we propose a nonlinear equilibrium correction model of u s money demand that is shown to be stable over the sample period from 1869 to 1997

asymmetric responses of money demand to oil price shocks in saudi arabia a non linear ardl approach saudi arabia is an open oil based economy with fixed exchange rates therefore it has limited monetary policy autonomy using non linear autoregressive distributed lag approach this article inves

using weather variability to estimate the response of savings to transitory income in thailand this paper measures the extent to which farmers are able to use savings and dissavings to smooth consumption in response to unexpected shocks to income time series information on regional rainfall is used to construct estimates of transitory income due to rainfall shocks the relationship between these measures of transitory income and savings indicates that farm households save a significantly higher fraction of transitory income than nontransitory income jel d91 016 the incomes of farm households in developing countries are notorious for being both low and uncertain policies that increase the incomes of farmers may well be different

the determinants of poverty in malawi 1998 abstract poverty reduction efforts aim at changing those household characteristics that are judged important determinants of household welfare and poverty status we model the determinants of poverty for malawian households by conducting an empirical multivariate analysis of household welfare primarily using data from the 1997 98 malawi integrated household survey using this model to simulate the effects of changes in key household characteristics we are able to assess the likely impact on poverty of a number of poverty reduction policy interventions the simulations show that higher levels of educational attainment especially for women and the reallocation of household labor away from agriculture and into the trade and services sector of the economy will prove effective in reducing poverty in malawi

networks in labor markets wage and employment dynamics and inequality we present a model of labor markets that accounts for the social network through which agents hear about jobs we show that both wages and employment are positively associated a strong form of correlation across time and agents we also analyze the decisions of agents regarding staying in the labor market or dropping out if there are costs to staying in the labor market then networks of agents that start with a worse wage status will have higher drop out rates and there will be a persistent differences in wages between groups according to the starting states of their networks

smoothing consumption by smoothing income hours of work responses to idiosyncratic agricultural shocks in rural india while research has demonstrated that farm households in developing economies are able to protect consumption from idiosyncratic crop shocks little evidence shows how this is achieved this paper examines the extent to which labor markets allow households to shift labor from farm to off farm employment and the extent to which such a shift explains the observed lack of correlation between consumption and idiosyncratic crop shocks the empirical analysis uses a novel measure of the idiosyncratic crop income shock which utilizes information on start of season cropping choices to more accurately estimate household expectations of weather

safety nets gap filling and forests a global comparative perspective summary in the forest livelihoods literature forests are widely perceived to provide both common safety nets to shocks and resources for seasonal gap filling we use a large global comparative dataset to test these responses we find households rank forest extraction responses to shocks lower than most common alternatives for seasonal gap filling forest extraction also has limited importance the minority of households using forests for coping is asset poor and lives in villages specialized on forests in particular timber extraction overall forest resources may be less important as a buffer between agricultural harvests and in times of unforeseen hardship than has been found in many case studies 2014 published by elsevier ltd

demand for money in bangladesh a cointegration analysis the aim of this study is to estimate the demand for real broad m2 money in bangladesh using the most recently developed autoregressive distributed lag approach to cointegration analyses the empirical results show that there is a unique cointegrated and stable long run relationship among real per capita broad money demand real per capita income domestic interest rates and unofficial exchange rate um premiums which act as a surrogate for foreign interest rates with money as the dependent variable the results show that the income and interest elasticities are positive while the um premium elasticity is negative these results suggest that distortions in the financial and foreign exchange markets should be reduced in order to increase financial saving or monetary accumulation our results also reveal that the demand for money in bangladesh is stable despite the changes in financial and exchange rate policies between 1975 and 1995

a general equilibrium model of statistical discrimination we study a general equilibrium model with endogenous human capital formation in which ex ante identical groups may be treated asymmetrically in equilibrium the interaction between an informational externality and general equilibrium effects creates incentives for groups to specialize discrimination may arise even if the corresponding model with a single group has a unique equilibrium the dominant group gains from discrimination rationalizing why a majority may be reluctant to eliminate discrimination the model is also consistent with reverse discrimination as a remedy against discrimination since it may be necessary to decrease the welfare of the dominant group to achieve parity

do the commons help augment mutual insurance among the poor summary poor people rely on local commons not only for self insurance as commonly found but also for mutual insurance depending on resources and shocks this paper demonstrates that this conjecture holds among cyclone victims in the pacific islands on one hand households increase coastal fishing and handicraft selling but not forest product gathering to smooth income against own crop damage on the other hand households with undamaged housing intensify fishing to help other kin group members with damaged housing these distinct patterns of using commons as insurance are explained by distinct forms of risk sharing against these two shocks

the effect of statistical discrimination on black white wage inequality estimating a model with multiple equilibria this article presents the structural estimation of the parameters of a statistical discrimination model although the model is capable of displaying multiple equilibria an estimation strategy that identifies both the model parameters and the equilibrium selected by the economic agents is developed and empirically implemented a comparison between the selected equilibria and the other potential equilibria reveals that the decline in wage inequality experienced in the u s economy cannot be attributed to changes in the equilibrium selection nonetheless a counterfactual experiment shows that in a color blind society blacks wage would have been on average more than 20 higher

population tenure and natural resource management the case of customary land area in malawi abstract this paper analyzes the factors determining conversion of woodlands to agricultural land changes in tree cover and maize yield for the last two and a half decades by using aerial photos and field survey data in 57 communities in malawi the econometric analysis revealed that population pressure led to greater land conversion but had no effect on yield or tree cover changes areas where greater changes in traditional tenure systems have occurred are associated with reduction in tree cover and expansion of agricultural land these results suggest the importance of strengthening institutions to manage natural resources

the buffer stock notion in monetary economics not the least of harry johnson s contributions to our discipline was the series of survey papers on aspects of monetary economics which he produced during the 1960s and 1970s it is no exaggeration to say that the way in which the literature of monetary economics is organised even now follows the design which johnson first set out in 1962 and built on in the subsequent decade nevertheless the subject has not stood still and one of the more interesting developments of the last few years has involved the introduction of what has been variously described as the disequilibrium money shock absorber or as i prefer to call it the buffer stock notion into monetary economics the development of this line of thought was getting underway before johnson s untimely death much of it indeed under the auspices of his own research programme at the lse even so this did not happen early enough for the relevant ideas to be put in their proper niche by johnson himself and the buffer stock approach is not yet fully integrated into the mainstream of monetary economics much of the relevant literature is empirical concerned with modelling particular aspects of the monetary experience of specific countries hence it is fragmented and contains few papers which attempt a coherent account of just what this approach is and how it relates to other approaches to monetary analysis although essays by goodhart 1982a b and judd and scadding 1982a contain important discussions of these issues to the best of my knowledge only jonson 1976a and knoester 1979a have devoted entire papers solely to this central issue and these are relatively inaccessible and hence less widely known than they deserve to be in this lecture i shall attempt to give a brief account of the essentials of this approach first i shall sketch out its microeconomic background and then i shall discuss those theoretical characteristics which differentiate it from the neo austrian analysis of robert e lucas jr and his associates as well as from the conventional keynesian approach to monetary economics last but by no means least i shall argue that it yields simple theoretical insights into important empirical and policy related issues which are troublesome for alternative approaches in short my tribute to harry

the demand for money in the united states evidence from cointegration tests this paper uses recent cointegration test procedures to investigate the underlying economic relationship between real money balances real income and interest rates for the united states unlike recent studies of money demand the authors analysis uses quarterly data spanning the period 1915 88 thus providing a sample encompassing a wide variety of economic experiences the evidence presented indicates that the broader m2 measure of money is the preferable measure with which to consider the long run effects of monetary policy copyright 1991 by ohio state university press

demand for money in the selected oecd countries a time series panel data approach and structural breaks time series panel data estimation methods are used to estimate the cointegrating equations for the demand for money m1 for a panel of 11 organization for economic cooperation and development oecd countries for which consistent quarterly data are available the effects of financial reforms are analysed with structural break tests and estimates for alternative sub samples our results for the post reform sub samples show that the income elasticity of the demand for money has decreased and response to interest rate changes has increased

empirical regularities in the poverty environment relationship of rural households evidence from zimbabwe abstract analysis of rural households and environmental resources is beset by inadequate data especially in africa using purpose collected panel data from zimbabwe we demonstrate seven empirical regularities in the rural poverty environment relationship most important environmental resources make a significant contribution to average rural incomes poorer households also depend heavily on these resources which contribute c 40 to their incomes richer households however use greater quantities of environmental resources in total finally considerable differentiation exists in the economic characteristics of environmental goods these results demonstrate the considerable economic significance of environmental resources to rural households surveys which ignore them miscalculate rural incomes and welfare

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

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