support systems for the diffusion of renewable energy technologies an investor perspective concern over climate change impacts and the projected depletion of fossil fuels has urged more governments to adopt policies that stimulate the diffusion of renewable energy technologies ret with an increasingly diverse suite of support instruments the question emerges as to which instruments or combinations are able to achieve faster more substantial diffusion results although various support instruments were extensively addressed in policy studies there is still no consensus this is partly because many policy studies take a policy maker approach in comparing support instruments leaving relationships between policy design and policy results as a black box this paper proposes an investor oriented perspective to analyze the diffusion potential of support systems for ret the main argument is that it is not the type of support instrument but rather its risk profitability characteristics that influence investor behavior and the rate of diffusion the two instruments most frequently discussed and compared are the feed in tariff and the quota model the analysis in this paper concludes that policy design is crucial while often feed in tariffs are applauded and quota system feared feed in tariffs may also bring about disappointing diffusion results when poorly designed while quota systems may be also conceived as attractive instruments for independent power producers

is the secularization hypothesis valid a panel data assessment for taiwan the secularization thesis is based on the idea that a country becomes more secular as it becomes richer and more industrialized in order to investigate whether this hypothesis is valid we examine the relationship between religion in taiwan and economic development across 23 counties by adopting the panel data approach for the period 1998 to 2003 we select six religious activity proxy variables and five economic development variables in a cross county panel data framework the evidence indicates that the ratio of females to males has a significantly positive effect and that the literacy rate and population density each have a significantly negative effect on the religious variables finally except for the christian culture the unemployment rate has a positive effect on the religious variables our findings thus support the view that the religious secularization hypothesis is valid in taiwan

consumption commitments and employment contracts we examine an economy in which the cost of consuming some goods can be reduced by making commitments that reduce exibility we show that such consumption commitments can induce consumers with risk neutral underlying utility functions to be risk averse over small variations in income but sometimes to seek risk over large variations as a result optimal employment contracts will smooth wages conditional on being employed but may incorporate a possibility of unemployment

religion and human capital abstract evidence indicates that education is positively associated with religious activity however it is not necessarily the case that education increases religious activity the results in this study suggest that education is not an exogenous determinant of attendance at weekly religious services and religious contributions furthermore no causal effect of education on religious activity is found when education is treated as endogenous

the effect of education on religion evidence from compulsory schooling laws abstract for over a century social scientists have debated how educational attainment impacts religious belief in this paper i use canadian compulsory schooling laws to identify the relationship between completed schooling and later religiosity i find that higher levels of education lead to lower levels of religious affiliation later in life an additional year of education leads to a 4 percentage point decline in the likelihood that an individual identifies with any religious tradition this is a reasonably large effect extrapolating the results to the broader population would suggest that increases in schooling could explain most of the large rise in non affiliation in canada in recent decades

going beyond best technology and lowest price on renewable energy investors preference for service driven business models abstract renewable energy is becoming increasingly important for economies in many countries but still in an emerging industry renewable energy requires supportive energy policy helping firms to develop and protect competitive advantages in global competition as a guideline for designing such policy we consult well informed stakeholders within the renewable energy industry investors their preferences serve as explorative indicator for assessing which business models might succeed in competition to contribute to only limited research on renewable energy investors preferences we ask which business models investment managers for renewable energy prefer to invest in we report from an explorative study of 380 choices of renewable energy investment managers based on the stated preferences we modelled three generic business models to calculate the share of investors preferences we find exiting evidence a customer intimacy business model that proposes best services is much more preferred by investors than business models that propose lowest price or best technology policy makers can use those insights for designing policy that supports service driven business models for renewable energy with a scope on customer needs rather than technology or price additionally we state important implications for renewable energy entrepreneurs managers and research

housing market regulation and the social demand for job protection abstract controlling for country fixed effects there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the degree of housing market regulation hmr and the strictness of employment protection legislation epl in oecd countries we provide a model in which hmr increases foreclosure costs in case of mortgage default while epl raises the administrative cost of dismissal owing to banks lending behavior individuals demand for job protection increases with the cost of foreclosure we use the model to discuss social housing and family insurance the case for mortgage unemployment insurance the impact of min down payment policies regulations on the use of fixed term contracts the failure of a 2006 french reform of labor contracts and feed back effects from hmr to epl

identifying barriers in the diffusion of renewable energy sources abstract rapid diffusion of renewable energy sources res in the electricity power sector is crucial if the eu wants to fulfill its 2050 co2 reduction commitments for this reason identifying and alleviating all barriers that hinder the development of res is necessary to the successful deployment of these technologies this paper discusses the main barriers in the diffusion of wind and photovoltaic pv solar power in the greek electricity sector by drawing on the literature of technological innovation systems and system functions furthermore we provide an explanation of the different diffusion rates between the two technologies inadequate financial resources low grid capacity delays in the issuance of building permits opposition from local communities to the construction of wind farms and the lack of a stable institutional framework are among the most important barriers that inhibit the diffusion of the wind and pv solar power the nature of the barriers identified in this study calls for policy intervention

bioenergy policy and market development in finland and sweden abstract the use of biomass in finland and sweden has steadily increased over the past 25 years up to approximately 20 of the primary energy supply in 2001 in both countries most biomass originates from forests forest biomass is now an integral part of modern energy systems although primarily in industry and in the heating sector for example biomass accounts for 7 9 and 53 of the fuel mix in district heating in finland and sweden respectively the general energy policy of both countries has supported biomass for energy over the entire period although specific policies have changed with time research development and demonstration has been continuously supported and some subsidy schemes have been applied in particular for district heating systems dhs and combined heat and power heavy taxation of competing fossil fuels seems to have been the most effective policy instrument although this has been directed mainly at the heat and transportation fuel markets electricity taxes are imposed on consumption industry is largely exempt and do not discriminate significantly between the sources of electricity starting in 2003 sweden will have a quota based system a renewable portfolio standard which is expected to increase biomass based electricity production both countries possess vast and not fully exploited biomass resources in the form of forests and have a history of rational and large scale forestry strong actors exist both with regard to forest ownership and the industrial processing of forest products the user side in particular represented by dhs can also be characterised by strong and professional management over time structures have developed that facilitate an increased use of biomass for energy for example the forest industry infrastructure and extensive district heating actors within these structures have had the ability to react to policies resulting in a stable growth in biomass use

religious adherence and county economic growth in the us abstract we estimate a barro type conditional convergence model using religious adherence data from the american religious data archive to analyze independent effects of church adherence rates on economic growth in the united states at the county level per capita income growth is modeled as a function of initial per capita income initial human capital stock and a set of control and related variables including religious adherence religious diversity and regional indicator variables we also investigate the independent effects of three main denominations namely catholics evangelical christians and mainline christians on county economic growth our results indicate that the religious adherence in general is significantly greater than zero and not beneficial for us county income growth we find mixed results for effects of various denominations

unequal societies income distribution and the social contract this paper develops a theory of inequality and the social contract aiming to explain how countries with similar economic and political fundamentals can sustain such different systems of social insurance fiscal redistribution and education finance as those of the united states and western europe with imperfect credit and insurance markets some redistributive policies can improve ex ante welfare and this implies that their political support tends to decrease with inequality conversely with credit constraints lower redistribution translates into more persistent inequality hence the potential for multiple steady states with mutually reinforcing high inequality and low redistribution or vice versa

the perverse effects of partial labour market reform fixed term contracts in france we argue that the effects of a partial reform of employment protection by allowing firms to hire workers on fixed term contracts may be perverse the main effect may be high turnover in entry level jobs leading to higher not lower unemployment even if unemployment falls workers may be worse off going through many spells of unemployment and entry level jobs before obtaining a regular job considering french data for young workers since the early 1980s we conclude that the reforms have substantially increased turnover without a substantial reduction in unemployment duration if anything the effect on their welfare appears to have been negative

how does natural resource accounting become powerful in policymaking a case study of changing calculative frames in local energy policy in finland abstract the paper explores the role of natural resource accounting and calculations as tools for inducing movement towards ecologically sound policy making we draw from the theoretical debates in social studies of science and technology sts to understand how calculations gain their power in real world decision making through in depth case analysis of a local energy production decision in finland we study how and under what conditions calculative methods related to environmental valuation affect the rationalities applied in policy decisions on the basis of our analysis we claim that new calculative rationalities do not become significant through changing ways of thinking alone there is a need for shift of calculative framing this shift requires active promotion by powerful actors and furthermore new framings need to become embedded in the rules of the game of decision making our analysis suggests that the methods of sts can provide a valuable tool for economists creation of richer understanding of the dynamics between calculative rationalities and the institutions of decision making in depth case analysis of decision making involving the use of natural resources brings out the multitude of ways in which calculations can take part in or be excluded from the making of natural resource policy

valuation of environmental and societal trade offs of renewable energy sources abstract use of renewable energy sources is one solution to decrease green house gas emissions and the use of polluting fossil fuels renewables differ in their environmental and societal impacts and to design sound renewable energy policy societies need to assess the trade offs between alternative sources to enable the evaluation and comparison of renewable energy production alternatives in finland this paper applies the choice experiment to elicit the monetary information on people s preferences for four renewable energy sources wind power hydro power and energy from crops and wood and considers four impacts of energy production effects on biodiversity local jobs carbon emissions and household s electricity bill the nested logit analysis reveals that higher income male gender young age and pro environmental attitude increase the probability to choose renewable energy instead of the current energy mix wind power is on average the most popular renewable energy technology but regional differences exist biodiversity deterioration should be avoided the national aggregate willingness to pay based on stated preferences rather than preferences revealed by actual market behavior for a combination of renewable energy technologies that corresponds to finland s climate change and energy policy is over 500 million euros

strategic choices for renewable energy investment conceptual framework and opportunities for further research this paper introduces the special issue on strategic choices for renewable energy investment which is a collection of best papers presented at an international research conference held in st gallen switzerland in february 2010 substantial private investment is needed if public policy objectives to increase the share of renewable energy and prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change are to be achieved the aim of this paper and the entire special issue is to draw scholarly attention to the processes underlying strategic choices for renewable energy investment and how they are influenced by energy policy we disentangle the role of risk return perceptions portfolio effects and path dependence in explaining energy investment decisions and suggest that the heterogeneous universe of investors requires a segmentation of policies the paper outlines some of the rich opportunities for further research in this emerging area

social acceptance of renewable energy innovation an introduction to the concept this paper introduces the special issue on social acceptance of renewable energy innovation it is a collection of best papers presented at an international research conference held in tramelan switzerland in february 2006 while there are ambitious government targets to increase the share of renewable energy in many countries it is increasingly recognized that social acceptance may be a constraining factor in achieving this target this is particularly apparent in the case of wind energy which has become a subject of contested debates in several countries largely due to its visual impact on landscapes this paper introduces three dimensions of social acceptance namely socio political community and market acceptance factors influencing socio political and community acceptance are increasingly recognized as being important for understanding the apparent contradictions between general public support for renewable energy innovation and the difficult realization of specific projects the third dimension market acceptance has received less attention so far and provides opportunities for further research particularly from management scholars

public policy as a part of transforming energy systems framing bioenergy in finnish energy policy abstract government interventions have been identified as important for energy systems change because they can either facilitate or hinder transitions toward more sustainable energy systems this article analyses how bioenergy options have been framed in finnish policy strategies and how the framing has changed over time the empirical material includes the content of 15 government programmes and nine national energy climate strategies on the basis of this assessment both the link between bioenergy framings in strategies and the actual transformation of finnish bioenergy systems are explored on the basis of bioenergy framings the development of energy policy can be divided into three phases support for domestic energy sources in 1979 1991 support for wood and industry based bioenergy in 1992 1998 and diversified bioenergy in the context of climate change in 1999 2010 for two decades primarily wood based bioenergy was supported despite alternative technological developments occurring elsewhere after the turn of the millennium the importance of climate policy increased and alternative bioenergy sources were raised on the government policy agenda also resulting in some new policy instruments rather than adopting a visionary outlook to guide system transformation climate and energy policy has strengthened those technological options that have been selected elsewhere if public policies are to enhance the shift toward low carbon sustainable energy systems they would need to be more comprehensive be more consistent over time and emphasise energy use more

selection on observed and unobserved variables assessing the effectiveness of catholic schools in this paper we measure the effect of catholic high school attendance on educational attainment and test scores because we do not have a good instrumental variable for catholic school attendance we develop new estimation methods based on the idea that the amount of selection on the observed explanatory variables in a model provides a guide to the amount of selection on the unobservables we also propose an informal way to assess selectivity bias based on measuring the ratio of selection on unobservables to selection on observables that would be required if one is to attribute the entire effect of catholic school attendance to selection bias we use our methods to estimate the effect of attending a catholic high school on a variety of outcomes our main conclusion is that catholic high schools substantially increase the probability of graduating from high school and more tentatively attending college we find little evidence of an effect on test scores

who invests in renewable electricity production empirical evidence and suggestions for further research transforming energy systems to fulfill the needs of a low carbon economy requires large investments in renewable electricity production res e recent literature underlines the need to take a closer look at the composition of the res e investor group in order to understand the motives and investment processes of different types of investors however existing energy policies generally consider res e investments made on a regional or national level and target investors who evaluate their res e investments according to least cost high profit criteria we present empirical evidence to show that res e investments are made by a heterogeneous group of investors that a variety of investors exist and that their formation varies among the different types of renewable sources this has direct implications for our understanding of the investment process in res e and for the study of motives and driving forces of res e investors we introduce a multi dimensional framework for analyzing differences between categories of investors which not only considers to the standard economic dimension which is predominant in the contemporary energy literature but also considers the entrepreneurship innovation adoption and institutional dimensions the framework emphasizes the influence of four main investor related factors on the investment process which should be studied in future research motives background resources and personal characteristics

the fundamental transformation in macroeconomics when factors enter into joint production they typically develop a degree of specificity with respect to each other it is well known that when combined with contracting difficulties specificity gives rise to a williamsonian fundamental transformation from an ex ante competitive relationship to an ex post bilateral monopoly the macroeconomic consequences of widespread specificity are far reaching specificity results in misallocation underutilization and unemployment of the economy s productive factors it hampers growth by depressing the incentives to replace what is outdated and to fully utilize the economy s resources it disrupts macroeconomic adjustment by inducing a wedge between timid creation and excessive destruction of the old system and it exacerbates downturns by elastifying the cyclical response of inelastic factors this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

job protection the macho hypothesis this paper shows that the stringency of employment protection in mediterranean countries can be partly explained by cultural values embedded in religion both the security provided by this legislation and its redistributive effects in favour of the male breadwinner insiders fit into the framework of mediterranean religions first international individual surveys allow us to document that catholics and muslims are more likely to agree with traditional gender division of work than protestants and the non religious second we develop a political economy model predicting that employment protection should be more stringent in countries where there is a larger share of insiders supportive of traditional family values we then show that this prediction is supported by empirical evidence on oecd countries over the period 1970 99 copyright 2006 oxford university press

moral hazard vs liquidity and optimal unemployment insurance this paper presents new evidence on why unemployment insurance ui benefits affect search behavior and develops a simple method of calculating the welfare gains from ui using this evidence i show that 60 percent of the increase in unemployment durations caused by ui benefits is due to a liquidity effect rather than distortions on marginal incentives to search moral hazard by combining two empirical strategies first i find that increases in benefits have much larger effects on durations for liquidity constrained households second lump sum severance payments increase durations substantially among constrained households i derive a formula for the optimal benefit level that depends only on the reduced form liquidity and moral hazard elasticities the formula implies that the optimal ui benefit level exceeds 50 percent of the wage the exact identification approach to welfare analysis proposed here yields robust optimal policy results because it does not require structural estimation of primitives

does religion constrain the risky sex behaviour associated with hiv aids this article examines the likely effectiveness of public health interventions designed to change the risky sexual behaviour associated with human immunodeficiency virus acquired immune deficiency syndrome hiv aids by faith based organizations fbos we utilize data from the general social survey gss to estimate an economic model of sexual behaviour our theoretical approach proceeds by rationalizing on evolutionary grounds the existence of sexual activity in individual preference functions with unobservable costs imposed by religious beliefs and participation given the objective of utility maximization we justify the existence of demand functions for sexual activity that generate empirically testable hypotheses about the effects of religion and religious participation on risky sexual activity our results suggest that at least in the case of heterosexuals fbos can indeed influence the risky sexual behaviour that is associated with the transmission of hiv aids

which renewable energy policy is a venture capitalist s best friend empirical evidence from a survey of international cleantech investors governments around the world have adopted ambitious targets to increase the share of renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions they pursue a variety of policy approaches to achieve these targets it has been a popular theme for contributions in energy policy to investigate the effectiveness of such policies this article adds a new perspective to the debate namely looking at the policy preferences of private investors in innovative clean energy technology firms we surveyed 60 investment professionals from european and north american venture capital and private equity funds and asked them to assess the effectiveness of various policies in terms of stimulating their interest to invest in innovative clean energy technologies in addition to quantitative rankings we use qualitative interview data to capture additional information on why investors prefer some policies over others the combined analysis compensates for the inherent limitations of a quantitative ranking using generic policy types the results of this exploratory analysis demonstrate that all other things being equal investors in our sample perceived feed in tariffs to be the most effective renewable energy policy the overall preference for feed in tariffs is even more pronounced among investors based in europe and with higher exposure to clean energy

youth employment policies in france abstract in this paper we present a summary of recent microeconometric results on the evaluation of the effects of active labor market policies on youth employment in france we focus our discussion on three types of policies 1 youth employment schemes for out of employment and low skilled young adults 2 on the job training schemes 3 payroll tax subsidies for minimum wage workers training programs for unemployed young workers have in general no effects on post training wages or employment probabilities except if they have a large training content in contrast the reduction of labor costs have significant effects on employment probabilities of low wage workers however their effects appear to be stronger for workers between 25 and 30

the regulation of labor author s botero juan djankov simeon la porta rafael lopez de silanes florencio shleifer andrei abstract we investigate the regulation of labor markets through employment collective relations and social security laws in 85 countries we find that the political power of the left is associated with more stringent labor regulations and more generous social security systems and that socialist french and scandinavian legal origin countries have sharply higher levels of labor regulation than do common law countries however the effects of legal origins are larger and explain more of the variation in regulations than those of politics heavier regulation of labor is associated with lower labor force participation and higher unemployment especially of the young these results are most naturally consistent with legal theories according to which countries have pervasive regulaory styles inherited from the transplantation of legal systems

small streams diverse sources who invests in renewable energy in finland during the financial downturn this article addresses the investment gap in renewable energy sources identified by several authors examining the case of a country finland which introduced policy measures to diversify its renewable energy portfolio we analyse the development of investments in renewable heat and power in response to new policy measures and contextual factors during the downturn period 2009 2013 we investigate investor heterogeneity i e the diversity of logics employed by different types of res investors in spite of a severe financial recession we find an emergence of new sources of investment among these new investor types we find diversity in investment drivers and available options these include investors mobilized by the feed in tariff to seek profitable targets and investors such as real estate owners investing in heat pumps for their own use and benefiting from low interest rates we find that the diversification of investors supports the diversification in res sources and brings in new investors undeterred by the financial downturn our findings imply that policy makers should recognize that the responses to distinct incentives and pressures vary by investor types this also means that a mix of policies is required to maximize the contribution of different sectors to filling the renewable energy investment gap

job security provisions and employment european countries have enacted various job security provisions over the last 30 years employers are required to pay workers on separation or to give advance notice of termination in anything less than a perfectly functioning market there are effects of the provisions on employment incumbents are more likely to retain their jobs but new workers are less likely to be hired an examination of the european data suggests that severance pay requirements reduce employment

financial market imperfections and home ownership a comparative study abstract we explore the determinants of the distribution of owner occupancy rates across age groups using a collection of microeconomic data on 14 oecd countries in most the survey is repeated over time this allows us to construct an international dataset merging data on 39 national household surveys with aggregate data on down payment ratios we find strong evidence that the availability of mortgage finance as measured by down payment ratios affects the distribution of owner occupancy rates across age groups especially at the young end the results are consistent with previous theoretical models and have important implications for the debate on the relation between saving and growth

was weber wrong a human capital theory of protestant economic history max weber attributed the higher economic prosperity of protestant regions to a protestant work ethic we provide an alternative theory protestant economies prospered because instruction in reading the bible generated the human capital crucial to economic prosperity we test the theory using county level data from late nineteenth century prussia exploiting the initial concentric dispersion of the reformation to use distance to wittenberg as an instrument for protestantism we find that protestantism indeed led to higher economic prosperity but also to better education our results are consistent with protestants higher literacy accounting for most of the gap in economic prosperity

introduction to the economics of religion after a very long hiatus economists have begun again to study the relationship between economics and religion this article seeks to summarize and evaluate the principal themes and empirical findings that have appeared in some 200 recent papers on the economics of religion although some of the research concerns the economic consequences of religiosity most applies standard economic theory to the study of individual religious activity the characteristics of religious groups and the impact of regulation and competition on religious markets

the joint design of unemployment insurance and employment protection a first pass unemployment insurance and employment protection are typically discussed and studied in isolation in this paper we argue that they are tightly linked and we focus on their joint optimal design in a simple model with risk averse workers risk neutral firms and random shocks to productivity we show that in the first best unemployment insurance comes with employment protection in the form of layoff taxes indeed optimality requires that layoff taxes be equal to unemployment benefits we then explore the implications of four broad categories of deviations from first best limits on insurance limits on layoff taxes ex post wage bargaining and ex ante heterogeneity of firms or workers we show how the design must be modified in each case finally we draw out the implications of our analysis for current policy debates and reform proposals from the financing of unemployment insurance to the respective roles of severance payments and unemployment benefits

public policy influence on renewable energy investments a panel data study across oecd countries this paper examines the impact of public policy measures on renewable energy re investments in electricity generating capacity made by institutional investors using a novel combination of datasets and a longitudinal research design we investigate the influence of different policy measures in a sample of oecd countries to suggest an effective policy mix which could tackle failures in the market for clean energy the results call for technology specific policies which take into account actual market conditions and technology maturity to improve the conditions for institutional investments advisable policy instruments include economic and fiscal incentives such as feed in tariffs fit especially for less mature technologies additionally market based instruments such as greenhouse gas ghg emission trading systems for mature technologies should be included these policy measures directly impact the risk and return structure of re projects supplementing these with regulatory measures such as codes and standards e g rps and long term strategic planning could further strengthen the context for re investments

determinants of renewable energy growth a global sample analysis abstract we investigate factors influencing country level renewable energy growth by applying fevd and pcse estimation methods in a unique sample analysis with a longer time series 1990 2010 and a broader sample size of countries including brazil russia india china and south africa than previous studies our results reveal new insights the results suggest that certain government backed energy policies impede renewable energy investments thus implying significant failures in policy design these policies may be failing mainly because of uncertainty and the likelihood of discontinuity weak voluntary approaches are introduced in order to satisfy public demand for more sustainable investments and programmes we find that these may have negative influences on the growth of renewables as well the insight gained is consistent over the estimation methods employed

impact of public policy uncertainty on renewable energy investment wind power and the production tax credit abstract it is generally understood that the pattern of repeated expiration and short term renewal of the federal production tax credit ptc causes a boom bust cycle in wind power plant investment in the us this on off pattern is detrimental to the wind industry since ramp up and ramp down costs are high and players are deterred from making long term investments it is often assumed that the severe downturn in investment during off years implies that wind power is unviable without the ptc this assumption turns out to be unsubstantiated this paper demonstrates that it is not the absence of the ptc that causes the investment downturn during off years but rather the uncertainty over its return specifically it is the dynamic of power purchase agreement ppa negotiations in the face of ptc renewal uncertainty that drives investment volatility with contract negotiations prevalent in the renewable energy industry this finding suggests that reducing uncertainty is a crucial component of effective renewable energy policy the ptc as currently structured is not the only means existing or potential for encouraging wind power investment using data from a survey of energy professionals various policy instruments are compared in terms of their perceived stability for supporting long term investment

risk based assessment of the cost efficiency and the effectivity of renewable energy support schemes certificate markets versus feed in tariffs the introduction of renewable energy sources in the electricity generation mix has the potential to reduce power sector s emissions and countries dependence on imported oil climate change concerns and highly volatile oil prices have attracted governments interest and support to sustain investments in renewable energy capacity and different support policies have been implemented in many countries around the world this paper analyzes the effects of investors risk aversion on the performance of support schemes the analysis compares two policy options a feed in tariff mechanism with a certificate market system results show that while a tariff mechanism could obtain better results than a certificate market its performance is strictly dependent on regulator choices a certificate market instead permits to obtain the desired level of renewable energy market share with good cost efficiency as long as investors risk aversion is moderate moreover discounting future cash flows with higher social discount rates further benefits a certificate system making it preferable to feed in tariffs

finishing high school and starting college do catholic schools make a difference in this paper we consider two measures of the relative effectiveness of public and catholic schools finishing high school and starting college these measures are potentially more important indicators of school quality than standardized test scores in light of the economic consequences of obtaining more education single equation estimates suggest that for the typical student attending a catholic high school raises the probability of finishing high school or entering a four year college by thirteen percentage points in bivariate probit models we find almost no evidence that our single equation estimates are subject to selection bias

qualitative and mixed methods research in economics surprising growth promising future qualitative research in economics has traditionally been unimportant compared to quantitative work yet there has been a small explosion in use of quantitative approaches in the past 10 15 years including mixed methods projects which use qualitative and quantitative methods in combination this paper surveys the growing use of qualitative methods in economics and closely related fields aiming to provide economists with a useful roadmap through major sets of qualitative methods and how and why they are used we review the growing body of economic research using qualitative approaches emphasizing the gains from using qualitative or mixed methods over traditional closed ended approaches it is argued that although qualitative methods are often portrayed as less reliable less accurate less powerful and or less credible than quantitative methods in fact the two sets of methods have their own strengths and how much can be learned from one type of method or the other depends on specific issues that arise in studying the topic of interest the central message of the paper is that well done qualitative work can provide scientifically valuable and intellectually helpful ways of adding to the stock of economic knowledge especially when applied to research questions for which they are well suited