Abstract:
Food Price Dynamics and Price Adjustment in the EU.

 

Abstract:
AUCTIONS WITH LEAKS ABOUT EARLY BIDS: ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL BEHAVIOR.

In sequential first- and second-price private value auctions, second movers are informed about the first movers' bid with commonly known probability. Equilibrium bidding in first-price auctions is mostly unaffected, but there are multiple equilibria in second-price auctions affecting comparative statics across price rules. We show experimentally that informational leaks in first-price auctions qualitatively confirm the theoretical predictions. In second-price auctions, we analyze and experimentally confirm the existence of focal equilibria, and provide evidence for individual consistency in equilibrium selection. (JEL D44, C72, C91). 

Abstract:
Adoption of community monitoring improves common pool resource management across contexts.

Pervasive overuse and degradation of common pool resources (CPRs) is a global concern. To sustainably manage CPRs, effective governance institutions are essential. A large literature has developed to describe the institutional design features employed by communities that successfully manage their CPRs. Yet, these designs remain far from universally adopted. We focus on one prominent institutional design feature, community monitoring, and ask whether nongovernmental organizations or governments can facilitate its adoption and whether adoption of monitoring affects CPR use. To answer these questions, we implemented randomized controlled trials in six countries. The harmonized trials randomly assigned the introduction of community monitoring to 400 communities, with data collection in an additional 347 control communities. Most of the 400 communities adopted regular monitoring practices over the course of a year. In a meta-analysis of the experimental results from the six sites, we find that the community monitoring reduced CPR use and increased user satisfaction and knowledge by modest amounts. Our findings demonstrate that community monitoring can improve CPR management in disparate contexts, even when monitoring is externally initiated rather than homegrown. These findings provide guidance for the design of future programs and policies intended to develop monitoring capabilities in communities. Furthermore, our harmonized, multisite trial provides sustainability science with a new way to study the complexity of socioecological systems and builds generalizable insights about how to improve CPR management. 

Abstract:
Algorithmic and human prediction of success in human collaboration from visual features.

As groups are increasingly taking over individual experts in many tasks, it is ever more important to understand the determinants of group success. In this paper, we study the patterns of group success in Escape the Room, a physical adventure game in which a group is tasked with escaping a maze by collectively solving a series of puzzles. We investigate (1) the characteristics of successful groups, and (2) how accurately humans and machines can spot them from a group photo. The relationship between these two questions is based on the hypothesis that the characteristics of successful groups are encoded by features that can be spotted in their photo. We analyze >43K group photos (one photo per group) taken after groups have completed the game-from which all explicit performance-signaling information has been removed. First, we find that groups that are larger, older and more gender but less age diverse are significantly more likely to escape. Second, we compare humans and off-the-shelf machine learning algorithms at predicting whether a group escaped or not based on the completion photo. We find that individual guesses by humans achieve 58.3% accuracy, better than random, but worse than machines which display 71.6% accuracy. When humans are trained to guess by observing only four labeled photos, their accuracy increases to 64%. However, training humans on more labeled examples (eight or twelve) leads to a slight, but statistically insignificant improvement in accuracy (67.4%). Humans in the best training condition perform on par with two, but worse than three out of the five machine learning algorithms we evaluated. Our work illustrates the potentials and the limitations of machine learning systems in evaluating group performance and identifying success factors based on sparse visual cues. 

Abstract:
Blaming automated vehicles in difficult situations.

Automated vehicles (AVs) have made huge strides toward large-scale deployment. Despite this progress, AVs continue to make mistakes, some resulting in death. Although some mistakes are avoidable, others are hard to avoid even by highly skilled drivers. As these mistakes continue to shape attitudes toward AVs, we need to understand whether people differentiate between them. We ask the following two questions. When an AV makes a mistake, does the perceived difficulty or novelty of the situation predict blame attributed to it? How does that blame attribution compare to a human driving a car? Through two studies, we find that the amount of blame people attribute to AVs and human drivers is sensitive to situation difficulty. However, while some situations could be more difficult for AVs and others for human drivers, people blamed AVs more, regardless. Our results provide novel insights in understanding psychological barriers influencing the public's view of AVs. 

Abstract:
Bootstrapping Non-Stationary Stochastic Volatility.

In this paper we investigate to what extent the bootstrap can be applied to conditional mean models, such as regression or time series models, when the volatility of the innovations is random and possibly non-stationary. In fact, the volatility of many economic and financial time series displays persistent changes and possible non-stationarity. However, the theory of the bootstrap for such models has focused on deterministic changes of the unconditional variance and little is known about the performance and the validity of the bootstrap when the volatility is driven by a non-stationary stochastic process. This includes near-integrated exogenous volatility processes as well as near-integrated GARCH processes, where the conditional variance has a diffusion limit; a further important example is the case where volatility exhibits infrequent jumps. This paper fills this gap in the literature by developing conditions for bootstrap validity in time series and regression models with non-stationary, stochastic volatility. We show that in such cases the distribution of bootstrap statistics (conditional on the data) is random in the limit. Consequently, the conventional approaches to proofs of bootstrap consistency, based on the notion of weak convergence in probability of the bootstrap statistic, fail to deliver the required validity results. Instead, we use the concept of ‘weak convergence in distribution’ to develop and establish novel conditions for validity of the wild bootstrap, conditional on the volatility process. We apply our results to several testing problems in the presence of non-stationary stochastic volatility, including testing in a location model, testing for structural change using CUSUM-type functionals, and testing for a unit root in autoregressive models. Importantly, we work under sufficient conditions for bootstrap validity that include the absence of statistical leverage effects, i.e. correlation between the error process and its future conditional variance. The results of the paper are illustrated using Monte Carlo simulations, which indicate that a wild bootstrap approach leads to size control even in small samples. 

Abstract:
COVID-19 and mental health deterioration by ethnicity and gender in the UK.

We use the UK Household Longitudinal Study and compare pre-COVID-19 pandemic (2017-2019) and during-COVID-19 pandemic data (April 2020) for the same group of individuals to assess and quantify changes in mental health as measured by changes in the GHQ-12 (General Health Questionnaire), among ethnic groups in the UK. We confirm the previously documented average deterioration in mental health for the whole sample of individuals interviewed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we find that the average increase in mental distress varies by ethnicity and gender. Both women –regardless of their ethnicity– and Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) men experienced a higher average increase in mental distress than White British men, so that the gender gap in mental health increases only among White British individuals. These ethnic-gender specific changes in mental health persist after controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Finally, we find some evidence that, among men, Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani individuals have experienced the highest average increase in mental distress with respect to White British men. 

Abstract:
COVID–19 Information, Demand and Willingness to Pay for Protective Gear in the UK.

in the first month of the UK first lockdown, we studied the demand and willingness to pay (WTP) for hand sanitizer gel, disposable face masks and disposable gloves, and how information on tested people and coronavirus deaths explains the demand and WTP for these products. The specific hypotheses to test and concrete questions to study were pre-registered in AsPredicted (#38962) on 10 April 2020, and an online survey was launched in Prolific on a sample of the UK general population representative by age, sex and ethnicity on 11 April 2020. We find that there is a demand for these products, estimate the average WTP for them, and show that the provision of information affected the demand (and WTP) for disposable face masks. Providing information on the numbers of coronavirus cumulative tested people and coronavirus cumulative deaths increases the stated demand for disposable face masks by about 8 percentage points [95% CI: 0.8, 15.1] and 11 percentage points [95% CI: 3.7, 18.2], respectively. JEL Classifications: C99, D12, I12, I18  

Abstract:
Can community monitoring save the commons? Evidence on forest use and displacement.

Rapid deforestation is a major driver of greenhouse-gas emissions (1). One proposed policy tool to halt deforestation is community forest management. Even though communities manage an increasing proportion of the world’s forests, we lack good evidence of successful approaches to community forest management. Prior studies suggest that successful approaches require a number of “design conditions” to be met. However, causal evidence on the effectiveness of individual design conditions is scarce. This study isolates one design condition, community-led monitoring of the forest, and provides causal evidence on its potential to reduce forest use. The study employs a randomized controlled trial to investigate the impact of community monitoring on forest use in 110 villages in Uganda. We explore the impact of community monitoring in both monitored and unmonitored areas of the forest, using exceptionally detailed data from on-the-ground measurements and satellite imagery. Estimates indicate that community monitoring does not affect our main outcome of interest, a forest-use index. However, treatment villages see a relative increase in forest loss outside of monitored forest areas compared to control villages. This increase is seen both in nonmonitored areas adjacent to treatment villages and in nonmonitored areas adjacent to neighboring villages not included in the study. We tentatively conclude that at least part of the increase in forest loss in nonmonitored areas is due to displacement of forest use by members of treatment villages due to fear of sanctions. Interventions to reduce deforestation should take this potentially substantial effect into consideration. 

Abstract:
Correction to: Ambitious subsidy reform by the WTO presents opportunities for ocean health restoration (Sustainability Science, (2020), 10.1007/s11625-020-00865-z).

The original article can be found online. 

Abstract:
Effect of farm management on topsoil organic carbon and aggregate stability in water: a case study from Southwest England, UK.

There are few reliable data sets to inspire confidence in policymakers that soil organic carbon (SOC) can be measured on farms. We worked with farmers in the Tamar Valley region of southwest England to select sampling sites under similar conditions (soil type, aspect and slope) and management types. Topsoils (2–15 cm) were sampled in autumn 2015, and percentage soil organic matter (%SOM) was determined by loss on ignition and used to calculate %SOC. We also used the stability of macroaggregates in cold water (WSA) (‘soil slaking’) as a measure of ‘soil health’ and investigated its relationship with SOC in the clay-rich soils. %SOM was significantly different between management types in the order woodland (11.1%) = permanent pasture (9.5%) > ley-arable rotation (7.7%) = arable (7.3%). This related directly to SOC stocks that were larger in fields under permanent pasture and woodland compared with those under arable or ley-arable rotation whether corrected for clay content (F = 8.500, p  

Abstract:
Moral dilemmas and trust in leaders during a global health crisis.

Trust in leaders is central to citizen compliance with public policies. One potential determinant of trust is how leaders resolve conflicts between utilitarian and non-utilitarian ethical principles in moral dilemmas. Past research suggests that utilitarian responses to dilemmas can both erode and enhance trust in leaders: sacrificing some people to save many others ('instrumental harm') reduces trust, while maximizing the welfare of everyone equally ('impartial beneficence') may increase trust. In a multi-site experiment spanning 22 countries on six continents, participants (N = 23,929) completed self-report (N = 17,591) and behavioural (N = 12,638) measures of trust in leaders who endorsed utilitarian or non-utilitarian principles in dilemmas concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Across both the self-report and behavioural measures, endorsement of instrumental harm decreased trust, while endorsement of impartial beneficence increased trust. These results show how support for different ethical principles can impact trust in leaders, and inform effective public communication during times of global crisis. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION STATEMENT: the Stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 13 November 2020. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13247315.v1.  

Abstract:
Political competition over property rights enforcement.

I study what level of tax-financed property rights enforcement societies choose in elections when appropriators can steal from producers. Restrictions determine who can run for office. Candidates propose enforcement levels and tax rates. The election winner keeps the budget surplus. If the majority of voters are producers, then fewer restrictions on who can run for office are associated with more secure property rights. Lifting restrictions on who can run benefits producers, while lifting restrictions on who can vote does not. If the majority of voters are appropriators, then elections lead to adverse outcomes, irrespective of who can run for office. 

Abstract:
Should regulators always be transparent? a bank run experiment.

We study, using laboratory experiments, the extent to which disclosure policies about the financial health of a bank affect the likelihood of a bank run. We consider two disclosure regimes, full disclosure and no disclosure, under two scenarios: one in which the bank is on average financially solvent and another in which the bank is on average insolvent. When the bank is on average insolvent, the full disclosure regime reduces the expected likelihood of runs. In contrast, when the bank is on average solvent, the full disclosure regime increases the expected likelihood of runs. We also find that disclosing identical information when depositors’ expectations are low versus high (good versus bad news) leads to behavioural differences only indirectly through their beliefs about the other depositor's actions. Our findings show that instituting a policy of greater banking transparency is not always beneficial. 

Abstract:
Spatial cost-benefit analysis of blue restoration and factors driving net benefits globally.

Marine coastal ecosystems, commonly referred to as blue ecosystems, provide valuable services to society but are under increasing threat worldwide due to a variety of drivers, including eutrophication, development, land-use change, land reclamation, and climate change. Ecological restoration is sometimes necessary to facilitate recovery in coastal ecosystems. Blue restoration (i.e. in marine coastal systems) is a developing field, and projects to date have been small scale and expensive, leading to the perception that restoration may not be economically viable. We conducted a global cost-benefit analysis to determine the net benefits of restoring coral reef, mangrove, saltmarsh, and seagrass ecosystems, where the benefit is defined as the monetary value of ecosystem services. We estimated costs from published restoration case studies and used an adjusted-value-transfer method to assign benefit values to these case studies. Benefit values were estimated as the monetary value provided by ecosystem services of the restored habitats. Benefits outweighed costs (i.e. there were positive net benefits) for restoration of all blue ecosystems. Mean benefit:cost ratios for ecosystem restoration were eight to 10 times higher than prior studies of coral reef and seagrass restoration, most likely due to the more recent lower cost estimates we used. Among ecosystems, saltmarsh had the greatest net benefits followed by mangrove; coral reef and seagrass ecosystems had lower net benefits. In general, restoration in nations with middle incomes had higher (eight times higher in coral reefs and 40 times higher in mangroves) net benefits than those with high incomes. Within an ecosystem type, net benefit varied with restoration technique (coral reef and saltmarsh), ecosystem service produced (mangrove and saltmarsh), and project duration (seagrass). These results challenge the perceptions of the low economic viability of blue restoration and should encourage further targeted investment in this field. 

Abstract:
The effect of education on spousal education: a genetic approach.

We investigate the causal effect of education on spousal education using a sample of couples from the Health and Retirement Study. We estimate reduced-form linear matching functions derived from a parsimonious matching model which links spouses’ education. Using OLS we find that an additional year in husband's (resp. wife's) education is associated with an average increase in wife's (resp. husband's) education of 0.41 years —95% CI: 0.37, 0.45 (resp. 0.63 years —95% CI: 0.57, 0.68). To deal with endogeneity issues due to measurement error and omitted variables, we use a measure of genetic propensity (polygenic score) for educational attainment as an instrumental variable. Assuming that our instrument is valid, our 2SLS estimate suggests that an additional year in husband's (resp. wife's) education increases wife's (resp. husband's) education by about 0.49 years —95% CI: 0.35, 0.62 (resp. 0.76 —95% CI: 0.56, 0.96). Since greater genetic propensity for educational attainment has been linked to a range of personality and cognitive skills, we allow for the possibility that the exclusion restriction is violated using the plausible exogenous approach by Conley et al. (2012). A positive causal effect of education on spousal education cannot be ruled out, as long as one standard deviation increase in husband's (wife's) genetic propensity for education directly increases wife's (husband's) education by less than 0.2 (0.3) years. 

Abstract:
The impact of smiling cues on social cooperation.

While there is a plethora of experimental studies on the effects of preplay communication on economic behavior, little is known about the impact of simple cues, such as smiling, on pro-sociality. This article presents a comprehensive analysis exploring how the presence of a smiling opportunity affects pro-social behavior as measured by a one-shot linear public goods game. Our design varies (i) whether smiling is costly or costless and (ii) whether one or both members in a group are given the opportunity to smile. To test for the robustness of our results, we consider two versions of smiling cues: (i) a smiling label and (ii) a smiling face (emoji). Our findings indicate that introducing a cost for smiling has detrimental behavioral consequences regardless of the cue. Specifically, when smiling is costly, only a small minority of subjects are willing to smile as opposed to when smiling is costless. As a result, subjects contribute significantly less. These results remain the same regardless of the type of smiling cue that subjects can send. Overall, our findings provide new evidence that simple cues such as smiles embody information that influences pro-social behavior in social interactions. 

Abstract:
Unequal consequences of Covid 19: representative evidence from six countries.

Covid-19 and the measures taken to contain it have led to unprecedented constraints on work and leisure activities, across the world. This paper uses nationally representative surveys to document how people of different ages and incomes have been affected in the early phase of the pandemic. The data was collected in six countries (China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, UK, and US) in the third week of April 2020. First, we document changes in job circumstances and social activities. Second, we document self-reported negative and positive consequences of the crisis on well-being. We find that young people have experienced more drastic changes to their life and have been most affected economically and psychologically. There is less of a systematic pattern across income groups. While lower income groups have been more affected economically, higher income groups have experienced more changes in their social life and spending. A large fraction of people of low and high income groups report negative effects on well-being. 

Abstract:
Why do investment banks buy put options from companies?.

Companies have collected billions in premiums from privately sold put options written on their own stock. It is puzzling that counterparties, investment banks, would agree to make such transactions with better-informed companies which have extraordinary ability to time the market as documented by Jenter et al. (2011). To resolve this puzzle, we develop a model that shows that investment banks, by offering to buy put options from better-informed parties, receive private information about issuing companies. Our model also incorporates the practice of firms (such as Microsoft) of sometimes repurchasing their own put options and thus providing additional private information to investment banks. Empirically, we find support for our theory from an abnormal 9% increase in the stock prices and a 40% increase in the trading volumes around the put sales. Examination of 13D filings reveals that trading by upper management insiders cannot completely account for the change in volume. 

Abstract:
A PRIMER ON BOOTSTRAP TESTING OF HYPOTHESES IN TIME SERIES MODELS: WITH AN APPLICATION TO DOUBLE AUTOREGRESSIVE MODELS.

In this article, we discuss the bootstrap as a tool for statistical inference in econometric time series models. Importantly, in the context of testing, properties of the bootstrap under the null (size) as well as under the alternative (power) are discussed. Although properties under the alternative are crucial to ensure the consistency of bootstrap-based tests, it is often the case in the literature that only validity under the null is discussed. We provide new results on bootstrap inference for the class of double-autoregressive (DAR) models. In addition, we review key examples from the bootstrap time series literature in order to emphasize the importance of properly defining and analyzing the bootstrap generating process and associated bootstrap statistics, while also providing an up-to-date review of existing approaches. DAR models are particularly interesting for bootstrap inference: first, standard asymptotic inference is usually difficult to implement due to the presence of nuisance parameters; second, inference involves testing whether one or more parameters are on the boundary of the parameter space; third, even second-order moments may not exist. In most of these cases, the bootstrap is not considered an appropriate tool for inference. Conversely, and taking testing nonstationarity to illustrate, we show that although a standard bootstrap based on unrestricted parameter estimation is invalid, a correct implementation of the bootstrap based on restricted parameter estimation (restricted bootstrap) is first-order valid. That is, it is able to replicate, under the null hypothesis, the correct limiting distribution. Importantly, we also show that the behavior of this bootstrap under the alternative hypothesis may be more involved because of possible lack of finite second-order moments of the bootstrap innovations. This feature makes for some parameter configurations, the restricted bootstrap unable to replicate the null asymptotic distribution when the null is false. We show that this possible drawback can be fixed by using a novel bootstrap in this framework. For this “hybrid bootstrap,” the parameter estimates used to construct the bootstrap data are obtained with the null imposed, while the bootstrap innovations are sampled with replacement from unrestricted residuals. We show that the hybrid bootstrap mimics the correct asymptotic null distribution, irrespective of the null being true or false. Monte Carlo simulations illustrate the behavior of both the restricted and the hybrid bootstrap, and we find that both perform very well even for small sample sizes. 

Abstract:
Abrupt decline in tropospheric nitrogen dioxide over China after the outbreak of COVID-19.

China’s policy interventions to reduce the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 have environmental and economic impacts. Tropospheric nitrogen dioxide indicates economic activities, as nitrogen dioxide is primarily emitted from fossil fuel consumption. Satellite measurements show a 48% drop in tropospheric nitrogen dioxide vertical column densities from the 20 days averaged before the 2020 Lunar New Year to the 20 days averaged after. This is 21% ± 5% larger than that from 2015–2019. We relate this reduction to two of the government’s actions: the announcement of the first report in each province and the date of a province’s lockdown. Both actions are associated with nearly the same magnitude of reductions. Our analysis offers insights into the unintended environmental and economic consequences through reduced economic activities. 

Abstract:
Adaptive Inference in Heteroscedastic Fractional Time Series Models.

We consider estimation and inference in fractionally integrated time series models driven by shocks which can display conditional and unconditional heteroscedasticity of unknown form. Although the standard conditional sum-of-squares (CSS) estimator remains consistent and asymptotically normal in such cases, unconditional heteroscedasticity inflates its variance matrix by a scalar quantity, λ > 1, thereby inducing a loss in efficiency relative to the unconditionally homoscedastic case, λ = 1. We propose an adaptive version of the CSS estimator, based on nonparametric kernel-based estimation of the unconditional volatility process. We show that adaptive estimation eliminates the factor λ from the variance matrix, thereby delivering the same asymptotic efficiency as that attained by the standard CSS estimator in the unconditionally homoscedastic case and, hence, asymptotic efficiency under Gaussianity. Importantly, the asymptotic analysis is based on a novel proof strategy, which does not require consistent estimation (in the sup norm) of the volatility process. Consequently, we are able to work under a weaker set of assumptions than those employed in the extant literature. The asymptotic variance matrices of both the standard and adaptive CSS (ACSS) estimators depend on any weak parametric autocorrelation present in the fractional model and any conditional heteroscedasticity in the shocks. Consequently, asymptotically pivotal inference can be achieved through the development of confidence regions or hypothesis tests using either heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors and/or a wild bootstrap. Monte Carlo simulations and empirical applications illustrate the practical usefulness of the methods proposed. 

Abstract:
Ambiguity when Playing Coordination Games Across Cultures.

We run experiments with a stag hunt and bargaining coordination game. Using a between-subjects design, we vary the identity of the opponent between someone of the same culture or a different culture. The idea is to see whether cultural norms or identity play a part in coordination decisions. We compare the responses of British and Asian students at the University of Exeter and show the cultural identity of the opponent by physical appearance. The players appear to use cultural stereotypes to predict behaviour, especially in the bargaining game which may require more strategic thought than the stag hunt game. In particular, the British act in way that indicates they believe the Asians will behave more cautiously than other British. According to our results, the stereotype of Asians being cautious is misleading. 

Abstract:
An approach for combining ethical principles with public opinion to guide public policy.

We propose a framework for incorporating public opinion into policy making in situations where values are in conflict. This framework advocates creating vignettes representing value choices, eliciting the public's opinion on these choices, and using machine learning to extract principles that can serve as succinct statements of the policies implied by these choices and rules to guide the behavior of autonomous systems. 

Abstract:
Bootstrapping Noncausal Autoregressions: with Applications to Explosive Bubble Modeling.

In this article, we develop new bootstrap-based inference for noncausal autoregressions with heavy-tailed innovations. This class of models is widely used for modeling bubbles and explosive dynamics in economic and financial time series. In the noncausal, heavy-tail framework, a major drawback of asymptotic inference is that it is not feasible in practice as the relevant limiting distributions depend crucially on the (unknown) decay rate of the tails of the distribution of the innovations. In addition, even in the unrealistic case where the tail behavior is known, asymptotic inference may suffer from small-sample issues. To overcome these difficulties, we propose bootstrap inference procedures using parameter estimates obtained with the null hypothesis imposed (the so-called restricted bootstrap). We discuss three different choices of bootstrap innovations: wild bootstrap, based on Rademacher errors; permutation bootstrap; a combination of the two (“permutation wild bootstrap”). Crucially, implementation of these bootstraps do not require any a priori knowledge about the distribution of the innovations, such as the tail index or the convergence rates of the estimators. We establish sufficient conditions ensuring that, under the null hypothesis, the bootstrap statistics estimate consistently particular conditionaldistributions of the original statistics. In particular, we show that validity of the permutation bootstrap holds without any restrictions on the distribution of the innovations, while the permutation wild and the standard wild bootstraps require further assumptions such as symmetry of the innovation distribution. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations show that the finite sample performance of the proposed bootstrap tests is exceptionally good, both in terms of size and of empirical rejection probabilities under the alternative hypothesis. We conclude by applying the proposed bootstrap inference to Bitcoin/USD exchange rates and to crude oil price data. We find that indeed noncausal models with heavy-tailed innovations are able to fit the data, also in periods of bubble dynamics. Supplementary materials for this article are available online. 

Abstract:
Can Reminders of Rules Induce Compliance? Experimental Evidence from a Common Pool Resource Setting.

AbstractThis paper presents results from an RCT exploring whether a behavioural intervention can improve the conservation of a common pool resource. The literature on common pool resource management suggests that the existence of rules and sanctions is important to resource conservation. However, behavioural science suggests that individuals have finite cognitive capacity and may not be attentive to these rules and sanctions. This paper investigates the impact of an SMS message intervention designed to improve users’ knowledge of and attentiveness to existing forest use rules. An RCT in Uganda explores the impact of these messages on forest use and compliance with the rules. This paper finds that SMS messages raise the perceived probability of sanctions for rule-breakers. However, SMS messages do not induce full compliance with forest use rules or systematically reduce forest use. 

Abstract:
Circular Economy as Fictional Expectation to Overcome Societal Addictions. Where do We Stand?.

Circular economy thinking has become the subject of academic enquiry across several disciplines recently. Yet whilst its technical and business angles are more widely discussed, its philosophical underpinnings and socio-economic implications are insufficiently investigated. In this article, we aim to contribute to their understanding by uncovering the circular economy role in shaping a new vision, highlighting the social and economic dimensions of future imaginaries and the mechanisms that can enable them to bring about change in the social context. We believe that defining the vision that the circular economy is contributing to shape is key to explain its conceptual framework and activities. Drawing on the concept of fictional expectations, we uncover one of the plausible social dimensions inherent to the circular economy thinking thereby opening up a new perspective on the current debate in the circular economy literature wherein authors, by contrast, are emphasising the lack of an explicit social dimension. Fictional expectations are introduced to refer to those imaginaries of the future that can catalyse social action in the present and counteract societal addictions, in which modern society seems to be trapped. We show how a circular economy inspired vision can be instrumental to the emergence of a fictional expectation that can provide therapies to the current societal addiction of wasteful production and consumption systems. This philosophical background allows us to provide, in conclusion, a new conceptualisation of the circular economy as a cognitive framework instrumental to the emergence of a future imaginary. 

Abstract:
Cross-Country Comparisons of Covid-19: Policy, Politics and the Price of Life.

AbstractCoronavirus has claimed the lives of over half a million people world-wide and this death toll continues to rise rapidly each day. In the absence of a vaccine, non-clinical preventative measures have been implemented as the principal means of limiting deaths. However, these measures have caused unprecedented disruption to daily lives and economic activity. Given this developing crisis, the potential for a second wave of infections and the near certainty of future pandemics, lessons need to be rapidly gleaned from the available data. We address the challenges of cross-country comparisons by allowing for differences in reporting and variation in underlying socio-economic conditions between countries. Our analyses show that, to date, differences in policy interventions have out-weighed socio-economic variation in explaining the range of death rates observed in the data. Our epidemiological models show that across 8 countries a further week long delay in imposing lockdown would likely have cost more than half a million lives. Furthermore, those countries which acted more promptly saved substantially more lives than those that delayed. Linking decisions over the timing of lockdown and consequent deaths to economic data, we reveal the costs that national governments were implicitly prepared to pay to protect their citizens as reflected in the economic activity foregone to save lives. These ‘price of life’ estimates vary enormously between countries, ranging from as low as around $100,000 (e.g. the UK, US and Italy) to in excess of $1million (e.g. Denmark, Germany, New Zealand and Korea). The lowest estimates are further reduced once we correct for under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths. 

Abstract:
Do not swipe the small stuff: a randomized evaluation of rules of thumb-based financial education.

We perform the first rigorous test of a rules of thumb-based approach to financial education on consumer behavior and outcomes. We test two rules of thumb that are targeted at reducing credit card revolving and deliver them in a randomized fashion via e-mail, online banner, and physical mailer. Using monthly administrative data and pre and postintervention credit data on almost 14,000 consumers, we find that the “Do not swipe the small stuff” rule of thumb reduces participants' targeted credit card balance by an average of 2% at a cost of around $0.50 per person. The “Credit keeps charging” rule shows a decline as well but the impact is not significant. 

Abstract:
Do you mind me paying less? Measuring Other-Regarding Preferences in the Market for Taxis.

Copyright: © 2020 the Author(s) We present a natural field experiment designed to measure other-regarding preferences in the market for taxis. We employed testers of varying ethnicity to take a number of predetermined taxi journeys. In each case, we endowed them with only 80% of the expected fare. Testers revealed the amount they could afford to pay to the driver midjourney and asked for a portion of the journey for free. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects design, we vary the length of the journey and whether a business card is elicited. We find that (1) the majority of drivers give at least part of the journey for free, (2) giving is proportional to the length of the journey, and (3) 27% of drivers complete the journey. Evidence of outgroup negativity against black testers is also reported. In order to link our empirical analysis to behavioral theory, we estimate the parameters of a number of utility functions. The data and the structural analysis lend support to the quantitative predictions of experiments that measure other-regarding preferences, and they shed further light on how discrimination can manifest itself within our preferences. 

Abstract:
Does the past count? Sovereign debt during the classical Gold Standard through the lenses of mover stayer and Markov chain models.

We study sovereign debt markets behaviour during the Classical Gold Standard (CGS) Era (1880-1913), i.e. the. rst era of globalization characterized by free move-ment of capital and a. xed exchange rate regime. In particular we analyse both the issues of markets memory and the degree of con dence in sovereign debt markets by means of three stochastic models: Markov Chain (MC), Mover Stayer (MS) and Non
Homogeneous Markov Chain (NHMC) estimated on two-state transition matrices of countries switching from sound to distressed. Markov Chain and Mover Stayer models beat the Non Homogeneous Markov Chain in. tting the data in the CGS period (1880-1913). This result implies both the short memory of the markets towards countries' default history and an increased level of certainty which enables countries to better attract capital from lenders. The lessons learnt from the CGS period could also be relevant to understand sovereign debt markets in the Eurozone today given the striking similarities between the two periods. 

Abstract:
EAERE Award for the Best Paper Published in Environmental and Resource Economics During 2019.

We present details of the EAERE Award for the Best Paper Published in Environmental and Resource Economics During 2019 together with those Highly Commended papers published during this period. 

Abstract:
Erratum: Fatter attraction: Anthropometric and socioeconomic matching on the marriage market.

Alfred Galichon pointed out to us an error in our paper “Fatter Attraction: Anthropometric and Socioeconomic Matching on the Marriage Market” (Chiappori, Oreffice, and Quintana-Domeque 2012). The properties derived in the theory section (sec. III) are not sufficient to validate the empirical strategy developed in the following section; the latter requires more specific assumptions. The issue can easily be described in the TU (transferable-utility) case (sec. III.B).We use the same notation as in the initial paper. In particular, women (men) are characterized by a vector ðX, εÞ RL RK (ðY , hÞ RK RL), where X (Y) is a vector of observable female (male) characteristics and ε (h) is a random vector reflecting female (male) unobservable attributes. Proposition 2 actually implies that, for any stable matching, the conditional distribution of the female index I(X), given the male characteristics Y, depends only on the male index J(Y ), and conversely. This property can be used to empirically estimate these indexes even in the most general framework, a possibility explored in forthcoming work. 

Abstract:
Inference Under Random Limit Bootstrap Measures.

Asymptotic bootstrap validity is usually understood as consistency of the distribution of a bootstrap statistic, conditional on the data, for the unconditional limit distribution of a statistic of interest. From this perspective, randomness of the limit bootstrap measure is regarded as a failure of the bootstrap. We show that such limiting randomness does not necessarily invalidate bootstrap inference if validity is understood as control over the frequency of correct inferences in large samples. We first establish sufficient conditions for asymptotic bootstrap validity in cases where the unconditional limit distribution of a statistic can be obtained by averaging a (random) limiting bootstrap distribution. Further, we provide results ensuring the asymptotic validity of the bootstrap as a tool for conditional inference, the leading case being that where a bootstrap distribution estimates consistently a conditional (and thus, random) limit distribution of a statistic. We apply our framework to several inference problems in econometrics, including linear models with possibly non-stationary regressors, CUSUM statistics, conditional Kolmogorov-Smirnov specification tests and tests for constancy of parameters in dynamic econometric models. 

Abstract:
Linking Land and Sea Through an Ecological-Economic Model of Coral Reef Recreation.

© 2020 Elsevier B.V. Coastal zones are popular recreational areas that substantially contribute to social welfare. Managers can use information about specific environmental features that people value, and how these might change under different management scenarios, to spatially target actions to areas of high current or potential value. We explored how snorkelers' experience would be affected by separate and combined land and marine management actions in West Maui, Hawaiʻi, using a Bayesian belief network (BBN) and a spatially explicit ecosystem services model. The BBN simulates the attractiveness of a site for recreation by combining snorkeler preferences for coastal features with expert opinions on ecological dynamics, snorkeler behavior, and management actions. A choice experiment with snorkelers elucidated their preferences for sites with better ecological and water-quality conditions. Linking the economic elicitation to the spatially explicit BBN to evaluate land-sea management scenarios provides specific guidance on where and how to act in West Maui to maximize ecosystem service returns. Improving coastal water quality through sediment runoff and cesspool effluent reductions (land management), and enhancing coral reef ecosystem conditions (marine management) positively affected overall snorkeling attractiveness across the study area, but with differential results at specific sites. The highest improvements were attained through joint land-sea management, driven by strong efforts to increase fish abundance and reduce sediment; however, the effects of management at individual beaches varied. 

Abstract:
Reciprocal determination and the unity of distinct determinations in the Primal Structure of Emanuele Severino.

The concept of “reciprocal determination” is constituted by two moments: “knownthrough-itself” and “known-not-through-something-else” that are referred to Being and give rise to two judgements in which these two terms are assumed as subject and predicate. These judgments are reciprocal and complementary and show the unity that substantiate
them, which is interpreted as a synthesis, so that the identity of distinct determinations counts as identification: duality is not abolished in it. On the contrary, if one claims that a term is essential to the other, as with reciprocal determination, one must acknowledge that the latter constitutes the former, so that each one is in itself the other: each term is its selfcontradicting. To prevent this conclusion, one must acknowledge that the pretended co-essentiality is only apparent and the identity of the distinct determinations is not authentic, for duality has not really been resolved in unity. 

Abstract:
Universals and variations in moral decisions made in 42 countries by 70,000 participants.

When do people find it acceptable to sacrifice one life to save many? Cross-cultural studies suggested a complex pattern of universals and variations in the way people approach this question, but data were often based on small samples from a small number of countries outside of the Western world. Here we analyze responses to three sacrificial dilemmas by 70,000 participants in 10 languages and 42 countries. In every country, the three dilemmas displayed the same qualitative ordering of sacrifice acceptability, suggesting that this ordering is best explained by basic cognitive processes rather than cultural norms. The quantitative acceptability of each sacrifice, however, showed substantial country-level variations. We show that low relational mobility (where people are more cautious about not alienating their current social partners) is strongly associated with the rejection of sacrifices for the greater good (especially for Eastern countries), which may be explained by the signaling value of this rejection. We make our dataset fully available as a public resource for researchers studying universals and variations in human morality. 

Abstract:
Using gross ecosystem product (GEP) to value nature in decision making.

Gross domestic product (GDP) summarizes a vast amount of economic information in a single monetary metric that is widely used by decision makers around the world. However, GDP fails to capture fully the contributions of nature to economic activity and human well-being. To address this critical omission, we develop a measure of gross ecosystem product (GEP) that summarizes the value of ecosystem services in a single monetary metric. We illustrate the measurement of GEP through an application to the Chinese province of Qinghai, showing that the approach is tractable using available data. Known as the "water tower of Asia," Qinghai is the source of the Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow Rivers, and indeed, we find that water-related ecosystem services make up nearly two-thirds of the value of GEP for Qinghai. Importantly most of these benefits accrue downstream. In Qinghai, GEP was greater than GDP in 2000 and three-fourths as large as GDP in 2015 as its market economy grew. Large-scale investment in restoration resulted in improvements in the flows of ecosystem services measured in GEP (127.5%) over this period. Going forward, China is using GEP in decision making in multiple ways, as part of a transformation to inclusive, green growth. This includes investing in conservation of ecosystem assets to secure provision of ecosystem services through transregional compensation payments. 

Abstract:
Drivers are blamed more than their automated cars when both make mistakes.

When an automated car harms someone, who is blamed by those who hear about it? Here, we asked human participants to consider hypothetical cases in which a pedestrian was killed by a car operated under shared control of a primary and a secondary driver, and to indicate how blame should be allocated. We find that when only one driver makes an error, that driver is blamed more, regardless of whether that driver is a machine or a human. However, when both drivers make errors in cases of human-machine shared-control vehicles, the blame attributed to the machine is reduced. This finding portends a public under-reaction to the malfunctioning AI components of automated cars and therefore has a direct policy implication: allowing the de-facto standards for shared-control vehicles to be established in courts by the jury system could fail to properly regulate the safety of those vehicles; instead, a top-down scheme (through federal laws) may be called for. 

Abstract:
Endogenous Price Leadership with Asymmetric Costs: Experimental Evidence.

This paper presents experimental evidence on the action commitment game with cost-asymmetric firms in a differentiated-products Bertrand duopoly. Unlike its quantity-setting counterpart, the risk-dominant leader–follower equilibrium Pareto dominates the simultaneous-move equilibrium. This equilibrium also minimizes payoff differences between firms. Hence, one would expect the model to accurately capture behavior. The evidence partially supports the theory: low-cost firms price in the first period more often than high-cost firms, and depending on the treatment, between 40 and 57 per cent of all observations conform to equilibrium play. However, the modal timing outcome involved both firms delaying their pricing decision. This timing outcome is characterized by Nash play and some collusion. The high frequency of delaying decisions could be due to a desire to reduce strategic uncertainty. 

Abstract:
Information aggregation in Arrow–Debreu markets: an experiment.

Studies of experimental and betting markets have shown that markets are able to efficiently aggregate information dispersed over many traders. We study information aggregation in Arrow–Debreu markets using a novel information structure. Compared to previous studies, the information structure is more complex, allows for heterogeneity in information among traders—which provides insights into the way in which information is gradually disseminated in the market—and generates situations in which all traders hold identical beliefs over the traded assets’ values, thus providing a harsh stress test for belief updating. We find little evidence for information aggregation and dissemination in early rounds. Nonetheless, after traders gain experience with the market mechanism and structure, prices converge to reveal the true state of the world. Elicited post-market beliefs reveal that markets are able to efficiently aggregate dispersed information even if individual traders remain uninformed, consistent with the marginal trader hypothesis. 

Abstract:
Multiple‑Purchaser Payments for Ecosystem Services: an Exploration Using Spatial Simulation Modelling.

This paper focuses on the issue of payments for ecosystem services (PES) mechanism design when the activity incentivised through the scheme benefits multiple groups, each of whom might be prepared to contribute to payments made through the scheme. In particular, we examine spatial coordination on the demand side of the market; that is to say, the question of which beneficiary of the PES scheme buys land-management changes on which land parcels. We show through spatial simulation modelling that it is possible for negotiation to lead to Pareto improvements when compared to solutions reached through non-cooperative strategic solutions; however, we also show that this result is not universal and only holds under certain conditions. In particular, the spatial correlation and spatial interdependence of the ecosystem service benefits are key in determining whether negotiation between beneficiaries is optimal and therefore if policy makers and designers of PES schemes should be prioritising bringing together multiple beneficiaries of ecosystem services. 

Abstract:
Product market competition and gender discrimination.

This paper presents novel empirical evidence for the prediction from Becker's (1957) classical theory, that competition drives discrimination out of the market. We use a comprehensive business registration reform in Portugal as a quasi-natural experiment to study the effect of increased product market competition on gender discrimination. We use employer-employee data for the universe of private sector firms and workers, and exploit the staggered implementation of the reform across municipalities for identification. Increased competition following the reform increases growth of the female employment share and reduces the gender pay gap for middle-managers and for medium- and high-skilled workers but not for top-managers or the unskilled. We also find that discriminatory employers, approximated by a low female employment share, are more likely to exit and those that survive reduce overall employment growth following the reform, while non-discriminatory employers grow faster. Existing evidence has shown that gender discrimination reduces output; our findings suggest that entry deregulation can contribute to reduce inefficiencies arising from gender discrimination. 

Abstract:
Property rights enforcement with unverifiable incomes.

I study the extent of secure property rights a planner can implement. Agents can produce output, appropriate others’ output, or work in property rights enforcement. The planner pays enforcement personnel using taxes collected from producers who can hide income from taxation at a cost. The planner implements perfectly secure property rights by incentivizing production through redistributive taxation and absorbing potential appropriators as enforcement personnel. Both taxation and employment in enforcement institutionalize redistribution that would otherwise take place through appropriation. Higher costs of hiding income permit more redistributive taxation and less enforcement, leading to more production and higher welfare. 

Abstract:
Religious fragmentation, social identity and other-regarding preferences: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment in India.

We examine the impact of religious identity and village-level religious fragmentation on other-regarding preferences. We report on a series of two-player binary Dictator experiments conducted on a sample of 516 Hindu and Muslim participants in rural West Bengal, India. Our treatments are the identity of the two players and the degree of religious fragmentation in the village where subjects reside. Both Muslims’ and Hindus’ aversion to advantageous inequality declines as the probability of facing an out-group member increases. We find no evidence of aversion to disadvantageous inequality on either religious sample. Both Muslim and Hindu participants display aversion to advantageous inequality in both fragmented villages and homogeneous villages. The effect of village fragmentation on aversion to disadvantageous inequality differs across religious groups. 

Abstract:
The naturalisation of the mind and neurosciences: a reform of anthropology?.

Naturalisation of mind and neurosciences seem to propose a new an-thropology, since man is identified more and more to an automaton and thought in continuation with the animal. In this article we highlight some of the defining characteristics of this research programme and we pro-pose some theoretical reflections on it, concluding that materialistic monism not only ends up. being self-refuting, by presenting itself as a conception – thus as a system of ideas – of reality and of man, but also, by bracketing the principle of consciousness, it abstracts also from the principle of responsibility, with potential ill-fated consequences at the anthropological level. 

Abstract:
Wild bootstrap seasonal unit root tests for time series with periodic nonstationary volatility.

We investigate the behavior of the well-known Hylleberg, Engle, Granger and Yoo (HEGY) regression-based seasonal unit root tests in cases where the driving shocks can display periodic nonstationary volatility and conditional heteroskedasticity. Our set up allows for periodic heteroskedasticity, nonstationary volatility and (seasonal) generalized autoregressive-conditional heteroskedasticity as special cases. We show that the limiting null distributions of the HEGY tests depend, in general, on nuisance parameters which derive from the underlying volatility process. Monte Carlo simulations show that the standard HEGY tests can be substantially oversized in the presence of such effects. As a consequence, we propose wild bootstrap implementations of the HEGY tests. Two possible wild bootstrap resampling schemes are discussed, both of which are shown to deliver asymptotically pivotal inference under our general conditions on the shocks. Simulation evidence is presented which suggests that our proposed bootstrap tests perform well in practice, largely correcting the size problems seen with the standard HEGY tests even under extreme patterns of heteroskedasticity, yet not losing finite sample relative to the standard HEGY tests. 

Abstract:
Broken Promises and Hidden Partnerships: an Experiment.

Previous research indicates that cheap-talk promises promote cooperation. We extend the empirical study of promises to a three person environment. Doing this enabled us to study two features of promises in the naturally occurring world that have not been studied in the previous literature. For one, we are able to determine the impact of “contingent” promises, which refers to promises that need to be kept (or broken) only in the event that another event first occurs. Second, we were able to study “promise chains”, by which we mean a set of sequentially-made promises. In both cases, we are able to apply existing theories to these novel environments to predict promise keeping behavior. Consistent with theory predictions, we find that promises are not necessary, and do not change behavior, when incentives are aligned. When there is conflict of interest, and when a promise is definite (that is, not contingent), we find that people are indeed willing to forgo monetary payoff to keep their promises. However, when the promise is contingent, promises no longer promote cooperation: people are equally like to choose a selfish action regardless whether they made a promise. Finally, we find that promise chains do not promote trustworthiness, with people at the end of the chain no more likely to honor their promises than people at earlier positions, despite the additional indirect harm that people later in the chain cause by defecting. Our findings offer insights relevant for the behavioral economic theory of guilt aversion. 

Abstract:
Co-integration Rank Determination in Partial Systems Using Information Criteria.

We investigate the asymptotic and finite sample properties of the most widely used information criteria for co-integration rank determination in ‘partial’ systems, i.e. in co-integrated vector autoregressive (VAR) models where a sub-set of variables of interest is modelled conditional on another sub-set of variables. The asymptotic properties of the Akaike information criterion (AIC), the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and the Hannan–Quinn information criterion (HQC) are established, and consistency of BIC and HQC is proved. Notably, the consistency of BIC and HQC is robust to violations of weak exogeneity of the conditioning variables with respect to the co-integration parameters. More precisely, BIC and HQC recover the true co-integration rank from the partial system analysis also when the conditional model does not convey all information about the co-integration parameters. This result opens up interesting possibilities for practitioners who can now determine the co-integration rank in partial systems without being concerned about the weak exogeneity of the conditioning variables. A Monte Carlo experiment based on a large dimensional data generating process shows that BIC and HQC applied in partial systems perform reasonably well in small samples and comparatively better than ‘traditional’ methods for co-integration rank determination. We further show the usefulness of our approach and the benefits of the conditional system analysis in two empirical illustrations, both based on the estimation of VAR systems on US quarterly data. Overall, our analysis shows the gains of combining information criteria with partial system analysis. 

Abstract:
Cooperation through coordination in two stages.

Efficient cooperation often requires coordination, such that exactly one of two players takes an available action. If the decisions whether to pursue the action are made simultaneously, then neither or both may acquiesce leading to an inefficient outcome. However, inefficiency may be reduced if players move sequentially. We test this experimentally by introducing repeated two-stage versions of such a game where the action is individually profitable. In one version, players may wait in the first stage to see what their partner did and then coordinate in the second stage. In another version, sequential decision-making is imposed by assigning one player to move in stage one and the other in stage two. Although there are fewer cooperative decisions in the two-stage treatments, we show that overall subjects coordinate better on efficient cooperation and on avoiding both acquiescing. Yet, only some pairs actually achieve higher profits, while the least cooperative pairs do worse in the two-stage games than their single-stage counterparts. For these, rather than facilitating coordination, the additional stage invites unsuccessful attempts to disguise uncooperative play, which are met with punishment. 

Abstract:
Decentralization and fuel subsidies.

This paper explores the role of decentralization in explaining variation in fuel subsidies across countries. Using panel data over the period 1998-2008 and for 108 countries, it emerges that the effect of ‘decentralization’ (taken to be an increase in the number of government levels) broadly decreases both diesel and gasoline subsidies, with this effect being more pronounced when the level of political accountability is low. For developing countries, for which political accountability is low, decentralization decreases gasoline and diesel subsidies by at least 6.98% and 12.99%, respectively. For developed countries, for which political accountability is high, decentralization does not have any impact on both gasoline and diesel. What this evidence points to is that in developing economies, where voters are poorly informed and accountability is low, decentralization appears to be associated with lower fuel subsidies. 

Abstract:
Determining the cointegration rank in heteroskedastic var models of unknown order.

We investigate the asymptotic and finite sample properties of a number of methods for estimating the cointegration rank in integrated vector autoregressive systems of unknown autoregressive order driven by heteroskedastic shocks. We allow for both conditional and unconditional heteroskedasticity of a very general form. We establish the conditions required on the penalty functions such that standard information criterion-based methods, such as the Bayesian information criterion [BIC], when employed either sequentially or jointly, can be used to consistently estimate both the cointegration rank and the autoregressive lag order. In doing so we also correct errors which appear in the proofs provided for the consistency of information-based estimators in the homoskedastic case by Aznar and Salvador (2002, Econometric Theory 18, 926-947). We also extend the corpus of available large sample theory for the conventional sequential approach of Johansen (1995, Likelihood-Based Inference in Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Models. Oxford University Press) and the associated wild bootstrap implementation thereof of Cavaliere, Rahbek, and Taylor (2014, Econometric Reviews 33, 606-650) to the case where the lag order is unknown. In particular, we show that these methods remain valid under heteroskedasticity and an unknown lag length provided the lag length is first chosen by a consistent method, again such as the BIC. The relative finite sample properties of the different methods discussed are investigated in a Monte Carlo simulation study. The two best performing methods in this study are a wild bootstrap implementation of the Johansen (1995, Likelihood-Based Inference in Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Models. Oxford University Press) procedure implemented with BIC selection of the lag length and joint IC approach (cf. Phillips, 1996, Econometrica 64, 763-812) which uses the BIC to jointly select the lag order and the cointegration rank. 

Abstract:
High stakes: a little more cheating, a lot less charity.

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. We explore the downstream consequences of cheating–and resisting the temptation to cheat–at high stakes on pro-social behaviour and self-perceptions. In a large online sample, we replicate the seminal finding that cheating rates are largely insensitive to stake size, even at a 500-fold increase. We present two new findings. First, resisting the temptation to cheat at high stakes led to negative moral spill-over, triggering a moral license: participants who resisted cheating in the high stakes condition subsequently donated a smaller fraction of their earnings to charity. Second, participants who cheated maximally mispredicted their perceived morality: although such participants thought they were less prone to feeling immoral if they cheated, they ended up feeling more immoral a day after the cheating task than immediately afterwards. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings on moral balancing and self-deception, and the practical relevance for organisational design. 

Abstract:
How feedback about leadership potential impacts ambition, organizational commitment, and performance.

In the present research we report results from two experimental studies that examine how feedback about leadership potential impacts leadership ambition, organizational commitment, and performance. Study 1 used an experimental vignette methodology that controls for prior performance. Results show that individuals who receive feedback that they have low potential to be a future leader have lower ambition and organizational commitment relative to those who receive feedback that they have high potential to be a future leader. Study 2 provides evidence of the causal behavioral effects of feedback about leadership potential using a real task effort environment. Results show that participants informed to be unlikely future leaders display lower performance in a subsequent task than participants informed to be likely future leaders. The findings from the two studies demonstrate that information about leadership potential affects subsequent ambition to become leaders as well as performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for the importance of followership, talent management, and leadership succession. 

Abstract:
La relazione di coscienza e oggetto nell’Introduzione alla Fenomenologia dello spirito di Hegel. [The relation between concept and object in the Introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit].

The relation between consciousness and object in the Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit synthetises two fundamental Hegelian concepts: that of “relation” and that of “absolute”. In this article we show that Hegel not always interprets the relation as a medium between extremes, because in some very significant passages he intends it as an act. Furthermore the absolute is not only interpreted as determined but also as emergent beyond the universe of determinations, that is beyond the relation/contraposition of determined and undetermined. 

Abstract:
Metaphysical Realism and Objectivity: Some Theoretical Reflections.

In this paper we aim to show an intrinsic contradiction of contemporary Metaphysical Realism by focusing on the relation between the subject and the object. Metaphysical Realism considers facts and objects as being empirical, and therefore they are considered in relation to the subject, while at the same time facts are assumed to belong to an autonomous and independent reality. However, if a real object is considered to be independent from the subject, once it enters in a relation with the latter, a real object must undergo an intrinsic transformation. However, since an object cannot avoid this transformation then recovering the real or “absolute” object from the perceived object is not possible. In this way, the inherent contradiction of the “absolute” as being determined, i.e. defined by virtue of a limit, is revealed. 

Abstract:
Public funding for public goods: a post-Brexit perspective on principles for agricultural policy.

In early 2019 the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union and with it the Common Agricultural Policy. The UK Government has announced its intentions to formulate a novel agricultural policy following the principle that public funding should be restricted to the provision of public goods. However, the acceptance, interpretation and application of this principle is the subject of intense debate. We overview the background to this debate, reveal the major flaws in present policy and identify and provide our answers to three key questions which future policy must address: (1) What are the farm related public goods that public money should support?; (2) How should that spending be allocated?; (3) How much should be spent? We believe that these questions and their answers will be of general interest beyond the UK. 

Abstract:
The Economic Consequences of Political Donation Limits.

The economic consequences of limits on political donations depend on the degree of political competition. Donors, who are ideologically aligned with candidates, decide how much to contribute to their own candidate. They may benefit from rent-seeking by their own candidate but dislike rent-seeking by the opposition. Increased rent-seeking by politicians thus generates campaign contributions for themselves but also mobilizes donations to the opposing candidate, potentially to a greater extent. This latter effect acts as a deterrent to rent-seeking when contributions finance electoral campaigns and positively affect election chances. When political competition is low, incumbent donors outnumber opposition donors, and limits reduce rent-seeking. When political competition is high, donors are equalized and laissez-faire reduces rent-seeking. Consistent with these hypotheses, data from the USA suggest that limits are associated with better policies and stronger growth performance at low levels of political competition, while laissez-faire is preferred when political competition is high. 

Abstract:
The Moral Machine experiment.

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence have come concerns about how machines will make moral decisions, and the major challenge of quantifying societal expectations about the ethical principles that should guide machine behaviour. To address this challenge, we deployed the Moral Machine, an online experimental platform designed to explore the moral dilemmas faced by autonomous vehicles. This platform gathered 40 million decisions in ten languages from millions of people in 233 countries and territories. Here we describe the results of this experiment. First, we summarize global moral preferences. Second, we document individual variations in preferences, based on respondents’ demographics. Third, we report cross-cultural ethical variation, and uncover three major clusters of countries. Fourth, we show that these differences correlate with modern institutions and deep cultural traits. We discuss how these preferences can contribute to developing global, socially acceptable principles for machine ethics. All data used in this article are publicly available. 

Abstract:
Unit root inference for non-stationary linear processes driven by infinite variance innovations.

The contribution of this paper is two-fold. First, we derive the asymptotic null distribution of the familiar augmented Dickey-Fuller [ADF] statistics in the case where the shocks follow a linear process driven by infinite variance innovations. We show that these distributions are free of serial correlation nuisance parameters but depend on the tail index of the infinite variance process. These distributions are shown to coincide with the corresponding results for the case where the shocks follow a finite autoregression, provided the lag length in the ADF regression satisfies the same o(T1/3) rate condition as is required in the finite variance case. In addition, we establish the rates of consistency and (where they exist) the asymptotic distributions of the ordinary least squares sieve estimates from the ADF regression. Given the dependence of their null distributions on the unknown tail index, our second contribution is to explore sieve wild bootstrap implementations of the ADF tests. Under the assumption of symmetry, we demonstrate the asymptotic validity (bootstrap consistency) of the wild bootstrap ADF tests. This is done by establishing that (conditional on the data) the wild bootstrap ADF statistics attain the same limiting distribution as that of the original ADF statistics taken conditional on the magnitude of the innovations. 

Abstract:
When costly voting is beneficial.

We present a costly voting model in which each voter has a private valuation for their preferred outcome of a vote. When there is a zero cost to voting, all voters vote and hence all values are counted equally regardless of how high they may be. By having a cost to voting, only those with high enough values would choose to incur this cost. We show that, by adding this cost, welfare may be enhanced even when the cost of voting is wasteful. Such an effect occurs when there is both a large enough density of voters with low values and the expected value of voters is high enough. 

Abstract:
Zika virus incidence, preventive and reproductive behaviors: Correlates from new survey data.

During the outbreak of the Zika virus, Brazilian health authorities recommended that pregnant women take meticulous precaution to avoid mosquito bites and that women in general use contraceptive methods to postpone/delay pregnancies. In this article, we present new estimates on the Zika virus incidence, its correlates and preventive behaviors in the Northeast of Brazil, where the outbreak initiated, using survey data collected between March 30th and June 3rd of 2016. The target population were women aged 15-49 in the capital cities of the nine states of the Northeast region of Brazil. We find that more educated women were less likely to report suffering from Zika (or its symptoms) and more likely to report having taken precaution against Zika, such as having used long and light-colored clothes, having used mosquito repellent or insecticides, having used mosquito protective screens or kept windows closed, and having dumped standing water where mosquitoes can breed. In addition, more educated women were more likely to report being informed about the association between Zika and microcephaly and to avoid pregnancy in the last 12 months. Finally, we also find that women who reported experiencing sexual domestic violence in the last 12 months were more likely to report suffering from Zika. 

Abstract:
A theory of trade policy under dictatorship and democratization.

© 2017 This paper develops a new model of trade policy under dictatorship and democratization. The paper makes two contributions. One is to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between political institutions and economic efficiency by studying the endogenous interaction between the form of government and trade policy. The paper's second contribution is to show how a dictatorship can manipulate trade policy to maintain its grip on power in the face of permanent world price shocks, thus opening the door to a re-examination of trade policy responses to technology shocks. The model is used to explain an interesting episode of trade policymaking between 1815 and 1846, during which time Britain substantially liberalized trade while Prussia, on the other side of the grain market, significantly increased protectionism. 

Abstract:
Do Behavioral Nudges in Prepopulated Tax Forms Affect Compliance? Experimental Evidence with Real Taxpayers.

Defaults, in the form of prepopulated fields within the tax form, have been identified as potential mechanisms that tax authorities can use to reduce noncompliance. They achieve this by simplifying the process of filing taxes, thus reducing the scope for errors. However, defaults may increase the scope for evasion if set incorrectly. The authors report experimental data on the effect of correct and incorrect defaults. They find that prepopulating tax returns is a worthwhile policy only if it is done with highly reliable information. Setting default levels that underestimate taxpayers’ true tax liability leads to significant drops in compliance and tax revenue. The authors also study whether nudges that contain messages with descriptive norms about compliance can mitigate the adverse effect of prepopulated returns with incorrect values. Nudges that react to inputs from the taxpayer effectively raise compliance, whereas static nudges do not. This result demonstrates the limits to the applicability of nudges in a public policy sphere as well as possible adverse effects resulting from poor implementation.  

Abstract:
Experimental Assessment of Aggregation Principles in Argumentation-Enabled Collective Intelligence.

On the Web, there is always a need to aggregate opinions from the crowd (as in posts, social networks, forums, etc.). Different mechanisms have been implemented to capture these opinions such as like in Facebook, Favorite in Twitter, thumbs-up/-down, flagging, and so on. However, in more contested domains (e.g. Wikipedia, political discussion, and climate change discussion), these mechanisms are not sufficient, since they only deal with each issue independently without considering the relationships between different claims. We can view a set of conflicting arguments as a graph in which the nodes represent arguments and the arcs between these nodes represent the defeat relation. A group of people can then collectively evaluate such graphs. To do this, the group must use a rule to aggregate their individual opinions about the entire argument graph. Here we present the first experimental evaluation of different principles commonly employed by aggregation rules presented in the literature. We use randomized controlled experiments to investigate which principles people consider better at aggregating opinions under different conditions. Our analysis reveals a number of factors, not captured by traditional formal models, that play an important role in determining the efficacy of aggregation. These results help bring formal models of argumentation closer to real-world application. 

Abstract:
How Property Markets Determine Welfare Outcomes: an Equilibrium Sorting Model Analysis of Local Environmental Interventions.

This paper examines the pivotal role played by property markets in determining the magnitude and distribution of welfare changes resulting from localised environmental change. We address that issue using an equilibrium sorting model (ESM) calibrated, by way of example, to the circumstances of a road infrastructure project in the English town of Polegate. Previous ESM research has tended to assume that all households rent property from a fixed property stock. The narrative that arises from those models concerns environmental gentrification, wherein access to environmentally improved locations is appropriated by the relatively wealthy through their ability to out-compete the less wealthy in the rental property market. Our research shows that to be only part of a much more complex story. We develop a model that extends the sophistication with which ESMs replicate property market dynamics, allowing for households to choose whether to rent or purchase their home and introducing greater realism into housing supply responses to changing market conditions. Our research shows that property markets redistribute welfare gains across the population in complex ways in which tenure choice and housing supply constraints play central roles. 

Abstract:
Information Transmission within Federal Fiscal Architectures: Theory and Evidence.

This paper explores the role of information transmission and misaligned interests across levels of government in explaining variation in the degree of decentralization across countries. Within a two-sided incomplete information principal-agent framework, it analyzes two alternative policy-decision schemes��decentralization� and �centralization��when �knowledge� consists of unverifiable information and the quality of communication depends on the conflict of interests between the government levels. It is shown that, depending on which level of policy decision-making controls the degree of decentralization, the extent of misaligned interests and the relative importance of local and central government knowledge affects the optimal choice of policy-decision schemes. The empirical analysis shows that countries� choices depend on the relative importance of their private information and the results differ significantly between unitary and federal countries. 

Abstract:
La relazione come fondamento nella lettura di Anassimandro offerta da Heidegger e da Severino [Relation as ground in the reading of Anaximander by Heidegger and Severino].

Relation as ground in the reading of Anaximander by Heidegger and Severino. In this article the authors show that Heidegger and Severino interpret Anaximander’s ἄπειρον as a ground that either ends up in a relation (Heidegger) or is constituted by virtue of the relation itself (Severino). In Anaximander the concept of the unlimited is established with reference to the concept of limit: the limited requires an unlimited ground that can justify it, the latter must transcend the limit, however the limit is a relation. Thus if the unlimited is absolute, it cannot admit a relation with something different from it: neither a relation which holds between the ground and the determined beings, nor a relation within itself, which would convert it a sum-of-parts. The ontological difference itself must be understood as the undeniable emergence of the ground beyond the grounded and the ground is not bound to that over which it emerges. The bound can only attain that which is limited, so that the universe of determined beings is an unending tension to the ground, which can only aim for an ideal realisation. 

Abstract:
Le premesse concettuali de La Struttura Originaria di Emanuele Severino [Conceptual premises of “The Original Structure” of Emanuele Severino].

This paper focuses on the implicit conceptual premises of the
thought of E. Severino as it emerges from his work La Struttura
Originaria. These are found in the assumption of the ground as
determined by its attempted negation. The latter thus becomes
part of the ‘originary structure’ which represents the essence of the
ground. In this way, the ground ceases to stay as a unilateral
conditioning from the ground to the grounded and is reduced to
the circle of the presupposition which binds the former to the latter. 

Abstract:
On the Consistency of Bootstrap Testing for a Parameter on the Boundary of the Parameter Space.

It is well known that with a parameter on the boundary of the parameter space, such as in the classic cases of testing for a zero location parameter or no autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) effects, the classic nonparametric bootstrap – based on unrestricted parameter estimates – leads to inconsistent testing. In contrast, we show here that for the two aforementioned cases, a nonparametric bootstrap test based on parameter estimates obtained under the null – referred to as ‘restricted bootstrap’ – is indeed consistent. While the restricted bootstrap is simple to implement in practice, novel theoretical arguments are required in order to establish consistency. In particular, since the bootstrap is analysed both under the null hypothesis and under the alternative, non-standard asymptotic expansions are required to deal with parameters on the boundary. Detailed proofs of the asymptotic validity of the restricted bootstrap are given and, for the leading case of testing for no ARCH, a Monte Carlo study demonstrates that the bootstrap quasi-likelihood ratio statistic performs extremely well in terms of empirical size and power for even remarkably small samples, outperforming the standard and bootstrap Lagrange multiplier tests as well as the asymptotic quasi-likelihood ratio test. 

Abstract:
Promises and lies: can observers detect deception in written messages.

We design a laboratory experiment to examine predictions of trustworthiness in a novel three-person trust game. We investigate whether and why observers of the game can predict the trustworthiness of hand-written communications. Observers report their perception of the trustworthiness of messages, and make predictions about the senders’ behavior. Using observers’ decisions, we are able to classify messages as “promises” or “empty talk.” Drawing from substantial previous research, we hypothesize that certain factors influence whether a sender is likely to honor a message and/or whether an observer perceives the message as likely to behonored: the mention of money; the use of encompassing words; and message length. We find that observers have more trust in longer messages and “promises”; promises that mention money are significantly more likely to be broken; and observers trust equally in promises that do and do not mention money. Overall, observers perform slightly better than chance at predicting whether a message will be honored. We attribute this result to observers’ ability to distinguish promises from empty talk, and to trust promises more than empty talk. However, within each of these two categories, observers are unable to discern between messages that senders will honor from those that they will not. 

Abstract:
Protection in Government Procurement Auctions.

Discrimination against foreign bidders in procurement auctions has typically been achieved by price preferences. We demonstrate that in the bidding game, each level of protection via a price preference can be achieved by an equivalent tariff. When government welfare depends only on net expenditures, this equivalence carries over to the government's decision. As such, this equivalence provides a justification that agreements to eliminate price preferences to be taken in tandem with agreements to lower tariffs; e.g. the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) in the broader context of the WTO. 

Abstract:
Reducing Crime and Violence: Experimental Evidence from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Liberia.

We show that a number of noncognitive skills and preferences, including patience and identity, are malleable in adults, and that investments in them reduce crime and violence. We recruited criminally engaged men and randomized one-half to eight weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy designed to foster self-regulation, patience, and a noncriminal identity and lifestyle. We also randomized $200 grants. Cash alone and therapy alone initially reduced crime and violence, but effects dissipated over time. When cash followed therapy, crime and violence decreased dramatically for at least a year. We hypothesize that cash reinforced therapy's impacts by prolonging learning-by-doing, lifestyle changes, and self-investment. (JEL D12, D83, H23, I32, K42, O15, O17)  

Abstract:
Registered Replication Report: Rand, Greene, and Nowak (2012).

in an anonymous 4-person economic game, participants contributed more money to a common project (i.e. cooperated) when required to decide quickly than when forced to delay their decision (Rand, Greene & Nowak, 2012), a pattern consistent with the social heuristics hypothesis proposed by Rand and colleagues. The results of studies using time pressure have been mixed, with some replication attempts observing similar patterns (e.g. Rand et al. 2014) and others observing null effects (e.g. Tinghög et al. 2013; Verkoeijen & Bouwmeester, 2014). This Registered Replication Report (RRR) assessed the size and variability of the effect of time pressure on cooperative decisions by combining 21 separate, preregistered replications of the critical conditions from Study 7 of the original article (Rand et al. 2012). The primary planned analysis used data from all participants who were randomly assigned to conditions and who met the protocol inclusion criteria (an intent-to-treat approach that included the 65.9% of participants in the time-pressure condition and 7.5% in the forced-delay condition who did not adhere to the time constraints), and we observed a difference in contributions of −0.37 percentage points compared with an 8.6 percentage point difference calculated from the original data. Analyzing the data as the original article did, including data only for participants who complied with the time constraints, the RRR observed a 10.37 percentage point difference in contributions compared with a 15.31 percentage point difference in the original study. In combination, the results of the intent-to-treat analysis and the compliant-only analysis are consistent with the presence of selection biases and the absence of a causal effect of time pressure on cooperation.  

Abstract:
River water quality: who cares, how much and why?.

An important motivation for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive is the creation of non-market environmental benefits, such as improved ecological quality, or greater opportunities for open-access river recreation via microbial pollution remediation. Pollution sources impacting on ecological or recreational water quality may be uncorrelated, but non-market benefits arising from riverine improvements are typically conflated within benefit valuation studies. Using stated preference choice experiments embedded within a survey that also collected respondents' socio-economic characteristics, we aimed to disaggregate these sources of value for different river users, thereby allowing decision makers to understand the consequences of adopting alternative investment strategies. Our results suggested that anglers derived greater value from improvements to the ecological quality of river water, in contrast to swimmers and rowers, for whom greater value is gained from improvements to recreational quality. More generally, we found three distinct groups of respondents: a majority preferring ecological over recreational improvements, a substantial minority holding opposing preference orderings, and a yet smaller proportion expressing relatively low values for either form of river quality enhancement. As such, this research demonstrates that the non-market benefits that may accrue from different types of water quality improvements are nuanced in terms of their potential beneficiaries and, by inference, their overall value and policy implications. 

Abstract:
Sustainability in Turbulent Times: Lessons from the Nexus Network for supporting transdisciplinary research.

Cairns, R. Wilsdon, J. O’Donovan, C. Arora, S. Bateman, I.J. Charman, D. Cranston, G. Mehta, L. Pharoah, J. Reynolds, J. Stirling, A. Tranter, H. and Welters, R. (2017). Sustainability in Turbulent Times: Lessons from the Nexus Network for supporting transdisciplinary research. The Nexus Network, available at www.thenexusnetwork.org 

Abstract:
The potential benefits of on-farm mitigation scenarios for reducing multiple pollutant loadings in prioritised agri-environment areas across England.

© 2017 the AuthorsMitigation of diffuse water pollution from agriculture is a key national environmental policy objective in England. With the recent introduction of the new agri-environment scheme, Countryside Stewardship, there is an increased emphasis on the macro-spatial targeting of on-farm mitigation measures to reduce pollutant pressures, and a concomitant need to forecast the technically feasible impacts of on-farm measures detailed in current policy and their associated costs and benefits. This paper reports the results of a modelling application to test these limits in the context of the associated costs and benefits for the reduction of diffuse water pollution from agriculture for each Water Framework Directive (WFD) water management catchment (WMC) and nationally. Four mitigation scenarios were modelled, including pollutant source control measures only (SC), mobilisation control measures only (MC), delivery control measures only (DC) and measures for source, mobilisation and delivery control (SMDC) combined. Projected impacts on nitrate, phosphorus and sediment export to water, ammonia, methane and nitrous oxide emissions to the atmosphere, together with the associated costs to the agricultural sector were estimated for each WFD WMC and nationally. Median WMC-scale reductions (with uncertainty ranges represented by 5th–95th percentiles) in current agricultural emissions, were predicted to be highest for the SMDC scenario; nitrate (18%, 11–23%), phosphorus (28%, 22–37%), sediment (25%, 18–43%), ammonia (26%, 17–32%), methane (13%, 7–18%) and nitrous oxide (18%, 16–20%). The median benefit-to-cost ratios (with uncertainty ranges represented by 5th–95th percentiles) were predicted to be in the following order; DC (0.15, 0.09–0.65), MC (0.19, 0.09–0.95), SMDC (0.31, 0.20–1.39) and SC (0.44, 0.19–2.48). of the four scenarios simulated, the SC and SMDC suites of measures have the greatest potential to deliver reductions in BAU emissions from agriculture, and the best benefit:cost ratio. 

Abstract:
Beauty, body size and wages: Evidence from a unique data set.

We analyze how attractiveness rated at the start of the interview in the German General Social Survey is related to weight, height, and body mass index (BMI), separately by gender and accounting for interviewers' characteristics or fixed effects. We show that height, weight, and BMI all strongly contribute to male and female attractiveness when attractiveness is rated by opposite-sex interviewers, and that anthropometric characteristics are irrelevant to male interviewers when assessing male attractiveness. We also estimate whether, controlling for beauty, body size measures are related to hourly wages. We find that anthropometric attributes play a significant role in wage regressions in addition to attractiveness, showing that body size cannot be dismissed as a simple component of beauty. Our findings are robust to controlling for health status and accounting for selection into working. 

Abstract:
Beware of popular kids bearing gifts: a framed field experiment.

The literature on pro-social behavior shows that older children are more generous than younger children; however, the level of individual generosity is heterogeneous even between children of the same age. This paper investigates whether a child's popularity affects his/her generosity. Our participants – 231 children, six to twelve years old – decide how many of their four colored wristbands they want to share with another anonymous child. We manipulate the visibility of this decision: in treatment Public, the decisions are revealed to the entire class at the end of the game, whereas in treatment Private children's decisions remain secret. In addition, we elicited each child's network of friends using an innovative “seating map” mechanism. Our results reveal that more popular children are more generous in Public than Private decision environments, while less popular children behave similarly in both cases. Moreover, older children in Public display greater generosity than (i) older children in Private and (ii) younger children in either Public or Private. Finally, in Public, older and more popular children share more than less popular older children, and more than younger children regardless of popularity; whereas, in Private there is no effect of popularity on children of any age. Our findings point to another reason to adopt transparent decision making in teams and organizations: it may promote the generosity of some (perhaps especially popular leaders) without detrimentally impacting the pro-sociality of others. 

Abstract:
Does poverty alleviation decrease depression symptoms in post-conflict settings? a cluster-randomized trial of microenterprise assistance in Northern Uganda.

Background.By 2009, two decades of war and widespread displacement left the majority of the population of Northern Uganda impoverished.Methods.This study used a cluster-randomized design to test the hypothesis that a poverty alleviation program would improve economic security and reduce symptoms of depression in a sample of mostly young women. Roughly 120 villages in Northern Uganda were invited to participate. Community committees were asked to identify the most vulnerable women (and some men) to participate. The implementing agency screened all proposed participants, and a total of 1800 were enrolled. Following a baseline survey, villages were randomized to a treatment or wait-list control group. Participants in treatment villages received training, start-up capital, and follow-up support. Participants, implementers, and data collectors were not blinded to treatment status.Results.Villages were randomized to the treatment group (60 villages with 896 participants) or the wait-list control group (60 villages with 904 participants) with an allocation ration of 1:1. All clusters participated in the intervention and were included in the analysis. The intent-to-treat analysis included 860 treatment participants and 866 control participants (4.1% attrition). Sixteen months after the program, monthly cash earnings doubled from UGX 22 523 to 51 124, non-household and non-farm businesses doubled, and cash savings roughly quadrupled. There was no measurable effect on a locally derived measure of symptoms of depression.Conclusions.Despite finding large increases in business, income, and savings among the treatment group, we do not find support for an indirect effect of poverty alleviation on symptoms of depression. 

Abstract:
Food security, welfare, and partial de-regulation of parastatals.

Complete de-regulation of parastatals is often advocated as a desirable reform, although it is usually opposed by vested interests and by those who perceive that the de-regulated market can be dominated by a small number of private firms. In practice, however, reform and de-regulation of parastatals is typically partial in nature. We specify a model that allows us to consider the effects of partial reform and partial de-regulation on various metrics of food security. We show that how these metrics change depends on the market structure that defines the starting point as well as the market structure that emerges after de-regulation. In this second-best world, partial de-regulation does not necessarily enhance food security and we identify the determinants of that outcome. The assessment of the desirability of de-regulation is also contingent on the food security metric used. 

Abstract:
Mind-Body Problem : dalla critica al monismo ad una possibile soluzione linguistica. [Mind-Body Problem: from the critique of monism to a possible linguistic solution].

The debate on «monism and dualism» plays a crucial role in Philosophy of Mind. In this article, we advance some criticisms to the «materialistic monism» conception, starting from «identitist theories», which identify mind with brain, but not the vice versa. After showing that it is impossible to think the concept of identity as if it could stand independently from the concept of relation, which cannot be thought of as medium between extremes but as the act of their self-referring, we clarify the nature of mind and brain: they are not res, but signs or, more precisely, linguistic universes. In this way, the problem of their relationship becomes the problem of the translation of the language of the one into the language of the other, and vice versa. 

Abstract:
Modeling corporate defaults: Poisson autoregressions with exogenous covariates (PARX).

We develop a class of Poisson autoregressive models with exogenous covariates (PARX) that can be used to model and forecast time series of counts. We establish the time series properties of the models, including conditions for stationarity and existence of moments. These results are in turn used in the analysis of the asymptotic properties of the maximum-likelihood estimators of the models. The PARX class of models is used to analyze the time series properties of monthly corporate defaults in the US in the period 1982–2011 using financial and economic variables as exogenous covariates. Results show that our model is able to capture the time series dynamics of corporate defaults well, including the well-known default counts clustering found in data. Moreover, we find that while in general current defaults do indeed affect the probability of other firms defaulting in the future, in recent years economic and financial factors at the macro level are capable to explain a large portion of the correlation of US firm defaults over time. 

Abstract:
Religious fragmentation, social identity and cooperation: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment in India.

We study the role of village-level religious fragmentation on intra- and inter-group cooperation in India. We report on data on two-player prisoners׳ dilemma and stag hunt experiments played by 516 Hindu and Muslim participants in rural India. Our treatments are the identity of the two players and the degree of village-level religious heterogeneity. In religiously heterogeneous villages, cooperation rates in the prisoners׳ dilemma, and to a lesser extent the stag hunt game, are higher when subjects of either religion play with a fellow in-group member than when they play with an out-group member or with someone whose identity is unknown. Interestingly, cooperation rates among people of the same religion are significantly lower in homogeneous villages than in fragmented villages in both games. 

Abstract:
Spatially explicit integrated modeling and economic valuation of climate driven land use change and its indirect effects.

We present an integrated model of the direct consequences of climate change on land use, and the indirect effects of induced land use change upon the natural environment. The model predicts climate-driven shifts in the profitability of alternative uses of agricultural land. Both the direct impact of climate change and the induced shift in land use patterns will cause secondary effects on the water environment, for which agriculture is the major source of diffuse pollution. We model the impact of changes in such pollution on riverine ecosystems showing that these will be spatially heterogeneous. Moreover, we consider further knock-on effects upon the recreational benefits derived from water environments, which we assess using revealed preference methods. This analysis permits a multi-layered examination of the economic consequences of climate change, assessing the sequence of impacts from climate change through farm gross margins, land use, water quality and recreation, both at the individual and catchment scale.  

Abstract:
Strict stationarity, persistence and volatility forecasting in ARCH(∞) processes.

This paper derives a simple sufficient condition for strict stationarity in the ARCH(∞) class of processes with conditional heteroscedasticity. The concept of persistence in these processes is explored, and is the subject of a set of simulations showing how persistence depends on both the pattern of lag coefficients of the ARCH model and the distribution of the driving shocks. The results are used to argue that an alternative to the usual method of ARCH/GARCH volatility forecasting should be considered. 

Abstract:
Tackling agricultural diffuse pollution: What might uptake of farmer-preferred measures deliver for emissions to water and air?.

Mitigation of agricultural diffuse pollution poses a significant policy challenge across Europe and particularly in the UK. Existing combined regulatory and voluntary approaches applied in the UK continue to fail to deliver the necessary environmental outcomes for a variety of reasons including failure to achieve high adoption rates. It is therefore logical to identify specific on-farm mitigation measures towards which farmers express positive attitudes for higher future uptake rates. Accordingly, a farmer attitudinal survey was undertaken during phase one of the Demonstration Test Catchment programme in England to understand those measures towards which surveyed farmers are most receptive to increasing implementation in the future. A total of 29 on-farm measures were shortlisted by this baseline farm survey. This shortlist comprised many low cost or cost-neutral measures suggesting that costs continue to represent a principal selection criterion for many farmers. The 29 measures were mapped onto relevant major farm types and input, assuming 95% uptake, to a national scale multi-pollutant modelling framework to predict the technically feasible impact on annual agricultural emissions to water and air, relative to business as usual. Simulated median emission reductions, relative to current practise, for water management catchments across England and Wales, were estimated to be in the order sediment (20%)>ammonia (16%)>total phosphorus (15%)>nitrate/methane (11%)>nitrous oxide (7%). The corresponding median annual total cost of the modelled scenario to farmers was £3 ha-1yr-1, with a corresponding range of -£84ha-1yr-1 (i.e. a net saving) to £33ha-1yr-1. The results suggest that those mitigation measures which surveyed farmers are most inclined to implement in the future would improve the environmental performance of agriculture in England and Wales at minimum to low cost per hectare. 

Abstract:
The Returns to Microenterprise Support among the Ultrapoor: a Field Experiment in Postwar Uganda.

We show that extremely poor, war-affected women in northern Uganda have high returns to a package of $150 cash, five days of business skills training, and ongoing supervision. Sixteen months after grants, participants doubled their microenterprise ownership and incomes, mainly from petty trading. We also show these ultrapoor have too little social capital, but that group bonds, informal insurance, and cooperative activities could be induced and had positive returns. When the control group received cash and training 20 months later, we varied supervision, which represented half of the program costs. A year later, supervision increased business survival but not consumption. (JEL I38, J16, J23, J24, L26, O15, Z13)  

Abstract:
The effects of induced emotions on pro-social behaviour.

Emotions are commonly experienced and expressed in human societies; however, their consequences on economic behaviour have received only limited attention. This paper investigates the effects of induced positive and negative emotions on cooperation and sanctioning behaviour in a one-shot voluntary contributions mechanism game, where personal and social interests are at odds. We concentrate on two specific emotions: anger and happiness. Our findings provide clear evidence that measures of social preferences are sensitive to subjects' current emotional states. Specifically, angry subjects contribute, on average, less than happy subjects and overall welfare as measured by average net earnings is lower when subjects are in an angry mood. We also find that how punishment is used is affected by moods: angry subjects punish harsher than happy subjects, ceteris paribus. These findings suggest that anger, when induced, can have a negative impact on economic behaviour. 

Abstract:
Time series modeling of paleoclimate data.

This paper applies time series modeling methods to paleoclimate series for temperature, ice volume, and atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and CH4. These series, inferred from Antarctic ice and ocean cores, are well known to move together in the transitions between glacial and interglacial periods, but the dynamic relationship between the series is open to question. A further unresolved issue is the role of Milankovitch theory, in which the glacial/interglacial cycles are correlated with orbital variations. We perform tests for Granger causality in the context of a vector autoregression model. Previous work with climate series has assumed nonstationarity and adopted a cointegration approach, but in a range of tests, we find no evidence of integrated behavior. We use conventional autoregressive methodology while allowing for conditional heteroscedasticity in the residuals, associated with the transitional periods. 

Abstract:
A Simple Bargaining Mechanism that Elicits Truthful Reservation Prices.

We describe a simple 2-stage mechanism whereby for two bargainers, a Buyer and a Seller, it is a weakly dominant strategy to report their true reservation prices in the 1st stage. If the Buyer reports a higher reservation price than the Seller, then the referee announces that there is a possibility for trade, and the bargainers proceed to make offers in a 2nd stage. The average of the 2nd-stage offers becomes the settlement if they both fall into the interval between the reported reservation prices; if only one offer falls into this interval, it is the settlement, but it is implemented with probability $$\frac{1}{2}$$12; if neither offer falls into the interval, there is no settlement. Comparisons are made with other bargaining mechanisms. 

Abstract:
A test of the long memory hypothesis based on self-similarity.

This paper develops a new test of true versus spurious long memory, based on log-periodogram estimation of the long memory parameter using skip-sampled data. A correction factor is derived to overcome the bias in this estimator due to aliasing. The procedure is designed to be used in the context of a conventional test of significance of the long memory parameter, and a composite test procedure is described that has the properties of known asymptotic size and consistency. The test is implemented using the bootstrap, with the distribution under the null hypothesis being approximated using a dependent-sample bootstrap technique to approximate short-run dependence following fractional differencing. The properties of the test are investigated in a set of Monte Carlo experiments. The procedure is illustrated by applications to exchange rate volatility and dividend growth series. 

Abstract:
Advances in Auctions.

As a selling mechanism, auctions have acquired a central position in the free market economy all over the globe. This development has deepened, broadened, and expanded the theory of auctions in new directions. This chapter is intended as a selective update of some of the developments and applications of auction theory in the two decades since Wilson (1992) wrote the previous Handbook chapter on this topic. 

Abstract:
An experiment on case-based decision making.

We experimentally investigate the disposition of decision makers to use case-based reasoning as suggested by Hume (An enquiry concerning human understanding, 1748) and formalized by case-based decision theory (Gilboa and Schmeidler in Q J Econ 110:605–639, 1995). Our subjects face a monopoly decision problem about which they have very limited information. Information is presented in a manner which makes similarity judgements according to the feature matching model of Tversky (Psychol Rev 84:327–352, 1977) plausible. We provide subjects a “history” of cases. In the $$2\times 2$$2×2 between-subject design, we vary whether information about the current market is given and whether immediate feedback about obtained profits is provided. The results provide support for the predictions of case-based decision theory, particularly when no immediate feedback is provided. 

Abstract:
Communication of uncertainty in temperature forecasts.

Experimental economics is used to test whether undergraduate students presented with a temperature forecast with uncertainty information in a table and bar graph format were able to use the extra information to interpret a given forecast. Participants were asked to choose the most probable temperature-based outcome between a set of "lotteries." Both formats with uncertainty information were found on average to significantly increase the probability of choosing the correct outcome. However, in some cases providing uncertainty information was damaging. Factors that influence understanding are statistically determined. Furthermore, participants who were shown the graph with uncertainty information took on average less response time compared to those who were shown a table with uncertainty information. Over time, participants improve in speed and initially improve in accuracy of choosing the correct outcome. 

Abstract:
Conserving tropical biodiversity via market forces and spatial targeting.

The recent report from the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity [(2010) Global Biodiversity Outlook 3] acknowledges that ongoing biodiversity loss necessitates swift, radical action. Protecting undisturbed lands, although vital, is clearly insufficient, and the key role of unprotected, private land owned is being increasingly recognized. Seeking to avoid common assumptions of a social planner backed by government interventions, the present work focuses on the incentives of the individual landowner. We use detailed data to show that successful conservation on private land depends on three factors: conservation effectiveness (impact on target species), private costs (especially reductions in production), and private benefits (the extent to which conservation activities provide compensation, for example, by enhancing the value of remaining production). By examining the high-profile issue of palm-oil production in a major tropical biodiversity hotspot, we show that the levels of both conservation effectiveness and private costs are inherently spatial; varying the location of conservation activities can radically change both their effectiveness and private cost implications. We also use an economic choice experiment to show that consumers' willingness to pay for conservation-grade palm-oil products has the potential to incentivize private producers sufficiently to engage in conservation activities, supporting vulnerable International Union for Conservation of Nature Red Listed species. However, these incentives vary according to the scale and efficiency of production and the extent to which conservation is targeted to optimize its cost-effectiveness. Our integrated, interdisciplinary approach shows how strategies to harness the power of the market can usefully complement existing—and to-date insufficient—approaches to conservation. 

Abstract:
Lag Length Selection for Unit Root Tests in the Presence of Nonstationary Volatility.

A number of recent papers have focused on the problem of testing for a unit root in the case where the driving shocks may be unconditionally heteroskedastic. These papers have, however, taken the lag length in the unit root test regression to be a deterministic function of the sample size, rather than data-determined, the latter being standard empirical practice. We investigate the finite sample impact of unconditional heteroskedasticity on conventional data-dependent lag selection methods in augmented Dickey–Fuller type regressions and propose new lag selection criteria which allow for unconditional heteroskedasticity. Standard lag selection methods are shown to have a tendency to over-fit the lag order under heteroskedasticity, resulting in significant power losses in the (wild bootstrap implementation of the) augmented Dickey–Fuller tests under the alternative. The proposed new lag selection criteria are shown to avoid this problem yet deliver unit root tests with almost identical finite sample properties as the corresponding tests based on conventional lag selection when the shocks are homoskedastic. 

Abstract:
Multiple taxes and alternative forms of FDI: evidence from cross-border acquisitions.

This paper explores the role of tax instruments in affecting foreign direct investment (FDI), paying particular attention on their effect on two forms of FDI strategy, ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’. Applying a decomposition of FDI strategies to the universe of cross-border mergers (the dominant form of FDI) over the period 1999–2010, it emerges that taxes have a much more nuanced effect on FDI than frequently suggested; while corporate taxes affect FDI negatively, the tax elasticity varies depending on the FDI strategy (with vertical FDI being in general more responsive), the exact measure of taxation, and international tax considerations (double taxation, withholding taxes). Sales taxes also affect FDI, but only horizontally. 

Abstract:
Natural capital and ecosystem services informing decisions: from promise to practice.

The central challenge of the 21st century is to develop economic, social, and governance systems capable of ending poverty and achieving sustainable levels of population and consumption while securing the life-support systems underpinning current and future human well-being. Essential to meeting this challenge is the incorporation of natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides into decision-making. We explore progress and crucial gaps at this frontier, reflecting upon the 10 y since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. We focus on three key dimensions of progress and ongoing challenges: raising awareness of the interdependence of ecosystems and human well-being, advancing the fundamental interdisciplinary science of ecosystem services, and implementing this science in decisions to restore natural capital and use it sustainably. Awareness of human dependence on nature is at an all-time high, the science of ecosystem services is rapidly advancing, and talk of natural capital is now common from governments to corporate boardrooms. However, successful implementation is still in early stages. We explore why ecosystem service information has yet to fundamentally change decision-making and suggest a path forward that emphasizes: (i) developing solid evidence linking decisions to impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services, and then to human well-being; (ii) working closely with leaders in government, business, and civil society to develop the knowledge, tools, and practices necessary to integrate natural capital and ecosystem services into everyday decision-making; and (iii) reforming institutions to change policy and practices to better align private short-term goals with societal long-term goals. 

Abstract:
Property rights, governance, and economic development.

In this review article we give an intuitive account of why good institutions in general, and secure property rights in particular, matter for economic growth and development. We also discuss implications for good governance, defined as the efficient provision of property rights and other aspects of governance. Finally, we briefly touch on political institutions that might be conducive to good governance and thus economic development. 

Abstract:
Scale economies and heterogeneity in business money demand: the Italian experience.

This paper investigates the demand for money by firms and the existence of economies of scale in the Italian manufacturing industry. We estimate a model for cash elaborated by Fujiki and Mulligan using a different estimation procedure from the previous literature. We then introduce an iterative procedure based on backward exclusion of firms from model estimation which points out the high heterogeneity of Italian companies in money demand. Our estimates show that the Italian manufacturing industry, considered as a whole, does not enjoy scale economies in money demand. However, our iterative procedure points out that the cause of this result has to be ascribed to small firms which are characterized by thin cash money holdings and a consequent very modest opportunity cost. 

Abstract:
Sharing ambiguous risks.

We analyse risk-sharing when individuals perceive ambiguity about future events. The main departure from previous work is that different individuals perceive ambiguity differently. We show that individuals fail to share risks for extreme events. This may provide an explanation why we do not observe individuals buying insurance for certain events like hurricanes or earthquakes and why many contracts contain an "act of God"clause, which allows non-performance if an unforeseen event occurs. 

Abstract:
Testing for Unit Roots Under Multiple Possible Trend Breaks and Non-Stationary Volatility Using Bootstrap Minimum Dickey-Fuller Statistics.

In a recent paper, Harvey et al. (2013) (HLT) propose a new unit root test that allows for the possibility of multiple breaks in trend. Their proposed test is based on the infimum of the sequence (across all candidate break points) of local GLS detrended augmented Dickey-Fuller-type statistics. HLT show that the power of their unit root test is robust to the magnitude of any trend breaks. In contrast, HLT show that the power of the only alternative available procedure of Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. (2009), which employs a pretest-based approach, can be very low indeed (even zero) for the magnitudes of trend breaks typically observed in practice. Both HLT and Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. (2009) base their approaches on the assumption of homoskedastic shocks. In this article, we analyse the impact of non-stationary volatility (for example, single and multiple abrupt variance breaks, smooth transition variance breaks and trending variances) on the tests proposed in HLT. We show that the limiting null distribution of the HLT unit root test statistic is not pivotal under non-stationary volatility. A solution to the problem, which does not require the practitioner to specify a parametric model for volatility, is provided using the wild bootstrap and is shown to perform well in practice. A number of different possible implementations of the bootstrap algorithm are discussed. 

Abstract:
The environmental impact of climate change adaptation on land use and water quality.

Encouraging adaptation is an essential aspect of the policy response to climate change. Adaptation seeks to reduce the harmful consequences and harness any beneficial opportunities arising from the changing climate. However, given that human activities are the main cause of environmental transformations worldwide, it follows that adaptation itself also has the potential to generate further pressures, creating new threats for both local and global ecosystems. From this perspective, policies designed to encourage adaptation may conflict with regulation aimed at preserving or enhancing environmental quality. This aspect of adaptation has received relatively little consideration in either policy design or academic debate. To highlight this issue, we analyse the trade-offs between two fundamental ecosystem services that will be impacted by climate change: provisioning services derived from agriculture and regulating services in the form of freshwater quality. Results indicate that climate adaptation in the farming sector will generate fundamental changes in river water quality. In some areas, policies that encourage adaptation are expected to be in conflict with existing regulations aimed at improving freshwater ecosystems. These findings illustrate the importance of anticipating the wider impacts of human adaptation to climate change when designing environmental policies. 

Abstract:
The optimal design of rewards in contests.

Using contests to generate innovation has been and is widely used. Such contests often involve offering a prize that depends upon the accomplishment (effort). Using an all-pay auction as a model of a contest, we determine the optimal reward for inducing innovation. In a symmetric environment, we find that the reward should be set to (Formula presented.) where c is the cost of producing an innovation of level x and (Formula presented.) is the weight attached by the designer to the sum of efforts. In an asymmetric environment with two firms, we find that it is optimal to set different rewards for each firm. There are cases where this can be replicated by a single reward that depends upon accomplishments of both contestants. 

Abstract:
Voting and the economic cycle.

Sophisticated voters assess incumbent competence by filtering out economic cycles (which they do not like) from trend growth (which they do). Naive voters on the other hand respond only to raw economic growth. This implies that voting in the aggregate should respond asymmetrically to the economic cycle. Upswings are rewarded by the naive, but punished by the sophisticated. Downswings are punished by all voters. Using an established dataset of over 400 general elections we find that the incumbent vote share (a) responds differently to trend growth than to the cycle, (b) does not respond significantly to positive variation in the economic cycle, and (c) responds significantly and negatively to negative realizations in the economic cycle. In contrast to standard formulations of the ‘grievance asymmetry’ this asymmetric vote response is found to be independent of trend growth. 

Abstract:
World Price Shocks, Income, and Democratization.

This paper shows how a world price shock can increase the likelihood that democratization must be used to resolve the threat of revolution. Initially, a ruling elite may be able to use trade policy to maintain political stability. But a world price shock can push the country into a situation where the elite face a commitment problem that only democratization can resolve. Because the world price shock may also reduce average incomes, the model provides a way to understand why the level of national income per capita and democracy may not be positively correlated. The model is also useful for understanding dictatorial regimes� rebuttal of World Bank calls to keep their export markets open in the face of the 2007-08 world food crisis. 

Abstract:
A fine is a more effective financial deterrent when framed retributively and extracted publicly.

Introducing monetary fines to decrease an undesired behavior can sometimes have the counterintuitive effect of increasing the prevalence of the behavior being targeted. Such findings raise important social psychological questions in relation to both the way in which financial penalties are framed and the social contexts in which they are administered. In a field experiment (Study 1), we informed participants who had signed up for an experiment that they would be fined if they arrived late. This fine was presented as either compensatory or retributive in nature and as being administered either privately or publicly. We then observed participants’ subsequent arrival time. In accordance with our hypotheses, participants’ punctuality was only improved (relative to a no-fine control) in response to retributive rather than compensatory fines and when told that fines would be administered publicly rather than privately. In Study 2 we used a scenario method to demonstrate that the greater efficacy of retributively framed fines can be attributed to their presence being less likely to undermine the perceived immorality of transgression than is the case for compensatory fines. We propose a material promotion-moral prevention (MPMP) theory to account for our findings and consider its practical implications for the use of financial disincentives to encourage cooperative behavior through public policy in domains such as climate change. 

Abstract:
Bootstrap Determination of the Co-Integration Rank in Heteroskedastic VAR Models.

In a recent paper Cavaliere et al. (2012) develop bootstrap implementations of the (pseudo-) likelihood ratio (PLR) co-integration rank test and associated sequential rank determination procedure of Johansen (1996). The bootstrap samples are constructed using the restricted parameter estimates of the underlying vector autoregressive (VAR) model which obtain under the reduced rank null hypothesis. They propose methods based on an independent and individual distributed (i.i.d.) bootstrap resampling scheme and establish the validity of their proposed bootstrap procedures in the context of a co-integrated VAR model with i.i.d. innovations. In this paper we investigate the properties of their bootstrap procedures, together with analogous procedures based on a wild bootstrap resampling scheme, when time-varying behavior is present in either the conditional or unconditional variance of the innovations. We show that the bootstrap PLR tests are asymptotically correctly sized and, moreover, that the probability that the associated bootstrap sequential procedures select a rank smaller than the true rank converges to zero. This result is shown to hold for both the i.i.d. and wild bootstrap variants under conditional heteroskedasticity but only for the latter under unconditional heteroskedasticity. Monte Carlo evidence is reported which suggests that the bootstrap approach of Cavaliere et al. (2012) significantly improves upon the finite sample performance of corresponding procedures based on either the asymptotic PLR test or an alternative bootstrap method (where the short run dynamics in the VAR model are estimated unrestrictedly) for a variety of conditionally and unconditionally heteroskedastic innovation processes. © 2014 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC. 

Abstract:
Coordinating climate and trade policies: Pareto efficiency and the role of border tax adjustments.

This paper explores the role of trade instruments in globally efficient climate policies, focusing on whether or not some form of border tax adjustment (BTA) is warranted when carbon prices differ internationally. The analysis shows that, while there is no case for BTA when all instruments can be freely deployed, Pareto-efficiency does require a form of BTA when carbon taxes in some countries are constrained: its purpose then is to partly counteract the impact on emissions of inappropriate carbon pricing there, or, equivalently, to undo the trade distortions such pricing creates. The required form of BTA is generally complex, but a special case is identified in which it optimally has the simple structure envisaged in practical policy discussions. It is also shown that the efficiency case for BTA depends critically on whether climate policies are pursued by carbon taxation or by cap-and-trade. 

Abstract:
Economic Analysis for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment: Synthesis and Scenario Valuation of Changes in Ecosystem Services.

We combine natural science modelling and valuation techniques to present economic analyses of a variety of land use change scenarios generated for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. Specifically, the agricultural, greenhouse gas, recreational and urban greenspace impacts of the envisioned land use changes are valued. Particular attention is given to the incorporation of spatial variation in the natural environment and to addressing issues such as biodiversity impacts where reliable values are not available. Results show that the incorporation of ecosystem services and their values within analyses can substantially change decisions. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. 

Abstract:
Indirect tax harmonization and global public goods.

This paper identifies conditions under which, starting from any tax-distorting equilibrium, destination- and origin-based indirect tax-harmonizing reforms are potentially Pareto improving in the presence of global public goods. The first condition (unrequited transfers between governments) requires that transfers are designed in such a way that the marginal valuations of the global public goods are equalized, whereas the second (conditional revenue changes) requires that the change in global tax revenues, as a consequence of tax harmonization, is consistent with the under/over-provision of global public goods relative to the (modified) Samuelson rule. Under these conditions, tax harmonization results in redistributing the gains from a reduction in global deadweight loss and any changes in global tax revenues according to the Pareto principle. and this is the case independently of the tax principle in place (destination or origin). © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 

Abstract:
Monetary shocks, exchange rates, and the extensive margin of exports.

This paper develops a two-country Dynamic General Equilibrium model to assess the relationship between the real exchange rate and the extensive margin of exports. Exchange rate pass-through to consumer prices governs the relative strength of a demand channel onto the exporting decision of a firm. With incomplete pass-through, a favorable movement in the real exchange rate generates increased export participation and an expansion in the extensive margin of exports. This result is consistent with firm-level studies, and contributes to an ongoing empirical debate as to the importance of changes in export participation over the business cycle. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. 

Abstract:
Optimism and pessimism in games.

This article considers the impact of ambiguity in strategic situations. It extends the existing literature on games with ambiguity-averse players by allowing for optimistic responses to ambiguity. We use the CEU model of ambiguity with a class of capacities introduced by Jaffrray and Philippe (Mathematics of Operations Research 22 (1997), 165-85), which allows us to distinguish ambiguity from ambiguity-attitude, and propose a new solution concept, equilibrium under ambiguity (EUA), for players who may be characterized by ambiguity-preference. Applying EUA, we study comparative statics of changes in ambiguity-attitude in games with strategic complements. This extends work in Eichberger and Kelsey (Journal of Economic Theory 106 (2002), 436-66) on the effects of increasing ambiguity if players are ambiguity averse. © (2014) by the Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association. 

Abstract:
Retail price dynamics and retailer heterogeneity: UK evidence.

We examine retailer heterogeneity in price adjustment in UK supermarkets. Considerable variation in the price change frequency of identically bar-coded products among retail chains is found. Decomposition analysis suggests that price adjustment is evenly split between sales and reference prices with substantive variation across retailers. © 2014. 

Abstract:
Testing for unit roots in bounded time series.

Many key economic and financial series are bounded either by construction or through policy controls. Conventional unit root tests are potentially unreliable in the presence of bounds, since they tend to over-reject the null hypothesis of a unit root, even asymptotically. So far, very little work has been undertaken to develop unit root tests which can be applied to bounded time series. In this paper we address this gap in the literature by proposing unit root tests which are valid in the presence of bounds. We present new augmented Dickey-Fuller type tests as well as new versions of the modified 'M' tests developed by Ng and Perron [Ng, S. Perron, P. 2001. LAG length selection and the construction of unit root tests with good size and power. Econometrica 69, 1519-1554] and demonstrate how these tests, combined with a simulation-based method to retrieve the relevant critical values, make it possible to control size asymptotically. A Monte Carlo study suggests that the proposed tests perform well in finite samples. Moreover, the tests outperform the Phillips-Perron type tests originally proposed in Cavaliere [Cavaliere, G. 2005. Limited time series with a unit root. Econometric Theory 21, 907-945]. An illustrative application to U.S. interest rate data is provided. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 

Abstract:
Using revealed preferences to estimate the value of travel time to recreation sites.

The opportunity Value of Travel Time (VTT) is one of the most important elements of the total cost of recreation day-trips and arguably the most difficult to estimate. Most studies build upon the theoretical framework proposed by Becker (1965) by using a combination of revealed and stated preference data to estimate a value of time which is uniform in all activities and under all circumstances. This restriction is relaxed by DeSerpa's (1971) model which allows the value of saving time to be activity-specific. We present the first analysis which uses actual driving choices between open access and toll roads to estimate a VTT specific for recreation trips, thereby providing a value which conforms to both Becker's and DeSerpa's theoretical models. Using these findings we conduct a Monte Carlo simulation to identify generalizable results for subsequent valuation studies. Our results indicate that 3/4 of the wage rate provides a reasonable approximation of the average VTT for recreation trips, while the commonly implemented assumption of 1/3 of the wage rate generates downward biased results. © 2013 the Authors. 

Abstract:
Valuing Climate Change Effects Upon UK Agricultural GHG Emissions: Spatial Analysis of a Regulating Ecosystem Service.

This article provides estimates of the physical and economic value of changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions projected to arise from climate change induced shifts in UK agricultural land use during the period 2004-2060. In physical terms, significant regional differences are predicted with the intensity of agricultural GHG emissions increasing in the upland north and western parts of the UK and decreasing in the lowland south and east of the country. Overall these imply relative modest increases in the physical quantity of emissions. However, rapid rises in the expected marginal value of such emissions translate these trends into major increases in their economic costs over the period considered. © 2013 European Union. 

Abstract:
Valuing Provisioning Ecosystem Services in Agriculture: the Impact of Climate Change on Food Production in the United Kingdom.

This paper provides an estimate of the contribution of the ecosystem to the provisioning services generated by agriculture. This is achieved by valuing the changes in productivity generated by a marginal alteration in ecosystem inputs. As an example, we consider the variation in rainfall and temperature projected by the recent UK Climate Impacts Programme. The analysis implements a spatially explicit, econometric model of agricultural land use based on the methodology recently developed by Fezzi and Bateman (Am J Agric Econ 93:1168-1188, 2011). Land use area and livestock stocking rates are then employed to calculate farm gross margin estimates of the value of changes in provisioning ecosystem services. Findings suggest that the variation in ecosystem inputs induced by climate change will have substantial influence on agricultural productivity. Interestingly, within the UK context climate change generates mainly positive effects, although losses are forecasted for those southern areas most vulnerable to heat-stress and drought. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. 

Abstract:
Undergraduate Research in Economics.

 

Abstract:
Plato and Parmenides' Parricide: some Theoretical Reflections.

 

Abstract:
The natural capital approach to integrating science, economics and policy into decisions affecting the natural environment.

 

Abstract:
Transformative Pathways to Inclusive Green Development.

 

Abstract:
A meta-analysis of Wetland Contingent valuation studies.

 

Abstract:
Tax and Welfare Reform in Greece.

 

Abstract:
The environmental impact of climate change adaptation on land use and water quality.

 

Abstract:
Valuing preferences for ecosystem related goods and services.

 

Abstract:
Ecosystem Services Assessment and Benefit Transfer.

 

Abstract:
Food inflation in the EU: contrasting experience and recent insights.

 

Abstract:
Investigating stock market behavior using a multivariate markov-switching approach.

 

Abstract:
The first UK National Ecosystem Assessment and beyond.

 

Abstract:
The first United Kingdom’s national ecosystem assessment and beyond.

 

Abstract:
Economic analysis for ecosystem service assessments.

 

Abstract:
Stated preferences for tropical wildlife conservation amongst distant beneficiaries: Charisma, endemism, scope and substitution effects.

 

Abstract:
The Contribution of Circular Economy to Human Betterment:. Moral Imagination and Teleological Ethics.

 

Abstract:
The role of humanities in economic education: the case of philosophy of economics.

 

Abstract:
A voting-based system for ethical decision making.

 

Abstract:
Reciprocal determination and the unity of distinct determinations. in the Original Structure of Emanuele Severino.

 

Abstract:
The Fixed Volatility Bootstrap for a Class of Arch(q) Models.

 

Abstract:
State of Natural Capital Annual Report 2019: Sixth Report to the Economic Affairs Committee of the Cabinet, National Capital Committee.

 

Abstract:
Updating the Woodland Valuation Tool: a review of recent literature on the non-market values of woodlands.

 

Abstract:
Bringing Health and the Environment into Decision-Making: the Natural Capital Approach.

 

Abstract:
Valuing the social and environmental contribution of woodlands and trees in England, Scotland and Wales. Second edition: to 2018.