Applied Microeconomics

This paper analyzes the life-cycle career costs associated with child rearing and decomposes their effects into unearned wages (as women drop out of the labor market), loss of human capital, and selection into more child-friendly occupations. We estimate a dynamic life-cycle model of fertility, occupational choice, and labor supply using detailed survey and administrative data for Germany for numerous birth cohorts across different regions. We use this model to analyze both the male-female wage gap as it evolves from labor market entry onward and the effect of pro-fertility policies. We show that a substantial portion of the gender wage gap is explainable by realized and expected fertility and that the long-run effect of policies encouraging fertility are considerably lower than the short-run effects typically estimated in the literature.

It has been argued that increases in land values do not generally result from the owner’s efforts, but rather from public investments and government decisions and are, therefore, “unearned.” This paper analyzes how Inclusionary Housing has been utilized as a land value recapture mechanism in different countries. We distinguish four distinct models: 1) Countries with explicit recapture (Spain and the UK); 2) A country, Ireland, with explicit but limited recapture; 3) Countries where recapture is implicit or ambiguous (Italy, France and Canada) and 4) A country, the Unites States, where value recapture has not been part of the planning culture.

We introduce string diagrams as a formal mathematical, graphical language to represent, compose, program and reason about games. The language is well established in quantum physics, quantum computing and quantum linguistic with the semantics given by category theory. We apply this language to the game theoretical setting and show examples how to use it for some economic games where we highlight the compositional nature of our higher-order game theory.

We introduce string diagrams as a formal mathematical, graphical language to represent, compose, program and reason about games. The language is well established in quantum physics, quantum computing and quantum linguistic with the semantics given by category theory. We apply this language to the game theoretical setting and show examples how to use it for some economic games where we highlight the compositional nature of our higher-order game theory.

En esta ponencia, se examina la concentración del poder de mercado en el sector de transporte público en Costa Rica, específicamente en el ámbito de autobuses. Se revela una significativa concentración, impulsada por violaciones legales, desorden administrativo y vínculos familiares estratégicos. Se emplea un índice de concentración basado en la red de accionistas, destacando la importancia de considerar relaciones familiares. Los resultados indican un mercado altamente concentrado, evidenciando la necesidad de reformas legales y regulatorias, así como medidas para fomentar la competencia y mejorar la calidad del servicio. Se proponen soluciones como la reforma legislativa, reducción de barreras de entrada, desarrollo de un sistema integrado y la transición hacia la movilidad sostenible. Estas acciones buscan abordar la concentración del mercado y promover un transporte público más eficiente y equitativo en Costa Rica.

Real estate investments are typically characterized by high degrees of leverage and long loan tenures. In perfect capital markets, leverage has no impact on the investment decision apart from tax considerations. However, the mortgage financing market is imperfect in many countries. In the presence of market imperfections, an optimal holding period exists for real property investments. We provide a simple rule to calculate the optimal holding period is to compare the required rate of return with the leveraged rate of return on equity.

This dissertation is composed of two essays, each covering an important topic related to consumer choice dynamics and their implications on the design of firm strategies: (1) consumer learning and their implications on the use and design of introductory coupons that apply to the first-time purchases of a new product to enhance its profits; (2) distinguishing between different sources of consumer choice dynamics in a non-tiered loyalty program and its implications on the design of a more profitable program. In Chapter 1, I propose that in the retailing business, when consumer behavior exhibits individually heterogeneous choice dynamics, coupons are a useful tool to implement intertemporal price discrimination and targeted pricing. I document a one-time own-product passive learning process in consumers' purchasing behavior in the Boston Greek Yogurt market, where four new products entered the market in the Summer of 2012. Using a sample of 428 consumers who purchased at least one Greek Yogurt product during 2012 and 2013, I develop and estimate a structural model of consumer demand for Greek Yogurt products that captures three primary features that are specific to consumers' purchasing behavior in this market: (1) a one-time own-product passive learning process, (2) the purchase of varieties, and (3) the purchase of quantities. By estimating the model, I quantify the individual heterogeneity in (1) the price sensitivity, (2) the demand changes driven by consumer learning, and (3) the timeline of learning about different products. The documented learning process and the individual heterogeneity in the above dimensions in this multi-new-product marketing environment motivate (1) the use of a one-time coupon that is applicable for the first-time purchase of a new product to enhance its profits by leveraging the learning-driven changes in consumer demand, (2) the use of a coupon expiration date to filter out any "late", unprofitable coupon redemption, and (3) coupon customization to target different consumer with different designs. First and foremost, I hope to express my sincerest gratitude and appreciation to Professor Aviv Nevo, my supervisor, for his constant care, guidance, mentorship, and time during all stages of my Ph.D. study. I want to thank him for helping me stay on track during the processes from writing my thirdyear paper to my job market paper, my job search, and this complete thesis. I also hope to thank him for teaching me about research, writing, and presentation, which are among the most valuable lessons for a Ph.D. student. I hope to express my sincerest appreciation to Professor Eric T. Bradlow, for his comprehensive feedback on my research, and his constant inspiration for my pursuit of Marketing. I have been learning many valuable things from Professor Bradlow, research-wise, work-wise, and in many other aspects, from the very first day we met. I hope to express my sincerest appreciation to Professor Katja Seim for her constant support and enormous encouragement. I benefited a great deal from her advice on my papers and job interviews. Also, I want to thank Professor Nevo, Professor Bradlow, and Professor Seim for always being there for me, and for believing in me. I am incredibly fortunate to have them as my advisors during my Ph.D. I want to thank all my teachers at Penn, and every staff member who has helped me during my Ph.D. I also want to thank the participating faculty members and fellow graduate students in Empirical Micro Lunch Seminars, IO seminars, and my job-search mock interviews from the Economics Department and the Marketing Department at Penn. Their feedback helped me improve my research and presentation. I would also like to thank my friends for their emotional support during this journey. ii I would like to acknowledge the following data sources and express my appreciation to my data providers for their generosity: In Chapter 1, the Nielsen Homescan Data from the Kilts Center at the University of Chicago's Booth Business School is provided by Wharton Research Computing and sponsored by Professor Aviv Nevo. In Chapter 2, the data on loyalty programs is provided by the Wharton Customer Analytics (WCA). The datasets have been an essential part of my research, and my dissertation would not have been made possible without their support. Finally, I want to extend my deep, sincere gratitude to my parents, for their endless and unparalleled love, ever since I was born.

in the data preparation phases. We have benefited enormously from discussions with Michael Baye and John Morgan, and from the contributions they have made to the broader research programme of which this is part. Financial assistance from the ESRC (Grant No, RG35586) is gratefully acknowledged.

We consider the class of two-player symmetric n × n games with the total bandwagon property (TBP) introduced by Kandori and Rob (1998). We show that a game has TBP if and only if the game has 2n−1 symmetric Nash equilibria. We extend this result to bimatrix games by introducing the generalized TBP. This sheds light on the (wrong) conjecture of Quint and Shubik (1997) that any n × n bimatrix game has at most 2n − 1 Nash equilibria. As for an equilibrium selection criterion, I show the existence of a 1/2–dominant equilibrium for two subclasses of games with TBP: (i) supermodular games; (ii) potential games. As an application, we consider the minimum-effort game, which does not satisfy TBP, but is a limit case of TBP. JEL Classification: C62; C72; C73

This paper examines how sales at medical marijuana centers in Colorado were affected by the opening of recreational marijuana stores in 2014, where any adult can purchase without the necessity of a doctor's recommendation. We exploit differences across counties in the availability of medical and recreational marijuana to examine whether the sales growth of recreational marijuana was at the expense of sales of medical marijuana or acted by expanding the overall legal market. Our findings suggest a statistically significant but economically modest amount of displacement (less than 10 percent), demonstrating that the legalization of recreational marijuana primarily expanded the legal market.

It is very important to understand how promotions offered by sellers to consumers influence consumer and seller behaviors because it helps us study how consumers make their purchase decisions and how sellers determine their sale strategies. Unlike past studies which utilized the classical price discrimination dilemma and focused on sellers' aspect to divide consumers into two types (higher/lower reservation prices), we focused on the consumers' perspective and applied neoclassical consumer choice theory to develop a two-period mathematical utility-maximization model to study how different promotions influence consumer and seller behaviors. This mathematical study uncovered several key findings: (1) coupons offer consumers a greater discount compared to rebates with identical discount rates; (2) impatient consumers exhibit a preference for coupons over rebates; (3) coupons generate higher sales than rebates; and (4) sellers may adopt the coupon policy for low-ticket products and the rebate policy for high-ticket products.

The research is aimed at exploring Foreign Direct Investment and its impact on economic growth of Nigeria. The study covers 31-year period between 1985-2016. Simple ordinary least-square regression model is used to measure the effects and relationships between the independent variable and the dependent variable using E-views 9.0. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) serve as the independent variable while economic growth as the dependent variable. GDP, exchange rate, inflation rate, unemployment rate, total savings and interest rate were used as proxies for economic growth. Data on FDI, GDP, exchange rate, unemployment rate, savings and interest rate were retrieved from the CBN Annual Statistical Bulletin, World bank Report and National Bureau of Statistics. The stationarity property of a time series data can be examined by conducting unit root test in order to ascertain the stationarity or otherwise of the series variables (Akinola,2016). Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test due to Dickey and Fuller (1979, 1981), and the Phillip-Perron (PP) due to Phillips (1987) and Phillips and Perron (1988) were used to ensure the stationarity of the time series data i.e dependent and independent variable. The finding showed that there is a strong and positive relationship between FDI and economic growth in Nigeria. The government of Nigeria must put all hands-on desk, formulating policies and necessary reforms to ensure that foreign direct investments are attracted to benefit the populace at large. It also recommended that Institutionalized corruption both in private and public sectors must be fought, if the nation must attract FDI, we must change our ways of doing things.

This paper analyzes the repayment performance in microfinance programs in Malaysia that apply individual lending approach.The research framework of this study is built by four factors namely individual/borrower factors, firm/business factors, loan factors and institutional/lender factors as independent variables and repayment performance either paid on time, delinquent and default as dependent variables.The study used a mixed-method combining between quantitative and qualitative data through questionnaire survey, in-depth interviews, published and unpublished reports.The data of this study is gathered from 401 respondents in Peninsular Malaysia through multistage random sampling.The data is analysed by descriptive analysis and multinomial logit model. Meanwhile, for qualitative data, a total of 21 respondents (7 respondents who paid on time, 7 respondents who delinquent and 7 respondents who default) were selected randomly and structured interviews with 6 MFI’s State Managers.The re...

This paper investigates the relationship between education and long-term unemployment when considering regional economic differences and other relevant variables at the individual and at the local level, using data from the 2004-2006 EU-SILC (11 countries). The analysis has been run using both a binary logit model and a binary scobit model. Our results suggest that the probability of an individual to be in long-term unemployment decreases with her educational level. There is a decrease in returns to education after the age of 40, which confirms the assumption of an obsolescence of skills defended in the human capital literature. With regard to the regional settings, younger workers (20-30) and older workers (50-65) tend to benefit more from the dynamics offered by highly competitive regions.

We investigate how changes in the supply of fast food restaurants affect weight outcomes of 3 million children and 3 million pregnant women. Among ninth graders, a fast food restaurant within 0.1 miles of a school results in a 5.2 percent increase in obesity rates. Among pregnant women, a fast-food restaurant within 0.5 miles of residence results in a 1.6 percent increase in the probability of gaining over 20 kilos. The implied effects on caloric intake are one order of magnitude larger for children than for mothers, consistent with smaller travel cost for adults. Non-fast food restaurants and future fast-food restaurants are uncorrelated with weight outcomes. (JEL I12, J13, J16, L83)

Reservoirs serve multiple purposes, including recreation, flood control, and hydroelectricity production. In the United States, these reservoirs are typically managed by federal or state agencies. This thesis assesses the effectiveness of federal versus state management in enhancing the recreational use of these reservoirs. The study utilized panel data from 85 reservoirs across the United States, spanning from 2014 to 2021 and including 680 observations. The analysis focused on comparing visitation rates under different management regimes. The central finding of this study is that the type of management agency, whether federal or state, does not significantly affect visitation rates. However, factors related to water, such as adequate rainfall and water levels in the reservoirs, significantly influence visitor attraction. This indicates that while management type may not be a determining factor in recreational use, environmental and hydrological conditions are important considerations for visitor attraction.

Enterprise in Nigeria has not been growing very rapidly given that Nigeria has a population of about 185million. There are a number of institutional factors which may contribute to the slow enterprise growth in Nigerian economy. This study therefore utilized Nigeria Enterprise Survey data ( ) and apply the multinomial logistic regression model to examine the effects of institution on enterprise growth in Nigeria. It was therefore found by the study that with respect to the growth of partnership enterprises compared to sole proprietorship, enterprise growth is encouraged by corruption, improvement in rule of law, favourable customs trade regulation, and favourable labour regulation. It is however, negatively affected by political instability, crime, theft and disorder, bottlenecks in business license permit, and tax administration in Nigeria. The study however recommended among others that, there is need for sustained political stability, reduction in the crime, theft and disorder rates in the country.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a simple model of an economy in which growth is driven by a combination of exogenous technical change in agriculture as well as by a rising world demand for labor-intensive manufactured exports. We explore the relative roles of agricultural innovation and rising export demand in a model with two traded industrial goods and a non-traded agricultural good, food. When the non-traded sector uses a specific factor, we show that technical change in agriculture may be the key to sustained factor accumulation in industry, in particular driving intersectoral labor migration. A key assumption is a less than unitary price elasticity of demand for food. Our results could form a crucial link in capturing the story of labor-abundant economies which experienced structural transformation and growth through labor-intensive manufactured exports, without prior technology breakthroughs in industry. They contribute to explaining the massive growth in factor accumulation which shows up in some growth accounting studies : they may also imply that some of the contribution of "technical progress" is mistakenly attributed solely to factor accumulation.

We develop a tractable model of competition among motivated MFIs. We find that equilibria may or may not involve double-dipping (and consequently default), with there being double-dipping whenever the MFIs are very profit-oriented. Moreover, in an equilibrium with double-dipping, borrowers who double-dip are actually worse off compared to those who do not. Further, for intermediate levels of motivation, there can be multiple equilibria, with a doubledipping equilibrium co-existing with a no default equilibrium. Interestingly, an increase in MFI competition can lower efficiency, as well as increase the extent of double-dipping and default. Further, the interest rates may go either way, with the interest rate likely to increase if the MFIs are very motivated.

This paper looks at sequences of two-player gaaea where each player 'naively' assumes that his opponent follovs a certain míxed atrategy whích can be learned by observing his behaviour. In each stage of the game players update their beliefs and choose an optimal response to the expected behaviour of the opponent. Provided that thís learning process converges, the equílíbríum beliefs form a Nash equilibrium. Hence, St is possible to derlve a probability dístrlbutíon on the set of Nash equ111bría condltional on the players' pzior belíefs. For prlor distributions of the betadístrlbutíon type, ít can be shown that the learning process converges. Some examples Sllustate how this fact can be used i n games wíth multlple equilibría to obtain a probabílity distribution on the equilibrium aet.

The present study attempts to develop a co-integrating relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) net inflows into India and its economic growth for the calendar period 1986-2016 by taking logtransformed yearly data. The variables included in the study were per capita gross domestic product (GDP; as a measure of economic growth) and FDI net flows. Additional regressors as control variables include exports as a percentage of GDP (a proxy for trade openness) and call money rate (a proxy for financial variable). The methodology employed is autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds partial F-test. The results of the study show a positive co-integrating relation between FDI and GDP as given by computed F-value after controlling for other factors impacting growth. The long-run model also satisfied the necessary prerequisites of the model, such as variable stationarity, no serial correlation, and model stability. The lagged error correcting mechanism (ECM) was negative, stable, and significant; however, pace of adjustment was found to be at a slow rate of 7.6 percent per period (per annum).

Pour permettre le pilotage et l'évaluation des politiques publiques de l'autonomie, la mesure de l'accessibilité géographique et financière des prises en charge en établissement d'hébergement médicalisé (type Ehpad) constitue une dimension importante. Une telle mesure doit être conceptuellement pertinente et cohérente, mais aussi calculable en routine à partir des données produites par le système statistique public. Cette note décrit les modalités de calcul de l'indicateur d'accessibilité géographique et financière aux Ehpad (AGFE) dans le contexte institutionnel français actuel, ainsi que les premiers résultats obtenus, à l'échelle nationale et départementale. Trois sources de données sont utilisées : les données fiscales (FIDELI), l'enquête EHPA et les données sur les prix des Ehpad récoltées par la Caisse nationale de solidarité pour l'autonomie (CNSA).

A recent trend in Korea and Japan sees college-graduate women marrying later and at lower rates than less-educated women. In China, "leftover women" have also become a top policy concern. This paper finds however that China's higher-educated urban women attain marital outcomes more like those in the US than in the other Asian Tiger countries, marrying later, but ultimately at comparable rates to less-educated women. For 1990-2009, we quantify marriage quality using the classic Choo-Siow (2006) estimator and find large returns to marrying later but minimal direct higher education effects. Using the Choo (2015) dynamic estimator, we project future marriage rates to remain stable among the higher educated and to decline for lower-educated women.

This study has empirically investigated the impact of macroeconomic variables on stock
returns in Nigeria. The method of analysis used in this study is Autoregressive Distributed
Lag (ARDL) model. The study spanned from 1987 up to 2022. The objective of the study is
to assess the impact of macroeconomic variables on stock returns in Nigeria. Using
econometrics techniques, a good number of pre-diagnosis tests and post-diagnosis tests were
conducted. The study revealed that macroeconomic variables have significant impact on
stock returns in Nigeria. Therefore, it is recommended that the government should prioritise
the price stability with the view of availing the investors to plan ahead and optimally harness
the market opportunities. The government should also direct and manage interest rate level
with the sole aim of encouraging the investors to keep patronising the securities market and
not dispel them. Exchange rate determination must be managed to strengthen the value of the
naira in relation to foreign currencies. Also, the quantity of money supply to the circulation
should be monitored and must be seen adequate so as not to create unnecessary scarcity of
naira to the detriment of the stock market.

This paper studies theoretically and empirically – using data from Italian manufacturing firms – how the foreign presence in intermediate good sector (i.e. input FDI) affects firm efficiency and aggregate productivity within final good sector. We show that an important role is played by the absorptive capacity. More specifically, if all firms are able to use intermediate inputs from foreign-owned suppliers, then all of them will enjoy productivity gains from input FDI, without any reallocation effect. Conversely, if only the most productive firms can use intermediate inputs from foreign-owned suppliers, while these firms can enhance further their efficiency, the other firms might suffer productivity losses from input FDI, causing some reallocation effects within final good sector.

This paper investigates the impact of the Hungarian Public Work Program (PWP) on participants' overall well-being, aiming to provide a comprehensive assessment of public work program. Leveraging the panel of linked administrative data Admin3, a wide-ranging dataset from the Databank of the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (KRTK) encompassing a 50% random sample of the Hungarian population, I compare a pooled ordinary least square (OLS) model to various fixed effects specifications, to examine potential effects on the health outcomes of public workers. I perform heterogeneity tests on employment status, sex, age, and residence. Using a two-way fixed effects model, I find that enrolment in the Hungarian Public Work Program has positive and significant effects on the use of outpatient and inpatient care compared to unemployment while presenting no significant differences compared to the presence in the primary labour market. By undertaking a thorough examination that surpasses the conventional evaluation criteria of income and employment, this research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of public work programs. Specifically, it sheds light on the association between direct public employment programs and health, highlighting an often-overlooked dimension of labour market policies. The empirical evidence presented herein aims to inform future policy decisions on labour market interventions in Hungary and beyond.

What is the significant effect of the farm loan waiver program implemented in India (treatment effect) on the productivity of the agriculture sector across different states (provinces)? I want to study the impact of the farm loan waiver program on agricultural productivity and output growth. Farm loan waiver, waiving of the loan taken by the farmer against the farmland as collateral from the private or public bank to do farming or nonfarming activities.Many such program has been carried out in India by states (provinces) governments or by central Government (Federal).For my project i will consider the impact of the farm

In bargaining between two sellers and one buyer on prices and quantities, strategic inefficiencies arise. By reallocating between the last agreement and the first, the buyer can increase it's share of the surplus. With symmetric sellers producing substitutes, the quantities in the first agreement will be higher than the efficient, and lower than the efficient in the last, implying that sellers are strategically discriminated. In equilibrium when the sellers produce substitutes, the buyer agrees first with the seller with lowest marginal cost. Efficiency is decreasing in the symmetry of the sellers and in the relative bargaining power of the sellers.

In a digital driven world merged with technological intensity prevalent in this era has made the society and the economy to be moving at a very fast pace. This evolving concept has come to stay and improve our lives and work functions beyond the status quo ante. Internet, artificial intelligence and its algorithms are playing a huge role even in the healthcare and insurance industries, improving efficiencies and output.

The paper explores the significance of a borrower's socioeconomic network in assessing creditworthiness using a novel theoretical framework. We introduce a method for a lender to consolidate the individuals' trustworthiness of the borrower within her socioeconomic network. From the borrower's perspective, we consider the adverse social consequences of default within their socioeconomic network, which acts as a disincentive for the borrower to default on the credit obligation. This social pressure discourages credit default. Building on this connection between trust in a socioeconomic network, our paper develops a model that incorporates aggregate trust, project riskiness, and the social cost of default to evaluate credit risk. In this framework, a borrower with a secure project and a high social cost of default is more likely to honour their credit commitments. Conversely, for a similar project, a borrower with a low social cost of default may be more inclined to wilfully default on their credit obligations.

The objective of the study was to evaluate the determinants of voluntary compliance in Self-Assessment Scheme in Nigeria, although with special reference to Akwa Ibom State. This was motivated by the growing emphasis on the need for tax authorities to assess and evaluate factors militating against effective tax revenue generation through Self-Assessment System in the developing economies like Nigeria. Data were collected from the Akwa Ibom State Board of Internal Revenue Service (SBIRS) office using questionnaire. The sample size was determined through Slovin’s formula. Structured survey design was adopted in conjunction with descriptive statistics and regression analyses for estimating the test result. The model summary revealed that 80.8% of the variation in voluntary Tax Compliance is jointly attributable to the influence of individual, socio-economic, and demographic factors such as Personal financial constraint, Awareness of offences and penalties, Tax rate, Ethics and attitude...

Enterprise in Nigeria has not been growing very rapidly given that Nigeria has a population of about 185million. There are a number of institutional factors which may contribute to the slow enterprise growth in Nigerian economy. This study therefore utilized Nigeria Enterprise Survey data (2014) and apply the multinomial logistic regression model to examine the effects of institution on enterprise growth in Nigeria. It was therefore found by the study that with respect to the growth of partnership enterprises compared to sole proprietorship, enterprise growth is encouraged by corruption, improvement in rule of law, favourable customs trade regulation, and favourable labour regulation. It is however, negatively affected by political instability, crime, theft and disorder, bottlenecks in business license permit, and tax administration in Nigeria. The study however recommended among others that, there is need for sustained political stability, reduction in the crime, theft and disorder rates in the country.

This study intends to explore the crowding effect of disaggregated public expenditure on private investment in Malaysia from 1980 to 2016 via Vector Error Correction model. Empirical findings show that public spending has an enormous impact on long-term but marginal effect on short-term private investment. Specifically, private investment is significantly crowd-in education and defense of government expenditures while significantly crowd-out health and transportation expenditure in the long term. Nevertheless, there is insufficient evidence on short-run causality between public spending on private investment

The exit of Nigeria from the global debtors club saw a total collapse of the external debt from an outrageous US$35.94billion, as at 2004 to a modest US$3.54billion in 2006. The figure has gradually risen since then to US$9.518billion in 2014. This gradual rise in the external debt has raised much concern as to whether it will engender a debt overhang situation? The objective of this article is to prove that the current level of external debt in Nigeria will not lead to a debt overhang situation. The research further examined the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) flow to Nigeria.Using an inferential approach and adopting a double-logautoregressive model the research applied the ordinary least squares (OLS) technique in a stepwise multiple regression involving six major debt burden indicators using secondary data from 1970-2003. The result showed that the size of the external debt is not statistically significant enough to engender a debt overhang situation into the country.To sustain economic growth and development the study recommends that macroeconomic stability, infrastructural development and structuredliberalization is integral. This article is divided into five sections. Section one introduces the article, section two reviews relevant literature, section three outlines the methodology, section four discusses the result findings and section five outlines the recommendation and conclusions.

We examine whether there is evidence of an offset between government revenues from hydrocarbon (oil and gas) related activities and revenues from other domestic sources in a panel of 30 hydrocarbon producing countries. Our main finding is that there is an offset of about 20%, which is robust to the inclusion of control variables, the exclusion of outliers, and alternate estimation methodologies. While the impact of the offset on long-term development prospects is not clear, there is a risk of significant adjustment costs in moving to a higher level of domestic taxation once natural resources are depleted.

We study collusion in a second-price auction with two bidders in a dynamic environment. One bidder can make a take-it-or-leave-it collusion proposal, which consists of both an offer and a request of bribes, to the opponent. We show that there always exists a robust equilibrium in which the collusion success probability is one. In the equilibrium, for each type of initiator the expected payoff is generally higher than the counterpart in any robust equilibria of the single-option model (Esö and Schummer (2004)) and any other separating equilibria in our model.

This study examined the effect of globalization on agricultural sector development in Nigeria. The study employed annual time series data from Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin between 1986 and 2018 which were analyzed with Autoregressive Distributed Lag technique. The result of the Bound co-integration test indicated that there is long run relationship among agricultural sector output, foreign direct investment, foreign portfolio investment as a percentage of gross domestic product, trade openness and exchange rate. The result of the ARDL revealed that trade openness, foreign portfolio investment and exchange rate stimulate agricultural sector output while foreign direct investment negatively influence agricultural sector output in Nigeria. It was concluded that globalization plays important role in the development and enhancement of agricultural sector output in Nigeria through openness and financial inflow to the sector. Thus, government should formulate policy frameworks that will enhance the trade relationship between the agricultural sector and other developed nations to facilitate the inflow of important raw materials for the sector's productivity, government should formulate policies that will ease direct investment inflow into the agricultural sector by creating linkage

The paper investigates the factors which are believed to influence the behaviour of households' willingness to pay for public services provided by municipal authorities in Bangladesh. The underlying concern of the analysis is a deeper understanding of the factors that are important for revenue mobilisation strategies in the municipalities of Bangladesh. The analysis is based on a survey of over six thousand households across all municipalities of Bangladesh, complemented with administrative data obtained from these local entities. A multinomial logit model is fitted. The model specification groups the household payment responses into three categories, i.e., willing to pay, reluctant to pay and opposed to paying the service charges while controlling for economic, social and demographic factors. The econometric model is estimated for each of three public services, i.e., water supply, solid waste management and street lighting facility, separately. The results indicate that househo...

Wine is a complex product. Preferences for it are not only highly heterogeneous throughout the population, but also amply susceptible to context. The objective of this study is to discover and measure these preferences, focusing on a set of non-sensory attributes of wine. To identify the most relevant non-sensory attributes of wine, from the consumers’ standpoint we considered four sources: existing literature, a Delphi survey (applied to wine marketing experts), in- depth interviews and a web-page survey answered by fairly large sample of wine consumers. Not all sources were consistent on which attributes were the most important. Notably, consumers did not select price as a relevant attribute on the web survey, even though it had been considered relevant in the in-depth interviews. Finally, six wine attributes were selected for inclusion in a stated choice (SC) experiment: grape variety, alcohol level, label design, product recommendations, price and discounts. An efficient experim...