1,720,991 research outputs found
Can subsidies rather than pollution taxes break the trade-off between economic output and environmental protection?
Full text linkWe build a general equilibrium dynamic model in which individual investors are endowed with “warm-glow” preferences a la Andreoni (1990) so that they feel partly responsible for the pollution content of their portfolio. Through investors’ portfolio choice, firms are induced to engage in costly abatement activities, given that higher pollution also implies a higher cost of capital. In this scenario, we characterize the equilibrium of the economy and investigate, through a fiscal reform analysis, the effects of such tax instruments on the equilibrium scale of the economy, per-capita consumption, pollution abatement and “pollution premium”. We show that an increase of the pollution tax, while reducing pollution, also depresses consumption, the scale of the economy and the pollution premium. On the contrary, an increase of subsidies on abatement activity increases the scale of the economy and can also decrease pollution and the pollution premium and increase per-capita consumption. All our results have relevant testable implications, which we leave for future empirical research
Optimal Sovereign Debt Relief and Exclusion with Unobservable Physical Capital
Full text linkWe investigate the optimum lending arrangements when there is the possibility of partial default, in addition to full default, when physical capital is unobservable. In a model calibrated on Argentina, we find an optimal debt reduction of 39%, and optimal re-entry probability of 0.10. Full default is more likely when total factor productivity is very low, and either debt is low or very high. Partial default is more likely when debt is moderate. Monte Carlo simulations under the optimum lending arrangements indicate the economy spends 47.90% of time in partial default, translating into an average partial default probability of 9.12%. This is quantitatively close to what emerging economies have experienced, thus suggesting that current arrangements are close to optimal. In fact, if there is a competitive market for borrowers, we would expect risk neutral lenders offering schemes giving higher utility to the borrower, and thus the competitive market should converge to the optimal scheme
The Vulnerability to Oil Price Shocks of the Bangladesh Economy
No full textThe economic impacts of oil price shocks have been widely examined since the first oil crisis of 1973. However, most of the earlier studies have primarily focused on advanced economies while emerging countries have received less attention. In Bangladesh, the link between oil and the economy is strong, as oil consumption has increased dramatically in the last 10 years and made the country increasingly exposed to oil price shocks. This chapter collects evidence from the economic literature on the impact of oil price shocks in Bangladesh to assess how vulnerable the country is to changes in oil prices. The chapter first presents the main methodologies used in the literature: Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) and Macroeconometric models, underlining their respective advantages and disadvantages. It subsequently reviews the existing literature for Bangladesh and focuses on economic policies. The chapter concludes by stating that while econometric studies show a consensus on the detrimental effects of oil price shocks on the Bangladesh economy, DSGE models reveal mixed results. As Bangladesh is working toward fulfilling its Paris Agreement Climate pledge, it is expected that the country will increase the proportion of renewables in its power generation fuel mix and mitigate any detrimental effects from future oil price shocks
Theory of Socially Responsible Investment: A Review
Full text linkSocially responsible investment (SRI), where individuals look beyond financial payoffs to integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into their investment decisions, is not fully explained by standard models of preferences. Consequently, within the theoretical literature, economists have sought to enrich preferences by incorporating additional motivations for socially responsible behaviours. We first survey the investment literature, which introduces a ‘warm glow’ benefit derived from the act of investing responsibly. However, within the investment literature, the mechanisms underlying this warm glow benefit have been overlooked. Therefore, we draw on literature on public good provision and green consumerism to investigate the underlying social and moral mechanisms. We highlight the importance of incorporating elements of our shared humanity in order to understand economic behaviours in situations where the market mechanism is imperfect and incomplete. Subsequently, we propose an agenda for future research based on the two key questions dominating this literature. Firstly, would non-standard preferences which incorporate morally enriched warm glow payoffs enable an efficient equilibrium to be achieved whereby externalities from production are internalised? Secondly, if government intervention is needed, what is the nature of this intervention under these non-standard preferences? Answering these questions would guide the efficient design of policy to catalyse SRI
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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