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The literature on pluralism in economics has focused on the benefits expected from the plurality of theories, methods, and frameworks. This overlooks half of the picture: the costs. Neither have the multifarious costs been systematically analyzed in philosophy of science. We begin rectifying this neglect. We discuss how the benefits of plurality and diversity in science presuppose distinct types of plurality and how various benefit and plurality types are associated with different types of costs. Finally, we ponder how the general mechanisms that give rise to the costs of plurality and diversity are aggravated by various disciplinary characteristics of economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online platforms have a wealth of data, run countless experiments, and use industrial-scale algorithms to optimize user experience. Despite this, many users seem to regret the time they spend on these platforms. One possible explanation is that incentives are misaligned: platforms are not optimizing for user happiness. We suggest the problem runs deeper, transcending the specific incentives of any particular platform, and instead stems from a mistaken foundational assumption. To understand what users want, platforms look at what users do. This is a kind of revealed-preference assumption that is ubiquitous in the way user models are built. Yet research has demonstrated, and personal experience affirms, that we often make choices in the moment that are inconsistent with what we actually want. The behavioral economics and psychology literatures suggest, for example, that we can choose mindlessly or that we can be too myopic in our choices, behaviors that feel entirely familiar on online platforms. In this work, we develop a model of media consumption where users have inconsistent preferences. We consider a platform which wants to maximize user utility, but only observes behavioral data in the form of the user's engagement. We show how our model of users' preference inconsistencies produces phenomena that are familiar from everyday experience but difficult to capture in traditional user interaction models. These phenomena include users who have long sessions on a platform but derive very little utility from it, and platform changes that steadily raise user engagement before abruptly causing users to go "cold turkey" and quit. A key ingredient in our model is a formulation for how platforms determine what to show users: they optimize over a large set of potential content (the content manifold) parametrized by underlying features of the content. Whether improving engagement improves user welfare depends on the direction of movement in the content manifold: For certain directions of change, increasing engagement makes users less happy, whereas in other directions on the same manifold, increasing engagement makes users happier. We provide a characterization of the structure of content manifolds for which increasing engagement fails to increase user utility. By linking these effects to abstractions of platform design choices, our model thus creates a theoretical framework and vocabulary in which to explore interactions between design, behavioral science, and social media. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: This work was supported by the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship and Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative [Grant W911NF-19-0217]. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.03683. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent manuscript, Rogowski and Lange (J Bus Ethics 177:63–77, 2022) evaluate whether the prisoner's dilemma can be used as a legitimate framework with which to examine health-related economic ethics decisions. In this commentary, I build upon Rogowski and Lange (J Bus Ethics 177:63–77, 2022) using the original institutional economics literature to argue a more subtle, but critical point. Except in extreme circumstances, the use of the prisoner's dilemma does not qualify as a legitimate, comprehensive framework in which to address most health-related economic ethics problems. Indeed, the intentional characterization of the prisoner's dilemma as a robust health economic ethics framework is often used to mask the absence of a formal ethical framework. However, this distinction may provide a more concrete, and appropriate, justification to use the prisoner's dilemma to assess a wider array of health-related economic ethics problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the aesthetic and economic forms of judgment that guided the Japanese literature translation program at the American publisher Alfred A. Knopf Inc. in the 1950s—1970s. During these years, the editor Harold Strauss coordinated Knopf's ambitious translation program that made dozens of recently written Japanese novels available in English to an American audience. This article provides a fresh perspective on Knopf's well-known Japanese literature translation program by understanding it to be an illuminating case study that reveals how the practical business of cultural commerce mixes aesthetic and economic modes of valuation, producing provocative connections that link what might otherwise seem to be the antagonistic realms of art and the market. Guided by documents held in the Knopf corporate archive, the article shows how the aesthetics of modern Japanese literature and the economics of publishing each encountered the other in the transactional territory of translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental groups play independent and pivotal functions in economic outcomes. Total revenues of US groups have matched or exceeded the EPA's budget for all but one year since 2007 and outpaced its growth by more than 1 percent per year. We review the relevant literature, classifying it into four key roles: (1) provision of information, (2) public politics, (3) private politics, and (4) provision of environmental public goods. The groups provide information about products and environmental impacts, which influences consumer, government, and industry decisions. Environmental groups' monitoring and enforcement affect regulatory decisions and compliance outcomes, with evidence that they both encourage and displace government actions. Groups directly engage firms through boycotts, protests, and other forms of social pressure. Finally, environmental groups conserve land, improve water quality, and provide environmental public goods. However, the environmental economics literature is lagging on understanding their role. We conclude with several avenues to spur further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economics of standards pertains to the investigation of economic problems related to standards. It was established as a field of research between 2000 and 2010 and has developed rapidly since. Focusing on the relevant theories, methods, and issues, this article systematically summarizes and evaluates the extant literature on the economics of standards. The theory section concentrates on the classification, supply–demand, and economic effects of standards. The method section expands on these theoretical and empirical dimensions, while the final issue section focuses on standards alongside economic growth, trade, and innovation. The study's findings have implications for promoting teaching and research on the economics of standards and improving the practice of standardization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stochastic frontier models commonly assume positive skewness for the inefficiency term. However, when this assumption is violated, efficiency scores converge to unity. The potential endogeneity of model regressors introduces another empirical challenge, impeding the identification of causal relationships. This paper tackles these issues by employing an instrument-free estimation method that extends joint estimation through copulas to handle endogenous regressors and skewness issues. The method relies on the Gaussian copula function to capture dependence between endogenous regressors and composite errors with a simultaneous consideration of positively or negatively skewed inefficiency. Model parameters are estimated through maximum likelihood, and Monte Carlo simulations are employed to evaluate the performance of the proposed estimation procedures in finite samples. This research contributes to the stochastic frontier models and production economics literature by presenting a flexible and parsimonious method capable of addressing wrong skewness of inefficiency and endogenous regressors simultaneously. The applicability of the method is demonstrated through an empirical example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of dark patterns in the context of TikTok, an emerging social media platform. Drawing on principles from behavioral economics and the existing literature on online choice architecture (OCA), the study investigates how TikTok utilizes choice architecture, namely, dark patterns to engage users and explores the potential implications for data protection, algorithmic practices and market dynamics. The paper employs the "walkthrough method" to conduct a case study, describing the TikTok user experience and mapping potential dark patterns employed by the app. Based on the case study, it discusses the challenges in classifying dark patterns (specially as it depends on the user impact) against legitimate commercial practices. Finally, it describes how dark patterns and OCA have been discussed in the Latin American legal landscape, and finally it proposes next steps for the debate based on the findings of the article.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Randomized control trials (RCTs) are recognized as the preferred tool of analysis in modern development economics literature/research and policy evaluation. This may lead to methodologies, including case studies, tabular analysis, simple regressions, taking a back seat. This survey explores the implications of such a methodological hierarchy and the implications of preoccupation with a particular evidence/methodology for research and policy. Similar developments in macroeconomic modelling are also discussed. Major advantages and limitations of RCTs and the attempts to address them are highlighted. The article argues that preoccupation with a methodology can sometimes lead to important inquiries for research and policy getting side-lined on methodological considerations. This leads to inferences favouring a particular technique/methodology or issue. Focusing solely on methodologies that emphasize quantifying the 'effect' may not be appropriate to address all questions relevant to development. As policies involve multiple and conflicting social concerns, methodological pluralism may be preferable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the European journal of law and economics symposium on the "law and economics of indigenous and ethnic minorities." Indigenous and ethnic minority groups tend to endure economic, political, and social disadvantages resulting from discrimination, inequality, marginalisation and other pathologies. The disadvantaged status of indigenous and ethnic minorities is often reflected in, if not entrenched as the result of, legal specifications and practices that increase the costs of inclusion and widespread participation in socio-economic and political life. Law and economics literature suggests that the costs of discrimination are significant, but that indigenous and ethnic minorities have the capacity to develop their own economic strategies and institutional practices to help ameliorate some of the consequences of discrimination by majoritarian populations. The papers in this symposium consider the law and economics of indigenous and ethnic minorities in a range of historical and contemporary perspectives, including the cases of immigration restrictions, conflicts over land management and property rights, and resources access. This introductory paper also presents a range of topical domains for potential future research by law and economics scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We survey recent theoretical and empirical literature on political economics of non-democracies. Nondemocratic regimes face multiple challenges to their rule, both internal, such as palace coups or breakdown of their support coalition, and external, such as mass protests or revolutions. We analyze strategic decisions made by dictators from the standpoint of maximizing the chances of regime survival in the light of these challenges, and show how it explains multiple common patterns, from hiring political loyalists to positions that require competence, to restricting media freedom at the cost of sacrificing bureaucratic efficiency, to running propaganda campaigns, organizing election fraud, purging opponents and associates, and repressing citizens. (JEL D72, D73, D82, D83, L82, O17) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a systematic and critical review of the economics literature on data as an economic good and draws lessons for data governance. We conclude that focusing on data as an economic good in governance efforts is hardwired to only result in more data production and cannot deliver other societal goals contrary to what is often claimed in the literature and policy. Data governance is often a red herring which distracts from other digital problems. The governance of digital society cannot rely exclusively on data-centric economic models. We review the literatures and the underlying empirical and political claims concerning data commons. While commons thinking is useful to frame digital problems in terms of ecologies, it has important limitations. We propose a political-ecological approach to governing the digital society, defined by ecological thinking about governance problems and the awareness of the political nature of framing the problems and mapping their ecological makeup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A burgeoning literature in labor economics is focused on modeling employer labor market power, generally finding nontrivial estimates of monopsony power. A smaller literature also simultaneously incorporates product market power. Deb, Eeckhout, Patel, and Warren (2024) is an example of applying an oligopoly‐oligopsony model to the U.S. labor market, arguing for important effects on wage levels and inequality from rising market power. I support combining IO and labor as a fruitful way of studying wages and business dynamism, but argue for looking more broadly at (i) differential degrees of employer power in labor and product markets; (ii) investigating the dynamic sources of markups (e.g., through innovation), and (iii) considering wage bargaining models, not just wage posting models, which have some starkly different implications for wage setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of human memory indicate that features of an event evoke memories of prior associated contextual states, which in turn become associated with the current event's features. This retrieved-context mechanism allows the remote past to influence the present, even as agents gradually update their beliefs about their environment. We apply a version of retrieved-context theory, drawn from the literature on human memory, to explain three types of evidence in the financial economics literature: the role of early life experience in shaping investment choices, occurrence of financial crises, and the effect of fear on asset allocation. These applications suggest a recasting of neoclassical rational expectations in terms of beliefs as governed by principles of human memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study combinatorial auctions with interdependent valuations, where each agent i has a private signal si that captures her private information and the valuation function of every agent depends on the entire signal profile, s=(s1,...,sn). The literature in economics shows that the interdependent model gives rise to strong impossibility results and identifies assumptions under which optimal solutions can be attained. The computer science literature provides approximation results for simple single-parameter settings (mostly single-item auctions or matroid feasibility constraints). Both bodies of literature focus largely on valuations satisfying a technical condition termed single crossing (or variants thereof). We consider the class of submodular over signals (SOS) valuations (without imposing any single crossing-type assumption) and provide the first welfare approximation guarantees for multidimensional combinatorial auctions achieved by universally ex post incentive-compatible, individually rational mechanisms. Our main results are (i) four approximation for any single-parameter downward-closed setting with single-dimensional signals and SOS valuations; (ii) four approximation for any combinatorial auction with multidimensional signals and separable-SOS valuations; and (iii) (k + 3) and (2 log(k) + 4) approximation for any combinatorial auction with single-dimensional signals, with k-sized signal space, for SOS and strong-SOS valuations, respectively. All of our results extend to a parameterized version of SOS, d-approximate SOS, while losing a factor that depends on d. Funding: A. Eden was partially supported by NSF Award IIS-2007887, the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013]/ERC Grant Agreement 337122, by the Israel Science Foundation [Grant 317/17], and by an Amazon research award. M. Feldman received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [Grant Agreement 866132], by the Israel Science Foundation [Grant 317/17], by an Amazon research award, and by the NSF-BSF [Grant 2020788]. The work of K. Goldner was supported partially by NSF awards DMS-1903037 and CNS-2228610 and a Shibulal Family Career Development Professorship. A. R. Karlin was supported by the NSF-CCF [Grant 1813135]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new and rapidly growing econometric literature is making advances in the problem of using machine learning methods for causal inference questions. Yet, the empirical economics literature has not started to fully exploit the strengths of these modern methods. We revisit influential empirical studies with causal machine learning methods aiming to connect the econometric theory on these methods with empirical economics. We focus on the double machine learning, causal forest, and generic machine learning methods, in the context of both average and heterogeneous treatment effects. We illustrate the implementation of these methods in a variety of settings and highlight the relevance and value added relative to traditional methods used in the original studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of legal structure in explaining financial development in twenty-three emerging markets, which has not been explored in institutional economics literature before. This study relied on Pedroni, and Kao cointegration tests, which is followed by the renowned panel cointegration technique. The results of the Pedroni and Kao cointegration tests show that the variables understudy is cointegrated in the long-run. These findings are confirmed by the panel cointegration showing that legal structure (LS) has positive impact on financial development (FIND) in long-run that support Law and Finance, and New Institutional Economics theories in emerging markets. This study is the first to directly examine the long-run impact of LS on FIND in emerging markets, and the result remains consistent across alternative measure of FIND. The findings of this study have important policy implications for emerging markets. Policymakers should focus on creating a legal environment that is conducive to financial development. This includes strengthening the legal framework, improving regulatory regimes, and promoting market autonomy. Additionally, policymakers should work to attract foreign investment, which can help spur economic growth and development in emerging markets. The findings of the study are consistent across battery of robustness testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fishing portfolio diversification has been identified as a mechanism to mitigate risk exposure for harvesters operating in wild-capture fisheries. As in financial markets, however, the benefits from diversification in fisheries will be a function of whether individuals adopt active or passive investment strategies. There is a long history of evidence of the superior performance of passive investment strategies in the financial economics literature, but little is known about the relative performance of these two strategies in fisheries. Here we use a case study of an observed and high-profile climate shock in the California Dungeness crab fishery to estimate the impact of a relatively active investment strategy, in the form of an extreme decision to exit the fishery for the season, in response to the shock. We find robust evidence of negative revenue impacts from an active investment strategy in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce the rejection game, designed to formalize the interaction between interlocutors in a Stalnakerian conversation: a speaker who asserts something and a listener who may accept or reject. The rejection game is similar to other signalling games known to the literature in economics and biology. We point out similarities and differences, and propose an application in linguistics. We uncover basic conditions under which the Gricean maxim of quality emerges from incentives among the players, providing evidence for a functionalist understanding of the Gricean program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the work on the valuation of levered (and unlevered) warrants assumes that the volatility of the underlying state variable is constant. This paper extends the literature on warrant pricing to a more general assumption for the state variable process, the so-called constant elasticity of variance (CEV) process. The CEV model is well-known for its ability to capture some empirical observations found in the financial economics literature, namely the asymmetry between equity returns and volatility and the implied volatility skew. Using the CEV process, we are able to reduce pricing bias as the volatility becomes a function of the underlying state variable. We price European-style call warrants without restrictions on the debt maturity. When warrants have the same maturity as debt, it is possible to obtain closed-form solutions for warrants prices. When the maturity of warrants is different from the maturity of debt, prices can be computed numerically through very efficient and simple to implement valuation methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to bring in the concept of governance and financial bureaucracies into the discussion on financing of innovation and development. The article refers to national development banks as the example of state-backed investors who make investment decisions in line with policy priorities (to prioritized sectors, technologies and development projects). While building on the examples of public development banks, the article seeks to conceptualize the governance of public strategic investments through the notion of a state-led 'investment function'. In doing so, the article seeks complementarity of the concepts that derive from economics and innovation literature on one hand and public policy and governance literature on the other hand. This study suggests that the governance of state-led investments can be understood as a combination of financial policies, institutions and organizational routines that translate into capacities of respective public bureaucratic structures to make financing decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioural welfare economics has lately been challenged on account of its use of the satisfaction of true preferences as a normative criterion. The critique contests what is taken to be an implicit assumption in the literature, namely that true preferences are context-independent. This assumption is considered not only unjustified in the behavioural welfare economics literature but unjustifiable – true preferences are argued to be, at least sometimes, context-dependent. This article explores the implications of this 'critique of the inner rational agent'. I argue that the critique does not support a wholesale shift away from the use of true preferences as an evaluative standard in normative economics; instead, the critique implies that behavioural welfare economists need to inquire into and establish the 'source' of particular context-dependent choices in individuals' decision-making. The source determines the permissibility of correcting individuals' context-dependent choices and can, in some situations, support decisive welfare judgements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the contributions of Marxist Dependency Theory (MDT) can provide theoretical insights for the analysis of financialized capitalism dynamics, contribute to the debate about the rise of a globalized working class, and help guide a transformative praxis in the periphery, therefore being relevant for the debate of contemporary imperialism. I discuss which traditions of dependency theories were most featured in economics literature and why I believe that MDT is marginalized and misinterpreted, focusing on the historical and political aspects of that process. Next, I debate some contributions of contemporary imperialism theory, and conclude that MDT has the potential to advance some of its core concepts and formulate a powerful synthesis. JEL Classification: B51, F54 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inter-firm coordination agreements through a destination card (DC) are a widespread profit-increasing strategy in tourism destinations. Literature on tourism economics argues that this type of coordination increases social efficiency. However, industrial organization studies consider heterogeneous consumers and warn that a DC-type agreement can be welfare impairing. Conflicting views have become an issue for tourism destinations, as collusion is in the crosshairs of antitrust regulators. This paper aims to clarify these contradictory results by developing a duopoly model with heterogeneous tourists. A sensible demand structure is assumed which, unlike previous literature, includes loyal demand segments. A policy prescription is obtained, namely, a DC alliance is welfare enhancing if DC price is equal to or lower than the cost of joint consumption under no coordination. However, a greater total surplus in markets may be accompanied by a reduction in consumer welfare, which differs from the conventional view in tourism economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I study institutional and political determinants of migrants' immigration strategies using the United States' immigration system as a case study. Drawing from work that theoretically connects decisions to immigrate legally vs. illegally as well as theoretical insights from literature on the economics of crime, I show how relative probabilities of successful migration using different strategies and relative utility gained using different strategies weigh heavily in immigrants' calculus. To do so, I use qualitative evidence of migrant strategies in the face of migration policy constraints. These various policy constraints lead to a variety of different tactics revolving around decisions regarding whether to immigrate legally, to commit visa fraud, or to choose one type of visa over another. In the process, I also build on a rich body of Public Choice literature to demonstrate how complicated regulatory systems, in this case regulatory systems that quantitatively restrict migration, encourage rent-seeking by both migrants and nonmigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only one in seven of the world's population have ever migrated, despite the enormous gains in income possible through international and internal movement. I examine the evidence for different explanations given in the economics literature for this lack of movement and their implications for policy. Incorrect information about the gains to migrating, liquidity constraints that prevent poor people paying the costs of moving, and high costs of movement arising from both physical transportation costs and policy barriers all inhibit movement and offer scope for policy efforts to inform, provide credit, and lower moving costs. However, the economics literature has paid less attention to the fears people have when faced with the uncertainty of moving to a new place, and to the reasons behind the tears they shed when moving. While these tears reveal the attachment people have to particular places, this attachment is not fixed, but itself changes with migration experiences. Psychological factors such as a bias toward the status quo and the inability to picture what one is giving up by not migrating can result in people not moving, even when they would benefit from movement and are not constrained by finances or policy barriers from doing so. This suggests new avenues for policy interventions that can help individuals better visualize the opportunity costs of not moving, alleviate their uncertainties, and help shift their default behavior from not migrating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper performs a comprehensive bibliometric investigation of the role of intangible capital in the economics literature and aims to identify unanswered questions and gaps to guide future research. Design/methodology: The systematic literature review concerned with intangible capital employed bibliometric methods, including the obtaining of datasets from reputable article databases (Scopus), dataset preprocessing and refinement of records, construction and visualisation of networks, and analysis and interpretation that among others involved standard descriptive and qualitative analyses. Findings: The study highlights that the economics literature on intangible capital focuses on productivity research on the micro, meso and macro levels by showing how intangibles positively impact productivity. Yet, at the same time the results reveal a gap in understanding the mechanism of transmission or the 'why' and 'how' of the impact. Originality and Value: This study is the first comprehensive bibliometric analysis of intangible capital in economics and complements the earlier limited approaches by conducting a systematic review of research in this area. Further, gaps are identified while the need for deeper understanding of the mechanisms of intangible capital's transmission to productivity is highlighted. Limitations: The overview of the field given means the research is limited by the lack of detailed analysis for each topic determined to be relevant. Still, future research could identify variables of interest and existing causal mechanisms for each issue to explain how intangible capital affects productivity and spillover effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While cultural economics and urban economics literatures have well established that more able individuals tend to prefer mostly cities with a high level of cultural amenities and schooling is one of the main individual determinants of the cultural consumption, there is no empirical evidence on whether cities specialized in culture boost cultural consumption of their residents. This research takes a step back compared to most studies and directly tests whether—controlling for individual characteristics—the higher the city cultural supply, the higher the probability of consuming cultural goods. Using data for 2017 from Chile and an instrumental variable approach, the results suggest that cities' cultural employment shape workers' decisions to consume cultural goods. A positive impact of city cultural supply on cultural consumption is found for both aggregated and disaggregated cultural goods, a robust result even under weaker exclusion restrictions of the instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Used correctly, assessments play a vital role in the success of a course: they provide valuable feedback to students regarding their knowledge gaps, encourage deeper understanding of the material, help students to develop critical thinking, and guide students to accomplish a course's learning goals. They also provide a signal to future employers, graduate programs, or future course instructors about the quality of a student's understanding of the material. Used incorrectly, assessments likely achieve none of these. To avoid the latter outcome, this article's author helps new instructors by (1) summarizing pedagogical theory of sound assessment design, (2) applying it to assessment design in economics courses, and (3) assembling examples of assessments from the economics literature for instructors who may wish to experiment with different assignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generation IV (Gen-IV) nuclear reactor designs are receiving increasing attention because of their potential to achieve key goals in terms of sustainability, safety, reliability, and economics. One of the six technologies selected in the Gen-IV program is the lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR). This work focuses on LFRs, examining both pure lead and lead-bismuth eutectic designs. Through two systematic literature reviews, we consolidate the state-of-the-art in economics and finance for LFRs. The first review considers scientific literature and retrieves 12 articles. The second focuses instead on industrial literature, resulting in 12 additional documents. Economics literature is very scarce and sometimes of low quality. Economic estimations for the specific capital cost [$/kWe] and the cost of electricity [$/MWh] can vary by an order of magnitude (1500–25000 $/kWe and 30–350 $/MWh, respectively), while design organizations typically do not publicly share financial details. Finance literature is almost nonexistent. We report, in the final part of the work, notable knowledge gaps and further possible research areas. • Comprehensive economic evaluations for LFRs are missing. • Economic estimations for LFRs vary by an order of magnitude. • Reported LFR cost ranges are 1500–25000 $/kWe and 30–350 $/MWh. • Financial information of LFRs is rarely disclosed to the public. • A viable financial model description is missing for LFRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In economic applications, the behavior of objects (e.g., individuals, firms, or households) is often modeled as a function of microeconomic and/or macroeconomic conditions. While macroeconomic conditions are common to all objects and change only over time, microeconomic conditions are object-specific and thus vary both among objects and through time. The simultaneous modeling of microeconomic and macroeconomic conditions has proven to be extremely difficult for these applications due to the mismatch of dimensions, potential interactions, and the high number of parameters to estimate. By marrying recurrent neural networks with conditional factor models, we propose a new white-box machine learning method, the recurrent double-conditional factor model (RDCFM), which allows for the modeling of the simultaneous and combined influence of micro- and macroeconomic conditions while being parsimoniously parameterized. Due to the low degree of parameterization, the RDCFM generalizes well and estimation remains feasible even if the time-series and the cross-section are large. We demonstrate the suitability of our method using an application from the financial economics literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a novel analysis of migration responses to climate change by agricultural households in middle- and low-income countries. We conduct a systematic review of 81 quantitative and qualitative studies, applying the New Economics of Labor Migration (NELM) theory and insights from the development economics literature to understand the link between access to in situ agricultural adaptation measures and migration choices. Our findings indicate significant variability in this relationship across different scales of farming operations, including large, medium, small, and landless farmers. We also identify several local contextual factors—such as access to credit, social structures, social fractionalization, conflicts, and migrant networks—that intricately influence this association. Our review departs from previous literature by providing a unique theoretical perspective on the diverse evidence surrounding migration and climate change. We propose a conceptual framework to better understand migration responses in less-developed countries and pinpoint policy gaps that limit agricultural households' ability to adapt to climate change. Finally, we highlight the critical need for future research to examine the role of local contextual factors, including social networks, gender norms, and conflict risks, in shaping migration responses to climate change. • We discuss migration responses to climate change for agricultural households. • We decode the extant research through NELM theory and development economics literature. • We find that migration decisions are closely linked to access to in situ agricultural adaptation means. • The decisions vary by landholdings and are further influenced by local contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land policy interventions are important ways for municipalities to implement their spatial development objectives. Such interventions may, however, generate both intended and unintended effects to housing supply and its responsiveness. It is therefore essential to better understand how and through what kind of mechanisms local land policy interventions can influence the quantity of housing supply. This paper addresses these questions. First, we develop a conceptual classification of so-called intervention mechanisms that describes the linkages between local land policy interventions and the quantity and responsiveness of housing supply. The intervention mechanisms build on a review of the urban economics literature and are further developed empirically using extensive expert interview data on local land policy interventions and practices in 30 Finnish municipalities. Based on the understanding that such intervention primarily influences housing supply through either direct or indirect costs on development, we conceptualize seven intervention mechanisms in the Finnish land policy context. Second, we demonstrate the variation in the application of land policy interventions that contribute to the (in)responsiveness of housing supply at the municipal level. Our findings highlight significant variation in the application of such interventions, potentially leading to different outcomes in housing supply restrictiveness. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms by which land policy interventions operate to affect the (in)responsiveness of housing supply. • The paper scrutinizes the linkages between local land policy and the quantity of housing supply. • We develop seven intervention mechanisms to describe how land policy contributes to housing supply (in)responsiveness. • We document variation in the application of housing supply-relevant land policy interventions by Finnish municipalities. • The findings can provide support for municipalities in their land policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economics literature generally supports a positive theoretical link between income inequality and crime. However, despite this consensus, empirical evidence has struggled to yield definitive conclusions. To address this puzzle, I conducted a meta-analysis based on 1,341 estimates drawn from 43 studies in economics journals. The findings indicate a statistically significant but economically insignificant true effect of inequality on crime, ranging between 0.007 and 0.123 using UWLS FAT-PET and advanced methods. In essence, if there is an impact of inequality on crime, it is, at best, minimal. Additionally, there is some limited evidence suggesting positive publication bias. Results from Bayesian model averaging reveal that inequality does not affect exclusively property crime, as predicted by the rational choice models. Moreover, this analysis shows that inequality measures which are sensitive to changes in income at the middle and top of the distribution are associated with higher coefficients. The study also underscores the biases arising from the exclusion of relevant variables. The implications of this research suggest that inequality may not be the primary motivator for criminal behaviour, with other factors potentially playing more significant roles. Lastly, if inequality does affect crime, it might do so in different ways than those discussed by the majority of the existing empirical studies. • An examination of the relationship between inequality and crime is conducted through a meta-analysis, incorporating 1,341 estimates derived from 43 studies. • Income inequality has a small, if not inexistent, effect on crime. • Some limited evidence of positive publication bias is found. • Inequality metrics which are sensitive to changes in both the middle and upper segments of the income distribution exhibit higher coefficients. • The omission of relevant variables, such as deterrence and income, introduces a notable bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, five of the main design challenges of local flexibility markets (LFMs) for congestion management are identified and discussed based on desirable market properties from economics theory and literature review. The five main design challenges are low market liquidity, reliability, baselines, forecast errors at low aggregation levels, and the high cost of measurements. A comprehensive capacity-limitation based LFM design has been proposed to address the challenges and a simulation example is presented to illustrate the design. The proposed design facilitates market participants' decision making by design elements that improve market liquidity, reliability and handling of forecast errors. Moreover, a new capacity limitation product is proposed that is not defined with respect to a baseline and does not require sub-meter measurements leading to lower costs and conflict-of-interest in delivery validation. Generic algorithms are also proposed for calculating utility and cost of the flexibility product. The proposed design and discussions can contribute to improving the inter-disciplinary area between engineering and economics while helping policy-makers and LFM stakeholders to further understand the problem from a multi-dimensional perspective. • Five common challenges in the design of local flexibility markets are identified. • A product is proposed addressing baseline issues and reducing verfication costs. • Design-related solutions are proposed to increase market liquidity. • An integrated triple-stage market framework is proposed. • Algorithms are proposed for calculating cost and utility of the flexibility product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]