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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]

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]

The sustainability issues surrounding conventional agriculture motivate the need for exploring new sustainable methods of farming, critical for global sustainable development. Vertical farming is a potentially underexplored component of sustainable food production portfolio. This paper offers the first quantitative model in the environmental economics and policy literature that evaluates the economic prospect of vertical farming systems in a competitive market setting. Our framework identifies the principal factors to assess the economic and risk aversion potential of vertical farming and utilize a decision model quantify the trade-off between the two alternative farming practices. The model is utilized to evaluate the competitive economic prospect of vertical farming in seven locations with heterogeneous climate and economic conditions within the USA. The results quantify the value proposition of vertical farming in various conditions. Consequently, we leverage these results to evaluate the current and future prospect of the vertical farming industry. [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]

The study has been conducted with 302 original contributions with a total of 8347 citations contributed by 549 authors published in volumes 74 (393) to 83 (332) of the renowned Journal, Economica, New Series during 2007-2016. An analysis of the different forms of literature, authorship pattern, language-wise cited articles, country-wise distribution, subject-wise distribution, ranking of cited journals, and obsolescence study has been made. Among the citations, articles accounted for 63.83% and books 26.49%. The highest number of articles totaling 5319(99.83%) has emanated from the English language. The first two countries USA and UK are responsible for 83.75% of the articles and 90.49% of the books. Most articles (59.891%) were published on core subjects of research, which include Econometrics, American Economics, Political Economics, International Economics, Monetary Economics, European Economics, and Public Economics. Literature in Economics published during the last 20 years contributes almost 68.506% of the total literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Journal of Economic Literature codes classification system (JEL) published by the American Economic Association (AEA) is the de facto standard classification system for research literature in economics. The JEL classification system is used to classify articles, dissertations, books, book reviews, and working papers in EconLit, a database maintained by the AEA. Over time, it has evolved and extended to a system with over 850 subclasses. This paper reviews the history and development of the JEL classification system, describes the current version, and provides a selective overview of its uses and applications in research. The JEL codes classification system has been adopted by several publishers, and their instructions are reviewed. There are interesting avenues for future research as the JEL classification system has been surprisingly little used in existing bibliometric and scientometric research as well as in library classification systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study has been conducted 330 journal articles contributions with a total of 9527 citations contributed by 763 authors published in volume 78, no. 309 to volume 87, no. 348 of the source Journal, Economica between 2011 to 2020. An analysis of the different forms of literature, subject-wise distribution, ranking of top 24 cited journals, and the application of Bradford's law in Economics literature has been made. Results indicate that major forms of literature are journal 6173 (64.795%), followed by Books 2097 (22.011%) and Working Papers 569 (5.972%). Economica has published an average of 33 articles per volume. The average number of citations appeared at 238.175 citations in each issue. 'American Economic Review', published from the USA, tops the list with a tally of 481 (7.792%) citations, 'Journal of Political Economy' with 399 (6.464%) citations, published from USA and followed by 'Economic Journal' with 335 (5.427%) citations from the UK as the third position. Economics literature is not fit well Bradford's Law. Leimkuhler model is also applied to verify Bradford's law of scattering in the field of Economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particularly in the social sciences, scientific debates can be understood as a special expression of academic discourse and ideally support the progress of knowledge within a discipline. Very often, there are competing academic schools with greatly differing theoretical foundations, as we have seen, for example, in social sciences-especially by the "Methodenstreit" in economics, or the "Positivismusstreit" in Sociology. This paper aims to introduce a new approach to study academic schools and would like to contribute to the literature on the economics of science. To this end, the paper uses the economic theory of religion in general and the economics of sects in particular by transferring the approach to academic schools for the first time. Our results can help to extend the understanding of scientific decision-making and to explain the membership to an academic school. Although the model is presented in relationship to social sciences in general and economics in particular, the basic model of academic schools is generally transferable. JEL Classification : A12, B13, B21, B40, B53, Z12 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a 'mobility as a service' model for accessing urban transport via autonomous vehicles may be expected to have far-reaching implications for the economics of road transport. In particular, it would offer a new opportunity to price access to the roads in accordance with the principles of the free market. Once people are paying for mobility on the roads on a 'per trip' basis, it will be possible to offer different levels of access – and service – at different prices. According to hegemonic ideas in the transport planning and economics literature the introduction of such a 'market in mobility' would be an economically efficient way of allocating access to the scarce good of space on the roads. In this paper we draw attention to a number of ethical and political challenges to the appropriateness of the use of such a pricing mechanism in the context of urban mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keeping with the established tradition in our journal, this paper reviews and surveys the last decade, that is volumes 21–30. It offers an overview of the thematic coverage of the papers published in Defence and Peace Economics and the changes that have occurred, points to existing gaps in the defence economics literature and possible future directions in the research agenda of this growing and vibrant field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The cost minimization for a country to transit from planned economy to market economy is dependent upon the optimal combination of reform speed and specific reform strategy. • There are 4 optimal transitional models which intertwine the reform speed and reform strategies: (1) Incremental reform in radical speed. (2) Incremental reform in gradualist speed. (3). Structural reform in radial speed. (4) Structural reform in gradualist speed. • Several factors affecting the optimal combination of reform speed and specific reform strategy include spillover effect across through different sectors in an economy; initial economic governance structure and the ideas of ruling leaders in an economy. • The dichotomy in the current economics of transitional literature with respect to reform speed and reform strategy fails to capture the essence of the transitional process of a transitional economy. The dichotomy in the economics of transition literature with regard to the reform speed (Gradualist vs Radical Approach) and reform strategy (incremental reform vs structural reform) fails to capture the essence of the transitional process of a transitional economy that was ever under the control of planned economic system. In this paper, we construct a system dynamics model to provide a unified theoretical framework to illustrate that reform speed and reform strategy are inherently intertwined. We propose 4 optimal reforming combinations between reform speed and reform strategy to track the transitional trajectories of different transitional economies since 1980s. These 4 optimal reforming combinations are: (1) Incremental reform in radical speed. (2) Incremental reform in gradualist speed. (3) Structural reform in radical speed. (4) Structural reform in gradualist speed. In this paper, we demonstrate that a transitional economy would adopt one of the aforementioned 4 optimal reforming combination if and only if it minimizes the reforming cost incurred during the shock period of radical reform as well as the dual track period of gradualist reforms. Several factors in our model affecting these 4 optimal reforming combinations are also discussed. These factors include the spillover effect (both vertical and horizontal) of a newly established reforming promotion sector on other old sectors in a transitional economy, the endogenous reform damping coefficient determined by one transitional economy's initial conditions and the reform damping coefficient determined by the dual track system during the gradualist reform process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on the effects of economics training on behavior by examining the link between hyperbolic discounting and the number of economics classes taken by a sample of 1310 college graduates at Ohio University. A strong negative correlation is found between economics training and hyperbolic discounting behavior. Regression analysis shows that dynamic consistency is a determinant of taking economics classes. Once the endogeneity of these variables is accounted for, economics training is no longer a statistically significant determinant of hyperbolic discounting. Thus, the selection effect of studying economics outweighs the training effect. Behavioral variables are found to be more important in explaining hyperbolic discounting than demographic variables. The study suggests the importance of controlling for both the selection effect and the training effect for all studies that examine the role of economic training on behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an innovative framework for decision making by individuals with inconsistent preferences. Practices, associations of individuals with a preference set shared by its members, provide context and unify preferences across an economy so that decision-makers are situated in social and economic structures. Our framework models the time evolution of certain attributes, emerging from the practice framework, that govern individuals' decisions and their intertemporal variation. A novel feature is that preferences are able to rank other preference sets without the need to aggregate them. Instead, the selection of a preference set is treated as a decision in its own right. Our framework explains decision making paradoxes such as the disposition effect and agency cost considerations that are frequently encountered in the behavioural finance and economics literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do firms concomitantly rely on more than one organizational arrangement to procure/distribute a given input/product? In this paper, we systematically review and discuss the extensive path undergone by the literature exploring this issue: the so‐called plural forms. We address two main questions: how to explain the coexistence (and often the prevalence) of plural forms in many types of businesses? Are plural forms stable or a transitory phenomenon? We describe the most prominent motivations identified in the economics and management literature that drive firms to adopt plural forms and show that their vast majority are related to the mitigation of various types of agency/transaction costs. We also demonstrate that most of the available pieces of empirical evidence suggest the stability of plural forms over time. We conclude by demonstrating the path that has been trailed by the most recent developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to provide a political economy approach to the sovereign rating concept, questioning the influence the sovereign ratings have on economies. The business and economics literature have regarded the rating agencies as significant actors of world economy, while frequently criticizing their failures. These implications suggest, that the impact of sovereign ratings is limited on economies and that the agencies should be considered only within the framework of information provision. In addition, some policy recommendations are presented in this study in line with the criticisms within the relevant literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the applicability of Bradford law of scattering of the publications of India and China. The data for the study collected from WOS database, 887 journals publishing 1924 economics subject publications from India and 1627 journals published 4427 Chinese economics publications. The ranked list of journals prepared for both the datasets and the applicability of Bradford's law was tested. The journals distribution pattern of the economics literature fit Bradford's distribution pattern. The applicability of Egghe's model (modification of Leimkuhler's model) was also tested and found valid for both the datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the topic modeling technique known as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a form of text-mining aiming at discovering the hidden (latent) thematic structure in large archives of documents. By applying LDA to the full text of the economics articles stored in the JSTOR database, we show how to construct a map of the discipline over time, and illustrate the potentialities of the technique for the study of the shifting structure of economics in a time of (possible) fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the topic modeling technique known as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a form of text-mining aiming at discovering the hidden (latent) thematic structure in large archives of documents. By applying LDA to the full text of the economics articles stored in the JSTOR database, we show how to construct a map of the discipline over time, and illustrate the potentialities of the technique for the study of the shifting structure of economics in a time of (possible) fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This main point of this paper is that the functions of modern theories of financial market imperfections provide effective theoretical support for much of the less theoretical literature on the role and importance of financial institutions, and serve to rehabilitate many of the early growth models and the conclusions concerning economic development that arose out of the earlier literature. The first section of the paper defines the economic problems with which the financial institutions are concerned. The second shows the variety of ways with which modern economies address these problems. The third section explores the relationship between the financial constraints which arise out of the informational imperfections and the evolution of the firm.

Recent writings on competitiveness fall into three almost disjointed clusters. One is oriented toward firms. A second is concerned with macroeconomic conditions. A third is about national industrial policies. Writings in each of the three perspectives purport to give a virtually complete explanation as to why American companies have been faring so badly recently in international competition. Each of the explanations is plausible, and yet they are completely different. This article aims to describe each of them and to sketch out how they might be joined with each other to arrive at a more integrated perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to examine some of the literature in Economics that concerns itself with the economics of advertising and to present some of the public policy implications of the results of these studies. It is found that it is unlikely that advertising expenditures are subject to increasing returns to scale, thus probably do not lead to an increased concentration of industry for this reason. A study is presented that deals with competition by advertising expenditures and product differentiation in the U.S. cigarette industry. It is found that advertising expenditures, during the 1956-68 period, were not effective in obtaining sales from competitors, although they may have had the affect of inducing new customers to buy the product. The effect of anti-smoking commercials is examined, and it is found that, although they may have had some effect on cigarette smoking, it is doubtful that they provide the impetus for the decreases in advertising expenditures in this particular industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses a controversy among marketing students, some who believe that economic theory encompasses marketing theory, and others who think that there is little application of economic theory to marketing problems. The author of this article refers to neoclassic economic literature, particularly that of Alfred Marshall, to prove that economists are aware of the impact that selling efforts and costs have on economic activity, as well as the relationship between increasing returns and selling costs. The article discusses Marshall's work and his treatment of marketing issues and conditions, concluding that the claim that economists have not considered marketing conditions is false.

We survey the literature on the economic consequences of the structure of social networks. We develop a taxonomy of 'macro' and 'micro' characteristics of social-interaction networks and discuss both the theoretical and empirical findings concerning the role of those characteristics in determining learning, diffusion, decisions, and resulting behaviors. We also discuss the challenges of accounting for the endogeneity of networks in assessing the relationship between the patterns of interactions and behaviors. (JEL D12, D83, D85, K42, Z13) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disturbances are paramount in the development of ecosystems but may jeopardise the provision of forest ecosystem services. Climate change exacerbates this threat and favours interactions between disturbances. Our objective was thus to capture this dimension of multiple disturbances in forest economics through a literature review. We built a database that encompasses 101 English peer-reviewed articles published between 1916 and 2020. We looked at the relationships between six main natural hazards: fire, windstorm, drought, ice/snow, insects and pathogens/disease. Our results indicate that the most frequent pairs of hazards analysed together are "Wind-Insects" in Europe and "Fire-Insects" in North America. We show that most economic studies assume that natural hazards are independent of each other and could thus miss some of the effects of changing hazard regimes, contrary to ecology-oriented articles. Finally, we suggest creating bridges between the ecology and economics of forest disturbances in order to refine current models of each discipline with the tools provided by the other discipline, especially in the critical context of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of civil wars-and the massive human and economic costs that they impose-has attracted the attention of many scholars, including economists. This article briefly introduces three strands in the economics literature on civil war-causes, consequences and solutions-and identifies potential gaps in the existing literature which may be useful to students who are keen on pursuing further research on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss the economics literature relevant to the design of centralized two-sided market mechanisms for environments in which both buyers and sellers have private information. The existing literature and the history of spectrum auctions, including the incentive auction currently being designed by the FCC, can be employed to analyze such mechanisms. We compare the revenue- efficiency trade-off in an environment with private information on one side of the market versus the trade-off with private information on both sides of the market; we provide an impossibility theorem for the efficient allocation of goods using a deficit-free mechanism when there is private information on both sides of the market; we discuss practical deficit-free mechanisms for various environments with two-sided private information; and we provide a synthesis to guide market design efforts and related research going forward. (JEL D44, D47, D82, H82) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many economists have long held that market failures create a gap between social and private returns to research and development (R&D), thereby limiting private incentives to invest in R&D. However, this common belief that firms significantly underinvest in R&D is increasingly being challenged, leading the rationale behind public support for private R&D to be questioned. In this paper, we attempt to clarify the perspectives of two sources: the theoretical literature on endogenous growth, and its recent developments in integrating a geographical dimension, and the empirical literature that measures the social returns to R&D in relation to the private returns. Ultimately, we are able to clearly distinguish among different types of market failures and compare their relative impact on the gap between the private and social returns to R&D. Two main conclusions are reached. First, systematic firm underinvestment in R&D is not demonstrated. Second, even though instances of underinvestment do occur, they are mainly explained by surplus appropriability problems rather than by knowledge externalities. This suggests the need for a new policy mix that employs more demand-oriented instruments and is more concentrated on identifying efficient allocations among activities rather than merely increasing global private R&D investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the history of economists’ treatment of environmental problems prior to the establishment of environmental economics as a separate field in the 1960s. I examine the economics literature from the late eighteenth century onward, searching for an awareness among early economists of both the effects of economic activity on the natural and social environment and the feedback from the environment to the economy. I argue that the way in which economic theory developed made it increasingly relevant for the study of environmental issues and the design of appropriate economic policies. (JEL: B00, Q30, Q50) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liability rules, regulation and insurance have all been proposed in legal and economic theory as instruments to prevent safety risks created by enterprises. Moreover, these rules can also be found in combination in most legal systems. Indeed, liability rules are often advanced as the market solution to safety since they simply allocate a price to unsafe behaviour by signalling that the operator will have to compensate the victims in case of an accident (strict liability) or when the accident was caused through his fault (negligence). Liability rules are thus supposed to have a deterrent effect and should thus promote safety management within enterprises. However, law and economics literature has also clearly pointed at the shortcomings of liability rules in preventing risks: information may be better available with the regulator; the deterrent effect of liability rules can fail as a result of latency, problems of proof and causal uncertainty and insolvency problems may equally limit the deterrent effect of tort rules. That is why many risks posed by industry are often controlled via ex ante safety regulation. However, regulation has its limits as well (more particularly the fact that they can become outdated quickly since they are often static rather than dynamic; that they need a strong enforcement in order to be effective and that regulatory standards may be inefficient as a result of lobbying by private interests). That is why it is suggested that liability rules may still play an important complementary role even in cases where industrial risks are primarily controlled via safety regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though the concept of ‘stylized fact’ plays an important role in the economic literature, there is little analysis of the definition and evaluative use of the term. A permissive account of stylized facts is developed which focuses on their mediating role between models and empirical evidence. The mediation relationship restricts stylized facts by requiring concrete empirical targets. On the other hand, there is much legitimate diversity within the permissive account; key dimensions of diversity are argued to be the part of the model targeted (explanans vs. explanandum) and degree of partiality of correspondence. The use of stylized fact in model evaluation points to the downside of stylization: decreased ability to support strong claims about particular targets. In the final analysis, the role of stylized facts in model-based explanation depends on the view taken of the relative importance of generality and empirical adequacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the large literature on developed countries, little is known about the interactions between corporate governance, foreign ownership, and foreign bank lending in developing countries. Using data from five Latin American countries from 2001 to 2008, we provide one of the first pieces of evidence of how foreign ownership affects the loan cost of borrowers in emerging markets. We find that in terms of foreign bank lending, the cost of debt financing is significantly higher for firms whose largest shareholder is a foreign institutional one. The results support the hypothesis that because of potential agency conflicts between shareholders and creditors, having block institutional shareholders tend to increase the borrowers' debt burden. There is further evidence supporting this agency conflict hypothesis as we find that the effects of large institutional shareholders on borrowing costs become larger (smaller) when the conflicts are aggravated (mitigated). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A table of contents is presented for the June 2014 issue of the periodical "Journal of Economic Literature."

: The objective of this paper is to verify the hypotheses presented in the literature on the causal relationship between inflation and its uncertainty, for the newest EU countries. To ensure the robustness of the results, in the study four models for inflation uncertainty are estimated in parallel: ARCH (1), GARCH (1,1), EGARCH (1,1,1) and PARCH (1,1,1). The Granger method is used to test the causality between two variables. The working hypothesis is that groups of countries with a similar political and economic background in 1990 and are likely to be characterized by the same causal relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty. Empirical results partially confirm this hypothesis. Jel Classification: C22, E31, E37. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Esse artigo revisa a recente literatura acadêmica sobre gerenciamento de resultados (GR) no Brasil. O seu objetivo é identificar os principais temas de pesquisa desenvolvidos no contexto do Brasil e os resultados de interesse para usuários, reguladores e preparadores das demonstrações financeiras. Almeja-se que este estudo seja também util a pesquisadores considerando investigar o tema gerenciamento de resultados, na medida em que propicia uma visão abrangente das principais discussões travadas e as metodologias mais usualmente empregadas. Enquanto tema de pesquisa acadêmica, o gerenciamento de resultados revela-se num tópico diversificado e vasto, embora relativamente recente. A maioria dos estudos brasileiros no assunto foi publicada nos últimos dez anos e a produção científica tem se acelerado recentemente, o que torna oportuno uma reflexão sobre o estado da arte, esboçando a evolução do conhecimento e caminhos a serem trilhados no futuro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book. An Index of Authors of New Books appearing in the Annotated Listings will appear at the end of the General Index in the December issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on the findings of an on-going research project into the relationship between spatial networks and socio-economic activities in urban environments. It makes particular reference to spatial morphology, advancing a fresh perspective on a range of economic factors by showing how they can be translated into the 'qualitative' values of urban design. The research methodology combines Space Syntax analysis with socio-economic data from two different types of property market: the domestic (residential) and the non-domestic (commercial). Using the Welsh city of Cardiff, UK as a case study, the analysis demonstrates how the spatial configuration of Cardiff's street network relates to residential property values, identifying spatial patterns according to house prices and tax band values. Furthermore, it is shown how the non-domestic property market can be examined in relation to its network-accessibility in order to explain how different distributions of land-use value emerge over time. In summary, the paper advocates an approach to urban design practice informed by an awareness of how spatial morphology affects economic value and the social qualities of place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents minutes of the April 15, 2011 meeting of the Executive Committee for the American Economic Association held in Chicago, Illinois. Topics discussed include the Report of the Committee on Honors and Awards, Report of the Search Committee for a New Editor of "American Economics Journal: Macroeconomics" and the Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession. It also overviews a report from the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Professions.

It has been often noted (McDowell and Melvin, 1983; Barnett et al., 1988; Piette and Ross, 1992; Sutter and Kocher, 2004) that the share of co-authored papers in economics has been increasing steadily. The purpose of this study is to investigate some of the theories as to why co-authorship has been increasing in the economics profession. Using data on the publication records of faculty at 129 US colleges and universities that offer doctoral degrees in Economics, Poisson and logit regression models are estimated to explain co-authorship. Results indicate that the likelihood of co-authorship is greater for papers that combine quantitative analysis with another field and for papers published in higher quality journals. Further, co-authorship appears to differ in the many subfields of economics, with the field of Economic History and History of Thought (Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) categories N and B) to be the least likely to co-author and the fields of Financial Economics (JEL category G) and Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics (JEL category Q) to be the most prone to co-authorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the contract-theoretic literature, there is a vital debate about whether contracts can mitigate the hold-up problem, in particular when renegotiation cannot be prevented. Ultimately, this question has to be answered empirically. As a first step, we have conducted a laboratory experiment with 960 participants. We consider investments that directly benefit the non-investing party. While according to standard theory, contracting would be useless if renegotiation cannot be ruled out, we find that option contracts significantly improve investment incentives compared to a no-contract treatment. This finding might be attributed to recent idea that contracts can serve as reference points. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There is a veritable menagerie of auctions-single-dimensional, multi-dimensional, single-sided, doublesided, first-price, second-price, English, Dutch, Japanese, sealed-bid-and these have been extensively discussed and analyzed in the economics literature. The main purpose of this article is to survey this literature from a computer science perspective, primarily from the viewpoint of computer scientists who are interested in learning about auction theory, and to provide pointers into the economics literature for those who want a deeper technical understanding. In addition, since auctions are an increasingly important topic in computer science, we also look at work on auctions from the computer science literature. Overall, our aim is to identifying what both these bodies of work these tell us about creating electronic auctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following its opening to trade and foreign investment in the mid-1980s, Mexico's economic growth has been modest at best, particularly in comparison with that of China. Comparing these countries and reviewing the literature, we conclude that the relation between openness and growth is not a simple one. Using standard trade theory, we find that Mexico has gained from trade, and by some measures, more so than China. We sketch out a theory in which developing countries can grow faster than the United States by reforming. As a country becomes richer, this sort of catch-up becomes more difficult. Absent continuing reforms, Chinese growth is likely to slow down sharply, perhaps leaving China at a level less than Mexico's real GDP per working-age person. (JEL E23, E65, F14, O10, O20, O47) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the voluntary transfer of property that had been stolen-a topic almost unexplored in the law and economics literature. The question is whether a buyer of a stolen good should obtain title to the good if he/she has purchased it in good faith. As described in the article different jurisdictions treat this issue differently. The traditional theory suggests that there is a trade-off between the costs of protecting the good and the costs of verifying the ownership. However, as shown, the rule of law concerning this issue significantly affects parties' incentives. Specifically, it is shown that a rule of law where good faith is irrelevant in determining the issue of property rights Pareto dominates a rule where good faith may protect an innocent buyer. Thus, an owner of an asset will spend more resources on protecting his property and potential buyers will incur higher costs in order to verify the ownership when good faith is decisive for the transfer of property rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article surveys the Brazilian economics literature on innovation and development from the early nineties to the present. The survey begins by a discussion of the economic, political and academic factors which may explain why "innovation" came back to the fore in the nineties, after a relative decline during the eighties. A survey of the studies which place Brazilian national system of innovation in the international context follows suit. The next (and longest section) presents the studies (and their data-base) on innovation in Brazil. They are presented following a chronological order according to the phases of industrial investment in the country. The concluding part suggests a future research agenda, aiming at deepening and complementing the literature surveyed as well as filling some important lacunae observed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses economist Robert D. Tollison's mindset and work on the economics of religion. It references an article in the publication's 2009 Festschrift for Tollison by Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., and Robert F. Hébert. The authors argue that Ekelund and Hébert are biased and discuss their survey of literature inspired by Tollison. The authors examine the historical use of economic theory in explaining the economics of religion. The institutional behavior of religious markets is also discussed.

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