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We model the welfare consequences of mandates that restrict investors to hold firms with net-zero carbon emissions. To qualify for these mandates, value-maximizing firms have to accumulate decarbonization capital. Qualification lowers a firm's required return by its decarbonization investments divided by Tobin's q, that is, the greenium or the dividend yield shareholders forgo to address the global-warming externality. The welfare-maximizing mandate approximates the first-best solution, yielding welfare gains compared to laissez-faire by mitigating the weather disaster risks resulting from carbon emissions. Our model generates optimal transition paths for decarbonization that we use to evaluate proposed net-zero targets. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article confronts strands of thought in environmental ethics with environmental economics. Three approaches in ethics are addressed: that pointing to the rights of individual natural entities, the holistic approach, and the relational approach of Human and Nature. They are confronted with three strands of thought in environmental economics: the welfare economics approach, the biophysical-centric approach, the relational economic approach. The confrontation of ethics and environmental economics allow us to draw some insights both for academic research and environmental policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this short paper, we build a simple model where a non-welfarist social welfare function can be transformed into and thus be identical to a welfarist social welfare function in form. Our analysis first suggests that non-welfarist methods of policy assessment can also obey the Pareto principle. More broadly, our analysis is a useful input in thinking rigorously about the formal underpinnings of standard welfare economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional international trade theories seldom consider the pursuit of power as maintaining and enlarging a country's relative strength in the process of interstate competition. However, in the context of great power competition, the importance of power in the trade between advanced and latecomer countries has become more pronounced. Given this situation, we can establish a tractable and generalized international economic political framework for analyzing great power competition by introducing the power factor into classic two-country trade theory, treating the absolute welfare and relative welfare emphasized by economics and political science respectively as actors' dual objectives, and making use of game theory methods. It can be found that in a two-country game composed of an advanced and a latecomer country, the latter will prefer a strategy of "enhancing its own strength and rectifying its own weak points," while the former will favor a strategy that "worsens the other's weak points and enhances the other's strengths." Once the technological gap that determines comparative advantage narrows, the advanced country will tend to totally suppress the latecomer and even "decouple" from it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, Indigenous peoples are overrepresented in unemployment rates, low income, poverty, low education, and other social indicators. Mainstream measures to address these things still maintain the terms of the conversation within a colonial/neoliberal framework, perpetuating inequities and coloniality. We document an attempt to overcome this by Anishinaabe First Nations in the Canadian context via a decolonial labour market study. The study shows how quantitative methods and market failure analysis can be both decolonial and useful for policy analysis and implementation when such things are directed by Indigenous organizations and undertaken with community participation. These results contribute to the development of an Indigenous economics, or a decolonial economics, that begins with different assumptions and goals than would a mainstream market analysis, but that does not exclude the use of tools from welfare economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Lameness, an impaired gait, results from the pain dairy cows feel, which impacts their behaviour and performance, and consequently farmer income. Mobility scoring by visual inspection is the current gold standard in the UK for detecting this condition; however, it is prone to scoring biases and can only detect lameness once the cow feels pain, which may come too late for effective action to be taken. Conversely, the early detection of lameness allows for the better management and treatment of lameness cases, which is decisive in minimizing economic losses and animal pain, thereby improving cow welfare and the sustainability of the dairy industry. In a previous study, metabolites predictive of lameness were identified; however, the annotation of these metabolites has not yet been conducted. Although some annotation ambiguity is acceptable when performing untargeted analysis, accurately identifying compounds is crucial to understand which pathways are differentially altered between lame and non-lame cows. This study aimed to annotate the metabolites identified as predictors of lameness in the transition period and understand their biological role in the pathways and processes that lead to lameness. As a result, three metabolites predictive of lameness in dairy cows were identified at the highest confidence level, thus allowing for the understanding of the interactions between metabolism and immunity in lameness to be improved. The aim of this study was to identify with a high level of confidence metabolites previously identified as predictors of lameness and understand their biological relevance by carrying out pathway analyses. For the dairy cattle sector, lameness is a major challenge with a large impact on animal welfare and farm economics. Understanding metabolic alterations during the transition period associated with lameness before the appearance of clinical signs may allow its early detection and risk prevention. The annotation with high confidence of metabolite predictors of lameness and the understanding of interactions between metabolism and immunity are crucial for a better understanding of this condition. Using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with authentic standards to increase confidence in the putative annotations of metabolites previously determined as predictive for lameness in transition dairy cows, it was possible to identify cresol, valproic acid, and gluconolactone as L1, L2, and L1, respectively which are the highest levels of confidence in identification. The metabolite set enrichment analysis of biological pathways in which predictors of lameness are involved identified six significant pathways (p < 0.05). In comparison, over-representation analysis and topology analysis identified two significant pathways (p < 0.05). Overall, our LC-MS/MS analysis proved to be adequate to confidently identify metabolites in urine samples previously found to be predictive of lameness, and understand their potential biological relevance, despite the challenges of metabolite identification and pathway analysis when performing untargeted metabolomics. This approach shows potential as a reliable method to identify biomarkers that can be used in the future to predict the risk of lameness before calving. Validation with a larger cohort is required to assess the generalization of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worsening joblessness in India is put forward here from the multiple and interconnected argumentative lens of formal-informal dichotomy by labour productivity differential, market size constraint, labour market flexibility, capital inflows, political constraint, corporate industrialization and welfare economic implications. In the process, the limitations of the classic developmental ideas of Kuznets, Lewis and Schumpeter are critiqued. Thereafter, an alternative policy framework is proposed to achieve economic development focused on employment, equity and environmental uplift. The paper shows how the massive unemployment problem can be managed in India's democratic set up by departing from conventional wisdom about industrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores an important aspect of academic precarity: the use of fixed-term contract researchers as factotums within universities. The practice can be defined as the taking-on of tasks that are outside of core research activities, including substantial amounts of time spent teaching, supervising students and preparing research proposals, often at the behest of tenured staff members, reflecting existing power dynamics within the organisation. At a theoretical level, it is argued that this aspect of academic precarity reflects various forms of ambivalence in researchers' lives, creating tensions in addition to expanding their workloads. Using evidence from 54 interviews with researchers of at least five years' experience and based at research units in Portugal, conducted during 2022 and 2023, it is possible to illustrate various aspects of academic precarity and ambivalence, with different responses from researchers including acceptance of and resistance towards the factotum role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the trade-off between the demand for efficiency and the demand for meaningful work. It asks whether this trade-off should be treated as inevitable or potentially resolvable, at least under reformed conditions. It compares historical and contemporary debates where the trade-off features. It focuses initially on Adam Smith's account of the division of labour in which less meaningful work is assumed to be the necessary price of higher efficiency. It then examines Karl Marx's analysis of work, showing how it differs from that of Smith. Marx addressed the scope for achieving meaningful work whilst supporting needs fulfilment in a future socialist society. In addition, the paper looks at how the ideas of Smith and Marx relate to modern discussions that focus on the capacity of new digital technologies to lighten work. Finally, it draws lessons for welfare economics on how meaningful work and efficiency might be reconciled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. health care system is often criticized for being the most expensive in the world while delivering mediocre health outcomes. While policymakers on both the right and left agree about the need for reform, they disagree strongly about whether that reform should involve a smaller role for government or a larger role. At the same time, the U.S.' high costs and mediocre health outcomes likely are at least partly attributable to lifestyle choices that occur outside of the health care system, creating another possible avenue for intervention. This introduction to the symposium on "Free Markets and Health Care" discusses how welfare economics provides a useful tool in evaluating the appropriateness of government involvement in markets related to health and health care. The papers in the symposium provide important new evidence to help inform debates about, for instance, regulations on health care providers and insurers, health insurance expansions, and policies designed to influence health behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, Mahtani argues that both in the game The Mug and in the Sleeping Beauty we should not defer to a trusted person under a particular designation if they do not self-identify under this designation. This invites a more complex Reflection Principle. I respond that there are more parsimonious ways to avoid the challenges posed to the Reflection Principle. Second, Mahtani argues that preferences create a hyperintensional context, which poses a challenge to the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle that can be averted by supervaluation. I respond that such an appeal to supervaluation would block randomization as a fair allocation device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is nearly 40 years since an earlier survey on the use of distributional weights in Cost-Benefitcost–benefit analysis was first published. Since then, a number of significant contributions have been made in the literature. It is therefore timely to revisit the issue by focusing on the key reasons why distributional weights are so necessary. We present a new justification for using unequal income distributional weights in CBA, and and reaffirm a completely neglected reason for adopting distribution weights. We derive the weights from a formulation of the SWF. We specify the minimum value judgmentsjudgements for the SWF that everyone can agree on who accepts the fundamentals of welfare economics. As many CBA practitioners have ignored using distribution weights, inadequate attention has been given to how they can be estimated. The final objective of this paper is to highlight the main methods for estimating these weights, and and to present applications of these methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of strategic interactions, individuals sometimes find themselves better off when they have fewer options. This mechanism is known under the name of 'strategic commitment', as it is usually the individuals themselves who 'commit' to following a certain course of action by restricting their options; but that is not necessary. I explain how a paternalistic intervention may be conceived where it is a third party who paternalistically restricts rational individuals' choices to improve their welfare. This kind of intervention, which I call 'strategic paternalism', contradicts the narrative according to which welfare economics is incompatible with paternalism because it assumes individual rationality, which would make paternalism irrelevant. To prove this point, I show why and in what sense this 'strategic paternalism' deserves to be called that way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The monstrous pendulum of inequality in the twenty-first century swings sideways amid welfare economics and egalitarianism. Horizontal inequalities embodied by pro-poor policy on grounds such as gender, race, and disability, have long been core international human rights concerns. Yet, gross inequalities in economic status, nationally and globally, are still poorly conceptualized by legal scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. In search of a policy lever, this Article argues that as far as economic theory goes, neither theoretical nor empirical economic research adequately correlates economic inequalities and growth. That is, beyond horizontal inequalities concerning the extreme poor. As economic research remains inept in offering efficiency policy justifications, international human rights law, as the primary legal alternative for poverty-related social justice, could fill the gap. In the backdrop of neoliberal welfare economic policy confines, vertical inequalities between societal groups and global inequalities between countries substantively add to a novel realization of human rights and the achievement of United Nations-led sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When determining the optimal deductible level for an insurance policy, a policyholder faces two limitations. First, uncertainty arises from the randomness of future losses. Second, the opacity of the functional forms of the policyholder's loss distribution and utility function contributes to additional limitations. While the academic literature focuses on the former, we additionally include limited information on these functional forms in our model setting to reflect real-world decision-making. That is, we draw on an expected utility framework and analyze the relationship between optimal deductible levels under limited and full information. We also derive several decision rules under limited information in order to approximate the optimal deductible level under full information. To support real-world decision-making, these rules could be easily implemented in an online decision aid offered by an insurance broker, a comparison portal for insurance contracts or a consumer protection agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with disabilities are classified as marginalized and vulnerable to poverty. The condition of disability causes this group to experience accessibility barriers such as access to the fulfillment of the rights of persons with disabilities, especially in promoting disability welfare. Various factors are thought to be the cause of obstacles in achieving welfare. The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors that affect the economic welfare of persons with disabilities in Bengkulu Province. The analytical methods used are multiple linear regression and logistic regression. The results show that demographic factors such as domicile status, age, and number of household members affect the economic welfare of persons with disabilities. In addition, educational factors, Information and Technology skills, employment status, credit programs, government assistance (non-cash food assistance) also affect the economic welfare of persons with disabilities in Bengkulu Province. This is expected to be able to provide policy implications from local government agencies and other institutions in developing more effective and targeted programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Miles' Law, i.e., the notion that institutional position affects attitudes, is considered a truism, but not much attention has been given to properly test or develop it. Here, we argue that Miles' Law is effective not only for civil servants but among municipal decision-makers in different positions. We examine how well institutional position can explain differences in attitudes to welfare service provision among decision-makers on different levels. Differences in opinion depending on institutional position are usually overlooked when attitudes on welfare are explained. Using survey data (N = 1,578) from 42 municipalities in Finland, our analyses show that institutional position does affect attitudes to service provision. However, the differences are contingent on the mode of service provision under consideration and are moderated by the size of the municipality and the economic status. This shows that it is important to consider the position of local government decision-makers to understand their attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the factors influencing the enrichment of the behaviour of the common leopard (Panthera pardus) in a captive environment is crucial for promoting their well-being and enhancing conservation efforts. Lack of species-specific enrichment can lead to stress, disturbances, and altered behavioural patterns, including developing stereotypic behaviours. This study aims to assess the effect of different types of enrichment on the behaviour and welfare of four individual common leopards housed at the National Zoological Park, New Delhi. This study was conducted in two phases: the first phase i.e. pre-enrichment phase, in which the enclosures of leopards were studied with the existing infrastructure and facilities, and in the second phase, the enrichment was introduced in the leopard enclosures i.e. post-enrichment phase. We used focal and scan sampling methods for data collection during Phase I (Pre-enrichment phase) and Phase II (Post-enrichment). This study provides valuable insights into the relationship between different types of enrichment and behaviour in common leopards in captivity. The main results of the study highlighted that with no enrichment, all leopards exhibit more inactive and more stereotypic behaviour than in the presence of enrichment. However, with the use of different enrichment interventions, the leopard exhibits more active behaviour. This study will in turn form a basis for the development of effective management approaches to minimize stress and disturbances, enhance the welfare of the studied species, and support conservation efforts in zoos across the country. [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]

In this personal memoir of my lifelong collaborator and friend, Herb Gintis, I reflect on his "A Radical Analysis of Welfare Economics and Individual Development." Published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1972, the article advances a novel Marx-inspired interpretation of the societal origins of preferences, one that profoundly influenced the ideas of a group of like-minded young economists at Harvard at the time, economics more broadly, and Herb and my subsequent joint work. JEL Classification: B14, B21, D01 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using measures rooted in welfare economics, this article quantifies the economic consequences arising from occupational segregation by gender and migration status in twelve European countries. We also identify the most inclusive European labor markets by building counterfactual distributions. In particular, we remove cross-country differences in immigrants' origin, years of residence, and education, thus determining the contribution that these variables make to the geographical disparities. Our results reveal that the economic consequences of segregation are negative for most foreign workers, especially for immigrant women in Italy, Spain, Germany, and Slovenia. Portugal emerges as a reference point because immigrant workers have a better position compared to other countries, which does not seem to arise from their basic individual characteristics. Our analysis highlights the importance of policy actions aimed at improving the occupational sorting of immigrant workers, such as investing in skills development, avoiding occupational downgrading, and incorporating a gender perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic role of an accounting regime is to increase welfare through its effects—in conjunction with complementary institutions—on firm and household behavior. I review three major streams of the archival literature (real effects; price effects, including value relevance; and costly contracting), in terms of what they can and cannot reveal as proxies for welfare effects. One conclusion is that the partial correlations and average effects that predominate in this literature have provided valuable insights into the role of accounting in the economy, but provide limited and misleading proxies for welfare effects. A major concern is that teachers, students, and researchers—indeed, regulators and standard setters—raised on this literature could lose sight of, and underestimate, the fundamental contribution of accounting to aggregate welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is i) to find out what unique traits make PM Modi an inspiring leader, ii) to assess if respondents' perceptions differ significantly, and iii) to create a conceptual framework of leadership traits so that we can better comprehend PM Modi's leadership styles. The study includes 19 leadership traits relevant to PM Modi's leadership styles, extracted from previous articles and expert discussions. This study collected quantitative data from LinkedIn connections using a random sampling procedure. A self-designed questionnaire was sent to 700 people from various backgrounds to rate their agreement or disagreement with 19 leadership traits. The study was conducted in March and February 2024, with 29% of the responses (203) available for analysis. The study reveals that the top ten leadership traits in ranking order include strong 'network building, "selfmotivation,' 'global perspective,' 'visionary leadership,' 'determination and result-orientation,' 'public direction communication skills,' 'proactive approach,' 'being organized (detailed-oriented),' 'integrity in the workplace,' and 'creative thoughts and thinking.' The results of the Mann-Whitney test revealed differences in respondents' assessments of PM Modi's leadership abilities in India and other countries. There are significant differences in the perceptions of educators and other groups regarding the five leadership traits that may be linked to the lack of trust in Indian society and culture. Additionally, the factor analysis produced a five-factor model: visionary and transformative; humanistic and value-driven; decisive and result-oriented; social influencer and opinion leader; and flexibility, adaptability, and dynamic. It appears that PM Modi's personality and leadership style are a perfect fit for the extended version of the Greatman hypothesis, which is the trait theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries increasingly form alliances to collectively impose sanctions. However, the resulting impact of such coordination remains unclear. Analyzing the 2014 wave of sanctions against Russia over 400,000 simulations with a quantitative trade model, this report demonstrates that multilateral cooperation through coalitions simultaneously reduced domestic welfare losses incurred from sanctions and intensified welfare losses imposed on Russia. Results also reveal significant disparities within the coalition, with Russia sanctions placing relatively high economic costs on Baltic nations that can be mitigated through a burden-sharing program. Hypothetical cooperation by emerging economies like China is also shown to substantially raise the force of sanctions against Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by the quality of sources rather than their representativeness, the history of English agriculture has been written primarily from the perspective of well-documented large farms to the neglect of smallholders and cottagers who for centuries cultivated the greater part of the nation's farmland but left scant records. The superb series recording the mediocre and low crop yields of the expansive demesnes of great lords has long been adopted for the productivity of all medieval England's arable and is deeply embedded in economic and social histories and calculations of economic growth and the welfare of the population. Yet no convincing justification for this supposition has ever been made, and an increasing flow of research and analysis indicates that the productivity of land varied markedly in accordance with the size and function of farms, with the output per acre of large farms constrained by the need to control costs in order to sell surpluses at a profit, while smallholders, at the cost of low and frequently abysmal labour productivity, produced higher yields by striving to maximize output using abundant family labour to secure subsistence from meagre acreages. An appraisal of farming across the centuries and the continents from the Middle Ages to modern times clearly shows that an inverse relationship generally prevailed between farm size and land productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "beautiful viviparous fly", Wohlfahrtia magnifica, may have a magnificent appearance due to its striking morphology; however, it is a potentially deadly agent of obligate traumatic myiasis in humans and animals, with a serious impact on welfare and economics. The fly is found across the Palearctic realm, including the Western Balkan region, with reports from former Yugoslavian countries from the first half of the 20th century. In this paper, a recent case of wohlfahrtiosis recorded in Northern Serbia is evidenced using morphological and molecular techniques. Larvae were collected from two adult sheep with severe hoof myiasis and two young sheep with genital and interdigital myiasis. Morphological identification was performed for adults bred from the infested vulva and third-stage larvae (L3) collected from the hoof wounds, supported with barcoding sequences of the COI gene obtained from larval pairs from the hoof wounds of older and the genitalia of younger sheep. W. magnifica was identified according to the appearance of male fly terminalia and the morphology of L3, which was confirmed after the comparison of representative sequences of the COI gene (deposited in GenBank™ under accession numbers MT027108–MT027114) to those available in GenBank™. This finding represents the first reported case of wohlfahrtiosis in the Western Balkans in 80 years, highlighting the need to re-inform relevant stakeholders to achieve adequate disease control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Worsening joblessness in India is put forward here from the multiple and inter-connected argumentative lens of formal-informal dichotomy by labour productivity differential, market size constraint, labour market flexibility, capital inflows, political constraint, corporate industrialization and welfare economic implications. In the process, the limitations of the classic developmental ideas of Kuznets, Lewis and Schumpeter are critiqued. Thereafter, an alternative policy framework is proposed to achieve economic development focused on employment, equity and environmental uplift. The paper shows how the massive unemployment problem can be managed in India’s democratic set up by departing from conventional wisdom about industrialization.

How should we distinguish between ethical and unethical ways of pursuing profit in a market? The market failures approach (MFA) to business ethics purports to provide an answer to this question. I argue that it fails to do so. The source of this failure is the MFA's reliance on Pareto efficiency as a core ethical principle. Many ethically "preferred" tactics for seeking profit cannot be justified by appeal to Pareto efficiency. One important reason for this is that Pareto efficiency, as understood by the theory of welfare economics upon which the MFA relies, assumes a static conception of efficiency. This is a problem because many ethically "preferred" tactics can only be justified by appeal to dynamic efficiency considerations. I argue that, instead of Pareto efficiency, we should look to the value of wealth creation to understand the ethical constraints on how market actors may pursue profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess the consequences for market quality and welfare of different entry regimes and exchange pricing policies. To do so, we integrate a microstructure model with a free-entry, exchange competition model where exchanges have market power in technological services. Free-entry delivers superior liquidity and welfare outcomes vis-á-vis an unregulated monopoly, but entry can be excessive or insufficient. Depending on the extent of the monopolist's technological services undersupply compared to the first best, a planner can achieve a higher welfare controlling entry or platform fees. Review of Financial Studies, forthcoming [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral welfare economics usually aims at mere means paternalism, helping agents better pursue their own goals. This paper discusses one initially promising way to inform policies addressed at agents who violate expected utility theory (EUT), namely what I call "CPT debiasing." I argue that this approach is problematic even if we grant the normative authority of EUT, the descriptive adequacy of CPT (cumulative prospect theory), and the general acceptability of means paternalism. First, it is doubtful whether the CPT utility function measures what its proponents intend. Second, by imposing risk neutrality on agents, the approach involves a more problematic paternalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The access of rural societies to welfare opportunities and resources is at the core of policy and research agendas. The persistent ruralurban gap increases the risks of exclusion and is a challenge that rural dwellers tackle by bolstering their mobility to access labour markets, resources and services. The car has become a vector in the connections and transformations that sustain rural life; however, this mobility is also a source of new fractures in social and territorial cohesion. This paper explores how the rural mobility system has been shaped and analyses its impact on these societies. The results suggest integrating the issue of mobility into rural policies from a more complex sociological perspective, addressing demographic challenges, regional development and territorial cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 18.5 million current smokers in the United States usually smoke menthol cigarettes. The Food and Drug Administration recently proposed a tobacco product standard to prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes. We explore whether there are internality‐based market failures that provide an applied welfare economics rationale to prohibit menthol. Our empirical approach provides descriptive evidence from the 2018 to 2019 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey on how menthol use is associated with smokers' market demand along multiple intensive and extensive margins. We also use measures of smoking‐related misinformation and internalities, and stated preference data, from a 2021 Cornell Online Survey. We acknowledge that the associations we document in observational data might reflect bias due to self‐selection into menthol use. We leave it to the reader whether there is convincing evidence that differential levels of internality‐based market failures are a sufficient justification for the proposed prohibition of menthol cigarettes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban-rural integration is an advanced form resulting from the future evolution of urban-rural relationships. Nevertheless, little research has explored whether urban and rural areas can move from dual segmentation to integrated development from a theoretical or empirical perspective. Based on the research framework of welfare economics, which offers an appealing paradigm to frame the underlying game between cities and villages, this study clarifies the ideal state of urban-rural integration. It then proposes a series of basic assumptions, and constructs a corresponding objective function and its constraints. Moreover, it assesses the possibility of seeing the transmutation from division to integration between urban and rural areas with continuous socio-economic development. The authors argue that the ideal state of urban-rural integration should be a Pareto-driven optimal allocation of urban-rural resources and outputs, and the maximization of social welfare in the entire region. Based on a systematic demonstration using mathematical models, the study proposes that urban and rural areas can enter this ideal integrated development pattern when certain parameter conditions are met. In general, this study demonstrates the theoretical logic and scientific foundations of urban-rural integration, enriches theoretical studies about urban-rural relationships, and provides basic theoretical support for large developing countries to build a coordinated and orderly urban-rural community with a shared future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I criticize two features of the new book by Richard Markovits. One is the notion that ethics or moral judgments should be part of our analysis of antitrust. The other is the notion that market definition is incoherent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Richard Markovits' Welfare Economics and Antitrust Policy is, without a doubt, the most expansive and thoughtful effort to assess antitrust policy from the point of view of welfare economics. Unfortunately, I cannot comment in a meaningful way on the specifics of his analysis because after teaching antitrust for 30 years, I have become a nonbeliever. I do not believe any interpretation of today's general antitrust policies, or the economics on which they are based, can be reconciled with any known version of "welfare." The principal reason for this state of affairs is that antitrust scholars and courts cling to goals that are misguided and theories that have not evolved despite an avalanche of information now available that strongly suggests, if not proves, that there is little connection between standard antitrust goals and welfare. Thus, with great reluctance, I question whether the analysis found in Richard's Welfare Economics and Antitrust Policy is worth the effort or ultimately gets us anywhere. My inkling is that Richard realizes this too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article summarizes the most salient components of my study WELFARE ECONOMICS AND ANTITRUST POLICY. It (1) distinguishes moral-rights (justice) analysis from moral-good analysis, (2) defines and examines the relevant extensions of the liberal conception of justice, (3) defines various egalitarian conceptions of the moral good and argues that libertarianism is not morally defensible and would not in any event have many of the extensions some claim it has, (4) defines various categories of antitrust-policy-coverable conduct (including natural and contrived oligopolistic conduct of various sorts and predatory conduct of various sorts), (5) defines the components of the gap between a product's price and marginal cost that need to be distinguished respectively in individualized-pricing and across-the-board-pricing situations, (6) defines "investment competition" and identifies the determinants of its intensity, (7) explains why markets cannot be defined non-arbitrarily, (8) defines "the impact of a choice on economic efficiency" and lists various categories of economic inefficiency that can be generated, (9) delineates the protocol for predicting the economic efficiency of a choice that is ex ante economically efficient (which considers the impact of choices on many categories of economic inefficiency that conventional analyses ignore, takes economically efficient account of the fact that the individual exemplars of Pareto imperfections that would cause economic inefficiency in an otherwise-Pareto-perfect economy can counteract as well as compound each other's misallocative tendencies, and considers how to take appropriate account of the fact that both analysis and its financing are allocative-costly), (10) examines the policy-relevance of a choice's impact on economic efficiency, and (11) executes some preliminary antitrust-policy analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the two most recent extended manifestos on Europe (2019) of the French populist radical right party Rassemblement National (RN), previously known as the Front National (FN), from a narrative perspective. The perspective used is based on the Narrative Policy Framework's focus on the setting, plot, characters and moral of the narrative combined with a generic approach. Rather than the 'classical' genres of tragedy, comedy, romance and satire, however, this study focuses on the narrative elements of the dystopian genre, and argues that the RN's narrative on Europe broadly resembles fictional dystopian narratives. In dystopian narratives, the inhabitants find their ontological security threatened by a dehumanising, authoritarian regime, in this case the EU. It is in the 'green world', a timeless space outside the limits of the dystopian state, here represented by the RN's proposed European Alliance of Nations, where the dystopian hero recuperates their sense of autonomy and identity. Such narratives, through exacerbating an already widespread sense of anxiety and ontological insecurity, are potentially powerful attempts to frame continued membership in an unreformed EU as a threat to security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models on the optimal design of monetary policy typically rely on a welfare loss function defined over unemployment and inflation. We estimate such a function using two different dimensions of well‐being. The first evaluates how close one is to "the best possible life" on a ladder scale. The second captures the emotional quality of everyday experiences. Our Gallup World Poll sample covers 1.5 million people in 141 nations from 2005 to 2019. Unemployment and inflation reduce well‐being across all measures. The ratio of the unemployment‐to‐inflation effect is 6.2 for the "Ladder‐of‐Life." It is lower for positive day‐to‐day experiences and higher for negative ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an economics framework appropriate to the exceptionally broad scope of the climate change problem. This considers that economic and social processes, particularly those involved in purposive transitions of energy technologies and systems, involve the interplay between three distinct domains of decision-making and associated actors. The first concerns small-scale and often short-term decision-making, much of which reflects extensive 'satisficing' and habituation as identified in behavioural economics. Calculated economic optimization decisions, especially of companies in the energy and energy-intensive industries, then best reflect the core assumptions of neoclassical and welfare economics, including discrete market failures. Third, at the largest scale are strategic judgements made by big actors (e.g. governments, large multinational companies) relevant to transformation of complex systems over long periods—particularly concerning innovation and structural changes, for which lessons from theories of evolutionary and institutional economics are most relevant. Economically, these can be logically mapped in relation to the technology (or more accurately, 'best practice') frontier. Each has corresponding policy implications: most directly, respectively in terms of (i) standards and engagement to establish norms; (ii) competitive markets with the critical role of prices; and (iii) strategic investment in innovation and infrastructure. Each faces challenges of implementation and government failure, as observed, for example, with wholly inadequate carbon pricing to date, naïve and ineffective approaches to enhancing energy efficiency, or misdirected support to R&D. Based on the domain distinctions, we argue that the corresponding pillars of policy are naturally complementary, and can be mutually supportive: strong standards and norms on energy efficiency, for example, would enhance the political space for carbon pricing by reducing its direct consumer impacts, while carbon pricing has multiple positive two-way interactions with enhanced low-carbon innovation. From this we also posit a 'carbon pricing paradox': that adequate carbon prices, the central recommendation of most economists, are in most jurisdictions only feasible (or even optimal) if equal analytic and policy attention is devoted to the other pillars, and the wider context of macroeconomic and fiscal policies. Only these other aspects can reduce the absolute cost impact of carbon pricing (potentially turning into a gain) and offer consumers and businesses better lower-carbon alternatives, which are critical to establishing climate-compatible pricing structures across our economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]