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In many European countries, labor markets are characterized by high regional disparities in terms of unemployment rates on the one hand and low geographical mobility among the unemployed on the other hand. This is somewhat surprising and raises the question of why only minor shares of unemployed job seekers relocate in order to find employment. The German active labor market policy offers a subsidy covering moving costs to incentivize unemployed job seekers to search/accept jobs in distant regions. Based on administrative data, this study provides the first empirical evidence on the impact of this subsidy on participants' prospective labor market outcomes. We use an instrumental variable approach to take endogenous selection based on observed and unobserved characteristics into account when estimating causal treatment effects. We find that unemployed job seekers who participate in the subsidy program and move to a distant region receive higher wages and find more stable jobs compared to non-participants. We show that the positive effects are (to a large extent) the consequence of a better job match due to the increased search radius of participants.

With a large nationwide retailer, we run a natural field experiment to measure the effects of energy use information disclosure, customer rebates, and sales agent incentives on demand for energy-efficient durable goods. Although a combination of large rebates plus sales incentives substantially increases market share, information and sales incentives alone each have zero statistical effect and explain at most a small fraction of the low baseline market share. Sales agents strategically comply only partially with the experiment, targeting information to more interested consumers but not discussing energy efficiency with the disinterested majority. These results suggest that seller-provided information is not a major barrier to energy-efficiency investments at current prices in this context. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2327 . This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics.

We investigate the role that labor costs hold in exporters’ performance. To do so, we exploit a large-scale French reform that granted most firms a tax credit proportional to the wagebill of their employees paid below a given threshold. This policy effectively translated into a cut in labor cost whose magnitude varies depending on firm-specific wage structures. We use the predicted treatment intensity based on pre-reform composition of the labor force as an instrument for the actual policy-induced firm-level change in labor costs. Although our point estimates are consistent with commonly estimated firm-level trade elasticities combined with reasonable labor shares in total costs, coefficients are found to be very noisy, suggesting lack of robust evidence of a causal effect of the policy. We discuss several potential explanations for our results as well as their implications.

We use the natural experiment provided by the opening and progressive extension of the Regional Express Rail (RER) between 1970 and 2000 in the Paris metropolitan region, and in particular the departure from the original plans due to budget constraints and technical considerations, to identify the causal impact of urban rail transport on firm location, employment and population growth. We apply a difference-in-differences method to a particular subsample, selected to minimize the endogeneity that is routinely found in the evaluation of the effects of transport infrastructure. We find that the RER opening caused a 8.8% rise in employment in the municipalities connected to the network between 1975 and 1990. While we find no effect on overall population growth, our results suggest that the arrival of the RER may have increased competition for land, since high-skilled households were more likely to locate in the vicinity of a RER station.

We estimate the effect of 70 y Más, an age-conditioned cash transfer program for individuals age 70 and older in rural Mexico, on the labor force participation of beneficiaries and of younger individuals who live with them. Using data from the 2010 Mexican census, we exploit the age and locality population thresholds to identify the effects of the program, which at the time operated only in localities with less than 30,000 inhabitants. We find that the program reduces the labor force participation of elderly men, particularly those who live alone and who are relatively poor, but has a much weaker effect on that of elderly women. The program has no statistically significant effect on the labor force participation of either prime-age men or women who live with potential beneficiaries, and it has a negative and significant effect on the labor force participation of boys age 12-17, particularly those in the lowest wealth quintiles, but not on that of same-age girls. These results suggest that the program affects mostly the labor supply of the intended beneficiaries and that of marginal workers, like adolescent boys.

This paper offers a framework for regulating internalities. Using a simple economic model, we provide four principles for designing and evaluating behaviorally-motivated policy. We then outline rules for determining which contexts reliably reflect true preferences and discuss empirical strategies for measuring internalities. As a case study, we focus on energy efficiency policy, including Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and appliance and lighting energy efficiency standards.

The global crisis has created new challenges and new ways of solving them in different parts of the world. In the United States it has been characterized primarily by powerful actions and financial stimuli from the central bank, the Federal Reserve Bank, or the Fed, to stabilize the banking (fi nancial) system, and by further stimuli in the real sector. Within the EU the accent in the first period was placed on implementing structural reforms in individual countries and then on activities directed at significantly greater coordination and monitoring in achieving national goals of economic and development policy. In this context a new control and corrective mechanism (the EU Semester) has been created through which the European Commission analyses the fiscal and structural reform policies of every member state, provides recommendations, and monitors their implementation. Also, the presence, role and activities of the European Central Bank have been enhanced to create a mechanism to prevent possible future financial crises, but also one to provide the prerequisites for stimulating economic growth. As a full member of the EU since 1 July 2013, the Republic of Croatia is in a position for opening new opportunities but also to take on new responsibilities. The long, deep economic crisis can be resolved with the assistance of EU institutions and EU structural funds, but at the same time it demands a considerably greater degree of responsibility and effort by the executive authorities in achieving the necessary structural reforms. This work cites the causes of the economic crisis in Croatia and it then analyzes the possibility for overcoming it by a series of synchronized measures and actions: reforms that for one populist political reason or another were ignored for a long time, or postponed, contrary to the warnings from foreign and domestic professional institutions.

It is impossible in a few pages to even touch on the impact Gary Becker had on economics and public policy. Becker was a pioneer whose work spanned many fields, most of which he was responsible for creating. His imagination was limitless, and he applied economics to areas that few would have thought feasible, providing insight, innovation, and reason in every direction he went. Milton Friedman described him as the most important social scientist of the second half of the twentieth century, and the description is not an overstatement. Becker was more than an economist. He was a social thinker who could bring logic to any subject, no matter how unapproachable. It is for that reason that he had such an important impact on public policy. Becker’s seemingly heretical work often reversed stereotypic thoughts and provided approaches to public policy that were not only novel—they were correct. Based on economic theory and empirical analyses that backed it up, Becker provided prescriptions that were both practical and welfare enhancing. Above all, Becker was a scholar in the finest sense of the word, who believed in economics and its power to explain the world. The ultimate economic imperialist, Becker’s real-world orientation gave us new ways to think about economics and its application to policy. 1

Corruption, be it financial or non-financial is a global cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabrics of many nations and war against it has been a recurring decimal in every economy. In Nigeria, recent attempts at nipping corruption in the bud gave rise to some anti-graft agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Against this background, opinion of 140 accountants in various capacities was sought on the efficacy of the anti-graft agencies in curbing financial crimes through a survey questionnaire. The study found that respondents group perceived the anti-graft agencies as highly effective but could not establish that accountants in various walks of life differ significantly in their perception of the efficacy of the Nigerian Anti-graft bureaus (Overall Mean= 2.98, F= 2.263 and P>0.05) using ANOVA as statistical analysis tool. It was recommended that Nigerian government should strengthen the Anti-financial crimes agencies given that the influence of highly placed offenders, the dignity, societal bondage and shame inherent in financial crimes may affect the potency of anti-financial crimes measures put in place.

Desegregation is a key policy issue in many countries. I investigate a residential desegregation program in Singapore - the ethnic housing quotas. I show that choice restrictions imposed on apartment blocks above the quota limits (constrained) could have distortionary effects, causing price and quantity differences for constrained versus unconstrained blocks. I test these predictions by hand matching more than 500,000 names in the phonebook to ethnicities, to calculate ethnic proportions at the apartment block level. I can then investigate differences for constrained and unconstrained blocks close to the quota limits and test for sorting around the limits. I find price differences are between 3% and 5%. Quantity effects are economically significant, translating to longer time-on-market durations by 1 to 1.4 months. Selection cannot fully explain these results. My results point to challenges in achieving desegregation using quantity restrictions.

Die Öffentlichkeit hat ein Interesse zu wissen, ob politische Maßnahmen die mit ihnen verfolgten Ziele wirksam und wirtschaftlich erreichen. In empirischen Studien, die als Grundlage für evidenzbasierte Wirtschaftspolitik dienen können, werden häufig komplexe Methoden verwendet, um tatsächliche kausale Wirkungen von anderweitig verursachten Zusammenhängen zu unterscheiden. Der vorliegende Beitrag gibt einen nicht-technischen Überblick über Intuition und Anwendungsbeispiele des modernen wissenschaftlichen Instrumentariums zur Evaluierung kausaler Effekte. Die betrachteten ökonometrischen Methoden umfassen kontrolliert randomisierte Experimente, die Zufallsvergabe überzeichneter Programme, den Instrumentvariablen-Ansatz, den Regressions-Diskontinuitäten-Ansatz, den Differenzen-in-Differenzen-Ansatz sowie Panelmethoden mit fixen Effekten. Diese experimentellen und quasi-experimentellen Designs sollen der Wirtschaftspolitik helfen zu lernen, was funktioniert.

We analyze optimal policy when consumers of energy-using durables undervalue energy costs relative to their private optima. First, there is an Internality Dividend from Externality Taxes: aside from reducing externalities, they also offset distortions from underinvestment in energy efficiency. Discrete choice simulations of the auto market suggest that the Internality Dividend could more than double the social welfare gains from a carbon tax at marginal damages. Second, we develop the Internality Targeting Principle: the optimal combination of multiple instruments depends on the average internality of the consumers marginal to each instrument. Because consumers who undervalue energy costs are mechanically less responsive to energy taxes, the optimal policy will tend to involve an energy tax below marginal damages coupled with a larger subsidy for energy efficient products. Third, although the exact optimal policy depends on joint distributions of unobservables which would be difficult to estimate, we develop formulas to closely approximate optimal policy and welfare effects based on reduced form “sufficient statistics” that can be estimated by using field experiments or quasi-experimental variation in product prices and energy costs.

This article is based on literature studies, comparative analysis of two different models to stimulate innovative solutions and protect industrial property rights – particularly rights to inventions. For this purpose, the most important assumptions and the essence of traditional patent system based on institutional protection as well as concepts of free revealing (free access) and open innovation (open invention) were characterized. The paper also presents potential strengths and weaknesses of presented approaches – closed (traditional) and open inventiveness. The article gives value to the argument that, given real shortcomings, the most effective way to create and commercialize inventions would be one of a complementary nature, taking into account solutions offered by each of the presented approaches, changing current innovation policy. On the one hand, modern companies should not give up institutional protection of their developed technology solutions and carrying out R&D, on the other, they will be increasingly forced to resort to modern tools of stimulating innovations based on openness, direct market communication and flexible approach to innovation processes of products and services.

Public policy setting often involves quantitative choices with quantitative outcomes. Yet unqualified statements about the precise consequences of alternative choices characterize much of the policy analysis bearing on these decisions. Public Policy in an Uncertain World: Analysis and Decisions by Charles F. Manski characterizes and richly illustrates the nature of this unwarranted certitude. It details specific constructive alternatives on which the economics profession has achieved varying degrees of consensus. Those in our profession charged with the education of future policy analysts should consider using it and how to round out its presentation of decision making from their own perspective. (JEL D02, D04, D80, E61)

Over the last two decades, methodological developments on the parametric measurement of firms? productive performance have referred to two analytical approaches: the average production function and the production frontier. Each of these methods has its own benefits and limitations, either for econometric estimation or the interpretation of regression results. The methodological section of the paper is extended by an empirical application to the case of 324 Moroccan firms in the garment sector, which we follow over a three-year period (2000-2002). JEL Classification: D02, D03, D04, D22, D24.

The financial statements of the economic entities represent the basic information source for obtaining a general view of the entity position on the market and its financial performances and they consist in the balance-sheet, exercise result account and cash-flow statement while the accounting policies represent a series of accounting concepts regarding the transparency of the activity as well as of the financial statements of each economic entity so that to get a accurate picture of its financial and patrimony situation. However, the national regulations do not specify the minimum contents of the accounting policies and thus, in most cases, the economic entities of Romania do not have a guideline of the accounting policies in written form, but taking into account that the accounting policies must be approved by the entity administrator we can conclude that they should be found in a document.

In this paper we highlighted the importance and the role of service quality in increasing the quality of welfare. In the twentieth century quality has become a fundamental and necessary value for progress, indispensable for "mastering" the future, in which the customer is important, he has absolute priority being a central character, and the company management must consider improving the production process, finding solutions, and involving staff. Therefore, quality leads to lasting customer satisfaction, meets the needs and expectations and helps to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Quality in services contributes to attracting new customers, the loss of fewer clients by providing quality services that require the presence of skills, wisdom, determination, and energy among the basic characteristics of the service provider. The importance of quality is reflected in its ability to meet people’s needs and to increase the standard of living.

A recurring puzzle to many academics and some policymakers is why impact evaluations, which have become something of a cottage industry in the development field, have so little impact on actual policymaking. In this paper, I study the impact of impact evaluations. I show, in a simple Bayesian framework embedded within a standard contest success function-based model of competition amongst anti-evaluation policymakers, Bayesian policymakers, and frequentist evaluators, that the likelihood of a program being cancelled is a decreasing function both of the impact estimated by the evaluation and of the prior on whose basis the program was approved to begin with. Moreover, the probability of cancellation is a decreasing function of the effectiveness of the influence exerted by frequentist evaluators. Since the latter?s effectiveness in terms of lobbying in favor of their findings in the real world is likely to be close to zero, the likelihood of cancelling a program that was approved in the first place, despite its suffering a highly negative evaluation, is extremely low. The model thus provides one possible explanation for why impact evaluations have so little impact in the realm of decisionmaking, and why they have contributed so little to evidence-based policymaking. JEL Classification: O12, D04, D72, C11, C21, C72

Isletme kuluckalari uygulamalari, cesitli destekleyici hizmetler sayesinde yeni kurulan firmalarin hayatta kalabilirlik oranlarini arttirmayi amaclayan uygulamalardir. Bu hizmetlerden birisi de aracilik/agbaglasma faaliyetleridir. Kiraci firmalar arasindaki isbirligi ve agbaglasmanin, hayatta kalma olasiligi uzerinde onemli etkisi olmaktadir. Bu calismada, Turkiye’de de isletme kuluckalari olarak uygulanmakta olan Is Gelistirme Merkezleri’nde (ISGEM) kiraci firmalar arasindaki isbirligi ve agbaglasma faaliyetlerinin hayatta kalma uzerindeki etkisi arastirilmistir. Calisma sonucunda, isbirligi icerisinde olan firmalar ile isbirligi icerisinde olmayan firmalarin hayatta kalma olasiliklari arasinda onemli farkliliklar oldugu sonucuna ulasilmistir.

This paper considers the integration of economies as a merger of populations. The premise is that the merger of groups of people alters their social landscape and their comparators. The paper identifies the effect of the merger on aggregate distress. A merger is shown to increase aggregate distress, measured as total relative deprivation: the social distress of a merged population is greater than the sum of the social distress of the constituent populations when apart. Physiological evidence from neighboring disciplines points to an increase in societal stress upon merger.

The simultaneous bid auction is a standard method for sellers to solicit offers from buyers. A simple alternative is for a seller to ask buyers to make offers sequentially. If it is costly for buyers to participate, the sequential mechanism will tend to be more efficient than the simultaneous auction because later potential buyers can condition their participation decisions on earlier bids. However, the sequential mechanism’s greater efficiency may not produce higher revenues because while the possibility of deterring later potential entrants can lead early bidders to bid aggressively, the fact that later firms might be deterred will tend to reduce revenues. The relative revenue performance of the mechanisms will therefore depend on whether the threat of potential future competition, which can raise bids in the sequential mechanism, is more valuable to the seller than actual competition, which will tend to be greater in the simultaneous auction. The relative revenue performance of these alternative mechanisms has direct implications for how assets should be sold. In the case of how to structure the sale of corporations, this question has attracted attention from practitioners and commentators since the Delaware Supreme Court’s 1986 Revlon decision charged a board overseeing the sale of a company with the duty of “getting the best price for the stockholders” (Revlon v. McAndrews and Forbes Holdings 1986). In practice

Efficient targeting of public programs is difficult when the cost or benefit to potential recipients is private information. This study illustrates the potential of self-selection to improve allocational outcomes in the context of a program that subsidizes tree planting in Malawi. Landholders who received a tree planting contract as a result of bidding in an auction kept significantly more trees alive over a three year period than did landholders who received the contract through a lottery. The gains from targeting on private information through the auction represent a 30 percent cost savings per surviving tree for the implementing organization. (JEL D04, D44, D82, O13, Q24, Q28)

The question of how to measure and aggregate happiness is more than a century old. In recent years, its relevance has risen due to efforts to replace the GDP with an index more indicative of well-being, though such efforts are fraught with serious conceptual problems. After briefly recalling these problems, we suggest to address them by using, instead of the common ordinal utility, an alternative quantity that is maximized in economic transactions. This quantity counts the number of future possibilities a commodity opens. The big advantage of this approach is that, in principle, the number of possibilities is an objective measure which allows for intra- and interpersonal comparison. We lay out the framework of the model and then discuss its relevance for social welfare. While we do here not explicitly compute a measure supplementing the GDP, we sketch how this could be done in practice.

This paper looks at the determinants of school selection in rural Bangladesh, focusing on the choice between registered Islamic and non-religious schools. We consider a two period framework where children are a source of old age transfers. The amount of old age transfers made by children as adults is influenced both by their schooling and by parental religiosity. Parents also derive utility from educating a proportion of their children in madrasahs in a way that reflects their own religious values. We investigate how household income, religious preferences, schooling costs, and school quality affect the proportion of children sent to each school type. Using a unique dataset on secondary school age children from rural Bangladesh, we find that madrasah enrolment falls as household income increases. At the same time, more religious households, and those that live further away from a non-religious school are more likely to send their children to madrasahs. However, in contrast to the theory, we find that Islamic school demand does not respond to the average quality of schools in the locality.

Among the relationships between companies and the financial - banking market representatives, those which are determinate by the lending activity hold a special place. Despite of various alternatives to mobilize the necessary funds to cover the capital needs arising from the current or investment activity, bank loans are the main source of funding for most of the companies. This dominance is assured by the benefits that a bank loan offers to companies and which influence directly and positively their economic and financial situation. Of course there are a number of risks assumed by the company when calling to bank financing, risks which can affect negatively their business if it occurs. Given the important role that companies play in generating of the real flows in the economy, all these positive or negative effects directly impact on the quality of economic and social life at the macro level. For this reason it is very important that between the bank and the company to be always a good communication and transparency in the information requested or offered, and the collaboration between these two types of organizations to carry on a partnership basis.

Efficiency of privatization depends on the transformation cost and the quality of the state as well as the quality of the market. An analysis of these and some other factors allows to explain diversity of privatization outcomes in different countries and to formulate general principles of the ownership structure control.

Relation of Transparency and Economic growth is a long global debate in the society. Theoretically, policy makers, scholars and researchers argue that there is a close relation among these two variables. However, the quantitative relation and any global model is yet unrevealed. So, the main aim of this paper is to ascertain the nature, dimension and extent of the relationship between economy and Transparency as well as to invent a global model. This paper is useful for researchers, planners, policy makers and scholars who are directly or indirectly involved or willing to involve in the thrust for quantitative relation of these two variables. Literature review is the main source of information of this study. In introductory section, this paper briefly describes theoretical relationship of economy and Transparency as well as it also describes the proxy variables.GDP (2012) of different countries are used as proxy of Economy and Corruption Perception Index (CPI) scores (2012) of different countries are used as proxy of level of Transparency. In methodology section this paper describes the detail methodology, sampling procedure and level of analysis. This study randomly selects 30 countries (10 from higher CPI scores+10 from moderate CPI scores+ 10 from lower CPI scores) around the globe as sample. In the third section, this research presents the correlation value which divulge that there is a positive correlation (p=.047) with 95% confidence level. That reveals, if the level of transparency of any country increase, the GDP also increase accordingly. Then in this section two quantitative models are developed using linear regression analysis. First invented model is: Economy (GDP in billion US$) = [(8.983*Level of transparency) -108.11]. This paper termed the first invented model as “Mahmud EcoT Model-1”. This model calibrates that one unit improvement of transparency leads 8.98 billion US$ improvement in the GDP of a country. Then taking this unit change proportion, this research concoct second model for prediction purpose. The second invented model is: Predicted GDP in billion US$ of a country=Present GDP of the country +8.98*Targeted level of transparency improvement .The second invented model is termed in this research as “Mahmud EcoT Model-2”. This model is applicable for any country around the globe for prediction of economic growth according to the targeted Transparency level. In the last section, this paper briefly describes the application of the “Mahmud EcoT Model-2” taking Bangladesh and Romania as two case countries.

The increasing competitiveness has become in recent years an important coordinate of the socio-economic development strategies in most countries of the world, especially in the most developed ones, of the sectoral development strategies within the national economies, as well as of the business strategies. This paper presents an analysis of the competitiveness indices of several countries, including Romania and it is based on data provided by "The World Competitiveness Yearbook 2012-2013". "The World Competitiveness Yearbook" represents an analysis of the competitiveness of 60 economies using 333 criteria, published continuously since 1989. The 2013 edition shows competitiveness of national/regional economies based on 2012 data. The International Institute for Management Development uses over 300 criteria in determining competitiveness and they refer to economy, authorities’ efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure.

The article argues that most objections against a new wave of privatization in Russia suffer from a 'Nirvana fallacy', i.e., rely on undue comparison of limited (yet positive) results of actual privatization policies with the alleged ability of the government to raise efficiency of non-privatized enterprises. Empirical results available thus far suggest that optimal policy choice is to combine privatization with proactive competition policies.

The conditions and effects of government market regulations ARE The subject of discussion in this article. The first part of the study covers the discussion of the different interpretations of market failure and the consequent doubts about the application of this criterion as a condition for adjustment. The second part of the article attempts to make the hypothesis about inconsistent state market regulations plausible, based on a case study OF cigarette market in Poland.

There is a growing concern regarding housing supply management because of soaring housing prices consequent to recent market failure in China. This study is aimed at presenting an equilibrium-oriented housing supply management model that integrates housing supply and demand with time lag and reasonable vacancy area. For validity test of the model, Chengdu City was selected as a sample. The study establishes the feasibility of this model by demonstrating that optimized housing supply can narrow the gap between housing supply and demand. The implication of this finding is that planning of housing supply is an important management tool and that in applying this tool, local government should intervene in housing market to ensure scientific consideration of city's development position, economic growth and housing demand.

Households “sort” across neighborhoods according to their wealth and their preferences for public goods, social characteristics, and commuting opportunities. The aggregation of these individual choices in markets and in other institutions influences the supply of amenities and local public goods. Pollution, congestion, and the quality of public education are examples. Over the past decade, advances in economic models of this sorting process have led to a new framework that promises to alter the ways we conceptualize the policy evaluation process in the future. These “equilibrium sorting” models use the properties of market equilibria, together with information on household behavior, to infer structural parameters that characterize preference heterogeneity. The results can be used to develop theoretically consistent predictions for the welfare implications of future policy changes. Analysis is not confined to marginal effects or a partial equilibrium setting. Nor is it limited to prices and quantities. Sorting models can integrate descriptions of how nonmarket goods are generated, estimate how they affect decision making, and, in turn, predict how they will be affected by future policies targeting prices or quantities. Conversely, sorting models can predict how equilibrium prices and quantities will be affected by policies that target product quality, information, or amenities generated by the sorting process. These capabilities are just beginning to be understood and used in applied research. This survey article aims to synthesize the state of knowledge on equilibrium sorting, the new possibilities for policy analysis, and the conceptual and empirical challenges that define the frontiers of the literature. (JEL C63, D04, E61, H41, R23, R31, R38)

We study the expected welfare effects of targeted R&D subsidies using project-level data from Finland. We model the application and R&D investment decisions of firms and the subsidy-granting decision of the public agency in charge of the program. Our model and institutional environment allow us to identify different benefits and costs of the R&D subsidy program. We find that expected effects of subsidies are very heterogeneous and estimated application costs low on average. The social rate of return on targeted subsidies is 30% to 50%, but spillover effects of subsidies are smaller than effects on firm profits. © 2013 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Balance between flexibility and security in the labor market is essential for the achievement of performance criteria both employer and employee. In Romania populism characteristic of the period of transition to market economy and found an unfortunate reflection Labor Code - Law 53/2003, which established settlement in legal obvious imbalance between the interests of unions, very strong at that time, and the interests of employers represented employers' associations without a definite decision making power. Almost paradoxically triggered by the global financial crisis in 2008, accompanied by accelerating the privatization process led to the change of forces which allowed a number of amendments to the new Labour Code adopted by Law 53/2011. This study aims to identify the elements of balance between flexibility and safety in Romania and if we talk about adopting flexicurity work righteousness, as being implemented in developed countries in the European Union.

Research in behavioral public finance has blossomed in recent years, producing diverse empirical and theoretical insights. This article develops a single framework with which to understand these advances. Rather than drawing out the consequences of specific psychological assumptions, the framework takes a reduced-form approach to behavioral modeling. It emphasizes the difference between decision and experienced utility that underlies most behavioral models. We use this framework to examine the behavioral implications for canonical public finance problems involving the provision of social insurance, commodity taxation, and correcting externalities. We show how deeper principles undergird much work in this area and that many insights are not specific to a single psychological assumption.

Explicit economic incentives designed to increase contributions to public goods and to promote other pro-social behavior sometimes are counterproductive or less effective than would be predicted among entirely self-interested individuals. This may occur when incentives adversely affect individuals' altruism, ethical norms, intrinsic motives to serve the public, and other social preferences. The opposite also occurs—crowding in —though it appears less commonly. In the fifty experiments that we survey, these effects are common, so that incentives and social preferences may be either substitutes (crowding out) or complements (crowding in). We provide evidence for four mechanisms that may account for these incentive effects on preferences: namely that incentives may (i) provide information about the person who implemented the incentive, (ii) frame the decision situation so as to suggest appropriate behavior, (iii) compromise a control averse individual's sense of autonomy, and (iv) affect the process by which people learn new preferences. An implication is that the evaluation of public policy must be restricted to allocations that are supportable as Nash equilibria when account is taken of these crowding effects. We show that well designed fines, subsidies, and the like minimize crowding out and may even do the opposite, making incentives and social preferences complements rather than substitutes. (JEL D02, D03, D04, D83, E61, H41, Z13)

European Commission (EC) funding programmes in the field of education and training present supranational policy instruments bringing change to various levels of social reality at the national level. In an attempt to present the holistic view of their effect, this paper presents the results of the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) impact evaluation, which consisted of a mixed method research approach combining a focus group discussion method, interviews, content analysis, and survey research. Results show that EC education and training funding programmes do bring change to the national (system), mezzo (organisational), and micro (individual) levels. Yet, the impact seems to be different at the observed levels as well as in the different target domains, and is weakest at the system level. This prompts the question about whether it makes much (economic) sense to exploit EC programmes as mechanisms of national policy goal implementation.

This paper analyses the implementation of mainstream employment policies in Slovakia with respect to Roma. It highlights positive and negative practices in application, revealing diversity in on-the-ground implementation of different measures as well as institutional deficiencies in the provision of public employment services. By gathering experiences from the stakeholders involved in the implementation, as well as from Roma participants, the paper differs from top-down approaches to analysing employment policies prevailing to date and unveils the experiences, perceptions and practices of Roma themselves. It finds that the employment options available through the mainstream employment framework represent an important opportunity for many Roma in the deprived localities, especially under the economic deprivation aggravated by the recent economic crisis. Efforts should concentrate on up-scaling and targeting the mainstream framework, on fighting institutional discrimination, and on enhanced investment in education and training.

We model complexity in social programs as a by-product of the screening process. While a more rigorous screening process may improve targeting efficiency, the associated complexity is costly to applicants and induces incomplete take-up. We integrate the study of take-up with the study of rejection (Type I) and award (Type II) errors, and characterize optimal programs when policy makers choose screening intensity (and complexity), an eligibility rule, and a benefit level. Consistent with many real-world programs, optimal programs feature high complexity, incomplete take-up, classification errors of both Type I and II and, in some cases, "excessive" benefits. (JEL D04, D82, H23, 118, 138) United States operates a large number of social programs offering support to those in need. This includes cash assistance to the poor, food stamps, health insurance, housing programs, child care support, and social security to the aged, blind and disabled. We observe several differences in the design and outcomes of these programs. One difference lies in the degree of targeting to selected groups of individuals viewed as "deserving." Although the US welfare state in general relies on a much higher degree of targeting than most other countries, there is substantial variation in targeting across different programs within the US. At one end of the spectrum, the Medicare program is almost universal, while at the other end of the spectrum, disability insurance programs serve a relatively small population satisfying very stringent eligibility criteria. A second difference lies in the way social programs are administered and in their degree of complexity. Targeted programs tend to be characterized by a substantial amount of complexity and administrative hassle, whereas universal programs are simpler and more transparent. A third difference lies in the take-up of social benefits. Incomplete take-up among intended recipients is an important issue in all means-tested programs in the US, but there is huge varia

Randomized controlled trials are increasingly used to evaluate policies. How can we make these experiments as useful as possible for policy purposes? We argue greater use should be made of experiments that identify the behavioral mechanisms that are central to clearly specified policy questions, what we call “mechanism experiments.” These types of experiments can be of great policy value even if the intervention that is tested (or its setting) does not correspond exactly to any realistic policy option.

The research article presents the highly innovative theoretical research results: 1) the new quantum microeconomics theory in the quantum econophysics science is formulated; the idea on the existence of the discrete-time induced quantum transitions of firm’s earnings (the firm’s value) in the quantum microeconomics theory in the quantum econophysics science is proposed; 2) the formulas (1, 2) to compute the firm’s discrete-time EBITDA (the firm’s value) changes at the different time moments in the quantum microeconomics theory in the quantum econophysics science is derived; 3) the formulas (3, 4) to calculate the distribution of a number of the firms’ excited business processes of certain value at the selected firm’s state in the economy of scale and scope in terms of the quantum microeconomics theory in the quantum econophysics science is presented; 4) the notion on the wave function in the quantum microeconomics theories in the quantum econophysics science is introduced; 5) the formulas (5, 6) to predict the firm’s discrete-time EBITDA (the firm’s value) state changes in the national/global economies at the certain time moment, using the wave functions in the quantum econophysical time-dependent/time independent wave equations in the quantum microeconomic theory in the quantum econophysics science, are derived; 6) the evolutionary shifts from the classic economic theories to the quantum economic theories, from the analogue economic signal processing to the digital economic signal processing, from the continuous-time signal filtering economic prediction techniques to the wave functions computing economic prediction techniques in application to the quantum econophysics science are described; 7) the perspectives of application of the quantum microeconomics theory in the quantum econophysics science with the aim to solve the various economic problems in the real- and speculative- sectors of economic markets are discussed.

This paper studies the effect of one spouse’s retirement on the Retirement of the other using a Norwegian early reform, which reduced the retirement age for workers in selected firms. The findings indicate that after the reform, the spouses of those who could retire earlier were less likely to remain in the workforce compared to the spouses of those who were not included in the early retirement scheme. This finding is compatible with preferences for shared spousal leisure. Contrary to previous findings, wives respond to husbands’ early retirement decisions. However, the findings are less conclusive with respect to husbands’ response to wives’ early retirement decisions. An investigation of the responding wives’ labor market exit strategy reveals that the reform increased their likelihood of retiring with a disability pension, representing a cost to public finance incurred in addition to the general retirement costs. This study contributes to other recent evidence on the influence of of non-health-related factors on the use of disability benefits among older workers.

espanolLa contratacion temporal con bajos costes de despido ha sido tradicionalmente una medida destinada en muchos paises europeos a la contratacion de trabajadores jovenes y poco cualificados. Pero, ?Ayuda realmente a estos jovenes la contratacion temporal de cara a obtener una carrera laboral mas estable en el medio y largo plazo? En este trabajo utilizamos datos de la Seguridad Social para profundizar en el estudio del impacto a largo plazo de la temporalidad sobre la trayectoria laboral de los jovenes en Espana. Para ello, hacemos un seguimiento de las cohortes de hombres con bajo nivel educativo que ingresan al mercado de trabajo justo antes y justo despues de la reforma de 1984 que liberalizo el uso de la temporalidad en Espana. Mediante un diseno de regresion discontinua (regression discontinuity design) se muestra que, en comparacion con los trabajadores que entraron en el mercado de trabajo justo antes de la reforma, los trabajadores que ingresaron al mercado laboral cuando los contratos temporales eran ya la regla de contratacion basica en Espana tuvieron algo mas facil el acceso al mercado de trabajo. Concretamente encontramos que la probabilidad de estar trabajando antes de cumplir los 20 anos se eleva para los que entraron en el mercado de trabajo tras la reforma de 1984 es, ceteris paribus, un 14% mas alta que para los que empezaron a trabajar antes de dicho ano. Sin embargo, este efecto inicial positivo no parece trasladarse al medio y largo plazo. En efecto, nuestros resultados muestran que los trabajadores afectados al inicio de su vida laboral por la reforma de 1984 trabajaron, en media, casi 200 dias menos, computados desde su entrada en el mercado de trabajo hasta el ano 2006, que los que iniciaron su vida laboral cuando la reforma de 1984 no estaba vigente. Este resultado se deriva, fundamentalmente, de que los trabajadores afectados por la reforma han experimentado, en media mas experiencias de empleo no estable, y por tanto de desempleo, que trabajadores equivalentes pero que entraron en el mercado de trabajo unos meses antes, cuando los contratos temporales no estaban disponibles. Asimismo, encontramos que los trabajadores que entraron al mercado de trabajo despues de 1984 han acumulado unas rentas salariales desde su entrada al mercado de trabajo hasta finales del ano 2006 un 22% inferiores a los que entraron al mercado de trabajo unos meses antes a ellos, cuando la contratacion temporal estaba mucho mas restringida. Estas importantes perdidas no solo son la consecuencia de haber trabajado menos dias a lo largo de su carrera laboral, sino que tambien responden a las conocidas penalizaciones asociadas con el trabajo con contrato temporal y con el efecto negativo que tiene sobre las ganancias salariales el paso por una situacion recurrente de desempleo. Estos resultados sugieren que, en general, el uso intensivo de la contratacion temporal al inicio de la vida laboral tiene consecuencias muy importantes a medio y largo plazo sobre la carrera laboral de los jovenes. A pesar de que estos contratos parecen permitir a los trabajadores una mayor experiencia laboral mediante una mayor rotacion entre empresas y sectores productivos distintos, las consecuencias a largo plazo sobre el bienestar de los mismos son muy negativas EnglishFixed-term contracts have low firing costs and can thus help low skilled youth find a first job faster. But do these workers get a more rewarding career? Using Spanish social security data, we compare the careers of native male high-school dropouts who entered the labor market just before and just after a large liberalization in the use of fixed-term contracts in 1984. Using a cohort regression discontinuity design we find that the reform raised the likelihood of working before age 20. However, by substantially increasing the number of employment spells it reduced workers' accumulated employment up to 2006 by almost 200 days and accumulated wages by 22%. These effects are concentrated during the first 5-10 years of these young workers� career. We conclude that widespread fixed-term contracts have harmed the careers of low-skilled workers.

Cet article présente une expérience naturelle où une commune française a décidé de sanctionner financièrement les parents venant chercher leurs enfants avec retard dans les centres de loisirs communaux. Après cinq mois de mise en oeuvre de ce dispositif, contrairement aux conclusions obtenues par Gneezy et Rustichini (2000a), il est constaté une diminution significative du nombre de retards. Nous attribuons cette différence à trois caractéristiques spécifiques du dispositif de sanction français : 1/ celui-ci n’a pas été imposé de manière brutale mais construit après consultation des différentes parties prenantes, y compris les parents (impliqués dans un groupe de travail) ; 2/ La communication auprès des parents pour justifier l’introduction de cette sanction a été centrée sur les motivations non financières c’est-à-dire sur les nuisances que les retards induisaient pour le personnel plutôt que sur le coût financier des retards ; 3/ la sanction financière est proportionnelle à la durée du retard et au revenu des parents et, en dernier ressors, existe la possibilité d’exclure les enfants.

In 1996, the Swedish energy market was deregulated, and one of the changes was that after the deregulation, the consumer can now choose electricity retailer in the Swedish market. This, however, raises the question of how retailers and consumers have handled the transition from local monopolies to a national market for retail electricity in Sweden. Has the extent of the market changed from the municipality to the nation as wanted by the regulators or not? The results presented in this paper indicate that there are some market imperfections remaining, at least for fixed price contracts, and that price movements for such contracts are not fully parallel as would be the case if the law of one price would hold. However, the size of the market imperfection seem to be quite small, as the price difference between the dominant firms in the market and the day-by-day lowest price offered indicate that the consumer could save on average 5.21 öre per Kwh if always being able to patronize the lowest price contract in the market. For a Swedish household consuming 20 000 Kwh, the savings of always having the cheapest contract would then imply a yearly saving of approximately 1000 SEK per year.

We analyze linked databases on all Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, on all SBA lenders, and on all U.S. employers to estimate the effects of financial access on employment growth. Our methods combine regressions with matching on firm age, size, industry, year, and employment history, and with instrumental variables capturing ease of access to SBA lenders. The estimation results imply an increase of 3-4 jobs for each million dollars of loans, suggesting that credit constraints impede small business growth prior to loan receipt. We also investigate the variation in estimated employment effects for the SBA 504 versus 7(a) programs, and with respect to the business cycle, local credit conditions, and within-county versus non-SBA county-industry control firms. Finally, for loans issued over the 1992-2007 period, we estimate total job creation of 1.0-2.1 million and the government's cost per job of $8,200-$18,000 measured five years after the loan year.

This study looks at the effects of participating in active labour market policy programs for persons with work disabilities. More in detail, it draws attention to the importance of taking into account the timing of when a work disability has been registered for persons attending ALMP programs. We argue that not controlling for time of events, i.e. the exact time a participant starts a program, as well as the time that person is being registered with a work disability, implies a risk of ending up with biased estimations with respect to the effectiveness of certain ALMP programs.

We study issues related to external validity for treatment effects using over 100 replications of the Angrist and Evans (1998) natural experiment on the effects of sibling sex composition on fertility and labor supply. The replications are based on census data from around the world going back to 1960. We decompose sources of error in predicting treatment effects in external contexts in terms of macro and micro sources of variation. In our empirical setting, we find that macro covariates dominate over micro covariates for reducing errors in predicting treatments, an issue that past studies of external validity have been unable to evaluate. We develop methods for two applications to evidence-based decision-making, including determining where to locate an experiment and whether policy-makers should commission new experiments or rely on an existing evidence base for making a policy decision., Comment: forthcoming at Journal of Business and Economic Statistics

Real time information feedback combined with various pricing schemes has been found to reduce residential energy consumption more than information and pricing policies alone. I examine the effect of information provision with bi-monthly, monthly, and real time pricing with in-home displays with a time-of-use pricing scheme on consumption over each month of the Irish Consumer Behavior Trial. I find that time-of-use pricing with real time pricing information reduce electricity usage up to 8.7 percent during peak times at the start of the trial but the effect decays over the first three months and after three months the trial group is indistinguishable from the control group. I do not find statistically significant improvements in energy savings when comparing monthly and bi-monthly billing treatments. These findings suggest that increasing billing reports to the monthly level or a web application providing real time information may be more cost effective than providing in-home displays.

We study the effects of a Danish wage subsidy program for highly educated workers on the labor market outcomes of the persons participating in the program and on the performance of the firms that hired these subsidized workers. Using data on the population of program participants, both individuals and firms, we find that the program had positive effects on employment and wages the year individuals participate in the program. For wages, we also find positive and statistically significant effects for the two subsequent years. At the program participating firm level, we find statistically significant effects on the number of highly educated employees for both the period of program participation and the subsequent time period.