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Human Development in Africa: A Long-run Perspective
Prados de la Escosura, Leandro - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2011
the UNDP’s HDI. A sustained improvement in African human development is found that falls, nonetheless, short of those …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009322973
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World Human Development: 1870-2007
Prados de la Escosura, Leandro - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2013
How has wellbeing evolved over time and across regions? How does the West compare to the Rest? What explains their differences? These questions are addressed using an historical index of human development. A sustained improvement in wellbeing has taken place since 1870. The absolute gap between...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011084034
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Private Provision of Public Goods and Information Diffusion in Social Groups
Scharf, Kimberley - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2011
We describe a model of fundraising in social groups, where private information about quality of provision is transmitted by social proximity. Individuals engage in voluntary provision of a pure collective good that is consumed by both neighbors and non-neighbors. We show that, unlike in the case...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009320406
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Good rankings are bad - Why reliable rankings can hurt consumers
Bouton, Laurent; Kirchsteiger, Georg - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2011
Ranking have become increasingly popular on markets for study programs, restaurants, wines, cars, etc. This paper … exogenous presence or absence of an informative ranking. We show that existence of the ranking might make all consumers worse … off. The existence of a ranking changes the demand structure of consumers. With rigid prices and rationing, the change can …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009385758
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Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox
Stevenson, Betsey; Wolfers, Justin - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2008
The "Easterlin paradox" suggests that there is no link between a society’s economic development and its average level of happiness. We re-assess this paradox analyzing multiple rich datasets spanning many decades. Using recent data on a broader array of countries, we establish a clear positive...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005667028
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Who Owns Children and Does it Matter?
Schoonbroodt, Alice; Tertilt, Michèle - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2010
Is there an economic rationale for pronatalist policies? In this paper we propose and analyze a particular market failure that may lead to inefficiently low equilibrium fertility and therefore to a need for government intervention. The friction we investigate is related to the ownership of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008468613
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Limits of Arbitrage: The State of the Theory
Gromb, Denis; Vayanos, Dimitri - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2010
We survey theoretical developments in the literature on the limits of arbitrage. This literature investigates how costs faced by arbitrageurs can prevent them from eliminating mispricings and providing liquidity to other investors. Research in this area is currently evolving into a broader...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008530340
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Price Controls and Consumer Surplus
Bulow, Jeremy I.; Klemperer, Paul - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2009
The condition for when a price control increases consumer welfare in perfect competition is tighter than often realised. When demand is linear, a small restriction on price only increases consumer surplus if the elasticity of demand exceeds the elasticity of supply; with log-linear or...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10004976788
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How Robust is the New Conventional Wisdom? The Surprising Fragility of the Theoretical Foundations of Inflation Targeting and Central Bank Independence
Buiter, Willem H. - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2006
Flexible inflation targeting cannot be rationalised using conventional welfare economic criteria, except in a single, practically uninteresting special case. New-Keynesian DSGE models imply that optimal monetary policy implements the Bailey-Friedman Optimal Quantity of Money rule and that actual...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005124349
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The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness
Stevenson, Betsey; Wolfers, Justin - C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers - 2009
By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative well-being...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005036241