Suppose an altruistic person, A, is willing to transfer resources to a second person, B, if B comes upon hard times. If B anticipates that A will act in this manner, B will save too little from both agents' point of view. This is the Samaritan's dilemma. The logic of the dilemma has been...

This paper models aid agencies as financial intermediaries that do not make a financial return to depositors, since the depositors' concern is to transfer resources to investor-beneficiaries. This leads to a significant problem of verification of the agencies' activities. One solution to this...

Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem shows that transitive social preference is impossible. This note shows that in the general case of exchange, social preference need not be transitive. Indeed, it shows that social preference must be non-transitive to allow gainful exchange to maximize social...

East Asia is one of the most important areas of tropical forests worldwide. Considerable concern has arisen that the East Asian economic crisis would result in a further worsening of the already high pressures experienced by the region’s forests. This report examines the available evidence on...

The industrial diversification of cities is explained without imposing linkages among industries. In each of two city-industries, a manufacture is produced competitively as the final good using labor and industry- specific differentiated services. Manufacturers import the services of their...