Governments often establish economic policy in response to political pressure by interest groups. Since these groups' political activities may alter prices, economies so affected cannot be characterized by perfect competition. We develop a model of a "lobbying economy" in which consumers' choice...

A model of expected utility maximization and a stochastic health production function are used to show how consumer's beliefs, the certainty of beliefs, and the presence of information affects demand for goods as they are driven by the demand for health. Then, it is shown that competitive markets...

A growth accounting and an econometric exercise are used to provide insights into the evolution of the Taiwanese economy over the period 1966-96. The approach links the GDP function of a multiple sector neoclassical growth model to growth accounting and, subsequently to the estimation of the...

Using an endogenous growth framework, this paper analyzes the impact of lobbying for public goods on the long run steady-state growth rate of the economy. A socially optimal level of lobbying can be found to exist in the absence of a social planner. Atomistic households, however, exceed this...

The effects of environment on trade and welfare are analyzed in a modified Heckscher-Ohlin framework using a quasi-homothetic preferences to account for differences in countries' expenditure shares on health. Three types of pollution, local-disembodied, global-disembodied and embodied, result as...

This paper focuses on the private and social rates of return to R&D capital in the three vertically linked sectors, primary agriculture, food processing, and farm machinery and equipment. Evidence supporting a divergence between these rates is found for primary agriculture and food processing....

Does democratization imply faster growth, less corruption and less inefficiency? Past studies yield ambiguous results on the effects of democracy on economic performance and growth. We develop a simple two-sector endogenous growth model that shows both very young and mature democracies grow...

This study investigates whether HIV prevalence rates impact TFP growth. We construct a panel of data on general macroeconomic indicators and HIV prevalence rates for over 100 countries, for the years 1994 through 2002, and estimate the impact of HIV on TFP growth rates for each country. We find...

Many of the import competing sectors in Moroccan agriculture are protected while water in irrigated agriculture is priced below its marginal value product. Establishing a water market in this pre-trade reform environment can be welfare decreasing. Further, as the shadow price of water is...