In this paper we analyse the empirical performance of several preference functionals using individual and group data. Our investigation aims to address two fundamental questions that have, until now, not been addressed in literature. Specifically, we intend to assess if there exists a risky...

Blindness and visual impairment is considered a public health problem in a vast majority of low- and middle-income countries. This paper empirically evaluates advocacy in low and middle income countries as the key tool to raising policy priority and securing high-level decision maker support in...

This experimental study investigates insurance decisions in low-probability, high-loss risk situations. Results indicate that subjects consider the probability of loss (loss size) when they make buying decisions (paying decisions). Most individuals are risk averse with no specific threshold...

We adopt a structural approach to studying the effects of public transfers on consumption smoothing, risk sharing and welfare in small village economies. We calibrate the key parameters of a dynamic limited commitment model using data gathered as part of the Mexican Progresa program, and take...

This paper re-examines CO2 emissions in 22 OECD countries over the period 1870–2006. It contributes to the field of environmental economics trying to clarify the possible sources of the mixed evidence on CO2 emissions convergence. To this end we employ a detailed methodological strategy. First...

Power law behavior has been recognized to be a pervasive feature of many phenomena in natural and social sciences. While immense research efforts have been devoted to the analysis of behavioral mechanisms responsible for the ubiquity of power-law scaling, the strong theoretical foundation of...

A new panel method is applied to the case of Chinese provinces to analyze the existence of club convergence in terms of per capita income, labor productivity, capital intensity, and total factor productivity from 1952 to 2008. The advantage of this approach is that it takes into account the...

There is an old saying that states that “If the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold”. Against this background, it is argued that some countries, especifically China, can “decouple” from the US economy and sustain strong growth in the face of a US slowdown. In this...

We study housing and debt in a quantitative general equilibrium model. In the cross-section, the model matches the wealth distribution, the age pro?les of homeownership and mortgage debt, and the frequency of housing adjustment. In the time-series, the model matches the procyclicality and...

We endogenize firms’ organizational structures in a homogenous goods duopoly where firms invest in cost reducing R&D and compete in quantities, and examine their impact on R&D efforts, market performance and social welfare. Each firm’s owner can either delegate to a manager both market...