This paper explores the emergence of large current account imbalances in a few large countries, the factors behind the emergence, the role of those imbalances in the financial crisis of 2008-09, and the implications of achieving global balance. Imbalances reflect a country’s net savings and...

This article proposes a set of sustainability indicators based on a combination of economic, social and health data that meet three tests: the indicators are simple, measurable and capable of being extended to workers in the field. They result from a scoring model which ranks the progress of...

About 10% of primary school students in developing countries have poor vision, but very few of them wear glasses. Almost no research examines the impact of poor vision on school performance, and simple OLS estimates are likely to be biased because studying harder often adversely affect one’s...

Developing countries spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on schools, educational materials and teachers, but relatively little is known about how effective these expenditures are at increasing students’ years of completed schooling and, more importantly, the skills that they learn...

The objective of this study is to identify the relationship between food quality and stores perceived quality and how they effect the perceived value of products. In particular, the organic products characteristics have been considered. A consumer survey was carried out through a questionnaire....

Italian demand for organic products is rapidly increasing, yet there is currently no supply of certified organic marine-fish. Moreover, over recent years marine fish farm profitability has been reduced because of competition from imported products. A pilot project was carried out in order to: a)...

This paper explores the efficiency of tradable permit markets for stock pollutants. With uncertainty about the future stock level or damages, a market with banking and borrowing is inferior, in terms of efficiency, compared to a market without banking and borrowing if the regulator commits to an...

Two of the major trends shaping the evolution of agriculture in the United States are reduced diversification and increased risk in grain-crop production. This paper will attempt to document these trends since 1950, with data for one state, Minnesota. Since the state produces no cotton, rice,...

In this paper, we postulate that uncertainties associated with nonpoint source pollution and with certain features of pollutant trading may tend to outweigh the potential benefits of pollutant trading from the standpoint of regulatory agencies and point source dischargers. After identifying...