Using the Kehoe and Ruhl (2009) methodology, we investigate whether the variety of traded goods, which is the extensive margin of trade, has actually changed in a transition economy, such as Mongolia, as predicted by recent theoretical models. We find large increases in the extensive margin of...

How disaster aid is allocated within poor villages is little understood. This paper examines risk-sharing institutions and social hierarchies as village self-allocation mechanisms. Original survey data from Fiji contain rich information about cyclone damage, traditional kin status, and aid...

This chapter reviews farm-level economic models of shifting cultivation and those of deforestation and soil conservation related to shifting cultivation. Although economists have made significant progress in modeling shifting cultivation over the last two decades, extant economic models neither...

The introduction of exchange rate regimes into the standard Ricardian model of trade implies stronger positive nominal wage comovements between trading countries that fix their bilateral exchange rates. Panel regression results based on data from OECD countries from 1973 to 2010 suggest that...

We develop a new approach to localized knowledge spillovers by incorporating the concept of control patents (Jaffe, Trajtenberg and Henderson 1993) into the distance-based test of localization (Duranton and Overman, 2005). Using microgeographic data, we identify localization distance while...

This paper attempts to predict the volatility of interest rates through dynamic term structure models. For this attempt, the models are improved, based on the three-factor Gaussian model, to have level-dependent volatilities supported by data. The empirical results show that the predictive power...

It is commonly observed in practices that prime contractors solicit subcontract bids, prior to submitting their bids in procurement auctions: the auctioneers in subcontract auctions will become bidders in a procurement auction. This point is remarkably different from the standard theory of...

To design effective policies for rainforest conservation in shifting cultivation systems, it is crucial to have a better understanding of shifting cultivatorsf decision making. This paper develops a unified dynamic farm model of shifting cultivation, addressing two lacunae in extant theoretical...

The effect of accepting more immigrants on welfare in the presence of a pay-as-you-go social security system is analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. First, it is shown that if initially there exist intergenerational government transfers from the young to the old, the government can lead an...

To be the lowest bidder in procurement auctions, prime contractors commonly solicit subcontract bids at the bid preparation stage. A remarkable feature of the subcontract competition is that "winning is not everything"; the lowest subcontractor gets a job conditional on his prime contractor's...