This paper applies the Ijiri–Simon test for systematic deviations from Gibrat's law to citation numbers of economists. It is found that often-cited researchers attract new citation numbers that are disproportionate to the quality of their work. It is also found that this Matthew effect is...

Quantile kernel regression is a flexible way to estimate the percentile of a scholar's quality stratified by a measurable characteristic, without imposing inappropriate assumption about functional form or population distribution. Quantile kernel regression is here applied to identifying the...

A rational, successive g-index is proposed, and applied to economics departments in Ireland. The successive g-index has greater discriminatory power than the successive h-index, and the rational index performs better still. The rational, successive g-index is also more robust to differences in...

Two possible adaptation scenarios to climate change for Sub-Saharan Africa are analyzed under the SRES B2 scenario. The first scenario doubles the irrigated area in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2050, compared to the baseline, but keeps total crop area constant. The second scenario increases both...

Estimates of the impacts of observed climate change during the 20th century obtained by different integrated assessment models (IAMs) are separated into their main natural and anthropogenic components. The estimates of the costs that can be attributed to natural variability factors and to the...

A Bentham–Rawls welfare function is the weighted sum of the net present welfare (Bentham) and the welfare of the worst-off generation (Rawls). If utility is non-decreasing over time, optimal climate policy is more stringent in the near-term under the Bentham criterion than under the...

The sale of state assets, both tangible (e.g. commercial firms) and intangible (e.g. radio spectrum), can address budgetary shortfalls. However, drawing on the Irish experience to inform this important issue, it becomes clear that much more is involved in selling state assets in electricity,...

We examine the impact of recent tax reforms in Ireland on private car transport and its greenhouse gas emissions. A carbon tax was introduced on fuels, and purchase (vehicle registration) and ownership (motor) taxes were switched from engine size to potential emissions. We use a demographic...

Energy usage and energy efficiency are of increasing concern in Ireland. Regression analyses on a large household micro-dataset reveal that those homes that have more energy-saving features are also likely to have a high [`]potential energy use'. Statistically significant dwelling features...

Ocean acidification is increasingly recognized as a major global problem. Yet economic assessments of its effects are currently almost absent. Unlike most other marine organisms, mollusks, which have significant commercial value worldwide, have relatively solid scientific evidence of biological...