Public benefit-cost analysis of market policies often relies on a particular definition of market surplus that adds up consumer and producer surplus and external costs. This paper provides an overview of conceptual strategies to deal with moral considerations and then develops an adjusted market...

Market power on each side of a multisided platform, whether in the form of increasing prices or decreasing quality, is constrained by the risk of losing sales on the other sides. That tends to weaken market power on each side and encourages platforms to keep prices lower and quality higher than...

We study optimal testing to inform quarantine decisions for a population exhibiting a heterogeneous probability of carrying a pathogen. Because test supply is limited, the planner may choose to test a pooled sample, which contains the specimens of multiple individuals (Dorfman, 1943). We...

Los servicios ecosistémicos que prestan los páramos no cuentan con un precio de mercado y como consecuencia la asignación del uso del suelo en estos ecosistemas resulta ineficiente. En este artículo se estudia el caso del Páramo de Santurbán usando un enfoque de optimización dinámica...

This article provides an overview of the use of field experiments in energy and resource economics. I concentrate on two areas of study; field experiments that (i) speak to the use of dynamic pricing plans to manage the use of electricity and water and (ii) explore the adoption of energy saving...

We examine the impact of European car scrappage programs on new vehicle registrations and respective CO2 emissions. To construct proper counterfactuals, we develop MSCM-T, the multivariate synthetic control method using time series of economic predictors. Applying MSCM-T to a rich data set...

To help first- or second-year graduate students in economics apply their theoretical training, this paper shows how to solve a simple and intuitive computable general equilibrium (CGE) model using a calculator. Because this simplified Harberger model uses Cobb Douglas functional forms for...

We conduct an incentive-theoretical analysis of political economy considerations in the design of social protection programmes in developing countries to accompany economic reforms. We focus on two aspects of social protection - the provision of redistribution and retraining - that arguably...

We study the effects of various environmental regulations on environmental performance measured as emission intensity. Moreover, we aim to test whether any such effects are persistent or only temporary. Conventional theory predicts that indirect regulations as opposed to direct regulations...

Consumption surveys often record zero purchases of a good because of a short observation window. Only mean consumption rates can then be inferred. We show that propensity scores can be used to estimate each unit's consumption rate, revealing the distribution. We demonstrate the method using the...