Using detailed geographical and household survey data from Nepal, this article investigates the relationship between isolation and subjective welfare. This is achieved by examining how distance to markets and proximity to large urban centers affect responses to questions about income and...

This paper considers the identification of the effect of tobacco on mortality. If individuals select into smoking according to some unobserved health characteristic, then estimates of the effect of tobacco on health that do not account for this are biased. We show that using information on...

This paper analyses how competition over rebates for customer loyalty across product lines affects firms` pricing and consumers generally. If buyers incur firm specific costs or have shop specific tastes then competitive loyalty discounts lower consumer surplus overall and raise profits - the...

This paper analyses market valuations of UK companies using a new data set of their R&D and IP activities (1989-1999). In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the sector level, where the sectors are based on the technological classification in Pavitt (1984). The first main...

We reconsider the job design theory of Holmstrom and Milgrom (1991), to include career concerns considerations. When reputations are considered, discretion may play a more integral part of the incentive scheme. It can be a useful instrument to enhance incentives and prevent the adverse selection...

This paper considers the impact of reviewers on sales of products of quality unknown to consumers. Sales occur simultaneously after consideration by a reviewer with a known level of bias. Consumers observe the reviewer`s decision and a private signal. We find that: (a) with flexible prices and...

The controversy over Ricardo`s corn model has focussed on the interpretation of his early writings. Here Ricardo`s later use of a corn model example in his dispute with Malthus over gluts is discussed. Malthus`s own extensive use of a corn model in attempting to justify his use of a labour...

The purpose of this paper is to reflect, from an economist`s point of view, on the methodological issues raised by the study of social capital. This term has been used in many different ways to cover a broad range of phenomena (Durlauf & Fafchamps 2002). Perhaps it is best seen as a way of...

In this note we identify and clarify a confusion that has arisen in the literature about the exact relationship between unitary and collective models and what enters the Pareto weight and the sharing function. We suggest that we should denote as `unitary` any model that leads to outcomes that...

To forecast at several, say h, periods into the future, a modeller faces two techniques: iterating one-step ahead forecasts (the IMS technique) or directly modeling the relation betwen observations separated by an h-period interval and using it for forecasting (DMS forecasting). It is known that...