Engineering models generally find that most consumers are unwilling to adopt energy efficient appliances, even though the financial returns are positive. It is commonly thought that this is either due to market imperfections such as an incomplete credit market, very high intertemporal consumer...

Diminishing marginal utility is neither necessary nor sufficient for downward sloping demand. Yet upper-division undergraduate and beginning graduate students often presume otherwise. This paper provides two simple counter examples that can be used to help students understand that the Law of...

Diminishing marginal utility (DMU) is neither necessary nor sufficient for downward-sloping demand. Yet, upper-division undergraduate and beginning graduate students often presumeotherwise. This paper provides two simple counter-examples that can be used to help students understand that the Law...

With an eye to providing a methodology for tracking the dynamic integrity of prices for important market indicators, in this paper we use Benford second digit reference distribution to track the daily London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) over the period 2005-2008. This reference, known as...

Apple’s original decision to market iPhones using a single downstream vendor prompted calls for mandatory universal distribution (MUD), whereby all downstream vendors would sell the iPhone under the same contract terms. The upstream monopoly may want eitherone or more downstream vendors,...

A large share of international trade occurs through intra-firm transactions. We show that this common cross-border organization of the firm has implications for the well-documented incomplete transmission of shocks across such borders. We present new evidence of an inverse relationship between a...

Although many theoretical industrial organization models are based on the existence of a critical mass of exogenously “brand loyal†consumers, we find little empirical evidence supporting these assumptions in the orange juice retail market. There are very few loyal consumers. More...

This report summarizes preliminary findings of the Mexican National Database and Community Survey Project which examines linkages between institutional characteristics in Mexico’s common property forestry sector and economic and environmental outcomes. Framing the Mexican agrarian...

In the absence of a global climate agreement, countries employ local policies to curb pollution and introduce clean energy. These policies limit domestic consumption of a traded energy source but increase exports thus improving a country’s energy balance and its balance of trade. While...

We introduce a version of the DICE-2007 model designed for uncertaintyanalysis. DICE is a wide-spread deterministic integrated assessment model of climatechange. Climate change, long-term economic development, and their interactionsare highly uncertain. The quantitative analysis of optimal...