Anthropogenic climate change has triggered impacts on natural and human systems world-wide, yet the formal scientific method of detection and attribution has been only insufficiently described. Detection and attribution of impacts of climate change is a fundamentally cross-disciplinary issue,...

Why do some countries have no first-order administrative subdivisions (e.g., states or provinces), whereas other countries have over 80? Recently, economists have started to look at the optimal size of countries and forces influencing the creation of local political jurisdictions like school...

This paper examines the consequences of data error in data series used to construct aggregate indicators. Using the most popular indicator of country level economic development, the Human Development Index (HDI), we identify three separate sources of data error. We propose a simple statistical...

We examine the effects of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAAs) on ambient concentrations of PM10 in the United States between 1990 and 2005. We find that non-attainment designation has no effect on the "average monitor" in non-attainment counties, after controlling for weather and...

Until recently, ISI Thompson's Web of Science-Social Sciences Citation Index was the only rigorous tool for tracking citation counts of academic research papers. The recent emergence of Google Scholar provides an alternative measure for tracking citation counts for refereed journal articles,...

Anticipation of an International Environmental Agreement provides an incentive for countries to change their production behavior prior to negotiations in order to gain a favorable bargaining position. Increased historical production figures at the time of negotiations may influence the magnitude...

This paper examines the consequences of data error in data series used to construct aggregate indicators. Using the most popular indicator of country level economic development, the Human Development Index (HDI), we identify three separate sources of data error. We propose a simple statistical...