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作者：Simpson, RD; Sedjo, RA; Reid, JW
摘要：''Biodiversity prospecting'' has been touted as a mechanism for both discovering new pharmaceutical products and saving endangered ecosystems. It is unclear what values may arise from such activities, however. Evidence from transactions is incomplete and existing theoretical models are flawed. We calculate an upper bound on the value of the ''marginal species.'' Even under favorable assumptions this bound is modest. Slightly modified assumptions lead to drastically lower estimates. We extend o...
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作者：Cochrane, JH
作者单位：National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：I examine a factor pricing model for stock returns, The factors are returns on physical investment, infer red from investment data via a production function. I examine the model's ability to explain variation in expected returns across assets and over time. The model is not rejected. It performs about as well as the CAPM and the Chen, Roll, and Ross factor model, and it performs substantially better than a simple consumption-based model. I also provide an easy technique for estimating and test...
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作者：Lothian, JR; Taylor, MP
作者单位：University of Liverpool; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
摘要：Using annual data spanning two centuries for dollar-sterling and franc-sterling real exchange rates, we find strong evidence of mean-reverting real exchange rate behavior. Using simple, stationary, autoregressive models estimated on prefloat data, we easily outperform nonstationary real exchange rate models in dynamic forecasting exercises over the recent float. Such stationary univariate equations explain 60-80 percent of the in-sample variation in real exchange rates, although the degree of ...
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作者：Campbell, JY
摘要：This paper uses an equilibrium multifactor model to interpret the cross-sectional pattern of postwar U.S. stock and bond returns. Priced factors include the return on a stock index, revisions in forecasts of future stock returns (to capture intertemporal hedging effects), and revisions in forecasts of future labor income growth (proxies for the return on human capital). Aggregate stock market risk is the main factor determining excess returns; but in the presence of human capital or stock mark...
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作者：Pratt, JW; Zeckhauser, RJ
摘要：Willingness to pay (WTP), most economists believe, is an appropriate benefits metric for government expenditure and regulatory policies that reduce risks to human life. It depends, however, on the distribution of risk and wealth. Currently, society's expenditures overemphasize concentrated risks, say after-the-fact treatment as opposed to prevention. A ''dead-anyway'' effect complements excess attention to intense interests in explaining this. Our normative criterion for spending on risk reduc...
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作者：Gorton, G
作者单位：National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Two hypotheses concerning firms issuing debt for the first time are tested. The first is that new firms' debt will be discounted more heavily by lenders, compared to firms that have credit histories (but are otherwise identical), and that this excess discount declines over time as lenders observe defaults. The declining interest rate corresponds to the formation of a ''reputation,'' a valuable asset that provides an incentive for firms not to choose risky projects. The second hypothesis is tha...
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作者：Subramanian, S; Deaton, A
作者单位：Princeton University
摘要：We investigate nutrition and expenditure in rural Maharashtra in India. We estimate that the elasticity of calorie consumption with respect to total expenditure is 0.3-0.5, a range that is in accord with conventional wisdom. The elasticity declines only slowly with levels of living and is far from the value of zero suggested by a recent revisionist literature. In these Indian data, the calories necessary for a day's activity cost less than 5 percent of the daily wage, which makes it implausibl...
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作者：SARGENT, TJ; VELDE, FR
作者单位：Stanford University; Johns Hopkins University
摘要：This paper describes aspects of the French Revolution from the perspective of theories about money and government budget constraints. We describe how unpleasant fiscal arithmetic gripped the Old Regime, how the Estates General responded to reorganize France's fiscal affairs, and how fiscal exigencies impelled the Revolution into a procession of monetary experiments ending in hyperinflation.
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作者：BESLEY, T
摘要：This paper examines the link between property rights and investment incentives. I develop three theoretical arguments based on security of tenure, using land as collateral and obtaining gains from trade. The paper then presents empirical evidence from two regions in Ghana. I investigate the possibility that rights are endogenous, with farmers making improvements to enhance their land rights. Finally, I suggest tests for which of the theories might explain the results.
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作者：SMITH, VK; HUANG, JC
作者单位：University of North Carolina; East Carolina University
摘要：This paper reports the results of a statistical summary of estimates of the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for reducing particulate matter from hedonic property value models developed between 1967 and 1988. Results using both ordinary least squares and minimum absolute deviation estimators suggest that market conditions and the procedures used to implement the hedonic models were important to the resulting MWTP estimates. The interquartile range for these estimated marginal values (measure...
