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Front Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Executive Summary -- Chapter 1 What Are the Government's Plans for the Sector? -- Sector Plans -- Notes -- Chapter 2 Why Is Tariff Reform Necessary? -- Tariff Reform -- Notes -- Chapter 3 What Is the Likely Impact of Tariff Reform? -- Impact of the Reform -- Chapter 4 How Can Tariff Reform Be Best Implemented? -- Implementation of the Reform -- Appendix A Overview of the District Heating Sector in Belarus -- Introduction -- Demand and Supply Characteristics -- Service Providers -- Policy and Regulation -- Tariff and Subsidies in the District Heating Sector -- Notes -- Appendix B The Distributional Impact of Tariff Reform on Households and Industries -- Introduction -- Household Energy Expenditure Patterns -- Distributional Impact of District Heating Tariff Increase -- Cross-Subsidization and Industrial Competitiveness -- Appendix C Methodologies of Focus Group Discussions and In-Depth Interviews -- Introduction -- Focus Group Discussions -- In-Depth Interviews -- The Localities Chosen for Focus Group Discussions and In-Depth Interviews -- Appendix D Communicating Heating Tariff Reform to Household Lessons and Experience from Eastern European Countries and Russia -- Poland -- Hungary -- Estonia -- Bulgaria -- Russia -- References -- Figures -- 2.1 Declining Cost-Recovery Levels of Residential Heat Service, 2005-12 -- 2.2 Import Prices of Russian Natural Gas, 2005-12 -- 2.3 Comparison of Tariffs and Production Costs of ZhKHs and Belenergo, 2005-12 -- 2.4 Industrial Electricity Tariffs, 2005-14 -- 2.5 Cross- and Direct Budgetary Subsidies to Residential District Heating, 2005-12 -- 2.6 Unit Energy Cost of Manufacturing, by Country -- 2.7 Output Price Increases from Imposing Implicit Electricity Tax on Industrial Consumers.

Inflation is a simple topic, in that the basic concepts are something that everyone can understand. However, inflation is not a simplistic topic. The composition of inflation and what the different inflation measures try to represent cannot be summarised with a single line on a chart or a casual reference to a solitary data point. Investors very often fail to understand the detail behind inflation, and end up making bad investment decisions as a result. The Truth About Inflation does not set out to forecast inflation, but to help improve its understanding, so that investors can make better decisions to achieve the real returns that they need. Starting with a summary of long history of inflation, the drivers of price change are considered. Many of the "urban myths" that have built up about inflation are shown to be a consequence of irrational judgement or political scaremongering. Some behaviour, like the unhealthy veneration of gold as a means of inflation protection, is shown to be the result of historical accident. In the modern era of lower nominal investment returns, inflation inequality (whereby some groups experience persistently higher inflation than others) is a very important consideration. This book sets out the realities of price changes in the modern investing environment, without using economic equations or jargon. It gives investors the framework they need to think about inflation and how to protect themselves against it, whether the aggregate inflation of the future rises or falls from current levels.

"Real Estate Economics: A Point to Point Handbook introduces the main tools and concepts of real estate (RE) economics. It covers areas such as the relation between RE and the macro-economy, RE finance, investment appraisal, taxation, demand and supply, development, and price estimation. It balances housing economics with commercial property economics, and pays particular attention to the issue of property dynamics and bubbles--something very topical in the aftermath of the US house-price collapse that precipitated the global crisis of 2008. This textbook takes an international approach and introduces the student to the necessary "toolbox" of models required in order to properly understand the mechanics of real estate. It combines theory, technique, real-life cases, and practical examples, so that in the end the student is able to:read and understand the majority of RE papers published in peer-reviewed journals make sense of the RE market (or markets)contribute positively to the preparation of economic analyses of RE assets and markets soon after joining any company or other organization involved in RE investing, appraisal, management, policy, or research. The book should be particularly useful to third-year students of economics who may take up RE or urban economics as an optional course; to postgraduate economics students who want to specialize in RE economics; to graduates of management, business administration, civil engineering, planning, and law, who are interested in RE; and to RE practitioners, and students reading for RE-related professional qualifications"--

Intro -- FEED MARKET DYNAMICS AND U.S. LIVESTOCK IMPLICATIONS -- FEED MARKET DYNAMICS AND U.S. LIVESTOCK IMPLICATIONS -- Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- Chapter 1: U.S. LIVESTOCK AND POULTRY FEED USE AND AVAILABILITY: BACKGROUND AND EMERGING ISSUES -- SUMMARY -- INTRODUCTION -- FEED MARKET DYNAMICS -- Finding the Right Feed Nutrient Balance -- Feed Costs Dominate Livestock and Poultry Production -- Producer Responses to Feed Market Conditions -- CURRENT AND EMERGING ISSUES FOR LIVESTOCK FEEDSTUFFS -- Current Corn Stocks-to-Use Levels Near Historic Low -- Severe Drought Limits Feed Alternatives for Affected Regions -- Ethanol's Growing Share of U.S. Corn Usage -- Ethanol Corn Use Has Cut into Feed Supplies -- U.S. Biofuels Policy Has Created Link Between Prices of Crude Oil and Corn -- International Demand Growth Led by China -- Weak U.S. Dollar Makes Exports Attractive -- Emerging U.S. Crop Land Constraint Puts Focus on Yield Increases -- Declining Feed Demand Responsiveness to High Prices -- ISSUES FOR CONGRESS -- APPENDIX. OVERVIEW OF MAJOR FEEDSTUFFS -- Primary Feedstuff Sources -- Feed Grains-The Main Energy Source -- Corn: The King of Feed Grains -- Sorghum, Barley, and Oats: Declining Importance as Feed Grains -- Feed Wheat: Varies with Quality and Market Conditions -- Protein Meals -- Oilseed Meals -- Animal Meals -- Roughages -- Pasture and Range Flexibility -- Using Feed Grains -- Commercial Feeds -- On-Farm Feeding -- Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) -- Grain Milling Byproducts -- Distillers Grains and Solubles (DGS) -- End Notes -- Chapter 2: ETHANOL CO-PRODUCT USE IN U.S. CATTLE FEEDING: LESSONS LEARNED AND CONSIDERATIONS -- ABSTRACT -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- ETHANOL, SWEETENER, AND STARCH PRODUCTION PROCESS -- EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION ENHANCE NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- About the Author -- Author Acknowledgments -- About Research & Education Association -- Publishisher Acknowledgments -- CHAPTER 1 Passing the CLEP Principles of Microeconomics Exam -- Getting Started -- The REA Study Center -- An Overview of the Exam -- All About the CLEP Program -- Options for Military Personnel and Veterans -- SSD Accommodations for Candidates with Disabilities -- 6-Week Study Plan -- Test-Taking Tips -- The Day of the Exam -- CHAPTER 2 Basic Economic Concepts Review -- Key Terms -- Economic Foundations -- Economic Methodology -- Origins of Supply -- Origins of Demand -- The Nature and Function of Product Markets -- Circular Flow Model -- CHAPTER 3 CLEP Microeconomics Course Review -- Key Terms -- The Nature and Function of Product Markets -- Interaction of Supply and Demand -- Price Elasticity of Demand -- The Total Revenue Test -- Cross Elasticity of Demand -- Price Elasticity of Supply -- Consumer Choice -- Income Constraints and Budget Limits -- Producer Behavior -- Opportunity (Economic) Cost -- Producer Time Constraints -- Short-Run Production Costs -- Cost Analysis -- Long-Run Costs of Production -- Four Production Market Models -- Factor Markets -- Pricing and Employment of Factor Markets -- Marginal Resource Productivity Theory -- The Labor Market and Wages -- Efficiency, Equity, and the Role of Government -- Government Intervention -- Main Government Intervention Methods -- Income Equality and Poverty -- Taxation -- Transfer Payments -- Antidiscrimination Laws -- Practice Test 1 (also available online at www.rea.com/studycenter ) -- Answer Key -- Detailed Explanations of Answers -- Practice Test 2 (also available online at www.rea.com/studycenter ) -- Answer Key -- Detailed Explanations of Answers -- Answer Sheets -- Glossary -- Index -- Back Matter

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. On January 1, 1991, the federal excise tax on beer doubled, and the tax rates on wine and liquor increased as well. These changes are larger than the typical state-level changes that have been used to study the effect of price on alcohol abuse and its consequences. In this paper, we develop a method to estimate some important effects of those large 1991 changes, exploiting the interstate differences in alcohol consumption. We demonstrate that the relative importance of drinking in traffic fatalities is closely tied to per capita alcohol consumption across states. As a result, we expect that the proportional effects of the federal tax increase on traffic fatalities would be positively correlated with per capita consumption. We demonstrate that this is indeed the case, and infer estimates of the price elasticity and lives saved in each state. We repeat this exercise for other injury-fatality rates, and for nine categories of crime. For each outcome, the estimated effect of the tax increase is negatively related to average consumption, and that relationship is highly significant for the overall injury death rate, the violent crime rate, and the property crime rate. A conservative estimate is that the federal tax reduced injury deaths by 4.7%, or almost 7,000, in 1991"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

Machine generated contents note: Blueprints R. Van Horn, P. Mirowski, and T. Stapleford; Orientation: finding the Chicago School J. Peck; Part I. Economics Built for Policy: The Legacy of Milton Friedman: 1. Positive economics for democratic policy: Milton Friedman, institutionalism, and the science of history T. Stapleford; 2. Markets, politics, and democracy at Chicago: taking economics seriously D. Hammond; Part II. Constructing the Institutional Foundations of the Chicago School: 3. The price is not right: Theodore W. Schultz, policy planning, and agricultural economics in the cold-war United States P. Burnett; 4. Sharpening tools in the workshop: the workshop system and the Chicago School's success R. Emmett; 5. George Stigler, the graduate school of business, and the pillars of the Chicago School E. Nik-Khah; Part III. Imperial Chicago: 6. Chicago price theory and chicago law and economics: a tale of two transitions S. Medema; 7. Intervening in laissez-faire liberalism: Chicago's shift on patents R. Van Horn and M. Klaes; 8. Allusions to evolution: edifying evolutionary biology rather than economic theory J. Vromen; 9. On the origins (at Chicago) of some species of evolutionary economics P. Mirowski; Part IV. Debating Chicago Neoliberalism: 10. Jacob Viner's critique of Chicago neoliberalism R. Van Horn; 11. The Chicago School, Hayek, and neoliberalism B. Caldwell; 12. The lucky consistency of Milton Friedman's science and politics, 1933-1963 B. Cherrier; 13. Far right of the midway: Chicago neoliberalism and the genesis of the Milton Friedman Institute (2006-2009) E. Nik-Khah

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. In this paper we present evidence from high-frequency data collections dedicated to tracking the effects of the financial crisis and great recession on American households. These data come from surveys that we conducted in the American Life Panel - an Internet survey run by RAND Labor and Population. The first survey was fielded at the beginning of November 2008, immediately following the large declines in the stock market of September and October 2008. The next survey followed three months later in February 2009. Since May 2009 we have collected monthly data on the same households. This paper shows the levels and trends of many of these data which summarize the experience and expectations of households during the recession.We find that the effects of the recession are widespread: between November 2008 and April 2010 about 39 percent of households had either been unemployed, had negative equity in their house or had been in arrears in their house payments. Reductions in spending were common especially following unemployment. On average expectations about stock market prices and housing prices are pessimistic, particularly long-run expectations. Among workers, expectations about becoming unemployed have recovered somewhat from their low point in May 2009 but still remain high. Overall the data suggest that households are not optimistic about their economic futures"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

Tobacco use is the single largest cause of preventable death globally, killing more than five million people each year. Tobacco use also creates considerable economic costs, from greater spending on health care to treat the diseases it brings on in users and those exposed to tobacco smoke to the lost productivity resulting from the premature deaths it causes. Of all the many interventions for reducing tobacco use, a significant increase in tobacco product taxes and prices has been demonstrated to be the single most effective and cost-effective intervention, particularly among the poor and the young. At the same time, because of the inelasticity of demand for tobacco products in most countries and the low share of tax in price in many, significant increases in tobacco taxes generate significant increases in the revenues generated by these taxes. This technical manual aims to help governments achieve both objectives by identifying a set of "best practices" for tobacco taxation. It documents governments' existing approaches to tobacco taxation, discusses barriers to using tobacco taxes to achieve health and revenue objectives, and provides case studies of effective tobacco tax administration. This manual is intended to be useful to tax administrators at the Ministry of Finance level by making them aware of the practices used and challenges faced by other countries. It will also be useful to officials in a country's Ministry of Health or similar organizations by providing them with a more thorough understanding of key issues in tax structure and administration.

"As health care costs continue to rise, governments and private payers are being forced to make difficult coverage decisions about new health care treatments. Cost-effectiveness (CE) analysis is the main method used to prioritize this spending. The self-evident efficiency rationale for CE is that resources should be spent where they have the highest health impact. This has led to perhaps the largest field in health economics which attempts to provide better estimates of value through CE analysis. However, the costs invariably used in CE analysis are prices set by producers rather than resources used to produce treatments. Therefore, observed CE levels are endogenous because the pricing of new technologies is chosen to maximize profits. This is important because optimal prices, and hence observed CE levels, are affected by demand factors such as patient/doctor demand and payer adoption policies. This implies that traditional measures of "costs" reflect these demand-determined mark-ups rather than resource costs and moreover, CE-based reimbursement policies affect the endogenous CE levels payers observe. Reimbursement based on endogenous CE may therefore bear little relationship with efficient use of scarce medical resources. Using data from technology appraisals by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), we test for conditions under which adoption based on standard CE analysis may lead to adoption of more inefficient technologies in terms of resource use"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

"Does finance follow the real economy, or the other way around? This paper unites the two competing schools of thought in a general equilibrium framework. Our key result is that there are threshold effects defined by a set of deep institutional parameters (cost of financial intermediation, quality of corporate governance, and level of property rights protection) which can be used to separate economies of high-quality institutions from those of low-quality institutions. On one hand, for economies with high-quality institutions, the view that finance follows the real economy is essentially correct. Equilibrium output and prices are determined by factor endowment. Further improvement in the institutions does not affect patterns of output. On the other hand, for economies with low-quality institutions, the view that finance is a key driver of the real economy is essentially correct. Not only is finance a source of comparative advantage, but an increase in capital endowment has no effect on outputs and prices. Our model extends a standard one-sector, partial equilibrium model of corporate finance to a multi-sector, general equilibrium analysis. Surprisingly, but consistent with data, we show that the size of financial markets (relative to GDP) does not change monotonically with either the quality of institutions or with the factor endowment. Free trade may reduce the aggregate income of an economy with low-quality institutions. Financial capital tends to flow from economies with low-quality institutions to those with high-quality institutions"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

Introduction / Carl Chiarella, Peter Flaschel, Reiner Franke, Willi Semmler -- New Keynesian theory and the new Phillips curves : a competing approach / Peter Flaschel, Ekkehart Schlicht -- Keynesian theory and the AD-AS framework : a reconsideration / Amitava Krishna Dutt, Peter Skott -- AD-AS and the phillips curve : a baseline disequilibrium model / Toichiro Asada, Pu Chen, Carl Chiarella, Peter Flaschel -- Keynesian macrodynamics and the Phillips curve : an estimated model for the U.S. economy / Pu Chen, Carl Chiarella, Peter Flaschel, Willi Semmler -- Advanced Keynes Metzler Goodwin macro modeling : a calibration study / Reiner Franke -- A stochastic model of real-financial interaction with boundedly rational heterogeneous agents / Carl Chiarella, Peter Flaschel, Xue-Zhong He, Hing Hung -- A high-dimensional model of real-financial market interaction : the cascade of stable matrices approach / Carl Chiarella, Peter Flaschel, Reiner Franke, Willi Semmler -- Currency crisis, financial crisis, and large output loss / Peter Flaschel, Willi Semmler -- Wage price Phillips curves and macroeconomic stability : basic structural form, estimation and analysis / Peter Flaschel, Hans-Martin Krolzig -- Prosperity and stagnation in capitalist economies / Toichiro Asada, Peter Flaschel, Peter Skott -- Keynesian dynamics without the LM curve : implications of underlying open market operations / Reiner Franke -- Nonlinear Phillips curves, endogenous NAIRU and monetary policy / Willi Semmler, Wenlang Zhang -- Three wage-price macro models and their calibration / Reiner Franke -- Inflation targeting policy in a dynamic Keynesian model with debt accumulation : a Japanese perspective / Toichiro Asada -- The decomposition of the inflation unemployment relationship by time scale using wavelets / Marco Gallegati, James B. Ramsey, Mauro Gallegati, Willi Semmler

"When the financial firestorm swept through Asia in 1997, many economists scrambled to put together a coherent explanation of such a crisis. Early responses focused on economic and currency issues but these were more likely to be symptoms of the crisis and not causes. Soon after, it became apparent that the very essence of the crisis was of a financial, capital flow and banking nature. Further investigation revealed the crucial role played by foreign money, loose lending practices by banks and unhedged $US-denominated debt interacting to generate a huge asset price bubble. The twin liberalisations of deregulating capital flows and the domestic financial sector produced an explosion in foreign lending, and in turn a domestic credit boom.This book seeks to fill the vacuum of understanding between the causes of the crisis and those of the "miracle" or boom. In many ways, financial variables and high profitability were at the heart of the unprecedented 35-year expansion, and not just the traditional explanations of accumulation and high productivity. For such reasons this book unveils the Western shuttle model (WSM) of economic take-off where catch-up growth is very much a function of exports to mature economy markets, which in turn generate super-profits and so super-growth. The WSM offers several explanations of the crisis including a loss of short term competitiveness, due in part to the asset price bubble crowding out viable export opportunities. In summary, the origins of East Asia's ascent and of its demise are but the same."

Cover -- Half-Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Table and Figure List -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Economics and Ethics -- Is There a Place for Morality in Economics? -- The Motivation of Homo Oeconomicus -- Needs, Wants and Scarcity -- Ethical Implications of Contemporary Methodological Debate -- Ethical Economics as a Specialism -- 2 Judaism -- Jewish Law and Economics -- Wealth and Possessions -- Money, Banking and Interest -- Markets, Fair Trading and Government Regulation -- The Theory of Prices in Talmudic Literature -- Resource Allocation in a Perfect Static Economy -- Exchange, Equivalence and the Role of Money -- Scarcity, Rationality and Economic Motivation -- Is There a Distinctly Jewish Economic System? -- Secularist Influences on the Economy of Modern Israel -- Manifestos of the Religious Parties in Israel -- Modern Western Jewish Thinking on Economic Justice -- The Contribution of Judaism to Economics -- 3 Christianity -- A Biblical Approach to Economic Understanding -- The Christian View of Wealth -- Resource Management through Christian Stewardship -- Economic Perceptions of Early Christian Saints and Scholars -- Scholastic Views on Values and Prices -- Aquinas's Position on Usury -- Protestantism and Capitalism -- Modern Christian Economists' Views on Economics -- A Christian Economist in Support of Deregulation -- Recent Theological Perspectives on Economics -- Christianity and the Market -- The Changing Nature of Catholic Economic Debate -- Christian Economic Values -- 4 Islam -- Sources of Islamic Economic Philosophy -- The Koranic Teaching on Commerce -- Just Rewards in an Islamic Economy -- The Prohibition of Riba -- Early Pioneers of Islamic Economics -- Modern Muslim Approaches to Economics -- An Islamic Alternative to Marxism -- Islam and Capitalism -- Islamic Economics in the Modern Middle East.

Cover Page -- Half-title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction and Overview -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 A Brief History of Experimental Economics -- 1.3 A Simple Design for a Market Experiment -- 1.4 Experimental Methods: Advantages and Limitations -- 1.5 Types of Experiments -- 1.6 Some Procedural and Design Considerations -- 1.7 Laboratory Trading Institutions -- 1.8 Conclusion and Overview -- Appendix Al -- A1.1 Oral-Double Auction Instructions -- A1.2 Suggestions for Conducting an Oral Double Auction -- References -- 2. Decisions and Games -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Lotteries and Expected Values -- 2.3 A Sequential Search Experiment -- 2.4 Expected-Utility Maximization and Risk Aversion -- 2.5 Game Theory: Normal-Form Games -- 2.6 Extensive Forms and Backward-Induction Rationality -- 2.7 Decision Theory, Game Theory, and Price Theory -- Appendix A2 -- A2.1 Derivation of the Reservation Wage -- A2.2 Instructions for a Sequential Search Experiment -- A2.3 Constructing a von Neumann-Morgenstern Utility Function -- A2.4 Sequential Equilibria -- A2.5 Instructions for the Centipede Game -- References -- 3. Double-Auction Markets -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 Double-Auction Procedures and Performance -- 3.3 Computers and the Double Auction -- 3.4 Double-Auction Results: Design Effects -- 3.5 Double-Auction Results: Structural Boundaries -- 3.6 Multiple, Interrelated Double-Auction Markets -- 3.7 Double-Auction Asset Markets -- 3.8 Conclusion -- References -- 4. Posted-Offer Markets -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Posted-Offer Procedures and Performance -- 4.3 Posted-Offer Results: Design Effects -- 4.4 Factors That Generate Supracompetitive Prices -- 4.5 Market Power -- 4.6 Regulation and Restraint of Monopoly Power -- 4.7 Conclusions -- Appendix A4 -- A4.1 Instructions for a Posted-Offer Auction.