Suchergebnisse

Somalia mit seiner vornehmlich landwirtschaftlich bzw. an Viehzucht orientierten Oekonomie und zu Beginn der 70er Jahre praktisch Selbstversorger mit Getreide, wurde in den 70er und 80er Jahren zunehmend und in erschreckendem Ausmaß von Nahrungsmitteln abhängig. Untersucht werden die möglichen Ursachen für diese Entwicklung. Es zeigt sich, daß schlecht konzipierte Nahrungsmittelhilfe im Verbund mit falschen wirtschaftspolitischen Entscheidungen Somalia zu jener Importabhängigkeit führte. (DSE)

We develop and estimate an econometric model of the relationship between several local and global air and water pollutants and economic development while allowing for critical aspects of the socio-political-economic regime of a State. We obtain empirical support for our hypothesis that democracy and its associated freedoms provide the conduit through which agents can exercise their preferences for environmental quality more effectively than under an autocratic regime, thus leading to decreased concentrations or emissions of pollution. However, additional factors such as income inequality, age distribution, and urbanization may mitigate or exacerbate the net effect of the type of political regime on pollution, depending on the underlying societal preferences and the weights assigned to those preferences by the State.

In this paper, we study a firm's optimal lobby behavior and its effect on investment in pollution abatement capital. We develop a dynamic framework where a representative firm can invest in both abatement and lobby capital in response to a possible future increase in pollution tax. We show that when the firm lobbies against the scale of the tax increase at a predetermined date, it should act like an occasional lobbyer by investing a lump-sum (optimal) amount in the lobby capital only at that date. But, to delay the new tax, it should act like a habitual lobbyer by investing continuously and at increasing rates over an optimal time period. We show that lobby expenditure crowds out investment in abatement capital and that this effect is stronger the more efficient is the lobbying activity. Further, we show that while uncertainty about the magnitude of the tax reduces the firm's incentive to lobby, uncertainty about the timing of the new tax increases it.