Abstract

A ban restricting each car from driving on a specified weekday is found to have increased total driving in Mexico City. Because of the ban, cars effectively represent "driving permits," and some households have bought an additional car and increased their driving. Greater use of old cars, congestion effects, and increased weekend driving may also have contributed to the disappointing results. The ban has high welfare costs and does not deliver the intended benefits of reduced driving—quite the contrary. The experience provides an interesting lesson in applied welfare economics. Theory indicates that this is a costly way of reducing traffic and pollution. But the finding that the strategy is counterproductive could be made only with applied quantitative analysis. In November 1989 the Mexico City administration imposed a regulation banning each car from driving a specific day of the week. Called Hoy no circula (this one does not circulate today), the "Day without a Car" regulation specifies that cars with license plate numbers ending with digits 0 or 1 do not drive on Monday, 2 or 3 do not drive on Tuesday, and so on. Restrictions do not apply on weekends. The regulation applies to all cars (except those of the fire department) and thus to firms as well as households. We use the term household for simplicity. Compliance is generally believed to be high: the police are visible and fines are heavy. The regulation has been both popular and controversial. Some people argue that it places a reasonable burden on car owners in order to alleviate congestion and pollution problems. Others argue that it is inefficient and unfair: inefficient in the way most rationing devices are inefficient; unfair because it is more easily avoided or accommodated by some than by others. Finally, some people are arguing that the regulation is counterproductive, actually increasing the levels of congestion and pollution because many households have purchased additional cars to circumvent the ban. This article analyzes the policy pragmatically. Section I shows how the results of rationing can be compared with those that would be obtained using marke Document type: Book

Abstract

Despite the drop in transport and commuting costs since the mid-19th century, sizable and lasting differences across locations at very different spatial scales remain the most striking feature of the space-economy. The main challenges of the economics of agglomeration are therefore (a) to explain why people and economic activities are agglomerated in a few places and (b) to understand why some places fare better than others."/p" "p"To meet these challenges, the usual route is to appeal to the fundamental trade-off between (internal and external) increasing returns and various mobility costs. This trade-off has a major implication for the organization of the space-economy: High transport and commuting costs foster the dispersion of economic activities, while strong increasing returns act as a strong agglomeration force."/p" "p"The first issue is to explain the existence of large and persistent regional disparities within nations or continents. At that spatial scale, the mobility of commodities and production factors is critical. By combining new trade theories with the mobility of firms and workers, economic geography shows that a core periphery structure can emerge as a stable market outcome."/p" "p"Second, at the urban scale, cities stem from the interplay between agglomeration and dispersion forces: The former explain why firms and consumers want to be close to each other whereas the latter put an upper limit on city sizes. Housing and commuting costs, which increase with population size, are the most natural candidates for the dispersion force. What generates agglomeration forces is less obvious. The literature on urban economics has highlighted the fact that urban size is the source of various benefits, which increase firm productivity and consumer welfare."/p" "p"Within cities, agglomeration also occurs in the form of shopping districts where firms selling differentiated products congregate. Strategic location considerations and product differentiation play a central role in the emergence of commercial districts because firms compete with a small number of close retailers. Document type: Book

Abstract

This paper proposes two related measures of educational inequality: one for educational achievement and another for educational opportunity. The former is the simple variance (or standard deviation) of test scores. Its selection is informed by consideration of two measurement issues that have typically been overlooked in the literature: the implications of the standardization of test scores for inequality indices, and the possible sample selection biases arising from the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) sampling frame. The measure of inequality of educational opportunity is given by the share of the variance in test scores that is explained by pre-determined circumstances. Both measures are computed for the 57 countries in which PISA surveys were conducted in 2006. Inequality of opportunity accounts for up to 35 percent of all disparities in educational achievement. It is greater in (most of) continental Europe and Latin America than in Asia, Scandinavia, and North America. It is uncorrelated with average educational achievement and only weakly negatively correlated with per capita gross domestic product. It correlates negatively with the share of spending in primary schooling, and positively with tracking in secondary schools. Document type: Book

Abstract

Surprisingly little is known about policies that affect international trade in services. Previous analyses have focused on policy commitments made by countries in international agreements but these commitments do not in many cases reflect actual policy. This paper describes a new initiative to collect comparable information on services trade policies for 103 countries, across a range of service sectors and the relevant modes of service delivery. The resultant database reveals interesting patterns in policy. Across regions, some of the fastest growing countries in Asia and the oil-rich Gulf states have the most restrictive policies in services, whereas some of the poorest countries are remarkably open. Across sectors, professional and transportation services are among the most protected in both industrial and developing countries, while retail, telecommunications and even finance tend to be more open. An illustrative set of results suggests that trade policies matter for investment flows and access to services. In particular, restrictions on foreign acquisitions, discrimination in licensing, restrictions on the repatriation of earnings and lack of legal recourse all have a significant and sizable negative effect, reducing the expected value of sectoral foreign investment by $2.2 billion over a 7-year period, compared with"open"policy regimes. In terms of access to services, credit as a share of gross domestic product is on average 3.3 percentage points lower in countries with major restrictions on the establishment of foreign banks as compared with those that only impose operational restrictions. Document type: Book

Abstract

Internal mobility is a critical component of economic growth and development, as it enables the reallocation of labor to more productive opportunities across sectors and regions. Using detailed district-to-district migration data from the 2001 Census of India, the paper highlights the role of state borders as significant impediments to internal mobility. The analysis finds that average migration between neighboring districts in the same state is at least 50 percent larger than neighboring districts on different sides of a state border, even after accounting for linguistic differences. Although the impact of state borders differs by education, age, and reason for migration, it is always large and significant. The paper suggests that inter-state mobility is inhibited by state-level entitlement schemes, ranging from access to subsidized goods through the public distribution system to the bias for states' own residents in access to tertiary education and public sector employment. Document type: Book

Abstract

We collect data on the movement and productivity of elite scientists. Their mobility is remarkable: nearly half of the world's most-cited physicists work outside their country of birth. We show they migrate systematically towards nations with large R & D spending. Our study cannot adjudicate on whether migration improves scientists' productivity, but we find that movers and stayers have identical h-index citations scores. Immigrants in the UK and US now win Nobel Prizes proportionately less often than earlier. US residents' h-indexes are relatively high. We describe a framework where a key role is played by low mobility costs in the modern world. Copyright © The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2009. Document type: Book

Abstract

Nearly one billion people worldwide live in rural areas without access to the paved road network. This paper measures the impacts of India's $40 billion national rural road construction program using regression discontinuity and data covering every individual and firm in rural India. The main effect of new feeder roads is to allow workers to obtain nonfarm work. However, there are no major changes in consumption, assets or agricultural outcomes. Nonfarm employment in the village expands only slightly, suggesting the new work is found outside of the village. Even with better market connections, remote areas may continue to lack economic opportunities. Document type: Book

Abstract

There is a long-standing debate over whether new roads unavoidably lead to environmental damage, especially forest loss, but causal identification has been elusive. Using multiple causal identification strategies, this paper studies the construction of new rural roads to over 100,000 villages and the upgrading of 10,000 kilometers of national highways in India. The new rural roads had precise zero effects on local deforestation. In contrast, the highway upgrades caused substantial forest loss, which appears to be driven by increased timber demand along the transportation corridors. In terms of forests, last mile connectivity had a negligible environmental cost, while expansion of major corridors had important environmental impacts. Document type: Book

Abstract

This paper reviews methods that have been employed to estimate poverty in contexts where household consumption data are unavailable or missing. These contexts range from completely missing and partially missing consumption data in cross-sectional household surveys, to missing panel household data. The paper focuses on methods that aim to compare trends and dynamic patterns of poverty outcomes over time. It presents the various methods under a common framework, with pedagogical discussion on the intuition. Empirical illustrations are provided using several rounds of household survey data from Vietnam. Furthermore, the paper provides a practical guide with detailed instructions on computer programs that can be used to implement the reviewed techniques. Document type: Book

Abstract

JODE purposes to deliver international readers with high quality peer-reviewed academic articles on a wide variety of issues related to open and distance learning, in areas such as technology-assisted learning, computer based training, computer-aided instruction or computer assisted instruction, internet-based training, web-based training, online training, virtual training, virtual learning environments, m-learning, digital education, education on social networking, massive online open courses, game-based learning, active learning, content design, e-assessment, mobile applications, e-video, the quality of open and distance education and accreditation etc. Document type: Part of book or chapter of book