Salvaging Historic Shipwrecks

The salvage of historic shipwrecks involves a debate between profit-oriented salvagers, who wish to maximize profit, and archeologists, who wish to maximize historical value. We use a principal-agent model to derive the optimal reward scheme for salvagers, including a minimum duty of care in conducting the salvage operation. A review of U.S. and international law suggests that, while there is an emerging recognition of the need to devote greater care to salvaging those wrecks that are located, current doctrines provide inadequate incentives to locate historic wrecks in the first place.

Liquidity Constraint and Child Labor In India: Is Market Really Incapable Of Eradicating It From Wage-Labor Households?

One way to measure the lower steady state equilibrium outcome in human capital development is the incidence of child labor in most of the developing countries. With the help of Indian household level data in an overlapping generation framework, we show that production loans under credit rationing are not optimally extended towards firms because of issues with adverse selection. More stringent rationing in the credit market creates a distortion in the labor market by increasing adult wage rate and the demand for child labor. Lower availability of funds under stringent rationing coupled with increased demand for loans induces the high risk firms to replace adult labor by child labor. A switch of regime from credit rationing to revelation regime can clear such imperfections in the labor market. The equilibrium higher wage rate elevates the household consumption to a significantly higher level than the subsistence under credit rationing and therefore higher level of human capital development is assured leading to no supply of child labor.

A Simple Model of Credit Rationing with Information Externalities

Credit-rationing model similar to Stiglitz and Weiss [1981] is combined with the information externality model of Lang and Nakamura [1993] to examine the properties of mortgage markets characterized by both adverse selection and information externalities. In a credit-rationing model, additional information increases lenders ability to distinguish risks, which leads to increased supply of credit. According to Lang and Nakamura, larger supply of credit leads to additional market activities and therefore, greater information. The combination of these two propositions leads to a general equilibrium model. This paper describes properties of this general equilibrium model. The paper provides another sufficient condition in which credit rationing falls with information. In that, external information improves the accuracy of equity-risk assessments of properties, which reduces credit rationing. Contrary to intuition, this increased accuracy raises the mortgage interest rate. This allows clarifying the trade offs associated with reduced credit rationing and the quality of applicant pool.

Similitudes y limitaciones a las similitudes entre Leibnitz y la teoría económica neoclásica

Se mostrará en este artículo qué similitudes podrían encontrarse entre la teoría económica neoclásica y las concepciones metafísicas de Leibniz y qué limitaciones tiene la pretensión de vincular a Leibniz con la teoría económica neoclásica de modo tal que se intente fundamentar dicha teoría en la ontología de Leibniz. Se analizarán conceptos tales como “mundo posible", “mónada", “Dios", “armonía preestablecida" y “mal", que serán contrastados con algunos conceptos de la teoría económica neoclásica: “individuo (o agente económico) maximizador de la utilidad", “equilibrio" y “escasez".

Aportes para una sociología del cuerpo : un análisis de los usos del cuerpo en la práctica de la danza clásica, moderna y contemporánea a partir de los discursos y saberes producidos por coreógrafos y bailarines durante el siglo XX

Este plan se propone indagar cómo se construyen las concepciones del cuerpo en la práctica de la danza escénica occidental, a partir del análisis de fuentes bibliográficas escritas por maestros coreógrafos y bailarines del siglo XX. En este sentido, la danza opera como instancia de recorte específico sobre un tema más general; el de construir un aporte a los desarrollos de una teoría social del cuerpo, de reciente formación en nuestro país, en base al análisis de unos referentes empíricos concretos. Se espera poder construir líneas de análisis fructíferas que, en base a la deconstrucción del saber generado en el campo de las prácticas específicas a observar y su re-construcción con eje en los elementos de la teoría social contemporánea, articulen el problema y análisis del cuerpo, con tópicos básicos del análisis sociológico: la cuestión de la subjetividad, las nuevas formas de auto-dominio y auto-control y la cuestión de las prácticas o experiencias autónomas y disruptivas.

Aportes para una sociología del cuerpo : un análisis de los usos del cuerpo en la práctica de la danza clásica, moderna y contemporánea a partir de los discursos y saberes producidos por coreógrafos y bailarines durante el siglo XX

Este plan se propone indagar cómo se construyen las concepciones del cuerpo en la práctica de la danza escénica occidental, a partir del análisis de fuentes bibliográficas escritas por maestros coreógrafos y bailarines del siglo XX. En este sentido, la danza opera como instancia de recorte específico sobre un tema más general; el de construir un aporte a los desarrollos de una teoría social del cuerpo, de reciente formación en nuestro país, en base al análisis de unos referentes empíricos concretos. Se espera poder construir líneas de análisis fructíferas que, en base a la deconstrucción del saber generado en el campo de las prácticas específicas a observar y su re-construcción con eje en los elementos de la teoría social contemporánea, articulen el problema y análisis del cuerpo, con tópicos básicos del análisis sociológico: la cuestión de la subjetividad, las nuevas formas de auto-dominio y auto-control y la cuestión de las prácticas o experiencias autónomas y disruptivas.

Aportes para una sociología del cuerpo : un análisis de los usos del cuerpo en la práctica de la danza clásica, moderna y contemporánea a partir de los discursos y saberes producidos por coreógrafos y bailarines durante el siglo XX

Este plan se propone indagar cómo se construyen las concepciones del cuerpo en la práctica de la danza escénica occidental, a partir del análisis de fuentes bibliográficas escritas por maestros coreógrafos y bailarines del siglo XX. En este sentido, la danza opera como instancia de recorte específico sobre un tema más general; el de construir un aporte a los desarrollos de una teoría social del cuerpo, de reciente formación en nuestro país, en base al análisis de unos referentes empíricos concretos. Se espera poder construir líneas de análisis fructíferas que, en base a la deconstrucción del saber generado en el campo de las prácticas específicas a observar y su re-construcción con eje en los elementos de la teoría social contemporánea, articulen el problema y análisis del cuerpo, con tópicos básicos del análisis sociológico: la cuestión de la subjetividad, las nuevas formas de auto-dominio y auto-control y la cuestión de las prácticas o experiencias autónomas y disruptivas.

Bounding ATE with ITT

We propose the bounds on ATE using intention-to-treat (ITT) estimator when there are compliers/noncompliers in randomized trials. The bounds are given as ITTNACE, (2) noncompliers' average treatment effect (NACE) is nonnegative. We give an example of poverty impacts of health insurance, and effects of adverse selection and moral hazard of health insurance.

Bank Borrowing and Financing of Medium-sized Firms in Indonesia

The improvement of financial intermediation functions is crucial for a robust banking system. When lending, banks have to cope with such problems as information asymmetry and adverse selection. In order to mitigate these problems, banks have to product information and improve their techniques of lending. During the 1998 financial crisis, Indonesia's banking system suffered severe damage and revealed that the country's banking intermediation functions did not work well. This paper examines the financial intermediation functions of banks in Indonesia and analyzes the importance of bank lending to firms. The focus is on medium-sized firms, and "relationship lending", one of the bank lending techniques, is used to examine financial intermediation in Indonesia. The results of logit regressions show that the relationship between a bank and a firm affects the probability of bank lending. The amount of borrowing and collateral are also affected by a firm's relationship with a bank. When viewed from the standpoint of relationship lending to medium-sized firms, Indonesian banks cannot be criticized for any malfunction of financial intermediation.

Mapping energy efficiency barriers

In the E2KW Conference we present the research we are following in collaboration with ANESE (Asociación de Empresas de Servicios Energéticos) to check the interaction among barriers that previous studies have identified. We focus our research question in the information problems that include a number of specific problems such as lack of information, asymmetric information and the well-documented principle-agent problem. Asymmetric information problems occur when one party involved in a transaction has more information that the other, which may lead to suboptimal energy decisions. The fact that energy efficiency cannot be observed (ie. it is ?invisible?) further intensifies this asymmetric information barrier.

The Border Management Programme in Central Asia: Explaining the European Union's Choice of Implementing Partners. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Papers 3/2014

Between 2003 and 2014 the European Union’s (EU) Border Management Programme in Central Asia was implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). However, the latter’s implementing responsibilities have just come to an end, with the next phase of the programme to be implemented by an EU member state consortium. This paper seeks to explain why the EU chose the UNDP to implement the programme in the first place; why the programme was redelegated to the UNDP over successive phases; and why, in the end, the EU has opted for a member state consortium to implement the next phase of the programme. The paper will draw on two alternative accounts of delegation: the principal-agent approach and normative institutionalism. Ultimately, it will be argued that both the EU’s decision(s) to delegate (and redelegate) implementing responsibilities to the UNDP, and its subsequent decision to drop the organisation in favour of an EU member state consortium, were driven for the most part by a rationalist ‘logic of consequentiality’. At the same time, a potential secondary role of a normative institutionalist ‘logic of appropriateness’ – as a supplementary approach – will not be discounted.

Discussions in Europe on Variable Compensation in the Financial Sector. EU Centre Singapore Working Paper no. 20, February 2014

Bonuses – which are often used to mitigate principal-agent problems and to encourage employees to work harder – have increased tremendously in the financial sector during the last decade, and have often been seen as a contributing factor to the financial crisis of 2008. The recent European Union (EU) action to adopt a policy that restricts bonuses paid to bankers may seem promising at first, but this does not address the real issues behind variable rewards. Compensation policies should be changed to encourage responsible risk-taking and decision-making through the implementation of broader performance metrics, forfeitable holdbacks and hybrid bonds. Furthermore, a change in organisational culture is needed to improve ethical behaviour leading to a re-balancing of stakeholders’ interests in the financial sector.

Sm-Nd isotope and Mn/Ca ratios for cleaned Neogloboquadrina pachyderma from ODP Hole 105-647A (Table 1)

The neodymium (Nd) isotope composition of ancient seawater is a potentially useful tracer of changes in continental inputs and ocean circulation on timescales of a few ka. Here we present the first Nd isotope record for seawater using sedimentary foraminifera cleaned using standard oxidative-reductive techniques. The data, along with Mn/Ca ratios, suggest that cleaned foraminifera provide a reliable record of Nd in seawater and hold out the prospect of using Nd in foraminifera to examine changes in seawater that accompany glacial-interglacial climatic cycles. The principal potential problem to be overcome with the use of forams as records of trace elements in ancient seawater is their diagenetic Fe-Mn coatings. These contain large amounts of Nd and other trace elements but can be cleaned off using highly reducing reagents. Mn(Ca ratios for the majority of the cleaned sedimentary foraminifera analysed here lie within the range (10-100 µmol/mol) that has yielded success in studies of transition elements in forams. Mass-balance modelling suggests that for residual Mn/Ca ratios <100 µmol/mol, Nd added to the foram in the coating will never shift the measured Nd isotope composition significantly away from the seawater value acquired by the foram test in the water column. Additionally, Nd concentrations measured in cleaned sedimentary foraminifera are comparable with those for a modern sample that has never encountered diagenetic fluids. Finally, core-top planktonic foraminifera for two sites have Nd isotope compositions that are identical to local surface seawater. The data we present here for Labrador Sea forams over the past 2.5 m.y. are interpreted in terms of changes in the seawater isotopic composition. The data show a pronounced shift from epsilon-Nd values of ~-12 to ~-19 in the period 2.5-1.5 Ma. This change is interpreted to result from the initiation of Northern Hemisphere glaciation and the increased derivation of Labrador Sea Nd via ice-rafting from Archaean terranes in central Canada. In combination with stable isotope and foraminiferal relative species abundance data, the new Nd data are consistent with the surface hydrography of the Labrador Sea being dominated by a fluctuating balance between cold, polar waters containing unradiogenic Nd and warm, subtropical waters containing more radiogenic Nd. The major change in Labrador Sea Nd that is observed in the past 2.5 Ma can, on its own, account for the change in the Nd isotope composition of North Atlantic Deep Water over the same time period.

An Air monitoring survey design for toxic air pollutants : final report /

"ILENR/RE-AQ-89/05."

An Economic impact analysis of proposed amendments to public water supply regulations pending before the Illinois Pollution Control Board, R85-14 : final report /

"August 1987."