Cyclical and Welfare Effects of Public Sector Unions in a Real-Business-Cycle Model

Motivated by the highly-unionized public sectors, the high public shares in total employment, and the public sector wage premia observed in Europe, this paper examines the importance of public sector unions for macroeconomic theory. The model generates cyclical behavior in hours and wages that is consistent with data behavior in an economy with highly-unionized public sector, namely Germany during the period 1970-2007. The union model is a signifi cant improvement over a model with exogenous public employment. In addition, endogenously-determined public wage and hours add to the distortionary e ffect of contractionary tax reforms by generating greater tax rate changes, thus producing signi ficantly higher welfare losses.

Coordination in Public Good Provision: How Individual Volunteering is Impacted by the Volunteering of Others

In this analysis, we examine the relationship between an individual's decision to volunteer and the average level of volunteering in the community where the individual resides. Our theoretical model is based on a coordination game , in which volunteering by others is informative regarding the benefit from volunteering. We demonstrate that the interaction between this information and one's private information makes it more likely that he or she will volunteer, given a higher level of contributions by his or her peers. We complement this theoretical work with an empirical analysis using Census 2000 Summary File 3 and Current Population Survey (CPS) 2004-2007 September supplement file data. We control for various individual and community characteristics, and employ robustness checks to verify the results of the baseline analysis. We additionally use an innovative instrumental variables strategy to account for reflection bias and endogeneity caused by selective sorting by individuals into neighborhoods, which allows us to argue for a causal interpretation. The empirical results in the baseline, as well as all robustness analyses, verify the main result of our theoretical model, and we employ a more general structure to further strengthen our results.

Effects of Experience, Knowledge and Signals on Willingness to Pay for a Public Good

This paper compares how increases in experience versus increases in knowledge about a public good affect willingness to pay (WTP) for its provision. This is challenging because while consumers are often certain about their previous experiences with a good, they may be uncertain about the accuracy of their knowledge. We therefore design and conduct a field experiment in which treated subjects receive a precise and objective signal regarding their knowledge about a public good before estimating their WTP for it. Using data for two different public goods, we show qualitative equivalence of the effect of knowledge and experience on valuation for a public good. Surprisingly, though, we find that the causal effect of objective signals about the accuracy of a subject’s knowledge for a public good can dramatically affect their valuation for it: treatment causes an increase of $150-$200 in WTP for well-informed individuals. We find no such effect for less informed subjects. Our results imply that WTP estimates for public goods are not only a function of true information states of the respondents but beliefs about those information states.

What is the Causal Effect of Information and Learning about a Public Good on Willingness to Pay?

In this study we elicit agents’ prior information set regarding a public good, exogenously give information treatments to survey respondents and subsequently elicit willingness to pay for the good and posterior information sets. The design of this field experiment allows us to perform theoretically motivated hypothesis testing between different updating rules: non-informative updating, Bayesian updating, and incomplete updating. We find causal evidence that agents imperfectly update their information sets. We also field causal evidence that the amount of additional information provided to subjects relative to their pre-existing information levels can affect stated WTP in ways consistent overload from too much learning. This result raises important (though familiar) issues for the use of stated preference methods in policy analysis.

Coordination in Public Good Provision: How Individual Volunteering is Impacted by the Volunteering of Others

In this analysis, we examine the relationship between an individual’s decision to volunteer and the average level of volunteering in the community where the individual resides. Our theoretical model is based on a coordination game , in which volunteering by others is informative regarding the benefit from volunteering. We demonstrate that the interaction between this information and one’s private information makes it more likely that he or she will volunteer, given a higher level of contributions by his or her peers. We complement this theoretical work with an empirical analysis using Census 2000 Summary File 3 and Current Population Survey (CPS) 2004-2007 September supplement file data. We control for various individual and community characteristics, and employ robustness checks to verify the results of the baseline analysis. We additionally use an innovative instrumental variables strategy to account for reflection bias and endogeneity caused by selective sorting by individuals into neighbourhoods, which allows us to argue for a causal interpretation. The empirical results in the baseline, as well as all robustness analyses, verify the main result of our theoretical model, and we employ a more general structure to further strengthen our results.

Determinants of public education expenditure: Evidence from Indian states

Public education expenditure varies significantly across Indian states. Using data on sixteen Indian states from 2001-2010, the paper tries to identify the determinants of per capita education expenditure of state governments in India. The econometric findings indicate that richer states spend more on education compared to the poorer states. A lower share of child population (0-14 years) is found to significantly enhance education expenditure at the state level. We do not find any evidence that political factors such as political ideology of the ruling party and level of corruption affect education expenditure of state governments.

The Effects of Experience on Preference Uncertainty: Theory and Empirics for Public and Quasi-Public Environmental Goods

This paper develop and estimates a model of demand estimation for environmental public goods which allows for consumers to learn about their preferences through consumption experiences. We develop a theoretical model of Bayesian updating, perform comparative statics over the model, and show how the theoretical model can be consistently incorporated into a reduced form econometric model. We then estimate the model using data collected for two environmental goods. We find that the predictions of the theoretical exercise that additional experience makes consumers more certain over their preferences in both mean and variance are supported in each case.

A public key encryption based on third order linear sequences

Based on third order linear sequences, an improvement version of the Diffie-Hellman distribution key scheme and the ElGamal public key cryptosystem scheme are proposed, together with an implementation and computational cost. The security relies on the difficulty of factoring an RSA integer and on the difficulty of computing the discrete logarithm.

Reforms of the pre-graduate curriculum for medical students: the Bologna process and beyond.

For several years, all five medical faculties of Switzerland have embarked on a reform of their training curricula for two reasons: first, according to a new federal act issued in 2006 by the administration of the confederation, faculties needed to meet international standards in terms of content and pedagogic approaches; second, all Swiss universities and thus all medical faculties had to adapt the structure of their curriculum to the frame and principles which govern the Bologna process. This process is the result of the Bologna Declaration of June 1999 which proposes and requires a series of reforms to make European Higher Education more compatible and comparable, more competitive and more attractive for Europeans students. The present paper reviews some of the results achieved in the field, focusing on several issues such as the shortage of physicians and primary care practitioners, the importance of public health, community medicine and medical humanities, and the implementation of new training approaches including e-learning and simulation. In the future, faculties should work on several specific challenges such as: students' mobility, the improvement of students' autonomy and critical thinking as well as their generic and specific skills and finally a reflection on how to improve the attractiveness of the academic career, for physicians of both sexes.

The reasons for discrepancies in target volume delineation : a SASRO study on head-and-neck and prostate cancers.

PURPOSE: To understand the reasons for differences in the delineation of target volumes between physicians. MATERIAL AND METHODS: 18 Swiss radiooncology centers were invited to delineate volumes for one prostate and one head-and-neck case. In addition, a questionnaire was sent to evaluate the differences in the volume definition (GTV [gross tumor volume], CTV [clinical target volume], PTV [planning target volume]), the various estimated margins, and the nodes at risk. Coherence between drawn and stated margins by centers was calculated. The questionnaire also included a nonspecific series of questions regarding planning methods in each institution. RESULTS: Fairly large differences in the drawn volumes were seen between the centers in both cases and also in the definition of volumes. Correlation between drawn and stated margins was fair in the prostate case and poor in the head-and-neck case. The questionnaire revealed important differences in the planning methods between centers. CONCLUSION: These large differences could be explained by (1) a variable knowledge/interpretation of ICRU definitions, (2) variable interpretations of the potential microscopic extent, (3) difficulties in GTV identification, (4) differences in the concept, and (5) incoherence between theory (i.e., stated margins) and practice (i.e., drawn margins).

Peut-on faire confiance à l'administration ? Une analyse du concept de confiance, appliqué au secteur public

D'une manière générale, la confiance est un « lubrifiant » (Arrow, 1974) facilitant les relations sociales (eg Luhmann, 1968, Giddens, 1984, Zucker, 1986). D'un point de vue économique, un environnement institutionnel bénéficiant d'une confiance élevée serait corrélé avec la performance de l'économie nationale (eg Dyer and Chu, 2003). La confiance, en tant que capital social, permettrait et engendrerait des comportements altruistes et coopératifs impactant et soutenant la prospérité économique d'une communauté (Fukuyama, 1995). Dans un cadre organisationnel, la confiance engendre une communication plus ouverte et facilite l'échange d'information (eg Smith and Barclay, 1997, Currall and Judge, 1995), facilite la gestion des conflits (eg Blomqvist, 2002), l'apprentissage commun (eg Bijlsma-Frankema, 2004) ou diminue les coûts d'intégration (eg Bidault and Jarillo, 1995), par exemple.

Les difficultés de gestion des partenariats public-privé en Europe. Pour une lecture "institutionnelle"

Les partenariats public-privé se développent dans la quasi-totalité des pays de l'OCDE. De nombreux acteurs, publics ou privés, y voient un moyen pour développer de nouvelles infrastructures et prestations publiques à moindre coût et de manière sensiblement plus rapide et plus efficace. Considérés sous l'angle de leur gestion, les PPP s'avèrent finalement bien plus complexes qu'ils ne paraissent d'un premier abord. Basé sur une revue de la littérature européenne portant sur les expériences en cours sur le Continent, l'article vise à faire état de la nature des débats gestionnaires entourant cette nouvelle forme de coordination des activités étatiques en relevant plus spécifiquement les difficultés auxquelles la plupart des PPP sont confrontés, sur la base d'une lecture institutionnelle.