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In tennis, is it true that beginning to serve in a set gives an advantage? Can the outcome of a match be predicted? Which points are important, and do real champions win the big points? Do players serve optimally? Does "winning mood" exist? The book answers such questions, demonstrating the power and beauty of statistical reasoning.
Contributed to and edited by leading international academics, this book analyses 'new economic geography' research, and examines the ensuing policy implications as well as core-periphery patterns, transportation costs and economic modelling.
Critics of modern macroeconomics often raise concerns about unwarranted welfare conclusions and data mining. This paper illustrates these concerns with a thought experiment, based on the debate in environmental economics about the appropriate discount rate in climate change analyses: I set up an economy where a social evaluator wants to determine the optimal time path of emission levels, and seeks advice for this from an old-style neo-classical macroeconomist and a new neo-classical (modern) macroeconomist; I then describe how both economists analyze the economy, their policy advice, and their mistakes. I then use the insights from this thought experiment to point out some pitfalls of the modern macroeconomic methodology.
Providing readers with a multi-faceted assessment of the implementation of fiscal policies in the euro zone and their macroeconomic effects five years after the inception of the euro, this book, international in perspective and scope, is the first reliable reference source for discussions in this area for both academics and policy makers.Comprising
Gollier and Weitzman (2010) show that if future consumption discount rates are uncertain and persistent, the consumption discount rate should decline to its lowest possible value for events in the most distant future. In this paper, I argue that the lowest possible growth rate of consumption per capita in the distant future is zero (assuming that humans do not die out). Substituting in the Ramsey rule shows then that the lowest possible consumption discount rate for the distant future is equal to the lowest possible utility discount rate of the population (according to the descriptive approach to parameterizing the Ramsey rule) or to the utility discount rate of the social evaluator (according to the prescriptive approach). In both cases, there are strong reasons to set the consumption discount rate for the distant future at a value which is virtually zero.