Economics serving society

September 2020

Can supporting traditional land rights reduce forest loss?

Liam Wren-Lewis*, Luis Becerra-Valbuena** and Kenneth Houngbedji

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Rising demand for agricultural land is a major driver of deforestation, contributing to biodiversity loss and climate change. A range of actors have long argued that securing the property rights of local populations and improving commons management may help protect forests. Conservationists have typically concentrated on tenure interventions focused on forests, such as the creation of protected areas…

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Have economic stabilisation policies been proven to be ineffective?

Jean-Bernard Chatelain* and Kirsten Ralf

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Economic stabilisation policies aim to reduce persistent deviations in production, prices and risks from their average trend. To achieve this, in case of recession, falling prices or increased risk, public policy makers lower the key interest rate, increase central bank liquidity offers, increase public spending, and or reduce income taxes. In the case of a boom, they do the reverse. This is called a “negative feedback” mechanism…

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Why policy-makers should be cautious about “smart” agricultural input subsidies: evidence from Haiti

Jérémie Gignoux*, Karen Macours*, Daniel Stein and Kelsey Wright**

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The last decades have seen remarkable reductions in poverty and hunger in many developing countries. Increasing agricultural yields of staple crops remains, however, an important policy priority of governments in many low-income countries, often specifically motivated by food security concerns. Value chain interruptions related to the global COVID-19 pandemic and related self-sufficiency arguments have brought renewed urgency…

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Does the Willingness to Pay for a Mortality Risk Reduction Vary with Age or Baseline Health?

Daniel Herrera-Araujo and Lise Rochaix*

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All humans face a wide array of risks to health and life, but they differ in their valuations of wealth, health and life. It seems natural to expect that individuals’ valuations for reducing risks to health or life will depend on personal characteristics. That is, for a similar health- or life-risk reduction, the gains may not be valued in the same way by young/healthy individuals compared to older/sick ones…

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A (theoretical) procedure to resolve a conflict between two people

Jean-François Laslier*, Matias Núñez and Remzi Sanver

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How can we help two people, or two intelligent entities, to come to a decision when their interests diverge partially? Customs and laws propose criteria to decide whether an outcome is “fair”, “good”, “equitable”, or “just”. But these criteria are not solutions when the parties to the negotiations exaggerate their needs, bluff, minimize certain elements, and generally make strategic use of the possibilities offered by the procedures in place…

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* PSE Members
** PSE PhD Students

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