scholarly journals The Interaction of Wildfire Risk Mitigation Policies in the Presence of Spatial Externalities and Heterogeneous Landowners

Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibtisam Al Abri ◽  
Kelly Grogan
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Stochastic Dynamic ◽  
Fuel Treatment ◽  
The Social

The dramatic increase in the number of uncontrollable wildfires in the United States has become an important policy issue as they threaten valuable forests and human property. The derived stochastic dynamic model of this study is capable of determining optimal fuel treatment timing and level simultaneously and as a function of fire risk and fuel biomass dynamics. This study develops a stochastic dynamic model to evaluate the interaction of fuel treatment decisions for two adjacent landowners under various scenarios of misinformation about fire occurrence and spread. Findings indicate that a landowner tends to free ride on fuel treatment undertaken by his adjacent landowner. However, the study finds that the free riding potential of a landowner could be alleviated to some extent by having a neighboring landowner who is aware of fire spillover effects. In addition, the study reveals that the social cost resultant from free riding behavior is lower that the social cost associated with complete absence of fire externality awareness for both landowners. These findings imply that governments could introduce more effective educational programs to ensure that all landowners are fully aware of cross-parcel benefits of fuel treatment in order to align socially and privately optimal decisions, thus minimizing externality costs.

scholarly journals Consumer Drivers of Muscadine Wine Purchase Decisions

Beverages ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Canziani ◽  
Erick Byrd ◽  
James Boles
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
The United States ◽  
Wine Industry ◽  
Us South ◽  
Consumer Panel ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Quota Sampling ◽  
Muscadine Grapes

Muscadine wine, fresh muscadine grapes, and other derivatives have enjoyed a heritage niche for decades in the Southeast. Muscadine growers in North Carolina in the United States (US) have asked whether the purchase of muscadine wine is linked to consumption of the fruit itself or even familiarity with other muscadine-based products in terms of spillover effects. The authors explored the interdependency between the market for fresh muscadine grapes and muscadine wine purchase. Consumer panel data were obtained from a State of North Carolina agency with oversight of the grape and wine industry; the agency contracted quota sampling of online consumers from six states in the US South. A total of 543 cases were used in the present study. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)® was employed in analysis. Results show that prior muscadine wine knowledge and knowledge of other muscadine products, e.g., jams, juices, smoothies, sauces, and health/beauty products were significant factors associated with buying muscadine wine. Beliefs about muscadine grapes as a healthy ingredient showed a slight influence, while direct experience with fresh muscadines and consumer attitudes towards buying local or US products were insignificant. Therefore, marketing efforts should focus on increasing consumer exposure to and knowledge of muscadine wine and other muscadine related products.

Markets and communities: the social cost of the meritocracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Social Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Mobility ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
Excessive Competition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
Productive Traits ◽  
Deaths Of Despair

Abstract Critiques of the meritocracy have centered on its narrow definition and biased assessment of merit, its stigmatization of the unsuccessful, and excessive competition. This paper identifies a different mechanism that could have pernicious social and political consequences. Economic mobility sorts people based on certain ‘productive’ traits, separating them into classes, and thus alters social externalities. This sorting–separation–externalities mechanism can produce between-class polarization in social outcomes (e.g. alcoholism and drug abuse) and worsen aggregate outcomes over all classes, consistent with rising ‘deaths of despair’ in the United States (Case and Deaton, 2020, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. Princeton University Press). When traits are endogenous, transition out of a caste-based society produces an initial burst of economic mobility which dissipates over time. Thus, a dynamic meritocratic society devolves into a static class-based society. I set out an alternative model called the ‘experimental society’, which is less susceptible to these problems.

“It’s not something I’ve really thought about ‘til now’”: The social aspects of U.S. emerging adults’ comics reading histories

2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062110542
Author(s):  
Robin A. Moeller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Emerging Adults ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Common

The common image of a reader is that of a person alone with a book, but reading is actually a social activity. The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which social aspects influenced a group of emerging adults’ comics reading when they were children and/or teens. Data was collected by surveying and conducting semi-structured interviews with 34 emerging adults in the Southeast region of the United States about their comics reading histories. The research findings describe who the participants felt had the most impact on their comics reading, as well as the extent to which the participants felt that they belonged to a community of comics readers. Significantly, the participants’ notion of comics readers as “nerds” emerged from the data, which the participants largely connected to gender, and which participant Lauren noted, “It’s not something I’ve really thought about ‘til now.’” The implications of these findings suggest that some of these participants felt that there was a social cost to comics reading. Suggestions for making comics reading more accessible for more readers are discussed.

scholarly journals Productivity and Misallocation in General Equilibrium*

2019 ◽  
Vol 135 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rezza Baqaee ◽  
Emmanuel Farhi
Keyword(s):  
Social Cost ◽  
Returns To Scale ◽  
Allocative Efficiency ◽  
The United States ◽  
Resource Reallocation ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Tfp Growth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Technical And Allocative Efficiency

Abstract This paper develops a general theory of aggregation in inefficient economies. We provide nonparametric formulas for aggregating microeconomic shocks in economies with distortions such as taxes, markups, frictions to resource reallocation, financial frictions, and nominal rigidities. We allow for arbitrary elasticities of substitution, returns to scale, factor mobility, and input-output network linkages. We show how to separately measure changes in technical and allocative efficiency. We also show how to compute the social cost of distortions. We pursue applications focusing on firm-level markups in the United States. We find that improvement in allocative efficiency, due to the reallocation over time of market share to high-markup firms, accounts for about half of aggregate TFP growth over the period 1997–2015. We also find that eliminating the misallocation resulting from the large and dispersed markups estimated in the data would raise aggregate TFP by about 15%, increasing the economy-wide cost of monopoly distortions by two orders of magnitude compared with the famous 0.1% estimate by Harberger (1954). These exact numbers should be interpreted with care because the data are imperfect and require substantial imputation.

Official English: A False Policy Issue

1990 ◽  
Vol 508 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARTURO MADRID
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Language ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
High Level ◽  
The U.S

Making English the official language of the United States is a false policy issue. The evidence does not support arguments that the use of English is declining or that the use of other languages debilitates the social fabric of the United States. On the contrary, attempts to impose English on the U.S. population have served historically to divide the nation. The facts do not support linguistic or social fragmentation. English is the language of state and the common language of the U.S. population. Immigrants continue to enter the United States because of the protections and opportunities it offers, and they give highest priority to learning English. The real language-policy issues have to do with literacy and high-level multilingual skills. A sane national language policy would give primacy to literacy and would promote multilingualism. The nation's energies must be directed at language policies that empower all citizens rather than punish some.

Risk mitigation and the social cost of carbon

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 123-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Howarth ◽  
Michael D. Gerst ◽  
Mark E. Borsuk
Keyword(s):  
Social Cost ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Social Cost Of Carbon ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Exposure Complexity and Community Capacity to Manage Wildfire Risk: A Coupled Biophysical and Social Analysis of 60 Communities in the Western United States

Fire ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Max Nielsen-Pincus ◽  
Cody Evers ◽  
Alan Ager
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Capacity ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Community Competence ◽  
Wildfire Risk ◽  
Success Stories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policies And Programs

Coordinated approaches to wildfire risk mitigation strategies that cross-ownership and management boundaries are found in many policies and programs worldwide. The “all lands” approach of the United States (US) National Cohesive Strategy, for example, attempts to address the mismatches between biophysical risk and the social potential to address risks by improving multijurisdictional coordination and collaboration. Local capacity to coordinate wildfire risk mitigation, therefore, may be an important influence on whether risk reduction planning makes success stories out of at-risk communities, or turns what would appear a manageable problem into a disaster waiting to happen. We analyzed the relationship between predicted housing exposure to wildfire and local self-assessment of community competence to mitigate wildfire risks in 60 communities in the western US. Results generally demonstrate that (1) the number of sources of wildfire risk influences local housing exposure to wildfire, and (2) perceived community-competence is associated with predicted exposure to wildfire. We suggest that investments in ongoing updates to community risk planning and efforts to build multi-jurisdictional risk management networks may help to leverage existing capacity, especially in moderate capacity communities. The analysis improves the social-ecological understanding of wildfire risks and highlights potential causal linkages between community capacity and wildfire exposure.

scholarly journals The Social Cost of Carbon from Theory to Trump

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Paul Kelleher
Keyword(s):  
Value Function ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Discount Rates ◽  
Social Cost Of Carbon ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
A Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Value Function

The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a central concept in climate change economics. This chapter explains the SCC and investigates it philosophically. As is widely acknowledged, any SCC calculation requires the analyst to make choices about the infamous topic of discount rates. But to understand the nature and role of discount rates, one must understand how each of these economic concepts—and indeed the SCC concept itself—is yoked to the concept of a value function, whose job is to take ways the world could be across indefinite timespans and to rank them from better to worse. A great deal, therefore, turns on the details of the value function and on just what is meant by “better” and “worse.” This chapter seeks to explicate these and related issues, and then to situate them within the evolving landscape of federal climate policy in the United States.

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