Evidential Analysis of Terrorism and I-VEO Knowledge Matrix in the Context of Security as Pure Public Good: The case of Pakistan from 1990 to 2010

The case of Pakistan has presented if security provision is a pure public good in the light of the I-VEO Knowledge Matrix hypotheses. Evidential analysis of the data from 1990 to 2010 from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) suggests that terrorism incidents are not reduced with the increase of public expenditure on defence, and instead, more fatalities and injuries are witnessed during the years. The analysis is based in isolation to terrorist attacks, defence expenditure and relating hypotheses of Influential Violent Extremists Organization Knowledge Matrix (I- VEO Knowledge Matrix) and counterterrorism operations, at ceteris paribus. The I-VEO Knowledge Matrix shows there is a lack of a comprehensive set of strategy based on the collection of relevant hypotheses more productive than the existing and likely less effective counterterrorism strategies to ensure security provision as a pure public good in the case of Pakistan

Intertemporal substitution in labour supply and tax revenue use

This article examines the response of work effort to changes in wage and/or tax rates when (1) no part of the taxes returns back to taxpaying workers, but when a part goes back (2) through the provision of a pure public good or (3) through transfer payments. The work-effort ratio is found to be higher in a Leviathan state, but the comparison between the two other tax-use regimes is uncertain. The response of the effort ratio to a change in the wage ratio follows the same pattern, while this response is weakened by a change in the current tax rate and strengthened by a change in the future tax rate, regardless not only of the use of tax revenue, but also of its change over time. In the case of change, the comparison of effort ratios is clear only when the change prompts them to move in the same direction. Corollaries related to tax evasion point to the irrelevance of tax benefits for labour supply decisions.

Recycling behavior of private households: an empirical investigation of individual preferences in a club good experiment

While recycling helps to limit the use of primary resources, it also requires considerable technological investments in regional circular flow systems. The effectiveness of recycling systems, however, also depends on household behavior. Therefore, current research increasingly focuses on behavioral and psychological theories of altruism, moral behavior, and social preferences. From an economic perspective, recycling systems can be understood as public goods with contributions resulting in positive externalities. In this context, the literature shows that recycling behavior highly depends on the perception of how others behave. In neutrally framed public good experiments, contributions tend to increase when alternative public goods are offered and group identity is generated. We aim to contribute to this discussion by observing household behavior concerning recycling opportunities in controlled settings. For this purpose, we study a laboratory experiment in which individuals contribute to recycling systems: At first, only one public recycling system (public good) is offered. After dividing societies into two clubs, “high” and “low” according to their environmental attitudes, excludable club systems (club goods) are added as alternative recycling options for each club. The results of our pilot experiment show that adding a more exclusive recycling club option increases individual contributions to recycling compared with a pure public good framework. However, this increase in cooperation is only significant for those clubs where members with higher environmental attitudes are pooled. Graphic abstract

Education as a Public Good

Education used to be a private good with positive externalities. Thanks to technology and government largesse, it is no longer the case. It is being transformed into a non-pure public good. Technology-borne education is nonrivalrous and, like its traditional counterpart, has positive externalities. It can be replicated and disseminated virtually cost-free to the next consumer through the Internet, television, radio, and on magnetic media. MIT has recently placed 500 of its courses online and made them freely accessible. Distance learning is spreading like wildfire. Webcasts can host - in principle - unlimited amounts of students. Yet, all forms of education are exclusionary, at least in principle. It is impossible to exclude a citizen from the benefits of his country's national defense, or those of his county's dam. It is perfectly feasible to exclude would be students from access to education - both online and offline.

On the economic nature of consumers’ willingness to pay for a selective and sustainable fishery: A comparative empirical study

The EU Landing Obligation (LO) bans discards to incentivize a more selective and sustainable fishery. This regulation may induce a cost to the fishing industry that could be transferred to final fish consumers. We aim to assess the consumers’ reservation price for a sustainable and selective fishery. The methodology follows two steps: We first assess the value of the reservation price (willingness to pay, WTP) for a sustainable and selective fishery by using contingent valuation methods from a comparative perspective in Spain and Italy. We then attempt to empirically assess the components of WTP by using an original model specification that, unlike those presented in the literature, exogenizes socio-economic variables and uses ideological indicators to explain WTP in a two-line simultaneous model estimated by instrumental variable regression. The results show a positive, though low, WTP across the two samples, and very different impacts of estimated coefficients on the WTP for the two samples. A preliminary interpretation of this divergence highlights that Italian consumers consider LO-incentivized sustainable fishery a pure public good linked to issues of legality, and Spanish consumers consider it an impure public good linked to environmental issues. These differences may indicate how strongly the institutions and the policies in each region are perceived by a different human capital structure. They may also indicate that the problem, the perceptions of it and the solutions to it differ according to the context.