Opportunity Costs (opportunity + cost)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting


Selected Abstracts


Outsourcing and Audit Risk for Internal Audit Services,

CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 3 2000
DENNIS H. CAPLAN
Abstract Some companies now outsource their internal audit function to public accountants. Internal auditors and accounting firms disagree about the merits of outsourcing. Each type of auditor claims to provide more cost-effective services and appears to claim superior expertise. This paper uses agency theory to examine outsourcing and reconciles the outsourcing debate without resorting to differential auditor expertise. Under the assumptions that public accountants' "deep pockets" provide incentives to outsource and their higher opportunity cost provides a disincentive, we characterize the optimal employment contract with each auditor. We find that public accountants provide higher levels of testing, but possibly for a higher expected fee. This result supports both the internal auditor's claim as the lower cost provider, and the public accountant's claim of higher quality. We also find that incentives to outsource generally increase in various measures of risk, including the risk that a control weakness exists and the size of the loss that can result from an undetected control weakness. [source]


Austria's Demand for International Reserves and Monetary Disequilibrium: The Case of a Small Open Economy with a Fixed Exchange Rate Regime

ECONOMICA, Issue 281 2004
Harald Badinger
Using a vector error correction approach, I estimate Austria's demand for international reserves over the period 1985:1,1997:4 and test for short-run effects of the disequilibrium on the national monetary market. I find that Austria's long-run reserve demand can be described as a stable function of imports, uncertainty and the opportunity cost of holding reserves with strong economies of scale. The speed of adjustment takes a value of 38 per cent. The results confirm that an excess of money demand (supply) induces an inflow (outflow) of international reserves as postulated by the monetary approach to the balance of payments. [source]


Plesiomorphic Escape Decisions in Cryptic Horned Lizards (Phrynosoma) Having Highly Derived Antipredatory Defenses

ETHOLOGY, Issue 10 2010
William E. Cooper Jr
Escape theory predicts that the probability of fleeing and flight initiation distance (predator,prey distance when escape begins) increase as predation risk increases and decrease as escape cost increases. These factors may apply even to highly cryptic species that sometimes must flee. Horned lizards (Phrynosoma) rely on crypsis because of coloration, flattened body form, and lateral fringe scales that reduce detectability. At close range they sometimes squirt blood-containing noxious substances and defend themselves with cranial spines. These antipredatory traits are highly derived, but little is known about the escape behavior of horned lizards. Of particular interest is whether their escape decisions bear the same relationships to predation risk and opportunity costs of escaping as in typical prey lacking such derived defenses. We investigated the effects of repeated attack and direction of predator turning on P. cornutum and of opportunity cost of fleeing during a social encounter in P. modestum. Flight initiation distance was greater for the second of two successive approaches and probability of fleeing decreased as distance between the turning predator and prey increased, but was greater when the predator turned toward than away from a lizard. Flight initiation distance was shorter during social encounters than when lizards were solitary. For all variables studied, risk assessment by horned lizards conforms to the predictions of escape theory and is similar to that in other prey despite their specialized defenses. Our findings show that these specialized, derived defenses coexist with a taxonomically widespread, plesiomorphic method of making escape decisions. They suggest that escape theory based on costs and benefits, as intended, applies very generally, even to highly cryptic prey that have specialized defense mechanisms. [source]


Incorporating power system security into market-clearing of day-ahead joint energy and reserves auctions

EUROPEAN TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRICAL POWER, Issue 2 2010
J. Aghaei
Abstract This paper is intended to introduce a technique for incorporating system security into the clearing of day-ahead joint electricity markets, with particular emphasis on the voltage stability. A Multiobjective Mathematical Programming (MMP) formulation is implemented for provision of ancillary services (Automatic Generation Control or AGC, spinning, non-spinning, and operating reserves) as well as energy in simultaneous auctions by pool-based aggregated market scheme. In the proposed market-clearing structure, the security problem, as an important responsibility of ISO, is addressed and a nonlinear model is formulated and used as the extra objective functions of the optimization problem. Thus, in the MMP formulation of the market-clearing process, the objective functions (including augmented generation offer cost, overload index, voltage drop index, and loading margin) are optimized while meeting AC power flow constraints, system reserve requirements, and lost opportunity cost (LOC) considerations. The IEEE 24-bus Reliability Test System (RTS 24-bus) is used to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Unravelling the Capital Charging Riddle , Some Empirical Evidence from Victoria

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY & MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2003
Tyrone M. Carlin
Since 1995, the State of Victoria has been experimenting with capital charging regimes for budget sector agencies. The intent of these schemes is to allow the opportunity cost of capital to be reflected in the assessed total costs of outputs produced by agencies the subject of the charge. While literature produced by government central financial agencies has forcefully advocated this experiment, and asserted a range of resulting improvements to budget sector asset management and general financial management practices, academic examinations of the subject have been mixed in their conclusions. Empirical evidence relating to the effect and effectiveness of these schemes has been scarce. This paper seeks to contribute to the literature by providing some empirical evidence on the impact of capital charging in one jurisdiction, Victoria, Australia. [source]


An integrated biogeochemical and economic analysis of bioenergy crops in the Midwestern United States

GCB BIOENERGY, Issue 5 2010
ATUL K. JAIN
Abstract This study integrates a biophysical model with a county-specific economic analysis of breakeven prices of bioenergy crop production to assess the biophysical and economic potential of biofuel production in the Midwestern United States. The bioenergy crops considered in this study include a genotype of Miscanthus, Miscanthus×giganteus, and the Cave-in-Rock breed of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). The estimated average peak biomass yield for miscanthus in the Midwestern states ranges between 7 and 48 metric tons dry matter per hectare per year ( t DM ha,1 yr,1), while that for switchgrass is between 10 and 16 t DM ha,1 yr,1. With the exception of Minnesota and Wisconsin, where miscanthus yields are likely to be low due to cold soil temperatures, the yield of miscanthus is on average more than two times higher than yield of switchgrass. We find that the breakeven price, which includes the cost of producing the crop and the opportunity cost of land, of producing miscanthus ranges from $53 t,1 DM in Missouri to $153 t,1 DM in Minnesota in the low-cost scenario. Corresponding costs for switchgrass are $88 t,1 DM in Missouri to $144 t,1 DM in Minnesota. In the high-cost scenario, the lowest cost for miscanthus is $85 t,1 DM and for switchgrass is $118 t,1 DM, both in Missouri. These two scenarios differ in their assumptions about ease of establishing the perennial crops, nutrient requirements and harvesting costs and losses. The differences in the breakeven prices across states and across crops are mainly driven by bioenergy and row crop yields per hectare. Our results suggest that while high yields per unit of land of bioenergy crops are critical for the competitiveness of bioenergy feedstocks, the yields of the row crops they seek to displace are also an important consideration. Even high yielding crops, such as miscanthus, are likely to be economically attractive only in some locations in the Midwest given the high yields of corn and soybean in the region. [source]


Green Tax Reform and Competitiveness

GERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2001
Erkki Koskela
This paper studies a revenue-neutral green tax reform that substitutes energy for wage taxes in an open economy with unemployment. As long as the labour tax rate exceeds the energy tax rate, such a reform will increase employment, reduce the domestic firms' unit cost of production and hence increase international competitiveness and output of the economy. The driving force behind these results is the technological substitution process that a green tax reform will bring about. The resulting reduction in unemployment is welfare increasing since energy, which the country has to buy at its true national opportunity cost, is replaced with labour, whose price is above its social opportunity cost. [source]


DRG prospective payment systems: refine or not refine?

HEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 10 2010
Elin Johanna Gudrun Hafsteinsdottir
Abstract We present a model of contracting between a purchaser of health services and a provider (a hospital). We assume that hospitals provide two alternative treatments for a given diagnosis: a less intensive one (for example, a medical treatment) and a more intensive one (a surgical treatment). We assume that prices are set equal to the average cost reported by the providers, as observed in many OECD countries (yardstick competition). The purchaser has two options: (1) to set one tariff based on the diagnosis only and (2) to differentiate the tariff between the surgical and the medical treatment (i.e. to refine the tariff). We show that when tariffs are refined, the provider has always an incentive to overprovide the surgical treatment. If the tariff is not refined, the hospital underprovides the surgical treatment (and overprovides the medical treatment) if the degree of altruism is sufficiently low compared with the opportunity cost of public funds. Our main result is that price refinement might not be optimal. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Investing time in health: do socioeconomically disadvantaged patients spend more or less extra time on diabetes self-care?

HEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 6 2009
Susan L. Ettner
Abstract Background: Research on self-care for chronic disease has not examined time requirements. Translating Research into Action for Diabetes (TRIAD), a multi-site study of managed care patients with diabetes, is among the first to assess self-care time. Objective: To examine associations between socioeconomic position and extra time patients spend on foot care, shopping/cooking, and exercise due to diabetes. Data: Eleven thousand nine hundred and twenty-seven patient surveys from 2000 to 2001. Methods: Bayesian two-part models were used to estimate associations of self-reported extra time spent on self-care with race/ethnicity, education, and income, controlling for demographic and clinical characteristics. Results: Proportions of patients spending no extra time on foot care, shopping/cooking, and exercise were, respectively, 37, 52, and 31%. Extra time spent on foot care and shopping/cooking was greater among racial/ethnic minorities, less-educated and lower-income patients. For example, African-Americans were about 10 percentage points more likely to report spending extra time on foot care than whites and extra time spent was about 3,min more per day. Discussion: Extra time spent on self-care was greater for socioeconomically disadvantaged patients than for advantaged patients, perhaps because their perceived opportunity cost of time is lower or they cannot afford substitutes. Our findings suggest that poorly controlled diabetes risk factors among disadvantaged populations may not be attributable to self-care practices. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


A Fiscal Price Tag for International Reserves,

INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2006
David Hauner
This paper examines the (quasi-)fiscal impact of the (opportunity) cost of international reserves. It proposes a conceptual framework, with particular emphasis on two hitherto somewhat neglected aspects: a more appropriate measure of gross opportunity cost, and potential savings from lower external debt spreads that countries ,buy' by holding reserves. The framework is then applied to 100 countries over 1990,2004. The results suggest that a turning point has been reached in recent years: while most countries made money on their reserves during 1990,2001, most have been losing money during 2002,04. [source]


The effect of income growth on the mix of purchases between disposable goods and reusable goods

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 3 2007
John McCollough
Abstract With each passing year consumers find more and more disposable goods for sale in the market place. Even goods that were considered to be reusable goods just a few years back are now disposable goods. As a result the American economy has been labelled a ,throwaway society'. This paper examines a main underlying cause for this trend by linking growth in consumer income with the purchases of disposable goods. More specifically, the model proposes that as incomes rise, consumers will purchase more of both reusable goods and disposable goods. However, as incomes rise, consumers will naturally substitute purchases away from reusable goods and into disposable goods. The shift towards disposable goods occurs because it becomes too costly for consumers to spend their time repairing and maintaining products. Their time is better spent in more productive endeavours. It is simply cheaper (in terms of opportunity cost of time) to dispose of old products and replace them with new products. [source]


Never on Sunny Days: Lessons from Weekly Attendance Counts

JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION, Issue 2 2004
Laurence R. Iannaccone
Congregational attendance data are abundant, accessible, and relevant for religious research. Weekly attendance histories provide information about worshippers, congregations, and denominations that surveys cannot capture. The histories yield novel measures of commitment, testable implications of rational choice theory, and compelling evidence that attendance responds strongly to changes in the opportunity cost of time. [source]


Market facilities and agricultural marketing: evidence from Tamil Nadu, India

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2008
Forhad Shilpi
Market facility; Agricultural markets; Commercialization; Transaction costs Abstract This article analyzes the effect of facilities and infrastructure available at the marketplace on a farmer's decision to sell at the market. The econometric estimation shows that the likelihood of sales at the market increases significantly with an improvement in market facilities and a decrease in travel time from the village to the market. The results suggest that wealth reduces a farmer's cost of accessing market facilities more than it increases her/his opportunity cost of leisure. The policy simulation indicates that the marginal benefits from an improvement in market facility will favor the poorer farmers in the context of India. [source]


Innovation and the opportunity cost of monopoly

MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 8 2008
Michael Reksulak
Innovation enables monopolists to lower their costs, expand their outputs, and reduce their prices. It is conventional to conclude that social welfare unambiguously increases as a result. Assuming linear demand and marginal cost, this paper shows, however, that innovation raises the opportunity cost of monopoly: as a firm enjoying market power becomes more efficient, greater amounts of surplus are sacrificed by consumers because of the progressive monopolist's failure to produce the new, larger competitive output. Innovation, in other words, increases the social value of competition by raising the deadweight cost of monopoly. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


The Economics of an Efficient Reliance on Biomass, Carbon Capture and Carbon Sequestration in a Kyoto-style Emissions Control Environment

OPEC ENERGY REVIEW, Issue 3 2001
Gary W. Yohe
This note employs the economics paradigm to sort through the complications of relying simultaneously on biomass fuels, carbon capture with active sequestration and passive carbon sequestration to meet Kyoto-style carbon emission limits. It does so by exploiting the structure of a tax cum repurchase scheme for carbon. Under such a scheme, the carbon content of fossil fuel should be taxed at the point of purchase at a price that matches the shadow price of the carbon emission limit, but carbon embedded in biomass fuel should go un-taxed. The price of biomass fuel would, though, have to reflect the marginal cost of any externalities it might cause and the opportunity cost of its land-use requirements. Captured carbon could be repurchased at a price equal to the shadow price of carbon, net of the cost of active sequestration, itself the sum of private and social marginal costs. Finally, the price of the passive sequestration of carbon should equal the shadow price of carbon, net of the opportunity cost of setting those resources aside. Since a marketable permit system would support direct estimates of the requisite shadow price of carbon, such a system would also provide direct information about base prices for the tax cum repurchase scheme. To support long-term investment in biomass supply and sequestration, though, changes over time in emission limits must be accomplished in a smooth and predictable manner. [source]


A space-time network for telecommuting versus commuting decision-making,

PAPERS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 4 2003
Anna Nagurney
Transportation and telecommunication networks; telecommuting and commuting; space-time networks; variational inequalities Abstract. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework for the study of telecommuting versus commuting decision-making over a fixed time horizon, such as a work week through the use of a space-time network to conceptualize the decision-makers' choices over space and time. The decision-makers are multiclass and multicriteria ones and perceive the criteria of travel cost, travel time, and opportunity cost in an individual fashion. The model is a network equilibrium type and allows for the prediction of the equilibrium flows and, hence, the number of periods that members of each class of decision-makers will telecommute or commute. Qualitative properties of the equilibrium are obtained and an algorithm is given, along with convergence results, and applied to numerical examples. [source]


Investment under economic and implementation uncertainty

R & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2001
Andrianos E. Tsekrekos
Some investment decisions are exposed to uncertainty over their implementation phase apart from the underlying economic uncertainty. We provide a general way of introducing implementation uncertainty, which includes prior research as a special case. The generality of our treatment stems from the fact that implementation uncertainty is allowed to affect both the level and the timing of project profitability. In a case explicitly addressed, implementation uncertainty might even cause earlier investment if the probability of uncertainty resolution exceeds the opportunity cost of delaying investment. Investment will be earlier, the higher the effect of uncertainty resolution on project profitability. [source]


Does the Theory of Irreversible Investments Help Explain Movements in Office,Commercial Construction?

REAL ESTATE ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2000
Rena Sivitanidou
Focusing on the relevance of the modern investment theory in explaining movements in office,commercial construction, we attempt to advance existing empirical work in two respects. First, building on recent theoretical advances, we offer an extended empirical model of new construction that takes into account the full opportunity cost of irreversible investments in uncertain environments. Second, using updated time series of office,commercial construction across the nation's largest markets, we empirically estimate such a model to (i) explore investment behavior during 1982,1998 and (ii) detect differences, if any, in such behavior between the pre- and post-recession years. Our empirical findings are fully consistent with the theory of irreversible investments. Such findings highlight both the relevance and the relative importance of uncertainty in underlying demand factors in shaping movements in office,commercial construction, while pointing altogether to more cautionary investment behavior during the post-recession years. [source]


The representative household's demand for money in a cointegrated VAR model

THE ECONOMETRICS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2000
Thórarinn G. Pétursson
A representative household model with liquidity services directly in the utility function is used to derive a stable, data congruent error correction model of broad money demand in Iceland. This model gives a linear, long-run relation between real money balances, output and the opportunity cost of holding money that is used to over-identify the cointegrating space. The over-identifying restrictions suggest that the representative household is equally averse to variations in consumption and real money holdings. Finally, a forward-looking interpretation of the short-run dynamics, assuming quadratic adjustment costs, cannot be rejected by the data. [source]


Monopolistic Competition, Growth and Public Good Provision,

THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 534 2009
Paul Pecorino
In the standard model, provision of a pure public good is increasing in group size if it is a normal good. I develop a model of public good provision in which private goods are supplied in a monopolistically competitive market. In this model, group size corresponds to population. I find that increases in population lead to reduced public good provision. The reason is quite simple: as population increases, the number of private goods available for consumption also increases. This raises the marginal utility of income and increases the opportunity cost of contributing to the public good. [source]


Volatility and commodity price dynamics

THE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 11 2004
Robert S. Pindyck
Commodity prices are volatile, and volatility itself varies over time. Changes in volatility can affect market variables by directly affecting the marginal value of storage, and by affecting a component of the total marginal cost of production, the opportunity cost of producing the commodity now rather than waiting for more price information. I examine the role of volatility in short-run commodity market dynamics and the determinants of volatility itself. I develop a structural model of inventories, spot, and futures prices that explicitly accounts for volatility, and estimate it using daily and weekly data for the petroleum complex: crude oil, heating oil, and gasoline. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:1029,1047, 2004 [source]


The Functional Form Of The Demand For Euro Area M1

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 2 2003
Livio Stracca
A remarkable development seen in recent years is the pronounced decline in euro area M1 velocity vis,à,vis a moderate decline in short,term interest rates, which represent the most natural opportunity cost for M1, suggesting an increase in the interest rate elasticity of M1 demand. In fact, estimating a theoretically plausible and stable demand function for M1 in the euro area is possible if a functional form of money demand allowing for an interest rate elasticity decreasing in size with the level of the interest rate is imposed. This finding would apparently suggest that the decline in inflation and nominal interest rates in Europe experienced in the run,up to the euro should have ,naturally' brought about an increased degree of preference for liquidity without any fundamental change in agents' preferences. To test the validity of this conclusion, a time,varying parameters model is estimated through a Kalman filter on the level of real M1, which is able to test simultaneously the stability of the parameters and the functional form of the demand for euro area M1. In this case, results clearly suggest the double,log function to be very close to the true ,deep' functional form of M1 demand in the euro area, consistent with the findings of Chadha, Haldane and Janssen for the UK and of Lucas for the USA. At the same time, there is evidence of an increased interest rate elasticity in M1 demand in the most recent years, presumably associated with the transition to the new environment prevailing from the start of Stage Three of European Monetary Union. [source]


Regulatory Environment, Changing Incentives, and IPO Underpricing in the Korean Stock Market,

ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2010
Inseok Shin
G24; G28; G32 Abstract I examine the importance of price support regulation in explaining IPO underpricing in the Korean stock market from 2001 through 2007. In contrast to the US practice where price support is provided effectively at the cost of the issuing firms, the price support in Korea resulted in direct costs to the underwriters. I construct a simple model to capture this feature of the regulation where IPO prices are determined through the interaction of the maximizing behaviors of underwriters and issuers. In the model, three variables, namely, the expected post-IPO price volatility, size of newly issued shares, and size of tradable shares, are specified to affect the opportunity costs of underpricing. When combined with the regulatory regime change in 2003, which lightened underwriters' obligations towards price support, the model implies that the magnitudes of the relationships between the three variables and underpricing have decreased since 2003. I test the hypotheses and find supportive empirical results: the relationship of underpricing with the expected price volatility has changed from positive to insignificant; those with sizes of newly issued and tradable shares from insignificant to negative. The findings contrast with existing Korean studies that do not find any evidence that price support regulation decreased the opportunity cost of underpricing for underwriters. The results also illustrate a more general point that to fully understand underpricing in a given stock market, it is crucial to take into account the regulatory environment that systematically influences agents' incentives to control or generate underpricing. [source]


Modelling the supply of ecosystem services from agriculture: a minimum-data approach,

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2006
John M. Antle
We argue that to support agriculture,environmental policy decision making, stakeholders need ,quantitative back-of-the-envelope' analysis that is timely and sufficiently accurate to make informed decisions. We apply this concept to the analysis of the supply of ecosystem services from agriculture. We present a spatially explicit production model and show how it can be used to derive the supply of ecosystem services in a region. This model shows that the supply of ecosystem services can be derived from the spatial distribution of opportunity cost of providing those services. We then show how this conceptual model can be used to develop a minimum-data (MD) approach to the analysis of the supply of ecosystem services from agriculture that can be implemented with the kinds of secondary data that are available in most parts of the world. We apply the MD approach to simulate the supply of carbon that could be sequestered in agricultural soils in the dryland grain-producing region of Montana. We find that the supply curve derived from the MD approach can approximate the supply curve obtained from a more elaborate model based on site-specific data, and can do so with sufficient accuracy for policy analysis. [source]


Estimating personal costs incurred by a woman participating in mammography screening in the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program,,

CANCER, Issue 3 2008
Donatus U. Ekwueme PhD
Abstract BACKGROUND. The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) covers the direct clinical costs of breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic follow-up for medically underserved, low-income women. Personal costs are not covered. In this report, the authors estimated personal costs per woman participating in NBCCEDP mammography screening by race/ethnicity and also estimated lifetime personal costs (ages 50-74 years). METHODS. A decision analysis model was constructed and parameterized by using empiric data from a retrospective cohort survey of mammography rescreening among women ages 50 years to 64 years who participated in the NBCCEDP. Data from 1870 women were collected from 1999 to 2000. The model simulated the flow of resources incurred by a woman participating in the NBCCEDP. The analysis was stratified by annual income into 2 scenarios: Scenario 1, <$10,000; and Scenario 2, from $10,000 to <$20,000. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to appraise uncertainty, and all costs were standardized to 2000 U.S. dollars. RESULTS. In Scenario 1, for all races/ethnicities, a woman incurred a 1-time cost of $17 and a discounted lifetime cost of $108 for 10 screens and $262 for 25 screens; in Scenario 2, these amounts were $31 and from $197 to $475, respectively. In both scenarios, a non-Hispanic white woman incurred the highest cost. The sensitivity analyses revealed that >70% of cost incurred was attributable to opportunity cost. CONCLUSIONS. Capturing and quantifying personal costs will help ascertain the total cost (ie, societal cost) of providing mammography screening to a medically underserved, low-income woman participating in a publicly funded cancer screening program and, thus, will help determine the true cost-effectiveness of such programs. Cancer 2008. Published 2008 by the American Cancer Society. [source]


Property Tax in Urban China

CHINA AND WORLD ECONOMY, Issue 4 2008
Dan Li
H20; R21; R31 Abstract This paper examines China's urban housing sector and proposes that property tax reform be undertaken. Specifically, China should significantly reduce taxes on transactions and introduce property taxes during the possession of houses. This will increase housing affordability as a result of lower transaction costs, reduce speculation because of the higher opportunity cost of holding vacant houses, stabilize the fiscal system by generating more sustainable tax revenue, and improve the efficiency and fairness of the property tax system according to the principles of "ability-to-pay" and "user pays". [source]


Chastity belts in gartersnakes: the functional significance of mating plugs

BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY, Issue 3 2000
R. SHINE
Male red-sided gartersnakes (Tfiamnophis sirtalis parietalis) deposit a thick gelatinous plug that occludes the female cloaca after copulation. Previous workers have interpreted the plug as a sexually-selected adaptation to (1) physically prevent re-mating by the female, and/or (2) provide pheromonal cues to discourage courtship by rival males or to decrease receptivity by females. Our data support the former hypothesis, but not the latter. Plugs serve as effective physical barriers to additional copulation for <72 h, but this is long enough for most females to become unreceptive, and/or disperse from the mating aggregation. Experimental removal of plugs immediately after copulation results in some re-mating by females, but plug removal several hours later does not rekindle sexual receptivity. Contrary to previous work, our experiments show that fluids associated with copulation (rather than the plug per se) are responsible for the rapid decline of male interest in mated females. Thus, the plug's primary function is to physically prevent matings rather than as a source of pheromonal cues to manipulate the behaviour of females or rival males. Plug mass is determined not only by a male's body size, but by his prior mating history (plug mass decreases with repeated mating) and by the size of his partner (males allocate larger plugs to larger females). Gartersnakes are unusual not only in their production of mating plugs, but also in their brief duration of copulation compared to other snakes. Mating plugs may have evolved in gartersnakes to reduce mating times, because of the extremely high ,opportunity cost' of prolonged mating to a male gartersnake in a mating aggregation. [source]


Payments for Ecosystem Services in Nicaragua: Do Market-based Approaches Work?

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2010
Gert Van Hecken
ABSTRACT The concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is gaining increasing attention among scholars as well as conservation and development practitioners. The premises of this innovative conservation approach are appealing: private land users, usually poorly motivated to protect nature on their land, will do so if they receive payments from environmental service buyers which cover part of the land users' opportunity costs of developing the land. However, this article warns against an over-enthusiastic adoption of a one-sided market-based PES approach. Based on a field study of the Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Approaches to Ecosystem Management Project (RISEMP), one of the main PES pilot projects in Nicaragua, it suggests that a mixture of economic and non-economic factors motivated farmers to adopt the envisaged silvopastoral practices and that the actual role of PES is mistakenly understood as a simple matter of financial incentives. The authors argue that PES approaches should be understood as a part of a broader process of local institutional transformation rather than as a market-based alternative for allegedly ineffective government and/or community governance. [source]


Access to Land, Rural Development and Public Action: The When and the How

DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2009
Pablo Bandeira
After being marginalised in the 1980s, land-reform policies came back to national and international development agendas during the 1990s, resulting in a revival of academic research on the subject. This article reviews the empirical literature on access to land, rural development and public action for evidence on when and how the state should intervene in the allocation of rural land. The review suggests that positive impacts are obtained if, and only if, public actions on the allocation of land are carried out under certain conditions and in a certain way. The article ends by highlighting the need to elaborate empirical models that take into consideration opportunity costs and interactions, and that integrate individual responses with aggregate effects. [source]


Benefit,Cost Appraisals of Export Processing Zones: A Survey of the Literature

DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 1 2003
Kankesu Jayanthakumaran
This article surveys research on the performance of Export Processing Zones (EPZs) using a benefit,cost analytical framework. Results suggest that zones in South Korea, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, China and Indonesia are economically efficient and generate returns well above estimated opportunity costs. On the other hand, the heavy infrastructure costs involved in setting up the zone in the Philippines resulted in a negative net present value. The zones have been an important source of employment in all cases and have promoted local entrepreneurs in some. However, as industrial development proceeds, the gap between the market and opportunity costs of labour narrows and the interest in EPZs tends to disappear. It may hold only if the zones generate private profit to domestic shareholders. [source]