A core question in the contemporary debate on distributive justice is how to understand fairness in situations involving production. Important theories of distributive justice, such as strict egalitarianism, liberal egalitarianism, and libertarianism, provide different answers to this question. This paper presents the results from a dictator game where the distribution phase is preceded by a production phase. Each player's contribution is a result of a freely chosen investment level and an exogenously given rate of return. We estimate simultaneously the prevalence of three principles of distributive justice among the players and the distribution of the weight they attach to fairness.

/pdf/the-pluralism-of-fairness-ideals-an-experimental-approach-28bqelm8ds.pdf

The pluralism of fairness ideals: An experimental approach

This paper analyzes the influence of the shadow economy on corruption and vice versa. We hypothesize that corruption and the shadow economy are substitutes in high income countries while they are complements in low income countries. The hypotheses are tested for a cross-section of 98 countries. Our results show that there is no robust relationship between corruption and the size of the shadow economy when perceptions-based indices of corruption are used. Employing an index of corruption based on a structural model, however, corruption and the shadow economy are complements in countries with low income, but not in high income countries.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11127-009-9513-0.pdf

Corruption and the Shadow Economy: An Empirical Analysis

A core question in the contemporary debate on distributive justice is how the fair distribution of income is affected by differences in talent and effort. Important theories of distributive justice, such as strict egalitarianism, liberal egalitarianism and libertarianism, all give different answers to this question. This paper presents the results from a version of the dictator game where the distribution phase is preceded by a production phase. Each player’s contribution is a result of an exogenously given talent and a chosen effort. We estimate simultaneously the prevalence of three main principles of distributive justice among the players as well as the distribution of weights they attach to fairness considerations.

The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach

This paper estimates the effect of innovation on employment at the firm level. Our uniquely long innovation panel data set of German manufacturing firms covers more than 20 years and allows us to use various innovation measures. We can distinguish between product and process innovations as well as between innovation inputs and innovation outputs. Using dynamic panel GMM system estimation we find positive effects of innovation on employment. This result is robust to the use of product and process innovations as well as for innovation input and output.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID994809_code459177.pdf?abstractid=994809&mirid=3

Effects of Innovation on Employment: A Dynamic Panel Analysis

We examine what determines differences across countries and over time in the distribution of personal incomes in the OECD. We first model the wage determination process and show that unemployment, the labour share, and the wage differential are all functions of labour market institutions. Next we show that in a model economy with only four types of agents – capitalists, skilled and unskilled workers, and unemployed – the Gini coefficient of personal incomes can be expressed as a function of the above three variables. Labour market institutions hence affect income inequality, though the sign of their impact is ambiguous. Stronger unions and/or a more generous unemployment benefit tend to reduce inequality through reduced wage differentials, a higher labour share, and also higher unemployment. We then use a panel of OECD countries for the period 1970-96 to examine these effects. We find, first, that the labour share remains an important aspect of overall inequality patterns, and, second, that stronger unions and a more generous unemployment benefit tend to reduce income inequality. High capital-labour ratios also emerge as a strong equalising factor, which has in part offset the impact of increasing wage inequality on the US distribution of personal incomes.

Labour market institutions and the personal distribution of income in the oecd

Retail prices of major drugs like cocaine and heroin have declined dramatically during the last two decades. This price decline has tended to offset the effects of drug policies aimed at reducing drug use in major industrial countries. The main finding of this paper is that the decline in the retail prices of drugs is related to the strong decline in the intermediation margin (the difference between the retail and producer prices) in the drug business. We develop the hypothesis, and give some evidence, that globalization has been an important factor behind the decline of the intermediation margin. We conclude with some thoughts about the effects of globalization on the effectiveness of drug policies and argue that globalization may have increased the relative effectiveness of policies aiming at reducing the demand of drugs.

Globalization and the Price Decline of Illicit Drugs

There is a wide consensus that the existence of structural rigidities in the Eurozone reduces the effectiveness of the ECB's monetary policies. In order to test this "ECB-handicap" hypothesis, we perform a meta-analysis of the effects of monetary policies in the US and the Eurozone countries. This consists of collecting the estimated transmission coefficients obtained from published econometric studies. Meta-analysis then allows us to control for a number of factors that can affect these estimated coefficients. We conclude that there is no evidence for the hypothesis that the ECB is handicapped in using monetary policies for the purpose of stabilizing output compared to the US.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/19070/1/cesifo1_wp1606.pdf

Is monetary policy in the Eurozone less effective than in the US

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/26035/1/538179651.PDF

Globalization and the price decline of illicit drugs

In this Paper we analyse how monetary policies will be affected in a cashless society Our main conclusions are that the central bank will lose its traditional instruments of monetary policy Open market operations and advances to banks will become ineffective as instruments to control the interest rate and the money stock We argue that this leads to two possible avenues for the future role of the central bank In the first one the central bank becomes dependent on the treasury, both as a means to obtain revenues and as a way of maintaining some effectiveness of its traditional monetary policy instruments Another avenue consists of strengthening the supervisory role of the monetary authority This strengthening would include the quality control of the loan portfolios of the money issuing institutions as a way of ensuring market stability and to avoid bank runs Simultaneously, supervision would allow the central bank to impose reserve requirements and to influence the money supply

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/DP2696.pdf?abstractid=261872&mirid=1&type=2

Cláudia Costa Storti

Papers

Globalization and the Price Decline of Illicit Drugs

Is monetary policy in the Eurozone less effective than in the US

Globalization and the price decline of illicit drugs

Monetary Policy in a Cashless Society

Unemployment and drug treatment.