This paper explores the link between financial market incompleteness and human capital accumulation. We examine how child school attendance responds to seasonal fluctuations in the income of agrarian households using panel data from rural India. To pinpoint market imperfections, we study responses to aggregate and idiosyncratic, as well as to anticipated and unanticipated, income shocks. Our main finding is that seasonal fluctuations in school attendance are a form of self-insurance, but one which does not result in a substantial loss of human capital on average.

Risk, Financial Markets, and Human Capital in a Developing Country

Box & Cox (1964) proposed a parametric power transformation technique in order to reduce anomalies such as non-additivity, non-normality and heteroscedasticity. Although the transformation has been extensively studied, no bibliography of the published research exists at present. An attempt is made here to review the work relating to this transformation.

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The Box-Cox transformation technique: a review

The Random Character of Stock Market Prices.

Crime is a subject of intense emotions, conflicting ideologies. However, economists have generally explained it as a reflection of individual choice and equilibrating market forces. Two major themes of the literature are outlined: the evolution of a 'market model' to explain the diversity of crime across time and space, and the debate about the usefulness of 'positive' versus 'negative' incentives. Systematic analyses generally indicate that crime is affected on the margin by both positive and negative incentives; there are serious limitations to the effectiveness of incapacitation and rehabilitation; and optimal enforcement strategies involve trade-offs between narrow efficiency and equity considerations.

Crime, Punishment, and the Market for Offenses

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.10.1.43

Since the publication of Isaac Ehrlich's controversial articles [6; 9] on murder and capital punishment, there has been extensive criticism of his findings. Using regression analysis with U.S. time-series data, Ehrlich found that increases in the relative frequency of arrest, the relative frequency of conviction given arrest and the relative frequency of execution given conviction, reduce the number of homicides per capita and that the magnitudes of these effects are consistent with sharp predictions-the "elasticity conditions"derived from the hypothesis that potential murderers act as if they were maximizing expected utility.' Among the criticisms of Ehrlich's time-series work on homicide, the most important are: (1) The FBI data used by Ehrlich to measure homicides and the probabilities of punishment is highly suspect, especially during the 1930s [3]. (2) Ehrlich's results are sensitive to the inclusion of additional explanatory variables and the choice of functional form [3; 19; 26]. (3) Ehrlich's regressions are unstable over the 1960s [26]. (4) The negative correlations between the homicide rate and the probabilities of punishment found by Ehrlich may be explained by the effect of the homicide rate on the probabilities of punishment not vice versa [17]. Ehrlich has responded to these criticisms in some detail [7; 8; 9; 11]; perhaps his strongest rebuttal is his cross-sectional study of homicide [9] which replicated the deterrence findings reported in his 1975 time-series article. Recently, however, Ehrlich's crosssectional results have also come under fire. McManus [25] and Leamer [22; 23] have argued that Ehrlich's cross-sectional finding that capital punishment is a deterrent to homicide is sensitive to one's prior beliefs concerning the variables to be included in the homicide regression. The purpose of this paper is not to debate the merits of Ehrlich's research but to move the debate forward by presenting new updated time-series estimates of the U.S. homicide function. Within the context of the new estimates presented in this paper, the criticisms of

Homicide and Deterrence: A Reexamination of the United States Time-Series Evidence*

Box-Cox Estimation with Standard Econometric Problems

There are frequently regulatory and antitrust pressures for firms to cease price discrimination and practice uniform pricing. Such pressures, however, generally have negative welfare consequences when they lead to weaker markets not being served. This paper derives conditions that determine when price discrimination will induce service to a market (market opening) that would not be served under a regime of price uniformity. The factors that favor market opening under price discrimination are a large market share for the strong market, profit margins in the two markets that are far apart, and concave rather than convex demand curves. Copyright 1994 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Market Opening under Third-Degree Price Discrimination

This paper analyzes the price, output, and welfare effects of third-degree price discrimination for a monopolist who sells in two interdependent markets. The case where the two goods sold by the monopolist are complements is analyzed as well as the more typical case where the two goods are substitutes. The economic effects of price discrimination are shown to depend on the type and strength of demand interdependence, the curvature of the demands and the slope of marginal cost. The circumstances under which price discrimination causes both market prices to either rise or fall are also analyzed.

Third-Degree Price Discrimination With Interdependent Demands

This paper demonstrates that the conditions for a positively sloping marginal revenue curve are much less stringent than is generally recognized. Simple transformations of any well-behaved convex demand function can easily result in a demand for which marginal revenue is positively sloping. For this reason, positively sloping marginal revenue functions must be considered whenever convex demand functions are analyzed. The existence of positively sloping marginal revenue makes multiple profit equilibria for the firm a very real possibility.

Stephen K. Layson

Papers

Homicide and Deterrence: A Reexamination of the United States Time-Series Evidence*

Box-Cox Estimation with Standard Econometric Problems

Market Opening under Third-Degree Price Discrimination

Third-Degree Price Discrimination With Interdependent Demands

The law of demand, positive sloping marginal revenue, and multiple profit equilibria