Essays on valuing non-market goods in imperfectly competitive markets

Debates on climate change have conceded to most parties acknowledging the existence of negative impacts of changing weather patterns. However, these impacts have not fully been assessed. One way which changing climates can negatively impact an economy is by changing the market structures of its most influential industries; making these markets more imperfectly competitive and taking value away from consumers. This dissertation draws on this fact and suggests accurate ways to both identify and quantify the costs of climate change. In the first chapter of this dissertation, the ski industry is used as a case study. A unique data set along with the econometric technique of discrete time survival analysis is used to estimate the impact of weather on the survival of ski areas over time. Results suggest that changing weather patterns have been an influential factor in the closure of many ski areas throughout the region. For this reason, the ski industry has become much less competitive allowing ski area managers to increase the price of their lift tickets over their marginal costs. The second chapter builds off the first to show that since many of the industries which are vulnerable to climate change are imperfectly competitive in nature, there is a need to more precise theoretical techniques of valuing non-market, climate related goods in these industries in which firms can artificially increase the price. Huang (2013) builds off of Feenstra (1995) and adapts the traditional hedonic valuation method to account for imperfect competition in the market. The theoretical technique is discussed and employed against current approaches to show its feasibility in measuring the true value of goods which are marked up when firms enjoy market power. Together the two chapters of this dissertation develop a strategy for increased precision in the measurement of the costs of climate change. By first identifying vulnerable industries with the econometric techniques used in chapter one and then estimating the value of the climate related goods in these industries with the model presented in chapter two, researchers could determine important factors which have the ability to influence policy debates on climate change

Le travail aux prises avec le néo-libéralisme économique

Qu’arrive-t-il au travail? Dans quel tourbillon économique et politique est-il entraîné? Le diagnostic sur le processus qui donne lieu à tant de drames personnels et à un véritable séisme social commence par un relevé de données et de tendances touchant l’évolution récente du travail : tertiarisation, raréfaction, dualisation et précarisation, « tiersmondialisation », et dégradation de ses conditions d’exercice. Il se poursuit ensuite par l’examen du paradoxe du découplage de la croissance et de l’emploi, paradoxe dont la logique appartient au modèle néo-libéral, dernière en date des figures du capitalisme au XXe siècle. Enfin, le travail est abordé sous l’angle de sa dépendance de l’« economically correct », à travers lequel le paradigme du marché s’auto-transcende et sacrifie les plus faibles dans la société

Training the Fetal Immune System Through Maternal Inflammation-A Layered Hygiene Hypothesis.

Over the last century, the alarming surge in allergy and autoimmune disease has led to the hypothesis that decreasing exposure to microbes, which has accompanied industrialization and modern life in the Western world, has fundamentally altered the immune response. In its current iteration, the "hygiene hypothesis" suggests that reduced microbial exposures during early life restricts the production and differentiation of immune cells suited for immune regulation. Although it is now well-appreciated that the increase in hypersensitivity disorders represents a "perfect storm" of many contributing factors, we argue here that two important considerations have rarely been explored. First, the window of microbial exposure that impacts immune development is not limited to early childhood, but likely extends into the womb. Second, restricted microbial interactions by an expectant mother will bias the fetal immune system toward hypersensitivity. Here, we extend this discussion to hypothesize that the cell types sensing microbial exposures include fetal hematopoietic stem cells, which drive long-lasting changes to immunity

[Review of] FILM REVIEW: Gretchen Bataille. Inside the Cigar Store: Images of the American Indian

Today the American Indian is still envisioned as a befeathered curiosity. Both children and adults have continued to perpetuated stereotypes and harbor misconceptions about the American Indian cultures. This has been detrimental to the advancement of India people today

A Review of the Potts Model

This paper examines a mathematical modeling tool for complex systems with nearest neighbor interactions known as the Potts model. We begin by explaining the structure of the model and defining its Hamiltonian, probability function, and partition function. We then focus on the partition function, giving examples and showing the equivalence of two different formulations. We then introduce the Tutte polynomial a well known graph invariant. We give details of the equivalence of the Tutte polynomial and the Potts model partition function. Since the Tutte polynomial, and hence the Potts model partition function, is computationally intractable, we explore Monte Carlo simulations of the Potts model. Finally, we discuss three applications illustrating how these simulations model real world situations