The Benefits of Being Economics Professor A (and not Z)

Alphabetic name ordering on multi-authored academic papers, which is the convention in the economics discipline and various other disciplines, is to the advantage of people whose last name initials are placed early in the alphabet. As it turns out, Professor A, who has been a first author more often than Professor Z, will have published more articles and experienced afaster growth rate over the course of her career as a result of reputation and visibility. Moreover, authors know that name ordering matters and indeed take ordering seriously: Several characteristics of an author group composition determine the decision to deviate from the default alphabetic name order to a significant extent.performance measurement, incentives, economists, name ordering

Climate equivalence scales and the effects of climate change on Russian welfare and well-being

This paper measures the concepts of welfare and well-being in Russia on the basis of two large Russian household surveys, carried out in 1993 and 1994. Welfare refers to satisfaction with income and well-being refers to satisfaction with life as a whole. This paper investigates how climate conditions in various parts of Russia affect the cost of living and well-being. Climate equivalence scales have been constructed for both welfare and well-being.Climate, Welfare, Well being, Climatic condition, Empirical method, Climate modification, Russia, Eurasia

The Mix Between Pay-as-you-go and Funded Pensions and What Demography Has to Do with it

A model is presented that explains the mix between funded and unfunded pension systems. It turns out that total pension and the relative shares of the two systems may be explained and are determined by the population growth rate, technological growth, the time-preference discount rate, that relative risk aversion, the production function, and the political representation of the old. A fall in the population growth rate, even to negative values, will imply a reduction of the interest rate and an increase in the capital-output ratio. Whether the pension system will shift to more or less funding depends on the political weight of the elderly. If the elderly succeed in getting more weight in the political process if their population share increases, which is likely when the population shrinks, the accent on the PAYG- system will increase. A fall in the population growth rate will result in a reduction of average welfare. This reduction is more severe, the larger the political power of the elderly.old-age pensions, pay-as-you-go, intergenerational transfers, retirement benefits

Perspectives from the Happiness Literature and the Role of New Instruments for Policy Analysis

After having been ignored for a long time by economists, happiness is becoming an object of serious research in 21st century economics. In Section 2 we sketch the present status of happiness economics. In Section 3 we consider the practical applicability of happiness economics, retaining the assumption of ordinal individual utilities. In Section 4 we introduce a cardinal utility concept, which seems to us the natural consequence of the happiness economics methodology. In Section 5 we sketch how this approach can lead to a normative approach to policy problems that is admissible from a positivist point of view. Section 6 concludes.happiness economics, subjective well-being, equivalence scales, economic policy