Reconstitution of place within the renovation of the historic residential District of Bornova, Izmir

Ponència presentada a: Session 9: Forma urbana y relaciones entre historia y proyecto: el medio ambiente como patrimonio / Urban form and relationships between design and history: environmental heritage, arquitecture and plannin

Learning, monetary policy and housing prices

This paper evaluates different types of simple monetary policy rules according to the determinacy and learnability of rational expectations equilibrium criteria within a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework. Incorporating housing prices and collateralized borrowing into the standard model allow us to answer important policy questions. One objective is to investigate whether responding to housing prices affects determinacy and learnability of rational expectations equilibrium. For this purpose, we work with a New Keynesian model in which housing plays an accelerator role in business cycles as a collateralized asset. The results show that for current data rule, responding to asset prices does not improve learnable outcomes but for a monetary policy with lagged data and forward-looking rules we see improved learnable outcome if current housing prices are available to monetary authority. Moreover, we examine the effects of interest rate inertia and price stickiness on E-stability of REE.monetary policy rules, determinacy, learning, housing prices

Valuing the environment in developing countries: Modeling the impact of distrust in public authorities' ability to deliver public services on the citizens' willingness to pay for improved environmental quality

In this paper, we employ the choice experiment method to estimate local citizens' valuation of a public intervention that proposes to improve the quality of an important environmental resource, namely, the Ganges River in India. To elicit citizens' willingness to pay (WTP) higher municipality taxes for an intervention that proposes to improve the quantity and quality of wastewater treated by the local sewage treatment plant (STP), 150 randomly selected citizens of the municipality of Chandernagore, located on the banks of the Ganges River in West Bengal, were interviewed. The findings reveal that almost all (98 percent) of the citizens value the quality of the water and the environment in the Ganges, though a great majority (90 percent) protested the intervention by not choosing the improved STP scenario in at least one of the eight hypothetical markets in which they were asked to participate. When asked their reasons for not preferring the improved scenarios, 92 percent of them stated that they do not trust the authorities to efficiently and effectively manage the funds generated through additional taxes. The protest responses were controlled for with the use of the nested logit model (NLM). The results reveal that the citizens are willing to pay significant amounts to ensure that the intervention takes place and that an improved STP treats larger amounts of wastewater to a higher quality before discharging it to the Ganges. Therefore, to improve the wastewater management services and the related environmental quality in the water bodies into which treated wastewater is deposited, the municipalities could rely—at least to some extent—on their citizens' WTP higher taxes for provision of improved services. To capture this WTP, however, municipalities' performance, trustworthiness, and accountability, as well as the citizens' perceptions of these, should be improved.choice experiment method, nested logit model, willingness to pay, sewage treatment plant, distrust in public authorities,

Political Competition in Government Formation: the Effect of Simultaneous Policy Bidding on the Political Outcome

We present an alternative model of government formation in which two parties simultaneously and inpendently announce their polices proposals through a take-it-or-leave-it offer, to a third party - the formateur -, which picks the one that maximizes its own utility. As a consequence, the chosen policy proposal is implemented by a government coalition composed of the formateur and the party associated with the selected policy proposal. The model purposedly captures the political competition arising among the parties other than the formateur for the partnership in the governing coalition. The political equilibria resulting from the model confirm that the intensification of political competition among the parties, implied by the present framework, is beneficial for the formateur.Political competition goverment formation

Farmer preferences for milpa diversity and genetically modified maize in Mexico: a latent class approach

Maize, the second most globally important staple crop after wheat, originated in Mexico, where it is typically grown as part of a set of associated crops and practices called the milpa system. This ancient mode of production is practiced today in ways that vary by cultural context and agro-environment. Milpas generate private economic value, in terms of food security, diet quality and livelihoods, for the twomillion farm households who manage them. Furthermore, milpas generate public economic value by conserving agrobiodiversity, especially that of maize landraces, which have the potential to contribute unique traits needed by plant breeders for future crop improvement. In this way, milpas contribute to global food security in maize. However, the sustainability of the milpa system has been threatened by offfarm employment opportunities, long-distance migration, the increasing commercialization and intensification of maize production. Most recently, the milpa system has been negatively impacted by the contamination of maize landraces by genetically modified (GM) maize, cultivation of which is currently prohibited in Mexico. Here, we employ a choice experiment to estimate Mexican farmers’ valuation of three components of agrobiodiversity (crop species richness, maize variety richness and maize landraces), and examine their interest in cultivating GM maize. Choice experiment data, household level social, economic and demographic data, community level economic development data, and information on milpa production characteristics, and farmers’ attitudes and perceptions with regards to GM food and crops were collected from 420 farm households across 17 communities in three states of Mexico. Using these data, we analyzed the heterogeneity of farmer preferences using a latent class model, which can be used to simultaneously identify sample segments having homogenous preferences for milpa attributes, as well as farmer characteristics affecting preferences. We further identified the characteristics of farmers who are most likely to continue growing maize landraces and managing milpa systems, as well as those least likely to accept GM maize. Specifically, we identified three distinct segments of farmers: (i) Landrace Conservationists derive the highest private economic value from continued management of landraces and the highest economic loss from the possible adoption of GM maize. These farmers are young, dislike GM foods and crops, and are mainly located at the Oaxaca site, where transgenic constructs have been found in maize landraces. (ii) Milpa Diversity Managers derive the highest economic value from managing all of the agrobiodiversity components of the milpa, and suffer fewer losses from management of GM maize. These are older farmers, who are curious and like to experiment with maize varieties. (iii) Marginalized Maize Producers derive little value from crop species and maize variety richness, receive minimal value from maize landraces, and also experience the smallest negative impact from the adoption of GM maize. These farmers are located in the most isolated communities, have the lowest level of productivity, and oversee the largest milpa areas. They are also the most tightly integrated into the maize output markets. These novel findings have implications for debates concerning the adoption of GM maize in Mexico and its associated costs and benefits, as well as for the design of targeted, cost-effective conservation programs on farms