"Collective Risk Control And Group Security: The Unexpected Consequences of Differential Risk Aversion"

We provide an analysis of odds-improving self-protection for when it yields collective benefits to groups, such as alliances of nations, for whom risks of loss are public bads and prevention of loss is a public good. Our analysis of common risk reduction shows how diminishing returns in risk improvement can be folded into income effects. These income effects then imply that whether protection is inferior or normal depends on the risk aversion characteristics of underlying utility functions, and on the interaction between these, the level of risk, and marginal effectiveness of risk abatement. We demonstrate how public good inferiority is highly likely when the good is "group risk reduction." In fact, we discover a natural or endogenous limit on the size of a group and of the amount of risk controlling outlay it will provide under Nash behavior. We call this limit an "Inferior Goods Barrier" to voluntary risk reduction. For the paradigm case of declining risk aversion, increases in group size/wealth will cause provision of more safety to change from a normal to an inferior good thereby creating such a barrier.

Personality traits and qualifications of a special class teacher

This study was concerned with the personality traits of a special classroom teacher. The most important person in the classroom in terms of determining what kinds of experiences children will have, is the teacher. Most of what goes on in the classroom or in a school situation outside the classroom is with direct or indirect reference to the teacher. This writer investigated the following questions: (1) What are the personality traits and qualifications of a special classroom teacher? (2) What basic qualities of good teaching are more in demand in a special education classroom than in a regular classroom? (3) Are the personality traits of teachers in special education situations really different or is the difference confined to the way in which the individual teacher utilizes these qualities

Is There a Democracy–Civil Society Paradox in Global Environmental Governance?

Civil society is commonly assumed to have a positive effect on international cooperation. This paper sheds light on one important facet of this assumption: we examine the impact of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) on ratification behavior of countries vis-à-vis international environmental agreements (IEAs). The main argument of the paper focuses on a “democracy-civil society paradox”: although ENGOs have a positive effect on ratification of IEAs on average, this effect decreases with increasing levels of democracy. This argument is counter-intuitive and appears paradoxical because democracy is generally associated both with a more active civil society and more international cooperation. The reasons for this hypothesized effect pertain to public demand for environmental public goods provision, government incentives, and problems of collective action among ENGOs. To test the net effect of ENGOs on countries' ratification behavior, the paper uses a new dataset on ENGOs in the time-period 1973–2006. The results offer strong support for the presumed democracy–civil society paradox. </jats:p

International Security, Multiple Public Good Provisions, and The Exploitation Hypothesis

Since the 1960’s Olson-Zeckhauser’s (1966) analysis, and its “exploitation of the great by the small” has provided economists’ core model of alliance’s provision of security/defense. But with the end of the Cold War countries allocative behavior has diverged markedly from OZ’s predictions for defense as a homogeneous pure public good voluntarily provided. This paper suggests a replacement for OZ, with the essential difference that “defense” rather than being aggregated into their single public good is disaggregated into more realistic categories of self-insurance and self-protection. Because allocative behavior in public good groups is essentially driven by income effects, we concentrate on these, which become complex and conflicted, giving much greater scope for goods-inferiority. The analysis is followed by numerical simulations, which conform to actual experienced allocations in NATO much better than the conventional “exploitation” model.JEL Classification Codes: F50, H41, H50, D81This paper extends parts of “National Adversity: Managing insurance and protection,” presented to a Conference on “The Causes and Consequences of Conflict,” Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Germany, March 28-29, 2008, PET conferences 2008, Seoul, Korea June 28, 2011, Indiana, USA June 4, IIPF conference 2011, Michigan, USA, August 8, 2011, and ANU, Australia, March 24, 2012.http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/ihori_toshihiro

Evaluation of small area crop estimation techniques using LANDSAT- and ground-derived data

Studies completed in fiscal year 1981 in support of the clustering/classification and preprocessing activities of the Domestic Crops and Land Cover project. The theme throughout the study was the improvement of subanalysis district (usually county level) crop hectarage estimates, as reflected in the following three objectives: (1) to evaluate the current U.S. Department of Agriculture Statistical Reporting Service regression approach to crop area estimation as applied to the problem of obtaining subanalysis district estimates; (2) to develop and test alternative approaches to subanalysis district estimation; and (3) to develop and test preprocessing techniques for use in improving subanalysis district estimates

Evaluation of large area crop estimation techniques using LANDSAT and ground-derived data

The results of the Domestic Crops and Land Cover Classification and Clustering study on large area crop estimation using LANDSAT and ground truth data are reported. The current crop area estimation approach of the Economics and Statistics Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture was evaluated in terms of the factors that are likely to influence the bias and variance of the estimator. Also, alternative procedures involving replacements for the clustering algorithm, the classifier, or the regression model used in the original U.S. Department of Agriculture procedures were investigated