The Economics of Price Scissors

We analyze consequences of changing the terms of trade between agriculture and industry on capital accumulation and on welfare of workers in different sectors. The issue was central to Soviet industrialization debate and it remains important in today's developing world. Through a simple general equilibrium model, we show that a price squeeze on peasants increases accumulation (as Preobrazhensky argued), but it makes both urban and rural workers worse-off (contrary to Preobrazhensky's contention). The desirable changes in terms of trade are shown to depend on intertemporal valuations, but, within a range, not on rural-urban welfare trade-off. Our characterization of the optimal terms of trade is remarkably simple, in which the roleof welfare weights and of relevant empirical parameters are easily as certained.We then extend our analysis to economies with labor mobility and unemployment and, using a simple model with rigid industrial wage, show that the optimal terms of trade entail a tax on urban sector,a subsidy to rural sector, and a level of urban employment such that the urban wage exceeds the marginal product of urban worker.

The Social Cost of Labor, and Project Evaluation: A General Approach

This paper develops a general methodology for analyzing shadow wage (and other shadow prices). Our approach is to identify those reduced form relationships describing the economy which are central to the determination of the shadow wage, and use these to obtain simple formulae for the shadow wage. Among the aspects of the economy on which we focus are: (i) the difference between the domestic and international prices, (ii) the equilibrating mechanisms in the economy, (iii) the mechanisms which determine earnings of industrial and agricultural workers, (iv) the nature of migration, and (vi) the intertemporal trade-offs and the attitudes towards inequality. These aspects are modelled in a general manner, which can be specialized to a number of alternative hypotheses concerning technology, behavioral postulates, and institutional settings. Most earlier results on the shadow wages are derived as special cases of our formulae. In addition, we identify a number of new qualitative results concerning the relationship between the shadow wage and the market wage.

The Architecture of Economic Systems: Hierarchies and Polyarchies

This paper presents some new perspectives on the structure and performance of alternative economic organizations. We posit that decision makers make errors of judgement (for example, they sometimes select bad projects while rejecting good projects), and that how these errors are aggregated within different organizations depends on their architecture (for example, on how individuals are organized together). Using this framework, we compare the performances of two polar forms of organizations: hierarchies and polyarchies. Assuming judgmental abilities of individuals are similar in the two systems, we show that polyarchies accept a larger proportion of bad projects (compared to hierarchies) whereas hierarchies reject a larger proportion of good projects. We then determine the conditions under which polyarchies have higher or lower expected profit. The conditions under which polyarchies perform better appear to be more plausible and, moreover, this conclusion holds also in the case where the rules for accepting or rejecting projects are rationally determined based on the information available to individuals. The architecture of organizations also affects their portfolio of available projects; we determine conditions under which polyarchies have better or worse portfolios compared to those available to hierarchies.There are many possible extensions of our approach. Among them are the analysis of internal structure of firms, selection of managers (by other managers) and the reproduction and self-perpetuation of organizations over time.

Taxation and Pricing of Agricultural and Industrial Goods

This paper presents an analysis of price reform and of optimal pricing and taxation of agricultural and industrial goods in modern-day LDCs. Our analysis is based on a general equilibrium paradigm with a multitude of goods and income groups. It is consistent with several alternative institutional structures with in the agricultural and the industrial sectors, as well as with alternative hypotheses concerning unemployment and migration of labor across the two sectors.This approach differs substantially from the standard tax literature with regard to the structure of the economy and the set of admissible taxes.The rules of price reform which we derive are quite simple to implement, requiring only the knowledge of observable parameters such as price elasticities of demand and supply. The determination of optimal prices (and taxes) requires, in addition, the relative welfare weights on individuals' incomes and on investment. We show that it is desirable, ingeneral, to levy import and export taxes. Among new results are those presenting conditions under which all of the goods belonging to certain categories (such as all purchased agricultural inputs or all agricultural outputs which are not consumed) should be either taxed or stibsidized.

The Invariance of R&D to the Number of Firms in the Industry

Thi spaper presents certain remarkably simple results concerning market's allocation to R&D and its comparison to socially efficient allocations. We posit that a firm can undertake more than one project aimed at the same innovation, and consider a product market characterized by Bertrand competition. Among the results we obtain is that the market R&D (that is, the number of projects undertaken, and the effort spent on different projects) is invariant to the number of firms. We also examine the effects of the number of firms on the gains from innovation to consumers, firms, and society, and show, in particular, that the market undertakes less R&D than is socially desirable.

Opioids Inhibit Lateral Amygdala Pyramidal Neurons by Enhancing A Dendritic Potassium Current

Pyramidal neurons in the lateral amygdala discharge trains of action potentials that show marked spike frequency adaptation, which is primarily mediated by activation of a slow calcium-activated potassium current. We show here that these neurons also express an alpha-dendrotoxin- and tityustoxin-Kalpha-sensitive voltage-dependent potassium current that plays a key role in the control of spike discharge frequency. This current is selectively targeted to the primary apical dendrite of these neurons. Activation of mu-opioid receptors by application of morphine or D-Ala(2)-N-Me-Phe(4)-Glycol(5)-enkephalin (DAMGO) potentiates spike frequency adaptation by enhancing the alpha-dendrotoxin-sensitive potassium current. The effects of mu-opioid agonists on spike frequency adaptation were blocked by inhibiting G-proteins with N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) and by blocking phospholipase A(2). Application of arachidonic acid mimicked the actions of DAMGO or morphine. These results show that mu-opioid receptor activation enhances spike frequency adaptation in lateral amygdala neurons by modulating a voltage-dependent potassium channel containing Kv1.2 subunits, through activation of the phospholipase A(2)-arachidonic acid-lipoxygenases cascade

Committees, Hierarchies and Polyarchies

This paper examines optimal decision making under three different organizational forms: committees, hierarchies, and polyarchies. Focus is on the trade-off between errors of rejecting good projects versus errors of accepting bad projects, and on the trade-off between gains from more extensive evaluations of projects versus costs of evaluation. The authors characterize the optimal sizes of these organizations (as well as the optimal level of consensus in committees), and then analyze how these optima change under different organizational environments. They also analyze the influence of organizational environment on the relative performance of these alternative organizational forms

The Quality of Managers in Centralized Versus Decentralized Organizations

Our objective here is to examine how the centralization or decentralization of decision-making authority affects the quality of the managers who are actually selected. This question is naturally dynamic because the quality of current managers is not only influenced by that of past managers, but it, in turn, affects the quality of future managers

Price Scissors and the Structure of the Economy

This paper undertakes three sets of tasks: (i) it analyzes positive and normative aspects of price scissors (the domestic terms of trade between agriculture and industry) within nonsocialist as well as socialist LDCs. The critical role of the economy's institutional features (e.g., external trade environment, wage and income determination, and wage-productivity effects) is emphasized. Certain aspects of the Soviet Industrialization Debate and subsequent collectivization are interpreted, (ii) It develops simple rules to delineate who gains and who loses (within agriculture) from changes in terms of trade, (iii) It presents powerful (and informationally parsimonious) rules for Pareto-improving price reforms for cash crops and agricultural inputs

Determinants of undernutrition among women of reproductive age in Tanzania mainland

Objective: Developing countries, including Tanzania, are increasingly characterised by undernutrition. It is very disheartening, affecting a large proportion of the country’s population. Women in the reproductive age group are affected the most. Undernourished women are likely to face reproductive health problems, leading to maternal and infant death. Thus, studying and eliminating undernutrition risk factors in women is very important in order to avoid maternal health complications and prevent infant illness and death. Therefore, this study focused on identifying the determinant factors of undernutrition in women of reproductive age, i.e. aged 15-49 years, on the Tanzania mainland, using the data extracted from the Tanzanian Demographic and Health Survey 2010.Subjects and setting: Six thousand, nine hundred and thirty-three eligible non-pregnant women of reproductive age were selected from urban and rural areas on the Tanzania mainland.Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted.Outcome measures: An anthropometric measure (body mass index) was used to determine the prevalence of undernutrition and the generalised estimating equation (GEE) was adopted to assess the impact of the proposed determinants of undernutrition.Results: It was shown from the findings of this study that overall prevalence of undernutrition was 11%. Also, the results from the fitted GEE revealed that the effect of age, the family’s wealth index and marital status were independent significant risk factors for undernutrition. The impact of education on undernutrition was significantly associated with place of residence.Conclusion: There was a high prevalence of undernutrition in this study, with significant differences with respect to age, wealth index and marital status. In order to improve women’s nutritional status, policies should focus on improving family wealth and education.Keywords: BMI, GEE, OR, reproductive women, Tanzania, undernutritio