Publications
In the competition for hegemony of major powers, it seems logical for a small or middle power state to be ambiguous on its preference. Aligning with one protagonist for protection and preferential treatment can only be at the expense of antagonizing the other. Conventional wisdom holds that hedging is practical as it allows a country to leverage on its amicable relations with both powers.The ASEAN states are caught in the middle of the U.S.-China economic rivalry as well as directly engaged in maritime disputes with China. This paper evaluates strategic ambiguity versus alignment against the backdrop of trade decoupling of rival superpowers. Using a multi-sector, multi-country Ricardian trade model, our simulation results reveal that it is in the interest of some economies to align with one of two camps, contrary to conventional wisdom. The diverse welfare effects of decoupling on member states prevent the attainment of a unified ASEAN position and undermine ASEAN centrality in curbing the risk of a second cold war.
IntroductionThere is a lack of quantitative evidence on the role of food innovations-new food ingredients and processing techniques-in the nutrition transition.ObjectiveDocument the distribution of food innovations across 67 high-income (HIC) and middle-income (MIC) countries between 1970 and 2010, and its association with the nutritional composition of food supply.MethodsWe used all available data on food patents, as compiled by the European Patent Office, to measure food innovations. We considered innovations directly received by countries from inventors seeking protection in their territories, and those embedded in processed food imports. Food and Agricultural Organization data were used to estimate the associations between international diffusion of food innovations and trends in total food supply and its macronutrient composition, after adjusting for confounding trends in demand-side factors. We identified the role of trade by simulating the changes in average diet due to innovations embedded in food imports.ResultsTrends in food innovations were positively and significantly associated with changes in daily per capita calorie supply available for human consumption in MIC between 1990 and 2010 (elasticity of 0.027, 95% CI 0.019 to 0.036). Food innovations were positively correlated with the share of animal and free fats in total food supply (elasticities of 0.044, 95% CI 0.030 to 0.058 for MIC between 1970 and 1989 and 0.023, 95% CI 0.003 to 0.043 for HIC between 1990 and 2010). Food innovations were associated with substitutions from complex carbohydrates towards sugars in total food supply for MIC after 1990 (elasticities of -0.037, 95% CI -0.045 to -0.029 for complex carbs, 0.082, 95% CI 0.066 to 0.098 for sugars). For these countries, the trade channel capturing access to innovations through imports of processed food played a key role.ConclusionPolicy-makers should consider the impacts of the international diffusion of food innovations in assessing the costs and benefits of international trade regulations.
Local proximal point algorithms with quasi distances to find critical points (or minimizer points in the convex case) of functions in finite dimensional Riemannian manifolds are introduced. We prove that bounded sequences of the algorithm generated by proper bounded from below, lower semicontinuous and locally Lipschitz functions have accumulation points which are critical points (minimizer points in the convex case). Moreover, for Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz functions, the sequence globally converges to a critical point. We applied the algorithm to a behavioral traveler's problem where an individual tries to satisfy locally his needs and desires by moving from one city to the next, with costs to move playing a major role.
In this article, we introduce the command beyondpareto, which estimates the extreme-value index for distributions that are Pareto-like, that is, whose upper tails are regularly varying and eventually become Pareto. The estimation is based on rank-size regressions, and the threshold value for the upper-order statistics included in the final regression is determined optimally by minimizing the asymptotic mean squared error. An essential diagnostic tool for evaluating the fit of the estimated extrerme-value index is the Pareto quantile-quantile plot, provided in the accompanying command pqqplot. The usefulness of our estimation approach is illustrated in several real-world examples focusing on the upper tail of German wealth and city-size distributions.
This paper develops a search and matching framework in which workers are characterized by asymmetric reference-dependent rec-iprocity and firms set wages by considering the effect that these can have on workers' effort and, therefore, on output. The cyclical response of effort to wage changes can considerably amplify shocks, independently of the cyclicality of the hiring wage, which becomes irrelevant for unemployment volatility, and firms' expectations of downward wage rigidity in existing jobs increases the volatility of job creation. The model is consistent with evidence on hiring and incumbents' wage cyclicality, and provides novel predictions on the dynamics of effort.
A large proportion of adults in the developing world remain without access to formal banking. We assess the effectiveness of a network-based information delivery strategy in fostering interest to learn about and subscribe to mobile money services in rural and peri-urban communities in Peru. We posit that lack of information about mobile money technology is a barrier to financial inclusion, which can be mitigated through social proximity. We designed a randomized controlled trial where workshops were led by individuals personally known to participants (local ambassadors–treatment) or by external agents (control). We find that attendance and BiM subscription rates were twice as high in the local ambassadors' group, especially among low-trust individuals.
This article derives the (asymptotic) variances and covariances – and hence standard errors – of quantile means and quantile shares in terms of explicit formulas that are distribution-free and easily computable. The article then develops a toolbox of quantile-based disaggregative inequality measures, based on the means and shares, which allow for detailed inferential analysis of income distributions in a straightforward unified framework. The analytical formulas are applied to Canadian Census public-use microdata files on workers’ earnings for 2000 and 2005. The results highlight the statistical significance of how upper-earnings levels have advanced beyond middle earnings, how much the share of mid-range earnings has eroded over even a five-year period, and how decile mean growth rates for women were everywhere higher than for men – except at the top decile, where the opposite phenomenon was highly significant.
We propose a non parametric hypothesis test to compare two partitions of a same data set. The partitions may result from two different clustering approaches. The test may be done using any comparison index but we focus in particular on the Matching Error (ME) that is related to the misclassification error in supervised learning. Some properties of the ME and, especially, its distribution function for the case of two different partitions are analyzed. Extensive simulations and experiments show the efficiency of the test.
Public health problems are complex; investigating them requires a framework that both accounts for multiple interactions among individuals and their intermediate and broader environment and also integrates equity concerns. Incorporating internal and external influences at the individual level, the health capability profile (HCP)'s 15 different health capabilities address this need. Using a systematic three-step deductive content analysis process, we examine hypothetical case studies representing leading causes of death in the USA (eg, heart disease, cancer and diabetes) as well as pressing public health issues such as COVID-19, alcohol use disorder, stigma and discrimination, intimate partner violence and firearm violence. After reviewing the profile (1), each case study is analysed through the framework of the HCP and developed into a flow diagram, through which we identify shortfalls between the observed and optimal levels of each health capability, as well as detrimental or enabling interactions among capabilities (2). We then determine factors and interventions that could help improve overall health capability (3). The HCP harnesses the multitude of unique individual profiles, and through aggregation and analysis, reveals common vulnerabilities (eg, discriminatory social norms and non-evidence-based information), and strengths. It recommends cross-cutting structural policy and programme reforms for institutions, schools, community resources and for individuals to develop a positive set of norms, knowledge, goals, attitudes and habits to chart the path towards health and well-being for all.
Not all barrels of oil are created equal: their extraction varies in both private cost and carbon intensity. Leveraging a comprehensive micro-dataset on world oil fields, alongside detailed estimates of carbon intensities and private extraction costs, this study quantifies the additional emissions and costs from having extracted the "wrong" deposits. We do so by comparing historical deposit-level supplies to counterfactuals that factor in pollution costs, while keeping annual global consumption unchanged. Between 1992 and 2018, carbon misallocation amounted to at least 11.00 gigatons of CO2-equivalent (GtCO2eq), incurring an environmental cost evaluated at $2.2 trillion (US$ 2018). This translates into a significant supply-side ecological debt for major producers of high-carbon oil. Looking forward, we estimate the gains from making deposit-level extraction socially optimal at about 9.30 GtCO2eq, valued at $1.9 trillion, along a future aggregate demand pathway coherent with the objective of net-zero emissions in 2050, and document unequal reserve stranding across oil nations.
