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This chapter analyzes the economic implications of genetic engineering for food security. We discuss the asynchronous nature of genetically modified (GM) crop regulation and labeling requirements among countries, associated politics, and consumer perceptions of GM crops.

We perform an ex-ante analysis of the introduction of a GM rice variety in major rice exporting and importing countries (including potential producer and consumer impacts) within the framework of a partial equilibrium trade model.

Although the introduction of a GM rice variety that increases global yield by 5% could result in a consumer gain of US$23.4 billion to US$74.8 billion, it could also result in a producer loss of US$9.7 billion to US$63.7 billion. The estimated net gain to society could be US$11.1 billion to US$13.7 billion. Overall, we find a positive economic surplus for major exporters and importers of rice based on a 5% supply increase with a GM rice variety.

The adoption of transgenic (GM) rice varieties would have a far greater impact on rice prices for poorer counties than for richer countries. Therefore, GM rice may help ensure that more people throughout the world would have food security.

The chapter analyses the uses made in the economic literature of the two modern names of the Paretian criterion: optimality and efficiency. Based on a large database of 10,000 EconLit referenced scientific publications, we use a lexicometric and historical approach to study the uses, instead of the meaning, of the Paretian Criterion. We prove that economists differentiate their use of optimality and efficiency and that since the 1970s, uses of Pareto-efficiency have gradually replaced those of Pareto-optimality. Our interpretation is that economists who use the Paretian criterion change the status of their analysis from normative to positive economics.

The purpose of this paper is to outline and examine existing economic findings about the effects of information and communication technology on economic productivity, welfare and social change.

Initially, existing findings about consequences of ICT for macro-level economic activity and productivity are outlined, and then this is correspondingly done for firms and for industries before a variety of welfare and social consequences of ICT are discussed. The industry-level discussion includes empirical data as well as analytical material.

Most studies indicate that ICT has significantly added to GDP and has been growth enhancing but these effects vary considerably between economies. The elasticity of aggregate production in relation to investment in ICT has risen with the passage of time. Reasons for this are suggested. The contribution of value added to the output of different industries varies substantially. At the micro-economic level, it is shown how ICT can increase technical and allocative efficiency, and how it can increase consumers’ surplus and producers’ surplus by lowering market transaction costs. Socioeconomic inequalities and concerns arising from the supply of e-commodities are discussed.

Provides a comprehensive but short overview of economic findings about the impact of ICT and brings attention to socioeconomic issues that have been overlooked or downplayed in that discussion. Includes new micro-economic analysis of the distributional impact of ICT and indicates areas requiring social policy intervention.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework on the relationship between corruption and development. The paper demonstrates how the impact of corruption on economic development might vary substantially from sustainable development (SD).

A combination of literature-based analysis was employed by considering concepts from corruption and development. A synthesis of these two concepts leads to the development of the conceptual framework.

The findings shows that corruption originates from three main sources, and that the effect of corruption on development might differ depending on how it is conceptualized, but the spate of corruption is contingent on institutional quality and gains in previous development trajectory.

Relating the concept of corruption and SD and linking it to theories of development brings a sense of novelty. This paper has in its essence contributed to the conceptualization of the relationship between corruption and development which will help deepen understanding on this contentious subject. The framework will help to improve theory, research and practice in development studies and allied fields.

This paper analyzes real and welfare effects of a permanent change in inflation rate, focusing on macroprudential policy’ role and its interaction with monetary policy.

While investigating disinflation costs, the authors simulate a medium-scale dynamic general equilibrium model with borrowing constraints, credit frictions and macroprudential authority.

Providing discussions on different policy scenarios in a context where still it is expected high inflation, there are three key contributions. First, when macroprudential authority actively operates to improve financial stability, losses caused by disinflation are limited. Second, a Taylor rule directly responding to financial variables might entail a trade-off between price and financial stability objectives, by increasing disinflation costs. Third, disinflation is welfare improving for savers, while costly for borrowers and banks. Indeed, while savers benefit from policies reducing price stickiness distortion, borrowers are worried about credit frictions, coming from collateral constraint.

The paper suggests threefold policy implications: the macroprudential authority should actively intervene during a disinflation process to minimize costs and financial instability deriving from it; policymakers should implement a disinflationary policy stabilizing also output; the central bank and the macroprudential regulator should pursue financial and price stability goals, separately.

This paper is the first attempt to study effects of a permanent inflation target reduction in focusing on the macroprudential policy’ role.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative way of calculating the deadweight loss triangle in oligopolistic markets which takes inefficient use of inputs into account. The author shows that the result of the approach coincides with the one that exists in the economics literature. However, the author explicitly accounts for the inefficient use of inputs.

The market supply curve that is extensively used for competitive markets has been reconsidered for the imperfectly competitive markets. The necessary condition for the efficient use of resources is investigated and a price level is derived at which the market output of oligopoly is produced efficiently. The degree of inefficient use of inputs is reported via the definitions of Input Inefficiency Measure (IIM) and the Ratio of Inefficient usage of Inputs to Total Deadweight Loss (RITD).

The author discovers that the area under the supply curve of the competitive market corresponds precisely to the minimum total costs of producing any given market output. To make this important finding operational in imperfectly competitive markets, the IIM reports the degree of distorted input allocation among firms with differentiated cost structures in producing a given equilibrium imperfectly competitive market output. In measuring the monopoly power, it is known that CRn or HHI market concentration indexes, which are calculated based on the market shares of firms regarding the demand side of the market, are widely used. The measures, which take into account of the distortions in input usage, and hence, the supply side may be considered as an additional index. For example, if the market demand were shared equally by two firms (no dominant firm with respect to the demand side), it is known that the leadership would still arise when the costs of firms differed as in the dominant firm model in favor of the lower cost producing firm.

The author recommends some more theoretical research extensions of the approach suggested here to other oligopolistic markets like the Cournot-Nash, the Stackelberg and other models. In all cases, there is a need for additional work to find some measurable variables in practice in order to estimate the input inefficiency given by the two measures and differentiate it from the inefficiency of units of outputs that are not produced.

It may be interesting to decompose the various estimates of welfare losses due to monopoly power as a percentage of GNP that were discussed in the literature into two inefficiency components: units of outputs that are not produced and units of inputs that are misallocated among firms.

The government officials might be interested in assessing the degree of loss of input usage by firms in addition to output loss in oligopolistic markets summarized by the two inefficiency indexes. Law economists may be inspired in discussing the issue of input inefficiency in the context of on antitrust policy.

The author emphasized that the area under the market supply curve minimized the aggregate cost of producing a given total market output in competitive markets. Having recognized the importance of this finding, the author tried to apply it to imperfectly competitive markets and especially to the calculation of deadweight loss in such markets. The author showed that the total social cost could be calculated by including the input inefficiency which can be defined as the extra cost to society arising from not using the most appropriate economic resource allocation among firms in addition to the usual deadweight loss triangle. Moreover, the author had to introduce some more new terms like the market supply curve allocation, the adjusted competitive price, efficiency gain and so on, as they were necessary along the course of the analysis.

This article surveys the literature dealing with theory and applications of life cycle costing (LCC). It deals with the literature published in the last 25 years and provides 667 references.

This paper aims to find out what attitudes Economics and Business students have towards sustainability and what they expect from their education in relation to the achievement of economic, social and environmental sustainability. The objective is to find out if the studies of Economics and Business favour the development of pro-sustainability attitudes, taking into account factors such as the gender of the students, the course in which they are enrolled and the economic training received before entering university.

A survey was designed covering ecological, social, cultural, economic and political aspects. The survey was conducted among students of the Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Management and the Bachelor’s Degree in Economics. The authors used discriminant analysis and analysis of variance to test the research hypothesis.

Students are concerned about environmental problems and are aware of the need for action, but there is little consensus on the actions needed to overcome them. Some negationist traits are detected: those who rely more on technology give less importance to environmental problems and to the possibility of a major ecological catastrophe. Girls are more in favour of sustainability than boys, and students who have previously studied economics consider that their training has enabled them to evaluate the resources available and necessary to perform any job more than those who have not studied economics, regardless of their sex and year.

Many articles have focused on the importance of sustainability in higher education, but hardly any have analysed the role of economic education in achieving sustainability. Given the importance and the proven inter-relationship between economics and sustainability, with this article, the authors contribute to fill the gap in the literature. It is necessary that current students and future professionals receive adequate economic education.

This chapter examines the ethics and business diplomacy of legal tax avoidance by multinational enterprises (MNEs).

The methodology assembles the relevant literature and examines alternative interpretations of corporate tax strategy. Key topics include business ethics and responsibility, business sustainability, economic patriotism and corporate inversions, tax havens, and possible solutions.

The debate concerns whether legal tax avoidance is unethical and/or poor business diplomacy. There are three possible strategies for MNEs. One strategy is intentional tax avoidance. Another strategy is business–government negotiation concerning tax liability. Another strategy is business diplomacy aimed at maximizing the social legitimacy of the firm across multiple national tax jurisdictions.

The chapter assesses four possible solutions for corporate tax avoidance. One solution is voluntary tax payments beyond legal obligations whether out of a sense of ethics or a strategy of business diplomacy. A second solution is international tax cooperation and tax harmonization in ways that minimize opportunities for tax avoidance. A third solution is increased stakeholder pressure emphasizing business diplomacy and tax cooperation and harmonization. The fourth solution is negotiated tax liabilities between each business and each jurisdiction.

The chapter provides an original systematic survey of the key aspects of corporate international tax avoidance in an approach in which business ethics and business diplomacy are better integrated. The value of the chapter is that it provides information and assembles relevant literature concerning corporate international tax avoidance, and addresses possible solutions for this problem.