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The study examines the relationship between the consequential social cost of market power (i.e. welfare performance of banks) and cost efficiency using data covering the period 2009 to 2017 from the Ghanaian banking industry.

The study adopts the ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effect (FE) panel regression and the quantile regression (QR) approaches to control for heterogeneity and provide increased room for policy relevance. The two-stage least squares instrumental variables (2SLS-IV) regression is used to ensure the robustness of the findings against the problem of possible reverse causality.

The results indicate a positive relationship between banks' welfare performance and cost efficiency, which suggests that greater cost efficiency hedges welfare losses. In other words, welfare gains and cost-efficient banks are not mutually exclusive. Also, the results show evidence that the sensitivity of welfare gain to cost efficiency depends on the knowledge of local market dynamics. Further, the findings from the QR estimation suggest that, but for welfare loss at low (Q.25) to the median (Q.50) quantiles, cost efficiency is a necessary and sufficient condition to hedge the welfare losses.

The results demonstrate that financial consumer protection cannot be achieved without cost efficiency in the presence of both foreign banks and high market knowledge. Therefore, our paper suggests an integrated cost efficiency policy approach that has the complementary effect of a robust information sharing mechanism and incentives to hedge against welfare losses in the banking sector of emerging economies. Moreover, if welfare gain is synonymous with cost-efficient banks, then the presence of a quiet life is typical of financial consumer protection.

This study provides insight into the importance of cost efficiency to the public policy of financial consumer protection in an era of foreign banks' dominance. From the review of prior literature, this paper is the first to apply the QR estimation technique to examine the effect of cost efficiency throughout the conditional distribution of bank welfare performance rather than just the conditional mean effect of cost efficiency.

Previous studies generally focused on the definition of cybercrime and its effect on the market. Following Kesan’s study, this paper aims to analyse the relationship between cyber insurance and social welfare and compare it among three countries, namely, USA, UK and Turkey. The paper also discusses the main obstacles that the cyber insurer has to deal with and its effect on social welfare. This paper answers two questions related to cyber insurance at an aggregate level. First, “what kind of contribution does cyber insurance make to social welfare?” Second,“What kind of problems do insurers and insured have to face?” Although the findings are similar to Kesan’s study, this study gives an opportunity to make a country-based study and interpret the results with a different perspective.

The calculation of utility is also important for interpreting social welfare in the market. Consumer behaviour under uncertainty constructs the background for this paper because the risks of malicious attacks are contingent and independent, which means that consumers have to make their decisions under uncertainty. Von-Neumann-Morgenstern utility function is used for interpreting consumer’s behaviour.

Basically, there are two important conclusions that can derive for cyber insurance. First, cyber insurance can be defined as a higher security investment when coupled with increased levels of safety and a robust IT infrastructure. Second, cyber insurance, as a high-security investment, would have a positive impact on social welfare by making the internet safer for all users. The results show that the problems that lead to market failure can be virtually eliminated with an accurate risk assessment that leads to appropriate premium levels for insured. These results are consistent with those of study by Kesan et al. (2006).

Data availability for different industries have limited the ability to compare the impact of cyber-crime to different sectors.

Technological devices have become part of our daily life. Although they have brought us increasing access to all types of information, including opportunities for business, they have also increased the risk of malicious attacks and the risk of e-crime. By replicating the economic model used by Kesan et al. (2006), social welfare losses and insurance premiums are calculated for three countries: USA, UK and Turkey. Questions pertaining to contribution of cyber insurance to social welfare and problems faced by insurers and insured are addressed.

The primary motive of a minimum wage policy is to provide a wage floor for poorly paid workers and improve their welfare. In Nigeria, real minimum wage declined by 60 per cent between 1974 and 2011, thus reducing the welfare of workers. The wage gap between low skilled and high skilled workers have also widened over the years in favour of the latter. There are concerns that the series of minimum wage increase in Nigeria may not be welfare-enhancing. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study examined the welfare effects of minimum wage increase in Nigeria using a computable general equilibrium model. The model was calibrated using a 2006 Social Accounting Matrix and four sets of scenarios (20, 35, 50 and 140 per cent wage increases), were simulated.

The findings show that employers substituted other labour categories for minimum wage workers. This increases the wage rates of other labour. The consumer price index also increased as firms partly pass-on increased labour cost to consumers. Generally, the simulations show that minimum wage policies worsen the welfare of its intended beneficiaries, due to negative impact on prices and employment.

This study deviates from existing studies on minimum wage in Nigeria, by providing a proper disaggregation of the labour market that represents the Nigerian economy. In this regard, the informal sector was accommodated and the potential impact of the minimum wage on this sector determined. It also adopted the equivalent variation welfare measure which incorporates price and consumption effects in measuring welfare.

The financial crisis, which broke in the USA has impacted greatly on the world economy, especially on China's cotton supply chain. It is necessary to understand the welfare change of the cotton chain under this shock of financial crisis in order for relevant policy decisions to be made. The purpose of this paper is to measure the welfare change of all the consumers, producers, circulation and farmers in the cotton supply chain under the shock of financial crisis.

There is no existing mature method to calculate the welfare change of a special supply chain, such as the cotton supply chain. The method most used in such situations is the equilibrium displacement model, created by Muth, and developed by Gardner.

The financial crisis has had important impacts on China cotton industry. Farmers' losses are bigger than people estimate. Circulation link's loss is a little lower than cotton farmers'. Producers' loss is far lower than circulation and cotton farmers. Consumers' loss is the biggest loss in the whole cotton supply chain: however, some of these are foreign consumers – especially foreign wholesalers and retailers.

This paper is the first to study the quantitative welfare change of China's cotton supply chain under the shock of financial crisis, providing useful information for government and company decision making.

If rational individuals pay the full costs of their decisions about food intake and exercise, economists, policy makers, and public health officials should treat the obesity epidemic as a matter of indifference. In this paper, we show that, as long as insurance premiums are not risk rated for obesity, health insurance coverage systematically shields those covered from the full costs of physical inactivity and overeating. Since the obese consume significantly more medical resources than the non-obese, but pay the same health insurance premiums, they impose a negative externality on normal weight individuals in their insurance pool.

To estimate the size of this externality, we develop a model of weight loss and health insurance under two regimes – (1) underwriting on weight is allowed and (2) underwriting on weight is not allowed. We show that under regime (1), there is no obesity externality. Under regime (2), where there is an obesity externality, all plan participants face inefficient incentives to undertake unpleasant dieting and exercise. These reduced incentives lead to inefficient increases in bodyweight, and reduced social welfare.

Using data on medical expenditures and bodyweight from the National Health and Interview Survey and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we estimate that, in a health plan with a coinsurance rate of 17.5%, the obesity externality imposes a welfare cost of about $150 per capita. Our results also indicate that the welfare loss can be reduced by technological change that lowers the pecuniary and non-pecuniary costs of losing weight, and also by increasing the coinsurance rate.

Negative effects of crime encompass several different dimensions. As a result, there is no existing methodology capable of dealing with all the relevant issues simultaneously and the interpretation of the estimates currently available lacks theoretical foundation. The purpose of this paper is to provide a unified view of the meaning and relationship between the various dimensions of the welfare cost of crime and violence available in the literature.

The paper develops a theoretical model of crime and illustrates the different interpretations of welfare costs of crime and violence within this unified framework. This theoretical benchmark is then used as a benchmark to review the empirical literature on the topic.

The analysis suggests that the most commonly estimated dimension of the welfare cost of crime − related to the total loss associated with crime − although relevant as an illustrative tool, is not very useful from a policy perspective. The literature should therefore move closer to the idea of estimating marginal costs and benefits in order to become policy relevant.

Policy-oriented research related to optimal law enforcement should move in the direction of estimating the marginal willingness to pay of individuals for reductions in crime. This should be compared to the marginal cost of alternative policies in order to guide public policy in the area.

This survey rationalizes in economic terms the estimates from the existing methodologies, highlights some of their limitations, and points out potential directions for future research. It provides one of the first unified views of the various dimensions of welfare cost of crime and violence that have been presented in the literature.

The entry into force of the EU-CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) marks the beginning of a new era of trade relations, from preferential treatment to reciprocity, between the member states of the European Union (EU) and the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. In light of the controversy regarding the impact of the agreement, an assessment is made on the static welfare impact it is likely to generate on consumers in Guyana.

The assessment is done through the application of a partial equilibrium model to the 2008 import and tariff data of Guyana. The model captures the static welfare effect that will be occasioned by a change in tariff on imports.

The study finds that there will be a static net welfare loss to the tune of US$31.01 million or 2.2 percent of Guyana's GDP obtained for 2008. The loss is due to a large trade diversion effect which is the product of the fact that over the years Guyana imported little from the EU relative to the rest of the world minus CARIFORUM sources.

Unlike its forerunner, the import data used in this study is for the year immediately before the entering into force of the EU-CARIFORUM EPA and reflects the exact amount of imports that will be liberalized by Guyana. In addition, the study is broader in scope as it focusses on the EU-27, which is the exact number of EU member states with whom Guyana has signed the aforementioned agreement. Subject to its exactness, the study is better positioned in having its findings be used as a yardstick, given the periodic mandatory review of the EU-CARIFORUM EPA.

This chapter provides a formal analysis of the economic welfare effects for large and small partners to free trade agreements. Michaely (1998) has demonstrated that large country welfare is U-shaped in the small country's size. I derive the welfare for the large country for all possible small country sizes, and show that the maximum possible loss for the large country is twice its tariff revenue. I identify the data necessary to estimate the welfare effects and consider how initial trade volumes, tariffs, and international price differences affect the large country's welfare.

This paper aims to clear whether the monopoly structure of the internet industry has produced market power and discussed the welfare change of the internet industry monopoly.

By using new empirical industrial organization methods and taking the e-commerce market as an example, the authors measured market power and economies of scale of the internet platform companies.

Internet platform enterprises have formed scale economy, but it has not had market power, and the industry still maintains high levels of competition; also, the emergence of large enterprises may increase the welfare of consumers.

The conclusion of this paper clarified actual competition status of internet industry and provided a new foothold for regulation and ideas for the traditional industry to crack the Marshall Conflict.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of transaction costs on economic welfare and development, and the role of information technology (IT) in reducing transaction costs.

The paper extends the static model of Romer, in which transaction costs reduce welfare by reducing the equilibrium number of intermediate goods, and estimate the welfare losses in the case of domestic transaction costs. The main analysis of the paper extends a dynamic model of Ciccone and Matsuyama to incorporate transaction costs. Also described are case studies of the use of IT in rural India.

In the static model, it is shown that domestic transaction costs have a substantial welfare impact when the number of goods is endogenous. In the dynamic model, it is shown that high transaction costs reduce the long‐run level of development, and may arrest development completely in the extreme case. Some preliminary, qualitative evidence from rural India is offered to illustrate how these reductions may occur through the use of IT.

The treatment of transaction costs in a dynamic model is novel, and the use of such a model provides a new theoretical underpinning for understanding the potential impacts of IT on development.