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This paper aims to develop a utility maximising framework for criminal behaviour and to consider a Markowitz‐type utility function, centred at current wealth, for a representative criminal.

The paper takes the form of a conceptual discussion.

The Kahneman‐Tversky value function form seems to be consistent with the current empirical evidence, expressed mainly as the ratio of certain elasticities. The criminal's optimal level of crime is obtained and comparative statics derived to help suggest how crime might be controlled.

Empirical work is encouraged to elicit the utility function of a representative criminal in this analytical framework, to ascertain if crime is a favourable bet and if it could indeed be Giffen.

The solution shown in the paper involves an upper limit on the odds against detection of the criminal and it is shown that a distinct possibility is that crime is a Giffen commodity.

This paper examines the adverse selection problem associated with the pre‐completion marketing of property developments. When developers choose to finance their projects by pre‐selling in a pooling equilibrium, they pass on the risk of failure to the buyers and increase expected profits. Pre‐selling not only places buyers at a potential disadvantage if unexpected negative price shocks occur, but encourages more less‐profitable projects to be undertaken by bad developers. In addition, pre‐selling aggravates the building boom and bust cycle. However, the adverse selection problem can be eliminated if good developers choose to separate themselves by not pre‐selling under the appropriate conditions. This paper also examines interesting comparative statics and policy implications.

The dissolving trade barriers, financial deregulation, hyper‐mobility of capital and the rapid diffusion of new information technologies have ushered the Australian economy into the borderless world. The orthodoxy that states that centralised wage‐fixing in Australia has impeded wage flexibility and resulted in high unemployment is unconvincing. Partly, this is because in the 1980s Australian labour market institutions have been decentralised and decollectivised in response to pressures from the borderless world. The insights garnered from cross‐sectional comparative statics that, first, skill‐biased Schumpeterian technological change was the major cause of labour immiserisation and, second, adverse Stolper‐Samuelson trade played an insignificant effect need to be reviewed. Parsimonious dynamic time‐series models of trade and technology have been formulated using general‐to‐specific methods after taking account of stochastic trends through unit root and cointegration tests. Granger causality and non‐nested tests applied to these models support the contention that both trade and technology contributed to increasing wage disparity during the borderless era. Moreover the supply side factors such as female participation, immigration and institutional factors such as deunionisation have also increased wage disparity. The deregulation of the Australian labour market by the Workplace Relations Act, whilst an inevitable response to achieve competitiveness in the borderless world market, would exacerbate wage inequality. Policies aimed at skill accumulation on the one hand, and social welfare policies involving negative income taxes on the other may have to be implemented to mitigate the deleterious social effects of rising wage inequality.

This paper revisits the derivation and properties of the Allen-Uzawa and Morishima elasticities. Using a Swiss dataset, this paper empirically estimates various elasticities both in a dual and primal framework using a production theory open economy model and tests for linear homogenous technology. In addition to reporting elasticity at the mean, the standard practice in the literature, this paper also calculates nonparametric distribution of various elasticities. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

To assess the effect of price change on input, the paper estimates a translog cost function and to assess the effect of quantity change on price, the paper estimates the translog distance function using the data on Swiss economy. The paper estimates Allen-Uzawa and Morishima elasticity both under homogenous and non-homogenous technology using the Swiss dataset of one aggregate gross output and four inputs (resident labor, non-resident labor, imports, and capital) over 1950-1986. Elasticities are reported and compared at the mean as well as explored by looking at the range and nonparametric distribution.

This paper shows that constant returns to scale are easily rejected in this dataset and that the elasticities, both qualitatively and quantitatively, are very different under homogenous and non-homogenous technology. These elasticities can switch from complements to substitutes or vice versa when one moves away from the mean of the sample. The equality of the nonparametric elasticity distributions under homogenous vs non-homogenous technology is rejected in all cases except one.

This paper gives a clear derivation and interpretation of different elasticities as well as demonstrates using a dataset how to systematically go about empirically estimating these elasticities in a dual and primal framework. It shows that linear homogenous technology can be easily rejected and the elasticities, both quantitatively and qualitatively, are very different under homogenous and non-homogenous technology. This paper is also very valuable because it shows that the standard practice of reporting elasticity at the mean might not be adequate and there is a possibility that these elasticities can switch from complements to substitutes or vice versa when one moves away from the mean of the sample.

Analyses the influence of export share and domestic content policies on the level of capital investment undertaken by a multinational firm both in its home country and in the foreign country in which it operates. These protective policies, in force in both developing and industrialized countries, require the firm to employ a certain proportion of inputs from the foreign country in which it operates and to export a certain proportion of its output abroad. Cases examined in the analysis include those for which the firm faces uncertainty in the production process in the host and home countries; and in neither country. Finds that both of these policies can have spillover effects to the home country as well, i.e. when there is uncertainty in production in the home country, these policies can reduce the optimal level of investment in the home country, too.

This study reviews the emergence of Thailand in the 1990s as the Fifth Tiger economy of Asia following the regime switch from an import substitution to export oriented industrialisation policy. A Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model was formulated to analyse the macroeconomic and sectoral implications of implementing trade liberalisation policies in Thailand. The theoretical structure, database underpinning the model and the solution technique used to generate empirical results are explained. The simulation of trade liberalisation policy has been proxied by an across‐the‐board tariff cut on the sectoral imports. The comparative statics of both the macroeconomic and sectoral effects of trade liberalisation policy simulation over the decade ending in the year 2000 are analysed in detail. The study concludes with some observations on the controversy surrounding the distributional effects of trade liberalisation in Thailand.

Provides a general approach for the incorporation of the influence of insiders and outsiders in the union utility. In particular, the specification is such that the weight of the influence of the outsiders can vary; and this makes it possible to consider different degrees of union altruism and also to embrace all the previous work on the subject. Examines both the monopoly union and the efficient bargain cases. Comparative statics analysis provides some interesting results, such as that wages are more inflexible downwards.