Kill Your Status Quo
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Here (My Life as an Economist)
(see Away for conferences)

I have a PhD in Agricultural & Resource Economics from UC Davis [Dissertation and grad student stuff].

I am now a S.V. Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow in Natural Resource Economics and Political Economy at Agricultural & Resource Economics at UC Berkeley [Adventures of a Postdoc].

  Curriculum Vita

Working Papers (SSRN page)
(How Not to Get Published)

from highest to lowest priority (or quality)....

An Auction Market for Journal Articles (with Jens Prüfer) -- submitted
Abstract. Economic articles are published very slowly. We believe this results mainly from the poor incentives referees face. We recommend that an auction market replace the current system for submitting papers and demonstrate a strict Pareto-improvement of equilibrium. Besides the benefits of speed, this mechanism increases the average quality of articles and journals and rewards editors and referees for their effort. 
    In addition, the academic dollars for papers sold at auction go to the authors, editors and referees of cited articles. This income indicates academic productivity (facilitating decisions on tenure and promotion); its recirculation to journals further stimulates quality competition.
Alex Tabarrok comments on [an old version of] this paper at the Marginal Revolution blog

Focal Points, Gender and Reciprocation in Public Goods Games -- submitted 
Abstract. Two treatments of a public goods game are compared. In the implicit treatment (Implicit), subjects do not see the average contribution of others in their group, but they can calculate it from the information available. In the explicit treatment (Explicit), subjects see the average contribution of others in their group. I type subjects as cooperators, free-riders or reciprocators by regressing their contribution decision on the (implicit or explicit) average contribution of others.
    The share of reciprocators is 63 percent in Implicit, but 84 percent in Explicit, which has lower shares of both cooperators and free-riders. Interestingly, this difference is the result of different female behavior (treatments are between subject): The share of female reciprocators drops (significantly) from 85 to 49 percent; the male share drops (insignificantly) from 83 to 74 percent. 
    Why do women behave so differently? Although women behave similarly to men in Explicit, more women pursue unconditional strategies of free-riding or cooperation in Implicit---either because it is easier (the "lazy" explanation) or because they see no focal point (the "strategic" explanation). Either way, females appear to be the channel of ecological rationality: Their different behavior maintains earning parity across treatments.

The Real Estate Market Index [paper][method][data] [Press Releases 2008: Mar Sep Oct Nov Dec] -- submitted
Abstract. In this short note, I describe a simple Real Estate Market Index (REMI) that combines sales price, transaction volume and days on market (DoM) into a summary measure of market activity. The REMI rises with prices and transactions and falls with DoM. Because the REMI changes with quantity and velocity as well as price, it is a better indicator of market activity than indices using price alone, e.g., the Case-Schiller Index.
    Anyone with access to historical sales data can calculate the REMI. I show how to calculate the REMI using sample data from 16,500-plus transactions that closed escrow between Jan 2000 and Feb 2008 in Mission Viejo, California (REMI-MV). Although each of the three components start with an equal weight in the index, transactions and DoM are responsible for most variation in the REMI-MV. Prices tend to rise or fall steadily -- limiting the amount of information they convey on market activity.

Teaching Economic Principles: Algebra, Graph or Both? -- submitted
Abstract. Most economists know that students have difficulty combining the algebraic form of direct demand and the graphic form of inverse demand. Using a small sample of students, we find that they perform significantly worse when answering questions in the direct-inverse form - as compared to questions in homogenous forms. Surprisingly, advanced students still do worse with inverse demand. Although inverse demand is necessary for advanced economics, its use in early classes may divert students from learning economic principles. We recommend that Principles be taught with homogenous forms and inverse demand be introduced later - when benefits outweigh costs.

They Get You Coming and Going: University Market Power and Fees -- to be revised  [old version]

The Effects of Endogenous Exchange Rates on Behavior in Public Goods Experiments (with Stephan Kroll)
Abstract. We test whether endogenous exchange rates have an impact on behavior in a linear public good experiment. Paying participants based on endogenous exchange rates (which basically means paying shares of a known quantity to participants according to how well they do relative to others) can simplify an experimenter's budgeting decisions but creates tournament incentives---participants do not need to do as well as possible, but just better than other participants.
    We find that tournament incentives matter in some contexts but not in others: Participants contribute the least to their own group's public account when each participant's payment depends on her performance relative to participants in the same group. When payments depend on one's performance relative to participants in other groups, the "intergroup competition effect," found in previous research, seems to kick in, and participants contribute the most to their group's public good. Participant contributions fall between these extremes when payment depends on a participant's performance relative to all participants (inside group and in other groups). Contributions are in this case not significantly different from contributions in the baseline treatment, a traditional linear public good experiment with exogenous exchange rates. This result implies that an experimenter who wants to use a fixed budget for a public good experiment might be able to do so without distorting participants' decisions.

Killing the Golden Goose? Tourism and Deforestation in Nepal
Abstract. This paper analyzes economic forces in Nepal's tourism market. Market actors' utility maximization results in inefficient supply and demand outcomes and unsustainable ecotourism. This result is in direct contradiction to the stated goals of the actors, but predictable in the context of the tourism market structure. Proposed solutions include improved property rights and a change in government objectives.

Don't Shoot the Middleman! Agent Quality and Effective Delivery of International Aid 
Abstract. Bilateral or multilateral organizations control over 80 percent of International Development Aid (IDA). These organizations -- as middlemen -- have significant market power. Some commentators claim these organizations waste aid money, reducing effectiveness. My goal is to explain how these organizations succeed and fail. I begin by noting that donors, who want to prevent waste, have an asymmetric information problem: They do not know the middleman's quality, a parameter I define to be the combination of job knowledge and professional identity. All else equal, a middleman with higher quality will be more effective in delivering aid. Since the donor does not know the middleman's quality and the middleman's position is secure, they strategically interact in a Cournot framework. Their reaction functions define equilibrium levels of donor monitoring effort and middleman theft, which I broadly define to include waste and mismanagement.
    Both monitoring and quality increase effective IDA delivery, but quality dominates in three ways: First, a high-quality middleman delivers IDA effectively without monitoring; second, a low-quality middleman does a slightly-better job under intensive monitoring but no better when the donor's monitoring is weak; third, an overattentive donor can lower overall efficiency by "riding the back" of a high-quality middleman. The policy implications are clear: Get the right people. I recommend a shift from ex-ante program design, contemporaneous monitoring, and ex-post evaluation to hiring quality, competition, benchmarking, and recipient empowerment.

Pointing Fingers: Monitoring, Evolution and Efficiency among 15 Middlemen
Abstract. International aid travels from donor to recipient through a chain of middlemen. Middlemen play two roles: as agents delivering aid and as principals monitoring other middlemen delivering aid. As the quality of middlemen falls, shirking (theft) increases, and aid effectiveness falls. While quality has an unambiguous, positive impact, the relative effectiveness of different monitoring techniques is not obvious.
    I compare different monitoring techniques in simulations of multiple middlemen interacting over many periods. Simulations improve our intuitive understanding of non-equilibrium dynamics and evolution; they also help us rank monitoring techniques. The most-efficient monitoring technique---tolerating some but not too much waste---performs better than either overly-strict or more-clever alternatives.

Markets for Afghan Opium and US Heroin
The Senlis Council agrees with my idea to buy the opium.
Abstract. This modeling project examines the short-run effects of a program wherein the United States becomes the primary buyer of opium produced in Afghanistan and thereby reduces the global supply of heroin (refined opium). The model graphically shows that supply-side intervention will result in a large decrease in short-run world heroin supply, as well as many beneficial side effects. The U.S. heroin market is neither adversely nor beneficially affected, despite a budget-neutral change in spending priorities.

Entrepreneurial Miscellany

The Amsterdam Sex Exchange
Abstract.  Helping sex workers collude to earn more.

Roundabouts in Davis
Abstract. In this analysis, I will examine traffic control alternatives that can improve situations like this using at two intersections in Davis as examples. My primary alternative is the roundabout design, which lowers top speeds, increases average speeds, and results in safer and more satisfying traffic flow for drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians and neighborhood residents.  I recommend that the Davis City Council proceed to investigate the feasibility of converting Richards Boulevard and Olive (A Street and 3rd) from signal (stop sign) to urban single lane (min) roundabout.   

The Rumormill [website]
Abstract. Market competition provides price information and benefits consumers. Political competition should do the same thing, allowing citizens to reward (punish) politicians and bureaucrats for their good (bad) deeds. Unfortunately, complex political administration, lags between elections and limited resources of those who police civil society make policy efficiency is even less likely than economic efficiency. I propose a new check on political malfeasance, www.rumormill.com, where anonymous visitors could post rumors on the misbehavior of organizations, debate these rumors, vote on their validity, and receive positive (negative) feedback when they turn out to be true (false). The proposed mechanism promises to increase transparency in politics and empower the “little guy” against injustice.

Stop the Spork! A Proposal for Social Security Reform [1,600 words] [860 words]
Abstract. President Bush's proposals for social security reform ran into strong opposition and died. I outline a reform that would make social security sustainable, support private retirement accounts and guarantee security for the elderly.

Popular Press
(not peer reviewed)

(2005) Free Trade Can Be Fair Trade. Global View, 2005/IV: 20-21. ["internationalized" NC version]
Global View is a quarterly of the United Nations Association of Austria and Academic Forum for Foreign Affairs. It has around 50,000 annual readers interested in foreign affairs, trade, etc.