Search Results

This chapter de-mystifies respirometry equations, showing how they can be derived using a simple mental trick: concentrating the analysis on the principal gas that is neither consumed nor produced by animals. The effect of dilution of oxygen by carbon dioxide, the enrichment of carbon dioxide by the consumption of oxygen, and the effects of water vapor on the concentrations of both gases, are described and quantified. A system of eight equations is derived that allow oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production to be calculated in practically any feasible flow-through respirometry system.

This chapter presents background information on valves. A valve consists of an evacuated glass envelope containing a number of electrodes. These are connected to the outside by wires passing though special seals. The innermost electrode is the cathode, which consists of a metal tube coated with a material that emits electrons when it is heated. In the simplest form of valve, called a diode, the cathode is surrounded by a metal cylinder called the anode. If the anode is connected to a voltage that is positive relative to the cathode, the anode attracts electrons from the cathode and a current flows. Valves as amplifiers and switches, power consumption, and valve specifications are described.

Technical advances based on unprecedented levels of energy use brought a new phenomenon of mass consumption as well as many obvious gains in the typical quality of life. However, they have not substantially reduced economic inequality. They also introduced new risks (ranging from car accidents to nuclear weapons) and some worrisome environmental changes, especially the possibility of relatively rapid global warming.

This chapter argues that evolutionary economics should be founded upon complex systems theory rather than neo-Darwinian analogies concerning natural selection, which focus on supply side considerations and competition amongst firms and technologies. It suggests that conceptions such as production and consumption functions should be replaced by network representations, in which the preferences or, more correctly, the aspirations of consumers are fundamental and, as such, the primary drivers of economic growth. Technological innovation is viewed as a process that is intermediate between these aspirational networks, and the organizational networks in which goods and services are produced. Consumer knowledge becomes at least as important as producer knowledge in determining how economic value is generated. It becomes clear that the stability afforded by connective systems of rules is essential for economic flexibility to exist, but that too many rules result in inert and structurally unstable states. In contrast, too few rules result in a more stable state, but at a low level of ordered complexity. Economic evolution from this perspective is explored using random and scale free network representations of complex systems.

This chapter broadens the analysis of sovereign debt by incorporating ecological concerns. Centuries of consumption of the natural resources of the developing world by the developed world, resources that in many cases were acquired illegally or by force, have produced what is describes as an ecological debt of the rich countries to the poor countries. The imbalance in resource consumption helps explain the dramatic divergence in income levels between rich nations and poor nations that has occurred since the early 20th century. It is argued that there is a sustainable equilibrium in the use of the world's natural resources — clean air, fresh water, timber, and petroleum. The wealthy nations of the world have upset that equilibrium at the expense of the poor — taking more than their share of the goods while inflicting the costs of resource depletion and pollution on the poor.

This essay addresses a number of question regarding poverty: How do we know who is poor and who is not? Is poverty the same as hunger? What is the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction? How will we know whether the first Millennium Development Goal has been met, or whether world poverty is falling at all? It considers the issue of poverty as a lack of income or consumption, and the broader view of poverty as the absence of one or more of the basic capabilities needed to achieve minimal functioning in society, such as food, clothing, education, and political participation. The measurement of poverty in the world is also discussed.

This chapter assesses the impact of capital formation and economic development under Japanese rule on income distribution, consumption (standard of living), and savings in Korea, focusing those of Koreans and Japanese in Korea. This allows the evaluation of the ultimate beneficiaries of economic growth and transformation in the country relative to various economic sectors (e.g., industry and agriculture), income groups (e.g., landlords, farmers, businesses, and wage earners), and different nationalities (i.e., Koreans and Japanese). Similar analyses have been performed relative to personal consumption and savings, as well as business savings based on economic/income sectors/groups and nationality.

This chapter answers the following technical questions: In a stochastic environment, where the return on capital and the interest rate are stochastic, what is an optimal (1) long-term debt, (2) expected current account, (3) consumption, and (4) expected growth rate. The mathematical techniques necessary to answer these questions, concerning intertemporal optimization in continuous time over an infinite horizon, involve dynamic programming. A mean-variance interpretation is given for the dynamic programming solution.

This chapter summarizes five facts from the recent literature on consumption behavior during retirement. Most importantly, it shows that there is substantial heterogeneity in spending changes at retirement across consumption categories. Observed declines in spending during retirement are limited to food and work-related expenses. Even though food spending declines during retirement, actual food intake remains constant. Furthermore, the literature shows that there is substantial heterogeneity across households in the change in expenditure associated with retirement. Much of this heterogeneity, however, can be explained by households involuntarily retiring. Overall, the evidence suggests that the standard model of lifecycle consumption augmented with home production and uncertain health shocks does well in explaining the consumption patterns of most households as they transition into retirement.

Today's retirees face the daunting task of determining appropriate investment and spending strategies for their accumulated savings. Financial economists have addressed their problem using an expected utility framework. In contrast, many financial advisors rely instead on rules of thumb. This chapter shows that some of the popular rules are inconsistent with expected utility maximization, since they subject retirees to avoidable, non-market risk. It also highlights the importance of earmarking ‘the existence of a one-to-one correspondence between investments and future spending’ and shows that a natural way to implement earmarking is to create a lockbox strategy.

This chapter discusses Yaari's (19665) annuitization result, which states that a risk-averse individual concerned about longevity risk (uncertain length of life) will always purchase actuarially-fair annuity contracts, enabling them to smooth consumption in every period of retirement. The chapter explains the assumptions behind this result. It models the demand for annuities in an expected utility framework, and demonstrates the value of annuities under various specifications of preferences.

Financial security in retirement has traditionally meant having a steady flow of annuity income as long as one lives — a definition enshrined in the Social Security system. Earlier research has stressed a more holistic approach, which focuses on the match between resources and spending needs. Using this formulation this chapter estimates annuity values given long-term care concerns and bequest motives, where these estimated values are consistent with low observed demand for standard annuities. The chapter extends this model to value non-standard annuities with various security-enhancing features that may be of value to retirees.

Analyses efforts of the Norwegian government to come to terms with sustainable development. It analyses the domestic reception of the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development after 1987. Attention is paid to the positive role that Norway has played internationally with respect to many areas of the sustainable development agenda (for example, in encouraging the debate about sustainable production and consumption). But contradictions and inconsistencies in the Norwegian implementation effort are also explored.

By giving to all as high an unconditional income as possible, is one not violating liberal neutrality by favouring leisure and sanctioning consumption? One would be if the taxation needed to fund the basic income could legitimately be seen as the extraction of part of the outcome of nothing but the workers’ effort. But it cannot. Reflecting on the message of efficiency‐wage theories of unemployment leads one to view it instead as a fee on the appropriation of assets very unequally divided between us: jobs.

The choice of tax base–income, consumption, wealth–is an instrumental one: it depends upon the efficiency and justice of the outcomes different tax bases promote. Traditional fairness-based arguments for the consumption base–for example, that it is fairer to savers, or appropriately taxes according to what is taken out rather than put into the “common pool”–all suffer from the everyday libertarian mistake of treating the pretax distribution as morally significant. But there are important philosophical questions to be asked about the value of wealth and the legitimacy of taxing endowment (potential rather than actual income).