The traditional rental adjustment equation is ̄ awed in that the equilibrium paths for the adjustm ent of rents and vacancy rates cannot hold simultaneously over time. This paper suggests a two-equation model of rental adjustm ents based on adaptive expectation s rather than the single-equation model presen ted in the traditional literatu re, and provides empirical tests. Annual data from the ho...

We conduct a national-scale analysis of the determinants of agricultural land values. The theoretical basis for the study is a spatial city model with stochastic returns to future land development. The empirical model of agricultural land prices is estimated with a crosssection on approximately three thousand counties in the contiguous US. The results provide evidence that option values associa...

The Fair Trade coffee initiative attempts to channel charity from consumers to poor producers via increased prices. Though widely heralded, we show that the rules of the Fair Trade system permit complete arbitraging away of rents due to costly excess certification of output. Using data from an association of coffee cooperatives in Central America, we verify that arbitrage on this margin causes ...

This paper critiques the notion that unfettered inequality is an inevitable consequence of contemporary capitalism, and provides an alternative, new framework for analyzing changes in income and wealth distribution. By thinking of these distributions as the result of changing centrifugal and centripetal economic and political forces, we can identify changes in our economic and social structure ...

The resource curse has drawn much attention from economists and policymakers. An effort to resolve this is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard improve transparency accountability in resource-abundant countries. This study theoretically empirically assesses impact of EITI on natural rents. We present simple model describe collusion between politicians comp...