in the presence of uncertainty about what a country can be good at producing, there can be great social value to discovering costs of domestic activities, because such discoveries can be easily imitated. two failures of the laissez – faire outcome are being highlighted: there is too little investment and entrepreneurship ex ante, and too much production diversi-fication ex post. optimal policy ...

This paper investigates the relationship between energy curtailment regulation and investments in distribution networks in a deregulated electric power system with distributed generation. Curtailment due to the network constraints is the interest of the paper. The network investment can be based on accommodating the energy produced from distributed generation without curtailment; however, a par...

Social investment funds and indigenous peoples/Jonathan Renshaw. p. cm. (Sustainable Development Department. Best practices series; IND-108) Includes bibliographical references.

The concept of altruism is used in very different forms by computer scientists,economists, philosophers, social scientists, psychologists and biologists. Yet, in order to be useful in social simulations, the concept "altruism" requires a more precise meaning. A quantitative formulation is proposed here, based on the cost/benefit analysis of the altruist and of society at large. This formulation...

I am baking a cake and have run out of sugar, but I can go to my neighbor next door to get some. It was worth being nice to that neighbor even though I did not particularly fancy her. Do I have to return the sugar? Maybe she can borrow my lawn mower the next time she needs to mow her lawn and that will count as a return of the favor. Maybe the value of the sugar is trivial enough not to require...