The Economics of Poverty Traps and Persistent Poverty: Empirical and Policy Implications

The moral and economic imperatives to intervene in poverty traps motivate the identification of poverty traps and their structural causes so as to inform the design of appropriate policy responses. However, empirical identification remains challenging because of poverty traps’ complexity. After reviewing mechanisms that can generate poverty traps, we focus on one – multiple financial market failures – emphasising its heretofore underappreciated testable implications, including specific behaviours that are rational only in the presence of a poverty trap. We therefore recommend tests for these behaviours rather than more econometrically challenged efforts to directly test for poverty traps in estimated asset dynamics.     

Urban bias in price risk: The geography of food price distributions in low‐income economies

The geography of agricultural marketing has important implications for the stochastic distribution of agricultural commodity prices. This article proposes that objective food price risk differs between rural and urban areas of infrastructure‐poor economies characterised by spatially concentrated patterns of foodgrains storage. This difference implies an urban bias having adverse welfare effects for peasants who seasonally switch between net food seller and net food buyer positions. Empirical analysis of rice price data from Madagascar suggests that price variability and skewness indeed differ between rural and urban areas in ways that adversely influence the relative welfare of rural peasants.     

The Creation of Investigating Chambers at the International Criminal Court: An Option Worth Pursuing?

At a time when the position of investigating judge has beenabolished in a number of civil law countries, and is being questionedin those in which it remains, it might seem curious to callfor such a position to be created at the International CriminalCourt (ICC). However, experience at the ad hoc internationalcriminal tribunals (‘ad hoc tribunals’), and especiallyat the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslaviashows that the essentially adversarial procedure used in internationalcriminal proceedings is not wholly suitable for trying complexand highly political international cases. Having investigatingjudges participate in the investigations of such cases coulddecisively enhance the effectiveness, legitimacy and fairnessof international proceedings. This would be particularly appropriatein the ICC's complex legal system, which allows victims to participatein the proceedings and claim reparations. However, this newprocedure must clearly come with a number of safeguards in orderto avoid the failures attendant on the use of the investigatingjudge in domestic systems, which could be fatal to an embryonicand fragile international court.     

Jerome Gilson

Distinguished US lawyer Jerome Gilson has practised trade markand unfair competition law for more than 40 years. He is bestknown in the US and internationally as the original author ofTrademark Protection and Practice (LexisNexis/Matthew Bender),which was renamed Gilson on Trademarks in 2007. How did you first become interested in IP? Five years into general practice, I sent a Time article about     

Exploring Drivers of Innovative Technology Adoption Intention: The Case of Plug‐In Vehicles

How individuals respond to innovative technologies depends on how motivated they are by an array of internal and external factors and the informational and cost barriers they face. To better understand technology adoption decision making we (i) assess changes in intent to purchase plug‐in vehicles in response to reductions in their price and (ii) identify motivators that incline new car buyers toward plug‐ins under status quo and reduced vehicle cost scenarios. We find that individuals already inclined toward alternative vehicles have a higher interest in plug‐ins under a reduced‐cost scenario than individuals who favor conventional vehicles. We also find that individuals who shift their vehicle preference from conventional gasoline to plug‐in vehicles are motivated by material factors and fears relating to the innovative technology, whereas those shifting preferences between less to more innovative technologies are likely to be motivated by a mix of material and nonmaterial factors.     

Collective Bargaining in the Twenty-First Century: A Negotiations Institution at Risk

Collective bargaining, a core social institution, faces a fundamental transformational challenge. National survey data provide unique insights into the current status of the bargaining process — revealing challenges and opportunities. Awareness and use of interest-based bargaining principles is widespread but complicated by underlying tensions between labor and management. The findings illustrate the value of conducting an institutional-level analysis of a negotiations process.