The sexualisation of Australian children in the interest of corporate profit is increasing and ex... more The sexualisation of Australian children in the interest of corporate profit is increasing and exposes children to a wide range of risks from a very young age, according to an analysis by Emma Rush and Andrea La Nauze. Children are increasingly being portrayed in clothing and posed in ways designed to draw attention to adult sexual features that they do not yet possess in the interest of the corporate bottom line.
Non point sources of pollution such as agriculture produce diffuse emissions which are unmeasurab... more Non point sources of pollution such as agriculture produce diffuse emissions which are unmeasurable, arise from unobservable actions and cause stochastic pollution of air and waterways. Despite the significant damage they cause, regulation of these sources has proven far from straightforward in both theory and practice. To ensure tractability, theoretical treatments remain either static or focus on determining the optimal level of pollution. In contrast, we specify a rich model of firm incentives in a dynamic setting. Specifically, using the continuous time methods pioneered by Sannikov (2008) we treat (multiple) firms as having limited liability and outside options. We model a regulator who must design an incentive compatible contract to implement abatement and show that the solution is a simple incentive mechanism. The regulator collects a constant tax and links a firms’ promised payoff to the flow of pollution. A firm is paid a rebate once this promised payoff exceeds their socia...
Information programs that leverage peer comparisons are used to encourage pro-social behavior in ... more Information programs that leverage peer comparisons are used to encourage pro-social behavior in many contexts. We document how imperfect information generates heterogenous responses to treatments involving personalized feedback and peer comparisons. In our field experiment in retail electricity, we find that most households either overestimate or underestimate their relative energy consumption pre-treatment. Households that overestimated respond to new information by temporarily increasing electricity consumption, whereas households that underestimated take steps that lead to long term energy conservation. We explore the implications of these results for the external validity and design of information programs.
In environmental markets, parties frequently exchange obligations through environmental contracts... more In environmental markets, parties frequently exchange obligations through environmental contracts. These contracts imply a distribution of risk between parties. The main focus of our paper is to identify contracts that enable risk in environmental markets to be reduced, distributed at least cost, or managed efficiently. The risks that we consider are: moral hazard risk, price risk, exogenous environmental risk, measurement risk and production risk. The first section of our paper outlines some of the contracts currently utilised in financial and insurance markets to achieve these objectives. These are: futures and options contracts, spread contracts, weather contracts and catastrophe bonds. We then provide a snapshot of current applications of these contracts both in real markets and in the literature. Finally we discuss some possible applications in the environmental sector and indicate how the use of these contracts may alter the way government manages environmental assets and resp...
This paper explains why the current patchwork of media and advertising regulation is failing to p... more This paper explains why the current patchwork of media and advertising regulation is failing to prevent the premature sexualisation of Australian children. A number of improvements are proposed based on a review of current regulatory arrangements for the areas most responsible for the sexualisation of children: girls' magazines, television and outdoor advertising, and television programs. This paper is a companion to Corporate Paedophilia: The sexualisation of children in Australia.
I test whether economic incentives impact peer effects in public-good settings. I study how a vis... more I test whether economic incentives impact peer effects in public-good settings. I study how a visible and subsidized contribution to a public good (installing solar panels) affects peer contributions to the same good that are neither subsidized nor visible (electing green power). Exploiting spatial variation in the feasibility of installing solar panels, I find that on average panels increase voluntary purchases of green power by neighbors. However, when subsidies to solar are high, solar panels reduce peer contributions. The results support the hypothesis that signals drive peer responses to visible public-good contributions and that economic incentives alter those signals.
The sexualisation of Australian children in the interest of corporate profit is increasing and ex... more The sexualisation of Australian children in the interest of corporate profit is increasing and exposes children to a wide range of risks from a very young age, according to an analysis by Emma Rush and Andrea La Nauze. Children are increasingly being portrayed in clothing and posed in ways designed to draw attention to adult sexual features that they do not yet possess in the interest of the corporate bottom line.
Non point sources of pollution such as agriculture produce diffuse emissions which are unmeasurab... more Non point sources of pollution such as agriculture produce diffuse emissions which are unmeasurable, arise from unobservable actions and cause stochastic pollution of air and waterways. Despite the significant damage they cause, regulation of these sources has proven far from straightforward in both theory and practice. To ensure tractability, theoretical treatments remain either static or focus on determining the optimal level of pollution. In contrast, we specify a rich model of firm incentives in a dynamic setting. Specifically, using the continuous time methods pioneered by Sannikov (2008) we treat (multiple) firms as having limited liability and outside options. We model a regulator who must design an incentive compatible contract to implement abatement and show that the solution is a simple incentive mechanism. The regulator collects a constant tax and links a firms’ promised payoff to the flow of pollution. A firm is paid a rebate once this promised payoff exceeds their socia...
Information programs that leverage peer comparisons are used to encourage pro-social behavior in ... more Information programs that leverage peer comparisons are used to encourage pro-social behavior in many contexts. We document how imperfect information generates heterogenous responses to treatments involving personalized feedback and peer comparisons. In our field experiment in retail electricity, we find that most households either overestimate or underestimate their relative energy consumption pre-treatment. Households that overestimated respond to new information by temporarily increasing electricity consumption, whereas households that underestimated take steps that lead to long term energy conservation. We explore the implications of these results for the external validity and design of information programs.
In environmental markets, parties frequently exchange obligations through environmental contracts... more In environmental markets, parties frequently exchange obligations through environmental contracts. These contracts imply a distribution of risk between parties. The main focus of our paper is to identify contracts that enable risk in environmental markets to be reduced, distributed at least cost, or managed efficiently. The risks that we consider are: moral hazard risk, price risk, exogenous environmental risk, measurement risk and production risk. The first section of our paper outlines some of the contracts currently utilised in financial and insurance markets to achieve these objectives. These are: futures and options contracts, spread contracts, weather contracts and catastrophe bonds. We then provide a snapshot of current applications of these contracts both in real markets and in the literature. Finally we discuss some possible applications in the environmental sector and indicate how the use of these contracts may alter the way government manages environmental assets and resp...
This paper explains why the current patchwork of media and advertising regulation is failing to p... more This paper explains why the current patchwork of media and advertising regulation is failing to prevent the premature sexualisation of Australian children. A number of improvements are proposed based on a review of current regulatory arrangements for the areas most responsible for the sexualisation of children: girls' magazines, television and outdoor advertising, and television programs. This paper is a companion to Corporate Paedophilia: The sexualisation of children in Australia.
I test whether economic incentives impact peer effects in public-good settings. I study how a vis... more I test whether economic incentives impact peer effects in public-good settings. I study how a visible and subsidized contribution to a public good (installing solar panels) affects peer contributions to the same good that are neither subsidized nor visible (electing green power). Exploiting spatial variation in the feasibility of installing solar panels, I find that on average panels increase voluntary purchases of green power by neighbors. However, when subsidies to solar are high, solar panels reduce peer contributions. The results support the hypothesis that signals drive peer responses to visible public-good contributions and that economic incentives alter those signals.
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Papers by Andrea La Nauze