Traditional Policy Tools Research Articles

The Monetary Policy of Central Bank of Albania: Undertaken Contrasting Measures Against Global Crisis

Important data regarding the growth rate and the macroeconomic balance preservation show that Albania has experienced an important challenge the last 5 years. The effects of the global crisis are indirectly spread into the Albanian economy, considering the fact that the most important commercial partners to Albania are Italy and Greece, two countries of Eurozone in serious financial and internal debt crisis. The spread of the financial crisis from USA to Europe has made it difficult to find credit in the market, which leads to incremental liquidity and credit risk, associated to interest rate increases, increased difficulties encountered by the private investors, lower consume and a high grade of economic uncertainty. Also, the prices of some important primary products such as petroleum are still located in high levels. What mentioned above, in Albania was translated into lower remittances (as almost 1/3 of the Albanian population emigrates in Italy and Greece). On the other part, the partner’s private sector difficulties to produce incomes have played an important negative role on the Albanian exports amount, causing a commercial deficit. Consume and private investments are also decreased. In order to contrast the crisis effect the Albanian government has grown its debt. This work will treat about the measures taken by the Albanian Central Bank, in order to avoid the foreign imported financial difficulties and risk and in order to stimulate growth, private investments and consume. The traditional and not traditional monetary policy tools and instruments will be analyzed, with special acuity towards all the macroeconomic indicators and the related effects. This paper aims to verify the effectiveness of the monetary policy in Albania through an accurate analysis, supported by empirical data in a range of five years. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n2s2p218

Calorie Offsets: Environmental Policy for the Food Environment.

Although obesity continues to challenge the public's health, effective policy solutions are wanting. Borrowing from environmental protection efforts, we explored the potential for a "calorie offset" regulatory mechanism, which is similar to the carbon emission offsets used to curb greenhouse gas emissions, to mitigate the harmful health externalities of unhealthy food production. This approach might have a number of advantages over traditional policy tools, and warrants attention from health policymakers and industry alike.

The Timing of Central Bank Communication: Evidence from China

In recent years, central bank communication played an important role in monetary policy operations. In this paper, LSTVAR model is used to study the timing of central bank communications as well as the effects of central bank communications and traditional monetary policy tools under different economic status. The results show that monetary policy of China is asymmetric. The state of the economy can be divided into high growth and low growth, and the effectiveness of monetary policy tools will change under different economic status. The central bank should accurately determine the state of the economy and rationally use the various monetary policy tools for better play to the strength of different monetary tools.

APPLYING INSIGHTS FROM BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS TO POLICY DESIGN.

The premise of this article is that an understanding of psychology and other social science disciplines can inform the effectiveness of the economic tools traditionally deployed in carrying out the functions of government, which include remedying market failures, redistributing income, and collecting tax revenue. An understanding of psychology can also lead to the development of different policy tools that better motivate desired behavior change or that are more cost-effective than traditional policy tools. The article outlines a framework for thinking about the psychology of behavior change in the context of market failures. It then describes the research on the effects of a variety of interventions rooted in an understanding of psychology that have policy-relevant applications. The article concludes by discussing how an understanding of psychology can also inform the use and design of traditional policy tools for behavior change, such as financial incentives.

Integrative Frontiers in Environmental Policy Theory and Research

Environmental policy research continues to advance toward a more Kuhnian “normal” science where theory and empirical tools are brought to bear on real‐world policy systems to better understand social processes and determine the context in which policies work best. Traditional environmental policy tools now involve more flexible market‐based instruments, voluntary agreements, and information provision tools like ecolabels and sustainability indicators. Policy process theories continue to be refined through hypothesis testing and are evolving into more integrative and multidisciplinary frameworks. Interdisciplinary methods are also being employed to better measure and analyze environmental outcomes, which has always been a major challenge in environmental policy research. These research tools are being explored in emerging policy approaches like collaborative partnerships and with novel environmental issues like climate change adaptation, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, and nanotechnology.

Log Optimal Portfolios for the Poor: A New Proposal for Log Optimal Wealth Creation for Low Income Families

This article aims to propose the creation of a marketplace mechanism that can create significant wealth for the poor and low income citizens of a nation. The innovative approach described here is to create legislation that allows for the creation of a new product for investment targeted to low-income families. The distinguishing feature of this product is that it creates wealth without imposing negative externalities on the wealthy or future generations as traditional policy tools like taxes do.

Why Metrics Matter: Evaluating Policy Choices for Reactive Nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Despite major efforts, the reduction of reactive nitrogen (Nr) using traditional metrics and policy tools for the Chesapeake Bay has slowed in recent years. In this article, we apply the concept of the Nitrogen Cascade to the chemically dynamic nature and multiple sources of Nr to examine the temporal and spatial movement of different forms of Nr through multiple ecosystems and media. We also demonstrate the benefit of using more than the traditional mass fluxes to set criteria for action. The use of multiple metrics provides additional information about where the most effective intervention point might be. Utilizing damage costs or mortality metrics demonstrates that even though the mass fluxes to the atmosphere are lower than direct releases to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, total damage costs to all ecosystems and health are higher because of the cascade of Nr and the associated damages, and because they exact a higher human health cost. Abatement costs for reducing Nr releases into the air are also lower. These findings have major implications for the use of multiple metrics and the additional benefits of expanding the scope of concern beyond the Bay itself and support improved coordination between the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts while restoring the Chesapeake Bay.

Parenting Strategies as Influences of Teen Drinking via Self Esteem: An Important Area for Family Policy

Globally, in developing as well as developed countries, rampant increases in teen drinking are widely recognized as major threats to individual, family, and societal well-being. Parenting strategies influence drinking and related behaviors, leading to their incorporation in national family, health, and substance abuse policy programs. Drinking teens become drinking adults, harming current and future family generations in a vicious ‘‘recycling.’’ Longitudinal micro-level analyses from late grade to late high school shows that parenting strategies lead to, or can curb teen drinking, both directly and indirectly, through self-esteem. Parenting often overemphasizes control and underemphasizes positive communications (responsiveness). Particular parenting strategies decrease teen drinking directly or indirectly, by enhancing or detracting child self-esteem, or both. Policies targeting parents via communication and intervention campaigns, to reduce their teens’ drinking, offer a fruitful complementary tool to targeting teens directly, and to traditional policy tools. The emphasis of ‘‘extant’’ parent-targeted public policy campaigns is misplaced. We must reach parents earlier, in mid-grade-school years. Behavioral control should not be the dominant theme—psychological control must be strongly discouraged, and responsiveness encouraged, fostering long-term self-esteem and family health.

A wish, a fear and a complaint: understanding the (dis)engagement of forest owners in forest management

Inducing private forest owners to undertake any kind of forest management poses a challenge to policy makers. To gain a better understanding of the attitudes of forest owners, this study set out to describe, analyze, and interpret how forest owners engage (or fail to engage) in the management of their properties. A grounded theory approach Glaser and Strauss (The discovering of grounded theory, Aldine: Chicago, 1967); Charmaz (Constructing grounded theory. A practical guide through qualitative analysis, Sage publications, Ltd: London, 2006) was used to build an emergent theory through a descriptive and interpretational analysis of how forest owners get involved in forest management and the factors that influence their active decision-making process. The research was conducted in Catalonia. The main finding was that forest owners are more likely to engage in the management of their properties when they believe that through their actions they are fulfilling a moral norm, they are reducing the risk of forest fires, they have an archetypal image of what the forest should look like, and they can justify forest management as part of their economic strategy. These interdependent personal, social and cultural factors question the likely effectiveness of traditional economic policy tools.

Conducting macroeconomic policy in developing countries: Piece of cake or mission impossible?

Recent crises in East Asia and Latin America have raised questions about the conduct of macroeconomic policy in developing countries. But what is the scope for macroeconomic management in developing countries? Should international financial institutions that assist developing countries rely heavily on it? This paper investigates these issues. It concludes that, while the scope for tight macroeconomic control may be limited in some countries, appropriate structural reform could make the traditional macroeconomic policy tools more effective in the long run. This finding has important implications for reforming the International Monetary Fund. Although conducting macroeconomic policy is not a piece of cake, it should not prove to be an impossible mission if it is accompanied, or even preceded, by measures to strengthen the supply side.

Capital controls policy an intertemporal perspective

Abstract This paper studies capital controls policy from an intertemporal perspective. Using a small, open economy model with optimizing agents, it derives a policy rule which conforms real-world stylized facts and is sustainable in the long run. In particular, it explicitly models the constraints on the policy rule implied by the dynamics of the economy. Studying several prevalent policy experiments, it is demonstrated that significant real effects are generated by the interaction between controls policy and traditional policy tools. This happens as controls affect agents' intratemporal asset allocation and intertemporal consumption patterns. The use of controls enlarges the set of possible outcomes, generating some ‘non-traditional’ results. The analysis points to new tradeoffs and hence new dilemmas faced by a government that uses controls.

Political coalition breaking and sustainability of policy reform

This paper examines the need and potential for coalition breaking in policy reform efforts related to agriculture and the environment. The objective is to consider traditional policy tools that can break existing political coalitions, given the powerful noncompetitive role of strong interest groups such as government bureaucracy and large trading organizations. Choice of the policy mix is modeled as a cooperative game. A modification of the Nash bargaining solution is used to endogenize coalition formation. This framework is then used to examine the potential for an external development agency to promote environmental interests in the policy formation process. The results explain how in some countries a small increase in strategic aid may achieve a major breakthrough in policy reform even if past activities have been unproductive and how, in other countries, a major increase in aid may be fruitless.

Det samfundsøkonomiske perspektiv i byfornyelsen

Vestergaard, Hedvig: Det samfundsokonomiske perspektiv i byfornyelsen. Geografisk Tidsskrift 83: 84–88. May 1., 1983. The traditional policy tools in renewal and rehabilitation are questioned. An investigation of the possibilities for drawing upon the so far unused informal resources in households and local communities to accelerate renewal and rehabilitation is recommended.