ALBERT

Notes: Abstract During the last 20 years, the existence of rich systems of local knowledge, and their vital support to resource use and management regimes, has been demonstrated in a wide range of biological, physical and geographical domains, such as agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry and agroforestry, medicine, and marine science and fisheries. Local knowledge includes empirical and practical components that are fundamental to sustainable resource management. Among coastal-marine fishers, for example, regular catches and, often, long-term resource sustainment are ensured through the application of knowledge that encompasses empirical information on fish behaviour, marine physical environments, fish habitats and the interactions among ecosystem components, as well as complex fish taxonomies. Local knowledge is therefore an important cultural resource that guides and sustains the operation of customary management systems. The sets of rules that compose a fisheries management system derive directly from local concepts and knowledge of the resources on which the fishery is based. Beyond the practical and the empirical, it is essential to recognise the fundamental socio-cultural importance of local knowledge to any society. It is through knowledge transmission and socialisation that worldviews are constructed, social institutions perpetuated, customary practices established, and social roles defined. In this manner, local knowledge and its transmission, shape society and culture, and culture and society shape knowledge. Local knowledge is of great potential practical value. It can provide an important information base for local resources management, especially in the tropics, where conventionally-used data are usually scarce to non-existent, as well as providing a shortcut to pinpoint essential scientific research needs. To be useful for resources management, however, it must be systematically collected and scientifically verified, before being blended with complementary information derived from Western-based sciences. But local knowledge should not be looked on with only a short-term utilitarian eye. Arguments widely accepted for conserving biodiversity, for example, are also applicable to the intellectual cultural diversity encompassed in local knowledge systems: they should be conserved because their utility may only be revealed at some later date or owing to their intrinsic value as part of the world's global heritage. At least in cultures with a Western liberal tradition, more than lip-service is now being paid to alternative systems of knowledge. The denigration of alternative knowledge systems as backward, inefficient, inferior, and founded on myth and ignorance has recently begun to change. Many such practices are a logical, sophisticated and often still-evolving adaptation to risk, based on generations of empirical experience and arranged according to principles, philosophies and institutions that are radically different from those prevailing in Western scientific circles, and hence all-but incomprehensible to them. But steadfastly held prejudices remain powerful. In this presentation I describe the 'design principles' of local knowledge systems, with particular reference to coastal-marine fishing communities, and their social and practical usefulness. I then examine the economic, ideological and institutional factors that combine to perpetuate the marginalisation and neglect of local knowledge, and discuss some of the requirements for applying local knowledge in modern management.

Notes: Abstract. Recent studies have begun to examine rigorously the links between early childbearing and subsequent socioeconomic status. Prominent in this literature has been a set of analyses that have used sibling fixed effects models to control for omitted variables bias. These studies report that the siblings difference procedure leads to smaller estimates of the effects of teen fertility than does standard regression analysis. While it is well known that the siblings fixed effects procedure makes strong assumptions regarding the type of omitted variables and is not necessarily robust to alternative assumptions, the assumptions of the procedure have not been explicitly examined. This paper uses 1979–1992 data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to compare estimates of the income and education consequences of teenage and young adult fertility from standard regression and siblings fixed effects models with estimates from more general, alternative siblings models.

Notes: Abstract. This study is the first attempt at placing the analysis of fertility in a temporal dynamic framework in the case of a developing Asian economy such as Thailand by binding the relationship between fertility and its determinants within a cointegrated system. The analysis is based on the application of the following recently developed dynamic time series techniques: cointegration, vector error-correction modelling, variance decompositions and the impulse response functions. The results tend to indicate that in the complex dynamic interactions, the importance of the conventional `structural' hypothesis as a significant factor in bringing fertility down in the longer term cannot be denied. However, in the short to longer term, our findings, although not fully supportive of any particular hypothesis, appear to be broadly consistent more with the hypothesis emphasising the critical role played by the `ideational' or diffusion forces along with the demographic variables in ensuring `initial' fertility decline than with the conventional `structural' hypothesis emphasising a significant socio-economic structural change as a pre-condition for `initial' fertility decline.

Notes: Abstract. This paper estimates a reduced form neoclassical model of Canadian fertility dynamics using an econometric technique that integrates several features not usually found in the demographic and economic literature. We find considerable support for the neoclassical model. We also find that correlated unobservables and parity stopping effects play an important role in Canadian fertility dynamics as well as other socio-demographic features of Canadian women. However, we fail to totally characterize the important drops in the fertility rate that took place for this era.

Notes: Abstract. This paper provides empirical evidence on fertility determinants in Arab countries. Adopting a macro and micro framework and exploiting panel and count data models the paper estimates the impact of cultural and economic factors on the demand for children. The results obtained strongly support the hypothesis that cross-country heterogeneity buttresses differentiated fertility and that female education mitigates high fertility. Child mortality and parent‘s preferences for sons positively affect fertility. By and large, demand for children is price and income inelastic.

Notes: Abstract. Economic and demographic outcomes are determined jointly in a choice-theoretic model of fertility, mortality and capital accumulation. There is an endogenous population of reproductive agents who belong to dynastic families of overlapping generations connected through altruism. In addition to choosing savings and births, parents may reduce (infant) deaths by incurring expenditures on health-care which is also provided by the government. A generalised production technology accounts for long-run endogenous growth with short-run transitional dynamics. The analysis yields testable time series and cross-section implications which accord with the empirical evidence on the relationship between demography and development.

Notes: Abstract. Son preference is widespread although not universal. Where it occurs it may lead to higher fertility rates. Ideally son preference should be measured in the context of a hazards or parity progression model of fertility, or a logistic model of contraceptive use. Such models require large amounts of survey data, particularly to measure the covariates. Can son preference be discerned reliably using tests which rely on more limited information? The answer is yes, based on applying eight simple tests to data from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey of 1992–93 and comparing the outcomes with the benchmark results from fuller models. Some, but not all, of the simpler tests accurately measure son preference, including estimating a simple hazards or progression parity model, the unisex sibship test, and the sibling differentials test.

Notes: Abstract We generalize the concept of Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies for strategic form games to allow for ambiguity in the players' expectations. In contrast to other contributions, we model ambiguity by means of so-called lower probability measures or belief functions, which makes it possible to distinguish between a player's assessment of ambiguity and his attitude towards ambiguity. We also generalize the concept of trembling hand perfect equilibrium. Finally, we demonstrate that for certain attitudes towards ambiguity it is possible to explain cooperation in the one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma in a way that is in accordance with some recent experimental findings.

Notes: Abstract. This paper is an economics-based quantitative analysis of the determinants of individual fertility in Vietnam, measured as the number of children ever born. In addition to the conventional linear model, two limited dependent variable models, Poisson and ordered-logit, are estimated using data from the 1988 Vietnam Demographic and Health Survery. We find, among other things, that husbands‘ characteristics are almost as important as those of wives in determining fertility, perhaps a reflection of the still dominant role of husbands in Vietnamese families. Both paternal and maternal education have important impacts on fertility. Of special interest is the evidence that supports the attitudinal effect of education over the opportunity-cost effect.

Notes: Abstract. For pay-as-you-go financed pension systems, claims may be calculated according to individual contributions (income) or the number of children of a family. We analyse the optimal structure of these parameters in a model with endogenous fertility. It is shown that for both structural determinants there exists no interior solution of the problem of intragenerational utility maximisation. Thus, pure systems are always welfare maximizing. Furthermore, children-related pension claims induce a fiscal externality that tends to be positive. The determination of the optimal contribution rate shows that the widely accepted Aaron-condition is in general a misleading indicator for the comparison of fully funded and pay-as-you-go financed pension systems.

Notes: Abstract In a recent issue of this journal, C. L. Sheng claims to havesolved andexplained the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) by studying it ‘from a moral point of view’ - i.e., by assuming that each player feels sympathy for the other. Sheng does not fully clarify this claim, but there is textual evidence that his point is this: PD's arise only for agents who feel little or no sympathy for each other; they cannot arise in the presence of a high degree of reciprocal sympathy. A high degree of such sympathysolves the PD in that it prevents PD's from arising, and a low degree of itexplains the PD in that it provides an essential condition for the occurrence of that game. This thesis is false, as some examples show. These examples are important; they prevent us from underestimating the problem posed by the PD.

Notes: Abstract In this paper a model of boundedly rational decision making in the Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma is proposed in which: (1) each player is Bayesianrational; (2) this is common knowledge; (3) players are constrained by limited state spaces (their Bayesian minds) in ‘processing’ (1) and (2). Under these circumstances, we show that cooperative behavior may arise as an individually optimal response, except for the latter part of the game. Indeed, such behaviorwill necessarily obtain in long enough games if belief systems satisfy a natural condition: essentially, that all events consistent with the players' analysis of the game be attributed by them positive (although arbitrarily small) subjective probability.

Notes: Abstract The fact that infinitely repeated games have many different equilibrium outcomes is known as the Folk Theorem. Previous versions of the Folk Theorem have characterized only the payoffs of the game. This paper shows that over a finite portion of an infinitely repeated game, the concept of perfect equilibrium imposes virtually no restrictions on observable behavior. The Prisoner's Dilemma is presented as an example and discussed in detail.

Notes: Abstract This paper demonstrates how a repeated public goods problem may be solved by using Tit-for-Tat (TFT) on the Lindahl point. The general solution is developed; geometric and numerical examples are offered.

Notes: Abstract In a recent volume of this journal John Carroll argued that there exist only uncooperative equilibria in indefinitely repeated prisoner's dilemma games. We show that this claim depends on modeling such games as finitely but indefinitely repeated games, which reduce simply to finitely repeated games. We propose an alternative general model of probabilistically indefinitely repeated games, and discuss the appropriateness of each of these models of indefinitely repeated games.

Notes: Abstract Our Pavlov learns by conditioned response, through rewards and punishments, to cooperate or defect. We analyze the behavior of an extended play Prisoner's Dilemma with Pavlov against various opponents and compute the time and cost to train Pavlov to cooperate. Among our results is that Pavlov and his clone would learn to cooperate more rapidly than if Pavlov played against the Tit for Tat strategy. This fact has implications for the evolution of cooperation.

Notes: Abstract Amartya Sen has argued the impossibility of the Paretian liberal. While his abstract argument is compelling, the concrete significance of the conclusion is in some doubt. This is because it is not clear how important liberalism in his sense is; in particular it is not clear that the sort of liberalism required for the impossibility result is a compelling variety. We show that even if the argument cannot be used to establish the inconsistency of Paretianism and common-or-garden liberalism, it can be adapted to prove a parallel impossibility. This is the impossibility of combining the Pareto criterion with a loyalty constraint involving certain claim-rights rather than liberty-rights. The impossibility of the Paretian loyalist is of interest in itself but it is also interesting for the light it throws on the source of Sen-style impossibilities.