Fondée sur deux analyses empiriques et sur un travail de modélisation théorique, cette thèse traite de la problématique du vieillissement de la population, en France, en termes de dépenses de biens et services de santé, et en termes de prise en charge des personnes âgées dépendantes. Dans un premier chapitre, une méthode de microsimulation dynamique est mise au point afin d'évaluer l'évolution des dépenses de médicaments remboursables (en médecine de ville) sous l'effet du vieillissement de la population et de l'évolution de l'état de santé chronique des personnes âgées. Un deuxième chapitre s'intéresse aux tenants d'une possible réforme de l'Allocation Personnalisée d'Autonomie (APA), qui viserait à récupérer sur la succession une partie des fonds versés aux personnes dépendantes. Nous développons un modèle théorique de transfert intergénérationnel en individualisant les décisions des deux membres d'une famille, un parent dépendant et un enfant aidant informel potentiel. Enfin, dans une dernière partie, nous évaluons empiriquement les facteurs modifiant la demande d'aide à domicile des bénéficiaires de l'APA, en nous concentrant, afin d'anticiper sur de possibles réformes de l'aide publique, sur l'évaluation des effets-prix dans la demande d'aide formelle. / This thesis addresses, using an elaborated theoretical model and two empirical applications, issues related to population ageing and health care expenditures as per the French context. In the first chapter, a method of dynamic microsimulation is developed to assess the evolution of outpatient reimbursable drugs expenditures as a result of the ageing population and the evolution of health status of chronically ill elderly people. The second chapter focuses on the ins and outs of a possible reform of the Personal Allowance for Autonomy (APA), which would seek to recover a portion of the funds paid to disabled elderly on the inheritance of their heirs. A theoretical model of intergenerational transfers is developed to study the individual decisions of a two-member family - a disabled parent and a child who can play the role of informal care giver. The final section presents an empirical evaluation of the factors affecting the demand of APA's recipients for home care. This work examines the price effects in the demand for formal care in order to anticipate possible reforms of public allowance.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:33:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PEREIRA_Tainara_2013.pdf: 1316115 bytes, checksum: e27f367a9554f43f23c9d5278c584514 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-03-28 / The existence of several lines of research permeating the field of microeconomics can be seen by the different approaches from each group of authors. This work presents two of such lines using the methodology of scientific research programs proposed by Lakatos. The lines analyzed were the neoclassical theory and neoschumpeterian (or evolutionary) theory. The main objective is to understand the concepts of competition and innovation under these two perspectives. With the secondary purpose of verify some adherence from the modifications in the protective belt of the research program with the observed reality, it was characterized the technical and institutional context for the theoretical formulation. In parallel with the presentation of the contexts that underlie the creation and modification of research programs, it was possible to infer about the progression of each theory. In the neoclassical case, it was argued that the program is degenerating by the side that concerns its changes, because those changes just to explain the puzzles that motivated them. For the neoschumpeterian theory is argued that the research program appears to be progressive, because it alters the protective belt to encompass new facts. Regarding the prevalence of neoclassical theory for economists, it seems that its mathematical formalization was responsible for bringing more enthusiasts, but with the advance of computational methods, the evolutionary model is also promising in this regard. / A existência de diversas linhas de pesquisa permeando o campo da microeconomia pode ser vista através das distintas abordagens em cada grupo de autores. Neste trabalho são apresentadas duas de tais vertentes utilizando-se da metodologia de programa de pesquisa científico, proposta por Lakatos. As correntes analisadas foram as teorias denominadas neoclássica e neoschumpeteriana (ou evolucionária). O objetivo principal do trabalho buscou entender os conceitos de concorrência e inovação em cada uma destas perspectivas. Com o objetivo secundário de verificar alguma aderência das modificações do cinturão protetor do programa de pesquisa com a realidade observada, foi caracterizado o contexto técnico e institucional contemporâneos à formulação teórica. Em paralelo, com a apresentação dos contextos que permeiam a criação e a alteração dos programas de pesquisa, foi possível inferir em relação à progressividade científica. No caso da teoria neoclássica argumenta-se que o programa esteja degenerando pelo lado das alterações em seu cinturão, que seriam apenas para explicar os puzzles que as motivaram. Para a teoria neoschumpeteriana é argumentado que o programa de pesquisa aparenta ser progressivo, pois altera o cinturão protetor de modo a abarcar fatos novos. Em relação à prevalência da teoria neoclássica para os economistas, argumenta-se que sua formalização matemática foi responsável por trazer entusiastas, mas que, com o avanço dos métodos computacionais, a modelagem evolucionária se mostra promissora neste quesito.

This thesis comprises three stand-alone chapters: The first chapter is on the effect of natural disasters on labor markets. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, the Desinventar database, the US Geological Survey and district level employment indicators, we explore how a large earthquake in Indonesia affected local labor markets, in particular the evolution of wages and employment across sectors. We find that wage growth in the agriculture sector is significantly higher in earthquake affected areas. We propose two mechanisms for this result and show evidence for both mechanisms. The second chapter investigates the intra-household allocation of leisure and consumption among siblings. Children are often treated as passive members in the household and their preferences over consumption and leisure are rarely modeled. This chapter considers children as agents with their own preferences over leisure and consumption and builds a theoretical and empirical model for children's time and consumption allocations in a household. We test the predictions of the model with data from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. The results suggest that differences in siblings' relative time and consumption allocations are driven by their relative preferences over leisure and consumption rather than differences in parents' relative altruism. The third chapter examines the cost of transport infrastructure in developing countries. To our knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes drivers of unit costs of construction of transport infrastructure using a large data set of 3,322 unit costs of road work activities in low and middle income countries. We find a large dispersion in unit costs for comparable work activities. Unit costs are significantly higher in conflict and corrupt countries, and these effects are robust to controlling for a country's public investment capacity and business environment. Finally, higher unit costs are significantly negatively correlated with infrastructure provision.

We take a critical view of the standard approach to finance and growth. The mapping between the theory and empirics is shown to be poorly understood, and this is traced to deficiencies in our understanding of the microeconomics at play. By looking at both primary and secondary historical evidence we argue that issues of aggregation are critical, and that spatial factors are also prevalent. Further, we suggest that these disaggregated elements can change over the course of an industrial revolution. A model in the spirit of standard finance and growth theories is extended to consider these further effects, and we calibrate the model to data on historical growth paths. In order to advance our understanding of the microeconomic factors that cause the observed phenomena in the finance-growth nexus, we develop a general equilibrium theory of financial intermediation in which exchange costs are endogenously determined by technologies, endowments and preferences. We suggest that incomplete contracts might be central to these phenomena. We link this framework to an understanding of power and political economy in a setting with heterogeneous agents. We develop these results numerically, showing a number of interesting interactions between markets, exchange costs and institutions in economies with different levels of wealth. The model of endogenous exchange costs can be thought of in terms of the findings coming out of our historical analysis. We outline in some detail the further steps that need to be taken before we can speak of the microfoundations of finance and growth with any confidence. First, a fully dynamic model of markets and coalitions must be embedded within a story of economic growth that can match the dynamic observations. Second, we must develop our conception of incomplete contracting and the link with institutions and political economy. The thesis thus opens a number of interesting avenues for future research.

Questa tesi è una raccolta di due capitoli che indagano due temi distinti di ricerca in economia del lavoro e dell'istruzione. Nel primo capitolo, si studiano gli effetti causali di una nuova politica di ammissione selettiva introdotta presso il Dipartimento di Economia di una importante università private situata nel nord d'Italia. Si trovano significativi miglioramenti nei risultati accademici degli studenti del primo anno che sono esposti alla nuova politica di ammissione in termini di una riduzione del tasso di abbandono scolastico e di un aumento dei crediti compiuti. Nel secondo capitolo di questa tesi, da un'altra parte, si fornisce un'evidenza recente sulla struttura dinamica e di autocovarianza del reddito di lavoro maschile italiano e si caratterizzano gli shock sul reddito del lavoro per tutto il ciclo di vita sfruttando dei dati amministrativa di grande scala provenienti dagli archivi dell'INPS. Osserviamo un aumento sostanziale della varianza del reddito degli individui di età compresa tra 50 e 60 anni. Tali risultati suggeriscono che questo aumento della varianza è guidato dall'aumento della varianza sia del componente transitorio che permanente della disuguaglianza di reddito. Tuttavia, l'accelerazione per gli individui sopra i 50 anni è causato dalla fluttuazione della varianza dei shock transitori. / This thesis is a collection of two chapters that investigate two different research topics in labor and education economics. In the first chapter, we study the causal effects of a new selective admission policy introduced in the Department of Economics at a leading private university located in the North of Italy. We find significant improvements in the academic outcomes of first year students who are exposed to this new admission policy in terms of reduction in the drop-out rate and increase in the average credits. In the second chapter of this thesis, on the other hand, we provide up-to-date evidence on the dynamic and autocovariance structures of Italian males' labor income and characterize labor income shocks over the life-cycle by exploiting a large-scale administrative data from the archives of Italian Social Security Administration (INPS). We observe a substantial increase in the variance of log-incomes of individuals between the ages of 50 and 60. Our results suggest that the latter increase in the variance is driven by the increases in the variances of both transitory and permanent components of income inequality. However, the accelerating pattern after age 50 is caused by the fluctuations in the variance of transitory shocks.

Decisions made by individuals planning for retirement may be myopic. One way of capturing this myopia is with quasi-hyperbolic discounting. It is well known that such preferences may explain why individuals fail to provide an adequate retirement income for themselves. In this thesis, the quasi-hyperbolic discounting model is applied to a number of other decisions and outcomes related to planning for retirement. There are three main focuses. Firstly, the thesis considers a model where individuals are quasi-hyperbolic discounters over both retirement and saving, and extends the results of Diamond and Köszegi (2003). It argues that mechanisms designed to overcome myopic saving decisions may lead to unplanned early retirement. This may depend on the form of income in retirement -- regular income options such as annuities offer commitment over overconsuming early in retirement, which makes early retirement less desirable to myopic retirees. Secondly, it tests these predictions using a new laboratory experiment. Over a two-month period, participants were asked to attend weekly sessions, and could leave the experiment (or "retire") in any week of their choosing. Part of their payment for attending these sessions was put aside and paid only after they had left. The results indicated that more impulsive individuals left the experiment earlier, both overall and relative to plans made in the first week of the experiment. Finally, this thesis presents a model of rising wages as a forced saving mechanism. Assuming individuals face some borrowing constraints, deferred wages implicitly place some earnings aside until much closer to retirement, when quasi-hyperbolic discounters save a greater fraction of their income, increasing total retirement wealth. It also shows that demand for rising wages should disappear for people with access to more direct saving commitment mechanisms, although when these schemes offer less commitment (due to early withdrawal or early retirement options), a combination of both mechanisms is preferred.

Chapters 2-3: A global games approach to sovereign debt crises The first chapters present a model that investigates the risks involved when a fiscal authority attempts to roll-over a stock of debt and there is the potential for coordination failure by investors. A continuum of investors, after receiving signals about the authority's willingness to repay, decides whether to roll-over the stock of debt. If an insufficient proportion of investors participates, the authority defaults. With one fiscal authority, private information results in a deterministic outcome. When a public signal is available, the model behaves in a similar manner to a sunspot model. In line with much of the global games literature, improving public information has an ambiguous effect on welfare. Finally, the model is extended to include a second fiscal authority, which captures a similar sunspot result and illustrates the potential for externalities in fiscal policy. Lower debt in the less indebted authority can push a more indebted authority into crisis. Lower debt makes the healthier authority relatively more attractive, which causes the investors to treat the heavily indebted authority more conservatively. In certain circumstances, this is sufficient to cause a coordination failure. Chapter 4: A debt game with correlated information This chapter models of debt roll-over where a continuum of investors receives correlated signals on whether a debtor is solvent or insolvent. The investors face a collective action problem: a sufficient proportion of investors must agree to participate in the debt roll-over for it to be a success. If an insufficient proportion of investors participates in the deal, the debtor will default. The game has a unique switching strategy, which results in global uncertainty being preserved. The ex ante distribution of play (conditional on the true solvency of the debtor) follows a Vasicek credit distribution. The ex ante probability of a debt crisis is affected by the exogenous model parameters. Of particular interest is the observation that increasing private noise unambiguously reduces the probability of a debt crisis. Unsurprisingly, increasing the fiscal space or return on debt also decreases the probability of a crisis. Chapter 5: Bailouts and politics The final chapter examines the political-economic equilibrium in a two-period model with overlapping generations and a financial sector, which is inspired by the model in Tabellini (1989). The public policy is chosen under majority rule by the agents currently alive. It demonstrates that the bailout policy adopted in the second period has important effects on the bank's financing decisions in the first period. By adopting a riskier financing regime (i.e. higher leverage) in the first period, the older generation can extract consumption from the younger generation in the second period. Sovereign backstops of the financial sector are state-contingent: they can appear costless for long periods of time but eventually result in a socialization of private-sector debt. It is this mechanism that makes implementing capital requirements costly to investors yet beneficial to the younger generation. The model also highlights two important issues: (i) bank capital is endogenous and (ii) proposed resolution mechanisms must be politically credible. It suggests that a major benefit of increasing and narrowing equity-capital requirements or increasing liquidity ratios is that they are implemented ex ante and therefore available either to absorb losses in the event of a crisis or to reduce the possibility of large drops in asset values. Finally, this chapter also provides a structure by which to interpret the stylized facts of Calomiris et al. (2014): that more populist political institutions are associated with more fragile financial systems.

Apesar de se constatar no mundo de hoje ferramentas financeiras altamente desenvolvidas, ainda existe uma fronteira que impossibilita uma grande parte da população mundial de baixa renda a ter acesso a essas ferramentas e suas inovações. A importância da existência das ferramentas financeiras está ligada, nesse trabalho, à oferta de crédito, que possibilita a alavancagem de um pequeno empreendimento através da obtenção de bens de produção e capital de giro. Um dos maiores empecilhos para que a fronteira se expanda é o alto custo de transação das operações de crédito para a população de baixa renda, devido a falta de garantias reais por parte dessa população e necessidade de escala para diluição dos custos fixos. Ao longo da História surgiram tecnologias bem sucedidas que se empenharam justamente em combater o problema da não transposição da fronteira financeira. Em especial, em Bangladesh, na década de 70, um professor de economia uniu-as resultando em uma sinergia que desencadeou o que alguns autores denominaram na literatura internacional "Revolução do Microcrédito". Entretanto, apesar desses avanços, não é certo que tais custos sejam baixos nos programas de microcrédito existentes hoje em dia no Brasil. Com a opção de continuar a ofertar o microcrédito, dado a função social desse empréstimo, as instituições com altos custos de transação se tornam insustentáveis financeiramente. A médio e longo prazo, seus fundos, destinados aos microempréstimos, são corroídos pelos custos, tornando-as incapazes de expandir a fronteira financeira através do aumento na oferta de microcrédito. Ademais, políticas recentes do governo brasileiro para o microcrédito estiveram mais voltadas ao benefício dos clientes finais, o que em alguns momentos prejudicou mais do ajudou as instituições de microcrédito a se desenvolverem no país. O trabalho avaliou o desempenho econômico de uma organização de microcrédito no Brasil e analisou como os Custos de Transação e as políticas do governo exerceram influência sobre a sua Sustentabilidade Financeira, no curto prazo do Banco do Povo - Crédito Solidário na cidade de Santo André e adjacências. No período coberto pelo estudo, o Banco não foi capaz de se sustentar operacional nem financeiramente sendo expressivo o valor de subsídios que essa instituição recebeu até 2003. Expandir a carteira de crédito para gerar maior retorno dos empréstimos gera também altos custos de transação. Constata-se que no Banco do Povo - Crédito Solidário, uma parte considerável das receitas da instituição são advindas de Aplicações Financeiras, uma forma de segurança para a instituição, mas que barram o crescimento da Carteira Ativa. Se o Banco do Povo permanecer com a política de não aumentar as taxas de juros cobradas e ainda for obrigado a implementar um teto para suas taxas, como a sugestão do governo de 2% a.m, então o retorno sobre a Carteira de Crédito no Banco do Povo - Crédito Solidário não permitirá a sustentabilidade da instituição. Os Custos de Transação influenciam a Sustentabilidade Financeira da instituição de duas maneiras: por um lado os custos em relação às receitas são altos o suficiente para tornar a instituição ainda insustentável e, por outro lado, a maior parcela do custo de transação diz respeito aos recursos humanos, que apresentam baixa produtividade na expansão do crédito, o que gera um menor retorno na carteira de crédito. Isso talvez seja causado por conta da pequena história de vida do Banco do Povo - Crédito Solidário. Desse quadro, todavia, existem algumas atitudes que podem ser tomadas. A primeira é que o Banco aumente a sua Carteira Ativa reconduzindo os fundos das Aplicações Financeiras para o portifólio de empréstimos (expandindo a fronteira financeira). Ao mesmo tempo, recomenda-se uma política de diminuição de custos e aumento da produtividade dos recursos humanos. / Despite of the existence of high technologies of financial tools in the world, there is still a frontier which make the low income population incapable to access those tools and its innovations. The importance of those tools in this dissertation is connected to the supply of credit that enable small borrowers to buy inputs and capital to their small business. One of the major problems that stuck the frontier, and do not aloud it moving on, is the high transaction costs on credit supply for low-income population. It happens because the low- income population doesn’t have enough guaranties and credit organizations need scale economics to distribute fixed costs on a wild volume of credit. There have been well successful technologies to improve the access to credit for lowincome population in the world at the last three decades. In Bangladesh an Economics professor linked these technologies and developed a successful program which creates an impact that was called at international literature "Microcredit Revolution". It’s not clear, although, if these technologies are well developed and succeed in Brazil. However, the microcredit institutions continuous supplying credit because their social importance but they are still financial-self insufficiency. In such situation, at the long run, there won’t be any funds for them.. To compensate the difficulties of these institutions, the government policies for microcredit where directed to benefit the clients and the relevance of institutional self-sufficiency were taken as a secondary priority. This dissertation made an evaluation on financial performance for a microcredit organization in Brazil and also analyze how the Transaction Costs and the government policies had affected the financial self-sufficiency at the short-run in Banco do Povo - Crédito Solidário. It has concluded that Banco do Povo were not able to be financial self-sufficient and it needs a amount of subsidies yet. It is clear that part of revenue that comes from financial assets, which is a safety way to generate revenue, but forbids the institution to reach its goals. Considering that interest rates were kept high during the last years in Brazil, the strategy of guaranteeing revenue through investing part of the Banco do Povo capital on government bounds might not be sustainable at the long run. If Banco do Povo keeps interests rates in its current level, or be obligate to ceil its interest rate at a low level as the government suggestion to establish it on 2% per mount, then the return on loan portfolio won’t be enough to make the institution self-sufficient. The Transaction Costs have influence on Financial Self-Sufficiency in two ways: first the costs are bigger than the revenue and second, the largest part of the Transaction Cost are spend in human resources. The loan-officers productivity is very low when compared with the average productivity of other similar organizations in the world. It is possible that the reason for it happens to be Banco do Povo- Crédito Solidário short term of existence. Analyzing these aspects it is possible to find some suggestions to make, the first one is to improve the loan portfolio, transferring funds from financial assets to it (expanding the financial frontier). At the same time, it is necessary to diminish the costs and increase the productivity of the loan-officers.

A ovinocultura leiteira tornou-se importante economicamente na América do Sul nas últimas décadas, sendo ainda pouco estudada no Brasil. O leite é destinado à produção de queijo, proporcionando valor agregado, sendo considerado fonte de renda aos produtores. Como ponto de partida para o estudo da ovinocultura leiteira, é proposta a descrição do sistema agroindustrial (SAG) para a melhor compreensão das relações entre os agentes. O estudo das cadeias agroalimentares, visando desempenho econômico superior, utiliza abordagens da microeconomia como Economia dos Custos de Transação (ECT), Economia dos Custos de Mensuração (ECM), Visão Baseada em Recursos (VBR) e Teoria do Empreendedor. Dentro dos SAGs existem as cadeias agroalimentares curtas, formas de organização e comercialização que buscam a proximidade entre produtores e consumidores. Este trabalho teve como objetivo descrever o SAG do leite ovino no Brasil, buscando entender as estratégias adotadas pelos agentes e propor uma metodologia de estudo as cadeias curtas. A pesquisa foi do tipo exploratória e de multi-caso, por meio de entrevistas com questionários pré-formulados. O SAG do leite ovino foi caracterizado como um sistema em cadeia curta pela aproximação do produtor com o consumidor, possuindo, na maior parte das vezes, apenas um agente responsável pelas diferentes etapas da cadeia. O sistema é composto, em termos de transformação tecnológica, em quatro grandes elos: insumos, produção primária, agroindústria e distribuição, sendo os insumos adquiridos em mercados spot. Foram identificadas 18 fazendas produtoras no país. As raças predominantes eram Lacaune e East Friesian, com média de 1,17 litros de leite/animal/dia, abaixo da média potencial para as raças (2 litros). Observou-se que 14 entre as 18 propriedades apresentam mão de obra familiar. Dentre os laticínios, quatro possuíam inspeção federal, três possuíam inspeção estadual e três possuíam inspeção municipal. Sete propriedades optaram por não ter o próprio laticínio, fazendo parte de cooperativa; as outras propriedades optaram pela integração vertical. A distribuição é realizada por delivery e venda em mercados pequenos ou lojas próprias. Os maiores centros consumidores encontram-se nos estados do Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo e Minas Gerais, havendo, porém, venda do produto em várias regiões do país. A principal característica do consumidor é o alto poder aquisitivo, fazendo-o buscar o produto em lojas especializadas. Pelo modelo das Cinco Forças de Porter, sugere-se que o sistema se apresenta sustentável e estável, sendo que o principal obstáculo para o crescimento são os produtos substitutos. Há falta de informações técnicas para melhorar a produção, assim, a verticalização do sistema e produção em cadeia curta parece ser a opção mais segura e rentável para os produtores. O modelo de estudo proposto permite analisar uma cadeia curta qualquer, caracterizando-a, com vistas à proposição de estratégias superiores de gestão e coordenação / The dairy sheep industry became economically important in South America in recent decades, but still little studied in Brazil. Milk is utilized for the production of cheese, providing added value, and it is considered a source of income to producers. As a starting point for the study of dairy sheep industry is proposed the description of the agro-industrial system for better understanding of the relationship between the agents. The study of the agri-food chains, targeting higher economic performance, uses microeconomic approaches as Economics of Transaction Costs (ETC), the Economics of Measurements Costs (EMC), Resource-Based View (RBV) and Entrepreneur Theory. Within the agribusiness, there are the \"short food supply chains\", forms of organization and marketing seeking the proximity between producers and consumers. This study aimed to describe the agribusiness of dairy sheep in Brazil, seeking to understand the strategies adopted by agents and propose a methodology to study the short food supply chains. The research was exploratory type and multi-case, through interviews with pre-formulated questionnaires. The agribusiness of dairy sheep was characterized as a short food supply chain system due to the approximation of the producer to the consumer having, in most cases, only one agent responsible for the different stages of the chain. The system is composed, in terms of technological transformation, in four major links: inputs, primary production, processing and distribution. The inputs are purchased in spot markets. It was identified 18 producing farms in the country. The predominant races were Lacaune and East Friesian, with an average of 1.17 liters of milk / animal / day, below the average potential for the races (2 liters). It was observed that 14 among the 18 properties had family labor. Among dairy products, four of them had federal inspection, three had state inspection and three had municipal inspection. Seven farms have chosen not to have the dairy itself but they were part of the cooperative; the other farms have opted for vertical integration. The distribution is carried out by delivery and sale in small markets or stores. The largest consumer centers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo and Minas Gerais, however, there were sale of the product in various regions of the country. The main consumer characteristic is the high purchasing power, so they looked for the product in specialty stores. By the Porters five forces model, it is suggested that the system is sustained and stable and the main obstacle for growth are substitute products. There is a lack of technical information to improve production, so the verticalization of the system and production in a short chain system seems to be the safest and most costeffective option for producers. The proposed study model allows the analysis of any short food supply chain, characterizing it, with a view to proposing higher management strategies and coordination

This paper presents two applications of empirical microeconomics based on choice theoretic optimization principles. The first topic explores the determinants of subsistence time allocation in a utility theoretic model of household production. The second topic examines firm pricing behavior in a deregulated, but concentrated industry setting. The first part of this applied microeconomic analysis estimates the subsistence time versus wage labor time allocations of Alaska's North Slope inhabitants using ordered probit based on a household production model. The explanatory variables measure labor supply, demographic, and cultural influences. The major findings are as follows. First parameter estimates differ statistically and substantially between Inupiat versus non-Inupiat residents, implying that optimal natural resource management decisions may vary with the ethnicity of the resource owners. Second, marital status, age, gender, and participation in generalized gift giving and receiving are important determinants of subsistence time allocations. Third, time spent in wage labor appears to be exogenous to the subsistence time allocation decision, indicating that the time allocation process is recursive. Fourth, we find an inverse relationship between wage labor time and subsistence participation. This means that reductions in wage employment opportunities lead to increased subsistence activity. For the North Slope, this implies that Prudhoe oil depletion will result in an increase in the use of subsistence natural resources. The second part of this study turns from the individual behavior to firm behavior. During the 1980's, researchers have noted a trend towards increased concentration in the general freight, less-than-truckload (LTL) portion of the U.S. motor carrier industry. The purpose of this study is to employ new empirical industrial organization (NEIO) techniques to determine whether the more concentrated post-1980, LTL motor carrier industry is exerting anti-competitive monopoly pricing behavior. The NEIO approach is used to formulate the relationship between market price and marginal cost in what is referred to as the representative firm's 'supply relation.' The firm's supply relation is estimated jointly with the cost function and the factor share equations under the assumption that cross equation disturbance terms are correlated (SUR). An instrumental variables procedure is used to test and control for correlation between output (on the right hand side) and the disturbance terms in the cost and supply equations. The results indicate that the trend toward increased industry concentration does not imply anti-competitive performance in the sense of rising price-cost margins. / Graduation date: 1994