Institutional and Behavioral Economics Section Track Sessions

Legitimacy and reputation, both are intangible assets that influence the economic viability of organizations. Indeed these two assets are bestowed upon firms by society as an indication of their approval of what an organization is doing. Firms gain or lose in their reputation for social and/or environmental performance, by respectively leading or lagging behind in the evolution of societal expectations concerning various issues of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Moreover, if society feels that a firm falls too far behind or is to forward in their response to CSR issues they are likely to lose organizational legitimacy. Consequently, the papers in this track session examine the issues of legitimacy and reputation on firms that operate in the global agri-food and fiber supply chain.

Water resources seldom overlap with government and political boundaries, thus creating major jurisdictional challenges for effective management and use by multiple parties. In some regions of the US, institutional innovations involving collaboration across federal, state and local government boundaries have emerged to improve water quantity/quality management. Some of these institutions were developed a half-century ago while others have only recently been formed. The collaborations vary in scope, formality, regulatory control, and other characteristics. Information about the relative performance of these institutions is not readily available, particularly related to their abilities to respond to emerging management challenges or success in experimenting with new approaches, such as market-based mechanisms. This organized symposium proposes to help fill that information gap by bringing together natural and environmental resource economists and policy analysts from several regions of the US where institutional innovations have been used to address water issues. Speakers will define the jurisdictional water problem, describe the innovative institutional arrangements formed, summarize what is known about their performance, and identify current issues and challenges. The three topics to be addressed are: 1) Federal Water Quality Imperatives Affecting State and Local Governments: Innovative Watershed Restoration Initiatives in the Northwest US; 2) Multi-jurisdictional Water Allocation Conflicts; Incentive-based Mechanisms and Institutional Innovations to Resolve Water Conflicts in Multi-jurisdictional River Basins; and 3) Water Institutions and Energy Issues: Federal, Regional and State Roles in Shale Gas Development in the Northeast US.

This organized symposium aims to help AAEA members who conduct research related to institutional and behavioral economics, especially graduate students and junior faculty, to identify publishing strategies and outlets. While classical institutional economics, new institutional economics, and behavioral economics may overlap, and while a particular researcher or paper may draw on insights or methods from more than one of these areas, each speaker will focus primarily on one area. Speakers will discuss general publication strategies, strategies relating specifically to IBES research, and potential outlets for research in their assigned area.

The local food movement has received a great deal of recent attention from policy makers and consumers because of the potential it holds for food quality, health attributes, the environment, and community development. But, the hard evidence of positive outcomes is not well-established. The local foods movement is relatively young and local foods do not constitute a large segment of the U.S. food market. In addition, little is understood about the behavioral motivations driving consumer spending on locally grown foods. A role for our profession is to provide the evidence to quantify these links in a rigorous manner.