AGGLOMERATION EXTERNALITIES,PRODUCTIVITY, AND TECHNICAL INEFFICIENCY*

ABSTRACT Agglomeration externalities can have positive effects on both the production possibility frontier and technical inefficiency of firms. Increased levels of localized knowledge spillovers and substitution of internal inputs with external inputs may lead to fewer errors in decision‐making and execution of production tasks, thus causing firms to become technically more efficient relative to the production frontier. When we estimate a stochastic frontier production model on a large panel of salmon aquaculture farms, we find econometric support for positive agglomeration externalities on both the production frontier and technical inefficiency.     

‘NOBLESSE DE ROBE’ IN A CLASSLESS SOCIETY

This article deals with the effect of ownership and control of land on women's remarriages in early modern Western Norway. Marrying a tenant widow gave her new husband the right to tenure. On freeholder farms the eldest son, according to Norwegian odelsrett and åseterett, had the right to inherit the farm. When land-seeking youngsters obtained tenure by marrying tenant widows, these widows became highly attractive marriage partners, in contrast to widows of freeholder peasants where no secure position could be obtained for the new husband. Legal succession rights thus highly restricted the decisions of freeholder peasants' widows. Tenant widows had a wider range of choices closely linked to their control over land and land transfer. They were not mere passive marriage objects. In an open tenant land market widows could choose between running their farm by hired labour or with assistance from their children, they could remarry and thus acquire male labour in their household or they might benefit from giving up their tenure. Their decisions to a considerable degree influenced succession patterns on Norwegian tenant farms in the early modern period.     

L'usage de l'article dans pindare

The quality of ατoπíα attributed by Alcibiades to Socrates in the Symposium is of greater interest than the usual renderings “strange character” or “odd behaviour” suggest. This article sees Alcibiades’ phrase in the light of his speech for Socrates as a whole.¹