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Edited by: Marco Novarese
           http://ideas.repec.org/e/pno2.html
           Universita  del Piemonte Orientale
Date:      2005-07-03
Papers:	   385

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1. A micro simulation model of demographic development and 
   households' economic behavior in Italy
  
    Albert Ando
    Sergio Nicoletti-Altimari (European Central Bank)

The relationship between the demographic structure and the 
saving rate of a society is the reflection of the aggregation of 
the behaviour of heterogeneous households, differing from one 
another in the type of living arrangements and in the 
characteristics of their members. In order to contribute to the 
understanding of this relationship, we construct a dynamic micro 
model capable of simulating the demographic development of a 
population, including the creation, destruction, dimension and 
various other important characteristics of households and their 
members. The demographic model is then combined with a 
specification of the processes generating income, social security 
wealth, retirement and consumption behaviour of households, and 
applied to a data set derived from survey data on the Italian 
household sector. Simulations of the model are used to study the 
evolution of aggregate income, saving and asset accumulation over 
the period 1994-2100. If fertility and mortality assumptions of 
recent official projections are adopted and marriage and divorce 
rates maintained at current levels, the dramatic ageing of the 
population and the marked decline in the share of population 
living in traditional households would lead, other things being 
equal, to a substantial decline in the aggregate saving rate. 
However, the reduction in the number of children per household 
and, above all, the decline in the ratio of social security 
wealth of households to disposable income as the effects of the 
recently introduced reforms begin to be felt act as offsetting 
factors. As a result, the aggregate saving rate increases over 
the initial 30 years of the simulation and moderately decreases 
thereafter, stabilizing slightly above the original level. 
Implications of changes in a number of key assumptions regarding 
the demographic evolution, productivity growth and individual 
behavioural responses are also analyzed.
 
Keywords: demographic developments, family structure, 
          consumption, saving, social security, micro simulation 
          model
JEL:      D12 D31 D91 E21 H55 J10 J26
Date:     2004-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_533_04&r=all



2. AGGREGATION BIAS IN MACRO MODELS : DOES IT MATTER FOR THE 
   EURO AREA?
  
    Libero Monteforte (Bank of Italy, Economic Research 
      Department)

The euro area represents a case-study of great institutional 
relevance for the econometric problem of aggregation bias. The 
available data can be used to analyze the area either with 
aggregate or with country-specific models. The choice should be 
the result of a statistical comparison between the two options, 
with respect to the specific model. In this paper we suggest a 
representation of the aggregation error based on unobservable 
components and explicitly conceived for aggregations over a small 
number of economies. In the empirical application two alternative 
models are estimated: the first specifies the main euro countries 
while the other refers to the whole area. We then evaluate the 
aggregation error either from the viewpoint of a comparison of 
the two models with standard methods, or looking at the 
components of the representation suggested here. Both categories 
of results indicate non-negligible aggregation errors for the 
euro area.
 
Keywords: aggregation bias, euro-area modeling
JEL:      C52 F47
Date:     2004-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_534_04&r=all



3. ENTRY DECISIONS AND ADVERSE SELECTION: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS 
   OF LOCAL CREDIT MARKETS
  
    Giorgio Gobbi (Economics Research Department, Bank of Italy)
    Francesca Lotti (Economics Research Department, Bank of 
      Italy)

During the last decades there has been a widespread relaxation 
of legal entry barriers into the banking industry, with potential 
benefits for financial integration and competition. Obstacles to 
banks' geographical and business expansion have been removed and 
branching has been substantially liberalized. This paper analyzes 
the determinants of entry decisions into local credit markets 
using a unique data set before and after deregulation of the 
Italian banking industry. We estimate an entry model a la 
Poisson and find evidence that spreads between loan and deposit 
rates drive entry only for newly chartered banks, but does not 
affect the decision to open branches of banks operating in other 
markets. Branching by outside banks is instead positively 
correlated with business opportunities in the provision of 
financial services which do not require the acquisition of 
substantial proprietary information. Both these results are 
consistent with the hypothesis that in credit markets incumbents 
have an informational advantage over new entrants.
 
Keywords: Entry, deregulation, informational barriers, count 
          data, overdispersion
JEL:      G21 L22 C25
Date:     2004-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_535_04&r=all



4. Monetary Policy Impulses, Local Output and the Transmission 
   Mechanism
  
    Massimo Caruso (Banca d'Italia, Sede di Roma, Nucleo per la 
      ricerca economica, via XX Settembre 97/e 00187 Rome ITALY)

This paper evaluates the effects of unanticipated monetary 
policy shocks on Italian output on the basis of highly 
disaggregated data and a VAR methodology. The impact of 
unexpected changes in the money market interest rate on the 
pattern of industrial production - based on qualitative business 
opinion survey data - has been computed for 164 local industries. 
The perceived output effects of monetary impulses go up for local 
industries with higher investment expenditures, less liquid firms 
and for industrial sectors that have a higher correlation with 
the aggregate business cycle. The hypothesis that small firms 
bear a disproportionate burden of monetary policy does not find 
support in this sample.
 
Keywords: monetary policy shocks, business opinion surveys, 
          heterogeneity
JEL:      E52 E58 R12
Date:     2004-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_537_04&r=all



5. An Empirical Micro Matching Model with an Application to 
   Italy and Spain
  
    Franco Peracchi (Tor Vergata University)
    Eliana Viviano (Bank of Italy)

A large literature investigates the role of frictions in 
explaining labour market dynamics. Their presence is often 
summarized by an aggregate matching function relating the number 
of job matches to total unemployment and total vacancies. Most 
empirical specifications, however, are only reduced forms with no 
micro-foundation. Further, for many countries, empirical research 
on the matching function cannot be carried out because data on 
vacancies are simply not available. This paper looks at a job 
match as a transition from non-employment to employment. This 
transition is decomposed into two parts, one determined by the 
matching technology and one by individual search intensity. We 
show how the micro-founded model of Pissarides (1979) can be 
identified using only microdata on labour market transitions. 
This enables us to obtain a measure of market tightness even 
without information on the demand side of the market. The method 
is then applied to estimating the Italian and Spanish matching 
functions using data from the quarterly labour force surveys.
 
Keywords: Matching function, market tightness, labour market 
          transitions, search intensity
JEL:      J60 J63 J64
Date:     2004-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_538_04&r=all



6. La crescita dell'economia italiana negli anni novanta tra 
   ritardo tecnologico e rallentamento della produttivita
  
    Antonio Bassanetti (Bank of Italy)
    Massimiliano Iommi (Istat)
    Cecilia Jona-Lasinio (Istat)
    Francesco Zollino (Bank of Italy)

The paper presents a growth accounting exercise for the Italian 
economy over the last twenty years to assess the role of primary 
inputs and total factor productivity. The exercise was run at 
both the aggregate and the disaggregated level. For the first 
time in Italy it used a measure of capital services, 
disaggregated into several different components. Special 
attention was paid to the accumulation of ICT capital goods. A 
productive capital stock database was prepared, disaggregated by 
asset and sector, and the respective user costs, adjusted for 
fiscal factors, were calculated. In the period 1981-2001 total 
factor productivity contributed for less than one fourth to the 
Italian economic growth, and in the second half of the nineties 
TFP decelerated significantly. The largest contribution to 
economic activity was made by capital formation and specifically 
by assets not directly linked to new technologies, whose 
contribution was very small. The service sector, in particular 
transport and communications and financial intermediation, 
contributed most to the growth of TFP. In financial 
intermediation sector the role played by ICT capital was very 
substantial.
 
Keywords: contabilita della crescita, costo d'uso, 
          produttivita totale dei fattori, tecnologie della 
          comunicazione e informazione
JEL:      O47 I20 J24
Date:     2004-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_539_04&r=all



7. CYCLICAL SENSITIVITY OF FISCAL POLICIES BASED ON REAL-TIME 
   DATA
  
    Lorenzo Forni (Bank of Italy)
    Sandro Momigliano (Bank of Italy)

This paper examines the information-related problems associated 
with the analysis of fiscal policies, an issue recently analyzed 
in connection with monetary policies but largely ignored in the 
literature on budgetary actions. The results indicate that 
reliance on the information actually available to policy-makers 
in real-time is important for the assessment of past policies. We 
show that estimating fiscal policy rules based on ex post revised 
data tends to provide a misleading assessment of the sensitivity 
of discretionary policies to cyclical conditions. The results 
also suggest that part of the problems the Stability and Growth 
Pact encountered may have come from a misjudgment of cyclical 
conditions in some European countries in recent years.
 
Keywords: Real-time information, OECD countries, stabilization 
          policies, fiscal policy rules
JEL:      E61 E62
Date:     2004-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_540_04&r=all



8. An empirical investigation of the relationship between 
   inequality and growth
  
    Patrizio Pagano (Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department)

This paper studies the correlation between inequality, measured 
by the Gini coefficent of incomes, and the growth rate of per 
capita GDP in a panel of countries between the late 1950s and 
late 1990s. Inequality Granger causes growth with a negative 
coefficient, while growth Granger causes inequality with a 
positive sign. Quantitatively, the former effect appears much 
larger than the latter. Once I allow for the effect to differ 
between rich and poor countries interesting differences emerge. 
While lagged inequality appears positively correlated with growth 
in the subgroup of rich countries, in poor countries besides a 
negative and significant effect of lagged inequality on growth 
there is a negative and significant effect of lagged growth on 
inequality
 
Keywords: growth; inequality; panel; GMM; Granger causality
JEL:      O11 O40 D3 C23
Date:     2004-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_536_04&r=all



9. L’INTRODUZIONE DELL’EURO E LE POLITICHE DI PREZZO: 
   ANALISI DI UN CAMPIONE DI DATI INDIVIDUALI
  
    Eugenio Gaiotti (Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department)
    Francesco Lippi (Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department)

We assemble an original panel of 2,500 restaurant prices in 
Italy over the period 1998-2004 to study whether, and through 
which channels, the introduction of euro coins and banknotes had 
an impact on individual pricing behaviour. We reach three 
conclusions. Firstly, the evidence suggest that the large price 
increases in this industry are mostly not due to the cash 
changeover; the event might have focussed public attention on the 
cumulative price increases which took place before the changeover,
reflecting costs and demand. Secondly, the rise in the average 
meal price was mainly due to a larger proportion of agents 
revising their prices, rather than to large individual revisions. 
Finally, more local market power (as proxied by a concentration 
index) was associated with a larger price increase; an 
interpretation is proposed for the latter finding, which also 
explains why the effects of the cash changeover were stronger in 
less competitive industries.Creation-Date: 2005-02
 
Keywords: introduzione dell'euro, politiche di prezzo
JEL:      D40
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_541_05&r=all



10. The Collective Selling of Broadcasting Rights in Team Sports
  
    Tina Heubeck (University of Hamburg, Germany)

This paper introduces the theory of complementarities to the 
selling of broadcasting rights in team sports in two ways. 
Firstly, from a legal point of view such rights should not be 
centrally sold by the league or the association in order to 
comply with antitrust law because the league as the only seller 
demands monopoly prices. However, the problem cannot be solved by 
simply prohibiting collective selling. Using a variation of 
Cournot's model we show that the price of a single game is higher 
if sold individually by the participating clubs compared to 
collective selling by the league. Secondly, as consumers regard 
games either as complements or as substitutes, demand for 
simultaneously played games is interdependent. We use the 
solutions employed in deciding about the pooling of patents to 
make a general suggestion.
 
Keywords: sports, broadcasting rights, complementarities, 
          antitrust law,
JEL:      D23 K21 L43 L13
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1091&r=all



11. PRE-BANKRUPTCY CRIMES AND ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR. SOME 
    INSIGHTS FROM AMERICAN AND ITALIAN BANKRUPTCY LAWS
  
    Maurizio Pontani (University of Siena)

The word "bankruptcy" derives from the Italian word bancarotta (
= broken bench) that during the Middle Ages was used to indicate 
the typical sanction applied to bankrupt tradesmen or bankers - 
the bench breaking, i.e. the breaking of the tradesman/banker's 
money table. At its origin, thus, the word bankruptcy had a 
punitive meaning that has been preserved in continental Europe (
for instance the words bancarotta, Bankrott and banqueroute still 
designate the criminal consequences of failure in Italy, Germany 
and France respectively), but it has been lost in the Anglo-
American world, where bankruptcy presently indicates the default 
as such. This study focuses on criminal liability of directors 
and entrepreneurs for misconduct committed prior to bankruptcy in 
the US and Italy and tries to understand how the different 
regulation is likely to affect the economic agents' behavior. We 
show that the boundary between a firm's legal and illegal 
management appears more clear-cut in the US than in Italy, with 
positive effects on the economic behavior of entrepreneurs and 
managers.
 
Keywords: Bankruptcy law, Criminal liability, Judicial 
          discretion, Optimal risk taking,
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1092&r=all



12. Storung der Vertragsparitat
  
    Dieter Schmidtchen (Universitat des Saarlandes)
    Roland Kirstein (Universitat des Saarlandes)

Dieser Beitrag behandelt Begriff, Ursachen, Wirkungen sowie 
Bewertung und mogliche Ausgleichsma?nahmen gestorter 
Vertragsparitat. Dabei wird auf die okonomische 
Verhandlungstheorie und die Theorie der Wettbewerbsmarkte 
zuruckgegriffen. Es werden in der Rechtswissenschaft vorfindbare 
Definitionen in die okonomische Sprache ubersetzt und ihre 
logische Konsistenz uberpruft. Unter normativen Gesichtspunkten 
werden Begrundungen fur einen rechtspolitischen Handlungsbedarf 
im Falle gestorter Vertragsparitat untersucht. Abschlie?end 
werden zwei Klassen von Moglichkeiten zum Ausgleich gestorter 
Vertragsparitat erortert: Vertragsregulierung und 
Ordnungspolitik.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1093&r=all



13. Wie kommt es zu umfangreichem Sozialschutz im Zivilrecht?
  
    Georg von Wangenheim (Max Planck Institute for Research into 
      Economic Systems, Jena)

Die Betonung des Gegensatzes von Sozialschutz und 
Marktrationalitat im Titel des Symposiums weist darauf hin, dass 
Sozialschutz im Zivilrecht nicht - oder wenigstens nicht immer - 
effizientes Recht ist. Wenn uber ineffizientes Recht gesprochen 
wird, stellt sich notwendig auch die Frage, wie dieses 
ineffiziente Recht nachhaltig uberwunden werden konnte. Um das 
zu klaren, muss man zunachst herausarbeiten, woher denn das 
ineffiziente Recht kommt - einerseits damit man aus der 
Ursachenforschung Ruckschlusse darauf ziehen kann, wie man die 
Uberwindung bewerkstelligen konnte, andererseits auch damit man 
die Nachhaltigkeit der Uberwindung sichern kann, denn ohne die 
Kenntnis, woher das ineffiziente Recht kommt, kann man auch keine 
Aussage daruber treffen, wie man verhindern kann, dass 
ebensolches Recht effiziente Regelungen in kurzer Zeit wieder 
verdrangt. Schlie?lich kann die Kenntnis, woher scheinbar 
ineffizientes, sprich: wohlfahrtsenkendes Recht kommt, ein neues 
Licht auf die Wohlfahrtswirkungen des betrachteten Rechts werfen. 
Im folgenden soll deshalb zunachst herausgearbeitet werden, 
worum es beim Sozialschutz im Zivilrecht geht, welche Regeln des 
Zivilrechts also in Frage stehen (Abschnitt B). Insbesondere wird 
zu zeigen sein, dass Marktrationalitat und Sozialschutz sich 
zwar teilweise widersprechen, teilweise aber auch miteinander 
konform gehen konnen. Fur beide Moglichkeiten werden einzelne 
typische Beispiele dargestellt. Nach der Klarung dieser 
Begrifflichkeit wird dann in den zentralen Abschnitten dieses 
Aufsatzes untersucht, wie sozialschutzende Regeln, die nicht 
marktrational sind, in das 2 Zivilrecht kommen. Die Erklarungen 
sollen nach den ihnen zugrunde liegenden Triebkraften gegliedert 
werden: In Abschnitt C wird diskutiert, ob die Durchsetzung 
organisierter Partikularinteressen in der Gesetzgebung dazu 
fuhren kann, dass die Marktrationalitat des Zivilrechts abnimmt,
obwohl die Intuition nahe legt, dass Interessengruppen, die nach 
Sozialschutz streben, schwerer zu organisieren sind als ihre 
Gegner. Abschnitt D stellt dann die entsprechende Frage fur das 
Richterrecht: kann die Marktrationalitat des Zivilrechts 
abnehmen, obwohl nach herrschender Meinung der (Rechts-)Okonomen 
die Effizienzhypothese des Common Law eher die Zunahme der 
Marktrationalitat nahe legt? Zweifel an einer positiven Antwort 
kommen unter anderem auf, weil jene Parteien, die von 
Sozialschutz profitieren, eher wenig an der kunftigen Rechtslage 
interessiert sind und sich deshalb - so die Grundlagen der 
Effizienzhypothese - weniger vehement fur die Einfuhrung oder 
Aufrechterhaltung einer ihnen gunstigen Rechtsprechung einsetzen.
Schlie?lich soll in Abschnitt E dargestellt werden, dass nicht 
nur organisierte oder individuelle Interessen von Parteien in 
kunftigen oder aktuellen Zivilrechtsstreitigkeiten eine 
Entwicklung zu mehr Sozialschutz im Zivilrecht treiben konnen, 
sondern auch die Interessen von Institutionen, die ihre 
Daseinsberechtigung nur durch die Schaffung oder Verteidigung von 
Sozialschutz begrunden konnen. Im Rahmen des Symposiums bin ich 
in der glucklichen Lage, meine Uberlegungen auf die 
theoretischen Aspekte zu konzentrieren. Ohne ganz auf empirische 
Untermauerung ganz zu verzichten, kann ich den Schwerpunkt der 
rechtstatsachlichen Untermauerung meiner Ausfuhrungen - und 
teilweise auch ihre Infragestellung - dem Korreferenten 
uberlassen.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1095&r=all



14. Kommentar zu Georg von Wangenheim: Wie kommt es zu 
    umfangreichem Sozialschutz im Zivilrecht?
  
    Peter Mankowski (Universitat Hamburg)

URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1096&r=all



15. Glaubigerschutz im Wettbewerb der Rechtsordnungen
  
    Gunther H. Roth (Universiat Innsbruck)

Es geht (nur) um den Schutz der Glaubiger gegen die Risiken aus 
einer Haftungsbeschrankung ihres Schuldners, die aus der 
Verwendung von Gesellschaftsformen mit Haftungsbeschrankung wie 
der GmbH, evtl. gesteigert durch konzernma?ige 
Haftungssegmentierung, resultieren, und die Fragestellung lautet, 
ob bei der Wahl (im Wettbewerb") zwischen mehreren 
konkurrierenden Haftungsmodellen, die den Gesellschaftern 
angeboten werden, auch die Interessen der Glaubiger als 
bestimmende Faktoren ihren Niederschlag finden.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1097&r=all



16. Die Regulierung von Investmentfonds
  
    Andreas Engert (Universitat Munchen)

Die neunziger Jahre waren eine Hochzeit der Aktienanlage. In 
besonderem Ma?e gilt dies fur den deutschen Kapitalmarkt: 
Wahrend bis vor ungefahr zehn Jahren die deutsche 
Unternehmensfinanzierung als ein Gegenmodell zu den 
angelsachsischen Finanzsystemen angesehen wurde, gewinnt auch 
hierzulande die Kapitalmarktorientierung an Boden. Die sich 
entwickelnde Aktienkultur erhielt indes durch einen auf drei 
Jahre gestreckten, massiven Kurseinbruch einen deutlichen 
Dampfer. Die dabei erlittenen Einbu?en losten weltweit die 
Befurchtung aus, dass ein allgemeiner Vertrauensverlust die 
Kapitalmarktfinanzierung auch langerfristig verschlechtern 
konnte. Eine gro?e Zahl regulatorischer Vorhaben der letzten 
Jahre - etwa der Sarbanes-Oxley Act und der EU-Aktionsplan zu 
Gesellschaftsrecht und Corporate Governance - sollen dazu 
beitragen, einen solchen Verlust von Anlegervertrauen abzuwenden. 
Auffallig ist dabei, dass sich die intensive rechtspolitische 
Diskussion uberwiegend auf die Information des Kapitalmarktes 
durch das einzelne Unternehmen konzentriert. Im Gefolge gro?er 
Zusammenbruche - allen voran der von Enron -, aber auch anderer 
dramatischer Kursverluste einzelner Gesellschaften wurde vor 
allem die Frage gestellt, wie eine Irrefuhrung von Anlegern 
durch scharfere Publizitatsanforderungen verhindert werden 
konnte. Weniger Beachtung fand demgegenuber, ob der 
Kapitalmarkt die vorhandenen Informationen optimal genutzt hatte. 
Das ist insofern verwunderlich, als sich die extremen Bewertungen 
am Ende der neunziger Jahre keineswegs auf einzelne Aktien 
beschrankten. Vielmehr drangt sich der Eindruck auf, dass die 
Markte den Wert der offentlich gehandelten Unternehmen 
insgesamt oder den ganzer Branchen allgemein zu hoch 
eingeschatzt haben. Dies konnte nicht mit fehlenden oder 
unrichtigen Informationen uber einzelne Unternehmen erklart 
werden. Trifft diese Schlussfolgerung zu, so ware zu fragen, ob 
die Institutionen des Kapitalmarktes hierfur Verantwortung 
tragen - und ob sich ihre Leistungsfahigkeit fur die Zukunft 
verbessern lasst. Zu den wesentlichen Institutionen des 
Kapitalmarkts gehoren die Finanzintermediare. Unter ihnen 
spielen neben Banken und Versicherungen die Investmentfonds eine 
herausragende Rolle: Im Jahre 2002 verwalteten die im deutschen 
Branchenverband BVI zusammengeschlossenen 
Kapitalanlagegesellschaften ein Vermogen in Hohe von 862,4 Mrd. 
Euro. Mit dem Investmentgesetz (InvG) vom 15. Dezember 2003 hat 
der deutsche Gesetzgeber fur sie einen umfassend uberholten 
Regulierungsrahmen geschaffen. Im Folgenden sollen aber nicht in 
erster Linie die Neuerungen durch das InvG gewurdigt werden. 
Vielmehr sollen grundsatzliche Uberlegungen daruber angestellt 
werden, wie die Regulierung von Investmentfonds verbessert werden 
konnte. In einem ersten Teil wird allgemein untersucht, welches 
Regelungsziel mit der rechtlichen Erfassung von Investmentfonds 
erreicht werden soll. Im Vordergrund steht dabei der Zusammenhang 
mit der Theorie effizienter Kapitalmarkte (B.). In einem zweiten,
besonderen" Teil werden beispielhaft drei wichtige Einzelfragen 
aus dem Bereich der Governance von Investmentfonds naher 
untersucht und die Regelungsentscheidungen des deutschen 
Gesetzgebers kritisch bewertet (C.)
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1099&r=all



17. Erfolgsmessung in Gerichten
  
    Martin Schneider (Universitat Trier)

In der Debatte um Reform und Modernisierung der Justiz geht es 
heute nicht mehr um das Ob, sondern nur um das Wie". Alle 
Bundeslander haben damit begonnen, betriebswirtschaftliche 
Instrumente, die in Privatunternehmen ublich sind, auch in der 
Justiz zu erproben. Ebenso zentral wie kontrovers ist dabei die 
Erfolgs- oder Leistungsmessung von Gerichten. Noch gibt es keine 
einheitliche Methodik, es liegen aber vereinzelte Ansatze vor. 
Beim Benchmarking" der Sozialgerichte in Nordrhein-Westfalen etwa 
wird die Auftragserfullung der Gerichte anhand von Kennzahlen 
miteinander verglichen, um Gerichte zum Aufgreifen so genannter 
bester Praktiken zu bewegen. Im so genannten Neuen 
Steuerungsmodell, das fur die Gerichtsbarkeiten in Baden-
Wurttemberg gerade umgesetzt wird, richten sich die zugewiesenen 
Haushaltsmittel nach dem zu erbringenden Output der Gerichte. 
Unabdingbare Voraussetzung fur das Neue Steuerungsmodell ist die 
Leistungsmessung, denn es mussen die verschiedenen Leistungen 
der Gerichte, ihre Produkte", benannt und es muss dann der 
Aufwand, der zur Erstellung jeder einzelnen Leistung notwendig 
ist, quantifiziert werden. Der gemeinsame Nenner aller Ansatze 
ist der Steuerungszweck: Auf die Erfolgsmessung folgt zum 
Beispiel eine Haushaltszuweisung, die Suche nach effizienten 
Ablaufen oder auch nur der Hinweis eines Gerichtsprasidenten, 
dass die Erledigungszahlen im Vergleich zu anderen Gerichten 
verbessert werden konnten. Im Kern der Modernisierungsansatze 
steht damit die Steuerung durch Erfolgsmessung. Diese Art der 
Justizmodernisierung sto?t auf heftigen Widerspruch der Richter 
und auf gehorige Skepsis seitens der Rechtswissenschaft. Dies 
liegt zum einen daran, dass eine Gefahr fur die richterliche 
Unabhangigkeit befurchtet wird; zum anderen daran, dass viele 
Juristen Betriebswirtschaftslehre" und Okonomisierung" offenbar 
mit Kostenreduktion" gleich setzen. Dieses Vorurteil mag auch 
erklaren, warum okonomische Stimmen in der Debatte um die 
Erfolgsmessung nicht zu Wort kommen. Die einschlagigen 
akademischen Teildisziplinen, die okonomische Analyse des Rechts 
und die Performancemessung" (Performance Measurement), spielen in 
der wissenschaftlichen Debatte um die Erfolgsmessung von 
Gerichten bislang kaum eine Rolle. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werde 
ich eine okonomisch fundierte (aber hoffentlich nicht vormoderne)
Methodik der Erfolgsmessung von Gerichten herleiten (Abschnitt C)
und am Beispiel anwenden (Abschnitt D), um abschlie?end 
sinnvolle Verwendungen der Erfolgsmessung anzurei?en (Abschnitt 
E). Eingangs jedoch soll die Kritik an einer Steuerung der Justiz 
durch Erfolgsmessung aus okonomischer Sicht bewertet werden (
Abschnitt B).
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1103&r=all



18. THE PROTECTION OF RELATION-SPECIFIC INVESTMENT IN LONG-TERM 
    CONTRACTS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE CAR INDUSTRY
  
    Ulf Hansen (University of Bayreuth)

This paper is about the efficiency of the consequences of a 
termination of long-term contracts, in the case that the 
terminated party has made specific investment. After introducing 
the investment protection in the United States, in Germany and in 
Austria, it will be shown which restrictions regarding the type 
of investment, the type of termination and the form of contract 
are required from an economic perspective to discuss the 
varieties of investment protection. On this basis, an economic 
analysis will show that the legal design which generates a valid 
termination and the claim for the terminated party to be 
compensated corresponding to its positive interest is the 
efficient one compared to the other legal and contractual 
possibilities. On the ground of this insight, the introduced 
legal systems will be critically discussed with regard to 
efficiency.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1112&r=all



19. Court Delay in Developing Countries with Special References 
    to China
  
    Qing-Yun Jiang

The judiciary in developing countries is troubled with various 
problems. Specifically, court delays, backlogs and uncertainty 
associated with unexpected outcomes have diminished the quality 
of justice and leads to loss of confidence of the general public 
in judiciary. Court delay is always coupled with impartiality, 
corruption and low quality of judgment, etc. The reform program 
needs to address the major causes of the deterioration in the 
quality of court services and address the root political, 
economic causes of an inefficient and inequitable judiciary and 
not simply deal with its symptoms. Like many other judiciaries in 
developing countries, court delay is also a problem facing the 
jurisdiction in Chinese courts, especially in appeal and retrial 
procedure. Based on empirical study, this paper will also 
illustrate the major causes of court delay as well as 
difficulties of law enforcement in Chinese jurisdiction. In 
particular, some special references are made to the retrial 
procedure and the roll of the Trial Committee in the course of 
jurisdiction, as well as accessibility to the courts.
 
Keywords: jurisdiction, duration of the court, retrial, the 
          Trial Committee, enforcement of judgments,
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2004-1-1114&r=all



20. Jurisdiction and Choice of Law in Economic Perspective
  
    Katrin Lantermann (Universitat Hamburg, Fachbereich 
      Rechtswissenschaften, Institut fur Recht und Okonomik)
    Hans-Bernd Schafer (University of Hamburg, Germany)

This article looks at choice of law rules from an economic 
perspective . The aim is to understand whether particular choice 
of law norms are wealth creating or wealth destroying and which 
of different norms should be preferred from this point of view. 
In this article we do not try to understand the forces that 
generate and sustain particular choice of law rules. We restrict 
ourselves to an efficiency analysis of existing or proposed 
choice of law rules. In the first part of the paper we argue that 
a free choice of law should be granted, whenever the choice 
causes no third party effects. We show that this criterion would 
extend free choice beyond the present scope. Free menu choice of 
law increases the wealth of the parties and creates institutional 
competition. It should be extended to fields of the law other 
than contract and tort law. In the second part we proceed with 
choice of law rules if the choice leads to positive or negative 
third party effects. To take care of these effects mandatory 
choice rules are sometimes but not always necessary. 
Methodologically choice of law rules should be market-mimicking 
rules, which reflect the interests of a grand coalition of the 
parties and all third parties affected by the choice rule. In the 
third part of the paper we discuss existing rules for the choice 
of tort law and refer to the discussion on a draft proposal for a 
European Council regulation of the law applicable to non-
contractual obligations . In the fourth part we discuss whether 
the German or the US approach of international comparative law is 
preferable from an economic perspective. The US approach gives 
more judicial discretion for the choice of law than the German 
approach. We argue that the choice of law rules should lead to 
precise and clear legal commands with escape clauses for the 
judiciary only in exceptional and obvious cases. As Guzman 
pointed out it is striking that choice of law scholars have paid 
virtually no attention on how choice of law rules affect 
individual behaviour. But any economic analysis has to focus on 
this aspect as otherwise the social consequences of legal norms 
remain unknown and consequently little can be said about whether 
the consequences of one rule are socially better than those of 
another rule.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2005-1-1115&r=all



21. Incentive Effects of State Liability for Wrongful Conviction 
    on the Level of Crime
  
    Vincy Fon (The George Washington University)
    Hans-Bernd Schafer (University of Hamburg, Germany)

The criminal justice system is not infallible. This unfortunate 
but unavoidable fact has been known for some time. For many 
reasons, in spite of advocacy raised as early as 1913 by Borchard 
to offer compensation to those wrongfully convicted and later 
exonerated, currently in the United States only 15 states, the 
District of Columbia, and the federal government have laws for 
such compensation. Further, the compensation is fairly meager, 
and compensation is usually not granted if the alleged criminal 
pleaded guilty in cases involving confessions. Outside the United 
States, a different era seems to be on the horizon. In recent 
years, the scope of state liability has been expanding through 
membership in international organizations and through 
international treaties. In particular, the Council of Europe's 
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental 
Freedoms encourages compensation for anyone punished as a result 
of a wrongful conviction. Article 3 of Protocol 7, Compensation 
for Wrongful Conviction, states that: When a person has by a 
final decision been convicted of a criminal offence and when 
subsequently his conviction has been reversed, or he has been 
pardoned, on the ground that a new or newly discovered fact shows 
conclusively that there has been a miscarriage of justice, the 
person who has suffered punishment as a result of such conviction 
shall be compensated according to the law or the practice of the 
State concerned, unless it is proved that the non-disclosure of 
the unknown fact in time is wholly or partly attributable to him. 
Although this article lacks specifics, it clearly endorses 
compensation for the wrongfully convicted. People who are 
wrongfully convicted and later exonerated should be compensated 
for many reasons. The wrongfully accused typically incur huge 
legal expenses for defense. They lose their earning opportunities 
and their reputations while in prison, and they suffer 
psychological harm. It is just to compensate these victims -- 
society is responsible for rectifying its errors by helping these 
victims regain normal lives when they are released from prison. 
Following Borchard, scholars also raised the possibility of 
applying eminent domain principles to compensate those wrongfully 
convicted, making the case that takings are involved when these 
victims are incarcerated. Against this backdrop, our paper 
attempts to study the compensation problem in a different 
direction. We ask whether expanding the scope of state liability 
would improve the well-being of citizens after public wrongs 
occur. In particular, we propose that compensating the wrongfully 
convicted after exoneration could affect the aggregate level of 
crime. A model will be developed in which we first point out that 
the possibility of wrongful conviction, although it cannot be 
avoided, in fact increases the amount of crime committed as 
compared to the idealistic case of no erroneous conviction. Then 
the simple model is extended to show why state liability for 
wrongful conviction changes criminal behavior. We conclude that 
the net impact of the expansion of state liability is that the 
aggregate level of crime decreases.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2005-1-1116&r=all



22. Effizienz als Leitbild der Wettbewerbspolitik: Fur einen 
    "more economic approach"
  
    Dieter Schmidtchen (Universitat des Saarlandes)

Effizienz als Leitbild der Wettbewerbspolitik: Fur einen more 
economic approach" Die jungsten Reformen im Europaischen 
Wettbewerbsrecht geben Anla?, sich erneut mit Grundsatzfragen 
der Wettbewerbspolitik zu beschaftigen. Unter Ruckgriff auf die 
moderne Wettbewerbstheorie, die Industrie- und die Neue 
Institutionenokonomik werden in diesem Paper die Grundlagen 
eines more economic approach" entworfen. Wettbewerb wird als 
Parallel- und Austauschproze? begriffen, in dem Werte (social 
surplus) geschaffen und angeeignet werden. Allokative, 
produktionstechnische und innovative Ineffizienzen sind in diesem 
Wettbewerbskonzept Folge einer mangelnden Aneignung von 
Wertschopfung. Konkret wird in diesem Paper vorgeschlagen, da? 
Wettbewerbsbehorden und Gerichte in allen Verfahren gegen 
Unternehmen und Unternehmensgruppen einen uberzeugend 
begrundeten Effizienzeinwand als Rechtfertigung fur ein in 
traditioneller Sicht wettbewerbsbeschrankendes Verhalten 
zulassen. Der Vorschlag basiert auf einer partialanalytisch 
interpretierten Theorie des second-best"; bei ihr sind second-
best-tradeoffs" ausschlie?lich auf den relevanten Markt bezogen. 
Um Anschuldigungen zu entkraften, sollten die Beschuldigten 
zweierlei nachweisen: Erstens, das beanstandete Verhalten ist 
eine Reaktion auf ein identifiziertes Marktversagen oder 
technische oder dynamische (Neuerungen betreffende) Ineffizienz 
im relevanten Markt. Zweitens, das beanstandete Verhalten 
steigert per Saldo die Wohlfahrt. Die Kartellbehorden hatten 
zwei Dinge zu prufen: Erstens, behindert das beanstandete 
Verhalten in wesentlicher Weise spatere private oder staatliche 
Versuche, die Grunde fur das Marktversagen, die technische oder 
dynamische Ineffizienz zu beseitigen? Zweitens, gibt es weniger 
stark gegen die Antitrust-Gesetze versto?ende Ma?nahmen zur 
Erreichung derselben Wohlfahrtssteigerung? Wenn die Unternehmen 
ihre Argumente uberzeugend dargelegt und die Kartellbehorden 
die beiden Fragen mit nein beantwortet haben, dann sollte das 
Verfahren eingestellt werden. Das Paper diskutiert auch die Vor- 
und Nachteile eines innermarktlichen second-best"- Ansatzes in 
der Wettbewerbspolitik und zeigt die Vorteile gegenuber einer 
Wettbewerbspolitik auf, die nur den Wettbewerb schutzen will.
 
Keywords: more economic approach, second-best tradeoff, 
          Williamson-tradeoff, "Post-Chicago" antitrust policy, 
          efficiency defense, property rights, transaction costs, 
          perfect competition as full appropriation.,
JEL:      L40
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2005-1-1117&r=all



23. Der "more economic approach" in der Wettbewerbspolitik
  
    Dieter Schmidtchen (Universitat des Saarlandes)

This article argues that it is time for antitrust policy to move 
beyond structural understandings of competition ("preserving 
competition") and into the realm of explicit welfare analysis. A 
"more economic approach" should reflect current economic thinking 
about competition, incentives and efficiency. Competition is 
defined in the paper as a process of creating and appropriating 
value (social surplus). Allocative, technical and innovative 
inefficiencies are viewed as fundamentally due to failures of 
capturing value. The paper argues that antitrust laws should 
recognize a defence for all private acts that restrain 
"competition" under the traditional antitrust analysis but 
advance total welfare. The proposed efficiency defense is, 
however, limited to intra-market second-best tradeoffs, i.e. 
tradeoffs involving market failures in the relevant market. The 
antitrust authorities should accept the defense if, first, the 
conduct will not substantially impair the ability of public or 
private actors subsequently to ameliorate the effects of the 
market failure; and if, second, there is no less restrictive 
alternative consistent with the antitrust laws that could achieve 
similar welfare gains. The paper also assesses the costs and 
benefits of implementing an intra-market second-best defense and 
argues that this approach provides better criteria for a workable 
antitrust policy than an antitrust standard based on protecting 
"competition".
 
Keywords: more economic approach, second-best tradeoff, 
          Williamson-tradeoff, "Post Chicago", antitrust policy, 
          efficiency defense, property rights, transaction costs, 
          perfect competition as full appropriation,
JEL:      L40
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:dewple:2005-1-1120&r=all



24. Collective economic decisions and the discursive dilemma
  
    Carl Andreas Claussen (Norges Bank)
    Oistein Roisland (Norges Bank)

Most economic decisions involve judgments. When decisions are 
taken collectively, various judgment aggregation problems may 
occur. Here we consider an aggregation problem called the 
"discursive dilemma", which is characterized by an inconsistency 
between the aggregate judgment on the premises for a conclusion 
and the aggregate judgment on the conclusion itself. It thus 
matter for the decision whether the group uses a premise- or a 
conclusion-based decisionmaking procedure. The current literature,
primarily within jurisprudence, philosophy, and social choice, 
consider aggregation of qualitative judgments on propositions. 
Most economic decisions, however, involve quantitative judgments 
on economic variables. We develop a framework that is suitable 
for analyzing the relevance of the discursive dilemma for 
economic decisions. Assuming that decisions are reached either 
through majority voting or by averaging, we find that the dilemma 
cannot be ruled out, except under some restrictive assumptions 
about the relationship between the premise-variables and the 
conclusion.
 
Keywords: Collective economic decisions, Judgement aggregation, 
          Inconsistency
JEL:      D71 E60
Date:     2005-06-29
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bno:worpap:2005_03&r=all



25. Estimating UK capital adjustment costs
  
    Charlotta Groth

This paper estimates UK capital adjustment costs, using a data 
set for 34 industries spanning the whole UK economy for the 
period 1970-2000. The results show that it is costly to install 
new capital, and that it has been more costly to adjust the level 
of non-ICT capital (plant, machinery, buildings and vehicles) 
compared to the level of ICT capital (computers, software and 
telecommunications). The results are applied to an analysis of 
total factor productivity (TFP) growth. That analysis is focused 
on the 1990s - a period when the growth rate of the standard 
measure of TFP fell in the United Kingdom, while rising sharply 
in the United States. The estimates suggest that capital 
adjustment costs accounted for around two thirds of the observed 
slowdown in UK TFP growth. However, the adjustment is not large 
enough to reverse the finding that UK TFP growth declines in the 
second half of the 1990s, unlike the US experience of rising TFP 
growth.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:258&r=all



26. Productivity growth in UK industries, 1970-2000: structural 
    change and the role of ICT
  
    Nicholas Oulton
    Sylaja Srinivasan

This paper uses a new industry-level dataset to quantify the 
roles of structural change and information and communication 
technology (ICT) in explaining productivity growth in the United 
Kingdom, 1970-2000. The dataset is for 34 industries covering the 
whole economy, of which 31 industries are in the market sector. 
Using growth accounting, we find that ICT capital accounted for 
13% of productivity growth in the market sector in 1970-79 (ie 0.
47 percentage points out of 3.62% per annum growth of GDP per 
hour), 26% in 1979-90, and 28% in 1990-2000. In 1995-2000 the 
proportion rises to 47%. ICT capital, despite only being a small 
fraction of the total capital stock, contributed as much to 
growth as non-ICT capital in 1990-2000 and getting on for twice 
as much in 1995-2000. Econometric evidence also supports an 
important role for ICT. Total factor productivity (TFP) growth 
slowed down in 1995-2000, but we find econometric evidence that a 
boom in 'complementary investment', ie expenditure on 
reorganisation that accompanies ICT investment but is not 
officially measured as investment, could have led to a decline in 
the conventional measure of TFP growth.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:259&r=all



27. Financial constraints and capacity adjustment in the United 
    Kingdom: evidence from a large panel of survey data
  
    Ulf von Kalckreuth
    Emma Murphy

The interrelationship between financial constraints and firm 
activity is a hotly debated issue. The way firms cope with 
financial constraints is fundamental to the analysis of monetary 
transmission, of financial stability and of economic growth and 
development. The CBI Industrial Trends Survey contains detailed 
information on the financial constraints faced by a large sample 
of UK manufacturers. This paper uses the quarterly CBI Industrial 
Trends Survey firm-level data between January 1989 and October 
1999. The cleaned sample contains 49,244 quarterly observations 
on 5,196 firms. The data set is presented and a new method of 
checking the informational content of the data is developed. The 
relationship between investment activity and financial 
constraints is ambivalent because both can affect each other and 
they are affected by the same kind of economic developments, so 
it is not clear which is driving the other. But the link between 
financial constraints faced by the firm and the prevalence and 
duration of capacity restrictions should be unambiguously 
positive. Looking at that relationship, two important results 
emerge. First, financially constrained firms take longer to close 
capacity gaps. This indicates that financial constraints do 
indeed play a part in the investment process. Second, small firms 
close their capacity gaps faster than large firms do, but 
financial constraints seem to be of higher relevance to their 
adjustment.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:260&r=all



28. Default probabilities and expected recovery: an analysis of 
    emerging market sovereign bonds
  
    Liz Dixon-Smith
    Roman Goossens
    Simon Hayes

We develop a simple bond pricing model to map the prices of 
individual EME sovereign bonds into term structures of implied (
risk-neutral) default probabilities and expected recovery rates. 
Simple indices of bond spreads are found to be closely correlated 
with long-term risk neutral default probabilities, so may provide 
a straightforward way of monitoring shifts in investors' 
perceptions. But short-term risk neutral default probabilities 
behave quite differently, implying that there are periods of 
market-wide changes in volatility that do not show in measures of 
average spreads. Estimation of time-varying recovery rates 
appears to work best for countries in crisis, and suggests that 
expected recovery falls as the prospect of default becomes 
imminent. Movements in the median time to default generally 
appear plausible, both across time and across countries.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:261&r=all



29. The impact of unsecured debt on financial distress among 
    British households
  
    Ana Del-Ro
    Garry Young

This paper uses evidence from the British Household Panel Survey 
BHPS) to examine how attitudes towards unsecured debt are 
related to household finances and other characteristics. An 
ordered-logit model is estimated for 1995 and 2000 using a self-
reported indicator of financial distress as the dependent 
variable. This analysis suggests that the main factors causing 
debt problems are the unsecured debt-income ratio, the level of 
mortgage income gearing, the level of financial wealth of 
households, their health, ethnicity and marital status. While the 
proportion of households reporting debt problems did not change 
between 1995 and 2000, there were important shifts among 
different groups. In particular, more households in the youngest 
age group reported debt repayments were a heavy burden in 2000, 
while the opposite applies to the oldest age group where a 
smaller proportion of households than in 1995 reported debt was a 
heavy burden. These changes can largely be accounted for by the 
changing economic circumstances of these groups rather than an 
unrelated shift in attitudes. In particular, the increase in 
indebtedness of the young was the main factor accounting for 
their greater tendency to report debt problems.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:262&r=all



30. The determinants of unsecured borrowing: evidence from the 
    British Household Panel Survey
  
    Ana Del-Ro
    Garry Young

Household indebtedness has risen sharply in recent years, with 
large increases in both secured and unsecured borrowing. In this 
paper, waves 5 and 10 of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)
for 1995 and 2000 are used to examine the determinants of 
participation in the unsecured debt market and the amount 
borrowed. Probit models for participation are estimated and age, 
income, positive financial prospects and housing tenure are found 
to be very significant and have the expected sign according to a 
life-cycle model for consumption. Regressions to explain the 
level of borrowing by individuals suggest that income is the main 
variable explaining crosssectional differences in unsecured debts.
The increase in aggregate unsecured debt between 1995 and 2000 
does not seem to be closely linked to changes in the determinants 
of debt market participation and has been mainly associated with 
the larger amounts borrowed by those with debts. Increases in 
income, better educational qualifications and improved prospects 
regarding the financial situation contributed to this result. The 
major part of the overall increase in unsecured debt is not 
explained by variables at the individual level, but is accounted 
for by common, unmodelled macroeconomic factors.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:263&r=all



31. Liquidity risk and contagion
  
    Rodrigo Cifuentes
    Gianluigi Ferrucci
    Hyun Song Shin

This paper explores liquidity risk in a system of interconnected 
financial institutions when these institutions are subject to 
regulatory solvency constraints and mark their assets to market. 
When the market's demand for illiquid assets is less than 
perfectly elastic, sales by distressed institutions depress the 
market prices of such assets. Marking to market of the asset book 
can induce a further round of endogenously generated sales of 
assets, depressing prices further and inducing further sales. 
Contagious failures can result from small shocks. We investigate 
the theoretical basis for contagious failures and quantify them 
through simulation exercises. Liquidity requirements on 
institutions can be as effective as capital requirements in 
forestalling contagious failures.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:264&r=all



32. Extreme Voting under Proportional Representation: The 
    Multidimensional Case
  
    Francesco De Sinopoli
    Giovanna Iannantuoni

We study the strategic behavior of voters in a model of 
proportional representation, in which the policy space is 
multidimensional. Our main finding is that in large electorate, 
under some assumptions on voters'preferences, voters essentially 
vote, in any equilibrium, only for the extreme parties.
 
Keywords: Strategic Voting, Proportional Rule, Nash Equilibrium
JEL:      C72 D72
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0531&r=all



33. Perfect Competition and the Keynesian Cross:Revisiting Tobin
  
    Partha Sen (Delhi School of Economics)

I look at an exogenous decrease in the desire to save in a two-
sector-two-period overlapping generations model, where the 
consumption good is capital-intensive and the elasticities of 
substitution in production are "small". It is shown that there is 
a Keynesian-type multiplier at work, even though the model is a 
competitive one with full employment (and inelastic labour supply)
 It is reminiscent of Tobin (1975) who had shown thirty years 
ago that Keynesian results could be obtained with (short run) 
Marshallian dynamics (albeit in an ad-hoc model).
 
Keywords: Overlapping Generations, Two-sector Models, Multiplier,
          Keynesian Cross.
JEL:      D90 E12 O41
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cde:cdewps:135&r=all



34. Migration, Trade and Wages
  
    Alexander Hijzen
    Peter Wright

This study adopts a GNP function approach in order to examine 
the impact of migrant labour on domestic factors of production in 
the United Kingdom during the period 1975-1996. We also examine 
the relationship between imports and migrants, which are two 
different facets of globalisation. We find that an increase in 
the number of unskilled migrants reduces the wages of unskilled 
domestic workers. However the quantitative impact of this 
increase is small. No discernible impact of migration is found 
for skilled native workers. The results also suggest that 
unskilled migrant workers and imports are substitutes in 
production, whilst skilled migrant workers and imports are 
complements.
 
Keywords: Immigration; international trade; wage inequality; 
          globalization; factor markets; labor market
JEL:      C31 D33 F11 F16 F22
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2005-06&r=all



35. Trade Liberalisation, Growth and Poverty in Senegal: a 
    Dynamic Microsimulation CGE Model Analysis
  
    Nabil Annabi
    Fatou Cisse
    John Cockburn
    Bernard Decaluwe

An integrated sequential dynamic computable general equilibrium 
model is used to study the potential poverty and inequality 
effects of a complete tariff removal in Senegal. The model is 
calibrated with a 1996 social accounting matrix and a 1995 survey 
of 3278 households. The outcomes indicate small short run 
negative impacts in terms of welfare and poverty. In the long run,
growth effects captured by the model bring an expansion of the 
industrial and services sectors and substantial poverty decreases.
However, the decomposition of the results shows that the 
contribution of the redistribution component to poverty 
alleviation is negative.
 
Keywords: Dynamic CGE model; trade liberalisation; poverty; 
          inequality; Senegal; market access; CGEM
JEL:      D33 D58 E27 F17 I32 O15 O55
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2005-07&r=all



36. Tax Competition and Public Input
  
    Agnes Benassy-Quere
    Nicolas Gobalraja
    Alain Trannoy

We study the extent and policy implications of tax competition 
in the case of a double-competition on both tax rates and 
provision of public factors. First, we derive the relevant 
theoretical results in a unified framework where a corporate tax 
is used to finance a public good which both raises household 
utility and firm productivity. Then, the relevance of such double 
competition is tested with FDI data from the United States to the 
EU. We find ground for the coexistence of high tax/spending 
countries and low tax/spending ones. International competition 
could then act as a vector for rising public sector efficiency 
rather than a standardisation factor.
 
Keywords: Tax competition; public factors; public goods; FDI; 
          tax and budget policy
JEL:      F21 F23 H25 H41 H54
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2005-08&r=all



37. La reforme federale proposee de la perequation : le 
    mauvais remede pour l’un des organes vitaux du 
    federalisme fiscal canadien
  
    Luc Godbout
    Suzie St-Cerny

This report was generated in the framework of consultations by 
the Expert Panel on Equalization and Territorial Formula 
Financing. The study first presents a brief history of 
equalization and the evolution of its main parameters. The 
principal issues are discussed next, in particular the volatility 
of equalization payments, the integration of certain revenue 
sources, and the revision of standards of comparison. Certain 
impacts springing from these issues are also illustrated. By 
analyzing the evolution of equalization over the past ten years, 
the authors illustrate that gaps between the Canadian provinces 
in fiscal capacity have become more pronounced while the impact 
of equalization has decreased. The new equalization framework 
ensuing from the federal offer of 2004, including the existence 
of several specific bilateral agreements, is also analyzed. The 
authors conclude that the new framework must be abandoned and 
that a reform of the equalization program that respects the 
initial goals is required. In particular, a return to the ten-
province average is recommended, along with backtracking on the 
fixed global envelope of equalization. Other recommendations 
address adding a smoothing mechanism and doing away with 
bilateral agreements. <P>Cette etude a ete realisee dans le 
cadre des consultations du Groupe d’experts sur la 
perequation et la formule de financement des territoires. Elle 
presente d’abord brievement l’historique de la 
perequation et l’evolution de ses principaux parametres. 
Puis, les principaux enjeux sont discutes, notamment la 
volatilite de la perequation, la revision de certaines 
assiettes et la revision de la norme de comparaison. Certains 
impacts lies a ces enjeux sont aussi illustres. En analysant 
l’evolution de la perequation au cours des dix dernieres 
annees, les auteurs illustrent que les ecarts de capacite 
fiscale se sont accentues entre les provinces canadiennes 
pendant que, de son cote, l’impact de la perequation 
diminuait. Le nouveau cadre de la perequation decoulant de 
l’offre federale de 2004, incluant l’existence de plusieurs 
ententes bilaterales particulieres, est aussi analyse. Les 
auteurs concluent au rejet du nouveau cadre et a la necessite 
de reformer le systeme de perequation en gardant les 
objectifs initiaux. Il est en particulier recommande de revenir 
a la norme des dix provinces et de faire marche arriere en ce 
qui concerne l’enveloppe globale fixe de la perequation. 
D’autres recommandations concernent notamment l’ajout d’un 
mecanisme de lissage et la fin des ententes bilaterales.
 
Keywords: equalization, fiscal capacity, federal government, 
          fiscal imbalance, federal transfers, provinces, Quebec, 
          standard of comparison, capacite fiscale, 
          desequilibre fiscal, gouvernement federal, norme de 
          comparaison, perequation, provinces, Quebec, 
          transferts federaux
JEL:      H27 H77
Date:     2005-06-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2005s-27&r=all



38. Mettre cartes sur table pour resoudre le desequilibre 
    fiscal
  
    Luc Godbout
    Karine Dumont

This report was generated in the framework of consultations by 
the Subcommittee on Fiscal Imbalance of the House of Commons’ 
Standing Committee on Finance. In the first instance, this study 
describes the various arguments used by the federal government 
and the provinces to substantiate or refute the existence of the 
fiscal imbalance in Canada. The authors analyze these arguments 
and conclude that there is, in fact, a fiscal imbalance in Canada.
They then propose several solution paths. <P>Cette etude a 
ete realisee dans le cadre des consultations du Sous-comite 
sur le desequilibre fiscal du Comite permanent des finances de 
la Chambre des communes. Elle dresse d'abord le portrait des 
differents arguments utilises, autant par le gouvernement 
federal que par les provinces, afin d’illustrer ou de nier 
l’existence du desequilibre fiscal au Canada. Les auteurs 
analysent ces arguments et arrivent a la conclusion qu'un 
desequilibre fiscal est bel et bien present au Canada. Par la 
suite, differentes pistes de solution sont proposees afin de le 
resoudre.
 
Keywords: budget surplus, Commission on Fiscal Imbalance, CHST, 
          debt, division of taxation fields, equalization, 
          federal government, federal transfers, fiscal 
          federalism, fiscal imbalance, provinces, Commission sur 
          le desequilibre fiscal, desequilibre fiscal, dette, 
          federalisme fiscal, gouvernement federal, 
          perequation, provinces, surplus budgetaire, TCSPS, 
          transfert d’espace fiscal, transferts federaux
JEL:      H73 H77
Date:     2005-06-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2005s-28&r=all



39. Des baisses d’impot : pour qui, comment et quand? <BR> 
    Douze constats a prendre en consideration avant de 
    proceder a de nouvelles baisses d’impot sur le revenu au 
    Quebec
  
    Luc Godbout

This study compares the parameters of income taxation in Quebec 
with those prevailing elsewhere in the Canadian federation and in 
the G7 countries. After demonstrating the government of 
Quebec’s greater dependence on income taxes, the authors use a 
historical analysis to show that there has been a slight 
improvement in this situation. Moreover, a comparative analysis 
of average tax rate changes shows that, with the recent fiscal 
reforms, Quebec has cut income taxes much more deeply than other 
G7 countries. This study also demonstrates that the parameters of 
the income tax system in Quebec take specific account of 
taxpayers’ essential needs and their family status. However, 
the analysis also shows that the tax burden is most onerous on 
Quebec’s middle class. Overall, the authors present twelve 
points to guide the government of Quebec in the elaboration of an 
income tax reduction plan. More precisely, the study seeks to 
answer the following questions: (1) When should it occur? (2) 
What group of taxpayers should benefit first? and (3) How should 
the government proceed with its implementation? <P>L’etude 
compare les parametres de l’impot sur le revenu du Quebec 
comparativement a ceux qui prevalent dans la federation 
canadienne et dans les pays du G7. Apres avoir illustre une 
plus forte dependance gouvernementale par rapport aux impots 
sur le revenu au Quebec, les auteurs montrent par une analyse 
retrospective qu’a cet egard une legere amelioration de 
la situation s’est produite. De plus, en comparant l’effet 
sur les taux moyens de taxation des recentes reformes fiscales, 
ils constatent que le Quebec se distingue par une reduction 
nettement superieure a celle des pays du G7. L’etude 
illustre egalement que les parametres de l’impot sur le 
revenu au Quebec prennent particulierement en compte les 
besoins essentiels des contribuables ainsi que leur situation 
familiale. Par ailleurs, l’analyse demontre que les 
contribuables quebecois de la classe moyenne sont plus durement 
frappes par les impots sur le revenu. Dans l’ensemble, les 
auteurs dressent douze constats afin de guider le gouvernement du 
Quebec dans l’eventualite d’une reduction de l’impot 
sur le revenu. Plus precisement, l’etude cherche a 
repondre a ces questions : 1) quand devra-elle avoir lieu? 2) 
quel groupe de contribuables devrait en etre le premier 
beneficiaire? et 3) de quelle maniere le gouvernement devrait-
il proceder pour la realiser?
 
Keywords: Quebec, income tax, tax reform,, tax competitiveness, 
          international comparison, tax schedule, tax policy, 
          progressivity, Quebec, impot sur le revenu, reforme 
          fiscale, competitivite fiscale, comparaison 
          internationale, bareme d’imposition, politique 
          fiscale, progressivite.
JEL:      H24
Date:     2005-06-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2005s-29&r=all



40. A Solution to Matching with Preferences over Colleagues
  
    Echenique, Federico
    Yenmez, Mehmet B.

We study many-to-one matchings, such as the assignment of 
students to colleges, where the students have preferences over 
the other students who would attend the same college. It is well 
known that the core of this model may be empty, without strong 
assumptions on agents’ preferences. We introduce a method that 
finds all core matchings, if any exist. The method requires no 
assumptions on preferences. Our method also finds certain partial 
solutions that may be useful when the core is empty.
 
Keywords: matching markets, core, lattice, Gale-Shapley algorithm
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clt:sswopa:1226&r=all



41. BUYBACK OF COLOMBIAN SOVEREIGN DEBT
  
    Peter Rowland

At a request from the Ministry of Finance, Banco de la 
Republica last year carried out an investigation into the 
feasibility to use parts of the foreign reserves to buy back some 
of Colombia’s outstanding sovereign U.S.-dollar debt. This 
project resulted in two thorough technical reports. This paper 
aims to complement these reports by a general discussion on the 
subject. Even if many economists will find the discussion and the 
empirical results interesting, the main target group of the paper 
is professionals and policy makers without a background in 
Economics or Finance. The paper discusses emerging market debt in 
general, the Colombian debt in particular, and the current level 
of the Colombian foreign reserves. It, thereafter, continues by 
discussing buyback of sovereign debt, and what a country could 
gain or lose from such a buyback and why. The paper also includes 
a cross-country empirical analysis of the relationship between 
the sovereign spread of the outstanding debt of a country and its 
foreign reserve levels.
 
Date:     2005-04-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:000994&r=all



42. Sobre los Efectos Macroeconomicos de la Composicion de la 
    Deuda Publica en Colombia
  
    Franz Hamann
    Julian Perez
    Paulina Restrepo

Este articulo presenta un analisis cuantitativo del impacto 
macroeconomico de la forma como se financia el deficit fiscal 
en una economia pequena y abierta. En particular, nos enfocamos 
en evaluar el impacto macroeconomico de una situacion en la que,
dado un nivel de deficit fiscal, el gobierno decide entre 
financiarlo con deuda domestica o externa. Para este proposito 
empleamos un modelo de equilibrio general dinamico y 
estocastico para una economia pequena y abierta. Al calibrar 
el modelo a la economia colombiana, encontramos que los efectos 
de una sustitucion de deuda publica externa por interna 
dependen de que tan permanente sea dicha sustitucion. Una 
sustitucion transitoria tiene efectos macroeconomicos 
despreciables, con excepcion de su impacto sobre los flujos de 
capital privados (“efecto portafolio”). Es decir, un aumento 
de la deuda publica domestica vis a vis una reduccion en la 
externa, es balanceado por una reduccion de los activos externos 
netos privados. Por el contrario, una sustitucion permanente de 
un 10% de deuda externa por domestica tiene efectos 
macroeconomicos transitorios pero considerables sobre la 
actividad real y los flujos de capital. Dicha recomposicion 
genera un aumento en los activos externos netos de un 5% 
acompanada de una depreciacion nominal cercana al 1 %. Aunque 
nuestros resultados son generales en ambientes con flexibilidad 
de precios, especulamos que pueden variar en presencia de 
incertidumbre acerca de la sostenibilidad de las finanzas 
publicas y/o rigideces nominales y reales.
 
Keywords: Politica Fiscal;
JEL:      F41
Date:     2005-04-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:000995&r=all



43. DEMANDA DE EXPORTACIONES NO TRADICIONALES EN COLOMBIA
  
    Juan Nicolas Hernandez

El proposito de este trabajo1 es estudiar y ponderar las 
posibles relaciones existentes entre el nivel de las 
exportaciones no tradicionales colombianas totales y segun socio 
comercial, con el PIB del pais que demanda dichas exportaciones 
y el indice de tasa de cambio real bilateral o total segun 
corresponda. La deduccion de esta funcion de demanda de 
exportaciones no tradicionales en Colombia se lleva a cabo a 
traves de un analisis de cointegracion multivariado, el cual 
examina la existencia de una relacion de largo plazo entre las 
exportaciones menores, la demanda externa y los precios relativos.
La interpretacion de las respectivas elasticidades comprende 
varios enfoques que van desde la obtencion de las mismas a 
partir del vector de cointegracion hasta el analisis de la 
funcion de impulso respuesta. La conveniencia de uno u otro 
enfoque se analiza mas adelante.
 
Date:     2005-04-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:000998&r=all



44. DERIVATIVE MARKETS' IMPACT ON COLOMBIAN MONETARY POLICY
  
    Esteban Gomez
    Diego Vasquez
    Camilo Zea

Derivatives are contingent claims that complete financial 
markets. Their use allow agents and firms to ameliorate the 
impact over consumption, production and investment given a change 
in relative prices induced by an active monetary policy. In this 
sense, derivatives generate in some cases a loss in the 
effectiveness of the traditional monetary transmission channels 
in the short run, and in others, they promote an increase in the 
speed of transmission itself. Using an investment model, the 
impact of the use of interest rate and exchange rate derivatives 
in the dilution of colombian monetary channels is verified. 
Empirical exercises suggest that monetary policy has lost 
effectiveness in the short run. In spite of the surprise this 
result may offer given the relative immatureness of domestic 
derivative markets, the marginal effect of these instruments 
appears to be significant, in the face of local financial 
markets' imperfections. In addition, not only the hedge directly 
taken by firms with access to this instruments matter; there 
could be hedging spill- overs whenever commercial banks use 
derivatives, which allow for a more stable and cheap credit 
supply for firms with no access to those markets. The natural 
recommendation deriving from this conclusion suggests an urgent 
analysis of the derivatives impact over the speed of monetary 
transmission in Colombia.
 
Keywords: Derivatives;
JEL:      E22
Date:     2005-05-31
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:001001&r=all



45. ECONOMIA SUBTERRANEA EN COLOMBIA 1976-2003: UNA MEDICION 
    A PARTIR DE LA DEMANDA DE EFECTIVO
  
    Carlos Arango A.
    Martha Misas A.
    Enrique Lopez

La economia subterranea (ES), definida ampliamente como 
aquella asociada con actividades al margen del codigo legal de 
un pais, es de particular relevancia en Colombia debido al 
alcance que tiene la economia del narcotrafico y la economia 
informal evasora de la legislacion fiscal y laboral. Esto es 
particularmente relevante no solo para el Banco Central, pues la 
ES tiene una ingerencia directa en la demanda de efectivo, sino 
tambien por sus implicaciones fiscales e institucionales. En 
este trabajo se hace una revision critica del estado del arte 
en la estimacion de la ES representado en los modelos 
estructurales: “multiple indicators multiple causes” (MIMIC) 
y “dynamic multiple indicators multiple causes” (DYMIMIC). En 
particular, se documenta el posible sesgo de variable omitida que 
estos pueden presentar en su estimacion y las ventajas que 
pueden tener representaciones mas generales del tipo estado-
espacio estimadas mediante filtro de Kalman. Este ultimo enfoque 
es aplicado al caso colombiano donde se parte de una funcion de 
demanda de efectivo y se estima la dinamica y tamano de la ES 
en el periodo 1976-2003. Debido a los limitados grados de 
libertad, se calcularon intervalos de confianza implementando 
“bootstrapping” para establecer la significancia de las 
distintas “causas” de la ES. ¦ Los autores agradecen la 
asistencia de Catalina Escobar, Lina Montoya y Nicolas 
Hernandez. Igualmente se agradece la colaboracion del 
Departamento de Economia de la Universidad Javeriana y en 
especial a Luisa Fernanda Bernal en la construccion de algunas 
de las series laborales. Asimismo, agradecemos a Ana Maria Iregui,
Maria Teresa Ramirez, Leopoldo Fergusson y Luis Eduardo Arango 
por suministrarnos sus series para complementar la base de datos. 
Agradecimientos van tambien para los asistentes al seminario 
interno de la Unidad de Investigaciones por sus atinados 
comentarios a una version anterior de este documento.
 
Date:     2005-05-31
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:001002&r=all



46. EFECTIVIDAD DE LA INTERVENCION DISCRECIONAL DEL BANCO DE LA 
    REPUBLICA EN EL MERCADO CAMBIARIO
  
    Jorge Toro
    Juan Manuel Julio

En este trabajo se hace una evaluacion de la efectividad de la 
intervencion discrecional utilizando una base de datos unica 
que contiene informacion de alta frecuencia sobre el 
comportamiento intradia de la tasa de cambio, y de la 
intervencion del Banco de la Republica. Se estima un modelo 
ARCH para los retornos (variaciones) de la tasa de cambio en 
intervalos de diez minutos. Se encuentra que la intervencion 
obtiene el efecto deseado (un incremento permanente en la tasa de 
devaluacion) solo si se emite una senal creible y no ambigua, 
acompanada de montos de intervencion significativos. 
Adicionalmente, se obtiene que el diferencial entre la tasa de 
interes interna y externa es un determinante fundamental del 
retorno promedio. El conflicto entre el esquema de inflacion 
objetivo y la intervencion cambiaria ha debilitado la 
credibilidad de los agentes sobre la efectividad de la 
intervencion, lo que se ha reflejado en un incremento de la 
volatilidad de los retornos. Los resultados econometricos son 
consistentes con la transmision de los efectos a traves del 
canal de Microestructura, y de la debilidad del canal de senales.
 
Date:     2005-05-31
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:001003&r=all



47. LA TASA DE CAMBIO REAL EN COLOMBIA. ?MUY LEJOS DEL 
    EQUILIBRIO?
  
    Juan Jose Echevarria
    Diego Vasquez
    Mauricio Villamizar

La discusion sobre el comportamiento y los determinantes de la 
tasa de cambio ha resurgido en Colombia a raiz de la 
revaluacion que tuvo lugar en 2004 (cercana a 12%, la mayor en 
la region) y la que ha tenido lugar en 2005. El sector privado 
en su conjunto ha manifestado honda preocupacion ante lo 
sucedido, incluso con el apoyo de algunos grupos que podrian 
beneficiarse transitoriamente con la revaluacion. En este 
trabajo se presenta la evolucion de diferentes tasas de cambio, 
se consideran sus determinantes, con base en los cuales se 
explica la revaluacion de 1991-97 y la posterior devaluacion de 
1997- 03. Luego de comparar nuestros resultados con los de otros 
trabajos sobre Colombia, la Seccion final discute cuan lejos 
del equilibrio se encuentra la tasa de cambio actual. Se define 
la tasa de cambio de equilibrio o de largo plazo como aquella que 
resulta al remover los elementos especulativos (reflejo de 
disturbios en los mercados de activos) y ciclicos (dadas las 
rigideces en precios y salarios). Dicha tasa es compatible con 
una balanza de pagos sostenible en el largo plazo para un nivel 
dado de los fundamentos.
 
Date:     2005-05-31
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:001004&r=all



48. TASA DE CAMBIO Y CRECIMIENTO ECONOMICO EN COLOMBIA DURANTE 
    LA ULTIMA DECADA
  
    Juan Jose Echavarria

Este documento utiliza el modelo sugerido por Bleakley & Cowan (
2002) para analizar el impacto de la tasa de cambio real sobre la 
inversion, las ventas y las utilidades de las empresas 
colombianas en el periodo 1994- 2002. Se encuentra un impacto 
claramente positivo. Tres factores explican la respuesta 
favorable a la tasa de cambio: la respuesta de los exportadores e 
importadores es alta y rapida en Colombia (fuertes efectos 
competitividad); el nivel de deuda externa es mucho menor que en 
otros paises de la region y ha descendido en los ultimos anos;
, y existe un calce entre actividad y deuda (se endeudan mas 
las firmas exportadoras y las multinacionales). El stock de 
capital inicial se corrige con base en la metodologia sugerida 
por Harberger (1969), y la informacion sobre deuda externa se 
mejora sensiblemente al utilizar los informacion interna del 
Banco de la Republica. Se utiliza la tecnica econometrica 
sugerida por Arellano & Bover (1995), apropiada cuando el numero 
de anos es corto y la persistencia de la variable dependiente es 
alta, pero tambien se reportan los resultados con la 
metodologia sugerida por Arellano & Bond (1991). Los resultados 
de ambas metodologias resultan consistentes, en parte por que el 
nivel de persistencia observado para la variable dependiente 
resulta relativamente baja.
 
Date:     2005-05-31
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:001006&r=all



49. THE STATURE OF THE COLOMBIAN ELITE BEFORE THE ONSET OF 
    INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1870-1919
  
    Adolfo Meisel
    Margarita Vega

The average height of Colombian women increased 8.95 cm between 
1905 and 1985 and of men 8.96 cm in the same time period. Thus 
the country was a success story according to international 
standards in this respect. The information for the adult height 
of Colombians born between 1905 and 1985 was obtained from a 
database with more than 9 million observations constructed with 
the national ID cards. This implies that the results are 
indicative of what happened to the overall population. For the 
pre-industrial era in Colombia, which is before the 20th century, 
information on height is only available from 1870. The source in 
this case is the records of the passports issued to Colombian 
citizens, for which we have obtained about 17.000 observations. 
The analysis of those records for the period 1870-1919 reveals 
some striking results. In the first place, the long run behavior 
of height was stable, unlike what is observed with the national 
ID card records, beginning in 1905, in which case heights were 
increasing. The group included in the passport records is much 
taller than those from the ID card. For the period 1905-1909 the 
average passport height for men was 168.7 cm compared with 162 cm 
for national ID cards. In the case of women the former had an 
average height of 158 cm and the later 150 cm.
 
Keywords: Economic History,
JEL:      I12
Date:     2005-05-31
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:001007&r=all



50. DEPRESSIONS IN THE COLOMBIAN ECONOMIC GROWTH DURING THE XX 
    CENTURY:A MARKOV SWITCHING REGIME MODEL
  
    Martha Misas
    Maria Teresa Ramirez

In this paper, we modeled the Colombian long run economic growth 
1925-2003) using a tworegime first order Markov switching model. 
We found evidence of non-linearity in the annual rate of economic 
growth. The results show that changes between regimes are sudden 
and sporadic. The Colombian economy remains in the sustainable 
growth regime most of the time. The turning points from the 
Markov switching model capture very well the behavior of real 
output through time. In fact, they identify the four main 
depressions of the century.
 
Keywords: Markov switching regime model,
JEL:      O40
Date:     2005-06-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:001016&r=all



51. REGIONAL STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN COLOMBIA: AN INPUT-OUTPUT 
    APPROACH
  
    Jaime Bonet

No previous work has focused on the analysis of the regional and 
interregional structure and structural changes in Colombia. An 
initial exploration using a parsimonious approach to the 
measurement of interregional interaction suggested a country with 
limited spatial interdependency. These findings were evaluated by 
taking advantage of a newly constructed interregional input-
output model to measure the interactions within and between the 
Colombian regions. The direct and indirect production linkages 
effects are captured through the evaluation of the Leontief 
inverse matrices. The results suggest that key sectors have moved 
from primary and secondary sectors to tertiary sectors, which is 
a movement observed in the economic development process. However, 
it can be argued that the regional economies do not have exactly 
the same linkage structures. These differences are the result of 
discrepancies in the dominant sectors in each economy. The 
interregional linkages reveal a country with self-sufficient 
sectors in most of the regions, which supports the idea of a 
country with relatively poor interregional dependences, results 
that were also found in previous studies. The fact that the 
powerful backward and forward linkages are identified in the most 
prosperous regions instead of the lagged ones implies that the 
regional inequalities are likely to be sustained.
 
Date:     2005-06-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000070:001017&r=all



52. Bolivar: industrial, agropecuario y turistico
  
    Gerson Javier Perez V.

A pesar de ser la industria el sector mas representativo en la 
produccion de Bolivar, no solo se concentra en una parte muy 
pequena del territorio, sino que genera empleo en una parte muy 
reducida de la poblacion. Por otro lado, las actividades del 
sector primario tales como la agricultura, ganaderia, mineria y 
las actividades artesanales, son el sustento de los habitantes de 
los municipios diferentes a la capital. Mientras que el Bolivar 
cartagenero es industrial, portuario y turistico, el resto del 
departamento es fundamentalmente agropecuario. El documento 
presenta una perspectiva amplia sobre los aspectos mas 
relevantes del departamento a partir de los anos noventa. En 
algunos casos se plantean recomendaciones de politica que pueden 
contribuir a la discusion sobre el crecimiento economico del 
departamento. Los resultados muestran que si bien Bolivar 
afronta una situacion que lo ubica dentro de los entes 
territoriales mas pobres y menos desarrollados del pais y de la 
region, con apoyo del gobierno nacional ha logrado mejorar 
algunos aspectos importantes como la cobertura en servicios 
basicos, salud, educacion, servicios publicos e 
infraestructura vial. Sin embargo, hace falta un camino bastante 
largo en el mejoramiento de la situacion de los habitantes del 
departamento, lo cual puede lograrse unicamente con el 
compromiso del gobierno departamental y de los gobiernos locales 
de realizar un manejo eficiente de los recursos.
 
Keywords: Departamento de Bolivar,
JEL:      R1
Date:     2005-07-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000122:001008&r=all



53. La economia del Cesar despues del algodon
  
    Jose R. Gamarra V.

Desde su creacion en la decada de 1960, el departamento del 
Cesar ha recorrido los picos mas pronunciados de los ciclos 
economicos y sociales. En la decada de 1970 se cayeron los 
precios del algodon y con ellos el auge economico con el que 
empezo el departamento. En la decada de 1980 la economia se 
estanco, y en los noventa la crisis se intensifico. A partir de 
1995 empiezan las exportaciones de carbon, el valor de estas 
exportaciones hizo que la caida de los indicadores economicos 
del Cesar no fuera tan grave. La mineria ha tenido efectos 
positivos sobre su area de influencia directa por medio de la 
creacion de empleos y regalias. A pesar de la importancia en 
las finanzas municipales, la ejecucion de las regalias no ha 
sido la mas eficaz, y no se han traducido en mayores logros de 
servicios basicos. Para los mismos anos que empezaron las 
exportaciones de carbon, los indicadores de pobreza en el 
departamento muestran un desmejoramiento de las condiciones de 
vida en el Cesar. La situacion de servicios basicos, de 
infraestructura y de educacion muestran un rezago del Cesar con 
respecto al pais y otros departamentos de la region. Bajo este 
panorama se puede ver un proceso de ajuste de la economia 
departamental en los ultimos anos. La decada de 1990 se 
caracterizo por la consolidacion de la ganaderia y el cultivo 
de palma, la disminucion de los cultivos transitorios y el 
afianzamiento de la miner ia de carbon.
 
Keywords: Economia regional,
JEL:      R0
Date:     2005-07-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000122:001020&r=all



54. Desindustrializacion y terciarizacion espuria en el 
    departamento del Atlantico, 1990 - 2005
  
    Jaime Bonet

Luego de un acelerado crecimiento economico en la segunda mitad 
del siglo XIX y la primera del siglo XX, el departamento del 
Atlantico ha experimentado un estancamiento social y economico 
en las ultimas decadas. Los distintos indicadores sociales 
muestran un deterioro en las condiciones de vida de sus 
habitantes y en el aparato productivo departamental, lo que no le 
ha permitido recuperar el papel protagonico de otros anos. Se 
ha generado un proceso de desindustrializacion en la estructura 
economica departamental, el cual, a su vez, ha estado 
acompanado de una terciarizacion espuria. Este estancamiento se 
explica por diferentes factores: el proceso de aglomeracion 
regional que ha experimentado el pais, la baja formacion del 
recurso humano, la deficiente infraestructura de servicios y 
portuaria, la poca vinculacion del aparato productivo 
departamental con los mercados externos y los cambios 
organizacionales al interior de los grupos economicos nacionales.
La consolidacion de una zona portuaria sin restricciones de 
calado, un programa de mejoramiento de la educacion 
departamental y una mayor insercion de la economia local en el 
mercado internacional serian fundamentales para retomar una 
senda de crecimiento sostenido. Esta tarea exige la presencia de 
unos gobiernos locales con balances fiscales solidos que les 
permita financiar los proyectos de inversion requeridos.
 
Keywords: Departamento del Atlantico,
JEL:      R10
Date:     2005-07-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000122:001021&r=all



55. Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta: Economia de sus recursos 
    naturales
  
    Joaquin Viloria De La Hoz

La La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta es una subregion 
estrategica para el Caribe colombiano, en la medida en que es la 
principal fuente de agua para tres de sus departamentos. Los 
rios que nacen en la Sierra Nevada producen mas de 10.000 
millones de metros cubicos de agua por ano, de los cuales una 
parte se convierte en fuente de agua para 1.5 millones de 
personas. Las cuencas forman en la parte plana y circunvecina de 
la Sierra, valles aluviales que en conjunto suman mas de 280.000 
hectareas de fertiles tierras. A partir del indicador de 
indice de aridez se pudo establecer que en la Sierra Nevada se 
cuenta con una aceptable disponibilidad de agua, pero asi mismo 
se presenta una alta presion sobre sus cuencas. Estas presiones 
sobre las cuencas hidrograficas se intensificaron durante el 
siglo XX, con las diferentes olas colonizadoras que se 
presentaron en la Sierra. Desde la decada de 1970 la inseguridad 
fue creciente en el macizo montanoso, con la presencia de 
cultivos ilicitos y grupos armados ilegales. En los primeros 
anos del siglo XXI, las condiciones de seguridad han mejorado, 
lo que ha permitido que agricultores y campesinos regresen a sus 
propiedades rurales. Por el contrario, la seguridad de los 
indigenas se ha visto afectada, toda vez que parte de su 
territorio ha sido invadido por actores armados ilegales. En este 
sentido, todavia el monopolio de las armas no reposa en el 
Estado, ya que siguen existiendo grupos que amenazan la 
estabilidad de la subregion. Al garantizar las condiciones de 
seguridad, se lograria promocionar a la Sierra Nevada de Santa 
Marta como destino internacional del ecoturismo y turismo 
cultural. Asi mismo, se aumentaria su produccion de cafe, 
cacao, miel y frutas organicas, entre otros productos, de amplia 
demanda en el mercado internacional.
 
Keywords: Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta,
JEL:      Q00
Date:     2005-07-31
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000122:001026&r=all



56. The incidence of public expenditure for defense and security 
    on Colombian economic growth 1970-2003
  
    Alexander Cotte Poveda
    Maria Fernanda Mera Gonzalez

The aim of this work was to analyze the major effects of public 
military forces expenditure on Colombia economic growth during 
1970-2003 span period. Time series methodology was used for 
economic data, allowing for determining the several different 
coefficients and final contribution to capital product, 
employment, defense expenditure (DE), security expenditure (SE) 
and public forces expenditure (PFE). It was found empirical 
evidence documenting that there is no positive and systematic 
relation between economic growth and the allocation of military 
expenditure. The authors draw the conclusion, specifically for 
Colombia, that allocation of defense and security resources put a 
curb on economic growth and explain increased (PFE) results in a 
negative effect on social expenditure.
 
Keywords: Growth
JEL:      C2
Date:     2005-06-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000148:001018&r=all



57. The political economy of the growth: the Colombian case 
    during the period 1950 - 2002
  
    Alexander Cotte Poveda

General work planning makes reference to the moment of economic 
policy and political, social, and institutional forces, in 
addition to other sociopolitical instability variables, over the 
definition of the growth path of the country. The general impact 
on growth will be dependent o nature or crashes, either permanent 
or transient, and on some economics conditions, such as capital 
relative intensities of productive sectors, the mobility extent 
and investment restraints, as well as on social, politic and 
institutional variable, in addition to the other variables of the 
new politic economics of growth. In dealing with Colombia, an 
analysis of economics growth dynamics is made, both at short and 
long-term, of macroeconomic performance and sociopolitical 
instability. The work shows that this later factor has influenced 
growth dynamics, and therefore, political forces, institutional 
agreements and social instability impact the growth.
 
Keywords: Growth
JEL:      C2
Date:     2004-12-10
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000148:001019&r=all



58. Costing Dust: Quantifying and valuing land use change for 
    Integrated Catchment Management evaluation in the Murray-
    Darling Basin 1996/97 - 2000/01
  
    Brett Bryan (Policy and Economics Research Unit,CSIRO Land 
      and Water)

This study provides a broad scale assessment of the distribution 
and dynamics of agricultural land use and the economic returns to 
agricultural use of land and water resources from 1996/97 to 
2000/01 in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), Australia. The aim of 
this study is to provide a spatially explicit, comprehensive, 
integrated, basin-wide summary as baseline data for informing 
Integrated Catchment Management policy in the MDB.
 
Keywords: Australia;agriculture;land;water
JEL:      Q0 Q1 Q2
Date:     2004-11
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csi:report:04_004&r=all



59. Meeting MDBC River Salinity Targets in South Australia.
  
    Jeffery Connor (Policy and Economics Research Unit,CSIRO 
      Land and Water)

Prepared for 4th Biennial MDBC Groundwater Workshop, February 17-
19 2004, Bendigo Victoria.
 
Keywords: Australia;salinity;environmental management
JEL:      Q0 Q1 Q2
Date:     2004-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csi:report:04_02&r=all



60. The Value of Habitat and Agriculture
  
    Darla Hatton MacDonald (Policy and Economics Research Unit,
      CSIRO Land and Water)

The report summarises the results of a non-market valuation 
study of Habitat and Agriculture in the Upper South East (Upper 
SE) of South Australia. A non-market valuation technique known as 
choice modelling was used to elicit values in the form of 
willingness to pay from people in the Upper SE, Adelaide and the 
rest of the State. The regional and state-wide preferences for 
the habitat improvement provide one more piece of information 
relating to the difficult issues around the configuration of the 
cleared and uncleared landscape in the Upper South East of South 
Australia.
 
Keywords: Australia;habitat;agriculture;land
JEL:      Q0 Q1 Q2
Date:     2005-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csi:report:05_001&r=all



61. River Murray Dryland Corridor Revegetation Policy Options. 
    Stage 1 Report for the River Murray Dryland Corridor Project.
  
    Jeffery Connor (Policy and Economics Research Unit,CSIRO 
      Land and Water)
    Brett Bryan (Policy and Economics Research Unit,CSIRO Land 
      and Water)

The aim of this report is to investigate policy options to 
encourage cost effective large scale revegetation in the River 
Murray Corridor that increases biodiversity, wind erosion and 
salinity benefits in ways that are considered to be equitable by 
the community.
 
Keywords: Water;Australia;Rivers;Revegetation;Biodiversity
JEL:      Q0 Q1 Q2
Date:     2005-04
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csi:report:05_002&r=all



62. Systematic Regional Planning for Multiple Objective Natural 
    Resource Management. A Case Study in the South Australian 
    River Murray Corridor.
  
    Brett Bryan (Policy and Economics Research Unit,CSIRO Land 
      and Water)
    Jeffery Connor (Policy and Economics Research Unit,CSIRO 
      Land and Water)
    John Ward (Policy and Economics Research Unit,CSIRO Land and 
      Water)

The aim of this study is to assess the feasibility of different 
policy options for encouraging the large scale NRM actions 
required for achieving stated regional resource condition targets 
for NRM. To achieve this, the concept of systematic regional 
planning is developed to identify geographic priorities for NRM 
actions that most cost effectively meet multiple-objective 
regional targets based on established biophysical and economic 
principles.
 
Keywords: Water;Australia;Rivers;Biodiversity;Natural Resource 
          Management;Revegetation
JEL:      Q0 Q1 Q2
Date:     2005-03
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csi:report:05_003&r=all



63. WHEN CHEAPER IS BETTER: FEE DETERMINATION IN THE MARKET FOR 
    EQUITY MUTUAL FUNDS
  
    Javier Gil-Bazo
    Pablo Ruiz-Verdu

In this paper, we develop a model of the market for equity 
mutual funds that captures three key characteristics of this 
market. First, there is competition among funds. Second, fund 
managers' ability is not observed by investors before making 
their investment decisions. And third, some investors do not make 
optimal use of all available information. The main results of the 
paper are that 1) price competition is compatible with positive 
mark-ups in equilibrium; and 2) worse-performing funds set fees 
that are greater or equal than those set by better-performing 
funds. These predictions are supported by available empirical 
evidence.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:wbrepe:wb054309&r=all



64. GROWTH, INEQUALITY, AND POVERTY IN LATIN AMERICA: HISTORICAL 
    EVIDENCE, CONTROLLED CONJECTURES.
  
    Leandro Prados de la Escosura

How have growth and inequality affected poverty reduction in 
Latin America over the long run? On the basis of the available 
evidence on growth and inequality tentative answers and 
conjectures are proposed about the long run evolution of poverty 
in Latin America. Modern Latin America experienced sustained 
growth since mid nineteenth century only brought to a halt during 
the 1980s. Inequality, in turn, rose steadily until a high 
plateau in which it has stabilized over the last four decades of 
the twentieth century. A calibration exercise on the basis of 
Lopez and Serven (2005) recent empirical research suggests that 
absolute poverty has experienced a long-run decline in Latin 
America since the late nineteenth century, interrupted in the 
1890s and the 1930s, and only reversed in the 1980s. Growth 
emerges as the main element underlying the reduction in absolute 
poverty, and almost exclusively in the second half of the 
twentieth century.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wh054104&r=all



65. ASSESSING GROWTH, INEQUALITY, AND POVERTY IN THE LONG-RUN: 
    THE CASE OF SPAIN.
  
    Leandro Prados de la Escosura

Growth and inequality over the long-run are assessed and their 
impact on poverty calibrated on the basis of Lopez and Serven (
2005) recent empirical research. Spain’s per capita income 
multiplied by 15 between 1850 and 2000, while private consumption 
per person did it by 12, but did such a growth have an impact on 
absolute poverty reduction? The paper concludes that long-run 
growth, to a larger extent, together with a mild decline in 
inequality, led to a substantial reduction in absolute poverty 
during the last one and a half centuries. In a comparative 
framework, Spain shadowed Latin American poverty until the 1960s 
when she initiated a sustained process of convergence to Western 
European levels.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:wh054205&r=all



66. MEAN SQUARED ERRORS OF SMALL AREA ESTIMATORS UNDER A UNIT-
    LEVEL MULTIVARIATE MODEL
  
    Amparo Baillo
    Isabel Molina

This work deals with estimating the vector of means of 
characteristics of small areas. In this context, a unit level 
multivariate model with correlated sampling errors is considered. 
An approximation is obtained for the mean squared and cross 
product errors of the empirical best linear unbiased predictors 
of the means. This approach has been implemented on a Monte Carlo 
study using economic data observed for a sample of Australian 
farms.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:wsrepe:ws054007&r=all



67. Not guilty? Agriculture in the 1920s and the Great Depression
  
    Giovanni Federico

Agricultural distress in the 1920s is routinely quoted among the 
causes of the Great Depression. This paper challenges the 
conventional wisdom. World agriculture was not plagued by 
overproduction and falling terms of trade. The indebtedness of 
American farmers, a legacy of the boom years 1919-1921, did 
jeopardize the rural banks, but the relation between their crises,
the banking panic of 1930 and the Great Depression is tenuous at 
best.
 
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:dilfrp:dilf0502&r=all



68. Designing for learning and innovation at work
  
    Sluis, Lidewey E.C. van der (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 
      Faculteit der Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie (
      Free University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics Sciences, 
      Business Administration and Economitrics)

In this article we focus on aspects of organisations that they 
can use to design workplaces in such a way that individual 
learning and organisational innovation can blossom. Recent 
studies in this field reported positive associations between 
organisational characteristics stimulating learning and 
innovation and performance of the firm. However, it stays unclear 
which factors are the most prominent facilitators or inhibitors 
of learning and innovation. This study provides directions for 
designing the workplace in order to stimulate on-the-job learning 
by employees, and by this, to organisational innovation. A range 
of both individual and organisational factors seems to be the 
building blocks of routes to workplace learning and innovation. 
Notwithstanding the way an organisation implement these routes 
and, also, measures the outcomes, it stays clear that designing 
for learning and innovation is beneficial for organisations in 
terms of their sustainable competitive advantage. Based on a 
literature review, we selected the most important organisational 
aspects to focus on in order to encourage learning and innovation 
in organisations. Furthermore, we derived from interviews with 
Dutch managers in what way and in what extent these aspects can 
be recognised in their organisations. Finally, various ways in 
which organisations can design the workplace for learning and 
innovation are discussed and suggestions for possible new 
directions are given.
 
Keywords: workplace; innovation; performance
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:vuarem:2004-12&r=all



69. Modelling the Entrepreneurial Space-Economy: an overview
  
    Nijkamp, Peter (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculteit der 
      Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie (Free University 
      Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics Sciences, Business 
      Administration and Economitrics)
    Wissen, Leo van

The aim of this paper is to review recent contributions to the 
study of entrepreneurship and firm dynamics from a methodological 
and firm demographic perspective. Understanding the contemporary 
changes in business life requires a thorough understanding of 
structural changes in entrepreneurial behaviour and firm dynamics,
both in space and in time. The spatial and temporal aspects of 
business life have in recent years received much attention, and a 
review is given here. The framework concept of the 'firm life 
course' is proposed in this article to integrate both dimensions. 
The firm life course represents the way firms organize their life 
path over time in sequences of critical events, decisions, and 
periods. The dimensions of time and space appear to be highly 
connected in business life. Not only is firm mobility increasing, 
but also are entrepreneurs increasingly acting as networkers. The 
emergence of virtual and dynamic networks of entrepreneurs calls 
for new methods of research of dealing with them. This article 
maps out some of the modern research trends in this domain.
 
Keywords: entrepreneurship; dynamics
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:vuarem:2004-13&r=all



70. Managing drivers of innovation in construction networks
  
    Bossink, Bart A.G. (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculteit 
      der Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie (Free 
      University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics Sciences, 
      Business Administration and Economitrics)

Various drivers of construction innovation are distinguished and 
classified in four distinctive categories: environmental pressure,
technological capability, knowledge exchange, and boundary 
spanning. Innovation drivers in these categories are active at 
the transfirm, intrafirm, and interfirm level in the network of 
organizations in the construction industry. Empirical research in 
the Dutch construction industry illustrates that the innovation 
drivers are used by managers of the authorities, clients, 
architects, consultants, and contractors to stimulate and 
facilitate innovation processes. It also exemplifies that driving 
innovation on the transfirm, intrafirm, and interfirm level in 
the network of organizations is an opportunity for managers of 
both public and private organizations to develop, improve, and 
renew: their organizations' positions in the market, the quality 
of their organizations' projects, and the cooperative structure 
of the industry as a whole.
 
Keywords: Construction industry; Netherlands; Innovation
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:vuarem:2004-15&r=all



71. On the substitution and complimentarity between telework and 
    travel : a review and application
  
    Graaff, Thomas de (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculteit 
      der Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie (Free 
      University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics Sciences, 
      Business Administration and Economitrics)

This paper offers a review of the scientific evidence regarding 
the relation between ICT and travel in general and ICT and 
commuting in particular. It focuses on the issue of teleworking 
at home and ignores other interesting phenomena as teleworking 
centers. The conclusions can be summarized as follows. In the 
short run, ICT and commuting are to be regarded as weak 
substitutes, although the relation differs across population 
groups and parts of the day. If total travel is taken into 
account, then the relation becomes less clear. However, there 
also seems to be substitution between non-commute travel and 
teleworking. This indicates particular recommendations for both 
environmental and traffic policy. The results are further 
illustrated by an empirical application from the Netherlands.
 
Keywords: ICT; travel; commuting; teleworking
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:vuarem:2004-16&r=all



72. Multidimensional Evaluation of Urban Green Spaces : A 
    Comparative Study on European Cities
  
    Levent, Tuzin Baycan (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 
      Faculteit der Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie (
      Free University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics Sciences, 
      Business Administration and Economitrics)
    Vreeker, Ron
    Nijkamp, Peter

Urban green spaces play an important role in improving quality 
of life and sustainability in cities and require a careful 
empirical assessment. Several factors such as social, economic, 
ecological or planning aspects, and several functions such as 
utilization, production, employment, education, regulation and 
preservation of urban green spaces form the basis for the 
determination of the criteria and indicators relevant for the 
assessment of urban green spaces. This multi-faceted ramification 
of urban green spaces needs therefore, a multidimensional 
evaluation approach in an urban policy context. The aim of this 
paper is to investigate the complex and heterogeneous structure 
of urban green spaces from a multi-faceted assessment perspective.
The paper examines urban green spaces from the viewpoint of 
quantity and availability of urban green spaces, changes in green 
spaces, planning of urban green spaces, financing of urban green 
spaces and level of performance, on the basis of a comparison of 
24 European cities by deploying a multi-criteria analysis for 
mixed quantitative and qualitative information, coined Regime 
Analysis. It aims to highlight the present situation and 
priorities in decision-making and to compare the green 
performance of European cities in the process of urban green 
planning and management. A comparison of urban green spaces in 
European cities by means of multi-criteria analysis brings to 
light the critical elements in the present situation and sets out 
choice directions based on priorities in decision-making and 
policy evaluation. This evaluation of several experiences in 
different regions and countries provides a fascinating European 
picture in terms of urban green planning and management.
 
Keywords: urban green spaces; cities; Europe
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:vuarem:2004-17&r=all



73. Multicriteria evaluation and local environmental planning 
    for sustainable tourism
  
    De Montis, Andrea (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculteit 
      der Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie (Free 
      University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics Sciences, 
      Business Administration and Economitrics)
    Deplano, Giancarlo
    Nijkamp, Peter

Within the framework of the certification for the environmental 
management system (EMS) and its total quality (i.e. ISO 14001 and 
VISION 2000), methodologies and research focus on innovative 
models for sustainable and environmentally-sound tourism. The 
complexity of these concepts requires the assessment of 
analytical schemes able to tackle conflicting situations and the 
subjectivity of political decisions. Thus, this paper provides 
insights into decision-making for a hypothetical institutional 
body interested in developing an objective standardized procedure 
for evaluating the spatial dimension of sustainable tourist 
development. The methodology assessed belongs to the family of 
multicriteria tools and is developed by the integration of the 
Regime method (Hinloopen and Nijkamp, 1990) with the AHP method (
Saaty, 1988). The high volatility of the results is studied by 
means of sensitivity analysis and this leads to further 
reflections on the requirements of an Internet-based evaluation 
and learning process, grounded in a remote access debate among 
the stakeholders.
 
Keywords: Multicriteria analysis; Sustainable tourism; 
          Environmental planning
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:vuarem:2004-18&r=all



74. Public-private partnerships: A multidimensional model for 
    contracting
  
    Zarco-Jasso, Hugo (IESE Business School)

This paper considers the relationships between public and 
private organizations entering into public-private partnerships (
PPPs) within the context of New Public Management (NPM). After 
offering a brief discussion of similarities and differences 
between public and private organizations and their relationships, 
it provides a short overview of how PPPs are organized in 
practice. Through elaborating on three dimensions of 
differentiation between public and private organizations -
ownership, funding and control- it proposes a matrix model for 
identifying a suitable "dimensional mix" for PPP contracts.
 
Keywords: Public-private partnerships; hybrid organizations; 
          contractual choices; qualitative comparative analysis;
Date:     2005-03-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0584&r=all



75. The increasing role professional service firms play in the 
    reform of shareholders' meetings
  
    Alvarez, Jose L. (Instituto de Empresa)
    Ricart, Joan E. (IESE Business School)

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of consultants, 
professional service firms or knowledge intermediaries in 
articulating the collective action of shareholders. The 
regulatory background is the current proposals for the reform of 
General Meetings of Shareholders in Spain. General Meetings are 
particularly revealing of shareholder activism, as they are the 
forum in which shareholders' actions can be most effective. We 
believe that our arguments are, to a very large extent, equally 
applicable to other European countries, as these proposals have 
been put forward in Spain within the context of the wider 
governance reforms promoted by the Winter Report in Europe and 
other national and supranational regulatory efforts.
 
Keywords: shareholders meetings; corporate governance; 
          consultants;
Date:     2005-05-15
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0590&r=all



76. Why stakeholder and stockholder theories are not necessarily 
    contradictory: A knightian insight
  
    Velamuri, Rama (IESE Business School)
    Venkataraman, Sankaran (Darden Graduate School of Business 
      Administration)

The normative foundations of the investor centered model of 
corporate governance, represented in mainstream economics by the 
nexus-of-contracts view of the firm, have come under attack, 
mainly by proponents of normative stakeholder theory. We argue 
that the nexus-of-contracts view is static and limited due to its 
assumption of price-output certainty. We attempt a synthesis of 
the nexus-of-contracts and the Knightian views, which provides 
novel insights into the normative adequacy of the investor-
centered firm. Implications for scholarship and management 
practice follow from our discussion.
 
Keywords: Theory of the firm; corporate governance; 
          entrepreneurship; business ethics; stakeholder theory;
Date:     2005-05-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0591&r=all



77. Research on corporate unbundling: A synthesis
  
    Moschieri, Caterina (IESE Business School)
    Mair, Johanna (IESE Business School)

Unbundling operations, understood as the parent company's 
disposal and sale of assets, facilities, product lines, 
subsidiaries, divisions and business units, are emerging as a 
central topic of research in several areas. Yet a synthesis is 
still lacking, and differences in the terminology have created 
confusion. This paper stimulates and facilitates future research 
by unpacking the nature of unbundling operations. We suggest that 
outcomes of unbundling may be mediated by variables, such as 
factors at process and management level, which have been greatly 
neglected in existing research. The paper builds a framework on 
antecedents, process and outcomes of unbundling by integrating 
empirical findings and theoretical contributions. Furthermore, it 
identifies gaps in the existing literature and offers suggestions 
for future research on unbundling.
 
Keywords: Corporate strategy; restructuring; divestiture; 
          divestment;
Date:     2005-06-15
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0592&r=all



78. How intentions to create a social venture are formed. A case 
    study
  
    Mair, Johanna (IESE Business School)
    Noboa, Ernesto (IESE Business School)

This exploratory study on one social entrepreneur challenges 
existing knowledge on the intention formation process of 
entrepreneurship. Drawing from social and cognitive psychology, 
we adapt an intention-based model from entrepreneurship and 
translate it to social entrepreneurship. Building on our findings,
we argue that social entrepreneurs - like traditional 
entrepreneurs - experience perceptions of feasibility and 
desirability, and a propensity to act. However, complementing 
research on traditional entrepreneurs, we suggest that, in a 
preceding stage, social entrepreneurs develop social sentiments. 
Furthermore, we identify willpower, support, and the construction 
of opportunity as important antecedents of perceptions of 
feasibility and desirability, and propensity to act.
 
Keywords: social entrepreneurship; intention; cognition;
Date:     2005-06-29
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0593&r=all



79. The Contagion Effect of Public Debt on Monetary Policy: The 
    Brazilian Experience
  
    Fernando de Holanda Barbosa (EPGE/FGV)

Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:epgewp:591&r=all



80. Assessing Africa's food and nutrition security situation
  
    Benson, Todd

"...in more than a dozen African countries the rate of 
undernourishment is more than 40 percent, exceeding 50 percent in 
those countries experiencing or emerging from armed conflict. As 
a result, more than a third of African children suffer stunted 
growth and face a range of physical and cognitive challenges not 
faced by their better fed peers. Ultimately, undernutrition 
underlies around 2.9 million deaths in Africa annually — more 
than a quarter of all the deaths occurring on the continent each 
year. The economic costs of such widespread undernutrition are 
enormous. This is because the economic growth of each nation — 
which requires enhanced economic productivity — depends upon 
broad improvements being made in the intellectual and technical 
capacity of its population. But, this in turn depends upon people 
receiving adequate nutrition, particularly women in their 
childbearing years and young children. So, only once African 
countries have secured the basic food and nutritional needs of 
their populations will they be able to achieve the broad-based 
economic growth necessary to reduce." from Text
 
Keywords: Nutrition ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:1&r=all



81. Breaking the links between conflict and hunger in Africa
  
    Messer, Ellen
    Cohen, Marc J.

"Armed conflicts frequently lead to the destruction of food 
systems. Often, warring parties manipulate starvation as a 
deliberate tactic, using their control over access to food to 
attract and reward friends and humble and punish enemies. Such 
conflicts are “food wars,” not only because hunger is used as 
a weapon but also because food insecurity is both an effect and 
cause of conflict....National governments in Africa, together 
with global investors, whether private or public (aid donors), 
must include conflict-prevention considerations in the planning, 
implementation, and evaluation of development programs and 
projects.They should calculate savings from conflict avoidance as 
part of the returns to development spending. Such an approach can 
help break the links between conflict and food insecurity. " from 
Text
 
Keywords: Conflict ,Access to food ,Hunger ,Conflict prevention ,
          development projects ,Food markets ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:10&r=all



82. Making information and communication technologies work for 
    food security in Africa
  
    Bertolini, Romeo

"Africa faces a difficult challenge in meeting the main target 
of the first Millennium Development Goal — to halve the number 
of people suffering from malnutrition and hunger by 2015. 
Bridging the digital divide through the development and use of 
information and communication technologies (ICTs)—such as fixed-
line and mobile phones and Internet services—will not directly 
solve this challenge, but it can make a significant contribution.
" from Text
 
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:11&r=all



83. Linking safety nets, social protection, and poverty reduction
  
    Adato, Michelle
    Ahmed, Akhter U.
    Lund, Francie

"In Africa and elsewhere, safety nets were promoted in the 1980s 
as a response to the (presumably short-term) adverse effects of 
structural adjustment. Though some safety nets had a 
developmental component, safety nets are still largely associated 
with the idea of a short-term buffer. “Social protection” is 
a newer term that incorporates safety net programs but also 
includes a role for renewed state involvement, emphasizes a 
longer-term developmental approach, includes social assistance 
and social insurance, and is often advocated as a right rather 
than a reactive form of relief. Social protection policy 
addresses not only programs aimed at reducing the impact of 
shocks and coping with their aftermath, but also interventions 
designed to prevent shocks and destitution in the first place. 
Most societies have private interhousehold, intrafamily, and 
intrahousehold transfers that promote resilience to shocks, 
mitigating their negative effects. However, in countries or 
communities where people are universally poor, there is less to 
share, particularly in times of shocks that affect all or many in 
the society (such as drought, floods, AIDS, or widespread 
structural unemployment) — which is precisely when the need for 
help is most critical." from Text
 
Keywords: Safety nets ,Social protection ,Transfers ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:12&r=all



84. Implementing a human rights approach to food security
  
    McClain-Nhlapo, Charlotte

"The premise of a rights-based approach to ensuring adequate 
food is empowering poor people and those who are food insecure. 
Empowerment is integral to any strategy that moves away from the 
benevolence model of food aid and instead emphasizes enabling 
environments that support people in feeding themselves. 
Empowerment also removes the full burden of providing food from 
states. Nevertheless... in the event that people are unable to 
feed themselves (because of household shocks or other 
circumstances), the state must accept the responsibility to 
assist, whether through social safety nets or other programs and 
policies that protect vulnerable people from hunger." from Text
 
Keywords: Safety nets ,Empowerment ,Poor Government policy 
          Developing countries ,Hunger Prevention Africa ,
          Malnutrition Africa ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:13&r=all



85. Assessing development strategies and Africa's food and 
    nutrition security
  
    Heidhues, Franz
    Atsain, Achi
    Nyangito, Hezron
    Padilla, Martine
    Ghersi, Gerard
    Le Vallee, Jean-Charles

"On average, a typical developing country in Africa is assisted 
by about 30 aid institutions in the implementation of development 
strategies, yet Africa is still far from achieving food and 
nutrition security. Adequate access to food that is necessary for 
food security must be complemented with provision of health 
services, education, sanitary environments, and safe water 
sources, among other resources, to achieve nutrition security." 
from Text
 
Keywords: Development assistance ,Food security Africa ,
          Nutrition Security ,Health services ,Water quality ,
          Sanitation ,Development strategies ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:14&r=all



86. Reforming land rights in Africa
  
    Ngaido, Tidiane

"Advocates of reforms in land rights and land markets frequently 
posit two important hypotheses: (1) African countries must grant 
land titles to farmers because titles increase land tenure 
security and facilitate access to input, land, and financial 
markets; and (2) land markets constitute the most efficient 
mechanism for allocating resources and improving access to 
productive resources by the poor, especially women and other 
marginalized groups... Research must focus on understanding the 
dynamics of land values in the different markets for land rights 
and devise ways to improve the marketability of customary rights 
through simple processes that also increase the demand for 
agricultural land and effectively contribute to the reform of 
land rights." from Text
 
Keywords: Land rights ,Land markets ,Land tenure ,resource 
          allocation ,Women ,Poor Africa ,Land values ,
          Agricultural policies ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:15&r=all



87. Improving child nutrition for sustainable poverty reduction 
    in Africa
  
    Alderman, Harold
    Behrman, Jere R.
    Hoddinott, John

"While famines and other episodes of severe hunger receive 
significant press coverage and attract much public attention, 
chronic hunger and malnutrition are considerably more prevalent 
in Africa. It is estimated that 14 percent of children are born 
with low birthweights every year, around 45 million preschool 
children are malnourished, and 192 million Africans of all ages 
are hungry.... This brief argues that failing to give adequate 
attention to child nutrition issues is shortsighted if African 
governments seek sustainable reductions in poverty. In poorly 
nourished populations, reductions in hunger and improvements in 
nutrition provide considerable productivity gains and save 
resources that can then be used for other pressing investments. 
It is the existence of these sizeable gains together with the 
availability of cost-effective interventions that underlies the 
economic case for improving child nutrition in Africa." from Text
 
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:2&r=all



88. Assuring food and nutrition security in the time of AIDs
  
    Gillespie, Stuart
    Kisamba-Mugerwa, Wilberforce
    Loevinsohn, Michael

"The interactions between HIV/AIDS and food and nutrition 
insecurity are becoming clearer as research fills knowledge gaps. 
To address these gaps, different actors (from individual 
household members to national policymakers) need tools and 
processes to turn growing knowledge into appropriate action. One 
such tool is the HIV/AIDS lens. Through such mainstreaming of 
HIV/AIDS into food- and nutrition-relevant policy, evidence of 
what works is progressively built up, learning is enhanced, and 
people are ultimately better equipped to address the multiple 
threats of the pandemic." from Text
 
Keywords: AIDS (Disease) ,HIV/AIDS Africa ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:3&r=all



89. Increasing the effective participation of women in food and 
    nutrition security in Africa
  
    Quisumbing, Agnes R.
    Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela
    Smith, Lisa C.

What can be done to increase the effective participation of 
women in food and nutrition security in Africa? This brief 
advocates a two-pronged approach. First, eradicate discrimination 
against women, and second, promote catch-up by implementing more 
active measures in key areas such as control over land, water, 
and other assets, and investment in education, health, child care,
and other services for women. Since the set of actions that are 
most appropriate in a given situation will be context specific, 
we present examples of approaches that have worked in Sub-Saharan 
Africa." from Text
 
Keywords: Nutrition ,Property rights ,Child care ,Education ,
          Women ,Gender ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:4&r=all



90. Trading up
  
    Orden, David
    Lofgren, Hans
    Gabre-Madhin, Eleni Z.

"Wealthy countries' agricultural subsidies have also created 
unfair competition. African farmers not only have limited access 
to rich-country agricultural markets, but they also face unfair 
competition in their own domestic markets from subsidized imports 
of food staples. New challenges come from dramatically changed 
marketing chains that require African farmers to compete in 
markets that are more demanding in terms of product quality and 
food safety. What can be done to enhance market opportunities so 
that agriculture can become a more powerful engine of growth for 
the continent? Which markets and which products offer the 
greatest potential for raising incomes and food consumption? This 
brief addresses these questions and suggests policies that could 
help enlarge markets for African farmers." from Text
 
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:5&r=all



91. Exploring market opportunities for African smallholders
  
    Diao, Xinshen
    Hazell, Peter

"Wealthy countries' agricultural subsidies have also created 
unfair competition. African farmers not only have limited access 
to rich-country agricultural markets, but they also face unfair 
competition in their own domestic markets from subsidized imports 
of food staples. New challenges come from dramatically changed 
marketing chains that require African farmers to compete in 
markets that are more demanding in terms of product quality and 
food safety. What can be done to enhance market opportunities so 
that agriculture can become a more powerful engine of growth for 
the continent? Which markets and which products offer the 
greatest potential for raising incomes and food consumption? This 
brief addresses these questions and suggests policies that could 
help enlarge markets for African farmers." from Text
 
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:6&r=all



92. Strengthening Africa's capacity to design and implement 
    strategies for food and nutrition security
  
    Babu, Suresh Chandra
    Rhoe, Valerie
    Temu, Andrew
    Hendriks, Sheryl

"Among the capacity-strengthening challenges the region faces 
are inadequate in-country capacity, institutional weaknesses, 
lack of multidisciplinary approaches to problem solving, 
expatriates' limited incountry experience, poor governance, and 
failure to monitor the sustainability of development efforts and 
to plan for future capacity generation....The current gaps in 
capacity are known, but as political, environmental, technical, 
and social contexts change, new needs will arise. Therefore, 
constant monitoring of organizational and human skills is 
essential for the identification of future requirements as they 
unfold. Unless the capacity to design and implement food and 
nutrition security policy in Africa is developed, strategies and 
programs will continue to fail and hunger and malnutrition will 
grow." from Text
 
Keywords: Capacity building ,Governance ,Human capital ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:7&r=all



93. New risks and opportunities for food security
  
    von Braun, Joachim
    Rosegrant, Mark W.
    Pandya-Lorch, Rajul
    Cohen, Marc J.
    Cline, Sarah A.
    Brown, Mary Ashby
    Bos, Maria Soledad

"The progressive policy actions scenario in this brief outlines 
several of the most important steps for assuring a food-secure 
world. National governments and the international community must 
adopt a new focus on agricultural growth and rural development, 
along with increasing their investments in education, health, and 
other social services. Policies to encourage synergistic growth 
in the nonfarm sectors are also needed to spur broad-based 
economic growth. A firm commitment to reducing hunger and 
improving the welfare of the world's undernourished people must 
underpin these strategies and research agendas. But investment in 
social services and growth-oriented policy actions alone will not 
be sufficient to reach the Millennium Development Goal of cutting 
hunger by half by 2015 or to end hunger soon thereafter. Only if 
policy actions include sustained investment in social safety nets 
will food and nutrition security be achieved in the foreseeable 
future.." From Text
 
Keywords: Impact model ,Caloric intake ,Safety nets ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:73&r=all



94. Investing in Sub-Saharan African agricultural research
  
    Beintema, Nienke M.
    Stads, Gert-Jan

"Agricultural research capacity is an important factor in 
building food security and economic stability in Africa. 
Furthermore, new and better-targeted technologies are essential 
to this process, and a well-developed and wellsupported 
agricultural research system is a prerequisite not only for the 
design of these technologies but also for their dissemination and 
adoption...In view of the low, and often declining, level of 
agricultural R&D investments in SSA, both in real terms and as a 
ratio of agricultural output, attaining this goal will be 
extremely challenging." from Text
 
Keywords: research funding ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:8&r=all



95. Strengthening agricultural research in Africa
  
    Jones, Monty

"The current decline in per capita food production in Africa 
signals an urgent need to revitalize agricultural research. 
Accomplishing such a task will require addressing many issues, 
including demand-led approaches, accountability, building of 
critical mass, avoidance of duplication, sustainable financing, 
and capacity strengthening. This brief cannot address all these 
issues; instead it focuses on generating common Africa-wide goals 
and priorities and on collaboration for maximum impact, 
suggesting approaches for consideration by those responsible for 
African agricultural research policy and implementation." from 
Text
 
Keywords: Sustainable agriculture ,Agricultural research Africa ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020br:9&r=all



96. Sustainable agricultural development strategies in fragile 
    lands.
  
    Scherr, Sara J.
    Hazell, Peter B. R.

Current trends in demography, agricultural production and rural 
environment in the developing countries suggest that so-called 
"marginal lands" must play a larger and probably growing role in 
food supply and economic development for the foreseeable future. 
To fulfill this critical role, public policy towards these lands 
needs to be revised. A key policy focus should be to strengthen 
incentives for local land users to not only maintain, but to 
improve the natural resource base for food and fiber supply. Such 
"land-improving investments" are needed to reduce production and 
subsistence risks and permit more intensive use without 
degradation. Under population and market pressure, one can expect 
an endogenous process of intensification, through land 
improvements, tenurial and institutional changes and "re-
ordering" of the landscape. But this process is not automatic. 
Factors influencing the pace and scale of land transformation 
include: farmer knowledge of degradation of the degrading 
resource; incentives for long-term investment; capacity to 
mobilize resources for land investment; level of economic returns 
to such investment; and factors affecting the formation and 
function of local groups to help mobilize resources and 
coordinate landscape-level change. Current policies often work to 
constrain, rather than support, this process. New research is 
needed to support policy change for "marginal" lands.
 
Keywords: Land use Economic aspects. ,Investments. ,EPTD ,
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:eptddp:01&r=all



97. Ecological risks of novel environmental crop technologies 
    using phytoremediation as an example
  
    Angle, J. Scott
    Linacre, Nicholas A.

"Phytoremediation is the use of living plants, known as 
hyperaccumulators which absorb unusually large amounts of metals 
in comparison to other plants. The use of classical plant 
breeding and new molecular techniques offers great potential to 
develop crops with the ability to clean up polluted sites. While 
these technologies have gained widespread attention, prior to 
commercial development, there are risks that must be considered 
– only a few of which have received even modest examination. 
Therefore, the focus of this working paper is to explore specific 
risks associated with phytoremediation and suggest ways in which 
these risks can be managed so that new, novel, and innovative 
plant technologies may be applied to provide low cost and 
efficient environmental solutions. " Authors' Abstract
 
Keywords: Phytoextraction ,Phytomining ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:eptddp:133&r=all



98. The use of operations research as a tool for monitoring and 
    managing food-assisted maternal/child health nutrition (MCHN) 
    programs
  
    Loechl, Cornelia
    Ruel, Marie T.
    Pelto, Gretel
    Menon, Purnima

"This report describes the methods and results of an operations 
research undertaken to assess the effectiveness of World Vision (
WV)'s food assisted maternal and child health and nutrition (MCHN)
program in the Central Plateau region of Haiti. The research had 
three main objectives: (1) to assess the effectiveness of 
implementation and operations of the program relative to plans; (
2) to assess the quality of delivery of the various services; and 
3) to explore the perceptions of different stakeholders (i.e., 
beneficiaries and field implementers) regarding program 
operations and service delivery and the motivational factors that 
may affect staff's performance and job satisfaction. The overall 
goal was to identify constraints to effective operations; it was 
more important to identify and implement corrective actions that 
will ensure smooth implementation of the program and its various 
components. The report is directed to program managers, 
researchers, and development professionals who are interested in 
applying operations research methods to evaluate and strengthen 
similar MCHN programs with a food aid component in developing 
countries." Authors' Abstract
 
Keywords: Operations research ,Nutrition programs ,Food aid ,
          Children Health and hygiene Haiti ,Maternal and infant 
          welfare Developing countries ,Assessment ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fcndbr:187&r=all



99. Coping with the “coffee crisis” in Central America
  
    Maluccio, John A.

"This study examines the effect of a safety-net program on 
households' well-being and work activities during an economic 
downturn. It considers (1) how rural Nicaraguan households 
without the Red de Proteccion Social (RPS) program fared over 
the period 2000–02, and (2) whether households benefiting from 
the program were better able to protect household expenditures 
and other aspects of well-being than their control counterparts 
during the same period.... While not designed as a traditional 
safety net program, RPS has performed like one, protecting most 
those in greatest need. It provided a cushion for per capita 
expenditures and protected coffee laborers from working 
additional hours. It also safeguarded investment in children. 
Thus RPS played a significant role in helping poor, rural 
Nicaraguans weather the coffee crisis." From Text
 
Keywords: conditional cash transfer program ,coffee crisis ,
          social safety nets ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fcndbr:188&r=all



100. Estimating utility-consistent poverty lines
  
    Arndt, Channing
    Simler, Kenneth R.

"With the focus of international development resources 
increasingly turned toward poverty reduction, the demand for 
reliable empirical estimates of poverty levels has grown 
dramatically... This paper contributes to the poverty measurement 
literature by introducing an information theoretic approach to 
assuring the utility consistency of poverty lines. Even though 
the philosophical roots of information theory and the links 
between information theory and other estimation criteria fill 
volumes, the actual practical application of the approach is 
quite straightforward." From Text
 
Keywords: Poverty lines ,Poverty alleviation ,Development 
          projects Evaluation ,measurement ,Entropy estimation ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fcndbr:189&r=all



101. Social learning, neighborhood effects, and investment in 
     human capital
  
    Yamauchi, Futoshi

"This paper shows that neighborhood factors matter in schooling 
investments: in the face of the availability of a new technology 
that altered schooling returns, agents learned of the benefits of 
new returns to schooling from neighbors and adjusted schooling 
investments over time. Using household data available from the 
onset of the Green Revolution in India—where in some regions 
the diffusion of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) affected returns 
to schooling — the author shows that the schooling distribution 
of the parents' generation in a neighborhood is important to 
social learning and household decisions regarding child schooling 
investments. The study attempts to empirically identify the 
process of social learning and neighborhood effects on child 
schooling investments in a Bayesian learning model." From Text
 
Keywords: Human capital ,Risk ,Social learning ,School 
          enrollment ,technological changes ,Green Revolution ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fcndbr:190&r=all



102. Program participation under means-testing and self-
     selection targeting methods
  
    Coady, David P.
    Parker, Susan W.

"The use of means testing for determining eligibility has become 
increasingly popular in developing countries wishing to improve 
the targeting performance of their social safety net programs. 
However, past experience shows that means testing often reduces 
program participation of eligible households—this is true even 
for universally available programs in developed countries. High 
non-take-up rates reflect the important role that self-selection 
patterns can play in program participation levels by different 
socioeconomic groups. Yet there is still very little empirical 
evidence on the nature and magnitude of the trade-offs between 
program coverage of the eligible population and targeting 
performance, especially for developing countries. This paper 
contributes to filling this gap by evaluating the targeting." 
>From Text
 
Keywords: Means testing ,Targeting performance ,Social safety 
          nets ,Progress ,households ,Oportunidades ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fcndbr:191&r=all



103. Poverty, inequality, and geographic targeting
  
    Simler, Kenneth R.
    Nhate, Virgulino

"This paper applies small area estimation techniques to 
Mozambican data to develop high resolution (subdistrictlevel) 
poverty and inequality maps...The picture that emerges is one of 
considerable local-level economic heterogeneity, with the poor 
living alongside the nonpoor. Rather than finding stark pockets 
of intense poverty traps in one part of the country and a 
relative absence of poverty in other parts, the situation is much 
more nuanced. This suggests that targeting antipoverty efforts on 
purely geographic criteria is almost certain to be inefficient, 
with leakages to the nonpoor and under-coverage of the 
significant numbers of poor households in areas that are “less 
poor.”" From Text
 
Keywords: Inequality ,Geographic targeting ,Small area 
          estimation ,Poverty mapping ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fcndbr:192&r=all



104. Science and poverty
  
    Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela
    Adato, Michelle
    Haddad, Lawrence James
    Hazell, Peter

"Agricultural research has greatly increased the yields of 
important staple food crops, and for many people this has meant 
more food availability and trade opportunities. Yet many people 
in rural areas in developing countries still live in abject 
poverty. Therefore, policymakers, donors, and researchers are 
refocusing their priorities away from simply producing more food 
to making sure that agricultural research benefits the poor in 
particular. How can we ensure that new agricultural technologies 
are appropriate for the different groups of people who most need 
assistance? Furthermore, how can we assess whether these new 
technologies actually reduce poverty? This report provides 
valuable answers by synthesizing lessons learned from seven case 
studies from around the developing world. The studies show that 
measures of the direct impacts of new technologies on incomes and 
yields do not tell the whole story. Both economic and noneconomic 
factors (such as sources of vulnerability, gender roles, and the 
source of the disseminated technology) play an extremely 
important role in determining whether the poor adopt or benefit 
from a technology.... In addition, social, cultural, and economic 
factors all influence whether the poor receive direct and 
indirect benefits from new technologies. Therefore, it is crucial 
that impact assessments include a mix of disciplines and methods, 
and that researchers do not only focus on poverty-reducing 
impacts that are easy to measure. For the future, scientists and 
other decision makers designing new research programs need to 
understand all the social factors that will affect the uptake and 
impacts of technologies. They also need to understand poor 
people's strategies for managing risk and the importance and role 
of agriculture in their livelihood strategies." Authors' Preface
 
Keywords: Poverty alleviation Developing countries ,Agricultural 
          research ,Agricultural technology ,Impact assessment ,
          Gender issues ,
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fprepo:16&r=all



105. Women
  
    Quisumbing, Agnes R.
    Brown, Lynn R.
    Feldstein, Hilary Sims
    Haddad, Lawrence James
    Pena, Christine

"This food policy report synthesizes current research about the 
roles that women play in ensuring food security in the developing 
world" P. v.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fprepo:5&r=all



106. HIV/AIDs and food and nutrition security
  
    Gillespie, Stuart
    Kadiyala, Suneetha

"The HIV/AIDs pandemic is a global crisis with consequences that 
will be felt for decades to come. Thirty-nine million people are 
currently infected with the virus, including more than 25 million 
from Sub-Saharan Africa. Many millions are affected in different 
ways. The ability of households and communities to ensure their 
own food and nutrition security is increasingly being threatened. 
With the most detailed evidence base yet assembled, this review 
systematically maps our growing knowledge of the interactions 
between HIV/AIDS and food and nutrition security, pointing to 
where and how future policy needs to change to remain relevant 
and effective." "Authors' Abstract
 
Keywords: AIDS (Disease) ,HIV infections ,Nutrition Evaluation ,
          Nutrition policy ,Food Safety measures ,World health ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:fprevi:7&r=all



107. Indian agriculture and rural development
  
    von Braun, Joachim
    Gulati, Ashok
    Hazell, Peter
    Rosegrant, Mark W.
    Ruel, Marie T.

In this brief, the authors suggest five areas for action to put 
rural India on a higher growth trajectory that would cut hunger, 
malnutrition, and unemployment at a much faster pace than has 
been the case so far. The five areas for action are interlinked 
and would best work if pursued in conjunction. The authors 
emphasize investments with a human face that include and reach 
out to the rural poor and a reorientation of subsidies toward 
such investments: 1. India should increase investments in rural 
infrastructure including transport and information technology 
that connects villages) and agricultural R&D (leading to improved 
technologies for farmers). 2. India should reorient its social 
safety nets to create more employment in rural areas; help 
strengthen the human resource base through education, nutrition, 
and empowerment of women; and build physical infrastructure. 3. 
Water is going to be increasingly scarce. Investing large sums in 
new mega-irrigation schemes may not be the best course of action, 
but it is important to complete those in which a lot of money has 
already been invested. 4. India must liberalize its marketing and 
trade policies to encourage vertical coordination between farms, 
firms, and forks (supermarkets); facilitate increased flow of 
rural credit, especially to smallholders, through, say, 
nonbanking financial intermediaries; and withdraw any special 
concessions in support of foodgrain policies. 5. Trade 
liberalization in agriculture has the potential to bring rich 
dividends to developing countries, including India. To realize 
this potential, India must work toward establishing and 
strengthening a rules-based multilateral trading system through 
WTO negotiations. from Text
 
Keywords: Social safety nets ,Human capital ,High value 
          agricultural products ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:issbrf:35&r=all



108. Road development, economic growth, and poverty reduction in 
     China
  
    Fan, Shenggen
    Chan-Kang, Connie

"Since 1985, the Chinese government has given high priority to 
building roads, particularly high-quality roads that connect 
industrial centers. This report evaluates the contribution roads 
have made to poverty reduction and economic growth in China over 
the last two decades. It disaggregates road infrastructure into 
different classes to account for differences in their quality, 
and then estimates the impact of road investments on overall 
economic growth, agricultural growth, urban growth, urban poverty 
reduction, and rural poverty reduction. The report makes the case 
for a greater focus on low-quality and rural roads in future 
infrastructure investment strategies in China. It does so by 
showing how investing in low-quality and rural roads will 
generate larger marginal returns, raise more people out of 
poverty per yuan invested, and reduce regional development 
disparity more sharply than investing in high-quality roads. The 
study's findings will have considerable implications for China's 
infrastructure policy." Authors' Abstract
 
Keywords: Human capital ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:resrep:138&r=all



109. PROGRESA and its impacts on the welfare of rural households 
     in Mexico
  
    Skoufias, Emmanuel

"This document synthesizes the findings contained in a series of 
reports prepared by IFPRI for PROGRESA between November 1998 and 
November 2000... PROGRESA is one of the major programs of the 
Mexican government aimed at developing the human capital of poor 
households. Targeting its benefits directly to the population in 
extreme poverty in rural areas, PROGRESA aims to alleviate 
current and future poverty levels through cash transfers to 
mothers in households.... One of the most important contributions 
of IFPRI's evaluation of PROGRESA has been the continuation of 
the program in spite of the historic change in the government of 
Mexico in the 2000 elections. The overwhelming (and unprecedented)
evidence that a poverty alleviation program shows strong signs 
of having a significant impact on the welfare and human capital 
investment of poor rural families in Mexico has contributed to 
the decision of the Fox administration to continue with the 
program and to expand its coverage in the poor urban areas of the 
country after some improvements in the design of the program.... 
The majority of the improvements in the design of PROGRESA (
renamed Oportunidades by the Fox administration) were based on 
findings of the evaluation of PROGRESA that revealed areas of 
needed improvements in some of the structural components and the 
operation of the program... Yet in spite of these improvements in 
the program, the evaluation findings suggest that some issues 
remain to be resolved." from Text
 
Keywords: Rural poor Government policy Mexico ,Poverty 
          Government policy Mexico ,Mexico Social policy ,
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:resrep:139&r=all



110. A short history of French spirit of enterprise (from 1780 
     till date) (In French)
  
    Hubert BONIN

Pessimistic views among French economist, political and scholar 
opinion givers have often prevailed about the assessment of 
French economic competitiveness ; that might be explained by 
negative surveys of the ability of economic elites to adapt 
themselves to the changes of the environment of competition and 
of the productive and technological systems. Breakdowns of 
enterprise spirit could thus explain that periods of sluggishness 
be imposed to French growth and, globally, that backwardness had 
been endured when factors of progress were at stake. Our text 
reconstitutes the overall issues and, then, proceeds, alongside 
chronological periods, to a large scrutinizing of the validity of 
these assertions, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
 
Keywords: enterprise, enterprise spirit, elites, 
          entrepreneurship, growth, innovation, investment, 
          competitiveness, development, Malthusianism
JEL:      N8 N83 N84 N6 M13
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grs:wpegrs:2005-15&r=all



111. The Role of Corporate Branding in a Market Driving Strategy
  
    Tarnovskaya, Veronika (Department of Business Administration,
      School of Economics and Management, Lund University)
    Elg, Ulf (Department of Business Administration, School of 
      Economics and Management, Lund University)
    Burt, Steve (Institute for Retail Studies)

The market orientation literature distinguishes between market 
driven and market driving approaches. Although, most of the 
companies provided as examples of the latter approach have strong 
corporate brands, the corporate brand and associated brand values 
have not previously been considered as a basis for market driving.
We argue that the corporate brand provides a further source of 
the “leap” in customer value required for a market driving 
approach. Through a case study of Ikea we illustrate how the core 
values of the brand guide the behaviour and activities of 
internal stakeholders and relationships with external 
stakeholders, and explore the interactions between the global 
brand values and local market level activities.
 
Keywords: Brand Values; Market Driving; IKEA; Russia
Date:     2005-02-22
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:lufewp:2005_002&r=all



112. Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning: 
     Fundamental Concepts for Theory and Practice
  
    Sanchez, Ron (Copenhagen Business School)

This paper investigates several issues regarding the nature, 
domain, conceptual foundations, and practical challenges of 
knowledge management and organizational learning. The paper first 
identifies and contrasts two fundamental philosophical 
orientations to knowledge management -- the personal knowledge 
orientation and the organizational knowledge orientation -- and 
illustrates the distinctive kinds of knowledge management 
practices that result from the two orientations. It then 
summarizes three essential organizational processes in knowledge 
management: (i) maintaining learning loops in all organizational 
processes, (ii) systematically disseminating knowledge throughout 
an organization, and (iii) applying knowledge wherever it can be 
used in an organization. A general model of organizational 
learning -- the Five Learning Cycles model -- is introduced to 
represent how individuals, groups, and the overall organization 
are linked in an organizational learning process. Key challenges 
in managing each of the Five Learning Cycles are discussed, and 
examples of appropriate managerial interventions are proposed for 
each learning cycle. Concluding comments suggest how knowledge 
management processes reflect a fundamental shift in management 
thinking and practice from traditional concepts of command and 
control to more contemporary concepts of facilitation and 
empowerment.
 
Keywords: Knowledge management; Organizational learning; 
          Learning cycles
Date:     2005-04-04
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:lufewp:2005_003&r=all



113. Isomorphism, Isopraxism and Isonymism - Complementary or 
     Competing Processes?
  
    Erlingsdottir, Gudbjorg (Department of Business 
      Administration, School of Economics and Management, Lund 
      University)
    Lindberg, Kajsa (GRI, School of Economics & Commercial Law)

New institutional theory has been criticized, for describing 
institutionalization as a static qualitative state rather than a 
process. In this paper we provide an extended understanding of 
the process of institutionalization by replacing the mechanical 
concept of diffusion by the concept of translation and an 
analytical model of “travel of ideas”. Analyzing the field 
material from three cases of translation of ideas in the Swedish 
health care sector we have traced not only various homogenizing 
but also heterogenizing processes which reproduce organizational 
ideas, models, and practices. In the paper we thus suggest and 
discuss how name, form, and practice can be seen as different 
expressions of an idea through which organizations can be 
homogenized or heterogenized in an institutional process.
 
Keywords: isomorphism; isopraxism; isonymism; 
          insitutionalization; translation of ideas; 
          organizational change
Date:     2005-04-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:lufewp:2005_004&r=all



114. The Survival of the Unfittest: Delinquent corporations and 
     the production of organisational legitimacy through symbolic-
     discursive fit
  
    Svensson, Peter (Department of Business Administration, 
      School of Economics and Management, Lund University)

The survival of so called ‘delinquent organisations’ is the 
topic of this article. A delinquent organisation should here be 
conveived of as an organisation engaged in activities regarded by 
the public and stakeholders as harmful, hazardous or even lethal. 
Examples of delinquent organisations comprise producers of 
tobacco or warfare material. It has been recognised in the 
literature on organisations that the creation and maintenance of 
organisational legitimacy, i.e. the degree of congruence between 
the organisation’s deeds and the values, norms and expectations 
in society. This article aims at bringing into the limelight the 
symbolic-discursive aspects of organisational legitimacy, that is 
to say the construction of a fit between the text (written and 
spoken) produced by a particular organisation and the cultural 
and ideological environment wherein this organisation operates. 
Drawing upon ideas from discourse theory, the tobacco producer 
Swedish Match is subjected to a close up study. More specifically,
the empirical case selected is that of a lawsuit filed against 
Swedish Match in 1997 and the related textual responses produced 
and distributed in public media by the organisation. I present 
the argument that, in order to construct a symbolic-discursive 
fit, Swedish Match has to navigate in between two strong 
ideological poles: a social democratic heritage and an emerging 
corpus of neo-liberal ideas, two forces that provide both the 
rhetorical means for and restraint of the construction of 
organisational legitimacy.
 
Keywords: Organisational legitimacy; corporate reputation; 
          delinquent corporation; Swedish Match; tobacco industry
Date:     2005-05-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:lufewp:2005_005&r=all



115. A study of inter-firm market orientation dimensions in 
     Swedish, British and Italian supplier-retailer relationships
  
    Elg, Ulf (Department of Business Administration, School of 
      Economics and Management, Lund University)

Previous research demonstrates that a firm’s market 
orientation is influ-enced by network factors, but few regard 
market orientation as an inter-firm phe-nomenon, i.e. as a part 
of cooperative inter-firm activities and relationships. The paper 
suggests inter-firm market orientation as an approach for 
studying this. It is based on Kohli and Jaworski’s three 
original components, but their meaning within an 
interorganizational relationship is modified and dimensions that 
enable us to systematically analyse inter-firm market orientation 
are identified empiri-cally. The results are based on a 
qualitative study on supplier-retailer relationships in Sweden, 
Italy and the UK. Four dimensions are found to be especially 
relevant and propositions are presented concerning how they 
influence the overall degree of inter-firm MO.
 
Keywords: Market orientation; inter-firm relationships; 
          cooperation; ydistribu-tion channels; food sector
Date:     2005-05-16
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:lufewp:2005_006&r=all



116. An Integrative Framework for Evolving A Socially 
     Responsible Marketing Strategy
  
    El-Ansary, Adel (Donna L. Harper Professor of Marketing)
    Cerne, Annette (Department of Business Administration, 
      School of Economics and Management, Lund University)

The rise in the strategic importance of maintaining positive 
stakeholder relationships and the need to protect corporate brand 
reputation has moved the academic and business debates of ethical 
issues concerning corporate social responsibility (CSR) from 
being viewed as paternalistic philanthropy to an integral part of 
business strategy (Raynard et al., 2002; Husted et al., 2000). 
Subsequently, the integration of CSR issues into business and 
marketing strategy transitioned from an option to a requirement 
for doing business. In this paper, the authors suggest a 
framework for organising the alternative approaches for the 
integration of CSR into corporate and marketing strategy to 
evolve socially responsible corporate identity, corporate image, 
and corporate branding. Towards this objective, we examine these 
alternative approaches, present a number of propositions to 
advance notions about the relationships between corporate 
strategy, marketing strategy, market orientation and stakeholder 
oriented CSR, and suggest a research agenda for evolving metrics 
to measure outcomes of alternatives for evolving a CSR oriented 
marketing strategy.
 
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); CSR Integration;
          Corporate Strategy; Marketing Strategy; CSR-Oriented 
          Image/Identity/Branding; Corporate Branding
Date:     2005-06-13
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:lufewp:2005_007&r=all



117. The Social Construction of Successful Practical Selling - A 
     study of how sales persons at CR Ltd construct selling as 
     successful
  
    Noren, Catharina (Department of Business Administration, 
      School of Economics and Management, Lund University)

In this paper I discuss how the sales persons, at a computer 
retailing company, understand themselves as successful in 
interaction with their customers. The discussion introduces 
earlier research about success and successful selling, which also 
reveals the notion as socially constructed. The purpose has been 
to reveal how the sales person socially constructs, interprets 
and enact successful practical selling as well as competition in 
their every day practice. The discussion about the sales 
person’s act is founded in habitus that is understood to 
structure the sales person’s act in his or her practice.
 
Keywords: Successful selling; competition; sales persons; social 
          construction; rhetoric
Date:     2005-06-03
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:lufewp:2005_008&r=all



118. Swedish evidence on the impact of cognitive and non-
     cognitive ability on earnings – an extended pre-market 
     factor approach
  
    Zetterberg, Johnny (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market 
      Policy Evaluation)

This paper investigates the impact on earnings of non-cognitive 
ability, measured in terms of individuals’ 'self-esteem' on 
earnings. Starting with the pre-market factor approach suggested 
by Neal & Johnson (1996) a main finding is that measures of 
relative self-esteem along with cognitive ability are positively 
correlated with earnings. The analysis also reveals that the 
returns to cognitive and non-cognitive ability vary over the 
earnings-distribution: the returns are larger at higher levels of 
earnings than at low levels. While qualitatively robust, the 
effects decrease in magnitude when an extended version of the pre-
market factor model is used.
 
Keywords: Incentive-influencing preferences; cognitive ability; 
          non-cognitive ability; relative and absolute self-
          esteem; earnings distribution
JEL:      J31 M54
Date:     2005-06-21
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2005_016&r=all



119. Causal effects of subsidized career breaks
  
    Nordstrom Skans, Oskar (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market 
      Policy Evaluation)
    Lindqvist, Linus (IFAU - Insitute for Labour Market Policy 
      Evaluation)

The paper uses a quasi-experimental situation to analyze the 
effects of career interruptions on future labor market outcomes. 
Data are generated by a Swedish program that granted career 
breaks to applicants until funds where exhausted. Comparing 
approved and declined (due to lack of funds) applications allows 
us to derive “pure” effects of interrupted career that are 
not confounded by selection or omitted variables. The results 
show no significant effects on working hours but give some 
support for increased retirement probabilities among the oldest 
workers. The average wage effect is negative and in the order of 
3 percent 1–2 years after the break. Further evidence suggests 
that one reason for the large negative wage effects may be 
related to changes in jobs and tasks.
 
Keywords: Career interruptions; labor supply; wages; natural 
          experiment
JEL:      J22 J24 J26 J31
Date:     2005-06-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2005_017&r=all



120. Stepping-stones or dead-ends? An analysis of Swedish 
     replacement contracts
  
    Larsson, Laura (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy 
      Evaluation)
    Lindqvist, Linus (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy 
      Evaluation)
    Nordstrom Skans, Oskar (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market 
      Policy Evaluation)

The paper studies if temporary jobs in the form of fixed-term 
replacement contracts reduce the risk of future unemployment 
among job-seekers. Using exact matching on labour market history 
and personal characteristics we find positive effects of the 
replacement contract on future labour market status. We also find 
that the longer the replacement contract the higher the 
probability of having an open ended contract at the same site 
2–2.5 years after the start of the contract. No effect of the 
length is found on unemployment, employment or wages. Overall, 
the results suggest that receiving a fixed term contract reduces 
the risk of future unemployment, and that a longer contract 
increases the position within the workplace but not on the market 
in general.
 
Keywords: Unemployment; temporary employment; matching
JEL:      J64
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2005_018&r=all



121. Two-Sided Network Effects, Bank Interchange Fees, and the 
     Allocation of Fixed Costs
  
    Bergman, Mats A. (Department of Economics, Sodertorn 
      University College)

Two-sided network effects in card payment systems are analysed 
under different market structures, e.g., competition, one-sided 
monopoly, bilateral monopoly and duopoly; with and without an 
interchange fee; for the so-called Baxter’s case of non-
strategic merchants. A partial ranking of market structures 
according to their welfare effects is provided. Fixed central (
card) system costs are introduced and analysed under free entry 
and duopoly. It is shown that under free entry, a per-transaction 
distribution of fixed costs is preferrable to dividing the fixed 
costs in equal proportions between the participants. Under 
duopoly, (and no entry) a fixed division of central costs will 
yield lower prices.
 
Keywords: Two-sided markets; card payments; payment systems; 
          acquiring; issuing; market structure
JEL:      G21 L11 L44
Date:     2005-06-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0185&r=all



122. Trade Deficits in the Baltic States: How Long Will the 
     Party Last?
  
    Bems, Rudolfs (Stockholm School of Economics)
    Jonsson, Kristian (Research Department, Central Bank of 
      Sweden)

Since their opening up to international capital markets, the 
economies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have experienced large 
and persistent capital inflows and trade deficits. This paper 
investigates whether a calibrated two-sector neoclassical growth 
model can explain the magnitudes and the timing of the trade 
flows in the Baltic countries. The model is calibrated for each 
of the three countries, which we simulate as small closed 
economies that suddenly open up to international trade and 
capital flows. The results show that the model can account for 
the observed magnitudes of the trade deficits in the 1995-2001 
period. Introducing a real interest rate risk premium in the 
model increases its explanatory power. The model indicates that 
trade balances will turn positive in the Baltic states around 
2010.
 
Keywords: Baltic states; international factor movements; non-
          traded goods; adjustment costs; dynamic general 
          equilibrium
JEL:      C68 F41
Date:     2005-06-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0186&r=all



123. Real Exchange Rate and Consumption Fluctuations following 
     Trade Liberalization
  
    Jonsson, Kristian (Research Department, Central Bank of 
      Sweden)

Two-sector models with traded and non-traded goods have problems 
accounting for the stylized fact that the real exchange rate 
appreciates and consumption booms for several years following 
trade liberalization, or exchange-rate-based stabilization 
programs, in small open economies. The paper studies three 
potential solutions to this ‘price-consumption puzzle’ and 
evaluates their quantitative importance in calibrated simulations 
of Spain’s accession to the European Community in 1986. 
Extending the standard two-sector framework, the paper 
investigates the effects of relative productivity growth in the 
traded sector along the lines of Balassa-Samuelson, of time-to-
build, and of habit formation in preferences. In contrast to 
previous studies, we find that habit formation on its own does 
not enable the model to account for the observed real exchange 
rate and consumption dynamics. The analysis shows that a 
calibrated version of the model augmented with all three 
mechanisms can account for much of the price-consumption dynamics 
after trade liberalization, without losing explanatory power for 
other real variables in the Spanish economy after 1986.
 
Keywords: Non-traded goods; Balassa-Samuelsson; Time-to-build; 
          Habit formation; Dynamic general equilibrium
JEL:      C68 F41
Date:     2005-07-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0187&r=all



124. On the Computational Power of Iterative Auctions I: Demand 
     Queries
  
    Liad Blumrosen
    Noam Nisan

We study the computational power and limitations of iterative 
combinatorial auctions. Most existing iterative combinatorial 
auctions are based on repeatedly suggesting prices for bundles of 
items, and querying the bidders for their ``demand'' under these 
prices. We prove several results regarding such auctions that use 
a polynomial number of demand queries: (1) that such auctions can 
simulate several other natural types of queries; (2) that such 
auctions can solve linear programming relaxations of winner 
determination problems; (3) that they can approximate the optimal 
allocation as well as generally possible using polynomial 
communication or computation, while weaker types of queries can 
not do so. We also initiate the study of how can the prices of 
bundles be represented when they are not linear, and show that 
the ``default'' representation has severe limitations.
 
JEL:      C7 D83
Date:     2005-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp381&r=all



125. On the Computational Power of Iterative Auctions II: 
     Ascending Auctions
  
    Liad Blumrosen
    Noam Nisan

We embark on a systematic analysis of the power and limitations 
of iterative ascending-price combinatorial auctions. We prove a 
large number of results showing the boundaries of what can be 
achieved by different types of ascending auctions: item prices vs.
bundle prices, anonymous prices vs. personalized prices, 
deterministic vs. non-deterministic, ascending vs. descending, 
preference elicitation vs. full elicitation, adaptive vs. non-
adaptive, and single trajectory vs. multi trajectory. Two of our 
main results show that neither ascending item-price auctions nor 
ascending anonymous bundle-price auctions can determine the 
optimal allocation among general valuations. This justifies the 
use of personalized bundle prices in iterative combinatorial 
auctions like the FCC spectrum auctions.
 
Date:     2005-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp382&r=all



126. Implications of Seeing Israel as a Jewish (and Democratic) 
     State
  
    Ruth Gavison

The paper starts from the fact that Israel is described as a 
'Jewish and Democratic' state. It opens with a rejection of some 
preliminary charges that Israel cannot be both Jewish and 
democratic or that maintaining its Jewish particularity is in 
principle unjustified. The main part of the paper analyzes 
various issues, such as the right to participate in elections, 
immigration, and education, to show what arrangements may be 
required by a wish to maintain the Jewishness of the state while, 
at the same time, respecting the human rights of all its 
residents.
 
Date:     2005-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp383&r=all



127. Using Game Theory to Increase Students' Motivation to Learn 
     Mathematics
  
    Gura Ein-Ya

This paper reports an attempt to teach game theory in order to 
increase students' motivation to learn mathematics. A course in 
game theory was created in order to introduce students to new 
mathematical content presented in a different way.
 
Date:     2005-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp384&r=all



128. Declining Valuations in Sequential Auctions
  
    Thomas Kittsteiner
    Jorg Nikutta
    Eyal Winter

We analyze an independent private values model where a number of 
objects are sold in sequential first- and second-price auctions. 
Bidders have unit demand and their valuation for an object is 
decreasing in the rank number of the auction in which it is sold. 
We derive efficient equilibria if prices are announced after each 
auction or if no information is given to bidders. We show that 
the sequence of prices constitutes a supermartingale. Even if we 
correct for the decrease in valuations for objects sold in later 
auctions we find that average prices are declining.
 
JEL:      D82 D44
Date:     2004-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp385&r=all



129. An Interview with Robert Aumann
  
    Sergiu Hart

Who is Robert Aumann? Is he an economist or a mathematician? A 
rational scientist or a deeply religious man? A deep thinker or 
an easygoing person? These seemingly disparate qualities can all 
be found in Aumann; all are essential facets of his personality. 
A pure mathematician who is a renowned economist, he has been a 
central figure in developing game theory and establishing its key 
role in modern economics. He has shaped the field through his 
fundamental and pioneering work, work that is conceptually 
profound, and much of it mathematically deep. He has greatly 
influenced and inspired many people: his students, collaborators, 
colleagues, and anyone who has been excited by reading his papers 
or listening to his talks. Aumann promotes a unified view of 
rational behavior, in many different disciplines: chiefly 
economics, but also political science, biology, computer science, 
and more. To mention just a few of the areas of Aumann's 
groundbreaking work: perfect competition, repeated games, 
correlated equilibrium, interactive knowledge and rationality, 
and coalitions and cooperation. But Aumann is not just a 
theoretical scholar, closed in his ivory tower. He is interested 
in real-life phenomena and issues, to which he applies insights 
from his research. He is a devoutly religious man; and he is one 
of the founding fathers-and a central and most active member-of 
the multidisciplinary Center for the Study of Rationality at the 
Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Aumann enjoys skiing, mountain 
climbing, and cooking-no less than working out a complex economic 
question or proving a deep theorem. He is a family man, a very 
warm and gracious person-of an extremely subtle and sharp mind. 
This interview catches a few glimpses of Robert Aumann's 
fascinating world. It was held in Jerusalem on three consecutive 
days in September of 2004. I hope the reader will learn from it 
and enjoy it as much as we two did.
 
Date:     2005-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp386&r=all



130. When All is Said and Done, How Should You Play and What 
     Should You Expect?
  
    R. J. Aumann
    J. H. Dreze

Modern game theory was born in 1928, when John von Neumann 
published his Minimax Theorem. This theorem ascribes to all two-
person zero-sum games a value–what rational players may 
expect–and optimal strategies–how they should play to achieve 
that expectation. Seventyseven years later, strategic game theory 
has not gotten beyond that initial point, insofar as the basic 
questions of value and optimal strategies are concerned. 
Equilibrium theories do not tell players how to play and what to 
expect; even when there is a unique Nash equilibrium, it it is 
not at all clear that the players “should” play this 
equilibrium, nor that they should expect its payoff. Here, we 
return to square one: abandon all ideas of equilibrium and simply 
ask, how should rational players play, and what should they 
expect. We provide answers to both questions, for all n-person 
games in strategic form.
 
Date:     2005-03
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp387&r=all



131. Select Sets: Rank and File
  
    Abba M. Krieger
    Moshe Pollak
    Ester Samuel-Cahn

In many situations, the decision maker observes items in 
sequence and needs to determine whether or not to retain a 
particular item immediately after it is observed. Any decision 
rule creates a set of items that are selected. We consider 
situations where the available information is the rank of a 
present observation relative to its predecessors. Certain 
"natural" selection rules are investigated. Theoretical and Monte 
Carlo results are presented pertaining to the evolution of the 
number of items selected, measures of their quality and the time 
it would take to amass a group of a given size. A comparison 
between rules is made, and guidelines to the choice of good 
procedures are offered.
 
Keywords: Selection rules; Ranks; Nonparametrics; Sequential 
          observations; Asymptotics
Date:     2005-03
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp388&r=all



132. Musings on Information and Knowledge
  
    Robert J. Aumann

An invited contribution to a symposium on “Information and 
Knowledge in Economics,” to appear in Econ Journal Watch. 
Topics discussed include the distinction between information and 
knowledge; awareness; logical omniscience; the cost of 
calculation; semantic and syntactic models of knowledge, and the 
equivalence between them; and common knowledge of the model. 
Finally, some aspects of the symposium contributions of Ken 
Binmore, Jim Friedman, and Eric Rasmusen are discussed.
 
Date:     2005-03
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp389&r=all



133. With the Eye being a Ball, what Happens to Fixational Eye 
     Movements in the Periphery?
  
    Judith Avrahami
    Oren Flekser

Although the fact that the eye is moving constantly has been 
known for a long time, the role of fixational eye movements (FEM) 
is still in dispute. Whatever their role, it is structurally 
clear that, since the eye is a ball, the size of these movements 
diminishes for locations closer to the poles. Here we propose a 
new perspective on the role of FEM from which we derive a 
prediction for a three-way interaction of a stimulus' orientation,
location, and spatial frequency. Measuring time-to-disappearance 
for gratings located in the periphery we find that, as predicted, 
gratings located to the left and right of fixation fade faster 
when horizontal than when vertical in low spatial frequencies and 
faster when vertical than when horizontal in high spatial 
frequencies. The opposite is true for gratings located above and 
below fixation.
 
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp390&r=all



134. Consciousness
  
    R. J. Aumann

Consciousness is the last great frontier of science. Here we 
discuss what it is, how it differs fundamentally from other 
scientific phenomena, what adaptive function it serves, and the 
difficulties in trying to explain how it works. The emphasis is 
on the adaptive function.
 
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp391&r=all



135. Encouraging a Coalition Formation
  
    Michael Maschler

A 4-person quota game is analyzed and discussed, in which 
players find it beneficial to pay others, in order to encourage 
favorable coalition structure.
 
Keywords: game theory; cooperative games; power of a coalition; 
          coalition formations; experiments in game theory
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp392&r=all



136. Conditioning and the Sure-Thing Principle
  
    Robert J. Aumann
    Sergiu Hart
    Motty Perry

This paper undertakes a careful examination of the concept of 
conditional probability and its use. The ideas are then applied 
to resolve a conceptual puzzle related to Savage's "Sure-Thing 
Principle."
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp393&r=all



137. Tight Correlated Equilibrium
  
    Noa Nitzan

A correlated equilibrium of a strategic form n-person game is 
called tight if all the incentive constraints are satisfied as 
equalities. The game is called tight if all of its correlated 
equilibria are tight. This work shows that the set of tight games 
has positive measure.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp394&r=all



138. Record Breaking and Temporal Clustering
  
    Flavio Toxvaerd

Casual observation suggests that athletics records tend to 
cluster over time. After prolonged periods without new records, a 
record breaking performance spurs other athletes to increase 
effort and thereby repeatedly set new standards. Subsequently, 
record breaking subsides and the pattern repeats itself. The 
clustering hypothesis is tested for the mile run, the marathon, 
the world hour record and long jump. For all four disciplines, 
the null hypothesis of non-clustering is rejected at the 4% level 
or below. A theoretical rationale for this phenomenon is provided 
through a model of social learning under limited awareness. The 
agents are assumed to be unaware of the true limits to 
performance and to take the current record as the upper bound. 
The observation of a record breaking achievement spurs the agents 
to try harder and thus temporarily increase the probability of 
new records. Subsequently, record breaking trails off and the 
process is repeated.
 
Keywords: record breaking; temporal clustering; adaptive 
          learning; limited awareness
JEL:      D83 O33
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:huj:dispap:dp395&r=all



139. PRIVDAM: Privacy Violation Detection and Monitoring Using 
     Data Mining
  
    Bhattacharya Jaijit
    Dass Rajanish
    Kapoor Vishal
    Chakraborti Debamitro
    Gupta S.K.

Privacy, its violations and techniques to bypass privacy 
violation have grabbed the centre-stage of both academia and 
industry in recent months. Corporations worldwide have become 
conscious of the implications of privacy violation and its impact 
on them and to other stakeholders. Moreover, nations across the 
world are coming out with privacy protecting legislations to 
prevent data privacy violations. Such legislations however expose 
organizations to the issues of intentional or unintentional 
violation of privacy data. A violation by either malicious 
external hackers or by internal employees can expose the 
organizations to costly litigations. In this paper, we propose 
PRIVDAM; a data mining based intelligent architecture of a 
Privacy Violation Detection and Monitoring system whose purpose 
is to detect possible privacy violations and to prevent them in 
the future. Experimental evaluations show that our approach is 
scalable and robust and that it can detect privacy violations or 
chances of violations quite accurately.
 
Keywords: Privacy Violation, Data Mining, Clustering, 
          Association Rule
Date:     2005-07-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:2005-07-01&r=all



140. Certeza Juridica e Incentivos a la Inversion: Politica y 
     Practica de una Relacion Causal
  
    Jorge Rodriguez G.
    Eduardo Saavedra (ILADES-Georgetown University, Universidad 
      Alberto Hurtado)

Los autores argumentan que brindar una mayor certeza juridica a 
las inversiones, mediante la reduccion en los espacios de 
comportamiento oportunista, tanto del Estado como de otros 
agentes privados, puede lograrse a traves de dos mecanismos: i) 
la perfeccion de los marcos regulatorios y de competencia con 
miras a reducir la aparicion de conflictos y de resolverlos en 
forma expedita y confiable, y, ii) la asignacion y proteccion 
de derechos de propiedad en mercados con claras deficiencias en 
su funcionamiento. Para ilustrar esta hipotesis, se sintetizan 
en este trabajo algunos proyectos de ley discutidos en los 
ultimos cuatro anos. Una conclusion que emerge de este trabajo 
es que efectivamente es posible generar un aumento en las tasas 
de inversion y mejora en su calidad sin recurrir a subsidios 
sectoriales, sino que con la implementacion de una 
institucionalidad capaz de mejorar la certeza juridica a las 
inversiones
 
Keywords: Certeza juridica, Fortalecimiento institucional, 
          Marco regulador
JEL:      D23 D81 L50 K20 Q28
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ila:ilades:inv164&r=all



141. Informal Markets, Perishability and Vertical Control: 
     Brokerage of Artisanal Landings
  
    Julio Pena Torres (ILADES-Georgetown University, 
      Universidad Alberto Hurtado)

This is a case study of the institutional changes occurring 
since the late 1990s at the Chilean Austral Hake (Merluccius 
Australis) artisanal fishery. This high-value exporting fishery, 
specialized in selling fresh-chilled products, represents a 
pioneering case of self-government developments within small-
scale fishing communities exploiting mobile marine resources in 
Chile. Despite entry restrictions and global catch quotas, this 
fishery faced a productivity crisis between the late 1980s and 
the second half of the 1990s. Consequently, the fishermen started 
talks with the Government in order to introduce new management 
rules. After gradual evolution, today there prevails a well-
developed system of de facto individual non-transferable quotas 
which are subject to a high degree of self-management by 
fishermen organisations. In order to understand the conditioning 
factors behind the exchange solutions found at this fishery, an 
analysis is provided of the industrial concentration and the 
strategies of vertical control between transacting parties along 
the production and marketing stages. The contractual issues 
analysed are: the use of informal markets, interlinkage 
contracting, temporal specificity due to product perishability, 
the use of different instruments of vertical control and the 
influence of increasing industrial concentration as we advance 
through the wholesale marketing channel and get closer to the 
retailing stages at final export markets.
 
Keywords: Food production and marketing, Production chains, 
          Vertical control, Artisanal fishery, Chilean Austral 
          Hake
JEL:      Q22 Q13 O13 O17 D23 J54 L14 L42 L81 N56
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ila:ilades:inv165&r=all



142. Students and Teachers: A DEA Approach to the Relative 
     Efficiency of Portuguese Public Universities
  
    Antonio Afonso
    Mariana Santos

We employ a non-parametric methodology, Data Envelopment 
Analysis, to estimate efficiency scores for Portuguese public 
universities, using data mainly for 2003. The input measures are 
constructed from the number of teachers and from universities’ 
spending while the outputs measures are based on the 
undergraduate success rate and on the number of doctoral 
dissertations. Using frontier analysis we are able to separate 
universities that might qualify, as “performing well” from 
those were some improvement might be possible in terms of 
efficiency. This could imply a better allocation by the 
universities of the usually scarce public financial resources 
available to tertiary education.
 
Keywords: tertiary education, efficiency, production possibility 
          frontier, DEA
JEL:      C14 H52 I21
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:isegwp:wp72005&r=all



143. Public and Private Expenditures on Health in a Growth Model
  
    Bhattacharya, Joydeep
    Qiao, Xue

This paper introduces endogenous longevity risk in an otherwise 
standard overlapping generations model with capital. In the model,
an agent may increase the length of her old age by incurring 
investments in her own health funded from her wage income. Such 
private health investments are more "productive" if accompanied 
by complementary tax-financed public health programs. The public 
input in private longevity is socially desirable; yet its 
presence may expose the economy to aggregate chaotic fluctuations.
 
JEL:      E0
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12378&r=all



144. Outlook for Asian Dairy Markets: The Role of Demographics, 
     Income, and Prices,
  
    Dong, Fengxia

The paper first presents a 10-year outlook for major Asian dairy 
markets (China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, 
the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) based on a world dairy 
model. Then, using Heien and Wessells’s technique, dairy 
product consumption growth is decomposed into contributions 
generated by income growth, population growth, price change, and 
urbanization and these contributions are quantified. Using the 
world dairy model, the paper also analyzes the impacts of 
alternative assumptions of higher income levels and technology 
development in Asia on Asian dairy consumptions and world dairy 
prices. The outlook projects that Asian dairy consumption will 
continue to grow strongly in the next decade. The consumption 
decomposition suggests that the growth would be mostly driven by 
income and population growth and, as a result, would raise world 
dairy prices. The simulation results show that technology 
improvement in Asian countries would dampen world dairy prices 
and meanwhile boost domestic dairy consumption.
 
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12379&r=all



145. Driving Forces Behind Informal Sanctions
  
    Armin Falk (IZA Bonn and University of Bonn)
    Ernst Fehr (University of Zurich and IZA Bonn)
    Urs Fischbacher (University of Zurich)

This paper investigates the driving forces behind informal 
sanctions in cooperation games and the extent to which theories 
of fairness and reciprocity capture these forces. We find that 
cooperators’ punishment is almost exclusively targeted towards 
the defectors but the latter also impose a considerable amount of 
spiteful punishment on the cooperators. However, spiteful 
punishment vanishes if the punishers can no longer affect the 
payoff differences between themselves and the punished individual,
whereas the cooperators even increase the resources devoted to 
punishment in this case. Our data also discriminate between 
different fairness principles. Fairness theories that are based 
on the assumption that players compare their own payoff to the 
group’s average or the group’s total payoff cannot explain 
the fact that cooperators target their punishment at the 
defectors. Fairness theories assuming that players aim to 
minimize payoff inequalities cannot explain the fact that 
cooperators punish defectors even if payoff inequalities cannot 
be reduced. Therefore, retaliation, i.e., the desire to harm 
those who committed unfair acts, seems to be the most important 
motive behind fairnessdriven informal sanctions.
 
Keywords: sanctioning, cooperation, social norm, reciprocity, 
          fairness, spitefulness
JEL:      A13 D63 D23 C92 K42
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1635&r=all



146. Racial Harassment, Job Satisfaction and Intentions to 
     Remain in the Military
  
    Heather Antecol (Claremont McKenna College and IZA Bonn)
    Deborah Cobb-Clark (Australian National University and IZA 
      Bonn)

Our results indicate that two-thirds of active-duty military 
personnel report experiencing offensive racial behaviors in the 
previous 12 months, while approximately one in ten report 
threatening racial incidents or career-related discrimination. 
Racial harassment significantly increases job dissatisfaction 
irrespective of the form of harassment considered. Furthermore, 
threatening racial incidents and career-related discrimination 
heighten intentions to leave the military, though there is no 
significant effect of racially offensive behavior on the intended 
job change of active-duty personnel. Finally, our results point 
to the importance of accounting for unobserved individual- and 
job-specific heterogeneity when assessing the consequences of 
racial harassment. In particular, single-equation models result 
in estimated effects of racial harassment on job satisfaction and 
intended job change that are generally understated.
 
Keywords: job satisfaction, racial harassment, quits, military 
          employment
JEL:      J16 J28
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1636&r=all



147. The Public Pay Gap in Britain: Small Differences That (
     Don't?) Matter
  
    Fabien Postel-Vinay (PSE, CREST-INSEE, CEPR and IZA Bonn)
    Helene Turon (University of Bristol and IZA Bonn)

The existing literature on inequality between private and public 
sectors focuses on crosssection differences in earnings levels. A 
more general way of looking at inequality between sectors is to 
recognize that forward-looking agents will care about income and 
job mobility too. We show that these are substantially different 
between the two sectors. Using data from the BHPS, we estimate a 
model of income and employment dynamics over seven years. We 
allow for unobserved heterogeneity in the propensity to be 
unemployed or employed in either job sector and in terms of the 
income process. We then combine the results into lifetime values 
of jobs in either sector and carry out a cross-section 
comparative analysis of these values. We have four main findings. 
First focusing on cross-sector differences in terms of the income 
process only, we detect a positive average public premium both in 
income flows and in the present discounted sum of future income 
flows. Second, most of the observed relative income compression 
in the public sector is due to a lower variance of the transitory 
component of income. Third, when taking job mobility into account,
the lifetime public premium is essentially zero for workers that 
we categorize as "high-employability" individuals, suggesting 
that the UK labor market is sufficiently mobile to ensure a rapid 
allocation of workers into their "natural" sector. Fourth, we 
find some evidence of job queuing for public sector jobs among 
"low-employability" workers.
 
Keywords: income dynamics, job mobility, public-private 
          inequality, selection effects
JEL:      J45 J31 J62
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1637&r=all



148. Learning but Not Earning? The Value of Job Corps Training 
     for Hispanic Youths
  
    Alfonso Flores-Lagunes (University of Arizona)
    Arturo Gonzalez (Public Policy Institute of California and 
      IZA Bonn)
    Todd Neumann (University of Arizona)

The National Job Corps Study (NJCS) was a four-year longitudinal 
social experiment that randomized over 15,000 Job Corps eligible 
applicants into treatment and control groups. Experimental 
estimators revealed a positive impact of Job Corps training in 
the weekly earnings of white and black youths 48 months after 
randomization, but not for Hispanic youths. This study considers 
explanations for why Job Corps does not increase the earnings of 
Hispanics in the NJCS. First, we show that the randomization in 
the NJCS did not create comparable treatment and control groups 
for Hispanics. We then apply alternative estimators that adjust 
for systematic differences in observable and time-invariant 
characteristics, but still find statistically insignificant 
effects of Job Corps 48 months after randomization. Finally, we 
estimate the "net treatment effect" controlling for post-
treatment experience to advance an explanation for why Job Corps 
fails to benefit Hispanics 48 months after randomization: 
nontreated Hispanics earn a significant amount of labor market 
experience during the study compared to all other groups. This 
higher level of experience translates into higher earnings that 
Hispanic treated individuals are not able to overcome by the end 
of the study, despite having higher earnings growth in the 48-
month period of any group.
 
Keywords: job training programs, Job Corps, Hispanic earnings 
          gap, racial earnings gap
JEL:      J15 J31 J41
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1638&r=all



149. The Flow Approach to Labor Markets: New Data Sources, Micro-
     Macro Links and the Recent Downturn
  
    Steven J. Davis (University of Chicago, NBER and American 
      Enterprise Institute)
    R. Jason Faberman (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
    John Haltiwanger (University of Maryland, NBER and IZA Bonn)

New data sources and products developed by the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics and the Bureau of the Census highlight the dynamic 
character of U.S. labor markets. Private-sector job creation and 
destruction rates average nearly 8% of employment per quarter. 
Worker flows in the form of hires and separations are more than 
twice as large. The data also underscore the lumpy nature of 
micro-level employment adjustments. More than two-thirds of job 
destruction occurs at establishments that shrink by more than 10% 
within the quarter, and more than one-fifth occurs at those that 
go to zero employment. Our study also uncovers highly nonlinear 
relationships of worker flows to employment growth and job flows 
at the micro level. These micro relations interact with movements 
over time in the cross-sectional density of establishment growth 
rates to produce recurring cyclical patterns in aggregate labor 
market flows. Cyclical movements in the layoffs-separation ratio, 
for example, and the propensity of separated workers to become 
unemployed reflect distinct micro relations for quits and layoffs.
A dominant role for the job-finding rate in accounting for 
unemployment movements in mild downturns and a bigger role for 
the job-loss rate in severe downturns reflect distinct micro 
relations for hires and layoffs.
 
Keywords: hires, separations, job creation, job destruction
JEL:      J23 J63
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1639&r=all



150. Workplace Training in Europe
  
    Andrea Bassanini (OECD and University of Evry)
    Alison Booth (Australian National University, University of 
      Essex and IZA Bonn)
    Giorgio Brunello (University of Padova, CESifo and IZA Bonn)
    Maria De Paola (University of Calabria)
    Edwin Leuven (University of Amsterdam and CREST)

This paper reviews the existing evidence on workplace training 
in Europe in different data sources - the CVTS, OECD data and the 
European Community Household Panel. We outline the differences in 
training incidence and relate these differences to the private 
costs and benefits of training, and to institutional factors such 
as unions, employment protection and product market competition. 
We ask whether there is a case for under-provision of training in 
Europe and examine alternative policies aiming both at raising 
training incidence and at reducing inequalities in the provision 
of skills.
 
Keywords: training, Europe, training policies
JEL:      J24
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1640&r=all



151. Neuroeconomic Foundations of Trust and Social Preferences
  
    Ernst Fehr (University of Zurich and IZA Bonn)
    Urs Fischbacher (University of Zurich)
    University of Zurich (University of Zurich)

This paper discusses recent neuroeconomic evidence related to 
other-regarding behaviors and the decision to trust in other 
people’s other-regarding behavior. This evidence supports the 
view that people derive nonpecuniary utility (i) from mutual 
cooperation in social dilemma (SD) games and (ii) from punishing 
unfair behavior. Thus, mutual cooperation and the punishment of 
free riders in SD games is not irrational, but better understood 
as rational behavior of people with corresponding social 
preferences. We also report the results of a recent study that 
examines the impact of the neuropeptide Oxytocin (OT) on trusting 
and trustworthy behavior in a sequential SD. Animal studies have 
identified Oxytocin as a hormone that induces prosocial approach 
behavior, suggesting that it may also affect prosocial behavior 
in humans. Indeed, the study shows that subjects given Oxytocin 
exhibit much more trusting behavior, suggesting that OT has a 
direct impact on certain aspects of subjects’ social 
preferences. Interestingly, however, although Oxytocin affects 
trusting behavior, it has no effect on subjects’ 
trustworthiness.
 
Keywords: social preferences, foundations of trust, neuroeconomic
JEL:      A13 C90
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1641&r=all



152. U.S. Border Enforcement and the Net Flow of Mexican Illegal 
     Migration
  
    Manuela Angelucci (University of Arizona and IZA Bonn)

This paper investigates the effect of U.S. border enforcement on 
the net flow of Mexican undocumented migration. It shows how this 
effect is theoretically ambiguous, given that increases in border 
controls deter prospective migrants from crossing the border 
illegally, but lengthen the duration of current illegal 
migrations. It then estimates the impact of enforcement on 1972-
1993 migration net flows by merging aggregate enforcement data 
with micro data on potential and current illegal Mexican migrants.
The econometric model accounts for the endogeneity of border 
controls using the Drug Enforcement Administration budget as an 
instrumental variable. Both the inflow and outflow of illegal 
Mexican migration are highly sensitive to changes in border 
enforcement. The estimates of the enforcement overall effect on 
illegal migration’s net flow range across different 
specifications, from a decline - about 35% of the size of the 
effect on the inflow - to an increase. Thus, they suggest that 
border enforcement may not be an effective means to reduce the 
level of the illegal alien population in the United States.
 
Keywords: illegal migration, border enforcement, Mexico
JEL:      F22 J61 K42 O15
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1642&r=all



153. Optimal Incentive Contracts under Inequity Aversion
  
    Florian Englmaier (University of Munich and IZA Bonn)
    Achim Wambach (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

We analyze the Moral Hazard problem, assuming that agents are 
inequity averse. Our results differ from conventional contract 
theory and are more in line with empirical findings than standard 
results. We find: First, inequity aversion alters the structure 
of optimal contracts. Second, there is a strong tendency towards 
linear sharing rules. Third, it delivers a simple rationale for 
team based incentives in many environments. Fourth, the 
Sufficient Statistics Result is violated. Dependent on the 
environment, optimal contracts may be either overdetermined or 
incomplete.
 
Keywords: contract theory, linear contracts, incentives, 
          sufficient statistics result, inequity aversion, 
          incomplete contracts
JEL:      D23 D63 J31 J33 M12 Z13
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1643&r=all



154. Do Financial Bonuses to Employees Reduce Their Absenteeism? 
     Outcome of a Lottery
  
    Wolter Hassink (Utrecht University and IZA Bonn)
    Pierre Koning (Utrecht University)

This paper investigates the effectiveness of a monthly lottery 
in reducing sick leave among workers in a manufacturing firm. 
Conditions of participation are not having reported sick in the 
previous three months and not having won the lottery earlier. It 
turns out that the lottery results in a decrease in the rate of 
sick leave of 1.6 percentage point. From the perspective of the 
firm, the lottery is found to be highly beneficial - that is, the 
benefits associated with the decrease in the sick leave rate 
exceed the costs of the lottery. Workers seem to be primarily 
driven by the first upcoming lottery. After winning the lottery, 
winners resume their previous (rate of) absence.
 
Keywords: absenteeism, sick leave, incentives, lottery
JEL:      J22 J32 M52
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1644&r=all



155. Zero Returns to Compulsory Schooling in Germany: Evidence 
     and Interpretation
  
    Jorn-Steffen Pischke (London School of Economics and IZA 
      Bonn)
    Till von Wachter (Columbia University and IZA Bonn)

We estimate the impact of compulsory schooling on earnings using 
the changes in compulsory schooling laws for secondary schools in 
West German states during the period from 1948 to 1970. While our 
research design is very similar to studies for various other 
countries, we find very different estimates of the returns. Most 
estimates in the literature indicate returns in the range of 10 
to 15 percent. We find no return to compulsory schooling in 
Germany in terms of higher wages. We investigate whether this is 
due to labor market institutions or the existence of the 
apprenticeship training system in Germany, but find no evidence 
for these explanations. We conjecture that the result might be 
due to the fact that the basic skills most relevant for the labor 
market are learned earlier in Germany than in other countries.
 
Keywords: human capital, returns to schooling, school leaving 
          age, ability bias
JEL:      I21 J24 J31
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1645&r=all



156. The Economics of Altruistic Punishment and the Demise of 
     Cooperation
  
    Martijn Egas (IBED, University of Amsterdam)
    Arno Riedl (CREED, University of Amsterdam, Tinbergen 
      Institute and IZA Bonn)

Explaining the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among 
unrelated individuals is one of the fundamental problems in 
biology and the social sciences. Recent experimental evidence 
suggests that altruistic punishment is an important mechanism to 
maintain cooperation among humans. In this paper we explore the 
boundary conditions for altruistic punishment to maintain 
cooperation by systematically varying the cost and impact of 
punishment, using a subject pool which extends beyond the 
standard student population. We find that the economics of 
altruistic punishment lead to the demise of cooperation when 
punishment is relatively expensive and/or has low impact. Our 
results indicate that the 'decision to punish' comes from an 
amalgam of emotional response and cognitive costbenefit analysis. 
Additionally, earnings are lowest when punishment promotes 
cooperation, suggesting that the scope for altruistic punishment 
as a means to maintain cooperation is limited.
 
Keywords: altruistic punishment, collective action, public goods,
          internet experiment
JEL:      C72 C91 C93 D70 H41
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1646&r=all



157. The Neuroeconomics of Mind Reading and Empathy
  
    Tania Singer (Functional Imaging Laboratory,University 
      College London)
    Ernst Fehr (University of Zurich and IZA Bonn)

The most fundamental solution concepts in Game Theory - Nash 
equilibrium, backward induction, and iterated elimination of 
dominated strategies - are based on the assumption that people 
are capable of predicting others' actions. These concepts require 
people to be able to view the game from the other players’ 
perspectives, i.e. to understand others’ motives and beliefs. 
Economists still know little about what enables people to put 
themselves into others’ shoes and how this ability interacts 
with their own preferences and beliefs. Social neuroscience 
provides insights into the neural mechanism underlying our 
capacity to represent others' intentions, beliefs, and desires, 
referred to as "Theory of Mind" or "mentalizing", and the 
capacity to share the feelings of others, referred to as 
"empathy". We summarize the major findings about the neural basis 
of mentalizing and empathizing and discuss some implications for 
economics.
 
Keywords: neuroeconomics, mind reading, empathy
JEL:      A10 C90
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1647&r=all



158. How Damaging Is Part-Time Employment to a Woman's 
     Occupational Prospects?
  
    Victoria Prowse (Nuffield College, Oxford and IZA Bonn)

This paper investigates the causes of the well documented 
association between part-time employment and low occupational 
attainment amongst British women. In particular, the relative 
importance of structural factors and unobserved heterogeneity to 
the occupational attainment of women who choose to work part-time 
is investigated. The results indicate that there are significant 
structural impediments to women in part-time employment obtaining 
their true occupational potential. However, structural factors 
explain only part of the relatively low occupational attainment 
of women in part-time employment: differences in unobserved 
characteristics between part-time and full-time workers also 
contribute to the low occupational attainment of women in part-
time employment.
 
Keywords: dynamic labor supply, heterogeneity, occupational 
          attainment, part-time employment
JEL:      C15 C35 C23 J62
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1648&r=all



159. Education, Matching and the Allocative Value of Romance
  
    Alison Booth (RSSS, Australian National University and IZA 
      Bonn)
    Melvyn Coles (ICREA, IAE and IZA Bonn)

Societies are characterized by customs governing the allocation 
of non-market goods such as marital partnerships. We explore how 
such customs affect the educational investment decisions of young 
singles and the subsequent joint labor supply decisions of 
partnered couples. We consider two separate matching paradigms 
for agents with heterogeneous abilities - one where partners 
marry for money and the other where partners marry for romantic 
reasons orthogonal to productivity or debt. These generate 
different investment incentives and therefore have a real impact 
on the market economy. While marrying for money generates greater 
investment efficiency, romantic matching generates greater 
allocative efficiency, since more high ability individuals 
participate in the labour market. The analysis offers the 
possibility of explaining cross-country differences in 
educational investments and labor force participation based on 
matching regimes.
 
Keywords: education, participation, matching, marriage, 
          cohabitation
JEL:      I21 J12 J16 J41
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1649&r=all



160. Empirical evidence for a theory of international new 
     ventures
  
    Reinhard Meckl (Faculty of Economics, University Bayreuth, 
      Germany)
    Robert Schramm (University of Jena, Faculty of Economics)

This paper analyzes twenty empirical studies relating to 
international new ventures (INVs). Based on this analysis it is 
shown that traditional internationalization theories do not 
explain INVs sufficiently. Therefore a model integrating static 
and process elements from the empirical evidence as well as parts 
of the traditional internationalization theories is developed. 
Obtained was an eclectic theory describing and explaining the 
rise of new firms already venturing abroad briefly after the time 
of their formation. Key results A 4-pillar-model for explaining 
the internationalization of INVs is developed. The model relies 
on basic assumptions from the network-, the stages-, the 
internalization- and the monopolistic advantage theory.
 
Keywords: Born global, international new ventures, 
          internationalization theory
Date:     2005-06-20
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jen:jenasw:2005-06&r=all



161. TAFTA ? A Dead Horse or an Attractive Open Club?
  
    Horst Siebert

Die meisten afrikanischen Lander laufen Gefahr, die Millennium 
Development Goals weit zu verfehlen. Die Vereinten Nationen 
fordern deshalb, die Entwicklungshilfe massiv aufzustocken, und 
der Afrika-Aktionsplan der G8 verspricht eine Konzentration der 
Hilfe auf Afrika. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellt sich zum einen 
die Frage, in welchem Ma? die lokalen Voraussetzungen fur eine 
produktive Verwendung der Entwicklungshilfe in den afrikanischen 
Empfangerlandern gegeben sind. Zum anderen ist die Versicherung 
der Geber zu hinterfragen, dass sich die Verteilung der Hilfe 
fur Afrika an Effizienzkriterien orientiert. In beiderlei 
Hinsicht klaffen zwischen Worten und Taten immer noch erhebliche 
Lucken. Insbesondere zeigt sich, dass die Vergabepraxis bisher 
kaum durch veranderte wirtschaftspolitische und institutionelle 
Rahmenbedingungen in den afrikanischen Empfangerlandern 
gepragt worden ist.
 
Keywords: Millennium Development Goals, Afrika, 
          Entwicklungshilfe, Selektivitat, Armutsorientierung, 
          wirtschaftspolitische und institutionelle 
          Rahmenbedingungen
JEL:      F35
Date:     2005-03
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1240&r=all



162. Assessing the Allocation of Aid: Developmental Concerns and 
     the Self-Interest of Donors
  
    Gustavo Canavire
    Peter Nunnenkamp
    Rainer Thiele
    Luis Triveno

In this paper, we perform a Tobit analysis of aid allocation, 
covering the period 1999- 2002 and accounting for both altruistic 
and selfish donor motives. It turns out that poorer countries get 
clearly more aid from both bilateral and multilateral donors. 
Most donors are also found to direct significantly more aid to 
well-governed recipients if governance is measured by the World 
Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA). If 
the CPIA is replaced by the Kaufmann index on institutional 
conditions in recipient countries, however, the policy 
orientation of aid becomes extremely weak. In contrast to a 
recent paper by Dollar and Levin, our estimates do not suggest 
that multilateral aid is more poverty- and policy-oriented than 
bilateral aid. Post-conflict resolution emerges as a significant 
determinant of aid allocation in 2002. The importance of selfish 
aid motives clearly differs between bilateral and multilateral 
donors. In particular, the export-related self-interest of donor 
countries provided a fairly strong incentive to grant bilateral 
aid, as did colonial ties.
 
Keywords: foreign aid allocation; donor motives; Tobit analysis
JEL:      C24 F35
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1253&r=all



163. Location Choice and Employment Decisions: A Comparison of 
     German and Swedish Multinationals
  
    Sascha O. Becker
    Karolina Ekholm
    Robert Jackle
    Marc-Andreas Mundler

Using data for German and Swedish multinational enterprises (
MNEs), this paper assesses international employment patterns. It 
analyzes determinants of location choice and the degree of 
substitutability of labor across locations. Countries with highly 
skilled labor forces attract German MNEs, but we find no such 
evidence for Swedish MNEs. This is consistent with the hypothesis 
that German MNEs locate production stages intensive in high-
skilled labor abroad. In MNEs from either country, affiliate 
employment tends to substitute for employment at the parent firm. 
At the margin, substitutability is the strongest with respect to 
affiliate employment in Western Europe. A one percent larger wage 
gap between Germany and locations in Central and Eastern Europe (
CEE) is estimated to be associated with 900 fewer jobs in German 
parents and 5,000 more jobs in affiliates located in CEE. A one 
percent larger wage gap between Sweden and CEE is estimated to be 
associated with 140 fewer jobs in Swedish parents and 260 more 
jobs in affiliates located in CEE.
 
Keywords: Multinational enterprises; location choice; 
          multinomial choice; labor demand; translog cost function
JEL:      F21 F23 J21 J23
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1243&r=all



164. Firm-Level Evidence on International Stock Market Comovement
  
    Robin Brooks,
    Marc Del Negro

We explore the link between international stock market 
comovement and the degree to which firms operate globally. Using 
stock returns and balance sheet data for companies in 20 
countries, we estimate a factor model that decomposes stock 
returns into global, country-specific and industry-specific 
shocks. We find a large and highly significant link: on average, 
a firm raising its international sales by 10 percent raises the 
exposure of its stock return to global shocks by 2 percent and 
reduces its exposure to countryspecific shocks by 1.5 percent. 
This link has grown stronger since the mid-1980s.
 
Keywords: Diversification; risk; international financial markets;
          industrial structure
JEL:      G11 G15
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1244&r=all



165. International Diversification at Home and Abroad
  
    Fang Cai
    Francis E. Warnock

We analyze foreigners’ and domestic institutional investors’ 
positions in U.S. equities. Controlling for many factors, we 
uncover a common preference for large firms and firms that are 
diversified internationally. The domestic preference for 
internationally diversified firms implies that investors might 
obtain substantial international diversification by investing at 
home. Using an international factor model, we show that exposure 
to foreign equity markets is indeed greater for domestic firms 
that are more diversified internationally, suggesting that at 
least some of the home-grown foreign exposure translates into 
international diversification benefits. After accounting for home-
grown foreign exposure, the share of ‘foreign’ equities in 
investors’ portfolios nearly doubles, reducing (but not 
eliminating) the observed home bias.
 
Keywords: home bias, international portfolio allocation, foreign 
          exposure
JEL:      G11 G15 G3
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1246&r=all



166. The Determinants of Intra-Firm Trade: In Search form Export-
     Import Magnification Effects
  
    Peter Egger
    Michael Pfaffermayr

This paper studies the determinants of Austrian bilateral intra-
firm trade in a panel of industry-level intra-firm goods trade 
flows. Economic size, unit labor costs and the magnification 
effects originating from multiple border crossing of sequentially 
finished products are found to be the most important determinants 
of trade within multinational firms. Especially, our evidence 
lends support to multiple border crossing of sequentially 
finished products, an argument that recently has been put forward 
in the outsourcing literature.
 
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1247&r=all



167. Foreign Direct Investment, Spillovers and Absorptive 
     Capacity: Evidence from Quantile Regressions
  
    Sourafel Girma
    Holger Gorg

This paper focuses on the role of absorptive capacity in 
determining whether or not domestic firms benefit from 
productivity spillovers from FDI using establishment level data 
for the UK. We allow for different effects of FDI on 
establishments located at different quantiles of the productivity 
distribution by using conditional quantile regression. Overall, 
while there is some heterogeneity in results across sectors and 
quantiles, our findings clearly suggest that absorptive capacity 
matters for productivity spillover benefits. We find evidence for 
a u-shaped relationship between productivity growth and FDI 
interacted with absorptive capacity. We also analyse in some 
detail the impact of changes in absorptive capacity on 
establishments’ ability to benefit from spillovers.
 
Keywords: foreign direct investment, absorptive capacity, 
          productivity spillovers, quantile regressions
JEL:      F21 F23
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1248&r=all



168. Multinational Enterprises, International Trade, and 
     Productivity Growth: Firm-Level Evidence from the United 
     States
  
    Wolfgang Keller
    Stephen R. Yeaple

We estimate international technology spillovers to U.S. 
manufacturing firms via imports and foreign direct investment (
FDI) between the years of 1987 and 1996. In contrast to earlier 
work, our results suggest that FDI leads to substantial 
productivity gains for domestic firms. The size of FDI spillovers 
is economically important, accounting for about 11% of 
productivity growth in U.S. firms between 1987 and 1996. In 
addition, there is some evidence for imports-related spillovers, 
but it is weaker than for FDI. The paper also gives a detailed 
account of why our study leads to results different from those 
found in previous work. This analysis indicates that our results 
are likely to generalize to other countries and periods.
 
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1249&r=all



169. Multinational Firms, Exclusivity, and the Degree of 
     Backward Linkages
  
    Ping Lin
    Kamal Saggi

This paper develops a two-tier oligopoly model in which the 
entry of a multinational firm results in technology transfer to 
its local suppliers and also impacts the degree of backward 
linkages in the local industry. The model endogenizes the 
multinational’s choice between anonymous market interaction 
with its suppliers and contractual relationships with them under 
which the multinational transfer technology to its suppliers who 
in turn agree to serve the multinational exclusively. The 
multinational’s entry under an exclusive contract has a de-
linking e.ect that can reduce the degree of competition among 
suppliers thereby leading to a decline in the level of backward 
linkages and local welfare. With its emphasis on the supply-side 
e.ects of the multinational’s entry on local industry, this 
paper complements existing studies of backward linkages that 
focus more on demand-side e.ects.
 
Keywords: Multinational Firms, Backward Linkages, Vertical 
          Technology Transfer, Exclusivity
JEL:      F23 F12 O19 O14 L13
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1250&r=all



170. Learning on the Quick and Cheap: Gains from Trade through 
     Imported Expertise
  
    James R. Markusen
    Thomas F. Rutherford

Gains from productivity and knowledge transmission arising from 
the presence of foreign firms has received a good deal of 
empirical attention, but micro-foundations for this mechanism are 
weak . Here we focus on production by foreign experts who may 
train domestic unskilled workers who work with them. Gains from 
training can in turn be decomposed into two types: (a) obtaining 
knowledge and skills at a lower cost than if they are self-taught 
at home, (b) producing domestic skilled workers earlier in time 
than if they the domestic economy had to rediscover the relevant 
knowledge through “reinventing the wheel”. We develop a three-
period model in which the economy initially has no skilled 
workers. Workers can withdraw from the labor force for two 
periods of self study and then produce as skilled workers in the 
third period. Alternatively, foreign experts can be hired in 
period 1 and domestic unskilled labor working with the experts 
become skilled in the second period. We analyze how production, 
training, and welfare depend on two important parameters: the 
cost of foreign experts and the learning (or “absorptive”) 
capacity of the domestic economy.
 
Keywords: learning, transmission mechanism, multinationals, 
          imported experetise
JEL:      F13 F23
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1251&r=all



171. Taxes and the Financial Structure of German Inward FDI
  
    Fred Ramb
    Alfons J. Weichenrieder

The paper analyses the financial structure of German inward FDI. 
>From a tax perspective, intra-company loans granted by the parent 
should be all the more strongly preferred over equity the lower 
the tax rate of the parent and the higher the tax rate of the 
German affiliate. From our study of a panel of more than 8,000 
non-financial affiliates in Germany, we find only small effects 
of the tax rate of the foreign parent. However, our empirical 
results show that subsidiaries that on average are profitable 
react more strongly to changes in the German corporate tax rate 
than this is the case for less profitable firms. This gives 
support to the frequent concern that high German taxes are partly 
responsible for the high levels of intra-company loans. Taxation, 
however, does not fully explain the high levels of intra-company 
borrowing. Roughly 60% of the cross-border intra-company loans 
turn out to be held by firms that are running losses.
 
Keywords: foreign direct investment, financial structure, 
          taxation
JEL:      F23 H25
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1252&r=all



172. Distributional Effects in Household Models: Separate 
     Spheres and Income Pooling
  
    Martin Browning
    Pierre-Andre Chiappori (Department of Economics, University 
      of Chicago)
    Valerie Lechene (University of British Columbia) (Wadham 
      College, Oxford)

We derive distributional effects for a non-cooperative 
alternative to the unitary model of household behaviour. We 
consider the Nash equilibria of a voluntary contributions to 
public goods game. Our main result is that, in general, the two 
partners either choose to contribute to different public goods or 
they contribute to at most one common good. The former case 
corresponds to the separate spheres case of Lundberg and Pollak (
1993). The second outcome yields (local) income pooling. A 
household will be in different regimes depending on the 
distribution of income within the household. Any bargaining model 
with this non-cooperative case as a breakdown point will inherit 
the local income pooling. We conclude that targetting benefits 
such as child benefits to one household member may not always 
have an effect on outcomes.
 
Keywords: Nash equilibrium; Nash bargaining; collective models; 
          intra-household allocation; local income pooling; 
          separate spheres
JEL:      D10 C71 C72
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuieca:2005_08&r=all



173. Local Disaggregation of Negative Demand and Excess Demand 
     Functions
  
    Pierre-Andre Chiappori (Department of Economics, Columbia 
      University)
    Ivar Ekeland (University of British Columbia)
    Martin Browning (Institute of Economics, University of 
      Copenhagen)

The literature on the characterization of aggregate excess and 
market demand has generated three types of results: global, local,
or ’at a point’. In this note, we study the relationship 
between the last two approaches. We prove that within the class 
of functions satisfying standard conditions and whose Jacobian 
matrix is negative semi-definite, only n/2 + 1 agents are needed 
for the ’at’ decomposition. We ask whether, within the same 
class, the ’around’ decomposition also requires only n/2 + 1 
agents.
 
Keywords: aggregation; market demand functions
JEL:      D51
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuieca:2005_09&r=all



174. Estimating Euler Equations with Noisy Data: Two Exact GMM 
     Estimators
  
    Sule Alan (Department of Economics, York University, Toronto)
    Orazio Attanasio (Department of Economics, University 
      College London)
    Martin Browning (Institute of Economics, University of 
      Copenhagen)

In this paper we exploit the specific structure of the Euler 
equation and develop two alternative GMM estimators that deal 
explicitly with measurement error. The first estimator assumes 
that the measurement error is lognormally distributed. The second 
estimator drops the distributional assumption and solves out for 
the unknown, but constant, conditional mean. Our Monte Carlo 
results suggest that both proposed estimators perform much better 
than conventional alternatives based on the exact Euler equation 
or its log-linear approximation, especially with short panels.
 
Keywords: nonlinear models; measurement error; Euler equation
JEL:      C13 E21
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuieca:2005_10&r=all



175. On the Foundation of Guidelines for Health Economic 
     Evaluation
  
    Hans Keiding (Institute of Economics, University of 
      Copenhagen)

In recent years, there has been increased interest in setting up 
guidelines for carrying out cost-effectiveness analysis of 
medical interventions, and some such guidelines have indeed been 
established. In the paper, we present a model of information 
retrievement and use in which we can study the role of guidelines.
The main result, which is a version of the well-known theorem of 
Blackwell (1948), shows that in cases where there are 
sufficiently many decisions to be made on the basis of the 
information obtained, there can be no objective ranking of 
methods, except the trivial one stating that more information is 
better than less. The consequence is that guidelines, and the 
very detailed version known as the reference case approach, may 
have administrative advantages but can be harmful when considered 
as an aid towards better decisions.
 
Keywords: cost-effectiveness; guidelines; Blackwell’s theorem
JEL:      I19 D81
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuiedp:0507&r=all



176. Financial Giffen Goods
  
    Rolf Poulsen (Institute for Mathematical Sciences, 
      University of Copenhagen)
    Kourosh Marjani Rasmussen (Technical University of Denmark)

In the basic mean/variance framework, a stock's weight in 
effcient portfolios goes up if its expected rate of return goes 
up. In more complicated, realistic portfolio choice problems, 
surprising effects can occur.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuiefr:200506&r=all



177. How to Invest Optimally in Corporate Bonds: A Reduced-Form 
     Approach
  
    Holger Kraft (Department of Mathematics, University of 
      Kaiserslautern)
    Mogens Steffensen (Fraunhofer ITWM, Institute for Industrial 
      Mathematics, Department of Finance, Kaiserslautern)

In this paper, we analyze the impact of default risk on the 
portfolio decision of an investor wishing to invest in corporate 
bonds. Default risk is modeled via a reduced form approach and we 
allow for random recovery as well as joint default events. 
Depending on the structure of the model, we are able to derive 
almost explicit results for the optimal portfolio strategies. It 
is demonstrated how these strategies change if common default 
factors can trigger defaults of more than one bond or different 
recovery assumptions are imposed. In particular, we analyze the 
effect of beta distributed loss rates.
 
Keywords: portfolio optimization; stochastic interest rates; 
          default risk; recovery risk; beta distribution
JEL:      G11 G33
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuiefr:200507&r=all



178. La diversite des emotions ressenties dans un point de 
     vente.
  
    LICHTLE, Marie-Christine (LEG-CERMAB - CNRS - IAE - 
      Universite de Bourgogne)
    PLICHON, Veronique (IUT de Tours - CERMAT)

De nombreuses recherches ont montre que les simuli sensoriels 
de l'atmosphere du point de vente pouvaient affecter le 
comportement du consommateur. Certaines pratiques des 
distributeurs cherchent, en effet, a valoriser l'experience 
vecue par le chaland, en lui faisant eprouver certaines 
sensations. Toutefois, la diversite des reactions affectives 
pouvant etre suscitees dans un environnement commercial n'a pas 
encore ete mise en evidence. C'est l'objet de la presente 
etude. Les resultats montrent, d'une part, que les etats 
affectifs peuvent etre decrits par 6 dimensions et sont 
d'intensite variable. D'autre part, certaines enseignes de la 
distribution peuvent etre caracterisees par le type et 
l'intensite des emotions ressenties. Sensory stimuli of a 
retail environment are supposed to influence consumer behavior. 
In fact, the aim of retailers may be to improve the shopping 
experience, by creating specific feelings. But the diversity of 
affects generated in a point of sale environment has not been 
underlined. On the one hand, results show that affects can be 
represented by 6 dimensions and that their intensity is variable. 
On the other hand, retail organizations may be described by the 
type and the intensity of the emotions felt by customers.
 
Keywords: consommateur ; point de vente ; sensations
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lat:gstion:2005-03&r=all



179. Can we speak of a "wheel of retail logistics? The 
     contribution of the wheel of retailing model.
  
    FILSER, Marc (LEG-CERMAB - CNRS - IAE - Universite de 
      Bourgogne)
    Pache, Gilles (ISEM-ERFI - Universite de Montpellier)

Academic research in retail logistics frequently emphasizes the 
importance of the logistics customer service for large retailers 
wishing to develop a sustainable competitive advantage. This 
research paper questions the validity of this reasoning, implying 
an evolution toward an indispensable logistical excellence. It 
seems that the new retail formats favouring a strategy of cost 
leadership, require as a priority the lowest possible logistical 
costs, rather than high customer service. It is only when these 
new retail formats propose sophisticated marketing services that 
customer service becomes essential, even if this means 
sacrificing logistical costs. But another retail format will then 
appear in the retailing sector, again favouring a strategy of 
cost leadership (and of low logistical costs). Therefore, the 
evolution of retail logistics is iterative, with constant returns 
to the components of logistical performance thought to be 
critical by large retailers. The concept of a "wheel of retail 
logistics", in reference to McNair's (1957) wheel of retailing 
model, is suggested to explain this phenomenon, with an 
application to the French context.
 
Keywords: Cost leadership strategy, Customer service, France, 
          Retail logistics, Wheel of retailing model
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lat:gstion:2005-04&r=all



180. New Economic Geography meets Comecon: Regional Wages and 
     Industry Location in Central Europe
  
    Marius Brulhart
    Pamina Koenig

We analyze the internal spatial wage and employment structures 
of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia, 
using regional data for 1996-2000. A new economic geography model 
predicts wage gradients and specialization patterns that are 
smoothly related to regions' relative market access. As an 
alternative, we formulate a "Comecon hypothesis", according to 
which wages and sectoral location are not systematically related 
to market access except for discrete concentrations in capital 
regions. Our estimations confirm the ongoing relevance of the 
Comecon hypothesis: compared to pre-2004 EU members, Central 
European countries' average wages and service employment were 
still discretely higher in capital regions. Our results point 
towards an increase in relative wages and employment shares of 
Central Europe's provincial regions, favoring particularly those 
that are proximate to the large markets of incumbent EU members.
 
Keywords: regional wages; industry location; transition 
          economies; Central Europe; new economic geography
JEL:      P25 R12
Date:     2005-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lau:crdeep:05.01&r=all



181. On Monopolistic Competition and Optimal Product Diversity: 
     a Comment on Cost Structure and Workers' Rents
  
    Pierre M. Picard
    Eric Toulemonde

In the Dixit-Stiglitz model of monopolistic competition, entry 
of firms is socially too small. Other authors have shown that 
excess entry is also a possibility with other preferences for 
diversity. We show that the cost structure and workers's rents 
can also explain excess entry.
 
Keywords: monopolistic competition; product diversity
JEL:      D43 J5 L13 L16
Date:     2005-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lau:crdeep:05.02&r=all



182. An Empirical Analysis of U.S. Aggregate Portfolio 
     Allocations
  
    Michel Normandin
    Pascal St-Amour

This paper analyzes the important time variation in U.S. 
aggregate portfolio allocations. To do so, we first use flexible 
descriptions of preferences and investment opportunities to 
derive optimal decision rules that nest tactical, myopic, and 
strategic portfolio allocations. We then compare these rules to 
the data through formal statistical analysis. Our main results 
reveal that i) purely tactical and myopic investment behaviors 
are unambiguously rejected, ii) strategic portfolio allocations 
are strongly supported, and iii) the Fama-French factors best 
explain empirical portfolio shares.
 
Keywords: portfolio; factorial pricing; dynamic hedging
JEL:      G11
Date:     2005-03
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lau:crdeep:05.03&r=all



183. Direct Preference for Wealth in Aggregate Household 
     Portfolio
  
    Pascal St-Amour

According to standard theory, wealth should have no intrinsic 
value. Yet, conventional wisdom, recent theories, and data 
suggest it might. We verify whether or not households have direct 
preferences over wealth in selecting assets. The fully structural 
econometric model focuses on a multivariate Brownian motion in 
optimal consumption, portfolios and wealth. Using aggregate 
portfolio data, we find that wealth (i) is directly valued, (ii) 
reduces marginal utility and (iii) reduces risk aversion, while 
we reject the HARA, and CRRA restrictions. Consequently, wealth-
dependent utility generates a larger IMRS risk, justifying a 
larger, more predictable risk premium and a lower risk-free rate.
 
Keywords: portfolio choice; wealth-dependent preferences; 
          preference for status; asset pricing; equity premium; 
          risk-free rate; predictability
JEL:      G11 G12
Date:     2005-03
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lau:crdeep:05.04&r=all



184. Why Forcing People to Save Retirement May Backfire
  
    Monika Butler
    Olivia Huguenin
    Federica Teppa

Early retirement is predominantly considered to be the result of 
incentives set by social security and the tax system. But the 
Swiss example demonstrates that the incidence of early retirement 
has dramatically increased even in the absence of institutional 
changes. We argue that an actuarially fair, but mandatory funded 
system may also distort optimal individual allocation. If 
individuals are credit constraint (or just reluctant to borrow), 
a higher than desired retirement capital induces people to retire 
earlier than they would have in the absence of such a scheme. 
Individuals thus retire as soon as the retirement income is 
deemed sufficient the pension plan avails withdrawal of benefits. 
We provide evidence using individual data from a selection of 
Swiss pension funds, allowing us to perfectly control for pension 
scheme details. Our findings suggest that affordability is indeed 
a key determinant in the retirement decisions. The fact that 
early retirement has become much more prevalent in the last 15 
years is a strong indicator for the importance of affordability 
as the maturing the Swiss mandatory funded pension system over 
that period has led to an increase in the already high effective 
replacement rates. Moreover, even after controlling for the time 
trend, the higher the accumulated pension capital, the earlier 
men, and - to a smaller extent - women, tend to leave the work 
force.
 
Keywords: occupational pension; retirement decision; duration 
          models
JEL:      D91 H31 J26
Date:     2005-04
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lau:crdeep:05.05&r=all



185. Le debat sur la croissance economique en Suisse Quelles 
     conclusions ? (text in French)
  
    Jean-Christian Lambelet
    Claudio Sfreddo

" Switzerland is the growth laggard in the industrial world " - 
this dismal view has become part and parcel of today's 
conventional wisdom in Switzerland and elsewhere. We show it to 
be but partially true : accurate when judged by the trend growth 
rate of officially recorded real GDPs in 1970-2003, but not when 
considering what we call "adjusted real gross national incomes" ; 
i.e. a better measure of the populations' material wellbeing than 
real GDPs, although less correlated with employment and 
unemployment. The adjustment has to do with how to deflate the 
balance of goods and services as well as the balance of factor 
income. More important, and perhaps novel, is that there appears 
to be no statistically significant difference between the 
estimated trend growth rate of Switzerland's corrected gross 
national income and that of most other European countries : 
almost all tend to grow at a rate of about 2% p.a. There is 
however a significant long-term growth differential between these 
European countries, including Switzerland, and overseas ones such 
as Australia, Canada and the USA. This is because most of Europe 
suffers from well-known and weighty structural problems, not 
necessarily the same everywhere, but which should be addressed 
urgently and efficiently everywhere. The paper also includes a 
"parable" on the economic impact of oil price shocks, which may 
be useful for didactical purposes.
 
Keywords: real GDP vs. material wellbeing; significantly 
          different trend growth rates; Switzerland vs. other 
          European and overseas economies; structural problems; 
          oil price shocks
JEL:      A20 C12 D43 L13 O47 O51 O52 O56
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lau:crdeep:05.06&r=all



186. Safety Net Design and Systemic Risk: New Empirical Evidence
  
    Kluh, Ulrich

Recent econometric evidence has noticeably changed views on the 
desirability and the appropriate design of explicit Deposit 
Insurance Schemes (DIS). The purpose of this paper is to take a 
second look at the data. After surveying recent empirical work 
and providing a theoretical framework, we argue that existing 
studies may suffer from a selection bias. Building on a new 
database on explicit deposit insurance compiled by the author, we 
perform a variety of semi-parametric and parametric tests to see 
whether and how explicit deposit insurance (de)stabilizes banking 
systems. We find that the evidence indeed suggests that a 
selection bias is present. Controlling for this bias leads to a 
reassessment of recent studies. In particular, making deposit 
insurance explicit has a rather moderate and, if any, stabilizing 
effect on the probability of experiencing a systemic crisis.
 
JEL:      G28 G21 C14
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lmu:muenec:662&r=all



187. Is the Speed of Convergence a Good Proxy for the 
     Transitional Growth Path?
  
    Chris Papageorgiou
    Fidel Perez-Sebastian

This paper compares transitional dynamics in two alternative R&D 
non-scale growth models, one includes endogenous human capital, 
whereas the other does not. We show that focusing on the speed of 
convergence to discriminate between the two models can be 
misleading. Our analysis suggest that a better alternative to 
discriminate between different growth theories is studying the 
whole adjustment path predicted by them. In addition, we find 
that the introduction of human capital makes the speed of 
convergence predicted by the model much less sensitive to 
exogenous shocks. This last result offers theoretical support to 
the similar convergence speeds estimated by the literature in 
different samples.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lsu:lsuwpp:2005-10&r=all



188. Developing Country Superwomen: Impacts of Trade 
     Liberalisation on Female Market and Domestic Work
  
    Ismael Fofana
    John Cockburn
    Bernard Decaluwe

This study analyses the effects of trade liberalisation on male 
and female work in Nepal. Our contribution is principally based 
upon the leisure activities modeling on one hand, and the effects 
of male participation in domestic work with trade policy analysis 
on the other hand. While previous studies explicitly incorporate 
leisure activities that required data about which little is known,
we use a microeconomic model and alternative calibration 
procedures to avoid arbitrariness. The experiment conducted in 
this study shows that the complete elimination of tariffs on 
imported goods in Nepal benefits women more than men in terms of 
earnings as their wage increases relatively to men. Generally, 
female market work expands in rural households and contracts in 
urban households. It appears that the entrance into market 
production has not been met with an equivalent reduction in the 
time they spend in domestic work. Consequently the leisure time 
of women declines as they enter the labor market. Furthermore, 
the study indicates that leisure time consumed by men, which is 
already greater than that consumed by women, increases with trade 
reform. The extend of male participation in domestic work 
significantly conditions the impacts on male and female wage 
rates and household labor supply decisions. When male 
participation in domestic work activities is low, women generally 
devote less time to market labor. However, their contribution to 
household income strill increases following trade reform as their 
wage rates rise relative to male market wage rates. Women are 
more responsive to the market when there is greatest scope to 
substitute between female domestic and market work, as occurs 
when men are more involved in domestic work. However, even in 
these cases their domestic work does not necessarily decrease in 
the same proportion.
 
Keywords: Nepal, trade, gender, leisure, home production, and 
          computable general equilibrium
JEL:      C68 F14 F17 J16
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:0519&r=all



189. The Optimal Number of Charities
  
    Barla, Philippe
    Pestieau, P.

In this paper charity brings some joy of giving; it yields more 
contributions to public goods than standard "subscription", but 
its creation is costly. We compare the laissez-faire number of 
charities with both the second and the first-best level. In 
general, laissez-faire implies an underprovision of both 
charities and public goods.
 
Keywords: Charities, Public Good
JEL:      L31 H41
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:laeccr:0501&r=all



190. Computable General Equilibrium Micro-Simulation Analysis of 
     the Impact of Trade Policies on Poverty in Zimbabwe
  
    Margaret Chitiga
    Tonia Kandiero
    Ramos Mabugu

The paper uses a micro-simulation computable general equilibrium 
CGE) model to study the impact on poverty of trade 
liberalisation in Zimbabwe. The model incorporates 14006 
households derived from the 1995 Poverty Assessment Study Survey (
PASS). The novelty of this paper is that it is one among a small 
group of papers that incorporates individual households in the 
CGE model as opposed to having representative households, 
allowing for a comprehensive analysis of poverty. The complete 
removal of tariffs favours export-oriented sectors and all 
imports increase. Poverty falls in the economy while inequality 
hardly changes. The results differ between rural and urban areas.
 
Keywords: Computable General Equilibrium, Trade Liberalisation, 
          Micro-simulation, Poverty, Inequality
JEL:      C68 D31 D58 I32
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:mpiacr:2005-01&r=all



191. Implications of WTO Agreements and Domestic Trade Policy 
     Reforms for Poverty in Bangladesh: Short vs. Long Run
  
    Nabil Annabi
    H. Khondker Bazlul
    Selim Raihan
    John Cockburn
    Bernard Decaluwe

We examine the impacts of WTO agreements and domestic trade 
policy reforms on production, welfare and poverty in Bangladesh. 
A sequential dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, 
which takes into account accumulation effects, is used allowing 
for long run analysis. The study is based on 2000 SAM of 
Bangladesh including fifteen production sectors, four factors of 
production (skilled and unskilled labour, agricultural and non-
agricultural capital) and mine household groups (five in rural 
areas and four in urban areas) based on the year 2000 household 
survey. To examine the link between the macro effects and micro 
effects in terms of poverty we use the representative household 
approach with actual intra-group income distributions. The study 
presents five simulations for which the major findings are: (1) 
the Doha scenario has negative implications for the overall macro 
economy, household welfare and poverty in Bangladesh. Terms of 
trade deteriorate and consumer prices, particularly food prices, 
increase more than nominal incomes, especially among poor 
households; (2) Free world trade has similar, but larger, impacts;
(3) Domestic trade liberalisation induces an expansion of 
agricultural and light manufacturing sectors, favourable changes 
in the domestic terms of trade. Although the short run welfare 
and poverty impacts are negative, these turn positive in the long 
run when capital has adjusted through new investments. Rising 
unskilled wage rates make the poorest household the biggest 
winners in terms of welfare and poverty reduction; (4) Domestic 
liberalisation effects far outweigh those of free world trade 
when these scenarios are combined; (5) Remittances constitute a 
powerful poverty-reducing tool given their greater importance in 
the income of the poor.
 
Keywords: Dynamic CGE model, International trade, Poverty, 
          Bangladesh
JEL:      D33 D58 E27 F17 I32 O15 O53
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:mpiacr:2005-02&r=all



192. Doha Scenarios, Trade Reforms, and Poverty inthe 
     Philippines: a CGE Analysis
  
    Caesar B. Cororaton
    John Cockburn
    Erwin Corong

Since the early 1980s, the Philippines have undertaken 
substantial trade reform. The current Doha round of WTO 
negotiations is now likely to bring further reform and shocks to 
world import and export prices and world export demand. The 
impact of all these developments on the poor is not very clear 
and is the subject of very intense debate. A detailed economy-
wide CGE model is used to run a series of policy experiments. 
Poverty is found to increase slightly with the implementation of 
the Doha scenario. These effects are focused primarily among 
rural households in the wake of falling world prices and demand 
for Philippines agricultural exports. The impacts of full 
liberalization involving free world trade and complete domestic 
liberalization are found to depend strongly on the mechanism the 
government adopts to offset forgone tariff revenue. If an 
indirect tax is used, the incidence of poverty falls marginally, 
but the depth (poverty gap) and severity (squared poverty gap) 
increase substantially. If, instead, an income tax is used, all 
measures of poverty increase. In both cases, full liberalization 
favors urban households, as exports, which are primarily non-
agricultural, expand. In separate simulations, we discover that 
free world trade is poverty reducing and favors rural households, 
whereas domestic liberalization is poverty-increasing and favors 
urban households. Under free world trade, rural households 
benefit from increasing world agricultural export prices and 
demand. The anti-rural bias of domestic liberalization stems from 
the fact that import prices fall more for agricultural goods than 
for industrial goods, as initial import-weighted average tariffs 
rates are higher for the former. In conclusion, the current Doha 
agreement appears likely to slightly increase poverty, especially 
in rural areas and among the unemployed, self-employed and rural 
low-educated. The Philippines is found to have an interest in 
pushing for more ambitious world trade liberalization, as free 
world trade holds out promise for reducing poverty.
 
Keywords: Computable General Equilibrium, Microsimulation, 
          Poverty, International Trade, Philippines
JEL:      D33 D58 E27 F13 F14 I32 O15 O53
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:mpiacr:2005-03&r=all



193. Monetary Policy: From Theory to Practices
  
    Thierry Warin

The paper proposes an overview of the literature on monetary 
policy. It shows the influence of the debates in the theoretical 
literature on the actual implementation of policies, as well a 
the counter effect. The European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)
is largely studies a an exampe of this counter effect with 
regard to the study of the credibility concept in an open economy 
setting.
 
JEL:      E50 E52 E58
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0508&r=all



194. Agricultural technology and poverty reduction: a micro-
     level anal ysis of causal effects
  
    Mariapia MENDOLA

Agricultural technology opens great opportunities of increasing 
f ood grain production in land scarce countries. But questions 
are raised about the potential adverse or favourable impact of 
new te chnology on economic conditions of the poor. This study is 
aimed at contributing to the debate about the relative importance 
of ‘d irect effects’ of agricultural technology adoption in 
poverty all eviation strategies. It does so through an empirical 
investigatio n of the relationship between technological change, 
of the Green Revolution type, and wellbeing of smallholder farm 
households in two rural Bangladeshi regions. The paper tackles a 
methodological issue in assessing the “causal effect” of 
technological change o n farm-household wellbeing through the non-
parametric p-score mat ching analysis. It pursues a targeted 
evaluation of whether adopt ing a modern seed technology causes 
resource-poor farmers to impr ove their income and decrease the 
propensity to fall below the po verty line. It finds a robust and 
positive effect of agricultural technology adoption on farm 
household wellbeing suggesting that there is a large scope for 
enhancing the role of agricultural tec hnology in ‘directly’ 
contributing to poverty alleviation.
 
Keywords: Farm household behaviour, Technology adoption, Poverty 
          alleviation, Propensity score matching
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mil:wpdepa:2005-14&r=all



195. Enhancing the Quality of Data on Income and Wealth
  
    Honggao Cao (University of Michigan)
    Daniel H. Hill (University of Michigan)
    Thomas Juster (University of Michigan)
    Michael Perry (University of Michigan)

Over the last decade or so, a substantial effort has gone into 
the design of a series of methodological investigations aimed at 
enhancing the quality of survey data on income and wealth. These 
investigations have largely been conducted at the Survey Research 
Center at the University of Michigan, and have mainly involved 
two longitudinal surveys: the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), 
with a first wave beginning in 1992 and continued thereafter 
every other year through 2004; and the Assets and Health Dynamics 
Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) Study, begun in 1993 and continued 
in 1995 and 1998, then in every other year through 2004. This 
provides and overview of the main studies and summarizes what has 
been learned about correcting longitudinal inconsistencies that 
arise.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrr:papers:wp101&r=all



196. SOURCES OF INNOVATION IN THE ESTONIAN FOREST AND WOOD 
     CLUSTER
  
    Kadri Ukrainski
    Urmas Varblane

The paper aims to identify the role of different sources of 
innovation for the Estonian wood sector. Comparing data from 
survey of Innovation in Estonian Enterprises 1998 2000 with 
similar Finnish data reveals that linkages in Estonian forest and 
wood cluster are relatively weaker regarding innovation sources. 
Universities and research institutes are the weakest part 
identified in the knowledge flows of the emerging Estonian wood 
cluster. Technological capabilities of Estonian wood and forest 
industries have passed the absorption phase and entered the 
adoption phase, but still the absorptive capacities remain 
relatively low, as indicated by the high importance of internal 
innovation sources and the low intensity of using R&D 
institutions and universities as innovation sources. We applied 
binary logit model in order to identify the role of different 
sources of innovation for the Estonian wood sector. Suppliers are 
the most significant partner for innovation cooperation and also 
the second innovation source after internal sources. Customers 
are more used for innovative products and by those companies that 
lack knowledge about markets. The internal information of 
concerns is not diffused to other firms. The future development 
of the Estonian forest and wood cluster should be oriented 
towards the development of high end production capacities in the 
value network. This requires joint efforts of the government and 
industries, as well as collaboration oriented behaviour of 
Estonian companies.
 
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtk:febawb:36&r=all



197. AN ANALYSIS OF THE ECONOMIC CONVERGENCE PROCESS IN THE 
     TRANSITION COUNTRIES
  
    Urmas Varblane
    Priit Vahter

The paper is analysing the process of economic convergence of 
transition countries during the period 1995–2004. Within the 
analysed period unconditional ?-convergence across the 
transition economies existed. We could also discover the 
reduction of dispersion of income levels between accession 
countries (sigma-convergence). Comparative analyses of the new EU 
member states (NMS) economic convergence with the previous 
entrants into EU (Ireland, Greece, Spain, and Portugal) revealed 
that NMS have been much more successful in their convergence 
process before joining EU. Analyses of the macroeconomic, human 
capital, infrastructure indicators of the current accession 
countries compared with the previous cohesion countries indicated 
that the new members have been much better prepared to the 
enlargement. This allows drawing conclusion that the NMS face an 
opportunity to obtain much more rapid convergence process than 
expected by previous analyses, which have seriously undervalued 
the positive role of the pre-accession harmonisation process of 
NMS with the implementation of the major economic reforms in 
order to guarantee macroeconomic stability.
 
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtk:febawb:37&r=all



198. Impacts of Policy Reforms on Labor Migration From Rural 
     Mexico to the United States
  
    Susan M. Richter
    J. Edward Taylor
    Antonio Naude

Using new survey data from Mexico, a dynamic econometric model 
is estimated to test the effect of policy changes on the flow of 
migrant labor from rural Mexico to the United States and test for 
differential effects of policy changes on male and female 
migration. We find that both IRCA and NAFTA reduced the share of 
rural Mexicans working in the United States. Increased U.S. 
border enforcement had the opposite effect. The impacts of these 
policy variables are small compared with those of macroeconomic 
variables. The influence of policy and macroeconomic variables is 
small compared with that of migration networks, as reflected in 
past migration by villagers to the United States. The effects of 
all of these variables on migration propensities differ, 
quantitatively and in some cases qualitatively, by gender.
 
JEL:      F1 J6 J4 O1
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11428&r=all



199. Establishing Credibility: The Role of Foreign Advisors
  
    Sebastian Edwards

In this paper I analyze the role of foreign advisors in 
stabilization programs. I discuss from an analytical perspective 
why foreigners may help a developing country's government put in 
place a successful stabilization program. This framework is used 
to analyze Chile's experience with anti-inflationary policies in 
the mid 1950s. In 1955-58 Chile implemented a stabilization 
package with the advice of the U.S. consulting firm of Klein-Saks.
The Klein-Saks program took place in a period of acute political 
confrontation. After what was considered to be an initial success 
- inflation declined from 85% in 1955 to 17% in 1957 -- the 
program failed to achieve durable price stability. I argue that 
the foreign advisors of the Klein-Saks Mission gave initial 
credibility to the stabilization program launched in 1955. But 
providing initial credibility was not enough to ensure success. 
Congress failed to act decisively on the fiscal front. 
Consequently the fiscal imbalances that had plagued Chile for a 
long time were reduced, but not eliminated. I present empirical 
results on the evolution of inflation, exchange rates and 
interest rates that support my historical analysis.
 
JEL:      F30 F32
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11429&r=all



200. Sunk Costs and Real Options in Antitrust
  
    Robert S. Pindyck

Sunk costs play a central role in antitrust economics, but are 
often misunderstood and mismeasured. I will try to clarify some 
of the conceptual and empirical issues related to sunk costs, and 
explain their implications for antitrust analysis. I will be 
particularly concerned with the role of uncertainty. When market 
conditions evolve unpredictably (as they almost always do), firms 
incur an opportunity cost when they invest in new capital, 
because they give up the option to wait for the arrival of new 
information about the likely returns from the investment. This 
option value is a sunk cost, and is just as relevant for 
antitrust analysis as the direct cost of a machine or a factory.
 
JEL:      L40 L10 D43
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11430&r=all



201. Generic Scrip Share and the Price of Brand-Name Drugs: The 
     Role of the Consumer
  
    John A. Rizzo
    Richard Zeckhauser

Generic drug utilization has risen dramatically, from 19% of 
scrips in 1984 to 47% in 2001, thus bringing significant direct 
dollar savings. Generic drug use may also yield indirect savings 
if it lowers the average price of those brand-name drugs that are 
still purchased. Prior work indicates - and we confirm - that 
generic competition does not induce brand-name producers to lower 
prices. However, consumer choices between generic and brand-name 
drugs could affect the average price of those brand-name drugs 
that are purchased. We use nationally representative panel data 
on drug utilization and costs for the years 1996-2001 to examine 
how the share of an individual's prescriptions filled by generics 
affects his average out-of-pocket cost for brand-name drugs. Our 
principal finding is that a higher generic scrip share lowers 
average brand-name prices to consumers, presumably because 
consumers are more likely to substitute generics when the price 
gap is great. This effect is substantial: a 10% increase in the 
consumer's generic scrip share is associated with a 15.6% decline 
in the average price he pays for brand-name drugs.
 
JEL:      I11 D12 D40
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11431&r=all



202. Regional Economic Development and Mexican Out-Migration
  
    Kurt Unger

This paper shows evidence of positive effects in the economic 
development of sending communities in Mexico due to migration. 
The principal hypothesis of this study is that remittances, 
knowledge and experience acquired by migrants during their 
migratory cycle, can be translated into larger economic growth in 
the out migration municipalities. This result presupposes that 
Government could create complementary incentives to take 
advantage of profitable activities. Economic and migration data 
for each municipality is used which allows to associate 
characteristics of communities, migratory flows and the effects 
in profitable activities. There are three sections. A first 
section describes the sending municipalities according to 
migratory intensity and their urban /rural nature. The second 
section analyzes the relation between remittances and 
socioeconomic conditions of the communities. In a third section 
the effect over time is estimated, relating per capita income 
growth and migratory flows intensity. The most relevant results 
are the existence of income convergence over time between high 
and low migration municipalities in the North and South of Mexico.
As well, we find a positive and significant relation between per 
capita income growth and the percentage of households that 
receive remittances across communities, both at the country level 
and for the northern and southern regions separately.
 
JEL:      J1
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11432&r=all



203. Prenatal Drug Use and the Production of Infant Health
  
    Kelly Noonan
    Nancy E. Reichaman
    Hope Corman
    Dhaval Dave

We estimate the effect of illicit drug use during pregnancy on 
low birth weight. We use data from a national longitudinal study 
of urban parents that includes post-partum interviews with 
mothers, hospital medical record data on the mother and newborn, 
extensive demographic information on both parents, and 
information about the city where the mother resides. We address 
the potential endogeneity of prenatal drug use and present 
estimates using alternative measures of prenatal illicit drug use.
Depending on how drug use is measured, we find deleterious 
effects of illicit drug use on low birth weight that range from 3 
to 5 percentage points.
 
JEL:      I12
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11433&r=all



204. Capital Controls, Exchange Rate Volatility and External 
     Vulnerability
  
    Sebastian Edwards
    Roberto Rigobon

We use high frequency data and a new econometric methodology to 
evaluate the effectiveness of controls on capital inflows. We 
focus on Chile's experience during the 1990s and investigate 
whether controls on capital inflows reduced Chile's vulnerability 
to external shocks. We recognize that changes in the controls 
will affect the way in which different macro variables relate to 
each other. We take this problem seriously, and we develop a 
methodology to deal explicitly with it. The main findings may be 
summarized as follows: (a) A tightening of capital controls on 
inflows depreciates the exchange rate. (b) We find that the 
"vulnerability" of the nominal exchange rate to external factors 
decreases with a tightening of the capital controls. And (c), we 
find that a tightening of capital controls increases the 
unconditional volatility of the exchange rate, but makes this 
volatility less sensitive to external shocks.
 
JEL:      F30 F32
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11434&r=all



205. Age, Women, and Hiring: An Experimental Study
  
    Joanna Lahey

As the baby boom cohort reaches retirement age, demographic 
pressures on public programs such as social security may cause 
policy makers to cut benefits and encourage employment at later 
ages. This paper reports on a labor market experiment to 
determine the hiring conditions for older women in entry-level 
jobs in Boston, MA and St. Petersburg, FL. Differential 
interviewing by age is found for these jobs. A younger worker is 
more than 40% more likely to be offered an interview than an 
older worker. No evidence is found to support taste-based 
discrimination as a reason for this differential and some 
suggestive evidence is found to support statistical 
discrimination.
 
JEL:      J1 J7
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11435&r=all



206. Firms' Demand for Employment-Based Mental Health Benefits
  
    Judith Shinogle
    David Salkever

Employment-based health insurance is the main source of health 
coverage for the non-elderly. Few previous studies have examined 
the factors that impact employer decision-making in selecting the 
coverage to offer to their employees and none have examined 
generosity of mental health coverage. This paper uses cross-
sectional data from a survey of medium to large firms, including 
information on employee characteristics, to examine the empirical 
determinants of mental health coverage choices. We find that the 
firm's demand for mental health coverage is strongly influenced 
by employee characteristics. We also find that certain state and 
local policy interventions directed at enhancing access to mental 
health care have impacts on coverage decisions. Specifically, 
public provision of mental health lowers mental health coverage 
generosity and parity legislation increases mental health 
generosity. Future research with panel data is warranted to 
examine the causal effects of these policies.
 
JEL:      I1
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11436&r=all



207. Crafting A Class: The Trade Off Between Merit Scholarships 
     and Enrolling Lower-Income Students
  
    Ronald G. Ehrenberg
    Liang Zhang
    Jared Levin

Our paper uses institutional-level panel data to testwhether an 
increase in the number of institutionally funded National Merit 
Scholarship (NMS) winners at an institution isassociated with a 
reduction in the number of Pell Grant recipients at the 
institution. We find that, other factors held constant, an 
increase in the share of institutionally funded NMS winners in an 
institution's first-year class is associated with a reduction in 
the share of Pell Grant recipients among the institution's 
undergraduate student body and that the magnitude of this 
relationship is larges at the institutions that enroll the 
greatest number of NMS students.
 
JEL:      I2 J4
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11437&r=all



208. The Incidence of Pollution Control Policies
  
    Ian W.H. Parry
    Hilary Sigman
    Margaret Walls
    Roberton C. Williams III

This paper reviews theoretical and empirical literature on the 
household distribution of the costs and benefits of pollution 
control policies, and ways of integrating distributional issues 
into environmental cost/benefit analysis. Most studies find that 
policy costs fall disproportionately on poorer groups, though 
this is less pronounced when lifetime income is used, and 
policies affect prices of inputs used pervasively across the 
economy. The policy instrument itself is also critical; freely 
allocated emission permits may hurt the poor the most, as they 
transfer income to shareholders via scarcity rents created by 
higher prices, while emissions taxes offer opportunities for 
progressive revenue recycling. And although low-income households 
appear to bear a disproportionate share of environmental risks, 
policies that reduce risks are not always progressive, for 
example, they may alter property values in ways that benefit the 
wealthy. The review concludes by noting a number of areas where 
future research is badly needed.
 
JEL:      Q52 H23 H22
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11438&r=all



209. Caught On Tape: Institutional Order Flow and Stock Returns
  
    John Y. Campbell
    Tarun Ramadorai
    Tuomo O. Vuolteenaho

Many questions about institutional trading can only be answered 
if one can track high-frequency changes in institutional 
ownership. In the US, however, institutions are only required to 
report their ownership quarterly in 13-F filings. We infer daily 
institutional trading behavior from the "tape", the Transactions 
and Quotes database of the New York Stock Exchange, using both a 
naive approach and a sophisticated method that best matches 
quarterly 13-F data. Increases in our measures of institutional 
flows negatively predict returns, particularly when institutions 
are selling. We interpret this as evidence that 13-F institutions 
compensate more patient investors for the service of providing 
liquidity. We also find that both very large and very small 
trades signal institutional activity, while medium size trades 
signal activity by the rest of the market.
 
JEL:      G1
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11439&r=all



210. Wealth Transfers, Contagion, and Portfolio Constraints
  
    Anna Pavlova
    Roberto Rigobon

This paper examines the co-movement among stock market prices 
and exchange rates within a three-country Center-Periphery 
dynamic equilibrium model in which agents in the Center country 
face portfolio constraints. In our model, international 
transmission occurs through the terms of trade, through the 
common discount factor for cash flows, and, finally, through an 
additional channel reflecting the tightness of the portfolio 
constraints. Portfolio constraints are shown to generate 
endogenous wealth transfers to or from the Periphery countries. 
These implicit transfers are responsible for creating contagion 
among the terms of trade of the Periphery countries, as well as 
their stock market prices. Under a portfolio constraint limiting 
investment of the Center country in the stock markets of the 
Periphery, stock prices also exhibit a flight to quality: a 
negative shock to one of the Periphery countries depresses stock 
prices throughout the Periphery, while boosting the stock market 
in the Center.
 
JEL:      G12 G15 F31 F36
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11440&r=all



211. Multifrequency News and Stock Returns
  
    Laurent E. Calvet
    Adlai J. Fisher

Recent research documents that aggregate stock prices are driven 
by shocks with persistence levels ranging from daily intervals to 
several decades. Building on these insights, we introduce a 
parsimonious equilibrium model in which regime-shifts of 
heterogeneous durations affect the volatility of dividend news. 
We estimate tightly parameterized specifications with up to 256 
discrete states on daily U.S. equity returns. The multifrequency 
equilibrium has significantly higher likelihood than the classic 
Campbell and Hentschel (1992) specification, while generating 
volatility feedback effects 6 to 12 times larger. We show in an 
extension that Bayesian learning about stochastic volatility is 
faster for bad states than good states, providing a novel source 
of endogenous skewness that complements the "uncertainty" channel 
considered in previous literature (e.g., Veronesi, 1999). 
Furthermore, signal precision induces a tradeoff between skewness 
and kurtosis, and economies with intermediate investor 
information best match the data.
 
JEL:      G12 C22
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11441&r=all



212. The Risks of Financial Institutions
  
    Mark Carey
    Rene M. Stulz

Over the last twenty years, the consensus view of systemic risk 
in the financial system that emerged in response to the banking 
crises of the 1930s and before has lost much of its relevance. 
This view held that the main systemic problem is runs on solvent 
banks leading to bank panics. But financial crises of the last 
two decades have not fit the mold. A new consensus has yet to 
emerge, but financial institutions and regulators have 
considerably broadened their assessment of the risks facing 
financial institutions. The dramatic rise of modern risk 
management has changed how the risks of financial institutions 
are measured and how these institutions are managed. However, 
modern risk management is not without weaknesses that will have 
to be addressed.
 
JEL:      G2 G21 G22 G28 G10 D81
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11442&r=all



213. The Growth of Executive Pay
  
    Lucian Bebchuk
    Yaniv Grinstein

This paper examines both empirically and theoretically the 
growth of U.S. executive pay during the period 1993-2003. During 
this period, pay has grown much beyond the increase that could be 
explained by changes in firm size, performance and industry 
classification. Had the relationship of compensation to size, 
performance and industry classification remained the same in 2003 
as it was in 1993, mean compensation in 2003 would have been only 
about half of its actual size. During the 1993-2003 period, 
equity-based compensation has increased considerably in both new 
economy and old economy firms, but this growth has not been 
accompanied by a substitution effect, i.e., a reduction in non-
equity compensation. The aggregate compensation paid by public 
companies to their top-five executives during the considered 
period added up to about $350 billion, and the ratio of this 
aggregate top-five compensation to the aggregate earnings of 
these firms increased from 5% in 1993-1995 to about 10% in 2001-
2003. After presenting evidence about the growth of pay, we 
discuss alternative explanations for it. We examine how this 
growth could be explained under either the arm's length 
bargaining model of executive compensation or the managerial 
power model. Among other things, we discuss the relevance of the 
parallel rise in market capitalizations and in the use of equity-
based compensation.
 
JEL:      D23 G32 G38 J33 J44 K22 M14
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11443&r=all



214. Optimal Trading Strategy and Supply/Demand Dynamics
  
    Anna Obizhaeva
    Jiang Wang

The supply/demand of a security in the market is an 
intertemporal, not a static, object and its dynamics is crucial 
in determining market participants' trading behavior. Previous 
studies on the optimal trading strategy to execute a given order 
focuses mostly on the static properties of the supply/demand. In 
this paper, we show that the dynamics of the supply/demand is of 
critical importance to the optimal execution strategy, especially 
when trading times are endogenously chosen. Using a limit-order-
book market, we develop a simple framework to model the dynamics 
of supply/demand and its impact on execution cost. We show that 
the optimal execution strategy involves both discrete and 
continuous trades, not only continuous trades as previous work 
suggested. The cost savings from the optimal strategy over the 
simple continuous strategy can be substantial. We also show that 
the predictions about the optimal trading behavior can have 
interesting implications on the observed behavior of intraday 
volume, volatility and prices.
 
JEL:      G11 G12
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11444&r=all



215. Race, Income, and College in 25 Years: The Continuing 
     Legacy of Segregation and Discrimination
  
    Alan Krueger
    Jesse Rothstein
    Sarah Turner

The rate at which racial gaps in pre-collegiate academic 
achievement can plausibly be expected to erode is a matter of 
great interest and much uncertainty. In her opinion in Grutter v. 
Bollinger, Supreme Court Justice O'Connor took a firm stand: "We 
expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will 
no longer be necessary . . ." We evaluate the plausibility of 
Justice O'Connor's forecast, by projecting the racial composition 
and SAT distribution of the elite college applicant pool 25 years 
from now. We focus on two important margins: First, changes in 
the black-white relative distribution of income, and second, 
narrowing of the test score gap between black and white students 
within family income groups. Other things equal, progress on each 
margin can be expected to reduce the racial gap in qualifications 
among students pursuing admission to the most selective colleges. 
Under plausible assumptions, however, projected economic progress 
will not yield nearly as much racial diversity as is currently 
obtained with race-sensitive admissions. Simulations that assume 
additional increases in black students' test scores, beyond those 
deriving from changes in family income, yield more optimistic 
estimates. In this scenario, race-blind rules approach the black 
representation among admitted students seen today at moderately 
selective institutions, but continue to fall short at the most 
selective schools. Maintaining a critical mass of African 
American students at the most selective institutions would 
require policies at the elementary and secondary levels or 
changes in parenting practices that deliver unprecedented success 
in narrowing the test score gap in the next quarter century.
 
JEL:      I2 J15 J7
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11445&r=all



216. Health Insurance Reform and HMO Penetration in the Small 
     Group Market
  
    Thomas C. Buchmueller

We use data from several national employer surveys conducted 
between the late 1980s and the mid-1990s to investigate the 
effect of state-level underwriting reforms on HMO penetration in 
the small-group health insurance market. We identify reform 
effects by exploiting cross-state variation in the timing and 
content of reform legislation and by using mid-sized and large 
employers, which were not affected by the legislation, as within-
state control groups. While it is difficult to disentangle the 
effect of state reforms from other factors affecting HMO 
penetration in the small group markets, the results suggest a 
positive relationship between insurance market regulations and 
HMO penetration.
 
JEL:      I10
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11446&r=all



217. The Influence of University Research on Industrial 
     Innovation
  
    Jinyoung Kim
    Sangjoon John Lee
    Gerald Marschke

We use U.S. patent records to examine the role of research 
personnel as a pathway for the diffusion of ideas from university 
to industry. Appearing on a patent assigned to a university is 
evidence that an inventor has been exposed to university research,
either directly as a university researcher or through some form 
of collaboration with university researchers. Having an advanced 
degree is another indicator of an inventor's exposure to 
university research. We find a steady increase in industry's use 
of inventors with university research experience over the period 
1985-97, economy wide and in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor 
industries in particular. We interpret this as evidence of growth 
in the influence of university research on industrial innovation. 
Moreover, during this period we find that firms with large 
research operations in both industries, and young and highly 
capitalized firms in the pharmaceutical industry, are 
disproportionately active in the diffusion of ideas from the 
university sector. Finally, we find that the patents of firms 
that employ inventors with university research experience are 
more likely to cite university patents as prior art, suggesting 
that this experience better enables firms to tap academic 
research.
 
JEL:      J62 O31 O33
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11447&r=all



218. A Note on the Empirical Implementation of the Lens Condition
  
    Andrew B. Bernard
    Raymond Robertson
    Peter K. Schott

Deardorff [Journal of International Economics 36 (1994) 167-175] 
offers an intuitively appealing test for factor price equality (
FPE). He demonstrates that FPE is impossible if the set (i.e., 
lens) of points defined by regional factor abundance vectors does 
not lie within the set of points defined by goods' input 
intensities. This note demonstrates that empirical implementation 
of the lens condition is problematic if the "true" number of 
either goods or regions is unknown. We show that satisfaction of 
the lens condition is more likely when goods are relatively 
disaggregate compared to regions.
 
JEL:      F11 F16
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11448&r=all



219. The 2003 Dividend Tax Cuts and the Value of the Firm: An 
     Event Study
  
    Alan J. Auerbach
    Kevin A. Hassett

The "Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act of 2003" (JGTRA03) contained 
a number of significant tax provisions, but the most noteworthy 
may have been the reduction in dividend tax rates. The political 
debate over the dividend tax reductions of 2003 took a number of 
surprising twists and turns. Accordingly, it is likely that the 
views of market participants concerning the probability of 
significant dividend tax reduction fluctuated significantly 
during 2003. In this paper, we use this fact to estimate the 
effects of dividend tax policy on firm value. We find that firms 
with higher dividend yields benefited more than other dividend 
paying firms, a result that, in itself, is consistent with both 
new and traditional views of dividend taxation. But further 
evidence points toward the new view and away from the traditional 
view. We also find that non-dividend-paying firms experienced 
larger abnormal returns than other firms as the result of the 
dividend tax cut, and that a similar bonus accrued to firms 
likely to issue new shares, two results that may appear 
surprising at first but are consistent with the theory developed 
in the paper.
 
JEL:      G12 H24
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11449&r=all



220. Biomedical Academic Entrepreneurship Through the SBIR 
     Program
  
    Andrew A. Toole
    Dirk Czarnitzki

This paper considers the U.S. Small Business Innovation research 
SBIR) program as a policy fostering academic entrepreneurship. 
We highlight two main characteristics of the program that make it 
attractive as an entrepreneurship policy: early-stage financing 
and scientist involvement in commercialization. Using unique data 
on NIH supported biomedical researchers, we trace the incidence 
of biomedical entrepreneurship through SBIR and describe some of 
the characteristics of these individuals. To explore the 
importance of early-stage financing and scientist involvement, we 
complement our individual level data with information on 
scientist-linked and non-linked SBIR firms. Our results show that 
the SBIR program is being used as a commercialization channel by 
academic scientists. Moreover, we find that the firms associated 
with these scientists perform significantly better than other non-
linked SBIR firms in terms of follow-on venture capital funding, 
SBIR program completion, and patenting.
 
JEL:      O38 O31 G38 M13 C25
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11450&r=all



221. Managerial Skill Acquisition and the Theory of Economic 
     Development
  
    Paul Beaudry
    Patrick Francois

Micro level studies in developing countries suggest managerial 
skills play a key role in the adoption of modern technologies. 
The human resources literature suggests that managerial skills 
are difficult to codify and learn formally, but instead tend to 
be learned on the job. In this paper we present a model of the 
interactive process between on-the-job managerial skill 
acquisition and the adoption of modern technology. The 
environment considered is one where all learning possibilities 
are internalized in the market, and where managers are 
complementary inputs to non-managerial workers. The paper 
illustrates why some countries may adopt modern technologies 
while others stay backwards. The paper also explains why managers 
may not want to migrate from rich countries to poor countries as 
would be needed to generate income convergence.
 
JEL:      O14 O33
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11451&r=all



222. The Efforts of Taxes on Market and Resources to Dividend 
     Announcements and Payments: What Can We Learn from the 2003 
     Dividend Tax Cut?
  
    Raj Chetty
    Joseph Rosenberg
    Emmanuel Saez

This paper investigates the effects of capital gains and 
dividend taxes on excess returns around announcements of dividend 
increases and ex-dividend days for U.S. corporations. Consistent 
with standard no-arbitrage conditions, we find that the ex-
dividend day premium increased from 2002 to 2004 when the 
dividend tax rate was cut. Consistent with the signalling theory 
of dividends, we also find that the excess return for dividend 
increase announcements went down from 2002 to 2004. However, 
these findings are very sensitive to the years chosen for the pre-
reform control period. Semi-parametric graphical analysis using 
data since 1962 shows that the relationship between tax rates and 
ex-day and announcement day premia is very fragile and sensitive 
to sample period choices. Strong year-to-year fluctuations in the 
ex-day and announcement day premia greatly reduce statistical 
power, making it impossible to credibly detect responses even 
around large tax reforms. The important non-tax factors affecting 
these premia must therefore be understood before progress can be 
made in evaluating the role of taxation in market responses.
 
JEL:      G1 H3
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11452&r=all



223. The Value of Peripatetic Economists: A Sesqui-Difference 
     Evaluation of Bob Gregory
  
    Daniel S. Hamermesh

I ask generally whether a country can benefit from the temporary 
importation of human capital, and specifically whether a program 
that attracts large groups of academic visitors to a distant 
country benefits it by generating additional scholarly research 
on local issues. Using the list of visitors to the ANU Research 
School's Economics Program, I estimate this impact from responses 
to a survey in which visitors described their research before and 
after their visit and designated as a"control person" another 
economist who had a similar career but had not visited. The 
matching of the control may be viewed as being along both 
observable and (to the researcher) unobservable characteristics 
of the "treated" and control individuals. The results show a 
highly significant ceteris paribus impact of such visits on the 
visitor's subsequent research. Valuing this extra research based 
on the scholarly citations it received and the effects of 
citations on salaries shows a substantial monetary impact of 
visiting economists. Less tangible additional impacts in terms of 
research style also clearly result.
 
JEL:      J24 H43
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11453&r=all



224. Labor Supply Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit: 
     Evidence from Wisconsin Supplemental Benefit for Families 
     with Three Children
  
    Maria Cancian
    Arik Levinson

We examine the labor market consequences of the Earned Income 
Tax Credit (EITC), comparing labor market behavior of eligible 
parents in Wisconsin, which supplements the federal EITC for 
families with three children, to that of similar parents in 
states that do not supplement the federal EITC. Data come from 
the 2000 Census of Population. Most previous studies have relied 
on changes in the EITC over time, or EITC eligibility differences 
for families with and without children, or have extrapolated from 
measured labor supply responses to other tax and benefit programs,
and find significant effects of the EITC on employment. In 
contrast, our cross-state comparison examines a larger difference 
in EITC subsidy rates, uses more similar treatment and control 
groups, relies on a policy that has been in place for 5 years, 
and finds no effect of the EITC on employment or hours worked.
 
JEL:      H24 H73 J38
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11454&r=all



225. Accounting for the Effect of Health on Economic Growth
  
    David N. Weil

I use microeconomic estimates of the effect of health on 
individual outcomes to construct macroeconomic estimates of the 
proximate effect of health on GDP per capita. I use a variety of 
methods to construct estimates of the return to health, which I 
combine with cross-country and historical data on several health 
indicators including height, adult survival, and age at menarche. 
My preferred estimate of the share of cross-country variance in 
log income per worker explained by variation in health is 22.6%, 
roughly the same as the share accounted for by human capital from 
education, and larger than the share accounted for by physical 
capital. I present alternative estimates ranging between 9.5% and 
29.5%. My preferred estimate of the reduction in world income 
variance that would result from eliminating health variations 
among countries is 36.6%.
 
JEL:      I1 O1 O4
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11455&r=all



226. Does Globalization of the Scientific/Engineering Workforce 
     Threaten U.S. Economic Leadership?
  
    Richard B. Freeman

This paper develops four propositions that show that changes in 
the global job market for science and engineering (S&E) workers 
are eroding US dominance in S&E, which diminishes comparative 
advantage in high tech production and creates problems for 
American industry and workers: (1) The U.S. share of the world's 
science and engineering graduates is declining rapidly as 
European and Asian universities, particularly from China, have 
increased S&E degrees while US degree production has stagnated. 2)
The job market has worsened for young workers in S&E fields 
relative to many other high-level occupations, which discourages 
US students from going on in S&E, but which still has sufficient 
rewards to attract large immigrant flows, particularly from 
developing countries. 3) Populous low income countries such as 
China and India can compete with the US in high tech by having 
many S&E specialists although those workers are a small 
proportion of their work forces. This threatens to undo the 
"North-South" pattern of trade in which advanced countries 
dominate high tech while developing countries specialize in less 
skilled manufacturing. 4) Diminished comparative advantage in 
high-tech will create a long period of adjustment for US workers, 
of which the off-shoring of IT jobs to India, growth of high-tech 
production in China, and multinational R&D facilities in 
developing countries, are harbingers. To ease the adjustment to a 
less dominant position in science and engineering, the US will 
have to develop new labor market and R&D policies that build on 
existing strengths and develop new ways of benefitting from 
scientific and technological advances in other countries.
 
JEL:      G0 I2 F0 J0
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11457&r=all



227. Organization and Inequality in a Knowledge Economy
  
    Luis Garicano
    Esteban Rossi-Hansberg

We present a theory of the organization of work in an economy 
where knowledge is an essential input in production: a knowledge 
economy. In this economy a continuum of agents with heterogeneous 
skills must choose how much knowledge to acquire and may produce 
on their own or in organizations. Our theory generates an 
assignment of workers to positions, a wage structure, and a 
continuum of knowledge-based hierarchies. Organization allows low 
skill agents to ask others for directions. Thus, they acquire 
less knowledge than in isolation. In contrast, organization 
allows high skill agents to leverage their knowledge through 
large teams. Hence, they acquire more knowledge than on their own.
As a result, organization decreases wage inequality within 
workers, but increases income inequality among the highest skill 
agents. We also show that equilibrium assignments and earnings 
can be interpreted as the outcome of alternative market 
institutions such as firms, or consulting and referral markets. 
We use our theory to study the impact of information and 
communication technology, and contrast its predictions with US 
evidence.
 
JEL:      D2 J3 L2
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11458&r=all



228. Investment-Based Underperformance Following Seasoned Equity 
     Offerings
  
    Evgeny Lyandres
    Le Sun
    Lu Zhang

Adding a return factor based on capital investment into standard,
calendar-time factor regressions makes underperformance 
following seasoned equity offerings largely insignificant and 
reduces its magnitude by 37-46%. The reason is that issuers 
invest more than nonissuers matched on size and book-to-market. 
Moreover, the low-minus-high investment-to-asset factor earns a 
significant average return of 0.37% per month. Our evidence 
suggests that the underperformance results from the negative 
investment-expected return relation, as predicted by Carlson, 
Fisher, and Giammarino (2005).
 
JEL:      E22 E44 G12 G14 G24 G31 G32
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11459&r=all



229. The Role of Patents for Bridging the Science to Market Gap
  
    Thomas Hellmann
    

This paper examines an ex-post rationale for the patenting of 
scientific discoveries. In this model, scientist do not know 
which firms can make use of their discoveries, and firms do not 
know which scientific discoveries might be useful to them. To 
bridge this gap, either or both sides need to engage in costly 
search activities. Patents determine the appropriability of 
scientific discoveries, which affects the scientists. and firms. 
willingness to engage in search. Patents decrease dissemination 
when the search intensity of firms is sufficiently elastic, 
relative to that of scientists. The model also examines the role 
of universities. Patents facilitate the delegation of search 
activities to the universities%u2019 technology transfer offices, 
which enables efficient specialization. Rather than distracting 
scientists from doing research, patenting may be a complement to 
doing research.
 
JEL:      O33 O34 M13
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11460&r=all



230. Estimating Risk Preferences from Deductible Choice
  
    Alma Cohen
    Liran Einav

We use a large data set of deductible choices in auto insurance 
contracts to estimate the distribution of risk preferences in our 
sample. To do so, we develop a structural econometric model, 
which accounts for adverse selection by allowing for unobserved 
heterogeneity in both risk (probability of an accident) and risk 
aversion. Ex-post claim information separately identifies the 
marginal distribution of risk, while the joint distribution of 
risk and risk aversion is identified by the deductible choice. We 
find that individuals in our sample have on average an estimated 
absolute risk aversion which is higher than other estimates found 
in the literature. Using annual income as a measure of wealth, we 
find an average two-digit coe?cient of relative risk aversion. 
We also find that women tend to be more risk averse than men, 
that proxies for income and wealth are positively related to 
absolute risk aversion, that unobserved heterogeneity in risk 
preferences is higher relative to that of risk, and that 
unobserved risk is positively correlated with unobserved risk 
aversion. Finally, we use our results for counterfactual 
exercises that assess the profitability of insurance contracts 
under various assumptions.
 
JEL:      D82 G22
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11461&r=all



231. Socially Optimal Districting
  
    Stephen Coate
    Brian Knight

This paper provides a welfare economic analysis of the problem 
of districting. In the context of a simple micro-founded model 
intended to capture the salient features of U.S. politics, it 
studies how a social planner should allocate citizens of 
different ideologies across districts to maximize aggregate 
utility. In the model, districting determines the equilibrium 
seat-vote curve which is the relationship between the aggregate 
vote share of the political parties and their share of seats in 
the legislature. To understand optimal districting, the paper 
first characterizes the optimal seat-vote curve which describes 
the ideal relationship between votes and seats. It then shows 
that under rather weak conditions the optimal seat-vote curve is 
implementable in the sense that there exist districtings which 
make the equilibrium seat-vote curve equal to the optimal seat-
vote curve. The nature of these optimal districtings is described.
Finally, the paper provides a full characterization of the 
constrained optimal seat-vote curve and the districtings that 
underlie it when the optimal seat-vote curve is not achievable.
 
JEL:      D7
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11462&r=all



232. Principals as Agents: Subjective Performance Measurement in 
     Education
  
    Brian A. Jacob
    Lars Lefgren

In this paper, we compare subjective principal assessments of 
teachers to the traditional determinants of teacher compensation 
?V education and experience ?V and another potential 
compensation mechanism -- value-added measures of teacher 
effectiveness based on student achievement gains. We find that 
subjective principal assessments of teachers predict future 
student achievement significantly better than teacher experience, 
education or actual compensation, though not as well as value-
added teacher quality measures. In particular, principals appear 
quite good at identifying those teachers who produce the largest 
and smallest standardized achievement gains in their schools, but 
have far less ability to distinguish between teachers in the 
middle of this distribution and systematically discriminate 
against male and untenured faculty. Moreover, we find that a 
principal?¦s overall rating of a teacher is a substantially 
better predictor of future parent requests for that teacher than 
either the teacher?¦s experience, education and current 
compensation or the teacher?¦s value-added achievement measure. 
These findings not only inform education policy, but also shed 
light on subjective performance assessment more generally.
 
JEL:      I0
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11463&r=all



233. Affirmative Action and Its Mythology
  
    Roland G. Fryer, Jr.
    Glenn C. Loury

For more than three decades, critics and supporters of 
affirmative action have fought for the moral high ground ­ 
through ballot initiatives and lawsuits, in state legislatures, 
and in varied courts of public opinion. The goal of this paper is 
to show the clarifying power of economic reasoning to dispel some 
myths and misconceptions in the racial affirmative action debates.
We enumerate seven commonly held (but mistaken) views one often 
encounters in the folklore about affirmative action (affirmative 
action may involve goals and timelines, but definitely not quotas,
e.g.). Simple economic arguments reveal these seven views to be 
more myth than fact.
 
JEL:      J7
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11464&r=all



234. Do Formal Intellectual Property Rights Hinder the Free Flow 
     of Scientific Knowledge? An Empirical Test of the Anti-
     Commons Hypothesis
  
    Fiona Murray
    Scott Stern

While the potential for intellectual property rights to inhibit 
the diffusion of scientific knowledge is at the heart of several 
contemporary policy debates, evidence for the %u201Canti-commons 
effect%u201D has been anecdotal. A central issue in this debate 
is how intellectual property rights over a given piece of 
knowledge affects the propensity of future researchers to build 
upon that knowledge in their own scientific research activities. 
This article frames this debate around the concept of dual 
knowledge, in which a single discovery may contribute to both 
scientific research and useful commercial applications. A key 
implication of dual knowledge is that it may be simultaneously 
instantiated as a scientific research article and as a patent. 
Such patent-paper pairs are at the heart of our empirical 
strategy. We exploit the fact that patents are granted with a 
substantial lag, often many years after the knowledge is 
initially disclosed through paper publication. The knowledge 
associated with a patent paper pair therefore diffuses within two 
distinct intellectual property environments %u2013 one associated 
with the pre-grant period and another after formal IP rights are 
granted. Relative to the expected citation pattern for 
publications with a given quality level, anticommons theory 
predicts that the citation rate to a scientific publication 
should fall after formal IP rights associated with that 
publication are granted. Employing a differences-indifferences 
estimator for 169 patent-paper pairs (and including a control 
group of publications from the same journal for which no patent 
is granted), we find evidence for a modest anti-commons effect (
the citation rate after the patent grant declines by between 9 
and 17%). This decline becomes more pronounced with the number of 
years elapsed since the date of the patent grant, and is 
particularly salient for articles authored by researchers with 
public sector affiliations.
 
JEL:      O30 O33 O34 L33
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11465&r=all



235. Spacey Parents: Spatial Autoregressive Patterns in Inbound 
     FDI
  
    Bruce A. Blonigen
    Ronald B. Davies
    Helen T. Naughton
    Glen R. Waddell

Increasing attention has been given to the impact of third 
countries on outbound FDI to a given host country. Here, we 
consider potential third-country effects on inbound FDI. A simple 
model suggests two sources of such effects on a country's inbound 
FDI. First, it will tend to receive more FDI from parent 
countries proximate to large third countries. Second, FDI from 
third countries may increase or decrease FDI from the parent 
country in question depending on whether production spillovers or 
crowding out effects dominate. Using data on US inbound FDI from 
OECD countries during 1980-2000, we find strong evidence for 
parent market proximity effects. We find robust results for third 
country FDI effects only in a European subsample. There, crowding 
out effects dominate.
 
JEL:      F21 F23
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11466&r=all



236. Implications of Dynamic Factor Models for VAR Analysis
  
    James H. Stock
    Mark W. Watson

This paper considers VAR models incorporating many time series 
that interact through a few dynamic factors. Several econometric 
issues are addressed including estimation of the number of 
dynamic factors and tests for the factor restrictions imposed on 
the VAR. Structural VAR identification based on timing 
restrictions, long run restrictions, and restrictions on factor 
loadings are discussed and practical computational methods 
suggested. Empirical analysis using U.S. data suggest several (7) 
dynamic factors, rejection of the exact dynamic factor model but 
support for an approximate factor model, and sensible results for 
a SVAR that identifies money policy shocks using timing 
restrictions.
 
JEL:      C32 E17
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11467&r=all



237. Predicting the Equity Premium Out of Sample: Can Anything 
     Beat the Historical Average?
  
    John Y. Campbell
    Samuel B. Thompson

A number of variables are correlated with subsequent returns on 
the aggregate US stock market in the 20th Century. Some of these 
variables are stock market valuation ratios, others reflect 
patterns in corporate finance or the levels of short- and long-
term interest rates. Amit Goyal and Ivo Welch (2004) have argued 
that in-sample correlations conceal a systematic failure of these 
variables out of sample: None are able to beat a simple forecast 
based on the historical average stock return. In this note we 
show that forecasting variables with significant forecasting 
power in-sample generally have a better out-of-sample performance 
than a forecast based on the historical average return, once 
sensible restrictions are imposed on the signs of coefficients 
and return forecasts. The out-of-sample predictive power is small,
but we find that it is economically meaningful. We also show 
that a variable is quite likely to have poor out-of-sample 
performance for an extended period of time even when the variable 
genuinely predicts returns with a stable coefficient.
 
JEL:      G1
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11468&r=all



238. Taxation and the Evolution of Aggregate Corporate Ownership 
     Concentration
  
    Mihir A. Desai
    Dhammika Dharmapala
    Winnie Fung

Legal rules, politics and behavioral factors have all been 
emphasized as explanatory factors in analyses of the determinants 
of the concentration of corporate ownership and stock market 
participation. An extension of standard tax clientele arguments 
demonstrates that changes in the progressivity of taxes can also 
significantly influence patterns of equity ownership. A novel 
index of the concentration of corporate ownership over the 
twentieth century in the U.S. provides the opportunity to 
quantitatively test for the role of taxes in shaping ownership 
concentration. The index of ownership concentration is 
characterized by considerable time series variation, with 
significant diffusion of ownership in the post WWII era and 
reconcentration in the late 1990s. Analysis of this index 
indicates that the progressivity of taxation significantly 
influences corporate ownership concentration and equity market 
participation as predicted by the model. This evidence supports 
the intuition of Berle and Means (1932) that taxation can 
significantly influence patterns of equity ownership.
 
JEL:      G30 H24
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11469&r=all



239. Early Academis Science and the Birth of Industrial Research 
     Laboratories in the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry
  
    Megan MacGarvie
    Jeffrey L. Furman

The establishment and growth of industrial research laboratories 
is one of the key organizational innovations affecting 
technological progress in the United States in the 20th century. 
In this paper, we investigate the rise of industrial research 
laboratories in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry between 1927 and 
1946. Our evidence suggests that institutional factors, namely 
the presence of universities dedicated to research, played a 
significant role in the establishment and diffusion of private 
pharmaceutical research laboratories. Specifically, we document 
that the growth of industrial pharmaceutical laboratories between 
1927 and 1946 is positively and significantly correlated with the 
extent of local university research, after controlling for other 
observable factors likely to influence the geographic 
distribution of industrial research. We supplement our core 
results with case histories illustrative of early university-
industry interaction and an examination of the determinants of 
university-industry research cooperation. Our qualitative 
historical evidence and analyses of the birth of chemical 
engineering programs suggest that industry also played a role in 
influencing university research agendas. We correct for feedback 
effects from industry to universities using instrumental 
variables. Overall, our analyses suggest that while the presence 
of industrial facilities helped shape the direction of university 
research programs, there was a significant, positive, and causal 
effect running from university research to the growth of 
pharmaceutical research laboratories in the first half of the 
twentieth century in the United States.
 
JEL:      O32 N00
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11470&r=all



240. Heterogeneous Firms and Trade: Testable and Untestable 
     Properties of the Melitz Model
  
    Richard Baldwin

This paper sets out a basic heterogeneous-firms trade model that 
is closely akin to Melitz (2003). The positive and normative 
properties of the model are studied in a manner intended to 
highlight the core economic logic of the model. The paper also 
studies the impact of greater openness at the firm-level and 
aggregate level, focusing on changes in the number and type of 
firms, trade volumes and prices, and productivity effects. The 
normative effects of liberalisation are also studied and here the 
paper focuses on aggregate gains from trade, and income 
redistribution effects, showing inter alia that the model is 
marked by a Stolper-Samuelson like effect. A number of 
empirically testable hypotheses are also developed. These concern 
the impact of greater openness on the firm-level trade pattern, 
the variance of unit-prices, the stock market valuation of firms 
according to size, and the lobbying behaviour by size.
 
JEL:      F1 F2 F3
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11471&r=all



241. The Living Standards, Incomes and Accommodation Costs of 
     Older New Zealanders Revisited
  
    Roger Hurnard
    Dean Hyslop
    Ivan Tuckwell (New Zealand Treasury)

In 2001 the then Ministry of Social Policy published a 
comprehensive study of the living standards of older New 
Zealanders. The current paper revisits the estimated relationship 
between material well-being and the current income and 
accommodation costs of older people, and questions the extent to 
which income and accommodation costs directly affect well-being 
or proxy for other factors. We first extend the estimated 
relationship between material well-being and current income to 
include the source of the income as well as its level. We find 
that controlling for different income sources roughly halves the 
estimated associative effect of income on material well-being. 
Furthermore, for a given level of income, those with higher 
fractions of either employment earnings or capital investment 
income have significantly higher material well-being scores, 
while those with a higher fraction of income from benefit 
allowances have lower scores. One interpretation is that these 
factors may proxy for other causal factors, such as health and 
wealth effects, rather than reflecting a direct income effect. 
Next, we extend the original specification between material well-
being and accommodation costs to, first, include property rates 
as an accommodation cost and, second, to control for the type of 
housing tenure (freehold homeowner, mortgaged, renter, and no 
accommodation costs). We find that, controlling for housing 
tenure, the estimated effect of accommodation costs (including 
rates) is, at most, half that originally estimated and, for some 
specifications, insignificantly different from zero. Furthermore, 
controlling for the level of accommodation costs, mortgage 
holders and renters have significantly lower material well-being 
scores than freehold homeowners. These findings suggest that 
understanding what influences the material well-being outcomes of 
older people is not as straightforward as might be suggested by 
the simple association of certain variables.
 
Keywords: Living standards; material well-being; current income; 
          accommodation costs
JEL:      I32
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nzt:nztwps:05/03&r=all



242. Returns to Scale, Technical Progress and Total Factor 
     Productivity Growth in New Zealand Industries
  
    Kevin J Fox (School of Economics, & CAER, University of New 
      South Wales)

This paper reviews and applies some recently proposed methods 
for separating total factor productivity (TFP) growth into 
contributions from technical progress and returns to scale, 
allowing for imperfectly competitive markets. The methods are 
applied to New Zealand data, using a recently available dataset 
on nine market-sector industries and the aggregate market sector, 
1988-2002. The findings suggest that there has been little 
contribution from technical progress to TFP growth, but 
increasing returns to scale may have played a substantial role. 
However, the results are not statistically satisfactory for 
several industries, and are quite sensitive to the model used. 
This highlights the need for more work on both data and analysis 
if a better understanding is to be had of New Zealand’s 
productivity performance.
 
Keywords: Returns to scale; technical progress; monopolistic 
          markups
JEL:      D24
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nzt:nztwps:05/04&r=all



243. Capital Shallowness: A Problem for New Zealand?
  
    Julia Hall
    Grant Scobie (The Treasury)

There is now substantial evidence that New Zealand’s overall 
rate of economic growth relative to Australia’s has been lower 
in part because of lower levels and slower growth in our labour 
productivity. This then requires us to explore why the labour 
productivity is lower in New Zealand. This paper explores the 
extent to which a lower level of capital per hour worked (or 
lower capital intensity) is associated with less output per hour 
worked in New Zealand. We find that the capital intensity in New 
Zealand has not been increasing as fast as in Australia for 
nearly 25 years. Between 1995 and 2002, lower capital intensity 
explains 70 percent of the difference in output per hour worked. 
Whereas the cost of labour relative to capital has been rising in 
Australia, it has fallen by 20 percent in New Zealand between 
1987 and 2002. The relative price of labour to capital in New 
Zealand fell to 60 percent of the Australian value in 2002 after 
being comparable in the late 1980’s. It is to be expected that 
New Zealand enterprises would therefore tend to adopt less 
capital intensive production methods. Differences in capital 
intensity could also have arisen because the underlying 
production technologies are different even if the relative prices 
of labour and capital in the two economies had been similar. We 
explore this issue and find a similar response of capital 
intensity to changes in the wage rate relative to the return on 
capital for the economies as a whole. However when we exclude the 
mining sector we find that the responsiveness in New Zealand is 
about one half that of Australia. Whether there are impediments 
or greater uncertainty in New Zealand that limit the ability of 
firms to respond to economic signals as much as their Australian 
counterparts remain as possible explanations requiring further 
investigation.
 
Keywords: New Zealand; Australia; Capital-labour ratios; 
          relative factor prices
JEL:      E22 E23 E24 O49
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nzt:nztwps:05/05&r=all



244. Women’s participation in the labour force
  
    Grant Johnston (The Treasury)

Labour force participation is a topical issue in New Zealand. It 
is well known that the participation of New Zealand women aged 25-
39 is low in comparison with women in other OECD countries. There 
has been considerable interest in policies which might raise 
women’s participation. This paper provides a base of 
information on women’s labour force participation in New 
Zealand and in other OECD countries. The low participation of 
younger New Zealand women seems to be driven largely by a 
combination of relatively low participation rates among mothers 
with young children and sole mothers, together with high 
fertility rates and high proportions of sole parent families. 
However, while New Zealand women tend to leave the labour force 
when they have children, they also tend to return strongly to the 
labour force when their children get older. Considered over all 
ages, New Zealand has a reasonably healthy female participation 
rate, and the total quantity of work done in New Zealand, 
relative to the size of the working-age population, is amongst 
the highest in the OECD.
 
Keywords: women; participation; employment; labour supply; New 
          Zealand
JEL:      J10 J21
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nzt:nztwps:05/06&r=all



245. The changing gender distribution of paid and unpaid work in 
     New Zealand
  
    Paul Callister (Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria 
      University of Wellington)

This paper explores five main questions regarding the gender 
distribution of work, primarily in the context of couples with 
young children. These are: how much total paid and unpaid work is 
carried out in New Zealand?; how is this work shared between 
women and men?; how does this compare with other countries?; how 
might the mix of unpaid and paid work change in New Zealand in 
the future?; and should gender equity in paid and unpaid work be 
a key part of the discussion about labour market participation 
rates? Overall, the data on paid and unpaid work show a pattern 
that is universal in industrialised countries. New Zealand men 
undertake more paid work, while women undertake more unpaid work. 
But there are differences between countries in the amount of paid 
and unpaid work undertaken by women and men. In particular, New 
Zealand stands out in terms of both the long hours worked by a 
group of men and, despite strong growth in maternal employment in 
recent decades, the low employment rates of a group of women with 
young children. Recent attention has focused on social policies 
which may potentially increase maternal participation rates or 
their hours of work. However, less attention has been given to 
how this might change the distribution of paid and unpaid work 
both within households, and the total amount of work undertaken 
by individuals and households. This paper considers such issues, 
and also canvasses some of the reasons why as a society we might 
want to increase women's participation or hours of paid work. It 
suggests that such discussions need to be carried out within the 
context of debates around a wider range of issues including the 
impact of “overwork” on a group of individuals, families and 
wider society; how to support replacement fertility levels; and 
how to increase business productivity. The paper argues that 
choices made by individuals, households, employers and the 
government will all play a part in determining the amount of paid 
and unpaid work undertaken in New Zealand; how such work is 
distributed between women and men; and the levels of income, 
parental care of children and leisure that individuals and 
households are able to achieve.
 
Keywords: employment; labour supply; gender equity, time use; 
          New Zealand
JEL:      J10 J21 J22
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nzt:nztwps:05/07&r=all



246. What Do German Short-Term Interest Rates Tell Us About 
     Future Inflation?
  
    Harald Grech (Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Economic 
      Studies Division)

In this paper, the author empirically assesses the predictive 
power of short-term interest rates and term spreads for future 
inflation in Germany. Based on a multivariate term structure 
framework, a vector error forecasting equation for inflation 
forecasts of up to two years is constructed. The results of the 
alternative error correction reveal that the level of the 
shortterm interest rates conveys much more information on future 
inflation than the yield curve spreads. In particular, the one-
month and three-month nominal interest rates seem to be 
informative on future inflation at a two-year horizon.
 
Keywords: inflation, interest rates
JEL:      E31 C51
Date:     2004-12-31
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:onb:oenbwp:94&r=all



247. On the Design of Sustainable and Fair PAYG Pension Systems 
     When Cohort Sizes Change
  
    Markus Knell (Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Economic 
      Studies Division)

In this paper, the author deals with the question how to make 
PAYG pension systems financially resistant to fluctuating 
fertility rates. The author presents two pension schemes that 
lead to a permanently balanced budget but differ in the mixture 
of changes in the contribution rates and replacement rates they 
require in order to achieve this result. After analyzing the 
variations in the central parameters (both over time and across 
generations) for each of the schemes he discusses which 
consequences they have with regard to intergenerational burden 
sharing and fairness. In particular, the author is interested in 
how a generation is affected by changes in the size of proceeding 
and succeeding cohorts. He introduces a proportionality measure(
defined as the ratio of relative inputs to relative outputs) that 
can be used as an indicator to study this impact. The author 
shows that the schemes have quite different implications 
concerning how past and future cohorts influence the 
proportionality measure. Finally he discusses how suitable the 
formulas are to be implemented in either traditional PAYG or in 
notional defined contribution (NDC) systems.
 
Keywords: Pension System; Demographic Change; Intergenerational 
          Fairness
JEL:      H55 J1 J18 D63
Date:     2005-02-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:onb:oenbwp:95&r=all



248. Managerial behavior and cost/profit efficiency in the 
     banking sectors of Central and Eastern European countries
  
    Stefania P.S. Rossi (Economics at the Faculty of Economics, 
      University of Cagliari)
    Markus Schwaiger (Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Financial 
      Markets Analysis and Surveillance Division)
    Gerhard Winkler (Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Credit 
      Division)

This paper analyzes cost and profit efficiency level and the 
managerial behavior of banks in nine Central and Eastern European 
countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, 
Lithuania Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), providing 
cross-country and time series evidence on the period 1995-2002. A 
stochastic frontier analysis based on a Fourier flexible form 
indicates a generally low level of cost efficiency and an even 
lower level of profit efficiency. However, we also find 
significant differences among countries and some evidence of an 
increasing tendency over time in profit efficiency and, to an 
even stronger extent, in cost efficiency. Cost and profit 
efficiency scores are negatively correlated both on a country 
wide as well as on a bank by bank basis. Furthermore, instead of 
just looking at the determinants of cost and profit efficiency (e.
g. asset quality, problem loans and risk), we test several 
hypotheses of managerial behavior using the Granger causality 
approach based on the intertemporal relation between bank 
efficiency, capitalization and problem loans, as proposed by 
Berger and DeYoung (1997). Even though a static analysis shows a 
negative correlation between problem loan and efficiency, we find 
no evidence of bad management hypothesis. Results provide 
evidence for the bad luck hypothesis suggesting the exogeneity of 
bad loans triggering inefficiency.
 
Keywords: Cost and profit efficiency; CEECs; Stochastic frontier 
          analysis; Managerial behavior
JEL:      G21 G28 C14 D21
Date:     2005-03-04
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:onb:oenbwp:96&r=all



249. Financial Differences and Business Cycle Co-Movements in A 
     Currency Area
  
    Ester Faia (Department of Economics and Business, 
      Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

I propose a unitary framework to interpret the links between di.
erences in financial structures and the monetary policy regimes 
on the one hand, and the correlation of business cycles on the 
other. Using a two-country micro-founded model with financial 
frictions I predict that a greater financial diversity should 
reduce cyclical correlation under a given monetary regime, and 
that moving from independent monetary policies to a hard peg or a 
common currency should increase it, for any given degree of 
financial diversity. I use the recent experience of EMU to test 
these ideas, and show that my model explains reasonably well the 
broad patterns of business cycle correlation observed recently 
among the main euro area countries.
 
Keywords: financial diversity, monetary regimes, differential 
          transmission mechanism
JEL:      E3 E42 E44 E52 F41
Date:     2005-05-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:onb:oenbwp:97&r=all



250. The European Monetary Union as a Commitment Device for New 
     EU Member States
  
    Federico Ravenna (Economics Department, University of 
      California)

We show that the credibility gain from permanently committing to 
a fixed exchange rate by joining the European Monetary Union can 
outweigh the loss from giving up independent monetary policy if 
the domestic monetary authority does not enjoy full credibility. 
Using a DSGE model, this paper shows that when the central bank 
enjoys only limited credibility a pegged exchange rate regime 
yields a lower loss compared to an inflation targeting policy, 
even if this policy ranking would be reversed in a full-
credibility environment. There exists an initial stock of 
credibility that must be achieved for a policy-maker to adopt 
inflation targeting over a strict exchange rate targeting regime. 
Full credibility is not a precondition, but exposure to foreign 
and financial shocks and high steady state inflation make joining 
the EMU relatively more attractive for a given level of 
credibility. The theoretical results are consistent with 
empirical evidence we provide on the relationship between 
credibility and monetary regimes using a Bank of England survey 
of 81 central banks.
 
Keywords: Inflation targeting, Credibilty, Open Economy, 
          Exchange Rate Regimes, Monetary Policy
JEL:      E52 E31 F02 F41
Date:     2005-05-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:onb:oenbwp:98&r=all



251. Monetary Policy, Expectations and Commitment
  
    George W. Evans (University of Oregon Economics Department)
    Seppo Honkapohja (University of Cambridge)

This is a revised and shortened version of Working Paper 2002-11.
Commitment in monetary policy leads to equilibria that are 
superior to those from optimal discretionary policies. A number 
of interest rate reaction functions and instrument rules have 
been proposed to implement or approximate commitment policy. We 
assess these rules in terms of whether they lead to an RE 
equilibrium that is both locally determinate and stable under 
adaptive learning by private agents. A reaction function that 
appropriately depends explicitly on private expectations performs 
particularly well on both counts.
 
Keywords: Commitment, interest rate setting, adaptive learning, 
          stability, determinacy
JEL:      E52 E31 D84
Date:     2002-05-27
Date:     2005-04-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ore:uoecwp:2005-11&r=all



252. The Indian Ocean Tsunami: Economic Impact, Disaster 
     Management and Lessons
  
    Prema-chandra Athukorala
    Budy P. Resosudarmo

The purpose of this paper is to document and analyze the 
immediate economic impact of the Indian Ocean tsunami generated 
by the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of 26 December 2004 and the 
disaster management process in the immediate aftermath of the 
disaster with a focus on the two worst affected countries - 
Indonesia (Aceh province) and Sri Lanka. The 26 December Tsunami 
is unique among large disasters in recorded human history, not 
only because of the sheer number of causalities and massive 
displacement of people, but also because of the unprecedented 
international donor response and the logistic challenges faced by 
international organizations and aid agencies in organizing and 
coordinating relief efforts. Our preliminary findings points to 
the importance of educating the public about simple precautions 
in the event of a disaster and enforcement of coastal 
environmental regulations as disaster prevention policies. The 
findings also makes a strong case for designing policies and 
programs, as an integral part of national development strategy, 
for mitigating the impact of natural disasters on the poor and 
highlights the need for combining international aid commitments 
with innovative approaches to redressing problems of limited aid 
absorptive capacity in disaster affected countries.
 
Keywords: tsunami, disaster management, Indonesia, Sri Lanka 
          Length (pages): 56
JEL:      I32 O53 Q54
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:papers:2005-05&r=all



253. Welfare Regimes in the UE 15 and in the Enlarged Europe: An 
     exploratory analysis
  
    Leonor Vasconcelos Ferreira (Faculdade de Economia, 
      Universidade do Porto and CEMAPRE/ISEG-UTL)
    Adelaide Figueiredo (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do 
      Porto and LIACC/UP)

The basic aim of this paper is to assess existing welfare 
regimes in the countries of European Union before and after the 
enlargement of May 2004 (EU 15 and EU 25) building on a 
comprehensive approach that considers different dimensions of 
welfare through an extended set of variables. The paper starts 
with a brief presentation of current debates on welfare regimes 
and the new social policy agenda in the European Union. It 
proceeds with the selection of different dimensions of social 
welfare and social policy and related key variables that make up 
the database for the following multivariate statistical analysis, 
used in order to produce a clustering of welfare regimes. The 
paper concludes with a tentative interpretation of the underlying 
characteristics and patterns of current welfare mix and social 
policies in European Union.
 
Keywords: Welfare Regimes; Social Policy; European Union; 
          Enlargement; Cluster Analysis
JEL:      D63 I31 I38 P52
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:176&r=all



254. The Informativeness of Quarterly Financial Reporting: The 
     Portuguese Case
  
    Carlos F. Alves (CEMPRE, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade 
      do Porto)
    F. Teixeira dos Santos (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade 
      do Porto and LIACC/UP)

With the Directive 2004/109/EC, of December 15, 2004 – 
Transparency Directive –, the European Union decided not to 
require listed companies to disclose financial information in the 
first and third quarters of each year. Each EU country now has to 
decide whether to oblige its companies to disclose this 
information. Using a sample of 1751 firm-earnings announcements 
between 1994 and 2004, this paper ascertains the informativeness 
of quarterly financial reporting in Portugal, one of the seven 
European countries where the disclosure of such information is 
currently compulsory in all quarters. Evidence suggests that the 
information of the first and third quarters, both in terms of 
price volatility and trading volume, is significant and not 
inferior to that of the remaining earnings announcements.
 
Keywords: Capital markets-based research; interim accounting 
          disclosure; market reaction; market regulation
JEL:      G14 G18 M49
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:177&r=all



255. Dinamica de Rendimentos, Persistencia da Pobreza e 
     Politicas Sociais em Portugal
  
    Leonor Vasconcelos Ferreira (Faculdade de Economia, 
      Universidade do Porto and CEMAPRE/ISEG-UTL)

This paper aims to investigate income and poverty dynamics in 
Portugal, with a special focus on chronic poverty. The analysis 
of income distribution changes in a representative panel of 
households in Portugal allow us to understand prevailing income 
mobility patterns as well as quantify and qualify chronic poverty 
incidence. The paper develops and applies several income mobility 
measures in addition to standard poverty rates and flows, and 
poverty spells. It proceeds with the identification of the 
driving forces of inequality and poverty, and especially of the 
persistence of poverty after social transfers. Finally, it 
discusses some implications for social policy. The study is 
conducted mainly by using microdata on Portugal from the European 
Community Household Panel (ECHP), covering the period from 1994 
to 1997. Complementary secondary analysis on data on Portugal and 
the EU 15 is used in order to present some comparative analysis.
 
Keywords: Income dynamics; poverty dynamics; chronic poverty; 
          social policy; ECHP; Portugal
JEL:      D31 I32 I38
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:178&r=all



256. A Model of the Learning Process with Local Knowledge 
     Externalities Illustrated with an Integrated Graphical 
     Framework
  
    Mario Alexandre Silva (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade 
      do Porto)
    Aurora A. C. Teixeira (CEMPRE, Faculdade de Economia, 
      Universidade do Porto)

We present a unified graphical framework accounting for the 
nature and impact of spillover effects. The dynamics of the 
learning process with a specific spillover transfer mechanism can 
be illustrated by recurring to this four-quadrant picture. In 
particular, a whole cycle of technological learning is explained 
with help of such a graphical representation of the basic 
learning process in the presence of knowledge spillovers. We 
hypothesize two different functional specifications of spillover 
exchanges among firms within a local innovation system. Each 
conceivable shape for the knowledge transfer relationship among 
firms expresses a possible mode and intensity of information 
processing arising from technology spillovers. A general 
proposition regarding the relative efficiency of the two 
alternative formal models with spillovers effects is derived. The 
basic models with spillover effects are then extended in several 
relevant directions.
 
Keywords: Learning; knowledge; technology spillovers; knowledge 
          externalities; local innovation systems
JEL:      O31 O32 R19
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:179&r=all



257. Hours Worked: Long-Run Trends
  
    Jeremy Greenwood (University of Rochester)
    Guillaume Vandenbroucke (University of Rochester)

For 200 years the average number of hours worked per worker 
declined, both in the market place and in the home. Technological 
progress is the engine of such transformation. Three mechanisms 
are stressed: (i) The rise in real wages and its corresponding 
wealth effect; (ii) The enhanced value of time off from work, due 
to the advent of time-using leisure goods; (iii) The reduced need 
for housework, due to the introduction of time-saving appliances. 
These mechanisms are incorporated into a model of household 
production. The notion of Edgeworth-Pareto 
complementarity/substitutability is key to the analysis. 
Numerical examples link theory and data.
 
Keywords: Hours worked, leisure, housework, household production,
          Edgeworth-Pareto complementarity/substitutability, 
          technological progress
JEL:      E24 J22 O11 O33
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:roc:ecavga:10&r=all



258. The imprinting effect of initial resources and market 
     strategy on the early growth path of start-Ups
  
    A. HEIRMAN
    B. CLARYSSE

Research-based start-ups (RBSUs) differ in their early growth. 
Some firms grow very rapidly, while others grow slowly or do not 
grow at all. In this paper we bring insights in the causes of the 
diversity in the early growth of RBSUs. To identify some of the 
key factors that affect growth, we study the initial resource 
base and the firm’s market strategy. We control for age, size 
and industry differences. Growth is a complex, multidimensional 
phenomenon. Therefore, we study three growth measures, namely 
growth in employees, revenues and total assets. Our multivariate 
analyses show that raising large amounts of VC is a key driver 
for early employment and revenue growth. Whilst most RBSUs are 
founded by pure technical founding teams, we find that R&D 
experience has no effect on growth. Founding teams with 
commercial experience, on the other hand, grow significantly more 
in employees, revenues and total assets. Next, RBSUs, which are 
internationally oriented from the start, grow significantly 
faster in terms of revenues and total assets but not in employees.
Finally, multivariate analysis indicates that firms that are 
closer to a market ready product at founding do not grow 
significantly more in terms of revenues and employees, but firms 
that are earlier in the product development cycle grow more in 
total assets during the early growth path. We use in-depth 
qualitative information to explain and interpret the results and 
discuss the sustainability of different early growth trajectories.
Our findings have important implications for entrepreneurs, 
investors and policy makers.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:05/310&r=all



259. Measuring User Beliefs and Attitudes towards Conceptual 
     Models: A Factor and Structural Equation Model
  
    A. MAES
    G. POELS
    F. GAILLY
    R. PAEMELEIRE

This paper presents a tentative model of user beliefs and 
attitudes towards conceptual models applying the ideas of Theory 
of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) in a conceptual 
modeling context. We focus on users perceptions of conceptual 
model quality and investigate the relations between perceived 
semantic quality and perceived pragmatic quality measures. Given 
the growing awareness among researchers and practitioners about 
the importance of high-quality conceptual modeling, it is 
surprisingly that there are no formal measures to assess the 
perceived semantic quality of conceptual schemas. Therefore we 
address this need and present a robust and validated multi-item 
measurement instrument to evaluate the perceived semantic quality 
of conceptual schemas. We followed a rigorous empirical 
development process to ensure the validity and reliability of the 
proposed measurement instrument. Once this was accomplished, it 
was possible to empirically test the proposed user beliefs and 
attitudes model. The conducted experiment confirmed the proposed 
relations of the user beliefs and attitudes model. It was shown 
that perceived semantic quality had a direct effect on beliefs as 
perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and also 
indirectly affects the attitudes of conceptual model users.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:05/311&r=all



260. A Comparison of Different Project Duration Forecasting 
     Methods using Earned Value Metrics
  
    S. VANDEVOORDE
    M. VANHOUCKE

Earned value project management is a well-known management 
system that integrates cost, schedule and technical performance. 
It allows the calculation of cost and schedule variances and 
performance indices and forecasts of project cost and schedule 
duration. The earned value method provides early indications of 
project performance to highlight the need for eventual corrective 
action. Earned value management was originally developed for cost 
management and has not widely been used for forecasting project 
duration. However, recent research trends show an increase of 
interest to use performance indicators for predicting total 
project duration. In this paper, we give an overview of the state-
of-the-art knowledge for this new research trend to bring clarity 
in the often confusing terminology. The purpose of this paper is 
three-fold. First, we compare the classic earned value 
performance indicators SV & SPI with the newly developed earned 
schedule performance indicators SV(t) & SPI(t). Next, we present 
a generic schedule forecasting formula applicable in different 
project situations and compare the three methods from literature 
to forecast total project duration. Finally, we illustrate the 
use of each method on a simple one activity example project and 
on real-life project data.
 
Keywords: Earned value; earned duration; earned schedule; 
          project duration forecasting
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:05/312&r=all



261. Estimating quadratic variation when quoted prices jump by a 
     constant increment
  
    Jermey Large

Financial assets' quoted prices normally change through frequent 
revisions, or jumps. For markets where quotes are almost always 
revised by the minimum price tick, this paper proposes a new 
estimator of Quadratic Variation which is robust to 
microstructure effects. It compares the number of alternations, 
where quotes are revised back to their previous price, to the 
number of other jumps. Many markets exhibit a lack of 
autocorrelation in their quotes' alternation pattern. Under quite 
general 'no leverage' assumptions, whenever this is so the 
proposed statistic is consistent as the intensity of jumps 
increases without bound. After an empirical implementation, some 
useful corollaries of this are given.
 
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sbs:wpsefe:2005fe05&r=all



262. Limit theorems for multipower variation in the presence of 
     jumps
  
    Ole E. Barndorff-Nielsen
    Neil Shephard
    Matthias Winkel

In this paper we provide a systematic study of the robustness of 
probability limits and central limit theory for realised 
multipower variation when we add finite activity and infinite 
activity jump processes to an underlying Brownian semimartingale.
 
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sbs:wpsefe:2005fe06&r=all



263. Race to the top or bottom? Corporate governance, freedom of 
     reincorporation and competition in law
  
    Zsuzsanna Fluck
    Colin Mayer

This paper investigates the governance structure choices of 
firms when there is competition between legal systems. We study 
the impact of the allocation of control over choice of governance 
and reincorporation on firms’ technologies and technological 
specialization of countries in the context of a model of the firm 
in which there are agency conflicts between shareholders and 
managers. We show that the allocation of control over firms’ 
reincorporation decisions determines the corporate governance 
choice ex ante and the outcome of the competition between legal 
regimes ex post. When managers have control over reincorporation 
then competitive deregulation and “runs to the bottom” ensue. 
When shareholders have partial or full control then there is 
diversity in governance structures. Runs to the bottom are not 
necessarily socially undesirable but they have a feedback effect 
on firms’ choices of technologies that may make the party in 
control worse off ex ante. We show that it is impossible for any 
country to achieve social welfare maximization of its existing 
and new enterprises. With competition between legal regimes, 
start-up and mature companies incorporate in different 
jurisdictions even when reincorporation is correctly anticipated.
 
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sbs:wpsefe:2005fe07&r=all



264. Variation, jumps, market frictions and high frequency data 
     in financial econometrics
  
    Ole E. Barndorff-Nielsen
    Neil Shephard

We will review the econometrics of non-parametric estimation of 
the components of the variation of asset prices. This very active 
literature has been stimulated by the recent advent of complete 
records of transaction prices, quote data and order books. In our 
view the interaction of the new data sources with new econometric 
methodology is leading to a paradigm shift in one of the most 
important areas in econometrics: volatility measurement, 
modelling and forecasting. We will describe this new paradigm 
which draws together econometrics with arbitrage free financial 
economics theory. Perhaps the two most influential papers in this 
area have been Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold and Labys(2001) and 
Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard(2002), but many other papers have 
made important contributions. This work is likely to have deep 
impacts on the econometrics of asset allocation and risk 
management. One of our observations will be that inferences based 
on these methods, computed from observed market prices and so 
under the physical measure, are also valid as inferences under 
all equivalent measures. This puts this subject also at the heart 
of the econometrics of derivative pricing. One of the most 
challenging problems in this context is dealing with various 
forms of market frictions, which obscure the efficient price from 
the econometrician. Here we will characterise four types of 
statistical models of frictions and discuss how econometricians 
have been attempting to overcome them.
 
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sbs:wpsefe:2005fe08&r=all



265. Limit theorems for bipower variation in financial 
     econometrics
  
    Ole E. Barndorff-Nielsen
    Sven Erik Graversen
    Jean Jacod
    Neil Shephard

In this paper we provide an asymptotic analysis of generalised 
bipower measures of the variation of price processes in financial 
economics. These measures encompass the usual quadratic variation,
power variation and bipower variations which have been 
highlighted in recent years in financial econometrics. The 
analysis is carried out under some rather general Brownian 
semimartingale assumptions, which allow for standard leverage 
effects.
 
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sbs:wpsefe:2005fe09&r=all



266. "Innovation Versus Diffusion: Determinants of Productivity 
     Growth Among Japanese Firms"
  
    Kiyohiko G. Nishimura (Policy Board, Bank of Japan)
    Takanobu Nakajima (Faculty of Business and Commerce, Keio 
      University)
    Kozo Kiyota (Faculty of Business Administration, Yokohama 
      National University)

This paper presents a model of firm-level productivity growth 
that distinguishes between innovation and technology diffusion, 
and then applies the model to a large-scale data set of Japanese 
manufacturing and non-manufacturing firms between 1994 and 2000. 
We find both innovation and diffusion are important factors in 
firm-level productivity growth. Results also suggest that 
innovation comes not only directly from R&D activities, but also 
indirectly from patent purchases and imports. Previously, patent 
purchases and imports were considered as sources of technology 
diffusion rather than innovation. In fact, we find patent 
purchases are more effective in this regard than R&D expenditure.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2005cf350&r=all



267. "Role of Local Communities in Economic Development: A 
     Survey Focusing on the Export Industries in Nineteenth 
     Century Japan"(in Japanese)
  
    Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo)
    Esuke Taniyama (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka 
      University)
    Masaki Nakabayashi (Faculty of Economics, Osaka University)

In this paper we survey the literature on the role of 
communities in the development of a market economy in Japan. The 
role of communities has long been explored implicitly as well as 
explicitly in the literature on the Japanese economic history. In 
this survey we focus on the export industries in the early stage 
of the modern economic development. In the late 19th century, 
when the traditional legal and private institutions which had 
governed transactions, collapsed, and at the same time the modern 
institutions were still underdeveloped, it was highly possible 
that problems due to information asymmetry between sellers and 
buyers were serious. In fact, we can find many evidences of moral 
hazard and adverse selection in the documents of this period. On 
the other hand, since just after the opening up of the 
international trade in 1858, large amount of products including 
silk and tea, were exported to foreign countries. This implies 
some mechanisms worked to resolve the problems stemming from 
information asymmetry. In the case of silk industry, private 
associations based on local communities, prevented from moral 
hazard and adverse selection by establishing brands, which, in 
turn, were protected by the local government. This case suggests 
that a market economy was complementary with local communities, 
and that the function of local communities, in turn, was 
complemented by the role of local governments.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2005cj133&r=all



268. Semiparametric Construction of Spatial Generalized Hedonic 
     Models for Private Properties
  
    Stefan Sebastian Fahrlaender

This paper analyzes the empirical hedonic prices for non-
standard condominiums and single family houses using 
nonparametric estimates as well as a generalized additive model 
for the spatial generalization of the attractiveness of all Swiss 
communities. We find that the assumption of log-linearity for 
continuous variables does not hold but can be replaced by 
partwise log-linear or quadratic terms. Due to the topographical 
segmentation of Switzerland, driving times seem to be more 
adequate than geographical distances to explain the price level 
of a village with the price level of its neighbours. We show, 
that using metric multidimensional scaling, the driving times 
between the villages can be converted into artificial coordinates 
with three principal axis to serve as a basis for the prediction 
of the macro-locations of the Swiss villages
 
Keywords: Hedonic prices; private property; Switzerland; robust 
          regression; splines; multidimensional scaling
JEL:      C52 R31
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ube:dpvwib:dp0507&r=all



269. The Evolving Capacities of the Child
  
    Gerison Lansdown

The Convention on the Rights of the Child introduces for the 
first time in an international human rights treaty, the concept 
of the aˆ?evolving capacitiesaˆ™ of the child. This 
principle has been described as a new principle of interpretation 
in international law, recognising that, as children acquire 
enhanced competencies, there is a diminishing need for protection 
and a greater capacity to take responsibility for decisions 
affecting their lives. The Convention allows for the recognition 
that children in different environments and cultures, and faced 
with diverse life experiences, will acquire competencies at 
different ages. Action is needed in law, policy and practice so 
that the contributions children make and the capacities they hold 
are acknowledged. The purpose of the study is to open the 
discussion and promote debate to achieve a better understanding 
of how children can be protected, in accordance with their 
evolving capacities, and also provided with opportunities to 
participate in the fulfillment of their rights.
 
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:innins:innins05/18&r=all



270. The Continuing Practice and Impact of Discrimination
  
    Stephen L. Ross (University of Connecticut)

This chapter provides a detailed discussion of the evidence on 
housing and mortgage lending, as well as the potential impacts of 
such discrimination on minority outcomes like homeownership and 
neighborhood environment. The paper begins by discussing 
conceptual issues surrounding empirical analyses of 
discrimination including explanations for why discrimination 
takes place, defining different forms of discrimination, and the 
appropriate interpretation of observed racial and ethnic 
differences in treatment or outcomes. Next, the paper reviews 
evidence on housing market discrimination starting with evidence 
of segregation and price differences in the housing market and 
followed by direct evidence of discrimination by real estate 
agents in paired testing studies. Finally, mortgage market 
discrimination and barriers to access to mortgage credit are 
discussed. This discussion begins with an assessment of the role 
credit barriers play in explaining racial and ethnic differences 
in homeownership and follows with discussions of analyses of 
underwriting and the price of credit based on administrative and 
private sector data sources including analyses of the subprime 
market. The paper concludes that housing discrimination has 
declined especially in the market for owner-occupied housing and 
does not appear to play a large role in limiting the neighborhood 
choices of minority households or the concentration of minorities 
into central cities. On the other hand, the patterns of racial 
centralization and lower home ownership rates of African-
Americans appear to be related to each other, and lower minority 
homeownership rates are in part attributable to barriers in the 
market for mortgage credit. The paper presents considerable 
evidence of racial and ethnic differences in mortgage 
underwriting, as well as additional evidence suggesting these 
differences may be attributable to differential provision of 
coaching, assistance, and support by loan officers. At this point,
innovation in loan products, the shift towards risk based 
pricing, and growth of the subprime market have not mitigated the 
role credit barriers play in explaining racial and ethnic 
differences in homeownership, but rather appears to raise 
additional opportunities for discrimination on the price of 
mortgage credit. The growth of the subprime industry also appears 
to have segmented the market in terms of geography and 
substantially increased the cost of relying on spatially nearby 
sources of mortgage credit. On a more positive note, the 
potential role played by loan officers in mortgage market 
discrimination suggests that the shift towards automated 
underwriting may lead to substantial improvements for minority 
applicants over time.
 
Keywords: Homeownership, Housing Discrimination, Mortgage 
          Lending Discrimination, Segregation, subprime lending.
JEL:      G21 G15 L85 R21 R30
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2005-19&r=all



271. Endogenous Growth in the Presence of Informal Credit 
     Markets: A Comparative Analysis Between Credit Rationing and 
     Self-Revelation Regimes
  
    Basab Dasupta (University of Connecticut)

This paper examines whether the presence of informal credit 
markets reduces the cost of credit rationing in terms of growth. 
In a dynamic general equilibrium framework, we assume that firms 
are heterogenous with different degrees of risk and households 
invest in human capital development. With the help of Indian 
household level data we show that the informal market reduces the 
cost of rationing by increasing the growth rate by 0.7 percent. 
This higher growth rate, in the presence of an informal sector, 
is due to the ability of the informal market to separate the high 
risk from the low risk firms thanks to better information. But 
even after such improvement we do not get the optimum outcome. 
The findings, based on our second question, suggest that the 
revelation of firms' type, based on incentive compatible pricing, 
can lead to almost 2 percent higher growth rate as compared to 
the credit rationing regime with informal sector.
 
Keywords: credit rationing, informal credit markets, self 
          revelation mechanism
JEL:      O16 O17
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2005-18&r=all



272. A Generic Model of Financial Repression
  
    Rangan Gupta (University of Connecticut)

The paper develops a standard neoclassical growth model in an 
overlapping generations framework of a financially repressed 
small open economy, and analyzes the effects of financial 
liberalization on steady-state capital stock. Repression is 
severe "enough" to generate an unofficial money market. The 
economy is also characterized by capital controls and crawling 
peg exchange rate regime. The following observations are made: 
Deregulation of interest rate reduces the steady-state stock of 
capital, while reduction in the multiple reserve requirements and 
increases in the rate of crawling, enhances it. The paper thus 
advocates financial liberalization policies to be oriented 
towards reduction of reserve requirements rather than interest 
rate deregulation.
 
Keywords: Financial Repression; Capital Stock and Investment; 
          Uno±cial Financial Markets.
JEL:      E22 E44 E52
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2005-20&r=all



273. Heterogeneity In Economic Freedom: Free Clusters Or Free 
     Countries?
  
    Manuel Vega-Gordillo (School of Economics and Business 
      Administration, University of Navarra)
    Jose Luis Alvarez-Arce (School of Economics and Business 
      Administration, University of Navarra)

How heterogeneous are countries with respect to economic freedom?
This is an interesting empirical question since, if we can 
discover different groups of countries according to their 
economic freedom indicators, we will be able to identify which 
steps are required to foster convenient institutional changes. To 
come up with an answer to this question, we apply a hybrid 
clustering method - HOPACH - to two sets of components of 
economic freedom. These two datasets, which account for 
heterogeneity among countries, are built on the same information 
framework but with different degrees of aggregation. Specifically,
we work on both the 38 variables and the five major areas of the 
Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World Index. In both 
cases, HOPACH produces a segmentation and an ordered list of 
countries. Our results suggest that the classification of 
countries based on an overall economic freedom index may take us 
to misleading conclusions due to multidimensional sources of 
heterogeneity and the uncertainty about the number of segments in 
the distribution of the index.
 
JEL:      C10 O17 P51
Date:     2005-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:una:unccee:wp0805&r=all



274. A CONSISTENT DIAGNOSTIC TEST FOR REGRESSION MODELS USING 
     PROJECTIONS
  
    J. Carlos Escanciano (School of Economics and Business 
      Administration, University of Navarra)

This paper proposes a consistent test for the goodness-of-fit of 
parametric regression models which overcomes two important 
problems of the existing tests, namely, the poor empirical power 
and size performance of the tests due to the curse of 
dimensionality and the choice of subjective parameters like 
bandwidths, kernels or integrating measures. We overcome these 
problems by using a residual marked empirical process based on 
projections (RMPP). We study the asymptotic null distribution of 
the test statistic and we show that our test is able to detect 
local alternatives converging to the null at the parametric rate. 
It turns out that the asymptotic null distribution of the test 
statistic depends on the data generating process, so a bootstrap 
procedure is considered. Our bootstrap test is robust to higher 
order dependence, in particular to conditional heteroskedasticity.
For completeness, we propose a new minimum distance estimator 
constructed through the same RMPP as in the testing procedure. 
Therefore, the new estimator inherits all the good properties of 
the new test. We establish the consistency and asymptotic 
normality of the new minimum distance estimator. Finally, we 
present some Monte Carlo evidence that our testing procedure can 
play a valuable role in econometric regression modeling.
 
JEL:      C12 C14 C52
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:una:unccee:wp0905&r=all



275. Single Mothers, Social Capital, and Work-Family Conflict
  
    Teresa Ciabattari (Sonoma State University)

The purpose of this paper is to examine work-family conflict 
among low-income, unmarried mothers. I examine how social capital 
affects work-family conflict and how both social capital and work-
family conflict affect employment. I analyze the Fragile Families 
and Child Wellbeing Study, a national sample of non-marital 
births collected in 1998-2000 and 1999-2002. Results show that 
social capital reduces unmarried mothers' reports of work-family 
conflict, especially for low-income women. In addition, mothers 
who report high levels of work-family conflict are less likely to 
be employed; this pattern holds for women who are not looking for 
work as well as those who are. However, even at high levels of 
conflict, low-income women are more likely to be employed. The 
results suggest that work-family conflict has two consequences 
for unmarried women: it keeps them out of the labor force and 
makes it more difficult for women who want to work to maintain 
employment stability.
 
Keywords: work-family, work, family, conflict, low-income, 
          unmarried, mothers, social, capital
JEL:      J1 H4 I3
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:05-118&r=all



276. Law and Behaviours in Social Dilemmas: Testing the Effect 
     of Obligations on Cooperation
  
    Roberto Galbiati
    Pietro Vertova

Laws consist of two components: the ‘obligations’ they 
express and the ‘incentives’ designed to enforce them. In 
this paper we run a public good experiment to test whether or not 
obligations have any independent effect on cooperation in social 
dilemmas. The results show that, for given marginal incentives, 
different levels of minimum contribution required by obligation 
determine significantly different levels of average contributions.
Moreover, unexpected changes in the minimum contribution set up 
by obligation have asymmetric dynamic effects on the levels of 
cooperation: a reduction does not alter the descending trend of 
cooperation, whereas an increase induces a temporary re-start in 
the average level of cooperation. Nonetheless, obligations per se 
cannot sustain cooperation over time.
 
Keywords: Obligation, Incentives, Public Good Game, Experiments.
JEL:      K40 H26 C92 C91
Date:     2005-04
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:labsit:001&r=all



277. Registered Apprentices and Apprenticeship Programs in the U.
     S. Construction Industry between 1989 and 2003: An 
     Examination of the AIMS, RAIS, and California Apprenticeship 
     Agency Databases
  
    Cihan Bilginsoy

This study is a descriptive statistical examination of 
apprenticeship training in the construction industry, based on 
the U.S. Department of Labor and California Apprenticeship Agency 
databases. It specifically addresses the following questions - 
What were the patterns of enrollment across states and 
occupations, and over time? How diverse were the registrations in 
terms of gender and ethnic/racial composition of apprentices? 
What were the completion and cancellation rates, and how do these 
vary by gender and ethnic racial groups? What were the 
differences between union-management joint and unilateral 
employer programs in terms of enrollments, occupational 
distribution, gender and ethnic/racial composition, completion 
and cancellation rates, and program size?
 
Keywords: apprenticeship training, construction
JEL:      J24 L74
Date:     2005-09
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uta:papers:2005_09&r=all



278. Fiscal Squeeze and Social Policy During the Cardoso 
     Administration (1995-2002)
  
    Matias Vernengo

Conventional wisdom associates the two lost decades of economic 
stagnation in Brazil to macroeconomic imbalances and excessive 
budgetary deficits. This paper suggests that, contrary to 
conventional wisdom, the fiscal crisis of the state in Brazil was 
the result of the liberalization strategy that started in 1989, 
and was accelerated and complemented during the Cardoso 
administration (1995-2002). In this view, the fiscal crisis of 
the State resulted from the financial liberalization of the 1990s 
and the increasing burden of interest payments on public debt. 
The interest burden, in turn, meant that fiscal spending on 
social policy was squeezed, a result that is common to 
liberalization experiences in the periphery. The amount of social 
spending was insufficient during the Cardoso administration, and 
problems were not restricted to inefficient spending.
 
Keywords: Fiscal Policy, Development, Latin America
JEL:      E62 O10 O54
Date:     2005-11
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uta:papers:2005_11&r=all



279. Rational Exuberance at the Mall: Addiction to Carrying a 
     Credit Card Balance
  
    Kaili Shen
    David E. Giles (Department of Economics, University of 
      Victoria)

We test the Becker-Murphy model of rational addiction with New 
Zealand credit card debt data. Our results clearly favour the 
rational addiction model over the myopic, backward-looking model. 
The estimated short-run and long-run price elasticities are -0.58 
and -2.32 respectively, and the estimated rate of time-preference 
is 6.7% per quarter.
 
Keywords: Rational addiction, credit card debt
JEL:      D12 D14 D91 I12
Date:     2005-06-21
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vic:vicewp:0508&r=all



280. Knowledge Flows and R&D Co-operation: Firm-level Evidence 
     from Germany
  
    Tobias Schmidt (ZEW Mannheim)

This paper analyzes the determinants of R&D co-operation among 
German manufacturing firms. Using firm level data from the Third 
Community Innovation Survey from Germany, we focus on the role of 
spillovers in explaining R&D cooperation. We also investigate 
firms’ decisions to cooperate with research institutions or 
with suppliers and customers. Implementing a two-step estimation 
procedure, we find a significant effect of knowledge flows on the 
probability of R&D co-operation in most model specifications. 
Additionally, we show that firms with high intramural R&D budgets 
are more likely to cooperate with universities and research 
institutions than with suppliers and customers.
 
Keywords: Spillovers, R&D Co-operation, CIS 3
JEL:      O P
Date:     2005-06-22
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0506006&r=all



281. Foreign Direct Investment in the Black Sea Area
  
    Ioannis Glinavos (University of Kent at Canterbury)

The Black Sea is a region of vital interest to the foreign 
investor. This study examines the six countries that border it (
Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria) and presents 
the financial outlook and the foreign direct investment 
performance of each state. The main focus is on the analysis of 
the legislation related to the promotion and protection of 
investments. This is done with the aim of providing information 
about the opportunities and pitfalls of doing business in the 
area. The main conclusion is that the Black Sea presents great 
opportunities that remain largely unrealized. The reasons for 
this are mainly administrative barriers and the lack of legal 
certainty and enforcement.
 
Keywords: Law, FDI, Russia, Black Sea, Investment, Growth, 
          Development
JEL:      O P
Date:     2005-06-27
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0506007&r=all



282. A Dynamic Approach to the Relationship between Inequality, 
     Social Capital and Institutions
  
    Diego Caramuta (CONICET & Universidad Nacional del Sur)

One of the main objectives of this paper is to show the dynamics 
that relates inequality, social capital and institutions. The 
most important result is that these dynamics could generate 
multiple equilibria. Thus, we can identify two types of 
equilibria: one with a low level of social capital and high level 
of inequality, supported by institutions created endogenously by 
the community; and on the other hand, an equilibrium with a high 
level of social capital, low inequality and institutions that 
favor social equality. The analysis made in this paper can be 
seen as a contribution to the literature on why a society may 
attain high levels of institutional development and social 
integration.
 
Keywords: Inequality, Social Capital, Institutional Arrangement
JEL:      D3 O17
Date:     2005-06-29
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0506009&r=all



283. Liberalisation and it’s effect on inequality in 
     developing countries-A case study on India
  
    Supreena Narayanan (Madras School of Economics)

There are both positive and negative aspects to liberalisation 
policies. Liberalisation policies are no less important than any 
other kind of economic policies, and so it can only be healthy 
that what was formerly an obscure and technocratic process has 
moved to centre-stage politically. What’s more, economic 
development and the alleviation of poverty are now key political 
priorities in further liberalisation. Hence in order to check for 
the effectiveness of liberalisation policies in developing 
countries it is important to measure it from the point of view of 
how it has reduced levels of inequality. If liberalisation has so 
far had no impact on inequality within countries, for good or bad,
it has become received wisdom that inequality between countries 
has increased. Yet the overall pattern is less easy to sum up. 
Within different country groups there have been varying patterns 
of either increasing or decreasing inequality. Hence a case study 
is done on India and with the help of convergence hypothesis 
using log linear and linear regression techniques divergence is 
proved.Liberalisation since 1991 has had no major impact on 
reducing the level of inequality between Indian states.
 
JEL:      C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C8
Date:     2005-06-20
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpem:0506008&r=all



284. A Bivariate Markov Regime Switching GARCH Approach to 
     Estimate Time Varying Minimum Variance Hedge Ratios
  
    Hsiang-Tai Lee (Washington State University)
    Jonathan Yoder (Washington State University)

This paper develops a new bivariate Markov regime switching BEKK-
GARCH (RS-BEKK-GARCH) model. The model is a state-dependent 
bivariate BEKK- GARCH model, and an extension of Gray’s 
univariate generalized regime- switching (GRS) model to the 
bivariate case. To solve the path- dependency problem inherent in 
the bivariate regime switching BEKK-GARCH model, we propose a 
recombining method for the covariance term in the conditional 
variance-covariance matrix. The model is applied to estimate time-
varying minimum variance hedge ratios for corn and nickel spot 
and futures prices. Out-of-sample point estimates of hedging 
portfolio variance show that compared to the state-independent 
BEKK-GARCH model, the RS-BEKK-GARCH model improves out-of-sample 
hedging effectiveness for both corn and nickel data. We perform 
White’s (2000) data-snooping reality check to test for 
predictive superiority of RS-BEKK-GARCH over the benchmark model, 
and find that the difference in variance reduction between BEKK-
GARCH and RS-BEKK-GARCH is not statistically significant for 
either data set at conventional confidence levels.
 
Keywords: bivariate GARCH, require switching, hedging
JEL:      D81 C53
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpem:0506009&r=all



285. New Panel Unit Root Tests under Cross Section Dependence 
     for Practitioners
  
    Donggyu Sul (University of Auckland)

This paper studies the principle of common recursive mean 
adjustment and proposes a new detrending method in dynamic panel 
models. By utilizing recursive mean adjustment, this paper 
provides three unit root tests: a recursive mean adjusted (RMA) 
unit root test, a covariate RMA and a pooled RMA-feasible 
generalized least squares tests. The first two tests are designed 
for testing the cross sectional average of panel time series data 
to examine if the common factors in a panel are stationary or not.
The third test is designed to test if the idiosyncratic errors 
are stationary or not. The proposed panel unit root test under 
cross section dependence is precise and powerful especially when 
T is larger than N
 
Keywords: recursive detrending, panel unit root tests, cross 
          section dependence
JEL:      C33
Date:     2005-06-29
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpem:0506010&r=all



286. The Role of Accounting Conservatism in a well-functioning 
     Corporate Governance System
  
    Supreena Narayanan (Madras School of Economics)

This paper analyses accounting related to corporate governance 
and is organized as follows. The first section deals with 
understanding the concept of accounting conservatism. In the 
second section we analyzed the Relevance of Accounting 
Conservatism in Corporate Governance to the modern corporate 
world. The third section includes a Case Study on Ericsson, a 
Swedish Telecommunications company and conservatism in strong 
governance firms versus weak governance firms. The fourth part is 
devoted to the conclusion of our research efforts. From this 
study, we conclude that there are several reasons to use 
accounting conservatism in corporate governance and that current 
empirical evidence indicates that conservatism has increased in 
the last decades. The value of beta3 in Table 1 indicates that 
there is a positive significant level of conservatism in 
accounting practices followed by Ericsson. When the dependent 
variable is earnings (X), the asymmetric timeliness of earnings 
coefficient beta3 in Table 2 provides an estimate of the level of 
conservatism. We observe that strong governance firms are more 
conservative than weak governance firms (0.13 versus 0.04). We 
expect and hypothesize that strong governance structures will 
tend to favour accounting conservatism more than weak governance 
structures. However, excessive dependencies on old structures 
show poor growth that has been since the oil crisis.
 
JEL:      G
Date:     2005-06-20
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0506011&r=all



287. Estimating the Probabilities of Default for Callable Bonds: 
     A Duffie-Singleton Approach
  
    David Wang (Hsuan Chuang University)

This paper presents a model for estimating the default risks 
implicit in the prices of callable corporate bonds. The model 
considers three essential ingredients in the pricing of callable 
corporate bonds: stochastic interest rate, default risk, and call 
provision. The stochastic interest rate is modeled as a square-
root diffusion process. The default risk is modeled as a constant 
spread, with the magnitude of this spread impacting the 
probability of a Poisson process governing the arrival of the 
default event. The call provision is modeled as a constraint on 
the value of the bond in the finite difference scheme. The 
empirical results are encouraging. First, the estimated default 
probabilities are consistent with Moody?¦s ratings. The 
estimated default probabilities rise with lower ratings and fall 
with higher ratings. Second, the relationship between the 
estimated default probabilities and other bond characteristics is 
consistent with the intuition. The estimated default 
probabilities are negatively correlated with maturity and 
positively correlated with coupon payment, age, and issue size. 
This paper can be used both as a benchmark for models for 
estimating the default risks associated with callable corporate 
bonds and as a direction for future research.
 
Keywords: Default Risk; Callable Bond
JEL:      G
Date:     2005-06-22
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0506013&r=all



288. A Model to Price Puttable Corporate Bonds with Default Risk
  
    David Wang (Hsuan Chuang University)

This paper presents a model for pricing puttable corporate bonds 
that are subject to default risk. The model incorporates three 
essential ingredients in the pricing of defaultable puttable 
bonds: stochastic interest rate, default risk, and put provision. 
The stochastic interest rate is modeled as a square-root 
diffusion process. The default risk is modeled as a constant 
spread, with the magnitude of this spread impacting the 
probability of a Poisson process governing the arrival of the 
default event. The put provision is modeled as a constraint on 
the value of the bond in the finite difference scheme. This paper 
can be used both as a benchmark for models for pricing puttable 
corporate bonds that are subject to default risk and as a 
direction for future research.
 
Keywords: Default Risk; Puttable Bond
JEL:      G
Date:     2005-06-22
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0506014&r=all



289. Using Hermite Expansions for Fast and Arbitrarily Accurate 
     Computation of the Expected Loss of a Loan Portfolio Tranche 
     in the Gaussian Factor Model
  
    Pavel Okunev (LBNL & UC Berkeley)

We propose a fast algorithm for computing the expected tranche 
loss in the Gaussian factor model with arbitrary accuracy using 
Hermite expansions. No assumptions about homogeneity of the 
portfolio are made. The algorithm is a generalization of the 
algorithm proposed in \cite{PO}. The advantage of the new 
algorithm is that it allows us to achieve higher accuracy in 
almost the same computational time. It is intended as an 
alternative to the much slower Fourier transform based methods 
\cite{MD}.
 
Keywords: Gaussian factor model, Gaussian copula model, loan 
          portfolio, CDO, DJCDX, CDO tranche loss, portfolio 
          tranche loss, expected loss
JEL:      G
Date:     2005-06-22
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0506015&r=all



290. Influence de la premiere heure de cotation
  
    Cumhur Ekinci (CNAM Paris & Aix-Marseille III University)

We analyze and compare the intradaily patterns of two French and 
three American stocks with a special emphasis to the first 
trading hour (Presentation at the INSEEC Colloquium 2005)
 
Keywords: intraday, first trading hour, premiere heure de 
          cotation, Total, Alcatel, Citicorp, Microsoft, Intel
JEL:      G10
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0506016&r=all



291. Improving the comparability of insolvency predictions
  
    Martin Bemmann (Technische Universitat Dresden, Fakultat 
      Wirtschaftswissenschaften)

This working paper aims at improving the comparability of 
forecast quality measures of insolvency prediction studies. For 
this purpose, in a first step commonly used accuracy measures for 
categorial, ordinal and cardinal insolvency predictions are 
presented. It will be argued, that ordinal measures are the most 
suitable measures for sample spanning comparisons concerning 
predictive power of rating models, as they are not affected by 
sample default rates. A method for transforming cardinal into 
ordinal accuracy measures is presented, by which comparisons of 
insolvency prediction results of older and present-day studies 
are enabled. In the second part of the working paper an overview 
of influencing variables – aside from the quality of the 
insolvency prediction methods – is given, which affect the 
accuracy measures presented in the first part of the paper and 
thus impair sample spanning comparison of empirically obtained 
forecast quality results. In this context, methods for evaluating 
information losses that are attributable to the discretization of 
continuous rating scales or preselection of portfolios are 
developed. Measure results of various insolvency prognosis 
studies are envisaged and compared with three benchmarks. First 
benchmark is the accuracy that can be achieved solely by taking 
into account legal status and industry classification of 
corporations. The second benchmark is the univariate prognosis 
accuracy of single financial ratios. As third benchmark, 
ALTMAN’s Z-score model is examined, a multivariate insolvency 
prediction model, that is currently used as reference rating 
model in many empirical studies. It turns out, however, that the 
Z-score’s forecast quality is so discontenting, that its 
application is not recommendable. Instead it is suggested to use 
those rating models that are cited in this discussion paper, 
which are fully documented and which therefore can be rebuilt and 
directly applied to any desired data sample. If applied to the 
respective target groups, their performance matches with the 
performance of commercial rating systems, like bureau and 
business scores for rather small companies, middle market rating 
models for SMB, or agency ratings for large public companies.
 
Keywords: financial ratio analysis, corporate bankruptcy 
          prediction, forecast validation, accuracy ratio, 
          information entropy, sample selection, rating 
          granularity
JEL:      G33 C14
Date:     2005-06-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0506017&r=all



292. The Number of Bank Relationships of SMEs: A Disaggregated 
     Analysis for the Swiss Loan Market
  
    Doris Neuberger (University of Rostock)
    Christoph Schacht (Institute for Financial Services Zug)

The present paper investigates the number of bank relationships 
of small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland using survey 
data from 1996 and 2002. We differentiate between overall bank 
relationships and lending relationships and disaggregate the loan 
market with respect to firm sizes, industries and banking groups. 
On average, bank lending declined, while the role of housebank 
relationships increased in 1996- 2002. The development of the 
number of bank relationships seems to have been demand-driven as 
well as supply-driven for medium-sized firms, but only supply-
driven for very small and small firms. Supply-side reductions 
resulted from the merger between two big banks and changes in 
credit risk management at major banks.
 
Keywords: relationship lending, housebank, loan market structure,
          multiple banks
JEL:      G21 G32
Date:     2005-06-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0506018&r=all



293. Random Paths to Pairwise Stability in Many-to-Many Matching
  
    M. Utku Unver (Koc University)

We find a path from a pairwise-unstable matching to a pairwise-
stable matching such that each matching in the path is formed by 
satisfying a blocking individual or a blocking pair in the 
previous matching in many- to-many two-sided matching problems 
with categorywise-responsive preferences. This shows that a 
stochastic process that satisfies each blocking individual or 
pair with a positive probability will converge to a pairwise-
stable matching with probability 1.
 
JEL:      C7 D8
Date:     2005-06-20
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpga:0506004&r=all



294. Knowledge Creation as a Square Dance on the Hilbert Cube
  
    Marcus Berliant (Washington University in St. Louis)
    Masahisa Fujita (Kyoto University)

This paper presents a micro-model of knowledge creation through 
the interactions among a group of people. Our model incorporates 
two key aspects of the cooperative process of knowledge creation: 
i) heterogeneity of people in their state of knowledge is 
essential for successful cooperation in the joint creation of new 
ideas, while (ii) the very process of cooperative knowledge 
creation affects the heterogeneity of people through the 
accumulation of knowledge in common. The model features myopic 
agents in a pure externality model of interaction. Surprisingly, 
in the general case for a large set of initial conditions we find 
that the equilibrium process of knowledge creation may converge 
to the most productive state, where the population splits into 
smaller groups of optimal size; close interaction takes place 
within each group only. This optimal size is larger as the 
heterogeneity of knowledge is more important in the knowledge 
production process. Equilibrium paths are found analytically, and 
they are a discontinuous function of initial heterogeneity.
 
Keywords: knowledge creation, knowledge externalities, 
          microfoundations of endogenous growth
JEL:      D83 O31 R11
Date:     2005-06-22
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpga:0506006&r=all



295. Coalition Formation with Local Public Goods and Network 
     Effect
  
    Fan-chin Kung (City University of Hong Kong & Academia 
      Sinica)

Many local public goods are provided by coalitions and some of 
them have network effects. Namely, people prefer to consume a 
public good in a coalition with more members. This paper adopts 
the Dreze and Greenberg (1980) type utility function where 
players have preferences over goods as well as coalition members. 
In a game with anonymous and separable network effect, the core 
is nonempty when coalition feasible sets are monotonic and 
players' preferences over public goods have connected support. 
All core allocations consist of connected coalitions and they are 
Tiebout equilibria as well. We also examine the no-exodus 
equilibrium for games whose feasible sets are not monotonic.
 
Keywords: Coalition formation, core, network effect, local 
          public goods
JEL:      C71 D71 H41
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpga:0506007&r=all



296. Lost in Translation: Ex Ante Utility and Proportionality in 
     Games
  
    Barry Feldman (Prism Analytics & DePaul University)

Games have no representation of the ex ante utilities of players.
Ex ante utility is definable and measurable. Ex ante utility is 
necessary for the coherent representation of the equal split 
bargaining solution. Proper characterization of the Nash (1950) 
bargaining solution and other solutions requires the assumption 
of independence from ex ante utility. Proportional bargaining is 
the unique solution satisfying efficiency, symmetry, affine 
transformation invariance and monotonicity in pure bargaining 
games with ex ante utility. All cooperative solution functions 
become translation invariant once account is taken of ex ante 
utility. The noncooperative rationality of these results is 
demonstrated though an implementation of proportional bargaining 
based on Gul (1988). Quantal response equilibria with 
multiplicative error structures (Goeree, Holt and Palfrey (2004)) 
become translation invariant with specification of ex ante 
utility.
 
Keywords: Ex ante utility, translation invariance, 
          proportionality, Nash bargaining solution, Kalai-
          Smorodinsky solution, equal split solution, quantal 
          response equilibria.
JEL:      C70 C71 C72 C78
Date:     2005-07-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpga:0507001&r=all



297. Cost Analysis of a Home Visiting Program to Cost Analysis 
     of a Home Visiting Program to Cost Analysis of a Home 
     Visiting Program to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect
  
    Catherine Boulatoff (St Lawrence University)
    Vonda Jump (Early Intervention Research Institute , Utah 
      State University)

In a time of fiscal cutback, analysis of program costs can help 
decision makers allocate resources. This paper presents the 
results of an economic cost evaluation of a countywide universal 
home visiting program to reduce child abuse and neglect. Results 
indicate that the average cost amounted to $4,378/family/year. 
This includes an average of 2.1 visits by a Public Health Nurse 
and 29 home visits by Family Visitors. The full cost of 
professional services appeared to be significantly higher than 
that of paraprofessionals. Families with more risk factors were 
more likely to accept services than families with fewer risk 
factors. These findings can be helpful in planning the costs 
associated with similar program implementation.
 
Keywords: cost analysis; home program; child abuse and neglect
JEL:      I
Date:     2005-06-22
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwphe:0506004&r=all



298. Consumption Smoothing Channels in Open Economies
  
    Pierfederico Asdrubali
    Soyoung Kim

We recognize that intertemporal models of the current account (
Frankel and Razin with Yuan 1996, or Baxter and Crucini 1993) 
imply a theory of consumption smoothing channels, and thus we 
build an empirical model on the theoretical foundations of Sachs (
1982)'s optimizing model in order to analyze the intertemporal 
smoothing role of saving components (fixed investments, 
inventories and trade balance). The estimation is conducted in a 
structural VAR framework, in which the minimal identifying 
restrictions are consistent with both the 'intertemporal approach 
to the current account' and the empirical consumption smoothing 
literature. Through the use of impulse response functions 
following different types of shocks, we find that for the OECD 
countries the bulk of intertemporal smoothing has been carried 
out domestically, through gross fixed investments and inventories,
but the trade balance has also played a relevant - albeit 
volatile - smoothing role. We also determine the dynamic role of 
each component: the trade balance and inventories are mostly used 
as short-run smoothing tools while fixed investment provides more 
and more smoothing over time. Since our framework can accommodate 
various models of the current account, we can address some 
empirical puzzles, such as the 'excess sensitivity of investment' 
anomaly (Glick and Rogoff, JME 1995) and the 'saving-investment 
puzzle' (Feldstein and Horioka, EJ 1980).
 
Keywords: Consumption smoothing channels; Intertemporal approach 
          to the current account; VAR; Feldstein-Horioka puzzle; 
          Capital mobility.
JEL:      F41 F32 F36
Date:     2005-06-23
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpif:0506009&r=all



299. Incomplete Intertemporal Consumption Smoothing and 
     Incomplete Risksharing
  
    Pierfederico Asdrubali
    Soyoung Kim

This paper develops a method to estimate jointly the degree of (
possibly incomplete) intertemporal consumption smoothing and the 
degree of (possibly incomplete) international/interregional 
risksharing. This approach generalizes and improves upon studies 
that either examine only intertemporal consumption smoothing, or 
analyze risksharing by making an extreme assumption on 
intertemporal consumption smoothing, or by adopting a purely 
empirical framework. The method is applied to the US states and 
OECD and EU countries to analyze how the degrees of risksharing 
and intertemporal consumption smoothing differ within a country 
and across countries. The empirical results suggest that: 1) 
regardless of the assumption on the degree of intertemporal 
consumption smoothing, the degree of risksharing within a country 
is larger than across countries 2) the degree of intertemporal 
consumption smoothing within a country is also larger than across 
countries, contrary to the findings of past channel studies. 
Finally, this paper also provides some foundations and suggests 
limitations of the empirical literature on channels of 
risksharing and intertemporal consumption smoothing.
 
Keywords: Intertemporal consumption smoothing, risksharing, 
          channels of risksharing, international vs. intranational
JEL:      E21 F36 F41
Date:     2005-06-23
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpif:0506010&r=all



300. I Like the Way you Move - An Empirical Investigation into 
     the Mechansimns Behind First Mover and Follower Strategies
  
    Wolfgang Sofka (ZEW Mannheim)
    Tobias Schmidt (ZEW Mannheim)

There appears to be an ambivalent dimension in innovation 
strategies: timing. When is an innovation ready for the market or 
when is the market ready for the innovation? This paper 
empirically investigates the determinants of a firm’s decision 
to become a first mover or a follower in innovation strategies. 
Much of theoretical and empirical work has focused on whether 
first mover strategies pay off or not. Here we take a different 
approach by analysing the determinants that lead companies to opt 
for either a first mover or a follower strategy. One of this 
paper’s major goals is to distinguish between firm and industry 
specific effects on this particular strategic choice. We estimate 
our model using the most recent data from the German innovation 
survey of 2003. This dataset allows us to identify deliberate 
followers rather than outstripped first movers. One of our main 
findings is that firms choosing a first mover strategy operate in 
industries with intensive knowledge exchange and further leverage 
this advantage through excellent internal absorptive capacities. 
Followers, though, compete by way of their operational excellence 
for streamlining processes and cutting costs. Hence, we argue 
that neither of these two innovation strategies is per se 
superior to the other.
 
Keywords: innovation strategy, first mover, bivariat probit
JEL:      L10 O32
Date:     2005-06-22
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0506010&r=all



301. Congestion pricing of inputs in vertically related markets
  
    isamu matsukawa (musashi university)

This paper conducts a welfare analysis of a two-part tariff that 
is applied to the congestion pricing of inputs supplied by a 
natural monopolist with increasing returns to scale to 
competitive firms that require an input in a fixed proportion to 
output. Congestion pricing of inputs is optimal for both the 
welfare-maximizing regulator and the profit-maximizing monopolist 
if it is applied in the form of a uniform price for the input. 
However, a two-part tariff for the congestion pricing of inputs 
is optimal if competition in the downstream market is imperfect 
or if there is demand uncertainty in the market.
 
Keywords: two-part tariff
JEL:      L
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0506012&r=all



302. Non Cooperatives Stackelberg Networks: Get Informed Earlier 
     Pays Off
  
    Juan M.C. Larrosa (CONICET-Universidad Nacional del Sur)

Non cooperative network-formation games in oligopolies analyze 
the optimal connection structure that emerges when linking 
represent the appropriation of cost-reducing one-way 
externalities. These models reflect situations where one firm 
access to another firm’s (public or private) information and 
this last cannot refuse it. What would happen if one firm can 
move first? A classical model of exogenous Stackelberg leader is 
developed and first-mover advantages are observed.
 
Keywords: Keywords: non cooperative games, network formation 
          strategies, Stackelberg equilibrium.
JEL:      C70 D43 L13
Date:     2005-06-29
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0506013&r=all



303. Welfare Effects of Tariff Reduction Formulas
  
    Jan Guldager Jorgensen (University of Southern Denmark)
    Philipp J.H. Schroder (Aarhus School of Business)

WTO negotiations rely on tariff reduction formulas. It has been 
argued that formula approaches are of increasing importance in 
trade talks, because of the large number of countries involved, 
the wider dispersion in initial tariffs (e.g. tariff peaks) and 
gaps between bound and applied tariff rates. This paper resents a 
two country intra-industry trade model with heterogeneous firms 
subject to high and low tariffs. We examine the welfare effects 
of applying three different tariff reduction formulas proposed in 
the literature i) a proportional cut, ii) the Swiss formula and 
iii) a compression formula. No single formula dominates for all 
conditions. The ranking of the three tools depends on the degree 
of product differentiation in the industry, and the achieved 
reduction in the average tariff.
 
Keywords: Welfare, monopolistic competition, intra-industry 
          trade, wto trade liberalization, formula approaches
JEL:      F12 F13 F15
Date:     2005-06-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpit:0506006&r=all



304. The workers' value of the remaining employment contract 
     duration
  
    Jos Van Ommeren (Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
    Mihails Hazans (University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia)

This paper introduces and applies a method for estimating 
workers' marginal willingness to pay for job attributes employing 
data on job search activity. Worker's willingness to pay for the 
remaining duration of the employment contract is derived. We 
provide evidence that workers attach substantial value to the 
remaining contract duration. A temporary worker with a remaining 
contract of 6 months is willing to pay about 10% of the wage to 
increase the contract by one month.
 
Keywords: On-the-job search; Job attributes; Contract duration; 
          Temporary job
JEL:      J31 J41 J6 P23
Date:     2005-06-25
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0506006&r=all



305. A stock-flow matching approach to evaluation of public 
     training program in a high unemployment environment
  
    Jekaterina Dmitrijeva (EPEE)
    Mihails Hazans (University of Latvia & BICEPS)

Monthly panel (1998-2003) data from regional labor offices in 
Latvia are used to analyze the matching process in a high 
unemployment – low labor demand environment and to evaluate the 
impact of active labor market policy programs on outflows from 
unemployment. Results suggest that the hiring process is driven 
by a stock-flow rather than by a traditional matching function: 
the stock of unemployed at the beginning of the month and flow of 
vacancies arriving during the month are the key determinants of 
outflows from unemployment to employment, while stock of 
vacancies and inflow of unemployed do not play any significant 
role. We find positive and significant effect of training 
programs on outflows from unemployment to employment, thus 
providing strong evidence against recent cuts in training 
expenditures.
 
Keywords: stock-flow matching, augmented matching function, 
          labor market policy, training, transition countries
JEL:      J41 J64 J68
Date:     2005-06-25
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0506007&r=all



306. Latvia: Working Too Hard?
  
    Mihails Hazans (University of Latvia & BICEPS)

This paper provides an assessment of employment and working 
conditions in Latvia before and immediately after the EU 
accession. The issues addressed include self-employment, multiple 
jobs, fixed-term contracts, unreported wages, overtime, unsocial 
working hours, health and safety at work, social dialogue. The 
study combines different methods: statistical and econometric 
analysis of recent Labour Force Surveys and enterprise surveys (
Earning Structure Survey and Survey of Occupations); firm level 
case studies; interviews with experts. Findings indicate that 
despite recent improvements in legal and institutional 
environment, as well as some progress in working conditions, 
significant proportions of workers are exposed to serious risks; 
health and safety conditions are slow to improve (several 
bottlenecks are identified). 15 percent of employees in 2003 were 
usually working 50 or more hours per week, and often this 
overtime was involuntary and/or unpaid. The analysis suggest that,
other things equal, unpaid overtime is more likely to be found 
in small firms, for temporary workers, for workers with short 
tenure. Presence of a trade union improves workers’ prospect to 
be paid for eventual overtime work.
 
Keywords: employment contract, working conditions, overtime, 
          transition
JEL:      J22 J23 J28 J5 P23
Date:     2005-06-25
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0506008&r=all



307. IMPACTO DE LOS INCENTIVOS PUBLICOS EN EDUCACION SOBRE LA 
     PARTICIPACION LABORAL DE LOS TRABAJADORES EN COLOMBIA
  
    Juan Miguel Villa

Los estudios empiricos que tratan sobre la participacion 
laboral en Colombia muestran que epocas de poco crecimiento 
economico o recesion aumenta el numero de trabajadores 
secundarios (ninos o amas de casa) que deciden ofrecer su fuerza 
de trabajo. Los hogares mas vulnerables a esta situacion son 
aquellos en donde alguno de sus integrantes pierde su actual 
ocupacion y sus ingresos tienden a disminuir. El siguiente 
estudio tiene como objeto mostrar que tanto puede disminuir la 
probabilidad que un trabajador secundario ofrezca su fuerza de 
trabajo si recibe algun incentivo publico en educacion (becas, 
subsidios, creditos), conel uso de los modelos Probit de 
participacion laboral y el uso del Propensity Score Matching. 
Los resultados muestran que esta clase de incentivos son 
efectivos para los hombres entre los 12 – 16 anos de edad y 
entre los 12 – 22 anos en el caso de las mujeres. Tambien es 
discriminado el analisis segun el numero de desocupados por 
hogar y por medio de la construccion de diez percentiles del 
Indice de Condiciones de Vida (ICV–2003). La implicaciones en 
politica economica son bastante relevantes puesto que la 
politica fiscal en educacion puede ser enfocada hacia la 
ampliacion de estos incentivos, para asi evitar que en epocas 
en las que el ingresos de los hogares disminuye los individuos 
que se encuentren econonomicamente inactivos no ofrezcan su 
fuerza de trabajo y lograr de esta manera que no empeoren los 
indicadores de los mercados laborales (tasa de desocupacion y 
subempleo).
 
Keywords: Participacion laboral; Capital Humano; Indice de 
          Condiciones de Vida; salario de reserva; Clasificacion 
          economica de la poblacion; modelos Probit; Propensity 
          Score Matching.
JEL:      J
Date:     2005-06-27
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0506009&r=all



308. Negative Stereotypes and Willingness to Change Them: 
     Testing Theories of Discrimination in South Africa
  
    Jorge Aguero (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

This paper proposes a new test to distinguish between the two 
leading theories of discrimination: preference versus information.
Discrimination based on preferences occurs when people behave as 
if they refuse to change their stereotypes about the capabilities 
of discriminated individuals. Those who discriminate based on 
information are willing to alter their stereotypes. Using data 
from a quasi- experiment in South Africa, I test for 
discrimination against women and non-whites. The preliminary 
results show no discrimination against the former. In the case of 
racial discrimination, players’ stereotypes benefit non-whites 
instead of white opponents, but they are reluctant to change 
their impression for the former. However, they are willing to 
change their initial impression about white opponents. This has 
severe implications about the permanency of affirmative action 
policies.
 
Keywords: Theories of Discrimination, South Africa, Experiments, 
          Bayesian Learning
JEL:      J7 J79 C99 N37
Date:     2005-06-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0506010&r=all



309. LIABILITY, REGULATION AND ENDOGENOUS RISK: INCIDENCE AND 
     SEVERITY OF ESCAPED PRESCRIBED FIRES IN THE UNITED STATES
  
    Jonathan Yoder (Washington State University)

Prescribed fire is a useful but risky method for reducing 
general wildfire risk and improving wildlife habitat, 
biodiversity, timber growth, and agricultural forage. In the past 
the fifteen years, laws is some states have been adopted to 
support the use of prescribed fire. This article examines the 
effect of liability law and common regulations on the incidence 
and severity of escaped prescribed fires in the United States 
from 1970 to 2002. Regression results show that stringent 
statutory liability law and regulation tends to reduce the number 
and severity of escaped prescribed fires on private land, but not 
on federal land where state liability law does not directly apply.
 
Keywords: endogenous risk, prescribed fire economics, liability 
          law
JEL:      K32 Q2
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwple:0506003&r=all



310. Appeasing Nihilists? Some Economic Thoughts on Reducing 
     Terrorist Activity
  
    Jan Schnellenbach (Philipps-University Marburg)

Recent contributions to the economics of terrorism have given 
contradicting recommendations for campaigning against terrorism, 
from the proposal to deprive terrorists of their resources to the 
proposal of raising the opportunity costs of terrorism by 
increasing the wealth of the affected regions. Within a simple 
framework which differentiates between the decision to become an 
active terrorist and the decision to support terrorists and which 
allows for reciprocal reactions to anti- terrorism policies, it 
is argued here that undifferentiated deterrence may indeed 
backfire, but so may an increase of the opportunity costs of 
terrorism. A very targeted anti-terrorism policy aimed only at 
active terrorists would then be the most reasonable remaining 
approach.
 
JEL:      H56
Date:     2005-07-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwple:0507001&r=all



311. Adaptive Learning and Inflation Persistence
  
    Fabio Milani (Princeton University)

What generates persistence in inflation? Is inflation 
persistence structural? This paper investigates learning as a 
potential source of persistence in inflation. The paper focuses 
on the price-setting problem of firms and presents a model that 
nests structural sources of persistence (indexation) and learning.
Indexation is typically necessary under rational expectations to 
match the inertia in the data and to improve the fit of estimated 
New Keynesian Phillips curves. The empirical results show that 
when learning replaces the assumption of fully rational 
expectations, structural sources of persistence in inflation, 
such as indexation, become unsupported by the data. The results 
suggest learning behavior as the main source of persistence in 
inflation. This finding has implications for the optimal monetary 
policy. The paper also shows how one's results can heavily depend 
on the assumed learning speed. The estimated persistence and the 
model fit, in fact, vary across the whole range of constant gain 
values. The paper derives the best-fitting constant gains in the 
sample and shows that the learning speed has substantially 
changed over time.
 
Keywords: adaptive learning, inflation persistence, sticky 
          prices, best- fitting constant gain, learning speed, 
          expectations.
JEL:      D84 E30 E50
Date:     2005-06-19
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0506013&r=all



312. Recent Increases in Prices of Oil Products and their 
     Possible Effects on the 2001-2002 Disinflation Program in 
     Turkey (in Turkish)
  
    Aykut Kibritcioglu (Ankara University)

Following the financial crises in November 2000 and February 
2001, the Turkish government canceled the 2000-2002 disinflation 
and economic restructuring program on February 22, 2001, and 
introduced a new macroeconomic-policy program on April 14, 2001. 
According to this new program, the annual WPI inflation is 
targeted as 57.6 percent for 2001. In this paper, the author 
discusses both (1) the degree of necessity of increases in oil-
product prices after February 22, 2001, and (2) the implications 
of their possible inflationary effects for the targets of 2001-
2002 program. He concludes that oil-product price increases can 
economically be justified by sharp rises in nominal exchange 
rates and moderate increases in world crude-oil prices. However, 
the accumulating inflationary pressures that stem from oil-price 
and exchange-rate increases may cause a remarkable deviation from 
the targeted inflation rate as end of December 2001. ***** TURKCE 
OZET: 'Turkiye'de Akaryakit Fiyat Artislari ve 2001-2002 
Enflasyonla Mucadele Programi Uzerindeki Olasi Etkileri'. 2000 
yylynda dunya ham petrol fiyatlary 21 $/varil ile 35 $/varil 
arasynda dalgalanyr, TL/Dolar kuru ise % 24.4 kadar 
yukselirken akaryakyt urunlerinin fiyatlaryna yyl boyunca 
ortalama olarak sadece % 8.0 kadar zam yapylmy?tyr. 57. TC 
Hukumetinin 2000-2002 enflasyonla mucadele programy ilk 
yylda enflasyonu % 60’lardan % 30’lara dek du?urmesine 
ra?men, Kasym 2000 ve ?ubat 2001 sonlarynda patlak veren iki 
finansal kriz sonrasynda kurlar dalgalanmaya byrakylarak 2001-
2002 yyllary icin yeni bir programyn hazyrlyklaryna 
giri?ilmi?tir. Ote yandan, 2001’in ilk uc ayyndaki petrol 
fiyaty arty?lary ayny yylyn ?ubat ve Mart ayy 
sonlaryndaki ciddi kur sycramalary ile birle?ince, 
akaryakyt urunlerinin fiyatlaryna ozellikle Mart ve Nisan 
aylarynda pe?pe?e zamlar yapylmy?tyr. Bu kysa makalede; 
2001 yylynyn ilk 3.5 ayynda gercekle?en toplam % 57.
6’lyk akaryakyt zammynyn ne olcude gerekli oldu?u ve 
soz konusu arty?laryn, Hukumetin 2001 yyly icin koydu?u 
% 57.6’lyk toptan e?ya fiyatlary endeksi (TEFE) arty? 
hedefini ne derecede etkileyece?i sorularyna yanyt 
aranmaktadyr. Caly?manyn bulgularyna gore, yapylan zamlar 
maliyet arty?lary bakymyndan buyuk olcude haklydyr. 
Ancak, akaryakyt zamlarynyn olasy enflasyonist etkileri, 
Hukumetin 2001 yyly TEFE arty? hedefine ula?ylmasyny 
olanaksyz kylmasa da oldukca gucle?tirmektedir. Soz konusu 
hedefin tutturulabilmesi icin, Hukumetin bundan boyle cok 
zorunlu olmadykca akaryakyt urunlerine zam yapmamasy 
gerekti?i ve bir an once kredibilitesi-guvenilirli?i yuksek 
ve gerekli yasal reformlarla desteklenen yeni dezenflasyon 
programyny bir butun olarak ve kararlylykla hayata 
gecirmesinin onemi ortaya cykmaktadyr. [Yayinlandigi yer: 
Iktisat, Isletme ve Finans Dergisi, 16 (No. 184): 31- 41, Temmuz 
2001]
 
Keywords: oil prices, gasoline prices, high inflation, 
          disinflation, Turkey
JEL:      E31 F40 Q43
Date:     2005-06-21
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0506014&r=all



313. Fleming-Mundell Modell as a Pioneer of 'Open Economy 
     Macroeconomics' (in Turkish)
  
    Aykut Kibritcioglu (Ankara University)

'Acik Ekonomi Makroiktisadi'nin Oncusu Olarak Fleming-Mundell 
Modeli. [Yayinlandigi yer: Iktisat Dergisi, 275: 31-38]
 
Keywords: open economy macroeconomics, Mundell-Fleming model, 
          monetary and fiscal policies
JEL:      F41
Date:     2005-06-21
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0506015&r=all



314. Financial Liberalization Era in Turkey: Critique on Decree 
     No.32
  
    Onur Koska (Hacettepe University)

“Financial Liberalization” winds had blown for 1980s’ 
Turkey, affected from developed nations, resulted from the 
efforts of keeping in step with world trend, and hence the law 
that had been put into practice in 1989, “decree no.32”, had 
not only affected its era, also had left countless problems in 
the site of country’s destiny. In the present paper, after 
exposing the existing political and economic circumstances in the 
last quarter of 20th century, the dynamics lying under the 
“decree no.32” are examined, pre- and post-decree situation 
are compared quantitatively, after then, whether “decree no.
32” had an impact on the foreign exchange crisis exploded in 
1994 is exposed.
 
JEL:      E44 E65 F40 G28 N20
Date:     2005-06-27
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0506016&r=all



315. Regime Shifts and the Stability of Backward Looking 
     Phillips Curves in Open Economies
  
    Efrem Castelnuovo (University of Padua)

In this paper we assess the stability of open economy backward-
looking Phillips curves estimated over two different exchange 
rate regimes. The pseudo-data employed in our econometric 
exercise come from the simulation of a New-Keynesian hybrid model 
suited for performing monetary policy analysis. Two main results 
arise: i) in most of the simulated scenarios the estimated 
reduced-form Phillips curves turn out to be unstable. However, if 
the structural new-keynesian model is predominantly - even if not 
fully - backward-looking, the estimated reduced-form parameters 
are stable; ii) the Chow-breakpoint test tends to underestimate 
the importance of regime-shifts in small samples.
 
Keywords: Lucas Critique, forwardness, backward looking Phillips 
          curves, exchange rates, Chow test.
JEL:      E17 E52 F41
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0506017&r=all



316. Ideology and existence of 50%-majority equilibria in 
     multidimensional spatial voting models
  
    Herve Cres (HEC Paris)
    M. Utku Unver (Koc University)

When aggregating individual preferences through the majority 
rule in an n-dimensional spatial voting model, the `worst-case' 
scenario is a social choice configuration where no political 
equilibrium exists unless a super majority rate as high as 1-1/n 
is adopted. In this paper we assume that a lower d-dimensional (d 
smaller than n) linear map spans the possible candidates' 
platforms. These d `ideological' dimensions imply some linkages 
between the n political issues. We randomize over these linkages 
and show that there almost surely exists a 50%-majority 
equilibria in the above worst-case scenario, when n grows to 
infinity. Moreover the equilibrium is the mean voter. The speed 
of convergence (toward 50%) of the super majority rate 
guaranteeing existence of equilibrium is computed for d=1 and 2.
 
JEL:      D1 D2 D3 D4
Date:     2005-06-21
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpmi:0506007&r=all



317. Bid Increments in Second-Price Sealed Bid Auctions
  
    Richard Cox (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

This note concerns bidding in a hybrid first-price and second-
price auction. The winning bidder sometimes pays his bid and 
sometimes pays an amount determined by the next highest bid. In 
internet auctions where bidders wait until the end of the auction 
to bid the auction reduces to a sealed-bid auction and the bid 
function we derive may be relevant in such cases.
 
Keywords: sniper bidding, bid increments
JEL:      D44
Date:     2005-06-24
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpmi:0506008&r=all



318. The Role of Europeanisation in the Larger Context of 
     Globalisation
  
    Supreena Narayanan (Stockholm School Of Economics)

Europeanisation has emerged as a significant world order because 
of the magnitude of changes it has brought about in terms of the 
construction, diffusion of formal as well as informal rules and 
regulations pertaining to politics, economy, technology and 
international relations within the European Union. The benefits 
of Europeanisation as consolidated and enforced by the formation 
of the European Union are numerous inclusive of: • Unification 
of a vast majority of constituent European economies 
territorially, politically and economically. • Stronger, 
simplified and more effective political control of a vast 
majority of European countries • A more wholesome sense of 
Corporate and Social Responsibility for a larger area in terms of 
corporate governance, environmental protection measures and 
pollution control. • Creation of stable democratic countries on 
behalf of the individual European Countries, an essential pre-
requisite for individual countries becoming part of the European. 
• An efficient and streamlined decision making for a fair and 
prosperous European Union. This paper analyses Europeanisation 
concerning its integration with EU politics and internal politics 
of EU countries, its relationship with firms as well as its 
interplay with Globalisation. European states - members and non-
members of the EU - remain challenged by the important and still 
unsolved question about how future policies of the EU should be 
considered vis a vis globalisation. While Europeanisation will 
further strengthen globalisation pressures it also permits the EU 
exhibiting great potential to emerge as a well-networked and 
strong system of regional governance.
 
JEL:      P Q Z
Date:     2005-06-20
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0506010&r=all



319. Contract Duration and the Division of Labor in Agricultural 
     Land Leases
  
    Jonathan Yoder (Washington State University)
    Ishrat Hossain (U. Technology, Sydney, Australia)
    Francis Eppin (Oklahoma State University)

Short-term contracts provide weak incentives for durable input 
investment if post-contract asset transfer is difficult. Our 
model shows that when both agents provide inputs, optimal 
contract length balances weak incentives of one agent against the 
other. This perspective broadens the existing contract duration 
literature, which emphasizes the tradeoff between risk sharing 
and contract costs. We develop hypotheses and test them based on 
private grazing contracts from the Southern Great Plains. We find 
broad support for the implications of our model. For example, 
landowners provide durable land-specific inputs more often under 
annual versus multiyear contracts.
 
Keywords: land lease contracts, moral hazard, contract duration, 
          division of labor
JEL:      J43 L23 Q15
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0506011&r=all



320. FIREFIGHTS AND FUEL MANAGEMENT: A NESTED ROTATION MODEL FOR 
     WILDFIRE RISK MITIGATION
  
    Marian Lankoande (Washington State University)
    Jonathan Yoder (Washington State University)

Scientists and policymakers are increasingly aware that wildfire 
management efforts should be broadened beyond the century-long 
emphasis on suppression to include more effective efforts at fuel 
management. Because wildfire risks change over time as vegetation 
matures, fuel management can be viewed as a timing problem, much 
like timber harvest itself. We develop a nested rotation model to 
examine the fuel treatment timing issue in the context of a 
forest environment with both timber value and non-timber values 
at-risk. Simulations are performed for a ponderosa pine forest 
and discussed with a focus on three important aspects of wildfire 
management: 1) the economic tradeoffs between fuel treatments, 
suppression, and timber harvest 2) the effects of public wildfire 
suppression on private fuel management incentives, 3) externality 
problems when non-timber values-at-risk such as wildland- urban 
interface property is not accounted for in private fuel 
management decisions.
 
Keywords: wildfire, fuels management, fire suppression, optimal 
          rotation, wildfire economics.
JEL:      Q23 D81
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0506012&r=all



321. Social capital as social networks. A new framework for 
     measurement
  
    Fabio Sabatini (University of Rome La Sapienza)

The contribution of this paper to the social capital literature 
is twofold. Drawing on the Italian data, it firstly provides a 
new framework for measurement, allowing to build indicators for 
five different components of the multidimensional concept of 
social capital. Secondly, it provides a single, synthetic, 
measure capturing that particular configuration of social capital 
which the literature generally associates with positive economic 
outcomes. This measure is here referred to as “developmental 
social capital”.
 
Keywords: Social capital, Social networks, Economic development, 
          Principal component analysis, Multiple factor analysis
JEL:      A12 O10 O18 R11
Date:     2005-06-29
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0506013&r=all



322. Social Capital, Public Spending and the Quality of Economic 
     Development
  
    Fabio Sabatini (University of Rome La Sapienza)

This paper carries out an empirical assessment of the 
relationship between social capital and the quality of economic 
development in Italy. The analysis draws on a dataset collected 
by the author including about two hundred variables representing 
different aspects of economic development and four 
“structural” dimensions of social capital. The quality of 
development is measured through human development and indicators 
of the state of health of urban ecosystems, public services, 
gender equality, and labour markets, while social capital is 
measured through synthetic indicators representing strong family 
ties, weak informal ties, voluntary organizations, and political 
participation. The quality of development exhibits a strong 
positive correlation with bridging weak ties and a negative 
correlation with strong family ties. Particularly, the analysis 
shows a strong correlation between informal ties and an indicator 
of “social well-being” (synthetizing gender equality, public 
services and labour markets) and between voluntary organizations 
and the state of health of urban ecosystems. Active political 
participation proves to be irrelevant in terms of development and 
well-being. Finally, the role of public spending for education, 
health care, welfare work, and the environment protection is 
analysed, revealing a scarce correlation both with social capital 
and development indicators.
 
Keywords: Social capital, Social networks, Public spending, 
          Economic development, Principal component analysis
JEL:      O15 O18 R11
Date:     2005-06-29
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0506014&r=all



323. New Estimates of Government Net Capital Stocks for 22 OECD 
     Countries 1960-2001
  
    Christophe Kamps (Kiel Institute for World Economics)

The issue of whether government capital is productive has 
received a great deal of recent attention. Yet empirical analyses 
of public capital productivity have generally been limited to the 
official capital stock estimates available in a small sample of 
countries. Alternatively, many researchers have investigated the 
output effects of public investment- recognizing that investment 
may be a poor proxy for the corresponding capital stock. This 
paper attempts to overcome the data shortage by providing 
internationally comparable capital stock estimates for 22 
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 
countries.
 
Keywords: Capital stock, capital goods, public capital, 
          perpetual inventory method, OECD countries, public 
          investment, productivity
JEL:      C82 E22 E62 H54
Date:     2005-06-23
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0506015&r=all



324. Knowledge Exchange, Matching, and Agglomeration
  
    Marcus Berliant (Washington University in St. Louis)
    Robert R. Reed III (University of Kentucky)
    Ping Wang (Washington University in St. Louis)

Despite wide recognition of their significant role in explaining 
sustained growth and economic development, uncompensated 
knowledge spillovers have not yet been fully modeled with a 
microeconomic foundation. This paper illustrates the exchange of 
knowledge as well as its consequences for agglomerative activity 
in a general-equilibrium search-theoretic framework. Agents, 
possessing differentiated types of knowledge, search for partners 
to exchange ideas in order to improve production efficacy. 
Contrary to previous work, we demonstrate that a decentralized 
equilibrium may be under-populated or over-populated and 
underselective or over-selective in knowledge exchange, compared 
to the social optimum.
 
Keywords: matching, knowledge exchange and spillovers, 
          agglomerative activity
JEL:      C78 D51 R12
Date:     2005-06-23
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpur:0506013&r=all



325. On Kolm's Use of Epistemic Counterfactuals in Social Choice 
     Theory
  
    John A. Weymark (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt 
      University)

Serge Kolm's "epistemic counterfactual principle" says that a 
social choice only needs to be made from the actual feasible set 
of alternatives given the actual preference profile, but it must 
be justified by the choices that would have been made in 
appropriate counterfactual choice situations. Kolm's principle 
does not identify the relevant counterfactuals. In this article, 
it is argued that the appropriate counterfactuals to justify an 
impartial social choice are all of the choice situations that a 
moral agent behind a veil of ignorance might think is the actual 
choice situation outside the veil.
 
Keywords: Arrovian social choice, counterfactual choice, veil of 
          ignorance, impartial observer, universal prescriptivism
JEL:      B40 D71
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:van:wpaper:0518&r=all



326. Equilibria with increasing returns : sufficient conditions 
     on bounded production allocations.
  
    Jean-Marc Bonnisseau (CERMSEM)
    Alexandrine Jamin (CERMSEM)

This paper deals with the existence of marginal pricing 
equilibria or equilibria with general pricing rules in an economy 
with increasing returns to scale or more general types of non 
convexities in production. Its main contribution is to posit the 
bounded loss and survival assumptions on a bounded subset of 
production allocations. Furthermore, the free-disposal assumption 
is weaken, which allows to consider non positive prices. Finally, 
we also provide an existence result for a quasi-equilibria, when 
the survival assumption is weaken on the attainable allocations.
 
Keywords: General economic equilibrium, increasing returns, 
          general pricing rules, bounded losses, marginal pricing 
          rule, free disposal.
JEL:      D21 D43 D51
Date:     2003-04
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:wpsorb:b05045&r=all



327. Crise et contagion : cas des pays de l'Europe de l'Est.
  
    Mohamed Ben Abdallah (TEAM)
    Iuliana Matei (TEAM)

The aim of this paper is to test empirically the impact of the 
contagion effect on the credibility of the exchange rate during 
the international financial crises between 1997 and 2001 for five 
CEECs : Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia. We 
find that : (1) the contagion effect is an important factor in 
order to determine the exchange rate ; (ii) the linkages between 
anticipations of devaluation and the economic fundamentals 
depends on the currency considered. The low number of the 
independent variables shows the difficulties to measure the 
determinants of the operators behaviour. The increase of the 
volatility expectations seems to be justified by a sudden return 
of the markets because of the contagion effect. Our results 
emphasize also that the Russian crisis had more impact on the 
economies of these countries, fact that confirms the regional 
character of the crisis.
 
Keywords: Contagion, exchange rate credibility, CEECs.
JEL:      F30 F40 G10
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:wpsorb:bla05044&r=all



328. Mecanismes de discipline collective des dirigeants vs. 
     mecanismes de reputation : une application au keiretsu 
     financier japonais.
  
    Laurent Soulat (TEAM)

This paper focuses on the mechanisms of collective control, such 
as in Japanese keiretsu, that are characterized by firms 
groupings, decentralized decision-makings and cross-shareholdings.
We develop a model about these mechanisms based on initial 
incentive contracts offered by shareholders to the manager, with 
an asymmetric information and with a possibility of compensation 
payments. These mechanisms of control are compared to reputation 
control, the latter working on original discount process. The 
results are obtained with simulations. The efficiency of the 
collective control depends on the levels of discount coefficient 
and on the differences in effort costs and expected profits. The 
collective control tends to dominate for a larger number of 
environment states for which reputation is inefficient to 
maintain discipline over the manager only. On the other hand, the 
reputation appears to be especially for high discounting 
coefficients, low learning costs or periods, and for high values 
of accumulated reputation.
 
Keywords: Incentive theory, corporate governance, reputation and 
          control mechanisms, Japanese keiretsu.
JEL:      D23 G32 L14 L22
Date:     2005-04
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:wpsorb:bla05046&r=all



329. Quelles pratiques de ressources humaines en faveur de 
     l'egalite hommes-femmes en entreprise ?.
  
    Severine Lemiere (MATISSE)

This document starts from the statement that all human resources 
themes can generate risks of inequalities and discrimination 
between men and women. Of course, these discriminations are 
indirect but the results is the same about recrutment, careers, 
wages, balance between family life and work, vocational training..
 Some firms implement practices for women employment and 
equality at work, the European Commission valorises "these good 
practices". The aim of this document (grouping experimentations 
and first analysis which demand futher development on 
transferability and adaptability of these practices) is to expose 
some interesting examples of human resources practices in favour 
of equality and to discuss these practices and stakes of equality 
in firms.
 
Keywords: Equality at work, human resources management, 
          discrimination, women.
JEL:      J16 J7 M12 M5
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:wpsorb:r05048&r=all



330. Merger control with asymmetric information : what 
     structural remedies can and cannot achieve.
  
    Andreea Cosnita (EUREQua)
    Jean-Philippe Tropeano (EUREQua)

This paper aims to contribute to the normative economic analysis 
of mergers by taking into account the possible efficiency gains 
for the design of structural merger remedies. We show that a 
larger asset transfer should be requested from a less efficient 
merged firm than from a more efficient one, wich conforts the 
proportionality principle advocated by competition policy 
practitioners. However, since cost savings are private 
information of merging firms, the Competition Authority will 
require them to reveal their efficiency gains, so as to tailor 
the optimal remedy. We propose a revelation mechanism combining 
the use of divestitures with the regulation of asset sale prices. 
We discuss the opportunity of such an instrument, and argue that 
in practice Competition Authorities might be entiled to infer a 
lot from the sale price of divestitures.
 
Keywords: Merger control, structural merger remedies, asymmetric 
          information.
JEL:      D82 L41
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:wpsorb:v05047&r=all



331. Short-run and Long-run Effects of Corruption on Economic 
     Growth: Evidence from State-Level Cross-Section Data for the 
     United States
  
    Nobuo Akai
    Yusaku Horiuchi
    Masayo Sakata

Theoretical studies suggest that corruption may counteract 
government failure and promote economic growth in the short run, 
given exogenously determined sub optimal bureaucratic rules and 
regulations. As the government failure is itself a function of 
corruption, however, corruption should have detrimental effects 
on economic growth in the long run. In this paper, we measure the 
rate of economic growth for various time spans—short (
1998–2000), middle (1995–2000) and long (1991–2000)—using 
previously uninvestigated state-level cross-section data for the 
United States. Our two-stage least square (2SLS) estimates with a 
carefully selected set of instruments show that the effect of 
corruption on economic growth is indeed negative and 
statistically significant in the middle and long spans but 
insignificant in the short span.
 
JEL:      O40 D73
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idc:wpaper:idec05-5&r=all



332. Production and Gains from Trade
  
    Lisa R. Anderson (Department of Economics, College of 
      William and Mary)
    Emily Blanchard (Department of Economics, University of 
      Virginia)
    Kelly Chaston (Department of Economics, Davidson College)
    Charles Holt (Department of Economics, University of 
      Virginia)
    Laura Razzolini (Department of Economics, Virginia 
      Commonwealth University)
    Robert Singleton (Department of Economics, Loyola Marymount 
      University)

This paper describes a classroom game in which students make 
production and trade decisions. Each student represents a country 
and decides how much of two goods to produce, how much to 
exchange with a partner country, and whether to specialize in the 
production of one of the two goods. In introductory level classes,
the game helps students understand the notion of comparative 
advantage in production and distinguish between gains from pure 
exchange and gains from specialization and trade. Class 
discussion focuses on the concepts of production possibility 
frontier, marginal productivity of inputs, and on the 
determination of the price ratio at which trade may occur. In 
advanced classes, the exercise facilitates comparisons among 
different models of international trade and serves as a platform 
from which to introduce and discuss key issues in current 
research and public debate.
 
Keywords: Classroom Experiment, International Trade, Comparative 
          Advantage, Production Possibility Frontier, Price Ratio
JEL:      F10 A22
Date:     2005-05-11
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwm:wpaper:16&r=all



333. Does Crime Pay? A Classroom Demonstration of Monitoring and 
     Enforcement
  
    Lisa R. Anderson (Department of Economics, College of 
      William and Mary)
    Sarah L. Stafford (Department of Economics, College of 
      William and Mary)

This paper presents a classroom game in which students choose 
whether or not to comply with pollution regulations. By changing 
the level of monitoring and fines for noncompliance across 
periods, the game shows students how the probability and severity 
of enforcement affects incentives for compliance. The game can be 
adapted for settings other than environmental regulation and can 
be used in a variety of classes including regulation, law and 
economics, environmental economics, public economics, or the 
economics of crime. It can easily be conducted in a fifty-minute 
class period.
 
Keywords: Classroom Experiment, Non-Compliance, Pollution
JEL:      A22 C90 K42
Date:     2005-05-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwm:wpaper:17&r=all



334. Dynamic Discrete Choice Modeling: Monte Carlo Analysis
  
    Robert L. Hicks (Department of Economics, College of William 
      and Mary)
    Kurt Schnier (Department of Environmental and Natural 
      Reseource Economics, University of Rhode Island)

Recent work on spatial models of commercial fishing has provided 
insights into how spatial regulatory policies (i.e. Marine 
Protected Areas) are likely to alter the fishing location choices 
of commercial fishermen and the efficiency of these policies. The 
applied studies have spanned a diverse range of fisheries, from 
sedentary to highly migratory species. This literature has 
largely ignored the inter-temporal aspects of commercial fishing 
site choice at the cruise level. Therefore, these models depict 
fishermen as if they are ignoring how a location choice on the 
first day of a cruise may have potentially important consequences 
for the rest of the cruise. For many fisheries, particularly 
highly migratory ones, fishermen might choose a dynamically 
optimal cruise trajectory rather than myopic day-by-day 
strategies. An econometric model that ignores the inter-temporal 
aspects of location choice will likely lead to erroneous 
conclusions regarding a vesselOs response to spatial regulatory 
policies. A dynamic discrete choice model is developed herein 
that utilizes the same information conventionally used in static 
models but is entrenched in the principals of dynamic 
optimization (BellmanOs principle). Using Monte Carlo analysis, 
we evaluate the relative performance of this estimator as 
compared to the conventional static model for a variety of 
conditions that mimic different fishery types.
 
Keywords: Dynamic Discrete Site Choice, Monte Carlo Simulation, 
          Commercial Fishing
JEL:      C15 C35 Q20 Q58
Date:     2005-06-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwm:wpaper:18&r=all



335. Can Consumers Enforce Environmental Regulations? The Role 
     of the Market in Hazardous Waste Compliance
  
    Sarah L. Stafford (Department of Economics, College of 
      William and Mary)

To assess the role that consumers can play in encouraging 
environmental compliance, we examine the U.S. hazardous waste 
management industry to determine (1) whether environmental 
performance affects consumer demand and (2) whether markets 
affect compliance behavior. We find that noncompliance does 
decrease demand, at least in the short-term. While we do not find 
any evidence that market size affects compliance, local 
competition does appear to increase compliance. However, as 
competition becomes less localized, it has a smaller, if any, 
effect. Finally, regardless of the pressures exerted by consumers 
to comply, commercial managers are more likely to violate than on-
site managers.
 
Keywords: : Commercial Environmentalism, Compliance, Enforcement,
          Hazardous Waste, Market Size, Competition
JEL:      Q28 K42 D21
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwm:wpaper:19&r=all



336. Selling the Big Game: Estimating the Economic Impact of 
     Mega-Events through Taxable Sales
  
    Victor Matheson (Department of Economics, College of the 
      Holy Cross)
    Robert Baade (Department of Economics and Business, Lake 
      Forest College)

Professional sports leagues, franchises, and civic boosters, 
have used the promise of an all star game or league championship 
as an incentive for host cities to construct new stadiums or 
arenas at considerable public expense. Past league-sponsored 
studies have estimated that Super Bowls, All-Star games and other 
sports mega-events increase economic activity by hundreds of 
millions of dollars in host cities. Our analysis fails to support 
these claims. Our detailed regression analysis of taxable sales 
in Florida over the period 1980 to 2004 reveals that on, average, 
mega-events ranging from the World Cup to the World Series have 
been associated with reductions in taxable sales in host regions 
of $5 to $10 million per month. Likewise, strikes in Major League 
Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the National Basketball 
League, each of which has resulted in the cancellation of large 
parts of entire seasons, appear to have also had no demonstrable 
negative effect on taxable sales in host cities. Length: 31 pages
 
Keywords: impact analysis, sports, mega-event, championship
JEL:      L83 R53
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hcx:wpaper:0510&r=all



337. The Economic Effects of Judicial Accountability - Some 
     Preliminary Insights
  
    Stefan Voigt (Department of Economics, University of Kassel)

Judicial independence is not only a necessary condition for the 
impartiality of judges, it can also endanger it: judges that are 
independent could have incentives to remain uninformed, become 
lazy or even corrupt. It is therefore often argued that judicial 
independence and judicial accountability are competing ends. In 
this paper, it is, however, hypothesized that they are not 
necessarily competing ends but can be complementary means towards 
achieving impartiality and, in turn, the rule of law. It is 
further argued that judicial accountability can increase per 
capita income through various channels one of which is the 
reduction of corruption. First tests concerning the economic 
effects of JA are carried out drawing on the absence of 
corruption within the judiciary as well as data gathered by the U.
S. State Department as proxies. On the basis of 75 countries, 
these proxies are highly significant for explaining differences 
in per capita income.
 
Keywords: Judicial Independence, judicial accountability, rule 
          of law, economic growth, corruption, constitutional 
          political economy
JEL:      H11 K40 O40 P51
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kas:wpaper:2005-72&r=all



338. Membership has its Privileges - On the Effects of 
     Delegating Powers Internationally
  
    Stefan Voigt (Department of Economics, University of Kassel)

This paper analyzes whether nation-state governments can 
increase their credibility by becoming members of international 
organizations. Credibility is an important asset because it 
determines the real interest rate and is expected to have an 
important impact on investment and growth. It is hypothesized 
that the degree of delegation to international organizations can 
improve the credibility of nation-state governments. This 
hypothesis is tested by introducing a new indicator. On the basis 
of 136 countries, various versions of an indicator of 
international delegation are highly significant for explaining 
variation in countries’ credibility. The effect of 
international delegation on credibility is particularly strong 
among the group of lower income countries (N=60).
 
Keywords: Delegation of Competence, Credibility, Dilemma of the 
          Strong State, International Organizations
JEL:      F02 F21 H11 K33 P26
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kas:wpaper:2005-73&r=all



339. INNOVACIA“N E COMERCIO: ESTIMACIA“N DUN MODELO 
     DINAMICO DE DATOS DE PANEL HETEROXA‰NEOS
  
    Xulia Guntin Araujo (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela)

The objective of this paper is to estimate a dynamic panel data 
model with heterogeneous coefficients. Since usual 
aˆ?withinaˆ estimators do not have good properties in an 
autoregressive model, we introduce instrumental variables for a 
fixed effects model, by adapting the method used by Balestra and 
Nerlove (1966) for a model with random effects. This methodology 
permits us to identify the importance of sectorial and national 
effects in the relation between innovation and international 
trade, based on the existence of different sectorial patterns in 
the innovation process, as well as in the characteristics of 
National Systems of Innovation which influence the effect of 
technology on the configuration of trade patterns.
 
Keywords: Panel data, heterogeneous coefficients, instrumental 
          variable, innovation, international trade
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edg:anecon:0017&r=all



340. DISPARIDADES REGIONALES EN LA TASA DE PARO: EL PAPEL DEL 
     MECANISMO DE DETERMINACIA“N SALARIAL
  
    Roberto Bande (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela)
    Melchor Fernandez (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela)
    Victor Montuenga (Universidad de La Rioja)

En las ultimas decadas, la existencia de diferencias 
significativas y persistentes en las tasas de paro regionales ha 
fomentado un renovado interes por el estudio de las 
caracteristicas del mercado de trabajo en el ambito regional. El 
objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar hasta que punto el mecanismo 
de determinacion salarial en la industria espaA±ola es rigido y 
homogeneo en el ambito sectorial y cual puede ser la repercusion 
de este hecho en la evolucion del empleo regional. Para ello, 
estimamos una ecuacion de Determinacion salarial a escala 
regional con datos industriales, cuyos resultados confirman las 
apreciables diferencias sectoriales detectadas en el ambito 
nacional en la relacion entre salario y productividad. Sin 
embargo, para cada sector el comportamiento entre regiones es 
bastante homogeneo, lo que podria explicarse por un sistema de 
negociacion colectiva en el que predomina el convenio sectorial 
frente al de empresa. Estas apreciables diferencias entre 
sectores de actividad pueden ser en gran medida la explicacion 
ultima de la evolucion reciente de los mercados de trabajo 
regionales.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edg:anecon:0018&r=all



341. AJUSTES DINAMICOS EN LAS TASAS DE PARO: ESPAA‘A VS 
     PORTUGAL
  
    Roberto Bande (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela)

En este trabajo se aborda la diferencia entre la tasa de 
desempleo en EspaA±a y Portugal. Las teorias tradicionales 
explican los movimientos del desempleo como resultado de los 
movimientos de la Tasa Natural de Paro o como resultado de shocks 
temporales con efectos permanentes sobre el desempleo, bajo la 
hipotesis de histeresis. En este trabajo, se sigue el enfoque de 
la Teoria de la Reaccion en Cadena, que interpreta los 
movimientos del desempleo como resultado de la interaccion de un 
conjunto de procesos de ajuste retardado presentes en el mercado 
de trabajo con las caracteristicas dinamicas de los shocks. En 
este contexto, encontramos que el desempleo puede haber crecido 
mas en EspaA±a que en Portugal debido a los largos periodos de 
ajuste necesarios para interiorizar los efectos de un shock 
temporal, mientras que los efectos de los shocks permanentes 
necesitan largos periodos de tiempo para manifestarse. Por ultimo,
encontramos que el aumento de la tasa de paro espaA±ola no 
puede justificarse tan solo en terminos de un aumento de la tasa 
natural, ya que mas del 57% del cambio total entre 1980 y 1995 se 
debe a los procesos de ajuste.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edg:anecon:0020&r=all



342. UN MODELO EXPLICATIVO DE LA LOCALIZACIA“N REGIONAL DE LA 
     INVERSIA“N EXTRANJERA DIRECTA. UNA APLICACIA“N A LA 
     ECONOMAA ESPAA‘OLA
  
    Raquel Diaz Vazquez (Universidad de Vigo)

En la reciente literatura sobre economia internacional ha 
surgido un nuevo interes por el estudio de los factores que 
determinan y promueven la localizacion territorial de las grandes 
masas de capital financiero con fines productivos. Creciente 
aperturismo internacional y reafirmacion de los aspectos 
regionales y locales dentro de cada nacion son los elementos 
aˆ?casi antagonicosaˆ que definen la nueva situacion. En 
este nuevo contexto, las justificaciones tradicionales a los 
desplazamientos internacionales de capital basadas casi 
exclusivamente en motivaciones salariales parecen no ser la 
respuesta adecuada y la existencia de otras aˆ?ventajas de 
localizacionaˆ como el nivel de infraestructuras, o el capital 
humano, puede ser las clave que justifique la situacion actual. 
En el plano teorico, estas variables cualitativas regionales, 
pero con efectos cuantitativos sobre las propias empresas 
multinacionales a traves de un incremento en sus niveles de 
productividad que compensa unos elevados niveles salariales, se 
desvelan en esta investigacion como los determinantes basicos de 
la ubicacion regional de las nuevas inversiones internacionales 
con fines productivos. En el plano real, estos aspectos 
regionales externos a la empresa, pero de incidencia en la misma, 
son la explicacion a la desigual distribucion regional de la 
Inversion Extranjera Directa instalada recientemente en la 
economia espaA±ola.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edg:anecon:0023&r=all



343. LA DEUDA CONVERTIBLE: UNA VISIA“N HISTA“RICA
  
    Alejandro M. Fernandez Castro

A traves de este trabajo se procura dar una vision general de la 
deuda convertible, como instrumento financiero hibrido que es, 
desde sus origenes en el siglo XIX hasta finales del siglo XX. 
Dado que el primer bono convertible fue emitido en Estados Unidos,
se comienza realizando una breve descripcion de lo que ha sido 
la evolucion de los convertibles en este pais, para a 
continuacion estudiar lo que ha ocurrido en EspaA±a. Tanto 
desde el punto de vista del emisor como del inversor la deuda 
convertible presenta, en determinadas circunstancias, una serie 
de ventajas que la pueden hacer sumamente atractiva. Dichas 
circunstancias concurrieron en EspaA±a en el tramo final de los 
aA±os 80. A finales del siglo XX economias como las de Estados 
Unidos, Gran BretaA±a, Francia o Alemania experimentaron un 
importante resurgir en el uso de la deuda convertible como 
alternativa de financiacion. Los bajos niveles de los tipos de 
interes, la evolucion al alza en los mercados de los valores 
vinculados a las nuevas tecnologias y telecomunicaciones, junto 
con los movimientos asociacionistas en el marco de la Union 
Europea, pueden darnos una primera respuesta de lo que ocurrio en 
estos mercados en los ultimos aA±os del siglo pasado.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edg:anecon:0025&r=all



344. DESCENTRALIZACIA“N DE LA NEGOCIACIA“N COLECTIVA Y 
     DESEMPLEO REGIONAL: EVIDENCIA PARA LA ECONOMAA GALLEGA
  
    Roberto Bande (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela)
    Melchor Fernandez (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela)

En este trabajo se analiza la influencia que el proceso de 
descentralizacion de la negociacion colectiva desarrollado en la 
economia espaA±ola desde 1986 puede haber tenido sobre la 
capacidad de creacion de empleo en el mercado de trabajo gallego. 
A traves de la estimacion de una ecuacion de determinacion 
salarial para la economia gallega y para el resto de la economia 
espaA±ola, se concluye que dicho proceso ha supuesto un 
importante cambio en la vinculacion de los salarios fijados en 
Galicia respecto a las condiciones generales del mercado de 
trabajo del resto de EspaA±a. Ello limitaria la capacidad de 
creacion de empleo en la economia gallega.
 
Keywords: Salarios, productividad, negociacion colectiva, 
          desempleo
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edg:anecon:0029&r=all



345. LA MATRIZ DE CONTABILIDAD NACIONAL: UN MA‰TODO 
     ALTERNATIVO DE PRESENTACIA“N DE LAS CUENTAS NACIONALES
  
    Melchor Fernandez (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela)
    Casiano Manrique de Lara (Universidad de las Palmas de Gran 
      Canaria)

Este articulo resume el desarrollo de una matriz de contabilidad 
nacional agregada (MCN) para la economia espaA±ola a partir de 
las cuentas nacionales. Esta matriz es simplemente un metodo 
alternativo de presentacion de las cuentas nacionales dentro del 
marco metodologico del Sistema Europeo de Cuentas Nacionales y 
Regionales (SEC-95) que permite mostrar el detalle, coherencia y 
consistencia de las mismas. En el trabajo se ilustra con varios 
ejemplos como la MCN puede desagregarse para mostrar las 
distintas transacciones economicas con un mayor detalle, lo que 
hace posible la realizacion de diversos tipos de analisis y puede 
servir de base a la construccion y actualizacion de una matriz de 
contabilidad social completa. En la elaboracion de la MCN se han 
seguido las indicaciones contenidas en el Manual de Elaboracion 
de Matrices de Contabilidad Social preparado dentro del sistema 
estadistico europeo por el Leardership Group on Social Accounting 
Matrices.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edg:anecon:0030&r=all



346. Earnings inequalities and educational mobility in Brazil 
     over two decades
  
    Denis Cogneau (DIAL, IRD, Paris)
    Jeremie Gignoux (INED, IEP-Paris, Universite Paris-IX 
      Dauphine, LEA/INRA)

This paper studies the impact of changes in educational 
opportunities on various definitions of labour market 
inequalities in Brazil over two decades (1976-96). Using four 
editions of the nationally representative PNAD survey, we analyze 
the evolution of overall inequalities and inequalities of 
opportunity in 40-49 year old males’ earnings. We design and 
implement semiparametric decompositions of the respective effects 
of (i) schooling expansion, (ii) changes in the structure of 
earnings, and (iii) changes in intergenerational educational 
mobility. Earnings inequalities varied little over the period, 
with a peak in the late 1980s that can be imputed to 
hyperinflation. First of all, the decompositions show that 
changes in the distribution of education contributed to the 
increase in both overall earnings inequalities and inequalities 
of opportunity among the oldest generations, before sharply 
reducing them among the post-WWII cohorts. Secondly, the decrease 
in returns to education also contributed to equalizing labour 
market opportunities in the 1988-96 period. Thirdly and lastly, 
the changes in educational mobility were not large enough to 
significantly affect earnings inequalities, whereas it is shown 
that they should play a prominent role in equalizing 
opportunities in the future. _________________________________ Ce 
papier etudie les consequences des changements dans les 
opportunites scolaires sur plusieurs definitions des 
inegalites sur le marche du travail au Bresil sur deux 
decennies. En utilisant quatre editions de l’enquete 
nationale representative PNAD, nous analysons l’evolution des 
inegalites globales et de l’inegalite des chances de 
remunerations des hommes de 40 a 49 ans. Nous construisons et 
mettons en oeuvre des decompositions semi-parametriques des 
effets respectifs de (i) l’expansion de la scolarisation (ii) 
les changements dans la structure des remunerations, et (iii) 
les changements dans la mobilite scolaire 
intergenerationnelles. Les inegalites de remuneration ont 
peu varie sur l’ensemble de la periode, avec un pic a la fin 
des annees 1980 attribuable a l’hyperinflation. Premierement,
les decompositions montrent que les changements dans la 
distribution de l’education ont contribue a 
l’accroissement des inegalites de remuneration globales et 
de l’inegalite des chances dans les generations les plus 
anciennes, avant de les reduire fortement parmi les cohortes 
nees dans l’apresguerre. Deuxiemement, la baisse des 
rendements de l’education a aussi contribue a egaliser les 
opportunites sur le marche du travail pendant la periode 1988-
96. Troisiemement et enfin, les evolutions de la mobilite 
scolaire n’ont pas ete suffisamment importantes pour affecter 
significativement les inegalites de remuneration, alors 
qu’il est montre qu’elles devraient jouer un role 
primordial pour l’egalisation des opportunites dans le futur.
 
Keywords: Equality of opportunities, Labour market, Inequality 
          decomposition, Brazil,Egalite des chances, Marche du 
          travail, Decomposition des inegalites, Bresil
JEL:      D63 J62 O15
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200503&r=all



347. Reassessing the Gender Wage Gap: Does Labour Force 
     Attachment Really Matter? Evidence from Matched Labour Force 
     and Biographical Surveys in Madagascar
  
    Christophe Nordman (DIAL, IRD, Paris)
    Francois Roubaud (DIAL, IRD, Paris)

(english) Differences in labour force attachment across gender 
are important to explain the extent of the gender earnings gap. 
However, measures of women's professional experience are 
particularly prone to errors given discontinuity in labour market 
participation. For instance, the classical Mincerian approach 
uses potential experience as a proxy for actual experience due to 
lack of appropriate data. Such biases in the estimates cannot be 
ignored since the returns to human capital are used in the 
standard decomposition techniques to measure the extent of gender-
based wage discrimination. Matching two original surveys 
conducted in Madagascar in 1998 - a labour force survey and a 
biographical survey enabled us to combine the original 
information gathered from each of them, particularly the earnings 
from current employment and the entire professional trajectories. 
Our results lead to an upward reappraisal of returns to 
experience, as potential experience always exceeds actual 
experience, for both males and females. In addition, controlling 
for further qualitative aspects of labour force attachment, we 
obtain a significant increase in the portion of the gender gap 
explained by observable characteristics. 
_________________________________ (francais) Les differences 
constatees dans la participation au travail des hommes et des 
femmes peuvent en partie expliquer les disparites de revenus. 
Cependant, l’experience professionnelle des femmes est 
particulierement sujette aux erreurs de mesures du fait des 
interruptions repetees qui jalonnent leur parcours 
professionnel. Faute de donnees appropriees, la grande 
majorite des etudes sur ce theme doit se contenter 
d’approcher l’experience effective dans l’emploi par 
l’experience potentielle. Ces erreurs de mesure sont 
d’autant plus genantes que les rendements du capital humain 
sont ensuite mobilises par les techniques standard de 
decomposition pour apprecier l’ampleur des discriminations 
salariales suivant le genre. L’appariement de deux enquetes 
realisees a Madagascar en 1998 – une enquete emploi et une 
enquete biographique, nous permet de combiner les informations 
des deux sources, notamment les revenus du travail de la 
premiere et l’ensemble de la trajectoire professionnelles de 
la seconde. Nos resultats conduisent a une reevaluation a la 
hausse des rendements de l’experience, aussi bien pour les 
hommes que pour les femmes. De plus, la part de l’ecart de 
revenus suivant le genre expliquee par les caracteristiques 
observables des individus augmente significativement.
 
Keywords: Gender earnings gap, decompositions, discrimination, 
          returns to human capital, sectoral participation, 
          sample selectivity, biographical survey data, 
          Madagascar, Ecarts de revenus selon le genre, 
          decompositions, discrimination, rendements du capital 
          humain, participation sectorielle, effets de selection,
          enquete biographique.
JEL:      J24 J31 O12
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200506&r=all



348. The Designated Hitter Rule and Team Defensive Strategy in 
     Japan's Professional Baseball Leagues
  
    Akihiko Kawaura (Graduate School of Policy and Management, 
      Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan)
    Sumner J. La Croix (Department of Economics, University of 
      Hawaii and Economic Study Area, East-West Center)

Economists have debated whether and why the designated hitter (
DH) rule in North American major league baseball led to an 
increase in hit-batsmen. We use data from Japan's professional 
baseball leagues, the Pacific League (DH rule) and the Central 
League (no DH rule), to re-examine this question. Our empirical 
findings reveal increases in hit-batsmen in the Pacific League 
after we control for the DH's effect on team batting performance. 
We argue that the DH rule induced changes in managerial defensive 
strategies that led to more hit-batsmen. Subsequent rule changes 
reduced the effectiveness of these strategies.
 
JEL:      D81 J28
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ewc:wpaper:wp80&r=all



349. East Asian Economic Development: Two Demographic Dividends
  
    Andrew Mason (University of Hawaii at Manoa and East-West 
      Center)
    Tomoko Kinugasa (Kobe University and University of Hawaii)

The important of the demographic dividend to East Asian economic 
growth is now widely recognized. During the last four decades of 
the 20th Century the working age populations grew much more 
rapidly than the dependent populations fueling growth in per 
capita income. Over the coming decades, however, demographic 
change is seemingly unfavorable. In the coming decades the 
working-age populations of many countries will grow more slowly 
than dependent populations because of rapid growth of the elderly.
Thus, the demographic dividend will be undone. The thesis 
advanced in this presentation, however, is that appropriate 
economic policy could produce a second demographic dividend - one 
that is as great or greater than the first dividend and one that 
may last indefinitely. Contrary to popular wisdom, population 
aging may prove to be the source of stronger economic growth and 
greater prosperity in East Asia.
 
JEL:      J1 E1 E2
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ewc:wpaper:wp83&r=all



350. The Location Decisions of Foreign Logistics Firms in China: 
     Does Transport Network Capacity Matter?
  
    Anthony Chin (Department of Economics, National University 
      of Singapore)
    Hong Junjie (School of International Trade and Economics, 
      University of International Business and Economics, Beijng, 
      China)

In recent years the logistic needs have created tremendous 
pressure on the ‘hard’ transport infrastructure. Logistics 
and the harness of information technology are the key 
facilitators of mobility. The Chinese logistics market is still 
in its infancy and creates tremendous opportunities for investors.
It recognized as one of important driving forces both for 
national economy and business. Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, 
Shenzhen and Guanzhou aspire to be regional or international 
logistics hubs and have adopted preferential policies in 
attracting FDIs in logistics. From 1996 to 2001, foreign capital 
invested in transportation, storage, post and telecommunications 
increased from USD6.96 billion to USD15.16 billion. This study 
looks at the location decisions of foreign logistics firms and 
identifies with the aid of a multinomial logit model factors that 
are crucial in attracting them to China. This is important as 
they have an important role to play in filling in the gap left by 
traditional Chinese firms, which largely concentrate, on 
warehousing and distribution. The results suggest that location 
of logistics firms depends on transport infrastructure, market 
size, labor quality and cost, agglomeration economies, 
communication cost, economic privatization degree, as well as 
government incentives. The importance of the above factors varies 
by source of region. European and North American firms favor 
higher population densities, lower labor cost, convenient airway 
transport and large cities while logistics firms from Hong Kong, 
Macao and Taiwan put more emphasis on communication 
infrastructure.
 
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sca:scaewp:0509&r=all



351. Crop Substitution on UK Sugar Beet Farms and its Effects on 
     the Environment: A Multi-Product Cost Function Approach
  
    Cesar L. Revoredo Giha (Department of Land Economy, 
      University of Cambridge, UK)
    Alan W. Renwick (Scottish Agricultural College)

This paper analyzes the effect that the imminent reform of the 
EU sugar beet regime will have on United Kingdom (UK) sugar beet 
farms. Specifically, we estimate a multi-product cost function to 
analyze the effect the changes on the sugar beet price support 
and quota will have on the crop allocation of sugar beet farms 
and their aggregate use of inputs. Based on these estimates we 
discuss the implications that changes in the crop patterns may 
have on farm environmental variables such as soil loss and 
groundwater pollution.
 
Keywords: Multi-product cost function, UK sugar beet production, 
          CAP reform
Date:     2005-06
Date:     1998-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lnd:wpaper:102005&r=all



352. Contract Marketing in the US after the 2002 Farm Act: The 
     Case of Peanuts
  
    Cesar L. Revoredo Giha (Department of Land Economy, 
      University of Cambridge, UK)
    Denis A. Nadolnyak (Department of Agricultural and Applied 
      Economics, University of Georgia, USA)
    Stanley M. Fletcher (Department of Agricultural and Applied 
      Economics, University of Georgia, USA)

The elimination of the marketing quota system that regulated the 
peanut market since the 1930s has been accompanied by the 
emergence of marketing contracts between farmers and peanut 
buyers (mainly peanut shellers). Two types of contracts have been 
observed, forward contracts for delivery at harvest or at a later 
date and “option to purchase” contracts. We analyze the 
clauses of contracts used by major shellers in order to infer the 
motivation behind these contracts (i.e., risk sharing, reduction 
of transaction costs, improve coordination, exercise of market 
power, etc.). The analysis points out that the main role of the 
contracts is to replace the marketing structure existing prior 
the 2002 Farm Act, where peanut marketing was quite regulated. In 
this sense, the reduction of transaction costs associated to the 
need for coordinating a continuous supply of homogeneous quality 
seems to be the most plausible explanation.
 
Keywords: US agriculture, agricultural marketing, peanuts, 
          economics of agricultural contracts
Date:     2005-06
Date:     1998-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lnd:wpaper:112005&r=all



353. Using a Choice Experiment to Estimate the Demand of 
     Hungarian Farmers for Food Security and Agrobiodiversity 
     During Economic Transition
  
    Ekin Birol (Homerton College, University of Cambridge, UK)
    Andreas Kontoleon (Department of Land Economy, University of 
      Cambridge, UK)
    Melinda Smale (International Food Policy Research Institute, 
      Washington DC, USA and International Plant Genetic 
      Resources Institute, Rome, Italy)

Hungarian home gardens are small farms that are repositories of 
agrobiodiversity and provide food security during economic 
transition. We use a choice experiment to test the hypothesis 
that farmer demand for home gardens will decrease as markets 
develop with European Union accession. Data represent 22 
communities with varying levels of market and social 
infrastructure. We find that farmers located in more economically 
developed communities choose to be less dependent on small farms 
for food and prefer lower levels of agrobiodiversity. Findings 
indicate that the survival of small farms is jeopardized by 
economic change, but point to some conservation policy options.
 
Keywords: food security, agrobiodiversity, home gardens, choice 
          experiment, multi-functional agriculture
Date:     2005-06
Date:     1998-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lnd:wpaper:122005&r=all



354. Biodiscovery and Intellectual Property Rights: A Dynamic 
     Approach to Economic Efficiency
  
    Tom Dedeurwaerdere (Centre de Philosophie du Droit (CPDR), 
      Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium)
    Vijesh Krishna (Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University 
      of Hohenheim, Germany)
    Unai Pascual (Department of Land Economy, University of 
      Cambridge, UK)

This paper examines the use the use of economic incentives for 
knowledge generation through biodiscovery, in the particular case 
of the use of a highly valuable biogenetic resource stock from 
the South for industrial/research input. The focus is on a 
dynamic approach to contracting and property rights building upon 
insights from institutional and ecological economics. Two 
important conclusions come out of this analysis. First, it 
highlights the necessity to go beyond standard market approaches 
to economic valuation in order to address the issues of future 
possibilities of use and innovation and the integration of the 
different stages in the process of value creation. Second, it 
shows the necessity of developing alternatives to the current 
intellectual property rights regime, including systems for 
appropriate protection of the traditional knowledge of local 
communities.
 
Keywords: food security, Bioprospection, genetic resources, 
          traditional knowledge, Kani model, benefit sharing
Date:     2005-06
Date:     1998-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lnd:wpaper:132005&r=all



355. Towards a more coherent oil policy in Russia ?
  
    Sadek Boussena (LEPII - Laboratoire d'Economie de la 
      Production et de l'Integration Internationale - http://www.
      upmf-grenoble.fr/lepii/ - CNRS : FRE2664 - Universite 
      Pierre Mendes-France - Grenoble II)
    Catherine Locatelli (LEPII - Laboratoire d'Economie de la 
      Production et de l'Integration Internationale - http://www.
      upmf-grenoble.fr/lepii/ - CNRS : FRE2664 - Universite 
      Pierre Mendes-France - Grenoble II)

Dans le nouveau contexte petrolier mondial, la Russie tente de 
definir une strategie petroliere plus coherente et plus 
equilibree que celle qui a prevalu dans les annees quatre-
vingt-dix. Les echecs de la privatisation l'ont conduit a 
reevaluer en profondeur sa politique petroliere. Aujourd'hui, 
deux modeles polaires s'affrontent : un modele « type OPEP » 
et un modele « type norvegien ». Le choix entre ces deux 
options determine la position de la Russie vis-a-vis de la 
politique des prix de l'OPEP.
 
Keywords: politique petroliere;Russie
Date:     2005-06-20
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00003970_v1&r=all



356. The real option with an absorbing barrier.
  
    Minh Ha-Duong (EPP - Department of Engineering and Public 
      Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, CIRED - Centre 
      International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le 
      Developpement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - CNRS : 
      UMR8568 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales;
      Ecole Nationale du Genie Rural des Eaux et des Forets;
      Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees)
    Benoit Morel (EPP - Department of Engineering and Public 
      Policy, Carnegie Mellon University)

Ce papier analyse l'option reelle avec barriere inferieure. 
C'est le modele d'un investissement irreversible soumis au 
risque de perdre l'option d'investir si on attend trop. La valeur 
critique pour investir decroit lorsque la barriere se rapproche,
ou lorsque la volatilite augmente. L'incertitude a un effet 
ambigu sur le temps espere de decision et sur la probabilite 
de resolution apres N annees. Les resultats numeriques et 
analytiques s'appliquent aussi a une option financiere 
aericaine avec une "down-and-out barrier" sur un support payant 
des dividendes.
 
Keywords: option reelle, incertitude, irreversibilite
Date:     2005-06-28
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00003976_v1&r=all



357. L'influence de l'ordre de realisation des infrastructures 
     de transports : quelques enseignements a partir d'une 
     simulation
  
    Julien Brunel (LET - Laboratoire d'economie des transports -
      http://www.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/let - CNRS : UMR5593;ENTP - 
      Universite Lumiere - Lyon II)

Ce travail propose d'etudier l'influence de l'ordre de 
realisation d'un ensemble d'infrastructures de transport. Apres 
avoir rappele les principes du modele de base de Bonnafous (
2002), des simulations sont menees pour un panel de projets 
autoroutiers en relachant plus ou moins la contrainte 
financiere. Cet exercice montre que l'influence de l'ordre de 
realisation des investissements augmente avec la contrainte 
financiere. De plus, nous observons que la realisation des 
projets selon l'ordre de la rentabilite financiere (plutot la 
rentabilite socio-economique ou un ordre aleatoire) est la 
meilleure solution au regard du bien-etre social lorsque la 
contrainte financiere est importante. (Resume d'auteur)
 
Keywords: rentabilite financiere, rentabilite 
          socioeconomique, ordre d'investissement, partenariat 
          public prive
Date:     2005-06-30
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00003980_v1&r=all



358. Functional Limit Theorems for Occupation Time Fluctuations 
     of Branching Systems in the Case of Long-Range Dependence
  
    T. Bojdecki (Institute of Mathematics, University of Warsaw)
    Luis G. Gorostiza (Departamento de Mathematicas, Centro de 
      Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados, LRSP)
    A. Talarczyk (Institute of Mathematics, University of Warsaw)

Keywords: Functional central limit theorem; Occupation time  
          uctuation; Branching particle system; Distribution-
          valued Gaussian process; Fractional Brownian motion; 
          Sub-fractional Brownian motion; Long-range dependence
JEL:      C10 C40
Date:     2004-07-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pqs:wpaper:0242005&r=all



359. A Weighted Weak Law of Large Numbers for Free Random 
     Variables
  
    Raluca Balan (University of Ottawa, LRSP)
    George Stoica (University of New Brunswick)

We examine various conditions under which a weighted weak law of 
large numbers holds, in the context of noncommutative probability 
theory.
 
Keywords: Weak law of large numbers, Noncommutative probability 
          theory
JEL:      C10 C40
Date:     2004-08-01
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pqs:wpaper:0252005&r=all



360. Collapse or Order? Questioning State Collapse in Africa
  
    Timothy Raeymaekers (Conflict Research Group, Ghent 
      University)

In the aftermath of 9/11, the problem of state ‘collapse’ 
and ‘failure’ appears again on the agenda as an important 
question of global security. Meanwhile, the discussion on this 
phenomenon seems to be placed in a growing deadlock between 
classical state-centrist approaches, which keep pointing at 
functional problems of modern statehood, and more society-
oriented insights that try to explain other political and 
economic loyalties that have emerged in the context of weak state 
performance. Both approaches nonetheless appear increasingly 
incapable of defining and delimiting the notion of political 
order absent of an overarching state framework. While often 
contradictory explanations exist about what may lead states to 
collapse, little grounding is provided as to what actually lays 
beyond this witnessed breakdown of public authority. Besides the 
global war on terror, such grounding appears more necessary than 
ever if we look at the continuing problematic nature of statehood 
in many parts of sub-Sahara Africa, a continent hitherto beset 
with endemic warfare. This paper makes a first attempt to fill 
these blank spaces on the analytical map. It does so by 
explaining, first, the obstacles that appear to be blocking an 
integrative approach towards the problem of state implosion. 
Second, it offers a first step into developing an alternative 
framework for studying political order in situations of post 
state collapse’. Central to this approach is the notion of 
political power (or social control): taking as an entry point the 
“areas of domination and opposition” that exist in the midst 
of state-society relations, it specifically looks at the 
different forces in society that try to monopolize the three 
domains that are traditionally connected to modern state 
performance: (1) the monopoly over violence, (2) the allocation 
of economic resources and (3) the representation of a more or 
less ‘fixed’ population. Although obviously more sympathetic 
to more society-oriented approaches, the presented view 
nonetheless tries to combine these with a more integrative model 
of state-society relations, which serves to analyze how states 
and societies continue to constitute and transform one another in 
a context of growing political insecurity.
 
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:10&r=all



361. An Analysis of Household Responses to Price Shocks in 
     Vietnam: Can Unit Values Substitute for Market Prices?
  
    Yoko Niimi (Poverty Research Unit at Sussex, University of 
      Sussex)

This paper examines the robustness of Deaton’s widely used 
method for estimating consumer responses. While unit values, 
ratios of expenditures to quantities purchased, are often 
employed in demand analysis as proxies for missing market prices, 
Deaton argues bias is likely to result as a consequence of both 
quality effects and measurement error. Hence he proposes a 
procedure that corrects the bias and enables price elasticities 
to be obtained in the absence of explicit price information. 
Given the availability of market price data and unit values in 
Vietnam, this paper estimates a food demand system and 
investigates the usefulness of Deaton’s method. It also takes 
the analysis a step further to the existing literature by 
computing the welfare impact of price changes to see how 
Deaton’s method performs in this context. The results 
demonstrate that Deaton’s method generates materially different 
price elasticities from those estimated with market prices. 
However, it produces relatively similar results for the welfare 
analysis. Deaton’s procedure therefore appears to be valid in 
welfare analysis at least in the case of Vietnam, but the 
findings also indicate that its use by policymakers should carry 
a strong health warning.
 
Keywords: consumer demand, price elasticities, unit values, 
          quality, welfare analysis, Vietnam
JEL:      D12 R2
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pru:wpaper:30&r=all



362. Empirical Applications of Multidimensional Inequality 
     Analysis
  
    Patricia Justino (Poverty Research Unit at Sussex, 
      Department of Economics, University of Sussex)

This paper explores the empirical application of theoretical 
multidimensional inequality analysis using real household welfare 
distributions. The paper operationalises recent conceptual 
developments in multidimensional inequality theory and assesses 
their usefulness for measurement and policy analysis. Despite the 
existence of a thriving theoretical literature on 
multidimensional inequality, empirical applications, particularly 
at the individual and household levels, are few and far between. 
This paper compares and contrasts different methodologies for the 
analysis of multidimensional welfare, including multidimensional 
inequality indices and stochastic dominance techniques. The 
results strongly highlight the importance of bringing non-
monetary aspects of household welfare into the forefront of 
inequality analysis since measurements based solely on the 
distribution of income variables may misrepresent the degree of 
overall inequality in society. Agreement over the various 
approaches to the measurement of multidimensional inequality 
entails, however, non-trivial decisions that may limit the 
practical usefulness of these measures. We suggest that the use 
of multidimensional inequality ranges and restrictive dominance 
criteria may open significant scope for further developments in 
the empirical analysis of multidimensional inequality.
 
Keywords: Multidimensional inequality; inequality indices; 
          income inequality; education inequality; health 
          inequality; stochastic dominance
JEL:      D31 D63 I19 I29
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pru:wpaper:23&r=all



363. Education, Employment and Earnings of Secondary School-
     Leavers in Tanzania: Evidence from a Tracer Study
  
    Samer Al-Samarrai (Institute of Development Studies, 
      University of Sussex)
    Barry Reilly (Poverty Research Unit at Sussex, Department of 
      Economics, University of Sussex)

The extent of information on labour market outcomes and the 
earnings of educated groups in Tanzania, and Sub-Saharan Africa 
more generally, are limited. This is particularly so for 
individuals who fail to gain access to wage employment and are 
required to rely on exploiting self-employment opportunities. The 
current paper, using a recently completed tracer survey of 
secondary school completers, analyses the impact of education and 
training on individual welfare through the estimation of earnings 
equations. Our empirical evidence suggests that the rates of 
return to educational qualifications are not negligible and, at 
the margin, provide an investment incentive. However, we find 
little evidence of human capital effects in the earnings 
determination process in the self-employment sector. Information 
contained in the tracer survey allowed the introduction of 
controls for father’s educational background and a set of 
school fixed effects designed to proxy for school quality and 
potential labour market network effects. The analysis shows that 
the inclusion of these controls tends to reduce the estimated 
rates of return to educational qualifications. This emphasizes 
the potential confounding role of school quality/network effects 
and parental background for rate of return analysis. We would 
argue that a failure to control for such background variables 
potentially leads to an over-statement in the estimated returns 
to education. A comparison of our results with evidence from 
other countries in the region shows that despite an extremely 
small secondary and university education system the private rates 
of return to education in the Tanzanian wage employment sector 
are relatively low.
 
Date:     2005-06
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pru:wpaper:31&r=all



364. Examining the Role of Fairness in High Stakes Allocation 
     Decisions
  
    Todd L. Cherry (Appalachian State University)
    John A. List

Recent experimental evidence has led to a debate about the 
nature of utility functions in which people are concerned about 
the amount others earn, and what factors heighten or diminish 
social preference. We explore fairness by examining behavior 
across three variants of the dictator game. Using data from 
nearly 200 dictators allocating as much as $100 each, we observe 
that fairness considerations are very powerful—when subjects 
could reasonably believe that disproportionately low offers are 
“fair”, only 8-12 percent of dictators make positive offers. 
Examining the comparative static results from these allocation 
decisions, we find that recent theoretical models of inequality 
do a respectable job of explaining the data patterns.
 
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:04-01&r=all



365. Consumer Benefits of Labels and Bans on GMO Foods: An 
     Emprical Analysis Using Choice Experiments
  
    Fredrik Carlsson
    Peter Frykblom (Appalachian State University)
    Carl-Johan Lagerkvist

Applying a choice experiment on the choice of consumer goods we 
show that Swedish consumers do not regard GMO food as being 
equivalent to conventional food. A central argument by proponents 
of GMO is that the end products are identical to those where GMO 
has not been used. That respondents in our survey disagree with 
this argument is supported by two observations. First, a positive 
significant WTP is found for a mandatory labeling policy. This 
result confirms previous observations that GMO food can be a 
credence good causing a market failure. Second, consumers are 
also willing to pay a significantly higher product price to 
ensure a total ban on the use of GMO in animal fodder. Even if 
scientists and politicians argue that most of today’s GMO food 
is indistinguishable from GMO free food, the consumers disagree.
 
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:04-02&r=all



366. Trend Breaks and Seasonality in the Yugoslav Black Market 
     for Dollars, 1974-1987
  
    John Dawson (Appalachian State University)
    Steven Millsaps (Appalachian State University)
    Mark Strazicich (Appalachian State University)

We estimate a model of the black market premium for dollars in 
Yugoslavia from 1974-1987. Our analysis extends previous 
applications of the model by (1) addressing nonstationarity in 
the underlying data, (2) allowing for trend breaks, and (3) 
providing evidence on the impact of government intervention in 
the black market. After allowing for trend breaks (found to be 
closely associated with the death of Tito), we find strong 
support for the underlying model, including a significant 
seasonal influence. In addition, we find evidence consistent with 
the era of increased government involvement in the black market 
following regime change, and a significant seasonal component in 
the volatility of the black market premium.
 
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:04-04&r=all



367. Early Entry in the NBA Draft: The Influence of Unraveling, 
     Human Capital and Option Value
  
    Peter Groothuis
    Richard Hill
    Timothy Perri

In an influential article, “Unraveling in Matching Markets,” 
Li and Rosen (1998) note the first seven picks, and 17 among 29 
first round selections of the 1997 NBA draft, were not college 
seniors. In 2004, the first pick in the NBA draft was a high 
school senior, and 25 of the first 29 picks were not college 
seniors. Li and Rosen (1998) suggest early entry is a form of 
unraveling in a labor market as firms attempt to secure the most 
promising player. We suggest recent NBA contract provisions 
implemented to slow the early entry of talented players have 
instead provided additional incentives to both players and firms 
for early entry into the NBA. In particular, the lowering of the 
fixed wage contract and lengthening of rookie contracts have 
given firms limited monopsonistic power and the ability to 
capture economic rents. We explore two competing models that 
predict why teams choose a talented player sooner under the new 
rookie contract system. The first model is the traditional human 
capital model, and the second is the Lazear (1995) option value 
model. To test why unraveling occurs, we use a panel study of all 
NBA players for 12 years from 1989 through 2002. The data include 
individual player performance statistics on a season-to-season 
basis, salary, and draft number.
 
Date:     2004
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:04-05&r=all



368. How Might Adam Smith Pay Professors Today?
  
    Timothy Perri (Appalachian State University)

Adam Smith’s proposal for paying professors was intended to 
induce increased faculty knowledge. If students have imperfect 
information about what they learn, and universities can only 
imperfectly measure the input of faculty time in student learning,
publications may be used to measure faculty knowledge. If 
professors’ ability to publish is positively related to their 
ability to produce student learning, which universities can 
imperfectly measure, publications may be necessary to attract 
more able professors. Since research signals faculty knowledge, 
schools that do not value publications per se could require 
higher publication standards and pay higher wages than schools 
that value only publications.
 
Date:     2004
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:04-08&r=all



369. A Competitive Model of (Super)Stars
  
    Timothy Perri (Appalachian State University)

The usual explanations for superstar effects---when a firm’s 
revenue is positive and convex in quality, and a few firms earn a 
large share of market revenue---are imperfect substitution 
between sellers, low marginal cost of output, and marginal cost 
declining as quality increases. Herein, a competitive model is 
developed in which superstar effects occur simply because a few 
firms have quality significantly higher than others. No firm 
needs to sell more than a small percentage of market output, and 
cost can increase in output and in quality (the latter possibly 
at no more than a decreasing rate).
 
Date:     2004
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:04-09&r=all



370. Environmental Risk and Averting Behavior: Predictive 
     Validity of Revealed and Stated Preference Data
  
    John C. Whitehead (Appalachian State University)

We conduct predictive validity tests using revealed and stated 
behavior data from a panel survey of North Carolina coastal 
households. The application is to hurricane evacuation behavior. 
Data was initially collected after Hurricane Bonnie led to 
hurricane evacuations in North Carolina in 1998. Respondents were 
asked for their behavioral intentions if a hurricane threatened 
the North Carolina coast during the 1999 hurricane season. 
Following Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd in 1999, a follow-up survey 
was conducted to see if respondents behaved as they intended. A 
jointly estimated revealed and stated behavior model indicates 
that the hypothetical and real evacuation behavior is based on 
the same choice process. Using predictions from this model with a 
hypothetical bias correction we find that it predicts actual 
evacuation behavior with small forecast error. These results 
suggest that stated behavior data has some degree of predictive 
validity.
 
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:04-13&r=all



371. Contingent Valuation of Sports Stadiums and Arenas: 
     Temporal Embedding and Order Effect
  
    Bruce Johnson
    Mike Mondello
    John C. Whitehead (Appalachian State University)

Using the Contingent Valuation Method, this paper estimates the 
value of public goods the National Football League’s Jaguars 
produce for Jacksonville, Florida, including the value of 
elevating Jacksonville to “major league” status and the value 
of improving racial relations. It also estimates the incremental 
value of public goods potentially produced by a National 
Basketball Association team in Jacksonville. The present value of 
public goods created by the Jaguars is $36.5 million or less, far 
below subsidies provided to attract the Jaguars. For a basketball 
team, the figure is less than $22.8 million. The results add to 
the growing body of CVM literature indicating that sports public 
goods probably cannot justify the large public expenditures on 
stadiums and arenas.
 
Date:     2004
Date:     2005
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:04-15&r=all



372. Minimum LM Unit Root Test with One Structural Break
  
    Junsoo Lee
    Mark C. Strazicich (Appalachian State University)

In this paper, we propose a minimum LM unit root test that 
endogenously determines a structural break in intercept and trend.
Critical values are provided, and size and power properties are 
compared to the endogenous one-break unit root test of Zivot and 
Andrews (1992). Nunes, Newbold, and Kuan (1997) and Lee and 
Strazicich (2001) previously demonstrated that the Zivot and 
Andrews test exhibits size distortions in the presence of a break 
under the null. In contrast, the one-break minimum LM unit root 
test exhibits no size distortions in the presence of a break 
under the null. As such, rejection of the null unambiguously 
implies a trend stationary process.
 
Date:     2004
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:04-17&r=all



373. Does Watching TV Make Us Happy?
  
    Bruno S. Frey
    Christine Benesch
    Alois Stutzer

The paper studies a major human activity – that of watching TV 
 where many individuals have incomplete control over, and 
foresight into, their own behavior. As a consequence, they watch 
more TV than they consider optimal for themselves and their well-
being is lower than what could be achieved. Mainly people with 
significant opportunity costs of time regret the amount of time 
spent watching TV. They report lower subjective well-being when 
watching TV for many hours. For others, there is no negative 
effect on life satisfaction from watching TV. Long hours spent in 
front of a TV are linked to higher material aspirations and 
anxiety and therewith lower life satisfaction.
 
Keywords: Life satisfaction; mispredicting utility; revealed 
          behavior; self-control problem; TV consumption
JEL:      D12 I31
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2005-15&r=all



374. A Characterization of the Randomized Uniform Rule
  
    Wataru Kureishi (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka 
      University)
    Kazuhiro Hideki Mizukami (Faculty of Economics, Toyama 
      University)

We consider the problem of allocating several units of an 
indivisible object among the agents with single-peaked and risk-
averse utility functions. We introduce equal probability for the 
best, and show that the randomized uniform rule is the only 
randomized rule satisfying strategy-proofness, Pareto optimality, 
and equal probability for the best. This is an alternative 
characterization of the result of Ehlers and Klaus (2004).
 
Keywords: The Randomized Uniform Rule, Single-Peaked Utility 
          Functions, Equal Probability for the Best, Strategy-
          Proofness, Indivisibility
JEL:      D63 D71
Date:     2005-07
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:0520&r=all



375. Gender, financial risk, and probability weights
  
    Helga Fehr-Duda (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), Swiss 
      Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))
    Manuele de Gennaro
    Renate Schubert (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), Swiss 
      Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))

Women are commonly stereotyped as more risk averse than men in 
financial decision making. In this paper we examine whether this 
stereotype reflects actual differences in risk taking behavior by 
means of a laboratory experiment with monetary incentives. Gender 
differences in risk taking may be due to differences in 
subjects’ valuations of outcomes or to the way probabilities 
are processed. The results of our experiment indicate that men 
and women differ in their probability weighting schemes; however, 
we do not find a significant difference in the value functions. 
Women tend to be less sensitive to probability changes and also 
tend to underestimate large probabilities of gains to a higher 
degree than do men, i.e. women are more pessimistic in the gain 
domain. The combination of both effects results in significant 
gender differences in average probability weights in lotteries 
framed as investment decisions. Women’s relative insensitivity 
to probabilities combined with pessimism may indeed lead to 
higher risk aversion.
 
Keywords: Gender Differences, Risk Aversion, Financial Decision 
          Making, Prospect Theory
JEL:      D81 C91 C92
Date:     2004-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:04-31&r=all



376. The dynamics of economic integration : theory and policy
  
    Lucas Bretschger (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), 
      Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))
    Thomas M. Steger (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), 
      Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))

Integration a.ects economic growth mainly through two different 
channels : The scale-effect channel and the factor-reallocation 
channel. In order to investigate both channels within a unifying 
framework, we employ a simple descriptive growth model. The scale-
effect channel increases either the long-run growth rate or the 
level of the balanced growth path. The factor-reallocation 
channel is ambiguous. It is shown under which conditions this 
mechanism induces either a rise or a fall in the long-run growth 
rate. In addition, a number of policy conclusions are drawn.
 
Keywords: trade; economic integration; economic growth; scale e.
          ects; factor reallocation
JEL:      F1 O4
Date:     2004-04
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:04-32&r=all



377. A Dynamic Model of the Environmental Kuznets Curve : 
     Turning Point and Public Poliy
  
    Hannes Egli (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), Swiss 
      Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))
    Thomas M. Steger (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), 
      Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))

We set up a simple dynamic macroeconomic model with (i) 
polluting consump- tion and a preference for a clean environment, 
ii) increasing returns in abate- ment giving rise to an EKC and (
iii) sustained growth resulting from a linear final-output 
technology. The model captures two sorts of market failures 
caused by external effects associated with consumption and 
environmental effort. This model is employed to investigate the 
determinants of the turning point and the (relative) 
effectiveness of different public policy measures aimed at a 
reduction of the environmental burden. Moreover, the model offers 
a potential explana- tion of an N-shaped pollution-income 
relation. Finally, it is shown that the model is compatible with 
most empirical regularities on economic growth and the 
environment.
 
Keywords: Environmental Kuznets Curve, Pollution, Abatement, 
          External Ef- fects, Economic Growth, Public Policy
JEL:      Q5 O4
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:04-33&r=all



378. Private Provision of Public Goods : Incentives for Donations
  
    Karen Pittel (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), Swiss 
      Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))
    Dirk T.G. Rubbelke (Department of Economics, Chemnitz 
      University of Technology)

In many countries the government supports individuals' and 
companies' donations dedicated to charity organizations or { more 
general { to public goods. Yet the effects of governmental 
support with respect to the provision of public goods has been 
and still is subject to an extensive debate in the economic 
literature. Starting from Warr's (1982, 1983) famous neutrality 
result an array of conditions has been identified under which 
this result holds or not. In this paper we examine the commonly 
used policy approach to subsi- dize the private provision of 
public goods by granting agents deductions with respect to their 
income or corporate tax burden. We especially take into ac- count 
that most income tax schemes are progressive and that 
deductibility is limited. The problems that arise from these 
specific properties of the con- sidered tax-refund schemes are 
pointed out first. We then turn towards the effects which such a 
tax-refund scheme has with respect to the provision of the public 
good on the one hand and individual as well as aggregate wel- 
fare on the other hand. We show that the effects of this commonly 
practised method of supporting private public good provision 
depend crucially on the specific properties of the progressive 
tax scheme and the preference structure of agents. While Pareto-
improvements and even Pareto-efficiency can result from the 
implementation of such a scheme, it is also conceivable that at 
least some agents perceive a utility reduction. Due to the 
dependency of welfare effects on the tariff structure, income tax 
reforms as they are planned in many countries might not only 
induce a reduction in private public good provision, but might 
also alter the induced welfare effects.
 
Keywords: public goods, sponsoring, neutrality
JEL:      H23 H42
Date:     2004-08
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:04-34&r=all



379. Multi-dimensional transitional dynamics : a simple 
     numerical procedure
  
    Timo Trimborn (University of Hamburg, Department of 
      Economics)
    Karl-Josef Koch
    Thomas M. Steger (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), 
      Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))

We propose the relaxation algorithm as a simple and powerful 
method for simulating the transition process in growth models. 
This method has a number of important advantages: (1) It can 
easily deal with a wide range of dynamic systems including multi-
dimensional systems with stable eigenvalues that di.er 
drastically in magnitude. (2) The application of the procedure is 
fairly user friendly. The only input required consists of the 
dynamic system. (3) The variant of the relaxation algorithm we 
propose exploits in a natural manner the in.nite time horizon, 
which usually underlies optimal control problems in economics. 
Overall, it seems that the relaxation procedure can easily cope 
with a large number of problems which arise frequently in the 
context of macroeconomic dynamic models. As an illustrative 
application, we simulate the transition process of the well-known 
Jones (1995) model.
 
Keywords: C61; C63; O40
Date:     2004-12
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:04-35&r=all



380. Innovative investments, natural resources, and 
     intergenerational fairness : are pension funds good for 
     sustainable development?
  
    Lucas Bretschger (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), 
      Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))
    Karen Pittel (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), Swiss 
      Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))

We analyse long-term consumption paths in a dynamic two-sector 
economy with overlapping generations. Each young generation saves 
for the retirement age, both with private savings and pension 
funds. The productivity of each sector can be raised by sector-
specific research while the essential use of a non-renewable 
natural resource poses a threat to consumption possibilities in 
the long run. Bonds, the two types innovations, and resource 
stocks are the different investment opportunities. We show that 
pension funds have a positive impact on long-term development, 
provided that individuals have a preference for own investments. 
In this case, sustainability is more likely to be achieved due to 
pension fund savings.
 
Keywords: Pension funds, sustainable development, financial 
          investments, overlapping generations
JEL:      O4 Q01 Q3 G23
Date:     2005-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:05-36&r=all



381. Endogenous growth and recycling : a material balance 
     approach
  
    Karen Pittel (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), Swiss 
      Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))
    Amigues Jean-Pierre (INRA. University of Toulouse, Toulouse, 
      France)
    Thomas Kuhn (Department of Economics, Chemnitz University of 
      Technology, Germany)

In this paper we analyze the importance of recycling in the 
strive for sustainable development. In contrast to former 
approaches we emphasize the role of the waste stock as a source 
of valuable inputs. We enhance a Romer (1990) type endogenous 
growth model by a material balance condition that re°ects the 
circulation of matter in the economy. Di®erentiated intermediate 
products are produced from recycled waste and virgin resources. 
These material intermediates are then employed in the production 
of ?nal output. They either end up as waste after consumption or 
are bound in the capital stock { depending on the utilization of 
the produced output. We show that, even in the absence of 
environmental policy, long-run development is sustainable in this 
economy. The intuition is, that, as waste is a valuable resource 
in our model, not recycling part of it, cannot be optimal in the 
long-run.
 
Keywords: non-renewable resources, recycling, endogenous growth, 
          sustainable development
JEL:      O41 Q01 Q3 Q53
Date:     2005-02
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:05-37&r=all



382. Genuine dissaving and optimal growth
  
    Simone Valente (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), Swiss 
      Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))

Green accounting theories have shown that negative genuine 
savings at some point in time imply unsustainability. 
Consequently, recent studies advocate the use of the genuine 
savings measure for empirical testing: a negative index implies 
sustainability be rejected. This criterion is not forward-looking:
positive current genuine savings do not rule out ’genuine 
dissaving’ in the future. This paper derives a one-to-one 
relationship between the sign of longrun genuine savings and the 
limiting sustainability condition in the capital-resource model: 
if the sum of the rates of resource regeneration and augmentation 
exceeds (falls short of) the discount rate, long-run genuine 
savings are positive (negative). Testing this limiting condition 
allows to reveal whether current genuine savings are delivering a 
false message.
 
Keywords: Genuine Saving, Green Accounting, Renewable Resources, 
          Sustainable Development, Technological Progress.
JEL:      Q01 O47 D90
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:05-38&r=all



383. A new approach to pollution modelling in models of the 
     environmental Kuznets curve
  
    Hannes Egli (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), Swiss 
      Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))

Models of the Environmental Kuznets Curve, particularly those 
with an ex- plicit abatement technology, often involve that 
pollution becomes negative in the long run. This, of course, is a 
highly implausible prediction. The paper at hand examines the 
problem of negative pollution by, ?rst, critically discussing 
two approaches adopted in existing EKC models and, second, by 
proposing a new approach. Motivated by the debatable assumption 
of perpetually increas- ing returns to scale in abatement, the 
idea of fading increasing returns to scale is introduced. This 
procedure does not only constitute a solution to the theo- 
retical problem of negative pollution, but also does well 
regarding the empirical plausibility of the abatement technology.
 
Keywords: environmental Kuznets curve, negative pollution, 
          abatement technology, increasing returns to scale
JEL:      Q2 Q5
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:05-39&r=all



384. Globalization, the volatility of intermediate goods prices 
     and economic growth
  
    Thomas M. Steger (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), 
      Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))
    Lucas Bretschger (Institute of Economic Research (WIF), 
      Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH))

We set up a dynamic stochastic model of a stylized economy 
comprising a final output sector (with traditional and modern 
firms) and an intermediate goods sector. It is shown that market 
integration reduces the volatility of the rate of return of 
capital invested in modern firms. The induced portfolio decision 
of households then leads to reallocation of capital from 
traditional to modern firms. Despite the presence of a reverse 
precautionary saving channel, the growth rate unambiguously 
increases due to the reallocation of capital. Empirical estimates 
for OECD countries confirm the theoretical results
 
Keywords: globalization, trade in intermediate goods, portfolio 
          decisions, economic growth
JEL:      F1 O4
Date:     2005-05
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:05-40&r=all



385. Overeducation and the Graduate Labour Market: A Quantile 
     Regression Approach
  
    Seamus McGuinness
    Jessica Doyle (Economic Research Institute of Northern 
      Ireland)

This paper uses quantile regression techniques to analyse the 
characteristics of the wage distribution of a cohort of Northern 
Ireland graduates. It was found that the penalty associated with 
graduate overeducation experienced by female graduates was much 
larger than that for male graduates. Whilst the impacts of male 
overeducation tended to be more heavily concentrated in the 
segments of the wage distribution usually associated with lower 
ability, the effect was found to be much more pervasive and 
constant throughout the entirety of the female wage distribution. 
The results provide only partial support for the hypothesis 
linking the incidence of overeducation with lower levels of 
ability. It is shown that the unequal distributional impacts of 
overeducation contribute, to some extent, to a widening of the 
gender pay gap, however, educational background and regional 
labour market characteristics were found to be much more 
important in this respect.
 
Keywords: LABOUR MARKET, EDUCATION, OVEREDUCATION
JEL:      I20 I21 J30 J31
Date:     2004-10
URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eri:wperin:1&r=all