New classical and austrian business cycle theory: Is there a difference?

Conclusions To compare new classical and Austrian theory seems legitimate only with respect to a particular aspect of economic reality, namely business cycles. In the past century, Austrians have covered so many fields of economic theory that the achievements of new classicals are comparatively small. The discussions of both approaches showed that it would not be appropriate to claim that Austrians have developed theonly theory of business cycles which refers to individual behavior and choice. New classicals have rediscovered this approach and used many of the tenets for their explanation. This is not to say that new classical theory completely follows Austrian traditions. But many of the differences appear to be small or are only semantic in character.     

What has orthodox development economics learned from recent experience?

Orthodox development economics has advocated the view that the challenge of development lies in the initiation of take-off. Once initiated, however, an array of mechanisms could be counted on to maintain development and to assure that it would trickle and spread into various pockets of poverty internationally as well as within countries. From the vantage point of the orthodox approach the recent experience of developing countries with rapid growth but growing unemployment and income inequality comes, therefore, as a surprise. This paper suggests that this experience squares more satisfactorily with an alternative disequilibrium interpretation of the development process. Some building blocks of a new paradigm that would emphasize disequilibrium processes are specified and illustrated with respect to the contemporary landscape of developing countries. The policy and other implications of the alternative disequilibrium and orthodox paradigms are contrasted.     

Garrison and the “Keynes Problem”

Time and Money provides a highly effective platform from which to consider macroeconomic theory, and its capacity to service the needs of comparative macroeconomic analysis is an important contribution in its own right. The book will be important for the development of Austrian economics because it identifies important questions and provides sensible answers to the questions it analyzes. Although not discussed at length in these remarks, the framework contained inTime and Money is receptive to the extension of Austrian economics, especially with respect to monetary disequilibrium theory and to comparative institutional analysis. The impetus Garrison’s book provides for the wider acceptance and extension of capital-based macroeconomics will be carried out both at the level of theory and, one hopes, at the empirical level as well.     

Successful Structural Reforms after EMU

Policy authorities in the EU are increasingly aware of the need to remove structural rigidities, particularly in the labor market. One reason is the start of stage III of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). With increased labor mobility, Euroland will be closer to being an optimum currency area. Another reason structural reforms are advocated in the EU is the persistently high unemployment rate in some continental countries. Structural reforms are not sufficient for smooth functioning of the EMU. Neither are they sufficient for low unemployment. But as the Netherlands has shown, structural reforms can become part of a chain that leads to low unemployment and good overall economic conditions. Given the increased awareness of the need for structural reform in the EU, we ask why this need was met successfully in the Netherlands, but not in France. We find that crisis and communication are important in getting out of a prisoner's dilemma situation. There are two ways to interpret the success in the Netherlands. One, economic crisis pushed the government, employers, and workers to communicate with each other so that they could share a common understanding of the state of the overall economy. Communication also enabled them to sign a binding agreement to cooperate. The second interpretation is that the crisis deepened to the extent that “cooperative behavior” could be sustained by selfish decision making in a repeated game. In France, a binding agreement was less feasible because the collective sense of crisis was insufficient and an effective mechanism to communicate was lacking. The start of stage III of EMU will put further pressure on member economies for structural reform. EMU may even change the structure of the payoffs so that employers and workers in France may have incentives to voluntarily behave more cooperatively. When such a change is absent, what is needed in France is a framework to enable workers and employers to communicate with each other and place sufficient importance on the future so that agreements to cooperate become binding.J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 1998,12(4), pp. 507–534.     

Keynes en de neoklassieken: Een herinterpretatie

Summary Following the examples of Hicks and Modigliani, most economists treat neoclassical and Keynesian theories as special cases of a more general model. In the opinion of Clower, Leijonhufvud and Shackle, Keynes differs from the neoclassics in assuming incomplete information. An analysis of non-tâtonnement pricing shows that the positive correlation between unemployment and real wage rates, still adhered to by Keynes, need not exist. With non-tâtonnement pricing and an-product economy, idleness of capital goods can be explained. The macro-economic production function, implying as it does a one-product, one-producer economy, is misleading.     

Fluctuations in Unemployment and Industry Labor Markets

Throughout the 1990s, and particularly in the mid- to late-1990s, the Japanese employment situation went from bad to worse. We investigate the causes of rising unemployment in Japan, using data on individual workers from the “Special Survey of the Labor Force” between 1988 and 1999. This research focuses on the effect of labor market segmentation by industry on labor flows. Our findings reveal that unemployment in the construction industry and, more recently, in the service industry has contributed greatly to the national unemployment rate. We also find that most successful job transfers occur within the same industry, even though workers may experience some periods of unemployment. Finally, our results show that labor market conditions in each industry affect the probability that a worker will fall into unemployment as well as the probability that an unemployed worker will find new employment. These findings suggest that the Japanese labor market is segmented by industry and this segmentation contributed to the worsening unemployment in Japan. J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 2001, 15(4), pp. 437–464. Department of Economics, Dokkyo University, 1-1 Gakuen-cho, Soka-shi, Saitama 340-0042, Japan; Graduate School of Economics, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan. © 2001 Elsevier Science (USA).Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: J63, J64.     

Unemployment in Denmark in the 1930s

Abstract

This paper examines three estimates of Danish unemployment in the 1930s by Maddison (1964), Hansen (1974) and Pedersen (1977). Secondly, two new estimates of the Danish unemployment are presented based on the available monthly data from the unemployment [unds and on the official registration of unemployment outside the funds. The new estimates of the early 1930s are in between the estimates of Pedersen and Maddison, while it is argued that both Maddison and Pedersen overrate the increase in unemployment in the later part of the period.     

我在重庆“入乡随俗”

在中国,有一句经典的成语叫“入乡随俗”。这是我在重庆大学读研究生上中文课时学到的第一句成语,我想教科书把这个成语放在第一页一定是有它的原因。外国人到了中国,文化的差异如同雨点一样,让他们很不适应,但他们又不得不接受。     

Investigating causality among unemployment,income and crime in Taiwan: evidence from the bounds test approach

This paper examines the long-run and causal relationships among unemployment, income and crime in Taiwan. The results clearly indicate that there is a long-run level equilibrium relationship among unemployment, income and total crime. There are also long-run relationships among unemployment, income and theft and among unemployment, income and economic fraud. The causality test results from the ECM-VAR and level VAR models indicate that there is a neutral relationship among unemployment, income and total crime, and a neutral relationship among unemployment, income and all three categories of crime. It is concluded that there is no strong evidence in favor of the unemployment-led crime (ULC) or the crime-led unemployment (CLU) hypotheses in Taiwan.     

Suvun nimissä. Nimenannon käytännöt Sisä-Suomessa 1700-luvun alusta 1950-luvulle (In the Name of the Family. Naming Practices in Central Finland from the Beginning of the 18th to the mid-20th Century)

Abstract

Stein Tveite's review ofmy book Interaction between Agriculture and Industry, casestudies of farm mechanisation and industrialisation in Sweden and the United States 1830–1930, is critical throughout; from the opening sentence it is clear that Tveite decided in advance on a negative approach. His efforts to be critical, however, have led him into a series of ill-founded comments, which leave the distinct impression that he has not read the book with sufficient care.     

Leon Walras' latest book: Melanges d'economie politique et sociale

Summary This article discusses Walras' latest book, theMélanges d'économie politique et sociale. TheMélanges is a collection of unpublished material that was intended by Walras to appear as a book. The authors show that theMélanges is a valuable addition to the existing available work by Walras. At specific points theMélanges adds insights to Walras' pure, applied or social economics that otherwise would not have been obtained. The book, however, seems to be restricted to those readers acquainted already with Walras' theory.     

Fertility,social class,gender, and the professional model: statistical explanation and historical significance

In 2012 Barnes and Guinnane published a revised statistical analysis of the critical evaluation of the official 1911 social class model of fertility decline that was presented in chapter 6 of Szreter's Fertility, class and gender in Britain, 1860–1940 (FCG). They argue that the official model of five ranked social classes is, after all, a satisfactory statistical summary of the fertility variance found among the married couples of England and Wales at the famous 1911 fertility census, and so they conclude that, pace Szreter, the official model provides a satisfactory account of the nation's fertility decline as one of social class differentials. It is acknowledged here that Barnes and Guinnane have deployed superior statistical techniques. However, it is pointed out that FCG identified fundamental problems with the design of the 1911 official model. It was a social evolutionary model privileging male professional occupations, not a modelling of recognized social class theory at the time or since. In FCG it was therefore termed ‘the professional model’. The central historiographical claim of FCG is re‐affirmed: that in order to study fruitfully the historical relationship between social class and fertility decline, an alternative approach is needed which explicitly integrates gender relations with social class.     

Youth unemployment in Europe – business cycle and institutional effects

In the aftermath of the Great Recession 2008/2009 European youth unemployment rose sharply from below 4.2 m in 2007 to more than 5.6 m young people under 25 unemployed in the EU28 countries in 2013. The youth unemployment rate expanded from 15.5 in 2007 to 25.5 in 2013. Beyond the consequences for individuals youth unemployment as a mass phenomenon is potentially menacing the stability of democratic societies. Hence there are good reasons to fight youth unemployment by any means. The paper analyses the specific structure and causes of youth unemployment. Although youth unemployment is also influenced by individual factors like insufficient qualification, we show that country-specific factors - institutions, traditions and characteristic structures - are of high importance in explaining the huge disparities between European countries. Using panel data estimates with specific country and time fixed effects we show that especially the Mediterranean countries responded to the economic downturn in a specific way. However, the high correlation of changes in the youth and adult unemployment rates across countries points to the fact that not only structural factors but also business cycle effects are important for explaining the sharp increase in the youth unemployment rate in Europe. The rise in joblessness is in fact closely related to macroeconomic slackness. Therefore, we argue that a two-handed approach combining institutional improvements with growth stimulating measures is needed to overcome the problem.     

Unit Root Tests,Persistence, and the Unemployment Rate of the U.S. States

In this paper, we investigate the existence of infrequent shocks and the degree of persistence of U.S. state unemployment over the period 1976-2004. We first apply individual Lagrange multiplier (LM) unit root tests and fail to reject the hysteresis hypothesis in forty states. When two changes in level are incorporated, we again fail to reject the hysteresis hypothesis in forty states. Since individual unit root tests normally lack power, we employ the recently developed panel LM unit root tests with up to two changes in level. Only in this case are we able to reject the joint unit root hypothesis in favor of regime stationarity. Computation of half-lives through impulse-response functions indicates the high degree of persistence of U.S. state unemployment. These results contrast with the common belief among scholars that U.S. state unemployment is closer to the natural rate paradigm than to the hysteresis paradigm.     

基于GA-SVM模型的福建省城镇登记失业率预测

将支持向量机应用在失业率预测中,采用遗传算法对传统的支持向量机进行改进,并以福建省城镇登记失业率为对象进行仿真和预测,其结果表明,该模型具有较好的学习和泛化能力,为失业率的预测提供了一条新的途径。     

博客在图书网络营销中的应用

随着互联网技术的飞速发展,博客正在成为企业开展网络营销的新型武器。将博客纳入到图书网络营销中,是一种全新的体验,也是一种通过探索和研究可以实现的值得应用的营销方式。本文首先回顾了图书业的营销现状,随后分析了博客在图书营销中的商业价值及博客对图书网络营销的影响,最后提出博客在图书网络营销中的实现途径。     

Empirical vintage models for the Netherlands: A review in outline

Summary The abundant literature on empirical vintage modelling for the Netherlands is not easily accessible. This article provides a discussion of the main issues covered by that research. Attention is given to (theoretical) model specifications, empirically inspired adjustments and empirical results. The empirical evidence for vintage models appears to be convincing, but it does not seem conclusive with respect to a preference for eitherex ante complementarity orex ante substitutability. Comprehensive modelling for the economy of the Netherlands up to now mainly usesex ante complementarity to describe the production technology. Apart from this, policy implications of such models show a degree of nuance which exceeds but also includes the purely demand oriented approach.     

Discrepancy between Registered and Actual Unemployment Rates in China： An Investigation inProvincial Capital Cities

The unemployment rate is a key indicator of labor market and economic performance. Based on a unique survey, we estimate the unemployment rate at 13.44percent in 30 provincial capital cities in China in 2007, which is well above the officially announced registered unemployment rate. The discrepancy results from inaccuracy in the calculation of registered unemployment. The discrepancy is not stably evolving across regions or over the years, making it difficult to recover the true unemployment rate using a simple multiplier approach. We further investigate the sources of the discrepancy by examining the determinants of unemployment registration. It is evident that participation in certain public activities, which would facilitate the spread of knowledge related to job-searching and unemployment registration, encouraged unemployment registration. Social attention to government antiunemployment programs also encouraged unemployment registration. These findings confirm the behavioral hypothesis that incomplete knowledge and limited attention can cause deviation from optimal choice. The policy implications of the findings of the study are discussed.     

Training as an instrument to combat poverty and unemployment: A national and international perspective

Unless the South African Government of the day has adopted and is committed to a policy and comprehensive strategy to alleviate poverty, one is bound to conclude that any discussions on the role that training can play in the alleviation of poverty and unemployment would be mostly of an ad hoc nature. Such a policy and strategy should include specific targeted employment and training strategies and should furthermore relate to measurable human development performance indicators on health, life expectancy, education, training, unemployment, human deprivation, income disparities, etc. State interventions in support of training to help alleviate and prevent poverty and unemployment will under such circumstances hopefully be more purposefully targeted to where it will matter most and will also inspire researchers to come up with appropriate answers to ensure maximum benefits to society and the individual.     

Hiring functions and a new index for measuring mismatch: Some empirical results for european countries

Conclusion This paper investigates the relation between mismatch and sectoral hiring functions. Traditionally, the indices used to measure structural mismatch were constructed by assuming that the hiring functions are identical across sectors. However, both theoretically and empirically, there is no reason to believe that the hiring behavior of the firms or the search methods of the workers are identical across sectors. Evidence for this is provided in the Appendix of this paper where it is shown that theUV curves for the different regions in Great Britain and different sectors in Switzerland are not identical. Brunello [1990] also shows that the hiring functions do not have to be identical. This paper also demonstrates that it may not be possible to eliminate structural unemployment totally when the hiring functions across sectors are non-identical. In other words, total hiring may be maximized even if theV/U ratios are not equalized across sectors. This conclusion is important as it highlights that the indices used in empirical work to measure structural mismatch may be seriously flawed.This paper develops an index for measuring mismatch which is rooted in the theory of hiring functions and utilizes the approach of measuring angle between vectors by the use of cos() functions. The FH index presented in this paper is based on a simple arithmetic mean of regional or sectoral cos() functions. It has been estimated for several European countries, and the empirical results highlight some interesting conclusions concerning regional mismatch in these countries.