Functional diversity from network response dynamics

We consider competing functional groups of tree species and develop a model of network response dynamics in order to measure the impacts of perturbations on the population distribution and diversity. The analysis of the equilibrium states relies on the connection between mean field game dynamics and replicator dynamics. We simulate our theoretical results from the data inventoried in French Guiana. Our results show that different types of disturbances modify the competitive interactions by affecting the evolutions of group densities. At the high regimes of disturbance, the canopy shade-intolerant species supplant the canopy shade-tolerant species. Tropical forest managers can thus take advantage of the competitive interactions between the functional groups to stimulate the abundance of marketable timber species. We also validate the hypothesis of maximum diversity at the intermediate disturbance levels.     

The roots of ethnic diversity

The level of ethnic diversity is believed to have significant consequences for economic and political development within countries. In this article, we provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of the determinants of ethnolinguistic diversity in the world. We introduce a model of cultural and genetic drift where new groups endogenously emerge among peripheral populations in response to an insufficient supply of collective goods. In line with our model, we find that the duration of human settlements since prehistoric times has a strong positive association with current levels of ethnolinguistic diversity. Diversity is further negatively correlated with the length of modern state experience and with distance from the equator. Our results are thus consistent with both ??evolutionary?? and ??constructivist?? hypotheses of ethnolinguistic fractionalization.     

Voting with your feet: Political competition and internal migration in the United States

Do people “vote with their feet” in response to a lack of political competition? Since political competition is associated with higher growth and welfare, with the free movement of labour, we argue that it should also encourage inward migration. We test this hypothesis by using data from the US and find a strong positive relation between political competition and net migration. This result is robust to alternative specifications, alternative samples and addressing endogeneity using the Voting Rights Act to instrument for political competition. The effect is economically large, specifically, we find that an increase in political competition in the order of magnitude observed in US Southern states during the post-war period leads to an increase in net migration by between 27 and 44 individuals per 1000 population.     

Infant mortality,relative income and public policy

Do health outcomes depend on relative income as well as on an individual's absolute level of income? We use infant mortality as a health status indicator and find a significant and positive link between infant mortality and income inequality using cross-national data for 93 countries. Holding constant the income of each of the three poorest quintiles of a country's population, we find that an increase in the income of the upper 20% of the income distribution is associated with higher, not the lower infant mortality. Our results are robust and not just caused by the concave relationship between income and health. The estimates imply a decrease in infant mortality by 1.5% for a one percentage point decrease in the income share of the richest quintile. The overall results are sensitive to public policy: public health care expenditure, educational outcomes, and access to basic sanitation and safe water can explain the inequality–health relationship. Thus, our findings support the hypothesis of public disinvestment in human capital in countries with high income inequality. However, we are not able to determine whether public policy is a confounder or mediator of the relationship between income distribution and health. Relative deprivation caused by the income distance between an individual and the individual's reference group is another possible explanation for a direct effect from income inequality to health.     

HYSTERESIS AND THE REGIONAL NAIRUs IN ITALY

This paper investigates the determinants of regional unemployment disparities in Italy. Relying on panel unit root tests and data over the 1977–2003 years, we reject the hysteresis hypothesis and then proceed to estimate the non‐accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) for each of the 20 Italian regions. Our estimates of the regional NAIRUs turn out to be fairly precise and allow us to draw two interesting conclusions. First, the hypothesis of constant regional NAIRUs between 1977 and 2003 is supported by the data. Second, we find that there is a significant degree of heterogeneity among the regional NAIRUs.     

Population relatedness and cross-country idea flows: evidence from book translations

This paper establishes a robust relationship between idea flows across countries, as captured by book translations, and two measures of population relatedness. I argue that linguistic distance imposes a cost on idea flows, whereas genetic distance captures an incentive to communicate when dissimilar countries have more to learn from each other. Consistent with this hypothesis, I find that linguistic distance is negatively associated with book translations, whereas genetic distance is positively associated with book translations after conditioning on linguistic and geographic distance. In particular, the benchmark estimate indicates that a one standard deviation increase in linguistic distance reduces book translations by 12%, while a one standard deviation increase in genetic distance increases book translations by 10%.     

Do bookmakers possess superior skills to bettors in predicting outcomes?

In this paper we test the hypothesis that bookmakers display superior skills to bettors in predicting the outcome of sporting events by using matched data from traditional bookmaking and person-to-person exchanges. Employing a conditional logistic regression model on horse racing data from the UK we find that, in high liquidity betting markets, betting exchange odds have more predictive value than the corresponding bookmaker odds. To control for potential spillovers between the two markets, we repeat the analysis for cases where prices diverge significantly. Once again, exchange odds yield more valuable information concerning race outcomes than the bookmaker equivalents.     

Parental Background Matters: Intergenerational Mobility and Assimilation of Italian Immigrants in Germany

We investigate the hypothesis of failed integration and low social mobility of immigrants. An intergenerational assimilation model is tested empirically on household survey data and validated against registry data provided by the Italian Embassy in Germany. Although we confirm substantial disparities between educational achievements of immigrants and natives, we find that the children of Italian immigrants exhibit high intergenerational mobility and no less opportunity than natives to achieve high schooling degrees. These findings suggest a rejection of the failed assimilation hypothesis. Additionally, we evaluate different patterns by time of arrival, Italian region of origin and language spoken at home.     

Testing the efficiency of the Athens Stock Exchange: Some results from the banking sector

In this study we test the efficient market hypothesis in the Athens Stock Exchange for a number of selected stocks from the banking sector. We distinguish between a “weak” and “semistrong” version of the hypothesis depending on the agents' information sets. For the “weak” version we apply a recently developed test by Brock, Dechert and Scheinkman (1987) to test for the presence of nonlinear structure in the residuals of rates of return regressions of these stocks. To test the “semistrong” form of the efficiency hypothesis we carry out tests of cointegration following the methodology of Granger and Engle (1987). We find no noticeable presence of nonlinearties in the standardized residuals for these series. Also we find no evidence of cointegration and hence no Granger causality between the different stocks. Our findings support the “weak” and “semi-strong” versions of the efficient market hypothesis.     

Acquisition of Information and Share Prices: An Empirical Investigation of Cognitive Dissonance

Abstract. This paper deals with the determinants of agents' acquisition of information. Our econometric evidence shows that the general index of Italian share‐prices and the series of Italy's financial newspaper sales are cointegrated, and the former series Granger‐causes the latter, thereby giving support to the cognitive dissonance hypothesis: (non‐professional) agents tend to buy the newspaper when share prices are high and not to buy it when share prices are low. Instead, we do not find support for the hypothesis that the agents acquire information in order to trade in the stock market: we find no relationship between quantities exchanged in the market and newspaper sales, nor between stock market volatility and newspaper sales.     

Cultural barriers to market integration: Evidence from 19th century Austria

I explore the relationship between culture and market integration using data from 19th century Austria and find that religious, not ethnic, differences between regions increase price differentials for grains. I argue that an important mechanism is cultural patronage in the placement of transportation infrastructure. The results show that railroad construction was more intensive between religiously similar places and that religious diversity within regions is negatively correlated with road and rail density. As a secondary mechanism, I argue that regions with more religious diversity enjoyed greater competition in agricultural markets after the elimination of religious discrimination in land tenure institutions. The results support this hypothesis, showing that within regions, religious diversity is negatively correlated with grain prices. The findings highlight the importance of culture and institutions in economic development and are relevant for culturally diverse regional economies today.     

Sick of being “Activated?”

Do unemployment insurance (UI) benefit recipients take sick leave more often when facing “activation” by the employment office? We answer this question using administrative data from the German Federal Employment Agency on vacancy referrals sent to UI benefit recipients. Applying duration analysis, we find an increased transition rate into short-term sick leave among individuals who had received vacancy referrals from the employment office. We find that while men on average report less sick compared to women, they respond stronger to a vacancy referral. In subsequent steps, we test the hypothesis that the results are driven by real illnesses as opposed to shirking. Our findings do not support this hypothesis. We interpret the findings as evidence of moral hazard behavior and as evidence of a side effect of an activation measure.     

Theoretical motives of corporate cash holdings and political connections: firms level evidence from a developing economy

In this paper, we revisit the theoretical motives of corporate cash holdings while concentrating on the effect of political connections. In particular, we postulate two competing hypotheses for the effects that political connections can have on cash holdings: ‘substitution effect hypothesis’ and ‘complementary effect hypothesis’. Using the data on Pakistani firms over the period 2002–2010, we find that connected firms hold significantly larger cash reserves than their non-connected counterparts, thus confirming the ‘complementary hypothesis’, which suggests that agency problems lead connected firms to accumulate large amount of cash. Further, this effect is found to be more pronounced in dictatorial as opposed to democratic regimes indicating the presence of higher degrees of political patronage in that period. Finally, we also find differences in the complementary effect based on firm characteristics. Our results suggest that the firm size and leverage have increasing effects on the cash holdings of connected firms, contrary to the mainstream literature standpoint.     

创新、市场结构与行政进入壁垒-基于中国工业企业数据的熊彼特假说实证检验

本文基于"中国工业企业数据库"的企业层面数据,整理出中国524个四位数代码产业的2005--2006年产业层面数据.我们假设政府对国有经济比重较大的产业设置了较强的行政进入壁垒,并以国有经济比重大小为标准对样本进行分组回归.结果表明,国有经济比重大的行政进入壁垒产业的创新与市场结构呈显著"U形"曲线关系,熊彼特假说成立;国有经济比重小的自由市场产业的创新与市场结构呈显著"倒U形"曲线关系,熊彼特假说不成立.本文认为,忽略行政垄断和自由市场的制度因素,把国有经济比重大小不一的样本混合起来进行回归估计,可能是以往国内外实证研究出现结果不显著、不稳健,甚至互相矛盾的主要原因.     

Age dependency and labour productivity divergence

This study finds strong empirical evidence in favour of the hypothesis that the age composition of population matters for labour productivity growth. We applied the fixed effects panel model using data on a large number of countries over the period 1980–2010. Our results suggest that higher age dependency not only directly impacts negatively on labour productivity but also modifies the impact of other determinants of labour productivity. Child dependency has a more adverse effect on labour productivity than old age dependency. We specifically find that the marginal effects of gross capital formation, information and communication improvement, and labour market reforms are significant at lower levels of age dependency. However, the marginal effect of savings on labour productivity is high at a high level of age dependency. The impact of age dependency varies between developed and developing economies. Diversity in the size and nature of age dependency across regions and different income groups help to explain the labour productivity differential across them.     

Finance,income inequality and income redistribution

Using a panel fixed effects model for a large sample of countries covering 1975–2005, we test the hypothesis that income inequality caused by finance (financial development, financial liberalization and banking crises) is related to more income redistribution than inequality caused by other factors. Our results provide evidence in support of this hypothesis. We also find that the impact of inequality on redistribution is conditioned by ethno-linguistic fractionalization. Our findings are robust to the inclusion of several control variables suggested by previous studies.     

Just looking for a good game: competitive balance in the Korean Professional Baseball League

Rottenberg’s uncertainty of outcome hypothesis is about preferences that can vary across fans and sports. We provide the first evidence of the empirical power of the hypothesis in the Korean Professional Baseball League (KPBL). In a panel data set, team-level aggregation over years shows that fans of this league attend in ways consistent with the hypothesis at the level of game uncertainty and consecutive season uncertainty, but only the first is statistically significant. KPBL fans appear to just be looking for a good game. This is consistent with the nearly complete concentration of post-season participation among a very few teams outside of the major population centre in Seoul and a lack of local team identification among KPBL fans. Our work adds to the diversity of league structures in the competitive balance literature since talent levels in KPBL are the result of parent company advertising choices rather than geographic identification. There are research questions and a policy implication.     

The Fisher effect,survey data and time-varying volatility

In this paper we study the Fisher hypothesis using Livingston survey data on inflation expectations. We propose a simple model for the ex-ante real interest rate where the standard deviation of survey forecasts is used to correct for heteroskedasticity. The findings of this paper contradict earlier studies. We find supportive evidence for the Fisher hypothesis that the nominal interest rate and expected inflation move one-for-one both in the short and the long run. Our results also suggest that the change of US monetary policy does not have significant effect on the dynamics of the ex-ante real interest rate such as previous work assumes.     

Uncertainty of outcome or strengths of teams: an economic analysis of attendance demand for international cricket

A significant body of theoretical literature has argued that popular interest in sporting contests between teams is heavily influenced by how difficult it is to predict the result ex-ante. Empirical research has, however, been unable to reach a consensus on the magnitude of uncertainty of outcome on demand. In this article, we seek to resolve this impasse by distinguishing between uncertainty of outcome in the short run and uncertainty of outcome in the long run. We also show that it is important to control for the independent effect of absolute team strength when testing the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis. Using data on over 380 Test cricket matches played in England, Australia and New Zealand since 1980, we find that short-run uncertainty of outcome has a significant impact on attendance demand and that absolute team strength has better explanatory power for attendance demand than does long-run uncertainty of outcome. Our results suggest some policy implications for the management and organization of international cricket.     

A panel cointegration approach to the investment-saving correlation

This paper augments the empirical literature concerning the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle using non-stationary panel data. Recently developed tests for panel cointegration and panel unit root tests are employed. We find substantial evidence to support the hypothesis of no cointegration in this panel, implying a high degree of international capital mobility. Our results suggest that tests for cointegration in panel data provides a better methodological focus than the magnitude of saving-retention coefficients. First version received: August 1999/Final version accepted: December 2000