Peer Effects and Cigarette Use Among College Students

This study adds to the collegiate substance use literature by measuring the magnitude of peer effects upon individual cigarette use. The study employs data from the 2001 Harvard School of Health College Alcohol Survey to construct this peer effect measure and to study the effect of other variables upon a university student’s decision to smoke. The main finding of this paper is that moving a student from a university where no students smoke to an institution where 25 percent of the population smokes increases that student’s probability of smoking by 10.71 percent. The results of this paper suggest the potential for universities to institute student-led, anti-smoking organizations.

Monetary Inflation’s Effect on Wealth Inequality: An Austrian Analysis

Austrian monetary inflation theory claims that changes in the money supply are disproportionately distributed throughout an economy, and as a result wealth is coercively redistributed. This study proposes and tests a model illustrating this connection by examining monetary inflation’s effect on wealth inequality. After testing the model’s validity, this study compares monetary inflation’s effect on several measures of wealth inequality, concluding that not only is monetary inflation a significant variable, but its effect on wealth inequality is more pronounced at the extremities of the distribution.

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Japanese Banks’ monitoring activities and the performance of borrower firms: 1981–1996

We construct an index measure that quantitatively describes the monitoring activities of Japanese banks. Using micro data on Japanese banks and borrower firms, we examine the effects of bank monitoring on the profitability of borrower firms. We find significant positive effects in the periods 1986–1991 and 1992–1996, although there is no significant effect in the period 1981–1985. We also examine how banks’ monitoring affects borrowers. The results show that the positive effects of banks’ monitoring on borrowers’ profitability are mostly caused by screening effects, not performance-improving effects.

Premarital Birth Among Young Hispanic Women: Evidence from Semiparametric Competing Risks Analysis

The existing literature on welfare effects on marriage and fertility has largely focused on groups of white and black women. By contrast, Hispanic women have received little attention. This paper examines the effects of welfare generosity on a sample of young Hispanic women’s premarital fertility and marriage choices. A bivariate competing risks duration model framework allows us to identify the process of young women’s premarital fertility and the process of marriage, effectively controlling for observed characteristics and unobservables. Our findings indicate a 10% increase in welfare generosity results in a 10% increase in premarital births and a 7% decrease in marriages by age 24; both effects are significant.

A structural break in the effects of Japanese foreign exchange intervention on yen/dollar exchange rate volatility

We study the impact of Japanese foreign exchange intervention on the volatility of the yen/dollar exchange rate since the early 1990’s in a GARCH framework with interventions as exogenous variables. Using daily intervention data provided by the Japanese Ministry of Finance, we show that the effect of interventions varies over time. From 1991 up to the late 1990’s, Japanese foreign exchange intervention is associated with an increase in volatility of the yen/dollar exchange rate. After the year 1997, Japanese foreign exchange intervention correlates with reductions in exchange rate volatility. This can be explained by the fact that Japanese foreign exchange intervention remained quasi unsterilized in the liquidity trap.

The Barcelona initiative and the importance of NTBs: a dynamic CGE-analysis for Syria

The Barcelona Initiative is the central element of the EU’s Mediterranean policy. We study the implementation of this policy with respect to Syria using a dynamic general equilibrium model with credit constraints and capital market imperfections. Dismantling formal tariffs has only limited effects on the Syrian economy, while reducing non-tariff barriers produces by far larger results. EU association promises broadly positive effects for factor incomes and sectoral outputs, with some temporarily negative effects in agricultural sectors. Nevertheless, we find evidence of severe trade distorting effects making preferential trade policy clearly welfare inferior to multilateral trade liberalization within the WTO framework.

Evaluating China’s Integration in World Trade with a Gravity Model Based Benchmark

This paper assesses China’s “natural” place in the world economy with a new set of trade integration indicators, which are used as a benchmark in order to examine whether China’s share in international trade is consistent with fundamentals such as economic size, location and other relevant factors. They constitute a better measure of trade integration that incorporates many more factors than traditional openness ratios. The model tracks international trade well and confirms that China is already well integrated in world markets, particularly with North America, several Latin American and East Asian emerging markets and most euro area countries.

International Risk Sharing and Government Moral Hazard

This paper analyzes incentive problems caused by international risk sharing. They arise because international risk sharing contributes to the insurance of domestic consumption and thus lowers governments’ incentives to increase output. We show that the resulting distortions can lead to substantial efficiency losses. Complete risk sharing is, therefore, undesirable and the optimal degree of risk sharing may be low. Furthermore, we show that households’ risk sharing decisions are socially inefficient and are effectively maximizing government moral hazard. As a result, financial innovation and integration may reduce welfare by increasing households’ risk sharing opportunities.

Do Campaign Contributions and Lobbying Expenditures by Firms Create “Political” Capital?

We examine the relation between a firm’s campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures and its Tobin’s q. We follow other studies that use q to measure the value of the firm’s intangible capital (e.g., the value of advertising, R&D, or environmental performance). Researchers have found a positive and significant relation between intangible assets and q. If political capital exists, it is an intangible asset. However, we find little relation between q and political contributions, suggesting that campaign contributions may not have long term effects on political markets. This is consistent with the view that contributions are done by firms as a response to a short term opportunity not as a way of building long-term political capital.

Country size and the trade effects of the euro

This paper investigates whether small countries gain relatively more than large countries from an ‘expansion’ of their market through the creation of a single currency. The introduction of the euro offers a particularly valuable source to test this hypothesis, which we motivate using the theoretical model by Casella of the year 1996. Our results from a panel data analysis, using both aggregate and disaggregated trade data, point to a statistically significant but quantitatively moderate small country bonus. On average, the euro has led to an improvement of the small euro area’s relative export performance by 3–9%.

Ability, Openness, and Managerial Decision Making

Impact of the ability and the degree of openness of a manager on decision making is studied. Whether a more able manager increases or decreases the effort of a subordinate depends on the relative quality of information. Greater openness is a two-edged sword: it increases the likelihood that more information will be employed, but it reduces the manager’s incentive to expend effort on obtaining better information. A more open manager is more desirable when the position is relatively more important or the prior information is not very accurate.

The Determinants of the Secondary Market Price of Less Developed Countries’ Debt

A present-value model of less developed countries’ (LDC) debt is developed to understand the factors that affect the discount on the secondary market. LDC debt trades at a substantial discount on the secondary market. This paper investigates the determinants of the discount for a sample of 13 countries over a 9 year period. The findings show that debt–exports, foreign currency reserves–imports and total debt service to exports ratios are significant determinants of the secondary market prices of LDC debt. The discount is higher in countries where debt–exports ratios are higher and is lower for those with lower foreign currency reserves–imports ratios. Concentration of debt with money center banks has a positive and significant effect on the secondary market price of debt.

Disability Insurance Denial Rates and the Labor Force Participation of Older Men and Women in Canada

We examine the effect of denial rates from the Canada/Quebec Pension Plan (C/QPP) disability program on the labor force participation of older men and women in Canada. Our study uses data from a period in which there was a change in CPP disability adjudication requirements, which also varied by province, but no change in the QPP disability program requirements. This created variation in the CPP disability program’s denial rates. The estimates from our preferred specifications indicate that denial rates do not have the expected statistically significant negative effect on the participation decisions of older men or women. These findings may be the result of a change in the applicant pool for disability benefits.

Cantor’s Diagonal Argument: An Extension to the Socialist Calculation Debate—A Comment

In a recent article Robert P. Murphy (2006) uses Cantor’s diagonal argument to prove that market socialism could not function, since it would be impossible for the Central Planning Board to complete a list containing all conceivable goods (or prices for them). In the present paper we argue that Murphy is not only wrong in claiming that the number of goods included in the list should be uncountable, but also that the number of equations/prices is irrelevant from the point of view of market socialism.

Overall trade specialization and economic development: countries diversify

This paper provides evidence for an aspect of trade often disregarded in international trade research: countries’ sectoral export diversification. The results of our semiparametric empirical analysis show that, on average, countries do not specialize; on the contrary, they diversify. Our results are robust for different statistical indices used to measure trade specialization, for the level of sectoral aggregation, and for the level of smoothing in the nonparametric term associated with per capita income. Using a generalized additive model (GAM) with country-specific fixed effects it can be shown that, controlling for countries’ heterogeneity, sectoral export diversification increases with income.

Foreign Direct Investment Liberalization Between Canada and the USA: A CGE Investigation

In this paper, we develop a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to shed quantitative light on the implications of a scenario of deeper economic integration between Canada and the United States, where the barriers for foreign direct investment are preferentially eliminated. Our model distinguishes between the activities of domestic and foreign-owned firms at the microeconomic level, both in terms of demand and production characteristics. Overall our findings suggest that further investment liberalization between the two countries will accelerate the shaping of Canada’s industrial structure, as manifested by recent trends.

Welfare State, Market Imperfections, and International Trade

Within a two-sector-two-country model of trade with aggregate scale economies and unionisation, a more generous welfare state in one country increases welfare in that country and can have positive spillover effects on the other. Furthermore, synchronised expansions of social security are more welfare enhancing than unilateral ones. Our results counter the fears that a race to the bottom in social standards may result from the ‘shrinking-tax-base’ entailed by international capital mobility. While affecting trade patterns and income distribution, capital mobility interacts with welfare state policies in increasing welfare, even when capital flows out of the country that initiates the shock.

Do Patent Protection and Technology Transfer Facilitate R&D in Developed and Emerging Countries? A Semiparametric Study

This paper examines if patent protection and technology transfer facilitate R&D in a sample that includes both developed and emerging countries. A semiparametric model is used to estimate the relevant parameters using country level data from 21 countries, of which six are emerging, for the period 1981–1997. The results suggest thresholds in patent protection and technology transfer: patent protection has a positive effect which weakens at high levels of protection, and FDI has a positive effect only if the country depends heavily on FDI.

Is the Middle East an Optimum Currency Area? A Comparison of Costs and Benefits

This paper examines the macroeconomic costs and benefits of adopting a common currency for 13 Middle Eastern countries. Economic theory suggests that the main benefit is enhanced price stability, while the main cost is higher business-cycle volatility if the member country’s output is not sufficiently correlated with the area’s, as a whole. Using data from 1980–2005, the paper finds that the estimated cost and benefit measures exhibit substantial variability across the countries and are sometimes positively correlated. Moreover, focusing on the results for the last decade, it seems that many Middle Eastern countries (such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and United Arab Emirates) have achieved remarkable convergence both in business-cycle synchronization and inflation outcomes.

African Americans and U.S. Politics: The Gradual Progress of Black Women in Political Representation

This paper argues that since the 1960s, African Americans have substantially increased their political participation in the U.S. political system. It claims that Blacks in the U.S. have built a strong political foundation and that their influence in the country’s political system has grown within the past four decades. The paper highlights, however, that more Black women tend to be active participants in the electoral process than Black men and that there is the potential for Black women to equal or surpass Black men in the number of elected officials within their race in the years and decades to come.