PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN AGRICULTURE (REVISITED): A MEASUREMENT FRAMEWORK AND SOME EMPIRICAL RESULTS

This paper explores the methodology of sectoral productivity growth measurement within the framework of input-output analysis. A method which ensures that sectoral productivity growth rates are consistent with productivity growth rates for the economy as a whole (as well as allowing for external trade) is suggested. New estimates are presented on total factor productivity in UK agriculture using a Tornqvist index procedure. In addition, new estimates of agricultural labour productivity growth are presented, taking account not only of labour employed in agriculture but also of labour employed in ancillary industries on the supply side. The empirical results confirm that part of the labour previously employed on farms has shifted “upstream” to industries providing agriculture with fertilises, machinery and other inputs.     

Qualitätserwartungen und ethischer Anspruch bei der Lektüre von Blogs und von Tageszeitungen

Besides classical journalistic products, media users increasingly tend to read texts on the internet published by other users, as in weblogs. How do users navigate among these offers, how do they evaluate the quality, and which standards in terms of media ethics do they apply when reading weblogs compared to newspaper articles? Two empirical studies address these questions. In a survey, 702 internet users rated their theoretical expectations in terms of journalistic quality and compliance with ethical standards, comparing weblogs and daily newspapers. In a consecutive 2 × 2 experimental design, 120 participants read a journalistic text with varying source information (weblog/daily newspaper) and varying degree of adherence to ethical standards (ethically questionable/neutral). Participants then rated the quality of the text and its ethical standards. Results indicate that daily newspapers more than blogs are expected to deliver journalistic quality. But when read, texts are evaluated according to their content rather than their source. Ethically questionable texts in newspapers are disapproved as much as ethically questionable blog postings.     

LIQUIDITY AND ASSET PRICING UNDER THE THREE‐MOMENT CAPM PARADIGM

We examine whether the use of the three‐moment capital asset pricing model can account for liquidity risk. We also make a comparative analysis of a four‐factor model based on Fama–French and Pástor–Stambaugh factors versus a model based solely on stock characteristics. Our findings suggest that neither of the models captures the liquidity premium nor do stock characteristics serve as proxies for liquidity. We also find that sensitivities of stock return to fluctuations in market liquidity do not subsume the effect of characteristic liquidity. Furthermore, our empirical findings are robust to differences in market microstructure or trading protocols between NYSE/AMEX and NASDAQ.     

The fleeting nature of permanent reinvestment: Accounting for the undistributed earnings of foreign subsidiaries

Over the last decade, an increasing percentage of the profits reported by U.S. corporations were earned by their foreign subsidiaries and retained outside the United States resulting in the deferral of income taxes. The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 provided a temporary federal tax incentive to remit such earnings, which resulted in the repatriation of $140 billion by the 30 firms comprising the Dow Jones Industrial Average. An analysis of the financial reporting disclosures made by these firms reveals that a tax expense was not fully recognized on a substantial portion of the earnings until repatriation because of an exception for foreign reinvestments deemed to be essentially permanent in duration. The implications of the currently acceptable accounting for undistributed foreign earnings are discussed as well as recommendations to improve the relevancy and reliability of the disclosures required for this exception to comprehensive recognition of deferred taxes.     

Assessing the growth-inducing impact of the Appalachian Development Highway System in southern Ohio: Did policy promote change?

The concept of “inducing growth” is typically considered an adverse consequence of a project on the land use system. In certain instances, however, the desire to induce growth and foster land use change is a focus of land use policy. Such is the example of the Appalachian Highway Development System (AHDS) program initiated by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) during the late 1960s. With the goal of providing highway infrastructure to improve assess to a geographically isolated and historically impoverished region, the ADHS has added nearly 3000 miles of highway to the Appalachian landscape. The degree to which highway investment has contributed to regional growth remains a controversial point and tractable methods to quickly assess landscape change given a project of this magnitude are elusive. In this paper a portion of the AHDS trending through southern Ohio is examined using data acquired from the Landsat series of satellites. Beginning with a pre-highway condition in 1976, a 26 year time horizon, concluding in 2002, was analyzed based on a post-classification change detection methodology. Results of this investigation revealed slight, yet significant, levels of urban expansion within a 10 km corridor along the path of AHDS Corridor D/State Route 32. Beyond this buffer zone the land use system evidenced more stability, suggesting that as distance increased from Corridor D/State Route 32, reduced accessibility also reduced the attractiveness of land for urban uses. Relating these results back to the infrastructure investment policies of the ARC demonstrates that growth did result from the construction of Corridor D and supports previous findings that land development based on highway construction is extremely time-sensitive.     

Do interventions in foreign exchange markets modify investors' expectations? The experience of Japan between 1992 and 2004

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the Bank of Japan's official interventions on the JPY/USD parity during the period 1992–2004. The novelty of our approach is to combine two recent advances of the empirical literature on foreign exchange interventions: (i) drawing on over-the-counter option prices to characterize more precisely the distribution of market expectations; (ii) redefining interventions in terms of events as they tend to come in clusters. Moreover, in order to deal with the features of the data (small sample size, non-standard distribution), we use bootstrap tests.We show that interventions have a significant impact on the mean expectation (the forward rate). The results are more ambiguous for variance. Additionally, we find that the effect of interventions on skewness is significant, robust to different definitions of skewness, and consistent with the direction of interventions. On the contrary, our results clearly show that kurtosis is not affected by interventions. We finally show that: (i) coordination increases effectiveness of interventions; (ii) results are not altered when controlling for other economic and political news.