Right to work: Job creation New Zealand style

Between 1984 and 1994, successive New Zealand governments—first of the left, then of the right—managed the most dramatic and comprehensive deregulation exercise of any OECD country in decades. What have been the effects of this on the labour market?     

ON ACCURACY AND PRECISION IN STATISTICAL ESTIMATES

In the exact sciences one distinguishes between the exactness of the estimate of a quantity, or the ‘accuracy’, and the exactness of the symbolic representation of the estimate, its ‘precision’. The significant-digits rule, the subject of the most elementary education in these disciplines, establishes a rough correlation between accuracy and precision. It is shown that many agricultural economists and statisticians are unsure about the proper representation of accuracy in writing. The accuracy of one particular statistic, net farm income in Canada, has been estimated using Theil's RMSE statistic. The results suggest that net farm income should be written with two or three digits only according to the significant-digits rule. The author recommends that the significant-digits rule generally be followed. Economy in communication and greater awareness of the nature and limitation of the empirical basis of our knowledge would be gained. Dans les sciences exactes une distinction précise est fait entre 1'exactitude de la mesure d'une quantité et la précision de la représentation symbolique de cette mesure. La règie des chiffres signicatifs, le sujet de l'enseignement le plus élémentaire en les sciences naturelles, établit une corrélation approximatif entre l'exactitude de la mesure et la précision de la représentation. Les économistes et les statisticiens rurales semblent être incertains sur la représentation de l'exactitude de la mesure das la communication écrite. L'exactitude d'un devis particulier - la revenu net agricole canadien - a été estimé en utilisant la statistique RMEC (la racine de la moyenne de l'erreur carré) de THEIL. Les resultats suggerent que cette statistique devrait être écrit avec seulement deux ou trois chiffres, suivant la règie des chiffres signicatifs, au lieu de l'écrire avec sept chiffres d'après I'usage courant. l'auteur voudrait conseiller que, à I-avenir, la règie des chiffres signicatifs soit utilisé dans toutes les publications de manière à encourager l'économie dans la communication et une conscience professionnelle plus grand de la nature des limitations de la base empirique de notre connaissance.     

An outlier test for linear processes — II. Large contamination

In Flak/Schmid (1993) an outlier test for linear processes was introduced. The test statistic bases on a comparison of each observation with a one-step predictor. It was assumed that an upper bound for the total number of outlierss _n is known, wheren denotes the sample size. The asymptotic distribution of the test statistic was derived under the assumption thats _n/n → 0 ands _n → ∞ asn → ∞. This note deals with the asymptotic behaviour of this quantity, ifs _n/n →p ₀ ∈ (0, 1).     

Multimedia: Forecasts of employment growth in the media and communications sector often exaggerated

Summary In the light of the probable market development of new multimedia products and services, domestic demand for media and communications goods in the year 2010 will be around three times its level at the start of the 1990s. The increase in private sector demand will be somewhat higher than general economic expansion, the rise in private household demand will be slightly higher than the growth of private consumption. This is, however, contingent on solutions being found by 1998 for the technical and regulatory questions that are as yet still unresolved. What is decisive for the pace at which the telecommunications infrastructure will develop is the degree of competitive and innovative pressure. German policy makers can contribute to this by ensuring that the (still publicly owned) Telekom AG sells off its cable TV networks. It would also seem important to restrict the time-consuming licensing procedure for broadcasting companies to programmes with a bearing on public opinion and to render the regulatory procedure more efficient by setting up a national body to perform this task.The number of employees in firms producing and distributing M&C technology will expand to a far lesser extent than domestic demand to the year 2010, largely due to productivity growth. Model calculations point to an increase of the order of 10% to around 2.1 million jobs. This means that the significant positive employment effects frequently forecast for the new M&C technologies can only come about if the potential for rationalisation inherent in these technologies is utilised throughout the economy in a rigorous fashion to raise efficiency and international competitiveness. Such competitive advantages can only be generated, however, if a broad-based application of the new multimedia is realised earlier than in Germany's leading competitors.     

Unified structural adjustment policy in Europe?

Low growth and high unemployment have induced the European Union (EU) to outline an economic programme in which long-term effective growth and structural policy measures play a central role. Simultaneously, the German government adopted an “action programme aiming at more growth and employment”, in which the efforts on the EU level play hardly any role. Is international coordination of growth and structural adjustment policy legitimated from an economic point of view or is competition between national policies more efficient?     

Trade Policy Platforms of Competing Parties: What Makes Them Different?

Theoretical voting models predict convergence of two parties' trade policy platforms. In contrast, real-world observations reveal substantial differences in the platforms of competing parties. This paper modifies the standard probabilistic voting model in a way that allows for divergence of policy platforms. Two parties are shown to adopt different policy platforms if the impact of trade policy choices on expected election outcomes depends on the specific identity of the policy-promising party; that is, if the chance to win depends not only on what trade policy is promised but also on which party does the promising.