Defensible Space on the Move: Revisiting the Urban Geography of Alice Coleman

This article traces the movement of the concept of ‘defensible space’ from New York City in the 1970s, where it was developed by the Canadian architect/planner Oscar Newman, to London in the 1980s and into design interventions in British public housing in the 1990s, through British geographer Alice Coleman, who acted as an especially powerful transfer agent. In focusing on this urban design ‘concept’ on the move we contribute to existing scholarship on policy mobility and city building in a number of ways. First, we explore an instance of the movement/mobility of a planning concept in a historical period (the recent past) largely overlooked to date. Secondly, we demonstrate that this movement was the result of a disaggregated series of expert knowledge transfers and localized translations of pre‐policy expert knowledge, generated through university‐based research work and networks. We theorize this instance of urban planning mobility by way of the interlinked insights offered by the sociology of science and policy‐mobilities literatures. As this is an instance of university research shaping public policy it also offers an opportunity to reflect upon the meaning of ‘evidence‐based policy’ and the impact agenda in contemporary higher education.     

Causality effects in return volatility measures with random times

We provide a structural approach to identify instantaneous causality effects between durations and stock price volatility. So far, in the literature, instantaneous causality effects have either been excluded or cannot be identified separately from Granger type causality effects. By giving explicit moment conditions for observed returns over (random) duration intervals, we are able to identify an instantaneous causality effect. The documented causality effect has significant impact on inference for tick-by-tick data. We find that instantaneous volatility forecasts for, e.g., IBM stock returns must be decreased by as much as 40% when not having seen the next quote change before its (conditionally) median time. Also, instantaneous volatilities are found to be much higher than indicated by standard volatility assessment procedures using tick-by-tick data. For IBM, a naive assessment of spot volatility based on observed returns between quote changes would only account for 60% of the actual volatility. For less liquidly traded stocks at NYSE this effect is even stronger.     

Forecasting the Euro exchange rate using vector error correction models

Forecasting the Euro Exchange Rate Using Vector Error Correction Models. — This paper presents an exchange rate model for the Euro exchange rates of four major currencies, namely the US dollar, the British pound, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. The model is based on the monetary approach of exchange rate theory which uses fundamental macroeconomic variables to explain the exchange rate. A crucial point when using such a model is its proper estimation through cointegration analysis. The euro exchange rate model is therefore estimated in the form of a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model with cointegrating vectors (VECM). We find that when cointegration analysis is undertaken properly, the naive random walk prediction can be out-performed for the US dollar, the British pound and the Japanese yen, but not for the Swiss franc.     

Regulatory Impact Assessment and the Economic Transition to Markets

In most developing and transition economies, far-reaching legal and regulatory reforms are essential for a successful transition to market-led economic development. One of the most important capacities of a market regulator is the ability to assess the market impacts of a regulation before it is adopted. Regulatory impact analysis (RIA) is a tool now used in most developed countries to improve understanding of the economic and social welfare impacts of a law and other forms of regulation. This article argues that institutional reforms aimed at good governance are at the core of the development process, that RIA can contribute to the quality of legal reforms and support other good governance goals, and that RIA can be implemented step-by-step by building on existing practices and investing in skills and training.     

Incomplete Markets and Security Prices: Do Asset-Pricing Puzzles Result from Aggregation Problems?

This paper investigates Euler equations involving security prices and household-level consumption data. It provides a useful complement to many existing studies of consumption-based asset pricing models that use a representative-agent framework, because the Euler equations under investigation hold even if markets are incomplete. It also provides a useful complement to simulation-based studies of market incompleteness. The empirical evidence indicates that the theory is rejected by the data along several dimensions. The results therefore indicate that some well-documented asset-pricing puzzles do not result from aggregation problems for the preferences under investigation.     

Accession to the euro-area: a stylized analysis using a NK model

This paper analyses the accession to the euro-area by new members using a stylized new-Keynesian model. We analyze macroeconomic adjustment in the pre- and post-accession case and calculate welfare in both situations to obtain net benefit/loss from accession. It is shown how the effects of accession is related to the conduct of monetary policy and fiscal policy in the pre- and post-accession case. The simulation examples point at the potential costs that accession might entail due its consequences on monetary and fiscal policy design. These consequences from accession in terms of macroeconomic stabilization ability of monetary and fiscal policies have not always been fully acknowledged and may need more attention.     

THE CASE FOR PAY-AS-YOU-GO PENSIONS IN A SERVICE ECONOMY

The elderly consume more labour‐intensive services than young individuals. This makes them vulnerable to rising costs of services due to higher wages, which can be caused by increased capital accumulation. This paper shows that in a model with a service sector, the golden‐rule capital stock is lower and dynamic inefficiency is more likely to occur than in the conventional one‐sector model. This implies that in many cases, a positive Pay‐As‐You‐Go tax maximises long‐run welfare in a service economy. Calculations based on data from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands show that the long‐run optimal degree of funding coincides with the current situation in these countries.     

Customs-related Transaction Costs,Firm Size and International Trade Intensity

customs are generally perceived as a time-consuming impediment to international trade. However, few studies have empirically examined the determinants and the impact of this type of government-imposed transaction costs. This paper analyses the role of firm size as a determinant of customs-related transaction costs, as well as the effect of firm size on the relationship between these costs and the international trade intensity of firms. The results of this study indicate that customs-related transaction costs repress international trade activities of firms, even at low levels of these costs. The paper identifies transaction-related economies of scale, simplified customs procedures and advanced information and communication technology as main determinants of customs-related transaction costs. It is shown that when these factors are taken into account, firm size has no effect on customs-related transaction costs. Policy implications are considered for firm strategy and public policy.