Tax-benefit systems and differences in aggregate labour force participation: Comparative evidence from the Czech Republic and Hungary

This paper investigates the extent to which cross-country differences in aggregate participation rates can be explained by differences in tax-benefit systems. We take the example of two countries, the Czech Republic and Hungary, which – despite a lot of similarities – differ markedly in labour force participation rates. Using comparable individual-level labour supply estimates, we simulate how the aggregate participation rate would change in one country if the other country’s tax and social welfare system were adopted. The estimation results for the two countries are quite similar, suggesting that individual preferences are essentially identical in the two countries. The simulation results show that about one-third of the difference in the participation rates of the 15–74 year-old population and more than two-thirds of the participation of the prime-age population can be explained by differences in the tax-benefit systems.     

An Empirical Assessment of the Swedish Bullionist Controversy*

In the 18th century, a fierce political debate broke out in Sweden about the causes of an extraordinary depreciation of the currency. More specifically, the deteriorating value of the Swedish currency was blamed arbitrarily on monetary causes (e.g., the overissuing of banknotes) and on non-monetary causes (such as balance-of-payments deficits). This paper provides a comprehensive empirical assessment of this so-called “Swedish Bullionist Controversy”. The results of vector autoregressions suggest that increasing amounts of paper money did give rise to inflation and a depreciation of the exchange rate. Conversely, non-monetary factors were probably less important for these developments.     

中国木质家具出口贸易与汇率波动关系研究

木质家具是我国最重要的出口林产品之一。人民币汇率改革后,人民币总体呈升值趋势,这一趋势提高了国产木质家具的出口价格,会产生阻碍出口的作用;与此同时其也会使进口原材料价格相对降低、促进原材料的进口,二者相互作用会共同影响木质家具出口额。通过建立回归模型,研究人民币汇率波动对中国木质家具出口贸易额的影响,结果表明人民币汇率与中国木质家具出口额呈负相关,但是通过人民币贬值来促进出口的策略并不明智。     

Return and volatility spillovers between currency and bond markets in India

This paper examines the return and volatility spillovers between the foreign exchange and bond markets of India using a bivariate asymmetric BEKK-GARCH (1,1) model for the period 4 April 2005 to 31 March 2017. We find the evidence of bidirectional return and volatility spillovers with asymmetric effects between these two markets. The spillovers are evidenced even during the periods when foreign portfolio investments in the Indian bond markets were relatively low suggests the existence of strong inter-linkages between both the markets.     

Direct intervention or indirect support? The effects of cooperative control measures on farmers’ implementation of quality and safety standards

In recent years, labor-intensive agricultural products from developing countries have exhibited inferior performance in international trade due to quality and safety incidents, among which pesticide residue is a major issue. Aiming to improve food quality and safety in the context of cooperatives, we introduced three categories of control measures: outcome control, process control and social control. Based on the Pre-Harvest Interval Standard (PHIS), we selected three indices, farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance to PHIS and relative distance to PHIS, to evaluate appropriateness of pesticides use, reduction of pesticide residue and safety improvements of agricultural products. By using random sampling survey data, we empirically analyzed the marginal effects of control measures and their combinations on food quality and safety standards. The empirical results show that implementing process control, namely, unified production standards or supply of unified agricultural inputs, can comprehensively improve farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance and relative distance to PHIS respectively by 34.9%, 3.2 days and 46.0% on average. While the effects of outcome control (safety inspection) and social control (bonus-penalty incentive or training) are restricted to other measures. Therefore, we suggest cooperatives should take farmers’ features, implementation conditions and the effects of control measures into consideration in order to make a sustainable management plan for improving food quality and safety and enhancing competitiveness in international markets.     

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE IMPLEMENTATION OF MONETARY AND MACROPRUDENTIAL POLICIES: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

The emergence of macroprudential policies, implemented by central banks as a means of promoting financial stability, has raised many questions regarding the interaction between monetary and macroprudential policies. Given the limited number of studies available, this paper sheds light on this issue by providing a critical and systematic review of the literature. To this end, we divide the theoretical and empirical studies into two broad channels of borrowers – consisting of the cost of funds and the collateral constraint – and financial intermediaries – consisting of risk‐taking and payment systems. In spite of the existing ambiguity surrounding coordination issues between monetary and macroprudential policies, it is argued that monetary policy alone is not sufficient to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability. Hence, macroprudential policies are needed to supplement monetary. In addition, we find that the role of the exchange rate is critical in the implementation of monetary and macroprudential policies in emerging markets, while volatile capital flows pose another challenge. In so far as how the arrangement of monetary and macroprudential policies varies across countries, key theoretical and policy implications have been identified.     

Estimating the duration of different seasons and their impact on hotel room prices

The purpose of the study is to accurately measure the span of different seasons and its effect on the fluctuation of the occupancy rate and the average room rates in the hospitality sector. While prior studies have concentrated on measuring seasonality using calendar months, this study takes a different approach by measuring seasons in terms of the date count so that the exact starting and ending date of a season can be identified. This step involves adopting a non-parametric methodology that split the time scale into several small parts to obtain a better fit of the relationship and that can detect the starting and end of the season when given specific dates.     

Does a lower (higher) labour force participation rate imply greater (lower) income tax evasion? An exploratory empirical inquiry for the U.S.

This exploratory study seeks to add to the income tax evasion literature by investigating a heretofore ignored potential determinant of aggregate federal personal income tax evasion in the U.S., namely, the labour force participation rate. It is hypothesized that the higher (lower) the labour force participation rate, the lower (greater) the degree of tax evasion. The empirical estimation supports this hypothesis, finding that a one unit (one percentage point) increase (decrease) in the labour force participation rate leads to a 9.1% decrease (increase) in income tax evasion. Thus, the declining labour force participation in recent years implies increased tax evasion problems for the U.S.     

桑叶配方颗粒物质基准研究

桑叶配方颗粒迄今尚没有统一的质量标准。为提升桑叶配方颗粒的内在质量,对其物质基准评价方法进行了研究。选取具有代表性产地的15批桑叶制备物质基准,采用高效液相色谱法,以芦丁、异槲皮苷、紫云英苷作为评价指标,确定桑叶物质基准的出膏率范围、标志性成分含量及转移率范围,采用超高效液相色谱法,建立物质基准UPLC特征图谱,并对其主要成分进行指认。结果表明:15批物质基准中,芦丁转移率为19.94%～34.05%,异槲皮苷转移率为11.67%～43.58%,紫云英苷转移率为10.73%～43.05%;物质基准特征图谱中,标定了14个共有峰,指认出7个色谱峰,分别为新绿原酸、绿原酸、咖啡酸、芦丁、异槲皮苷、槲皮素-3-O-(6″-O-丙二酰基)-β-D-葡萄糖苷、紫云英苷。所建立的基准评价方法为桑叶配方颗粒质量标准的制定及其后续大规模生产提供了数据基础。     

Misclassification errors in labor force statuses and the early identification of economic recessions

Accurate identification of economic recessions in a timely fashion is a major macroeconomic challenge. The so-called Sahm recession indicator (Sahm, 2019), one of the most reliable early detectors of the U.S. recessions, relies on changes in unemployment rates, and is thus subject to misclassification errors in labor force statuses based on survey data. We propose a novel misclassification-errors correction to improve the predictive timeliness and provide a proper threshold value. Using historical data, we show that the adjusted unemployment-based recession indicator offers earlier identification of economic recessions.