Local Democracy Ltd

Abstract

A number of European countries have witnessed a proliferation of local government enterprises in recent years. Norwegian local councillors are seemingly particularly exposed to this ‘enterprise fever’. Our article explores local governments' approaches to the political control of such companies. We observe a reluctance to intervene directly in the affairs of an enterprise, but there is a last-resort preparedness to take more resolute action. Lastly, in contrast to what the prototypical agency model postulates, we find that those who attach strong aspirations of increased capacity to the establishment of companies appear to lack trust in the same companies' performance capability.     

On the tradeoff between wage indexation and foreign exchange intervention

Zusammenfassung Zum “trade-off” zwischen Lohnindexierung und Intervention auf dem Devisenmarkt. - In diesem Aufsatz analysieren die Verfasser die Beziehung zwischen dem optimalen MaΒ für Lohnindexierung und dem für Wechselkursinterventionen. Die optimalen Gr?Βen für diese beiden wirtschaftspolitischen Instrumente werden mit Hilfe einer gemeinsamen Optimierung unter Berücksichtigung ihrer wechselseitigen Interdependenz ermittelt. Das bei der Untersuchung verwendete Modell wird gepr?gt durch die Charakteristika der stochastischen Schocks, die die Volkswirtschaft beeinflussen, und durch das Informations-bündel, das die Wirtschaftssubjekte annahmegem?Β besitzen. In der Analyse wird sowohl geprüft, wie der optimale Lohnindexierungsgrad mit dem gesamten Spektrum m?glicher Wechselkurssysteme zusammenh?ngt, als auch untersucht, wie das optimale AusmaΒ der Wechselkursinterventionen von dem gesamten Spektrum m?glicher Lohnindexierungsgrade abh?ngt. Eines der Hauptergebnisse ist, daΒ es keine monotone Beziehung zwischen den optimalen Werten der beiden wirtschaftspolitischen Instrumente gibt. Worin der “trade-off” zwischen ihnen genau besteht, wird in der Untersuchung im einzelnen dargelegt.

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Résumé Le ?trade-off? entre l’indexation salariale et l’intervention en taux de change. — Dans cet article les auteurs analysent la relation entre les degrés optimum de l’indexation salariale et l’intervention en taux de change. Les valeurs optimum des deux instruments de politique sont obtenues par une ?optimisation? jointe considérant leur interdépendance mutuelle. Le modéle utilisé est déterminé par les caractéristiques des chocs stochastiques qui affectent l’économie et par les informations des individus. L’ analyse examine la dépendance du degré optimum de l’indexation salariale du spectre total des régimes possibles de taux de change et, vice-versa, la dépendance du degré optimum de l’intervention du spectre total des degrés possibles de l’indexation salariale. Un des résultats principaux est l’absence d’une relation monotone entre les valeurs optimum des deux instruments de politique. De plus, l’analyse détermine la nature précise du ?trade-off? entre eux.

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Resumen Sobre el ?trade-off? entre la indexaci?n de salarios y la intervenci?n en el mercado de cambios. - En este trabajo los autores estudian la relaci?n entre grados óptimos de indexaci?n de salarios y de intervenci?n en el mercado de cambios. Mediante una optimizaci?n simultánea, que toma en cuenta la interdependencia de estas medidas, se obtienen valores óptimos para ambos instrumentos de politica económica. El modelo utilizado incorpora las caracterfsticas de los shocks estocásticos que afectan a la economfa y el conjunto de informaciones a disposici?n de los individuos. El análisis examina la dependencia del nivel ?ptimo de indexaci?n de salarios de todo el espectro de polfticas cambiarias posibles, como también la dependencia del nivel ?ptimo de intervenci?n en el mercado de cambios de todo el espectro de grados de indexaci?n de salarios posibles. Uno de los resultados centrales es la ausencia de una relaci?n monot?nica entre los valores óptimos de ambos instrumentos; en el análisis se détermina la naturaleza exacta del ?trade-off? que existe entre ellos.

     

Daniel M. Abramson. Building the Bank of England: Money, Architecture, Society, 1694-1942

Daniel Abramson's thorough study examines the architecturalhistory of the Bank of England as a reflection of the bank'spriorities and interests and as the institution and the buildingdeveloped into vital players in Britain's image. In the processof tracing the evolution of the various structures occupiedby the bank during the period from 1694 to 1942, he has createda model interdisciplinary study that places the Bank of Englandas a structure and financial institution within     

MACROECONOMIC STABILIZATION POLICIES IN THE EMU: SPILLOVERS, ASYMMETRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

This paper studies the institutional design of the coordination of macroeconomic stabilization policies within a monetary union in the framework of linear quadratic differential games. A central role in the analysis plays the partitioned game approach of the endogenous coalition formation literature. The specific policy recommendations in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) context depend on the particular characteristics of the shocks and the economic structure. In the case of a common shock, fiscal coordination or full policy coordination is desirable. When anti‐symmetric shocks are considered, fiscal coordination improves the performance but full policy coordination does not produce further gains in policymakers' welfare.     

Interdependence between The Netherlands and Germany: Forecasting with VAR models

Summary The German economy is usually assumed to take a leading position. In principle this gives smaller countries, which are dependent on Germany, the opportunity to predict their own economic future conditional on the state of the German economy. This paper uses this opportunity for The Netherlands by applying a Vector Auto Regressive model on Dutch and German series. Because the traditional VAR models appear to be overparameterized, their forecast performance can be improved significantly by using shrinkage estimators based on the so-called Minnesota prior. Such a Bayesian VAR forecasts well and confirms the interdependence between Germany and The Netherlands. Variance decomposition of forecast errors and impulse response simulations strengthen the impression that the BVAR model properties are plausible.The author works at the Econometric Research and Special Studies Department of the Nederlandsche Bank. He is grateful to M.M.G. Fase, C.C.A. Winder and two anonymous referees for their useful comments and to R.B.M. Vet for his assistance in various calculations.     

The role of affect in consumers' temporal judgments

The role of time and mood as consumer behavior constructs has seen increasing independent attention over the past several years. Two studies on the impact of transient affective states on consumers' temporal judgments are reported. In accordance with the research hypotheses, both studies demonstrated strong mood effects on subject's time perception and orientation. The findings were validated across two different mood-inducing manipulations and supported the general theoretical foundation of the mediating roles of affective states on consumers' temporal judgments. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Business process offshoring: India and the global services revolution

Kaushik Basu (Ed.). 2004. India's Emerging Economy: Performance and Prospects in the 1990s and Beyond. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 319 pages. ISBN: 0‐262‐02556‐6. Paul Davies. (2004). What's This India Business? Offshoring, Outsourcing, and the Global Services Revolution. London: Nicholas Brealey International. 233 pages. ISBN: 1‐904838‐00‐6. Mark Kobayashi‐Hillary. (2004). Outsourcing to India: The Offshore Advantage. Berlin‐Heidelberg: Springer‐Verlag. 275 pages. ISBN: 3‐540‐20855‐0.