The causes of unemployment in France: a flow approach

A flow model is used to identify the causes for rising unemployment in France between 1978 and 1990. Two flow equations are estimated as functions of exogenous factors such as aggregate demand, factor costs, structural shifts and long-term factors and then used in simulations for the level of unemployment. It is shown that the main reason for high unemployment in France is a slow down in the demand for labour due to high labour and energy costs in the early 1980s and to tight aggregate demand over the whole period.Change in the labour supply have had an increasing impact in recent years.     

Empirical estimation of tail dependence using copulas: application to Asian markets

This paper introduces non-parametric estimators for upper and lower tail dependence whose confidence intervals are obtained with a bootstrap method. We call these estimators ‘naïve estimators’ as they represent a discretization of Joe's formulae linking copulas to tail dependence. We apply the methodology to an empirical data set composed of three composite indexes for the three Tigers (Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia). The extremes show a dependence structure which is symmetric for the Thai and Malaysian markets and asymmetric for the Thai and Indonesian markets and for the Malaysian and the Indonesian markets. Using these results we estimate the copula (which belongs to the Student or Archimedean copula families) for each pair of markets by two methods. Finally, we provide risk measurements using the best copula associated with each pair of markets.     

Credibility and Monitoring: Outsourcing as a Commitment Device

We analyze an environment plagued by double moral hazard where the agent’s effort level and the principal’s precision in monitoring are not contractible. In such an environment, the principal tends to over‐monitor thereby inducing low effort. To ease the latter problem, the principal may choose to increase monitoring costs by outsourcing the activity. As a result equilibrium monitoring is reduced and incentives become more powerful. This choice is particularly likely when the worker’s effort is an important factor in determining output.     

Entrepreneurship and the Division of Ownership in New Ventures

The current study investigates a tripartite incentive contract between an innovator supplying an intellectual asset, a professional assigned to productive tasks, and a consulting firm specializing in matching ideas and professional skills. A rather simple pure tripartite partnership implements the consultant's expected profit maximum and maximizes the project's expected surplus. The liquidity-constrained professional is compensated by receiving a share of one half in the new venture. The consultant's and the innovator's shares reflect the relative value of search. However, the consultant's optimal search effort to find an appropriate production partner is inefficiently low .     

QUANTIFYING ABSOLUTE POVERTY IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

We estimate that in 1985 about one in five persons in the developing world lived in poverty, judged by the standards of the poorest countries. This rises to one in three at a common, more generous, poverty line. The aggregate consumption short-fall of the poorest fifth is about one half of one percent of world consumption, while that of the poorest third is a further one percent. The shape of the distribution of consumption suggests that aggregate poverty would fall fairly rapidly if moderate growth in average consumption levels can be sustained, and the poor share at least proportionally in that growth. However, it would take only small adverse shifts in the world distribution of consumption to eliminate the gains to the poor from growth.     

Expected utility and the siegel paradox: A generalization

It was recently shown by Sinn that, under certain conditions, because of the Siegel paradox, even risk-averse agents can find speculation on forward currency markets attractive. His assumptions are that the spot and forward rates are identically distributed and statistically independent and that the agents' coefficients of relative risk aversion are constant and inferior to unity. We show that both assumptions of statistical independence and constant relative risk aversion can be dramatically relaxed.Thanks are due to H.-W. Sinn, W. T. Epps, and an anonymous referee for useful comments. Thon would like to thank the Department of Economics and The Center for Law and Economics of the University of Miami for research support, and the Prof. W. Keilhau's Memorial Fund for financial support.     

Repertoire of strategies used by French Canadian mothers living in Montreal to pressure their 10‐year‐old children to eat

This study is concerned with mothers’ use of strategies directed toward their 10‐year‐old children to pressure them to eat. The objective is to document the repertoire of strategies and their context of use. This child‐feeding practice is of interest because of its impact on the child's opportunities for the development of self‐control based on responsiveness to hunger and satiety cues. A total of 24 interviews and one focus group were conducted with French Canadian mothers. Data analyses reveal four major themes associated with the contexts in which pressure to eat were used: food purchasing, food preparation, meal service, food consumption. Strategies related to the context of food purchasing stress the importance of children's influence on family decisions. The strategies used at the time of preparation of meals illustrate the burden of tasks a mother takes on to ensure that her child consumes a particular food. With regard to meal service, very few strategies take into account the appetite of the child. Finally, the variety of strategies deployed at the time of consumption of foods supports the importance of informing parents of the undesirable effect of techniques associated with forcing the child to eat. Avenues for future research are presented.     

Implementation issues on shrinkage estimators for seasonal factors within the X-11 seasonal adjustment method

This commentary on Miller and Williams [Intl. J. Forecast. 20 (2004)S29-49] discusses how shrinkage can be implemented within X12-ARIMA. We discuss how the seasonal factors are estimated in X12-ARIMA, how shrinkage can be translated into a moving average, if this is compatible with the philosophy behind the X12-ARIMA method, and suggest possible improvements.