The long-run Phillips curve: A structural VAR investigation

Both cointegration methods, and non-cointegrated structural VARs identified based on either long-run restrictions, or a combination of long-run and sign restrictions, are used in order to explore the long-run trade-off between inflation and the unemployment rate in the post-WWII U.S., U.K., Euro area, Canada, and Australia. Overall, neither approach produces clear evidence of a non-vertical trade-off. The extent of uncertainty surrounding the estimates is however substantial, thus implying that a researcher holding alternative priors about what a reasonable slope of the long-run trade-off might be will likely not see her views falsified.     

主题公园游客满意度曲线研究——以深圳欢乐谷为例

游客量直接决定主题公园的经营绩效,游客满意度是影响游客量的关键要素之一。本文首先通过对深圳华侨城三大主题公园的预调研,构建了主题公园游客满意度曲线模型;然后以深圳欢乐谷为例,通过回归分析,对主题公园的游客满意度曲线进行了拟合检验,发现主题公园的游客满意度曲线表现为倒U形。为了使主题公园经营者能够有效地利用倒U形模型,本文将游客满意度曲线划分为5个区间,针对每个区间给出了提高游客满意度水平的策略,为主题公园稳定游客量提供了理论依据。     

Incompetency training: Theory, practice, and remedies

“Incompetency training” includes formal and informal instruction that consciously (purposively) or unconsciously imparts knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior (including procedures) that are useless, inaccurate, misleading, and/or will lower performance outcomes of the trainee versus no training or training using alternative training methods. “Imparts” in the definition refers to exposing a trainee to incompetency training; such exposure is not a guarantee that the training increases the trainee's incompetence. This editorial is to stimulate research interest among scholars in incompetency training theory, evidence, and the efficacy of remedies. The editorial offers an early workbench model of incompetency training theory. The theory includes the proposition that executives and associates in firms, academia, and government organizations consciously as well as unknowingly offer incompetency training in many contexts. Increasing trainees' vigilance and ability to recognize exposure to incompetency-training may help trainees to decrease the effectiveness (impact) of exposures to incompetency training—advancing incompetency training theory and knowledge of incompetency training practice may be necessary conditions for remedying negative outcomes that follow from trainees receiving such training. Available evidence supports the first proposition and, to a limited extent, the second proposition.     

A dynamic Nelson-Siegel yield curve model with Markov switching

This paper proposes a model to better capture persistent regime changes in the interest rates of the US term structure. While the previous literature on this matter proposes that regime changes in the term structure are due to persistent changes in the conditional mean and volatility of interest rates we find that changes in a single parameter that determines the factor loadings of the model better captures regime changes. We show that this model gives superior in-sample forecasting performance as compared to a baseline model and a volatility-switching model. In general, we find compelling evidence that the extracted factors from our term structure models are closely related with various economic variables. Furthermore, we investigate and find evidence that the effects of macroeconomic phenomena such as monetary policy, inflation expectations, and real economic activity differ according to the particular regime realized for the term structure. In particular, we identify the periods where monetary policy appears to have a greater effect on the yield curve, and the periods where inflation expectations seem to have a greater effect in yield determination. We also find convincing evidence of a relationship between the regimes estimated by the various switching models with economic activity and monetary policy.     

Measuring and Accounting for the Deprivation Gap of Portuguese Immigrants in Luxembourg

This paper examines the relative well‐being of Portuguese immigrants in Luxembourg by looking at indicators of material deprivation. We document material deprivation differences between immigrants and nationals—the “deprivation gap”—and measure the extent to which income differentials (and other sociodemographic differences) explain this gap using a combination of non‐parametric methods and a versatile graphical device. We find a large and significant deprivation gap against Portuguese immigrants, whatever the indicator considered. The extent to which the gap is merely a reflection of differences in income, however, depends on what deprivation items are taken into consideration. Income differences almost fully account for material deprivation differences when the latter is measured using the items included in the official EU social indicator of material deprivation. Inclusion of housing condition indicators mitigates this relationship and we then find compelling evidence that the deprivation gap is not entirely accounted for by income differentials.     

How does the geographic export diversification–performance relationship vary at different levels of export intensity?

We argue that the relationship between geographic export diversification and firm performance follows an S-curve relationship if export intensity is low and an inverted U-shape if export intensity is high. The S-shape curve occurs because firms have weaker incentives to deploy the resources needed for succeeding in foreign markets if they generate relatively low revenues in export markets compared to their domestic market. Firms highly committed to export markets, in contrast, face stronger incentives to accelerate their learning curve, which results in an inverted U-shape relationship. We examine our hypotheses using a panel of longitudinal archival data with over 2000 firm-year observations, which cover all of the possible export destination countries served by large Brazil-based exporters from 2001 to 2010. Our results imply that the degree of export intensity changes the cost-benefit relationship of geographic export diversification.     

A new ordered family of Lorenz curves with an application to measuring income inequality and poverty in rural China

The most common data source on income distribution in China is grouped data. When income data is in grouped form, some acceptable Lorenz model is needed to approximate the underlying Lorenz curve. This paper presents a new family of Lorenz curves and applies the main model in our proposed family of Lorenz curves to income data for rural China over the period 1980 to 2006. We find that the income share of the rural population at the low end of the income scale has been shrinking, income inequality in rural China has increased over time and that income inequality has impeded attempts to reduce poverty. However, the welfare of the rural population is still improving in terms of the generalized Lorenz dominance criterion.     

数据挖掘方法在传统预测模型中的应用

数学建模领域中,对于解决不同类型的预测问题有一些经典的预测模型。最近日益流行的数据挖掘技术也有一些针对解决预测问题的独特的数学模型和建模方法。在此对使用传统解析式模型的预测方法与应用数据挖掘技术的数据库模型的预测方法进行了对比,重点分析了2种方法在影响因素的确定、数据规律的寻找方法以及模型侧重点选择上的不同之处,并简单讨论了如何结合2种模型的优点,将数据挖掘技术应用于传统解析式模型的建模过程之中,对已有的解析式预测模型进行改进,进而得出更加可靠准确的预测结果。     

NAIRU Estimates for Germany: New Evidence on the Inflation–Unemployment Tradeoff

Meaningful estimates of the non‐accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) within a Phillips curve framework require an identified tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. However, observations of inflation and unemployment are equilibrium points giving rise to a simultaneity problem. We assess conventional identifying assumptions in the literature on the German NAIRU in a general bi‐variate equations system of inflation and unemplyoment. We use a data‐driven method for identification based on shifts in the relative volatility of shocks to unemployment and inflation to identify the tradeoff for Germany. Our results support models which estimate a contemporaneous effect of unemployment on inflation and those which model inflation and unemployment jointly.     

External Debts,Institutions and Growth in SSA

The study investigates the impact of institutional quality on the external debt–growth nexus in SSA. Data from 36 SSA economies over the 1996–2013 periods were used. The results from the IV-System GMM imply that institutional quality has robust effects on the external debt–growth nexus. Thus, the impact of external debt on growth is through host nation’s institutional quality. However, the mediating effect of institutional quality on this nexus is up to a point. When a country is on the wrong side of the debt-laffer curve, external debt becomes irrelevant; and institutional quality can no longer help.