Reevaluating the prudence of economic forecasts in the EU: The role of instrument persistence

Christodoulakis and Mamatzakis (2009, Journal of Applied Econometrics 24, pp. 583–606) estimate the EU Commission loss preferences for selected economic forecasts of 12 EU Member States. They employ the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation procedure proposed by Elliott et al. (2005, Review of Economic Studies 72, pp. 1107–1125) and find the forecasts to be somewhat optimistic on average. However, this note shows the GMM estimator to possess nonstandard limiting distributions when some of the instruments are highly persistent, which is the case with one of the instruments employed by Christodoulakis and Mamatzakis. Standard distributions are recovered in some interesting particular cases which are relevant in practice. A reexamination of the EU Commission loss preferences using methods robust to persistence and a dataset extended to 2017 reveals that, while the conclusions of the original study are, by and large, still justified, the EU Commission loss preferences have become more symmetric over the whole studied period.     

Stochastic non-smooth envelopment of data for multi-dimensional output

The proposed method of Stochastic Non-smooth Envelopment of Data (StoNED) for measuring efficiency has to date mainly found application in the analysis of production systems which have exactly one output. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to examine the applicability of StoNED when a ray production function models a production technology with multi-dimensional input and output. In addition to a general analysis of properties required by a ray production function for StoNED to be applicable, we conduct a Monte Carlo simulation in order to evaluate the quality of the frontier and efficiencies estimated by StoNED. The results are compared with those derived via Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). We show that StoNED provides competitive estimates in regard to other methods and especially in regard to the real functional form and efficiency.     

Patterns of Investor-State Dispute Settlement Decisions

This paper examines the pattern of settlements, investor wins and state wins in investor-state dispute settlement cases, focusing on the impact of arbitration rules, the resources and experience of the litigants, the type of treaty breach under investigation, and the pattern of state intervention. Logistic regression results show that settlements are more likely when investors do not disclose their allegations publicly, when the host state has been involved in a greater number of past cases, and when the respondent state has a higher control-of-corruption rating. Panel awards to investors are more likely in cases of alleged direct expropriation and less likely for indirect expropriation. Panel decisions favoring the state increase with higher per capita income and rule-of-law ratings.     

Liking what others “Like”: using Facebook to identify determinants of conformity

In this paper we explore the micro-level determinants of conformity. Members of the social networking service Facebook express positive support to content on the website by clicking a Like button. We set up a natural field experiment to test whether users are more prone to support content if someone else has done so before. To find out to what extent conformity depends on group size and social ties we use three different treatment conditions: (1) one stranger has Liked the content, (2) three strangers have Liked the content, and (3) a friend has Liked the content. The results show that one Like from a single stranger had no impact. However, increasing the size of the influencing group doubled the probability that subjects expressed positive support. Friendship ties were also decisive. People were, on average, four times more likely to press the Like button if a friend, rather than a stranger, had done so before them. The existence of threshold effects in our experiment clearly shows that both group size and social proximity matters when opinions are shaped.     

Mapping global sustainability report scoring: a detailed analysis of Europe and Asia

This study maps the General Reporting Initiative (GRI) relations for a set of global enterprises. Enterprise interrelationships are built using the Mutual Information (MI) of the data reported by enterprises. From the MI topology, we describe interrelationships among the enterprises using chord diagrams to represent the inter- and intra-connectivity between geographical regions and economic sectors globally, by continent and country. Detailed maps are presented for European and Asian regions/sectors, including the relationship between Europe and Asia’s top reporting countries. Our findings reinforce previous research regarding the role of Europe as a driver of sustainability and its influence worldwide. We also determined that Spain is a major player in Europe and that Northern Europe does not have the assumed leading role mentioned in related studies. Eastern Asia is, by far, the leader of the region, and the GRI maps demonstrate the preponderant role of China in the region and the minimal role of India. MI topology maps outline the behavior of the economic sectors, for all the studied regions. Furthermore, a measure that relates the inter- to intra-connections is presented to describe the internal an external relationships among regions/sectors.     

Cuba,Trade Dependency and the GATT/WTO System

Cuba sought economic independence from the U.S. and its reliance on sugar exports after its 1959 revolution, but subsequently developed new dependency relationships. In the meantime, Cuba remained inside the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), despite conducting most of its trade outside it. This paper explores the political economy of Cuba’s participation in the GATT and later the World Trade Organization (WTO). Documents show that Cuba sought to use its participation to gain new markets and influence in the developing world. While Cuba has gained little economically from its participation, in recent years it has diversified its exports and trade partners, and its trade interests now align more closely with WTO rules. Economic reforms will be necessary in order for Cuba to benefit.     

Analysis of the Efficacy of Public Spending on Research and Development in State Programs

This paper presents an approach to assessing the efficacy of public spending on research and development in state programs. At present, there is a need to develop a unified approach to the analysis and evaluation of the efficacy of such spending from the perspective of participants in state programs (federal executive bodies). The proposed approach does not allow evaluating the efficacy of public spending on the development of research areas assigned to the authors.