Exploring efficient sets and equilibria on risky assets with APABO DSS prototype version 2.1

ABAPO 2.1 (Assets/Business(es) Analyser and Portfolio Optimizer) is a DSS prototype for portfolio managers. It assists the decision maker in two important stages of his task. First, it provides an integrated synthesis of the returns scenario in order to support the decision maker in the selection of the assets to retain, in accordance with his strategy. Second, on the retained assets it computes and shows the E- efficient solutions. For each efficient portfolio ABAPO supplies immediately a lot of information that should help the decision maker to single out the portfolio which fits his goals best.ABAPO works on an integration of elements derived from the Portfolio Selection Theory, the Capital Asset Pricing Model, the Utility Theory. ABAPO uses the principal component, the univariate, the bivariate regression and the correlation analysis, a parametric quadratic programming model and an algorithm based on the critical line method.ABAPO is implemented in C language under AIX operating system and runs on a IBM RT PC 6150. It is a ductile, interactive procedure that involves graphics in order to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of the what if simulations.This version 2.1 improves upon the previous one by the evaluation of the Security Market Line, some statistics on the returns of the efficient portfolios, the evaluation of the quadratic indifference curves associated to the efficient portfolios.Research supported by the Italian National Research Council (CNR), grant n. 88.03065.10. ABAPO DSS 2.1 prototype has been developed with the support of the CNR (grant n. 87.1210.10), of the Banca Popolare di Verona, of the Cassa di Risparmio di Verona Vicenza e Belluno, of the Società Cattolica di Assicurazione, at the Istituto di Matematica, Università di Verona.     

Product attributes and models of multiple discreteness

Demand for product characteristics is examined within the context of models that allow for both corner and interior solutions corresponding to zero and non-zero demand. Product attribute information is associated with marginal utility and curvature (satiation) parameters of various utility functions. Empirical applications demonstrate the need for incorporating characteristics in a fairly general way. We also compare our approach to an ideal point and pure Lancasterian versions of our nonlinear utility model. The data support our model over either the ideal point or Lancasterian variants.     

New Evidence from Brazil on Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth*

This article presents evidence on the positive effect of international trade on productivity growth using industrial level data preceding and following Brazil's trade liberalization in 1988–90. Our data reveal large and widespread productivity improvement across industries after barriers to trade were drastically reduced. Econometric results confirm the association between trade liberalization and productivity growth and show that the impact was indeed substantial: The observed tariff reduction in the period brought a 6% estimated increase in total factor productivity growth rate and a similar impact on labor productivity.     

Who Receives Medicaid in Old Age? Rules and Reality

Medicaid is a government programme that also provides health insurance to the elderly who have few assets and either low income or catastrophic health care expenses. We ask how the Medicaid rules map into the reality of Medicaid recipiency, and we ask what other observable characteristics are important to determine who ends up on Medicaid. The data show that both singles and couples with high retirement income can end up on Medicaid at very advanced ages. We find that, conditioning on a large number of observable characteristics, including those that directly relate to Medicaid eligibility criteria, single women are more likely to end up on Medicaid – so are non‐white people, but, surprisingly, their higher recipiency is concentrated in the higher income percentiles. We also find that people with low incomes who have a high‐school diploma or higher degree are much less likely to end up receiving Medicaid than their less‐educated counterparts. All of these effects are large and depend on retirement income in a very non‐linear way.     

Police-Monitored Cameras and Crime*

We study the effects of police monitoring on crime. We exploit detailed information on the location and date of installation of police-monitored surveillance cameras, coupled with data at the street-segment level on all reported crimes in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. We find that the introduction of police-monitored surveillance cameras reduces crime by about 20 percent in monitored areas relative to a pure control group located outside the city. We also explore potential displacement effects, and we do not find evidence of such effects.     

Do Community Supported Agriculture programmes encourage change to food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes? New evidence from shareholders

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programmes have recently received attention for their potential to influence food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes, though studies have mostly drawn from small samples (n?t-tests assess if paired means are statistically different, and multiple regressions of paired differences on socioeconomic factors, self-reported health, and years of CSA enrolment estimate the effect of respondent characteristics on behaviour change. The results strongly suggest that CSAs have the potential to positively impact shareholders’ food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes, and that those reporting ‘poor health’ prior to CSA enrolment exhibited the most change overall. These results should be taken as an initial, yet promising, analysis of the impact of CSA participation on shareholder food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes.     

Optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with habits in consumption

In this paper we consider the implications of habits for optimal monetary policy, when those habits either exist at the level of the aggregate basket of consumption goods (‘superficial’ habits) or at the level of individual goods (‘deep’ habits: see Ravn et al., 2006). External habits generate an additional distortion in the economy and create new trade-offs for optimal policy, as the policy maker does not respond as aggressively to technology shocks in order to avoid exacerbating the habits externality. This can dramatically affect both the parameterization of optimal simple rules, as well as their determinacy properties. These effects are particularly strong when habits are of the deep kind.     

The usefulness of performance reporting in local government: comparing Italy and Spain

This article presents a comparative analysis of the perceived usefulness of performance information by managers in local authorities in Italy and Spain. Italy and Spain have similar cultural and administrative characteristics and in both countries there are external requirements (from central government) to adopt performance indicators. The adoption of performance indicators was found to be almost symbolic in both states.     

Globalization and knowledge spillover: international direct investment,exports and patents

In this study three possible determinants of the increase in the ratio between skilled and unskilled workers are tested together: R&D, organisational change, and foreign direct investment. After analysing the literature, these hypotheses are jointly tested using a SUR estimate. The results – regarding a panel of 488 Italian manufacturing firms over the period 1989–1997 – suggest the statistical significance of the impact of organisational change, while they tend to exclude a direct relation between R&D spending and skill upgrading. With reference to FDIs, the nature of the data and the results do not permit the exclusion of their possible influence.     

The productivity impact of R&D investment: are high-tech sectors still ahead?

Our aim is to investigate the relationship between a firm's R&D expenditures and its productivity, looking at sectoral peculiarities. We use a unique longitudinal database consisting of 1809 US and European manufacturing and service firms over the period 1990–2008. Our main findings can be summarised as follows. Consistently with previous literature, the knowledge stock has a significant positive impact on a firm's productivity. More interestingly, the coefficient turns out to be significantly larger in the R&D-user services and high-tech manufacturing sectors than in the non-high-tech manufacturing sectors. Contrary to the ‘latecomer advantage’ approach, these outcomes suggest that firms in high-tech sectors are still ahead in terms of impact on productivity of R&D investments.