Assessing fiscal sustainability subject to policy changes: a Markov switching cointegration approach

We propose a Markov switching cointegration approach to assess long run fiscal sustainability. This method allows us to simultaneously: (1) test for cointegration in the presence of significant fiscal policy changes; (2) assess the type of fiscal regime that a country experienced at a given period and (3) analyse the timing of the transition between the estimated regime types. Given its flexibility, our approach enable us to uncover a richer and more complex dynamics in the analysis of fiscal sustainability, which standard linear cointegration methods fail to capture.     

Rising Food Prices and Household Welfare: Evidence from Brazil in 2008

Food price inflation in Brazil in the 12 months to June 2008 was 18%, whereas overall inflation was 7%. Using spatially disaggregated monthly data on consumer prices and two different household surveys, we estimate the welfare consequences of these food price increases, and their distribution across households. Because Brazil is a large food producer, with a predominantly wage‐earning agricultural labour force, our estimates include general equilibrium effects on market and transfer incomes, as well as the standard estimates of changes in consumer surplus. Although the expenditure (or consumer surplus) effects were large, negative and markedly regressive everywhere, estimates of the market‐income effect were positive and progressive, particularly in rural areas. Because of this effect on the rural poor, and of the partial protection afforded by increases in two large social assistance benefits, the overall impact of higher food prices in Brazil was U‐shaped, with middle‐income groups suffering larger proportional losses than the very poor. Nevertheless, as Brazil is 80% urban, higher food prices still led to a greater incidence and depth of poverty at the national level.     

Linking corporate productivity to foreign direct investment: An empirical assessment

This paper examines whether foreign firms generate productivity spillovers. Despite the relevance of this question to public policy, previous studies have failed to find consistent and conclusive evidence to support the existence of positive spillovers. Using previously unexploited firm-level data over the 1994–1999 period, we attempt to contribute to the literature on productivity spillovers from FDI by analysing the Portuguese manufacturing industry. The results indicate that foreign firms in the same industry of the observed firms (horizontal spillovers) and linkages between foreign firms and their local suppliers or customers (vertical spillovers) do not impact significantly on firms’ productivity. Moreover, we detected no differences on productivity spillovers associated to firm-specific characteristics.     

A Comparison of EPI Sampling, Probability Sampling, and Compact Segment Sampling Methods for Micro and Small Enterprises

Finding an efficient method for sampling micro- and small-enterprises (MSEs) for research and statistical reporting purposes is a challenge in developing countries, where registries of MSEs are often nonexistent or outdated. This lack of a sampling frame creates an obstacle in finding a representative sample of MSEs. This study uses computer simulations to draw samples from a census of businesses and non-businesses in the Tshwane Municipality of South Africa, using three different sampling methods: the traditional probability sampling method, the compact segment sampling method, and the World Health Organization's Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) sampling method. Three mechanisms by which the methods could differ are tested, the proximity selection of respondents, the at-home selection of respondents, and the use of inaccurate probability weights. The results highlight the importance of revisits and accurate probability weights, but the lesser effect of proximity selection on the samples' statistical properties.     

Conditional Cash Transfers, Schooling, and Child Labor: Micro-Simulating Brazil's Bolsa Escola Program

A growing number of developing economies are providing cashtransfers to poor people that require certain behaviors on theirpart, such as attending school or regularly visiting healthcare facilities. A simple ex ante methodology is proposed forevaluating such programs and used to assess the Bolsa Escolaprogram in Brazil. The results suggest that about 60 percentof poor 10- to 15-year-olds not in school enroll in responseto the program. The program reduces the incidence of povertyby only a little more than one percentage point, however, andthe Gini coefficient falls just half a point. Results are betterfor measures more sensitive to the bottom of the distribution,but the effect is never large.     

Adverse selection, public information, and underpricing in IPOs

This paper generalizes the informational environment of the Rock model to address empirical evidence and conjectures that cannot be addressed within the standard model based on informed and uninformed investors such as underpricing being positively related to market returns observed prior to the IPO, the number of IPOs being positively related to market returns, underpricing being partly predictable based on public information, and the return to uninformed participation being negative overall but positively related to market returns observed prior to the IPO. Finally, the model suggests that a positive relation between market returns and underpricing need not represent an inefficiency in the pricing of IPOs.     

Once NEET,always NEET? A synthetic panel approach to analyze the Moroccan labor market

In many regions of the world, the persistent, and growing, proportion of young people who are currently Not in Employment, Education or Training—a group increasingly referred to as NEET—is of global concern. This is no less true of Morocco: about 30% of the Moroccan population between age 15 and 24 are currently NEET. Drawing from various rounds of Moroccan Labor Force Surveys, this paper contributes to understanding the complex dynamics of labor markets in developing countries. First, it identifies the socioeconomic determinants of Morocco's NEETs. Second, employing a synthetic panel (SP) methodology in the context of labor market analysis, the paper describes how the condition of NEETs changes over time. One striking, and worrisome, pattern that emerges from the 2010 SP data is that, even after 8 years, a majority of the NEETs remained outside either the labor market or education, with very little chance of moving out of their situation. Their chronic stagnancy confirms the powerful effect that initial conditions have on determining young people's future outcomes. It also highlights the absence of corrective mechanisms and policy interventions within the Moroccan political economy landscape that could help to change NEETs' outcomes along the line.     

New development: ‘Healing at a distance’—telemedicine and COVID-19

ABSTRACT

In extreme circumstances such as pandemics, the presence of patients in hospital emergency departments becomes untenable. Healthcare professionals and organizations worldwide are leaning on technology as a crucial ally to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. This article focuses on the positive impact of telemedicine for helping service provision, from enabling virtual triage to mitigating the negative psychological effects of social isolation. The authors discuss the challenges and opportunities to telemedicine practices.