The European high-speed train network: Predicted effects on accessibility patterns

The principal aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the future European high-speed train network on accessibility, by reducing time distance between places and modifying their relative location. We compare the current situation with that foreseen for the year 2010, according to the Outline Plan of the European High-Speed Train Network, in order to analyse which areas will most benefit from construction and improvement of the infrastructure. It is hypothesized that the high-speed train will certainly bring the peripheral regions closer to the central ones, but will also increase imbalances between the main cities and their hinterlands. A weighted average distance indicator is applied for this purpose. This measure identifies the spatial distribution of accessibility in the area of study, emphasizing the infrastructure effects, and locates accessibility changes at the European level. A Geographic Information System (GIS) has been used to carry out this study.     

Partial Horizontal Inequity Orderings: A Non‐parametric Approach*

We provide a partial ordering view of horizontal inequity (HI), based on the Lorenz criterion, associated with different post‐tax income distributions and a (bistochastic) non‐parametric estimated benchmark distribution. As a consequence, several measures consistent with the Lorenz criterion can be rationalized. In addition, we establish the so‐called HI transfer principle, which imposes a normative minimum requirement that any HI measure must satisfy. Our proposed HI ordering is consistent with this principle. Moreover, we adopt a cardinal view to decompose the total effect of a tax system into a welfare gain caused by HI‐free income redistribution and a welfare loss caused by HI, without any additive decomposable restriction on the indices. Hence, more robust tests can be applied. Other decompositions in the literature are seen as particular cases.     

Spillover effects of human service facilities in a racially segmented housing market

Previous studies of human service facility spillovers on residential property values have been inconclusive, and have failed to take into account the effects of racial segmentation of housing markets. Likewise, studies of racial discrimination in urban housing markets and price differentials between white and nonwhite areas of the city have failed to consider the impacts of service facilities on prices. This study develops an hedonic price model of housing services in a racially segmented housing market, which considers a variety of human service facilities and their spillover effects. Model results for Oakland, California in 1976 indicate that facilities significantly affect housing prices both positively and negatively, and that these effects vary by racial submarket. Implications of these findings for the interpretation of past discrimination studies, facility impact studies, and social policy are considered.     

Choosing sides in the trilemma: international financial cycles and structural change in developing economies

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the impact of international financial cycles on structural change in developing economies. It is argued that the impact of these cycles depends on the specific combination of macroeconomic and industrial policies adopted by the developing economy. The cases of Brazil and Argentina are contrasted with those of Korea and China. In the Asian economies, macroeconomic policy has been a complementary tool along with industrial policy to foster the diversification of production and capabilities. Inversely, in the case of the Latin American countries, long periods of real exchange rate (RER) appreciation, combined with the weaknesses (or absence) of industrial policies, contributed to the loss of capabilities and lagging behind.     

On the distribution of government bond returns: evidence from the EMU

This paper assesses the statistical distribution of daily EMU bond returns for the period 1999–2012. The normality assumption is tested and clearly rejected for all European countries and maturities. Although skewness plays a minor role in this departure from normality, it is mainly due to the excess kurtosis of bond returns. Therefore, we test the Student’s t, skewed Student’s t, and stable distribution that exhibit this feature. The financial crisis leads to a structural break in the time series. We account for this and retest the alternative distributions. A value-at-risk application underlines the importance of our findings for investors. In sum, excess kurtosis in bond returns is essential for risk management, and the stable distribution captures this feature best.     

Oblivious equilibrium for concentrated industries

This article explores the application of oblivious equilibrium (OE) to highly concentrated markets. We define a natural extended notion of OE, called partially oblivious equilibrium (POE), that allows for there to be a set of strategically important firms (the “dominant” firms), whose firm states are always monitored by every other firm in the market. We perform computational experiments that explore the characteristics of POE, OE, and Markov perfect equilibrium (MPE), and find that POE generally performs well in highly concentrated markets. We also derive error bounds for evaluating the performance of POE for cases where MPE cannot be computed.     

The Incidence of Public Spending on Healthcare: Comparative Evidence from Asia

The article compares the incidence of public healthcare across11 Asian countries and provinces, testing the dominance of healthcareconcentration curves against an equal distribution and Lorenzcurves and across countries. The analysis reveals that the distributionof public healthcare is prorich in most developing countries.That distribution is avoidable, but a propoor incidence is easierto realize at higher national incomes. The experiences of Malaysia,Sri Lanka, and Thailand suggest that increasing the incidenceof propoor healthcare requires limiting the use of user fees,or protecting the poor effectively from them, and building awide network of health facilities. Economic growth may not onlyrelax the government budget constraint on propoor policies butalso increase propoor incidence indirectly by raising richerindividuals' demand for private sector alternatives.     

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.     

Industry dynamics: Foundations for models with an infinite number of firms

This paper explores the connection between three important threads of economic research offering different approaches to studying the dynamics of an industry with heterogeneous firms. Finite models of the form pioneered by Ericson and Pakes (1995) capture the dynamics of a finite number of heterogeneous firms as they compete in an industry, and are typically analyzed using the concept of Markov perfect equilibrium (MPE). Infinite models of the form pioneered by Hopenhayn (1992), on the other hand, consider an infinite number of infinitesimal firms, and are typically analyzed using the concept of stationary equilibrium (SE). A third approach uses oblivious equilibrium (OE), which maintains the simplifying benefits of an infinite model but within the more realistic setting of a finite model. The paper relates these three approaches. The main result of the paper provides conditions under which SE of infinite models approximate MPE of finite models arbitrarily well in asymptotically large markets. Our conditions require that the distribution of firm states in SE obeys a certain “light-tail” condition. In a second set of results, we show that the set of OE of a finite model approaches the set of SE of the infinite model in large markets under a similar light-tail condition.     

Impact of copula choice on the modeling of crop yield basis risk

A number of problems in agricultural economics involve modeling joint distributions for which the assumption of multivariate normality may not be warranted. Yet, very little work has been conducted evaluating competing methods for modeling joint dependence. We develop a simulation framework to evaluate the bias and efficiency impacts of copula choice in the context of evaluating county‐to‐farm basis risk. The results suggest significant differences in performance across various copulas and approaches. The findings have important implications for risk analysis, insurance, and policy modeling problems in agriculture regarding the selection of method to model dependence among random variables.