Can Direct Payments Facilitate Agricultural Commercialisation: Evidence from a Transition Country

We investigate the impact of direct payments on agricultural commercialisation in Kosovo. Kosovo is one of the poorest countries in Europe but, with European assistance, provides substantial funds to support agriculture, made up of many small and often semi‐subsistence farms. Thus, the effect of this support is a central policy issue. Identifying the effect of direct payments on market participation faces endogeneity issues arising from the possible simultaneous determination of participation in support programmes and market participation. In order to achieve proper identification of the endogenous direct payments, we use a strategy of targeted identification search that employs several different methodological approaches. We find that direct payments for fruit and vegetables, and those for cereals and oilseeds have a positive effect on market participation. However, we cannot identify any definite effect of livestock payments.     

Commodity Taxes, Wage Determination, and Profits

We examine the effects of two different types of commodity taxation, specific and ad valorem, on wages and profits. We analyze two models of wage determination, one with efficiency wage setting and one with union-firm bargaining. In the former, a (locally) revenue-neutral shift from specific to ad valorem taxation leads to an increase in both employment and wages and a reduction in profitability. In the latter, the effect on wages and profits may be reversed: predominantly ad valorem taxation raises employment but lowers wages, and under certain circumstances, the net effect is an increase in profits.     

Lifecourse migration and redistribution of the elderly across U.S. regions and metropolitan areas

This analysis investigates the assertion that the baby-boom cohorts, by virtue of their large size and new lifecourse redistribution tendencies, are likely to initiate significant shifts in the distribution of the elderly population as these cohorts enter into the 65-and-older age categories. The author contends that cohorts' pre-elderly lifecourse migration patterns should be incorporated into studies of elderly population distribution shifts. 2 questions are addressed: will the new lifecourse migration patterns provide for a more deconcentrated redistribution of the baby-boom cohorts, both prior to and after their entry into the elderly age categories, than the lifecourse migration patterns followed by earlier cohorts; and will the new lifecourse distribution pattern lead, in the long run, to a significantly more deconcentrated distribution of the elderly population. The examination of these 2 questions focuses, largely, on redistribution across 9 broad regional and metropolitan area groupings defined on the basis of 3 census regions -- the North (combining the Northeast and Midwest census regions), the South, and the West -- and 3 categories of metropolitan status -- large metropolitan areas (those with 1980 populations exceeding 1 million), other metropolitan areas, and nonmetropolitan areas. The comparison of "new" versus "old" lifecourse migration patterns contrasts the census-based age-specific migration stream rates, registered over the 1975-80 period, with those registered over the 1965-70 period. Given the sharp and broad-based shift toward deconcentrated redistribution which characterized practically all segments of the population during the 1970s, it is assumed that the age-specific migration patterns observed over the 1975-80 period approximate the more deconcentrated redistribution tendencies which will be adopted by the baby-boom cohorts (and their successors) over the remainder of their lifecourse. The 1965-70 net migration rates point up the aggregate redistribution implications associated with the "old" lifecourse migration stream patterns. Among the rates for North large metropolitan areas, the only positive net migration is observed for the 25-29 age category; the greatest net outmigration rate is shown for the 65-69 age category. The rates for South nonmetropolitan areas are negative for all age categories under age 55, and most accentuated outmigration is shown during the young-adult years. The positive net migration exhibited for the older adult and post retirement ages reflects the low outmigration rates from nonmetropolitan areas during these ages and the slight peaking of immigration for these years. The results of this analysis imply that more attention should be devoted to migration, over the entirety of the lifecourse, in future studies of population redistribution.     

Evaluating universal primary education in Uganda: School fee abolition and educational outcomes

This paper analyzes the effect of lifting primary school fees on educational attainment in Uganda. After the abolishment of school fees in 1997, the enrollment rate more than doubled. Two decades later, we know little about the effect of the policy on educational attainment. With recent data on eight cohorts exposed to free education, we analyze the impact of the policy on years of completed primary school, completion of primary school, and transitioning to secondary school. We use a straightforward regression analysis with cohort dummies and household fixed effects to control for unobserved heterogeneity. We find that lifting school fees had no effect on the years of primary school achievement and the likelihood of primary school completion. We find some weak evidence that the likelihood of those who completed primary education to start secondary school increased after Universal Primary Education.     

Jump tails,extreme dependencies,and the distribution of stock returns

We provide a new framework for estimating the systematic and idiosyncratic jump tail risks in financial asset prices. Our estimates are based on in-fill asymptotics for directly identifying the jumps, together with Extreme Value Theory (EVT) approximations and methods-of-moments for assessing the tail decay parameters and tail dependencies. On implementing the procedures with a panel of intraday prices for a large cross-section of individual stocks and the S&P 500 market portfolio, we find that the distributions of the systematic and idiosyncratic jumps are both generally heavy-tailed and close to symmetric, and show how the jump tail dependencies deduced from the high-frequency data together with the day-to-day variation in the diffusive volatility account for the “extreme” joint dependencies observed at the daily level.     

Happiness of economists

We study the importance of economists’ professional situation towards their life satisfaction based on a unique survey of mostly academic economists. On average, economists report to be highly happy with life. Satisfaction is positively related to spending more time on doing research. The lack of a tenured position decreases satisfaction. However, the extent to which the uncertainty created by the tenure system affects satisfaction varies with the contract terms. The effect is stronger if the contract expires in the near future or cannot be extended. Publication success has no effect if it is controlled for academic rank and the contract duration. The finding suggests that publications are rather a means to an end, for example, to acquire a tenured position. While the perceived level of external pressure also has no impact, the perceived change of pressure in recent years is positively related to economists’ life satisfaction. An explanation is that economists have accepted a high level of pressure when entering academia but are not willing to cope with the recent increase.     

ICT growth effects at the industry level: A comparison between the US and the EU

This is an empirical study on the growth impact of Information and Communication Technologies using industry-level data for the US and the EU industries over the period 1980-2000. A panel data approach is employed to estimate the ICT effect using the system GMM and the pooled mean group panel data estimators. The results vary depending on the period, the region, and the type of industry considered. The GMM estimates suggest a significant ICT effect on growth during the 90s both in the US and in the EU. This effect for the EU was strong in the early 90s and weakened afterwards, as opposed to the US where it strengthened in the late 90s. The results of the pooled mean group estimator confirm that the long run growth contribution of ICT was significantly positive in the industries of both regions and over the entire period 1980-2000. However, it seems that the productivity effects of ICT are mainly present in the industries which are either ICT producers or heavy ICT users.     

Glück — Die Sicht der Ökonomie

Glück führte lange Zeit ein Schattendasein in der ?konomischen Forschung. Das hat sich seit einigen Jahren ge?ndert. Aus den neuen Erkenntnissen zu den wirtschaftlichen und au?erwirtschaftlichen Bestimmungsgründen des Glücks werden auch Empfehlungen für eine Wirtschaftspolitik abgeleitet, die das pers?nliche und gesellschaftliche Glück der Menschen berücksichtigt. Bruno S. Frey und Claudia Frey Marti fassen in diesem Beitrag ihr Buch¹ zu dem Thema zusammen.     

Examining policy configurations as conditions for long-term unemployment and non-standard employment in OECD countries using fuzzy-set analysis

This paper investigates how particular configurations of institutional conditions cause high rate of long-term unemployment and non-standard employment rate for 18 OECD countries during the period of 2001–2008. The paper aims to investigate how employment protection legislation (EPL), unemployment benefit and statutory minimum wages are associated with long-term unemployment and non-standard employment. Using the fuzzy-set analysis, the paper examines how the combination of policies matters in causing long-term unemployment and/or non-standard employment. The result suggests that a low level of statutory minimum wage can lead to high levels of non-standard employment in combination with either strict EPL for permanent workers or weak EPLs for temporary workers. The long-term unemployment rate is suggested to be high when there is strict EPL for temporary workers in combination with high levels of statutory minimum wage. This paper highlights the importance of examining multiple policies as configuration.     

Asset Prices and History: The Case of Austria

Historical events are reflected in asset prices. Looking at Austrian government bond prices traded on the Swiss stock exchange during WWII provides therefore a useful way of interpreting the importance the thousands of people directly and indirectly engaged in stock markets attributed to various war events. An econometric analysis of the relationship between government bond values and events in Austrian history reveals that some generally considered crucial events connected with WWII are clearly reflected in Austrian government bond prices. This holds, in particular for the beginning and the end of the war. The annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938 which seemingly looked as being overwhelmingly and passionately welcomed by the Austrian population negatively affected the evaluation of Austrian government bonds, i.e. it was considered to be to the disadvantage of Austria by the people who put their own personal fortune at risk.