An empirical note about estimation and forecasting Latin American Forex returns volatility: the role of long memory and random level shifts components

Portuguese Economic Journal - A set of RLS-type models with ARMA and ARFIMA dynamics is estimated and compared in a forecasting exercise with ARFIMA, GARCH and FIGARCH models. It is an extension of...     

Major Psychological Factors Affecting Acceptance of New Breeding Techniques for Crops

New plant biotechnologies called new breeding techniques (NBT), which will follow the present genetically modified (GM) technology, have appeared and are attracting attention worldwide. The first purpose of this study was to show consumer attitudes toward traditional plant breeding, GM, and NBT crops. The second purpose was to verify the validity of a psychological model determining the acceptance of NBT crops. A survey was conducted in Japan with 657 randomly selected adult participants. The results showed that perceived risk, perceived benefit, trust, sense of bioethics, anxiety, and anger play an important role in the personal and public acceptance of NBT and indicated that trust and anxiety are especially important factors in both situations.     

The Substitution Effect of Mobile Games on Console Games: An Empirical Analysis of the Japanese Video Game Industry

In this paper, we discuss the substitution effects between mobile games and console games. We estimate such effects by a fixed-effect regression with instrumental variables using panel data of about 100,000 observations. The results showed that the substitution effects of playing smart devices on 3DS, Wii, and PSP were recognizable, but did not have significant effects on PS3, and the substitution effects on PSP were very small. Therefore, mobile games had a substitution effect on casual console games, or on console games in which the play situation resembled mobile games. In addition, the substitution effects were at most about 0.1. The substitution effects were small. Our results indicate that mobile games represent the pioneers in the new market of gaming at least during our observation period. But new games and traditional games will coexist for a while.     

Outcomes from use of an evidence-based practice guideline

The aim of evidence-based guidelines is primarily to improve patient outcomes without adding to the existing cost of care because both payers and policymakers want to identify health care costs that do not result in benefit to the patient. The purpose of the reported project was to generate a practice guideline for the treatment of uncomplicated acute cystitis in a female population, to determine the extent to which the guideline would be used by providers and to measure the cost and quality of outcomes from its use. A retrospective chart review was used to gather pre-guideline practice and cost data. Measurements included the type, frequency, and duration of antibiotic therapy and the use of urine cultures and both complications and routine followup visits. The implementation of an outpatient practice guideline resulted in a significant change in antibiotic prescribing and a trend toward a change in ordering cultures and clinic followup. There was also a significant decrease in treatment costs.     

‘An Incomplete Contract Approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance’ – Commitment vs. Flexibility

In this paper, we take an incomplete contract approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance between the European Commission (EC) and any heavily debt member state, Greece in particular. Incomplete contract approach makes possible to put a long process of Eurozone Fiscal Governance into an extensive form game in which a renegotiation procedure is incorporated. We theoretically reveal the conflict of interests between the EC (Germany) and Greece over the Greek debt repayment plan proposed in 2015. We show that the Greek’s position is consistent with incomplete contract theory, but that the EC (Germany) does not allow the renegotiation for restructuring for growth-oriented debt repayment program proposed by the Greek government because the EC (Germany) judges that the commitment effect (on fiscal austerity) is greater than the flexibility one (pro-growth effect). This will undoubtedly provide a novel and interesting approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance.     

Finite-dimensional utilities

Summary. Sufficient axioms are identified for the existence of a finite- dimensional quasilinear utility function whose lexicographically ordered vectors preserve a decision maker's preference order on a mixture set . It is shown that those axioms are also necessary for the linear lexicographic representation when the underlying set is a mixture space. Received: August 20, 1998; revised version: December 14, 1998     

Reflexive Organizing for Knowledge Sharing: An Ethnomethodological Study of Service Technicians

This study examines how organizing is done reflexively through practice in the context of knowledge sharing. Organizing concerns reduction of equivocality and sensemaking so that actions can be interpreted and coordinated. Reflexivity refers to the fact that this organizing is done through talk, and that talk is an action that requires organizing. To examine how this reflexive organizing is accomplished, detailed analysis of video‐recorded interactions among photocopier service technicians revealed various interactional methods to make actions of requesting and offering assistance understandable and relevant. To explain these methods, Goffman's concept of embedding is applied. By embedding other social situations in the current talk, one can project a certain sense of one's talk. This reflexive organizing clarifies that organizing is part of, not separate from, any practice and that knowledge sharing is accomplished not through a retrospective narrative but through reflexive construction of the situation in which talk is made possible.     

The incentive for export subsidies under imperfect competition

By taking into account factor market interactions, the theory of strategic trade policies can consistently explain the fact that less efficient countries offer greater export subsidies to the most technologically advanced industries because in these countries there may be greater differences in efficiency of production technology between industries than in more efficient countries.     

Does agricultural trade liberalization increase risks of supply-side uncertainty?: Effects of productivity shocks and export restrictions on welfare and food supply in Japan

Agriculture is the focus of much contention in free trade negotiations. The Japanese government is against liberalizing the rice trade on the grounds that it would threaten “national food security” in the events of such shocks as crop failure and embargoes. Trade liberalization is expected to make the Japanese economy more dependent upon food imports and, thus, more susceptible to these risks. Using a computable general equilibrium model with a Monte Carlo simulation, we quantify the welfare impacts of productivity shocks and export quotas by major rice exporters to Japan and found little evidence of Japan suffering from such shocks.