Cointegration and control: Assessing the impact of events using time series data

Control groups can provide counterfactual evidence for assessing the impact of an event or policy change on a target variable. We argue that fitting a multivariate time series model offers potential gains over a direct comparison between the target and a weighted average of controls. More importantly, it highlights the assumptions underlying methods such as difference in differences and synthetic control, suggesting ways to test these assumptions. Gains from simple and transparent time series models are analysed using examples from the literature, including the California smoking law of 1989 and German reunification. We argue that selecting controls using a time series strategy is preferable to existing data‐driven regression methods.     

The Cost of War: A Comment and a Reply

Intereconomics - In the July/August issue of Intereconomics, Ilona Sologoub argued that increasing the cost of war would limit the ability of an authoritarian state to wage a war. Here, Charles D....     

欧盟视阈下在线平台中个人数据的增值税处理

近年来,在线平台的迅猛发展推动了全球经济数字化加速转型,但同时也引发了包括增值税政策适用在内的诸多挑战.通过研究《欧盟增值税指令》和欧州法院的判例法,以及分析个人数据与在线平台运行之间的关系可以推断出,个人数据是在线平台提供访问服务构成的增值税应税范围内的供应,且与消费者是否向在线平台支付金钱形式的对价无关.在实践中,使用客观价值方法来确定在线服务供应的应税金额存在实际困难,而使用直接联系标准解决易货交易问题,会导致增值税税基在本质上得到扩张.因此,建议当前不要将在线平台访问服务的供应视为一项应税交易.此外,对于商家为获得消费者数据而向平台付款的情形,因其不符合直接联系标准,也不应被视为服务对价.     

Housing Transactions and the Changing Decisions of Young Households in Britain: The Microeconomic Evidence

In this second of two related papers in this issue, the causes of declining levels of housing transactions in Britain during the 1990s are explored. The lower transaction levels resulted partly from the changing behavior of young individuals. Both household formation and owner–occupation rates of these groups also fell sharply. Using panel data, we investigate the causes of reduced new household formation and owner–occupation, finding that changes in the income distribution away from young cohorts have been an important factor.     

A Permanent Change in the Route to Owner Occupation?

This paper attempts to explain why home ownership rates among young adults fell in the early 1990s when various indicators suggested it had become more affordable. As a potential explanation, we focus on the relatively slower growth in their incomes and argue that this could signal a fundamental change in behaviour, a change in route adopted into owner occupation, induced by structural economic change. In examining the implications for housing tenure, we use a conditional fixed effects multinomial logit model to exploit the information on the tenure choice and the timing of transitions in the British Household Panel Survey. Our results reveal that relatively slower income growth contributed significantly to this decline and that ignoring the intertemporal correlation in micro‐panels generates inconsistent results.     

Beyond HIPC: What are the Prospects for Debt Sustainability?

Abstract: The pronouncement by the G‐8 Summit at Gleneagles in July 2005 on debt cancellation under the HIPC Initiative, affirmed by the G‐8 Ministers of Finance in Washington in September, should signal the beginning of debt relief for the world's heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC), mostly African. It is expected that debt cancellation should return the beneficiary countries to debt sustainability and afford their governments the fiscal space to invest in basic infrastructure and social services. Countries could significantly enhance their prospects for maintaining debt sustainability mainly by adopting debt management strategies that de‐emphasize excessive borrowing, checking the expansion of unproductive public sector activities and the associated fiscal deficits, financial restructuring to reduce the bias against autonomous capital flows, and taking deliberate actions to expand exports.     

Internal labour markets in the Australian banking industry: their nature prior to the Second World War and their recent decline

This paper uses evidence from late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century personnel records of two Australian banks to examine the nature of internal labour markets prior to the Second World War. It is argued that the industry possessed all the classic features of internal labour markets: limited ports of entry, internal promotion, long careers, and assignment of wages by well-defined rules. The paper then examines the reasons why banks adopted internal labour markets. Finally, the paper examines the recent decline of internal labour markets and examines the role of technological and social changes in this decline.