A new look at the UI effect on transitions from unemployment into wage employment in Spain: the limited duration of the UI benefits entitlement

This article is a new look at the study of the unemployment insurance effect on the transition probability from unemployment into wage employment in Spain. It is found that individuals increase their search effort and reduce their reservation wage as the unemployment insurance benefit entitlement exhaustion approaches, and their exit rate equals that of the unemployed who never got benefits from the exhaustion moment. Financial constraints are not important in Spain. Business cycle affects more to long-term unemployed. And, finally, it is found that the probability of being offered a vacancy decreases with time spent in unemployment, having allowed for unobservable heterogeneity.     

Reopening the convergence debate: A new look at cross-country growth empirics

There are two sources of inconsistency in existing cross-country empirical work on growth: correlated individual effects and endogenous explanatory variables. We estimate a variety of cross-country growth regressions using a generalized method of moments estimator that eliminates both problems. In one application, we find that per capita incomes converge to their steady-state levels at a rate of approximately 10 percent per year. This result stands in sharp contrast to the current consensus, which places the convergence rate at 2 percent. We discuss the theoretical implications of this finding. In another application, we perform a test of the Solow model. Again, contrary to prior reults, we reject both the standard and the augmented version of the model.     

Growth-business cycle interaction: A look at the OECD

This paper examines the relationship between long-run growth and business cycles in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The model in the paper specifically assumes that the business cycle influences growth through total factor productivity. Using unconditional volatility to measure the business cycle, this paper finds a negative relationship between the business cycle and long-run growth even after controlling for endogeneity. The result is robust to the inclusion of either period or country dummy variables, but not both. Therefore, the result is somewhat fragile. Finally, the assumption of constant returns to scale is consistent with the data.     

Comparing the costs and benefits of diversification by regulated firms

Previous work on the diversification of regulated firms has focused exclusively on either the costs of cross-subsidy or on the welfare gains resulting from economies of scope. Using theory and numerical simulations, we identify conditions under which gains from economies of scope and increased competition tend to outweigh the costs of cross-subsidization. We use a perfect competition model of the unregulated market to examine tradeoffs under economies of scope. Effects of increased competition are assessed using Cournot models with linear and constant elasticity demands. Diversification tradeoffs depend upon magnitudes of variables that regulators should be able to estimate or otherwise judge.     

A first look at nurse editors' compensation

While the compensation for many nursing roles is published and accessible, no data have heretofore been available on monetary compensation for nurse editors. Answers to questions about compensation contained in a 108-question international survey of 88 editors of nursing journals, which was designed to learn about all aspects of the role of editor, are described. This study provides a first look at editor compensation.     

The value of health benefits from ambient air quality improvements in Central and Eastern Europe: An exercise in benefits transfer

This study is an initial effort to estimate one important category of benefits of environmental improvements in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), those related to the effects of air pollution on human health. Our estimates are derived from data on ambient air quality in selected CEE locations, together with a model that links these ambient conditions to physical impacts on health and attaches economic values (in dollar terms) to these impacts. Given data limitations, our focus here is on three pollutants: particulates (PM), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), and lead (Pb). Our data set includes ambient concentrations for these pollutants in four CEE countries: Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine.Given the ambient data, dose-response functions taken from the clinical and epidemiological literature in the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe are used to generate estimates of the change in physical effects. These effects then are given an economic value by applying two approaches for scaling unit valuation figures applicable to the U.S. A Monte Carlo model is constructed to propagate the uncertainties of the dose-response functions and unit values to obtain confidence intervals on the total benefits from pollutant reductions in each country. We examine scenarios where the CEE countries improve ambient conditions for the pollutants in question to meet European Community (EC) standards and then compare these scenarios to ones involving uniform percentage ambient reductions across locations in each country.     

A second look at the US-Australian monetary growth causal nexus

In earlier work, using the Granger (1969, 1980) notion of causality couched in terms of post-sample perdictability, Layton (1983) found prima facie statistical evidence to support the notion that US monetary growth may be regarded as a leading indicator of Australian monetary growth. However, that study was bivariate in nature and did not take into consideration the influence on Australian monetary growth of any domestic factors. Using the same causality concept, the present analysis extends this work by conducting the causality testing in the trivariate context, taking explicit account of the influence of domestic income growth in determining Australian monetary growth. The evidence continues to support the earlier finding that US monetary growth is Granger-causal to Australian monetary growth.     

Enterprise restructuring and adjustment in the transition to market economy: lessons from the experience of Central and Eastern Europe

Some aspects of the process of enterprise restructuring and adjustment in the Central and Eastern European countries are analysed on the basis of evideance from recent empirical research on microeconomic performance in these transition economies. The paper outlines a stylized picture of some types of enterprise behaviour which occur in this period and highlights a number of issues related to the process of enterprise restructuring and adjustment such as the problem of micro budget constraints, the motivation for enterprise restructuring, the issues of corporate governance. Some of the current impediments to enterprise restructuring as well as some of the determinants of enterprise performance in the transition periód are also featured in the paper.     

A new look for Stackelberg-Cournot equilibria in oligopolistic markets

Summary. This note deals with Cournot type oligopolies in which the market clearing price occasionally may be non-unique. A Stackelberg leading producer is present. Given that setting we explore continuity properties of the followers' reaction and provide sufficient conditions for existence of equilibrium. Received: June 20, 2000; revised version: April 24, 2001     

Determinants of income diversification: evidence from Chinese banks

This article presents an analysis of the determinants of Chinese commercial banks’ income diversification decisions. Using a panel dataset comprising 88 Chinese domestic banks from 2003 to 2010, we find that bank diversification reflects a variety of managerial abilities: insolvency risks, cost, capital position, asset scale and ownership structure. A larger ratio of banking assets to gross domestic product and lower interest spread lead to a higher level of diversification. Moreover, national banks and regional banks have different strategic responses to the macroeconomic, and indeed, regulatory environment. Resisting shocks from the banking sector and the macro economy, and supplementing liquidity shortages from intermediation business seem to be the driving forces of national banks to operate in non-banking sectors.     

Multinationals and the gains from international diversification

This paper employs mean–variance spanning tests to examine the diversification potential of multinational firms and foreign market indices from the perspective of investors in the G7 countries over the 1984–1995 period. We find evidence that multinational corporations may have provided diversification benefits for investors in Germany and the United States. We find that the addition of foreign market indices to a domestic portfolio—inclusive of multinationals—provided substantial diversification benefits in all countries. The economic importance of the shift of the portfolio frontier varied considerably across markets.