Serial and spatial error correlation

This paper demonstrates that jointly modeling serial and spatial error correlation results in a trade-off between the serial and spatial autocorrelation coefficients. Ignoring this trade-off causes inefficiency and may lead to nonstationarity.     

Just looking for a good game: competitive balance in the Korean Professional Baseball League

Rottenberg’s uncertainty of outcome hypothesis is about preferences that can vary across fans and sports. We provide the first evidence of the empirical power of the hypothesis in the Korean Professional Baseball League (KPBL). In a panel data set, team-level aggregation over years shows that fans of this league attend in ways consistent with the hypothesis at the level of game uncertainty and consecutive season uncertainty, but only the first is statistically significant. KPBL fans appear to just be looking for a good game. This is consistent with the nearly complete concentration of post-season participation among a very few teams outside of the major population centre in Seoul and a lack of local team identification among KPBL fans. Our work adds to the diversity of league structures in the competitive balance literature since talent levels in KPBL are the result of parent company advertising choices rather than geographic identification. There are research questions and a policy implication.     

中国大陆省市经济增长收敛性的空间计量经济分析

基于中国大陆29个省市的面板经济数据,建立空间计量经济学模型,实证研究中国省市经济的收敛性.结果表明,在1994-2004年期间,中国大陆省市经济存在着显著的条件收敛现象;以1998-1999年为界的分两时段考察进一步发现,前一时段的收敛速度远快于后一时段的收敛速度;对控制变量的分析表明,教育、就业水平和非国有率有效地推动地区经济的增长,而第一产业人口比重则对地区经济产生阻碍.     

Economic Analysis in Plain English: A Course in Economic Journalism

The authors describe an experimental economics course designed as a journalism workshop. Students were reporters, writing articles on economic events and issues and about prominent economists and their ideas. The articles were read and discussed by the entire class. The requirement to explain economics to lay readers clearly but accurately developed the students' own economic literacy.     

The Effect of Information Technology on Economic Education

The author evaluated the effect on student performance of using a new information technology (IT) enhancement that permits students to participate in the recording of lectures that can be downloaded later from the Internet. The author compared two sections of the same Intermediate Microeconomics class and observed the sample students to be representative; the empirical model accounted for any differences in student characteristics between the comparison and test groups. Model results show that students exposed to the IT enhancement performed about 2 percentage points better on their final exam than did the comparison students; however, the difference was not statistically different from zero. The author concluded that the use of IT appears to not have any substantive influence on student performance.     

县际竞争和公共教育财政资源配置——基于空间经济计量研究

根据Moran’s I检验发现,公共教育财政资源地区配置上存在显著空间自相关性,即邻近县之间在配置公共教育财政资源上会互相影响,存在策略性行动,表明县际竞争的存在。此外,县级竞争力强弱受到诸多因素的影响。人均GDP、第二产业劳动力人数、人均居住面积对县级人均教育经费总支出的影响是正面显著的,而少数民族人口比率的影响是负面显著,非农业人口比率的影响是倒U型关系,外省迁入人口和本地适龄人口的影响是非线性的。在估计方法上,空间误差模型比OLS模型要好。     

Economic Factors of Victimization: Evidence from Germany

Victimization is a poorly studied topic in economic research. This paper considers economic factors of victimization using individual data. It tests the rational‐choice‐based hypothesis that the more attractive and poorly guarded targets are facing a higher risk of victimization. The used dataset also covers own criminal activities such that individual offending behavior can be studied as endogenous driver of victimization. Econometric results confirm that a criminal background is one of the major reasons of own victimization. In line with rational choice behavior of offenders, victimization is also associated with being a job holder and more schooling. Moreover, large peer groups increase the risk of victimization, whereas married and healthy people have a significantly lower risk of becoming a crime victim.     

Book Review

Unit-root testing strategies are unnecessarily complicated because they do not exploit prior knowledge of the growth status of the time series, they worry about unrealistic outcomes, and they double- or triple-test for unit roots. The authors provide a testing strategy that cuts through these complications and so facilitates teaching this dimension of the unit-root phenomenon. F tests are used as a vehicle for understanding, but t tests are recommended in the end, consistent with common practice.     

The Impact of Turnout on Turning Up: The Complementarity of Attendance among Co-Workers

This paper studies the effects of complementarities in work attendance on absenteeism. It investigates the case where workers, who turn up for work, cover the workload of absent colleagues. Thus, externalities arise from workers being absent from work. The effort workers exert in the workplace is negatively related to worker turnout. Attendance levels of workers are strategic complements, as workers are more likely to turn up when turnout is high. Firms increase wages and improve working conditions in response. In contrast to the more standard shirking literature, the firm sets employment levels higher. Workers may benefit from draconian firing rules.     

Research in Economic Education and the Teaching of Economics

Input cost and output value are depicted in a diagram of vertical slices of the production function surface.