WHY IS THERE NO CELLPHONE DIRECTORY?

“Directoryassistance.Whatcityandstate,please?”“Operator,help!I’mstuckintraffic,andI’mlateforameetingwithanextremelyimportantclient.Thiswoman’snameisstrictlyA-list—Imean,shegetsmoreGooglehitsthanDonaldTrump—andI’llbeinserioustroubleifIdon'treachhe     

DOES SIZE MATTER? THE IMPACT OF CHANGES IN HOUSEHOLD STRUCTURE ON INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN GERMANY

Income inequality in Germany has been continually increasing during the past 20 years. One cause of this development, among others, could be structural shifts in household formation due to long‐term societal trends. These affect per capita incomes, which has repercussions for the income distribution even if wages remain constant. The aim of this paper is to quantify the proportion of changing household structures in the increase in inequality. We find that the growth of the income gap in Germany (for both East and West from 1991 to 2007) is indeed strongly related to changes in household structure and employment behavior, and a large part of this increase is compensated by the welfare state.     

IS THERE A (DOWNWARD SLOPING) DEMAND CURVE FOR VOLUNTEER LABOUR?

ABSTRACT * * I would like to thank the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy and the Irwin Foundation for financial support for my dissertation, which led to many of the ideas contained in this paper, as well as my dissertation advisors at Boston College. I would also like to thank my colleagues at John Carroll University and at the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University, for their advice and comments on previous versions of this paper. All errors, however, remain my own responsibility.
: Are organizations that use volunteers content to accept all of the volunteer labour offered to them, or do they make some sort of demand-side decision as to how much volunteer labour to use? This paper looks for evidence of such a demand curve for volunteer labour in data collected by the Urban Institute in the early 1980s. Evidence is found that organizations are consistent over time in their use of volunteer labour.     

IS THE PHILLIPS CURVE DIFFERENT IN POOR COUNTRIES?

It has been suggested that the Phillips curve (positive output‐inflation correlation) is inverted in poor countries. It is argued here that the truth is more complex. In poor countries temporary supply‐side shocks, for example to agricultural output, induce a negative correlation between prices and output rather than between inflation rates and output. Empirical evidence supports this hypothesis.     

IS IT IS OR IS IT AIN'T MY OBLIGATION? REGIONAL DEBT IN A FISCAL FEDERATION*

This article studies the repayment of regional debt in a multiregion economy with a central authority: Who pays the obligation issued by a region? With commitment, the central government will use its economy‐wide taxation power in support of its objective to smooth distortionary taxes and consumption across regions. Absent commitment, this tool of the central government may be exploited to induce it to bail out regional government deficits. We characterize the conditions under which bailouts occur and their welfare implications. In particular, we show when the gains from a federation may outweigh the welfare costs of a bailout. We use these insights to comment on actual fiscal relations in three quite different federations: the United States, the European Union, and Argentina.     

SPORTS,EXERCISE, AND LENGTH OF STAY IN HOSPITALS: IS THERE A DIFFERENTIAL EFFECT FOR THE CHRONICALLY ILL PEOPLE?

This paper examines the effects of sports and exercise on hospital stays for males and females by various chronic conditions using a panel dataset from Canada. The results suggest that moderately active and active individuals have shorter hospital stays than inactive individuals. On average, individuals with moderate to higher amount of physical activity stay 36% to 39% less than inactive individuals. Physical activity has consistent impact on hospital stays for the entire population as well as subgroup of people with or without chronic conditions. However, its effect is substantially larger for people with chronic conditions, especially for those who have diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. The paper also suggests that additional exercise once moderate level of exercise is achieved does not generate substantially large benefits in the form of shorter hospital stays. Hence, it provides additional evidence to support the recent physical activity guidelines for adults that highlight health benefits of moderate amount of regular physical activity. (JEL I1)     

RETAKING IN HIGH STAKES EXAMS: IS LESS MORE?

Placement, both in university and in the civil service, according to performance in competitive exams is the norm in much of the world. Repeat taking of such exams is common despite the private and social costs it imposes. We develop and estimate a structural model of exam retaking using data from Turkey's university placement exam. Limiting retaking results in all agents gaining ex ante and most gaining ex post. This result comes from a general equilibrium effect: Retakers crowd the market and impose negative spillovers on others by raising acceptance cutoffs.     

BANKING UNION IN EUROPE: HOW MUCH CENTRALISATION IS NEEDED?

We examine the efficiency of banking regulation in a federation with two tiers of government and highly integrated banking systems. We assume that policy makers have incomplete information about banks’ true health, and banking sector turmoil can generate cross‐border spill‐over effects. We show that, in such an environment, the decentralisation of policy responsibilities for the regulation of banks can achieve the first‐best allocation and ensure financial stability. While national governments design banking regulations, the federal policy maker authorises inter‐regional income redistribution payments throughout the federation. Our results suggest that strengthening national responsibilities in banking regulation and supervision in the course of the further development of the European banking union may be advisable.     

WHO’S THE BOSS? HOUSEHOLD DISTRIBUTION OF POWER IN A NON‐COOPERATIVE FRAMEWORK

When labour market participation influences bargaining power in a household, the male and the female labour supplies can be either positively or negatively related. If negatively related, possibilities include: ‘balance of power’, the complete dominance of one member, and circumstances where inequity persists with incomplete dominance. If effort levels are positively sloped, it is possible to have equilibrium at either high or low effort levels leading to equity. The effects of economic development and wage discrimination are also discussed.     

SHOULD THERE BE INTRADAY MONEY MARKETS?

In this article, we consider the case for an intraday market for reserves. We discuss the separate roles of intraday and overnight reserves and argue that an intraday market could be organized in the same way as the overnight market. We present arguments in favor of and against a market for intraday reserves when the marginal cost of overnight reserves is positive. We also consider how reserves should be supplied when the cost of overnight reserves is zero. In that case, the distinction between overnight and intraday reserves becomes blurred, raising an important question: What is the role of the overnight market?(JEL E44, E58)     

IS MINIMUM WAGE AN EFFECTIVE ANTI‐POVERTY POLICY IN JAPAN?

This paper considers whether the minimum wage is a well‐targeted antipoverty policy by examining the backgrounds of minimum‐wage workers. Whether raising the minimum wage reduces employment for unskilled workers is also investigated. An examination of micro data from a large‐scale government household survey, the Employment Structure Survey (Shugyo Kozo Kihon Chosa), reveals that approximately half of minimum‐wage workers belong to households with annual incomes of more than 5 million yen as a non‐head of household. A regression analysis indicates that an increase in the minimum wage moderately reduces the employment of male teenagers and middle‐aged married women, while it encourages the employment of high‐school age youth.     

IS CORPORATE R&D INVESTMENT IN HIGH‐TECH SECTORS MORE EFFECTIVE?

This paper discusses the link between R&D and productivity across the European industrial and service sectors. The empirical analysis is based on both the European sectoral OECD data and on a unique micro‐longitudinal database consisting of 532 top European R&D investors. The main conclusions are as follows. First, the R&D stock has a significant positive impact on labor productivity; this general result is largely consistent with previous literature in terms of the sign, the significance, and the magnitude of the estimated coefficients. More interestingly, both at sectoral and firm levels the R&D coefficient increases monotonically (both in significance and magnitude) when we move from the low‐tech to the medium‐ and high‐tech sectors. This outcome means that corporate R&D investment is more effective in the high‐tech sectors and this may need to be taken into account when designing policy instruments (subsidies, fiscal incentives, etc.) in support of private R&D. However, R&D investment is not the sole source of productivity gains; technological change embodied in gross investment is of comparable importance on aggregate and is the main determinant of productivity increase in the low‐tech sectors. Hence, an economic policy aiming to increase productivity in the low‐tech sectors should support overall capital formation.     

APPARENT BIAS: WHAT DOES ATTITUDE POLARIZATION SHOW?

Many, though not all, experiments have found that exposing groups of subjects who disagree to the same evidence may cause their initial attitudes to strengthen and move further apart, or polarize. Some have concluded that findings of attitude polarization show that people process information in a biased manner so as to support their initial views. We argue that, on the contrary, polarization is often what we should expect to find in an unbiased Bayesian population, in the context of experiments that find polarization.     

IS FULL EFFICIENCY ACHIEVABLE? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY IN TAIWAN

This paper aims to propose a feasible framework for estimating the efficiency of input factors for banks and the adjustment of these factors necessary to achieve full efficiency in the short and long term. Based on a sample of 39 Taiwanese banks during 1999–2011, the framework recommends a scheme along with a set of adjustments empirically that allow the banks to not only achieve full efficiency but also save 10.3% of the total costs in the short term and 8.8% in the long term. This scheme amounts to short‐term and long‐term savings of NT$3.6 billion and NT$3.1 billion, respectively. (JEL C23, D24, G21)     

MEASURING INEQUALITIES: DO HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS PAINT A REALISTIC PICTURE?

The paper addresses the issue of the accuracy of standard‐of‐living measurements using household survey data. First, it highlights the fact that lighter data collection processes in some developing countries have added to measurement errors in consumption and income aggregates measurement errors. The paper reasserts the need to apply reference guidelines to the measurement of household consumption in order to compute comparable distribution indicators across countries and over time. Second, it contends that it is hard to analyze inequality solely from consumption patterns without taking income and savings into account. Two solutions are proposed for the correction of income measurement errors: by using savings declarations and by implementing a multiple imputation procedure. The results are based on a careful analysis of the EPM93 survey of Madagascar whose design is quite close to the LSMS household surveys, and the ENV98 survey of Côte d'Ivoire representative of surveys conducted nowadays in most Sub‐Saharan African countries.     

JUST A BIG MISUNDERSTANDING? BIAS AND BAYESIAN AFFECTIVE POLARIZATION

I present a model of affective polarization—growth in hostility over time between two parties—via quasi-Bayesian inference. In the model, two agents repeatedly choose actions. Each choice is based on a balance of concerns for private interests and the social good. More weight is put on private interests when an agent's character is intrinsically more self-serving and when the other agent is believed to be more self-serving. Each agent Bayesian updates about the other's character, and dislikes the other more when she is perceived as more self-serving. I characterize the effects on growth in dislike of three biases: a prior bias against the other agent's character, the false consensus bias, and limited strategic thinking. Prior bias against the other's character remains constant or declines over time, and actions do not diverge. The other two biases cause actions to become more extreme over time and repeatedly be “worse” than expected, causing mutual growth in dislike, that is, affective polarization. The magnitude of dislike can become arbitrarily large—even when both players are arbitrarily “good” (unselfish). The results imply that seemingly irrelevant cognitive biases can be an important cause of the devolution of relationships, in politics and beyond, and that subtlety and unawareness of bias can be key factors driving the degree of polarization.     

IS SELF‐MANAGEMENT POSSIBLE? A STUDY ON THE RECOVERED FACTORIES IN BRAZIL

The scenario outlined by the productive restructuring associated with the economic crisis and other changes in the Brazilian economy in the 1990s led to the bankruptcy of many businesses and resulted in an increase in unemployment and uncertainty in work relations. Thus, the workers sought other forms of survival, including associated work. Some groups began to organize themselves with the aim of collectively assuming the management of bankrupted factories in order to keep their jobs. The first ‘recovered factories’ appeared in Brazil. In this context, some supporting institutions were also born, in order to support these experiences, as well as other initiatives within the cooperative and social economy. Our proposal is to make a general analysis of the current situation of the recovered factories in Brazil, discussing whether and how the values of cooperativism and self‐management are present in these factories today.