Is the FHA Creating Sustainable Homeownership?

We produce first estimates of the sustainability of homeownership for recent Federal Housing Administration (FHA) borrowers. Unfortunately, the FHA does not produce its own statistics on sustainability. Neither does it permit researchers access to its data on internal refinances. This imposes significant barriers to entry for researchers who wish to track FHA borrower performance over time. We carefully construct the required tracking data to overcome this barrier. We forecast that no more than 75% of the 2007–2009 vintages of FHA borrowers will be able to successfully exit the FHA system. Our work raises questions about FHA's role, its accounting and its accountability.     

What Is a Tree Worth? Green‐City Strategies,Signaling and Housing Prices

We investigate the correlation between curbside tree plantings and housing price movements in Philadelphia from 1998 to 2003, comparing two programs, one by the Philadelphia Horticultural Society (PHS) that requires block-group effort that focuses on low-income neighborhoods and the other by the Fairmount Park Commission that is individual-based without specific target areas. A 7 to 11% price differential is identified within 4,000 feet of the Fairmount tree plantings. We argue that this is largely driven by either social capital creation or a signaling mechanism, on top of an intrinsic tree value (around 2%). Findings using the PHS tree program suggest that development of social capital or environmentally conscious behavior might be a less important channel. Any positive changes brought by the PHS tree plantings were not detected with sufficient statistical power.     

Is the theory of trust and commitment in marketing relationships incomplete?

Trust and commitment are central to the relational mediators model of relationship marketing. Extant research suggests that trust enhances commitment, as a trusted partner is so highly valued that a channel member will invest in the relationship and put forth efforts to maintain that relationship. This study re-examines the causality between trust and commitment by comparing alternative models across three datasets (including the seminal Morgan and Hunt 1994 data). The results indicate that while trust enhances commitment, commitment can also erode trust. Several viable, theoretically-driven explanations for this negative effect are discussed, and propositions are developed for future research.     

Food,energy and environment: Is bioenergy the missing link?

We study price linkages between the food, energy and bioenergy markets. A vertically integrated multi-input, multi-output market model allows us to derive testable hypothesis, which we test by applying time-series analytical mechanisms to nine major traded food commodity prices along with one weighted average world crude oil price. The data consists of 939 weekly observations from January 1993 to December 2010. The empirical findings confirm the theoretical hypothesis that the prices for crude oil and food commodities are interdependent: a USD 1/barrel increase in oil prices and food commodity prices increase by between USD 0.09/tonne and USD 1.65/tonne.     

Trade subsidies,export bans and price stabilization: Lessons of Bangladesh–India rice trade in the 2000s

During the world food price crisis of 2007–08, rice importing countries suffered through a sharp increase in international rice prices and disruptions in supply as several rice exporters restricted trade to mitigate their domestic price increases. Perhaps no country was more affected by these disruptions than Bangladesh. Our analysis shows that prior to the 2007 crisis, when Bangladesh imported an average of nearly 1 million tons of rice per year from India, domestic wholesale prices of rice in Bangladesh were co-integrated with import parity prices of subsidized Below Poverty Line (BPL) rice. When in mid-2007, India sharply curtailed exports, rice prices surged in Bangladesh.Model simulations show that a relatively small increase in private consumer stocks equivalent to about 2 weeks of normal consumption could account for the large surge in domestic prices in Bangladesh and that an additional 300,000 tons (in addition to approximately 700,000 tons of net rice distribution that actually occurred) would have been sufficient to stabilize prices in the November 2007–April 2008 period. The Bangladesh analysis thus shows that in spite of the uncertainty in international markets, careful planning, timely interventions and openness to trade can substantially reduce requirements for public stockholding.     

Race to the top: Does competition in the DSL market matter for fibre penetration?

High speed broadband creates potential productivity gains and has a positive impact on economic growth. Achieving Europe's broadband access objectives will require large scale investment in next generation broadband networks, and it is imperative that an appropriate investment climate is created to encourage fibre network rollout. This study considers whether and how competition in the DSL market affects the incentives of operators to invest in the deployment of high-end fibre optic networks. Most earlier research on the drivers of investment in broadband technology has focused on the effect of mandatory access policies, such as local loop unbundling, or competing infrastructures. We posit that competition in the DSL sector may also influence fibre penetration, possibly to a considerable extent. We find that the relationship between service-based competition and fibre penetration is non-linear: a lack of or severe DSL competition is correlated with a negative effect on fibre penetration, but if a moderate degree of competition is already present in the market, more service-based competition may positively influence fibre penetration. The scale of these effects however varies with the openness of the DSL market: operators' incentives to invest in fibre appear to be more sensitive to changes in DSL competition if there is extensive local loop unbundling.     

Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?

This article presents and explores a rich new data source to analyse the determinants of pay and job rank among academic economists in the UK. Characteristics associated with individual productivity and workplace features are found to be important determinants of the relative wage and promotion structure in this sector. However, there is also a substantial unexplained gender pay gap. Men are considerably more likely to work in higher paid job ranks where there are also substantial within-rank gender pay gaps. We show that the nature of the gender pay gap has changed over the last two decades; but its size has not, suggesting a role for suitable policy intervention.     

Digestibility and asymmetric information in the choice between acquisitions and joint ventures: where’s the beef?

<In response to our empirical findings that, contrary to the predictions of the information asymmetry hypothesis, joint ventures are not more, but instead less likely when parents belong to different industries, Balakrishnan and Reurer argue that (1) the information asymmetry and the indigestibility hypotheses are theoretically complementary and (2) our results may be affected by the characteristics of our sample. In fact, the goal of our study was not to deny the theoretical validity of alternative theories of joint ventures, but only to ascertain their relative explanatory power. We therefore agree that both theories are complementary, but show that our findings are not explained by our sample, but instead by the way we test the information asymmetry hypothesis. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Not for the Profit,But for the Training? Gender Differences in Training in the For-Profit and Non-Profit Sectors

In this article, we use Canadian-linked employer–employee data to examine gender differences in receiving firm-sponsored training. We find that women in the for-profit sector are less likely to receive classroom training and receive fewer classroom training courses. However, we find the opposite in the non-profit sector, where women are more likely to receive both classroom and on-the-job training, and also receive more classroom training courses. We show that women's worse training opportunities in the for-profit sector mainly operate within workplaces. We find no evidence that gender gaps in training in the for-profit sector are driven by lower probabilities of accepting training offers, child or family commitments, weaker labour market attachment or worker self-selection. We also find that gender differences in expected changes in wages and training opportunities between the two sectors can explain a large portion of women's higher probability of employment in the non-profit sector. Finally, decomposition results suggest that part of the gender wage gap in the for-profit sector, which is twice as large as in the non-profit sector, can be explained by gender differences in training.     

Is the share of agricultural maintenance research rising in the United States?

Public research is a major contributor to agricultural productivity growth, but if research investments are not maintained, agricultural productivity can decline over time. Maintenance research replaces deteriorated research knowledge to forestall a productivity decline. Knowledge of the magnitude of maintenance research can facilitate a more complete assessment of the value of agricultural research programs. Trends in maintenance research and sources of change in those trends are investigated. Results indicate that overall, about 40% of US agricultural research is devoted to maintenance, up from about a third 25 years ago. A model is developed and estimated to explain maintenance research expenditures. Research funding, climatic conditions, insect and pathogen control, and agricultural production choices influence maintenance research expenditures. Increased reliance on out-of-state funding sources may skew agricultural research away from maintenance research, while climate change may increase the need for such research.     

Is the Information Deficiency in Real Estate Evident in Public Market Trading?

This paper examines the summary informativeness of trading in real estate securities. Prior literature on publicly traded real estate securities suggests that the information deficiency associated with local economies and unique rent dynamics will manifest itself as severe information asymmetry. To date, most studies concerned with these issues have focused on the conventional measures of liquidity (serial correlations, bid—ask spreads, etc.). However, the conventional measures have several shortcomings as pure measures of trading information. To address this issue, we use a vector autoregressive methodology pioneered by Hasbrouck. We examine the empirical proposition that information-gathering activities are related to trade informativeness. The evidence is consistent with a theoretical model in which traders are risk-averse and the number of information gatherers is small.     

Is the Erosion Thesis Overblown? Alignment from Without in Germany

It is sometimes alleged that collective bargaining coverage in Germany is understated because uncovered firms “orient” themselves toward sectoral agreements. In fact, although orientation has grown as sectoral bargaining has declined, their joint frequency has fallen. Further, where orientation occurs at firms that leave a sectoral agreement, it provides only partial compensation. The small deficits involved, in conjunction with some indirect evidence on joiners, suggest some modest attenuation of the undoubted decline in collective bargaining.     

Auctions on the Internet: What’s Being Auctioned,and How?

This paper is an economist's guide to auctions on the Internet. It traces the development of online auctions since 1993, and presents data from a comprehensive study of 142 different Internet auction sites. The results describe the transaction volumes, the types of auction mechanisms used, the types of goods auctioned, and the business models employed at the various sites. These new electronic-commerce institutions raise interesting questions for the economic theory of auctions, such as predicting the types of goods to be sold at auction, examining the incentive effects of varying auctioneer fee structures, and identifying the optimal auction formats for online sellers.     

Is there a pilot in the chain? Identifying the key drivers of change in the fresh pineapple sector

High-value export-oriented agriculture is today considered as a means of integrating smallholders into the world economy. This paper examines the geographic and organisational changes that have taken place in the fresh pineapple sector over the past 50 years. We begin with a historical analysis of the changes in leadership among producer countries, namely the dethroning of Côte d’Ivoire by Costa Rica. We show that this geographical shift has been accompanied by massive organisational changes: the pineapple sector is increasingly driven by large downstream actors who derive their power from the ability to impose their definition of quality to the whole chain, and from economies of scale and scope. Although varietal innovation plays a key role throughout the period, commercial and logistical innovation are of increasing strategic importance. However, because of the constraints imposed by the concerned supply chains, small farmers risk being excluded or marginalized.     

Is there a need for platform neutrality regulation in the EU?

Motivated by the policy discussion in the EU whether to impose non-discrimination obligations for dominant online platforms, we analyse whether such regulation is warranted from an economic point of view. Our contribution is threefold. First, across several platform contexts, we identify (i) (paid) prominence of some third parties over others and (ii) the favouring of a platform's integrated services over independent entities as common discriminatory conducts of online platforms. Second, within this scope, we review the economic literature and find that discrimination in the form of paid prominence may often be in the interest of consumers. However, smaller or low-quality content providers are likely to be worse off, which gives rise to concerns regarding dynamic efficiency and long-term variety in those markets. Additional problems may arise if platform operators are vertically integrated with content providers. Third, based on these theoretical insights, we recommend that EU policy makers should not adopt a neutrality regulation for platforms prematurely. Instead, we recommend to impose new proportionate transparency rules for dominant platforms in order to facilitate the identification of actual misconduct and legal enforcement.     

How do the state’s organisational capacities at the micro- and macro-levels influence agriculture-nutrition linkages in fragile contexts?

This paper systematically reviews the evidence on what capacities the state requires to leverage agriculture for nutrition in fragile contexts, maintaining a focus on state in South Asia (especially India). It uses the framework of what the state ought to do (in terms of pathways), can do (in relation to parts of the enabling environment it is able to deliver) and is willing to do (addressing constraints in terms of political choices). The results of the search were sorted into three further themes: capacity of the state to intervene systemically and intersectorally; engage with participatory and locally relevant understandings of agriculture-nutrition linkages, and to create, maintain and engage in formal spaces for dialogue.     

Are Investors the Bad Guys? Tenure and Neighborhood Stability in Chelsea,Massachusetts

In this article, we examine the role of investors and occupant‐owners in an urban context during the recent housing crisis. We focus on Chelsea, Massachusetts, because it is a dense city, dominated by multifamily housing structures with high rates of foreclosure for which we have particularly good data. We distinguish between occupant‐owners and investors using local data, and we find that many investors are misclassified as occupant‐owners in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. Then, employing a competing risks framework to study ownerships during the period 1998 through mid‐2010, we find that local investors, who tend to invest more in relation to purchase prices and sell more quickly, experienced approximately 1.8 times the mortgage foreclosure risk of occupant‐owners, conditional on financing. Nonlocal investors have no statistically significant difference in foreclosure risk from occupant‐owners. Nonetheless, those owners with subprime purchase mortgages (most of whom are occupant‐owners) faced the highest foreclosure risk when house prices fell.     

Is Disability Disabling in All Workplaces? Workplace Disparities and Corporate Culture

Using nearly 30,000 employee surveys from fourteen companies, we find disability is linked to lower average pay, job security, training, and participation in decisions, and to more negative attitudes toward the job and company. Disability gaps in attitudes vary substantially, however, across companies and worksites, with no attitude gaps in worksites rated highly by all employees for fairness and responsiveness. The results indicate that corporate cultures that are responsive to the needs of all employees are especially beneficial for employees with disabilities.     

Wages in the Steel Industry: Take the Money and Run?

Sharp increases occurred in the wages paid by integrated steel firms in the 1970s despite reductions in employment caused by the industry's decline. This article reviews several explanations suggested for this puzzling outcome and evaluates them using information on the size and timing of wage increases, on investment decisions, and on expectations about future inflation and demand growth. Overly optimistic expectations for demand growth and unexpected inflation appear to explain much of the data.