The demand for retailer-financed instalment credit: An econometric analysis

During the mid- to late 1980s the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer has attempted to reduce the volume of consumer credit extended by increasing interest rates rather than by re-introducing terms controls. This paper presents estimates of demand functions for new credit extended by retailers which was financed by them and repaid by instalments. Following earlier papers, a stock-adjustment model is presented that is extended to allow for credit rationing. The results suggest that the demand for such new credit extended is related negatively to terms control and positively to personal disposable income and expectations. Demand was not found to be related to (a proxy for) the nominal interest rate charged by retailers (although it was found to be positively related to the real rate). The former finding is consistent with questionnaire evidence that consumers are unaware of the interest rate that they pay for credit. Elasticities of demand are presented.     

Macroeconomic effects of the regional allocation of public capital formation

This paper proposes a multi-regional, general equilibrium model with capital accumulation to analyze the economic impact of the spatial distribution of public capital formation. This model is calibrated and solved by using data for the Spanish economy in order to simulate some comparative dynamic exercises of fiscal policy changes. These analyses illustrate the role that public investment plays in generating the existing imbalances in regional development. This is done by computing the spillover effects and the opportunity costs of regional distribution of public investment. Finally, two rankings of regional priorities in public investment can be derived: one based on the criterion of reducing regional disparities, and another based on an efficiency criterion.     

Property taxation and the demand for housing: An econometric analysis

There is disagreement among economists regarding the effect of a local increase in property taxation on the housing market. In defining the price of housing services studies of the demand for housing have treated the property tax exclusively as an excise tax on housing consumption. Two recent theoretical developments suggest this is a misrepresentation of the tax. One theory holds that the excise effects of property taxation may be shifted backward to the factors employed in the production of housing. The other theory concludes that the property tax is not an excise, but rather serves as an efficient price for local public services. To investigate these hypotheses, data from the Annual Housing Survey were employed to estimate a housing demand model which included the net effective property tax rate among the set of independent variables. In addition to revealing the property tax-housing demand relationship, the model provides more reliable estimates of income and price elasticities by eliminating specification errors found in previous studies. Results indicate that the property tax reduces the housing consumption of central city homeowners, but does not distort the suburban housing market.     

Residential energy demand in the United States: A regional econometric analysis

A static equilibrium and a dynamic partial adjustment model of residential demand for electricity and natural gas are presented and estimated for the United States over a recent period characterized by sharply increasing energy prices. The static model is estimated using Ordinary Least Squares while the instrumental variables method is used for the dynamic partial adjustment model. The estimates of long-run elasticities suggest the residential demand for electricity and natural gas are price and income elastic. Intercept and slope dummies used in the models identify significant regional differences in demand functions.     

Modeling the price side of econometric models: An analysis of the underlying hypotheses

Using a non-linear vector autoregression, this paper investigates the dynamic interactions between a set of disaggregated price series. A hypothesis, positing that all sectoral prices are a function of a ‘major price index’, is tested and the way this hypothesis is used in econometric models is discussed. The model is based upon the theory of covariance stationary time series. Non-linear estimation procedures are used.     

The possible adverse impact of innovation subsidies: some evidence from Italy

The impact of public funding on innovative productivity is estimated using a sample of Italian firm-level data (CIS3). A bivariate endogenous switching model is developed in order to free the analysis of the sources of sample selection and firm heterogeneity, the possible simultaneity between subsidy allocation and the qualitative composition of the innovative output, as well as the endogeneity of public support with respect to innovative performance. Results show that innovative productivity is negatively affected by the subsidy; as a result of government intervention, supported firms appear to exhaust their advantage through merely increasing their innovative expenditures.     

Offshoring and job loss fears: An econometric analysis of individual perceptions

We quantify the impact of offshoring and other globalisation measures on individual perceptions of job security. For the analysis we combine industry-level offshoring measures with micro-level data from a large German household panel survey and estimate ordinal fixed effects models. Our results indicate that offshoring to low-wage countries significantly raises job loss fears whilst offshoring to high-wage countries somewhat lowers them. Over our sample period from 1995 to 2006, offshoring to low and high-wage countries together can account for about 13% of the total increase in job loss fears. High-skilled workers are more sensitive to offshoring although their objective job loss risk is lower relative to low-skilled workers, which we argue reflects the fact that they have more to lose from unemployment.     

The impact of demographic change on human capital accumulation

This paper investigates whether and to what extent demographic change has an impact on human capital accumulation. The effect of the relative cohort size on educational attainment of young adults in Germany is analyzed utilizing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for West-German individuals of the birth cohorts 1966 to 1986. These are the cohorts which entered the labor market since the 1980s. Particular attention is paid to the effect of changes in labor market conditions, which constitute an important channel through which demographic change may affect human capital accumulation. Our findings suggest that the variables measuring demographic change exert a considerable though heterogeneous impact on the human capital accumulation of young Germans. Changing labor market conditions during the 1980s and 1990s exhibit a sizeable impact on both the highest schooling and the highest professional degree obtained by younger cohorts.     

最佳资本结构的分析

如何选择最佳资本结构一直是我国经济学界探讨的问题。文章分析了资本结构理论,提出了在不同的环境下,应选择相应的资本结构,这样更适合于现代企业,更利于改善经营管理,提高经济效益。     

The geographic accessibility of child care subsidies and evidence on the impact of subsidy receipt on childhood obesity

This paper examines the impact of the spatial accessibility of public human services agencies on the likelihood of receiving a child care subsidy among disadvantaged mothers with young children. In particular, we collect data on the location of virtually every human services agency in the US and use this information to calculate the approximate distance that families must travel from home in order to reach the nearest office that administers the subsidy application process. Using data from the Kindergarten cohort of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), our results indicate that an increase in the distance to a public human services agency reduces the likelihood that a family receives a child care subsidy. Specifically, we estimate an elasticity of subsidy receipt with respect to distance of −0.13. The final section of the paper provides an empirical application in which we use variation in families’ travel distance to identify the causal effect of child care subsidies on children’s weight outcomes. Our instrumental variables estimates suggest that subsidized child care leads to sizeable increases in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among low-income children.     

The phantom of the opera: Cultural amenities, human capital, and regional economic growth

We analyze the extent to which endogenous cultural amenities affect the spatial equilibrium share of high-human-capital employees. To overcome endogeneity, we draw on a quasi-natural experiment in German history and exploit the exogenous spatial distribution of baroque opera houses built as a part of rulers' competition for prestigious cultural sights. Robustness tests confirm our strategy and strengthen the finding that proximity to a baroque opera house significantly affects the spatial equilibrium share of high-human-capital employees. A cross-region growth regression shows that these employees induce local knowledge spillovers and shift a location to a higher growth path.     

The impact of venture capital financing method on SME performance and internationalization

One of the basic premises of venture capital is leverage, which often means adding money and other resources to speed up growth. As a result, small- to medium-sized venture funded firms are expected to show significant growth at an early stage. Our research examines how equity based-venture funding methods affect SME performance and internationalization. We divide venture capital financing into several categories: incremental financing where firms receive their venture capital funding in portions, lump-sum funding where firms receive their funding in one lump-sum, syndication where two or more external investors participate in a single financing round and non-syndicated financing where one investor participates in a single financing round. The results show that type of equity-based venture capital financing affect performance and internationalization. Annual sales growth rate and annual turnover are used as proxies for performance. Export ratio is used as a proxy for internationalization. Staged financing and financing through a syndicate has a positive effect on performance and internationalization when used separately. We observe a negative effect when syndication and staged financing are used in combination.     

Affect versus cognition: Wishful thinking on election day: An analysis using exit poll data from Belgium

Citizens tend to overestimate the electoral success of their preferred party. We investigate the extent to which Belgian voters overestimate the result of the party that they vote for and the factors that explain which voters do so more than others. Our focus is on the impact of educational attainment and partisan attachment on the overestimation of one’s party’s result. Previous research in this field has relied on data gathered in the months before the elections, which introduces a substantial amount of uncertainty and variation over time into the measurements of citizens’ vote share estimations. As an alternative, we investigate voters’ estimations of their party’s electoral success by means of data gathered in an exit poll survey. Our results show partisan attachments to have a strong impact on overestimations, which suggests that a wishful thinking mechanism is in play. Furthermore, we find that the extent to which partisan attachments increase citizens’ overestimations depends on a voter’s level of education.     

An algorithm for the solution of stochastic optimal control problems for large nonlinear econometric models

This paper considers the problem of solving an optimal control problem for large dynamic economic models which are both nonlinear and stochastic. It proposes a technique which combines conventional deterministic optimal control algorithms with the procedure of stochastic simulation, which calculates a numerical approximation to the distribution of the models endogenous variables. The new technique is computationally feasible for even large nonlinear models and, as an illustration of this, the Bank of England's large quarterly forecasting model is used in an example.     

利率调整对企业经营的影响

沸沸扬扬一年多的央行加息预期终于变为现实。中国人民银行决定,从2004年10月29日起上调金融机构存贷款基准利率并放宽人民币贷款利率浮动区间和允许人民币存款利率下浮。央行此次举动无疑是中国利率市场化进程中的重要一步,具有非常深远的意义。