ON NON‐MONETARY MEASURES IN THE FACE OF RISKS AND THE SIGNS OF THE DERIVATIVES

Vulnerability of both prudence and temperance towards a sure loss and towards a zero‐mean background risk seems to be a very realistic assumption on individual preference. This paper shows that when the concepts of prudence and temperance are defined in non‐monetary terms, the above assumption is equivalent to the usual signs of the successive derivatives of the utility function.     

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND NON‐MONOTONIC SPATIAL TRANSITIONS

The purpose of the present study is to analyse non‐monotonic spatial changes accompanying economic development. A dynamic two‐region model with endogenous human capital and converging processes to its long‐run equilibria is investigated. The main focus of the present study is to investigate how the level of migration cost influences the shape of a converging process. From the analysis of the model, population distribution draws an inverted‐U‐curve to describe economic development when the cost of migration is low enough. Also, the transition of interregional income inequalities is an inverted‐U when migration cost is at an intermediate level.     

EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION AND THE NON‐LINEAR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE WAGE‐PRODUCTIVITY GAP AND UNEMPLOYMENT

This paper studies the relationship between the wage‐productivity gap and the unemployment rate in OECD countries between 1985 and 2007. In particular, we investigate whether differences in the employment protection across countries affect the link between these two variables. We show that the elasticity of unemployment with respect to the wage‐productivity gap is non‐linear and that it switches from a positive to a negative value with stricter employment legislation. From a theoretical point of view, we argue that this result is related to a set of labor market reforms introduced in many OECD countries, which affected the relative strictness of institutions.     

GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM ANALYSIS OF HOLD‐UP PROBLEM AND NON‐EXCLUSIVE FRANCHISE CONTRACT

In this paper, we develop a general equilibrium model that examines the emergence of non‐exclusive franchise contracts in the presence of the franchisor hold‐up problem. Our model of an endogenous franchising network underscores the trade‐off between the cost associated with specifying and enforcing the contractual terms and the cost associated with broadening the relationships with multiple franchisors. We show that when the contracting cost relative to the relational cost is high and when the economies of specialization is low, a non‐exclusive franchise contract is an optimal contractual arrangement to mitigate franchisor opportunism.     

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT,NON‐TRADED GOODS AND REAL WAGES

Using a three‐sector general equilibrium model with non‐traded goods, we investigate the impact of foreign direct investment on the real wages of skilled and unskilled workers. We show that foreign direct investment increases the real wages of skilled and unskilled workers alike, but widens the gap between the two under plausible conditions.     

MEASURING NON‐ECONOMIC WELL‐BEING ACHIEVEMENT

Income per capita and most widely reported, non‐ or non‐exclusively income based human well‐being indicators are highly correlated among countries. Yet many countries exhibit higher achievement in the latter than predicted by the former. The reverse is true for many other countries. This paper commences by extracting the inter‐country variation in a composite of various widely‐reported, non‐income‐based well‐being indices not accounted for by variations in income pre capita. This extraction is interpreted inter alia as a measure of non‐economic well‐being. The paper then looks at correlations between this extraction and a number of new or less widely‐used well‐being measures, in an attempt to find the measure that best captures these achievements. A number of indicators are examined, including measures of poverty, inequality, health status, education status, gender bias, empowerment, governance and subjective well‐being.     

NON‐UNIFORM STRATEGIC TRADE POLICY AND AGGREGATE PROFIT CREATION EFFECT

This paper illustrates a new theoretical case for a strategic R&D policy in a two‐country third‐market international oligopoly model. Asymmetric treatment of domestic firms through a non‐uniform R&D policy can create aggregate profits without a foreign retaliation concern and further improve national welfare in addition to what a uniform policy accomplishes. This effect occurs when the conventional Brander–Spencer incentive is entirely absent as well as when the uniformly optimal R&D policy initially prevailed. The superiority of non‐uniform policy to uniform‐policy is not guaranteed, however, when the number of firms becomes endogenous.     

NON‐RIGID WAGES AND MERGER PROFITABILITY REVERSAL UNDER CONVEX COSTS AND CENTRALIZED UNIONIZATION

Can a merger from duopoly to monopoly be detrimental for profits? This paper deals with this issue by focusing on the interaction between decreasing returns to labour (which imply firms’ convex costs) and centralized unionization. First, it is highlighted that a wage ‘non‐rigidity’ result applies: the post‐merger wage is higher than in the pre‐merger equilibrium. Second, it is shown that a ‘reversal result’ in relation to merger profitability actually realizes when the union is sufficiently oriented towards wages. Moreover, the higher the reservation wage, the degree of product differentiation, and the union's relative bargaining power, the higher the probability that a merger reduces profits.     

NON‐SCALE EFFECTS OF INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGICAL‐KNOWLEDGE DIFFUSION ON SOUTHERN GROWTH AND WAGES

We develop a dynamic, general equilibrium non‐scale endogenous growth model of North–South technological‐knowledge diffusion by imitation. Countries differ in levels of exogenous productivity, human‐capital levels and R&D capacity. Growth is driven by Northern innovative R&D and the South converges towards the North. Growth is also driven by human‐capital accumulation, scale effects are removed, imitation is only feasible once a threshold distance to the frontier has been attained and is dependent on the South's relative level of employed human capital and on domestic policies promoting R&D. Imitation promotes partial convergence of inter‐country wages and governs the path of intra‐South wage inequality.     

THE SCOPE FOR NON‐PROFIT OBJECTIVES IN A MIXED OLIGOPOLY UNDER INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

We ask how the scope for non‐profit objectives in a state‐owned enterprise (SOE) in a mixed oligopoly changes because of competition from firms in another country. There is no change if costs and demand are given, unless the trade partner is a low‐cost country. However, the scope for non‐profit objectives is limited by the country's relative size if wages are market‐clearing and if workers and firms are stationary, because of reduced competitiveness caused by higher real wage rates. The total surplus is then not affected by the actions of the SOE. International trade does not otherwise reduce the scope for its non‐profit objectives if workers and firms are mobile, but productivity differences might require restrictions in order to avoid a complete relocation of the workforce in either country.     

PROGRESSIVITY AND REDISTRIBUTION IN NON‐REVENUE NEUTRAL TAX REFORMS: THE LEVEL AND DISTANCE EFFECTS

Kakwani and Reynolds–Smolensky indices are used in the literature to measure the progressivity and redistributive capacity of taxes. These indices may, however, show some limits when used to make normative assessments about non‐revenue neutral tax reforms. Two approaches have traditionally been taken to overcome this problem. The first of these consists of comparing after‐tax income distributions through generalized Lorenz (concentration) curves. The second approach is based on the decomposition of changes in the Reynolds–Smolensky index into changes in the average tax rate and variations in progressivity. Nonetheless, this decomposition between the average tax rate and progressivity may be further exploited to obtain some information that can be relevant to assess tax reforms. The main aim of this study is to draw up some indicators that can be useful to quantify the effects of non‐revenue neutral tax reforms. These indicators are used to investigate the last personal income tax reforms that have taken place in Spain.     

A NON‐PARAMETRIC MEASURE OF POVERTY ELASTICITY

We estimate the growth elasticity of poverty (GEP) using recently developed non‐parametric panel methods and the most up‐to‐date and extensive poverty data from the World Bank, which exceeds 500 observations in size and represents more than 96 percent of the developing world's population. Unlike previous studies which rely on parametric models, we employ a non‐parametric approach which captures the non‐linearity in the relationship between growth, inequality, and poverty. We find that the growth elasticity of poverty is higher for countries with fairly equal income distributions, and declines in nations with greater income disparities. Moreover, when controlling for differences in estimation technique, we find that the reported values of the GEP in the literature (based on the World Bank's now‐defunct 1993‐PPP based poverty data) are systematically larger in magnitude than estimates based on the latest 2005‐PPP based data.     

UNCERTAIN INFANT MORTALITY,LEARNING, AND LIFE‐CYCLE FERTILITY*

This article examines the links between infant mortality and fertility in an environment with unobserved heterogeneity in infant mortality risk across mothers. In such an environment, replacement behavior (i.e., the fertility response to an experienced child death) might be influenced by mothers' learning about a family‐specific component of infant mortality risk. I explicitly introduce learning by mothers in a dynamic stochastic model of life‐cycle marital fertility, and I estimate the model's structural parameters using Malaysian panel data. The framework is used to estimate replacement rates and to correct for birth selectivity in the estimation of the relationship between infant mortality risk and “health inputs.”     

BANK PERFORMANCE,FINANCIAL STABILITY AND MARKET CONCENTRATION: EVIDENCE FROM COOPERATIVE AND NON‐COOPERATIVE BANKS

Relying upon highly territorially disaggregated data taken at labour market areas, the paper explores the relationship between bank performances and financial stability of the banking system taking into account the role of market concentration. The z‐score is used as financial stability indicator, while the performance of financial intermediaries is measured using a parametric method recently developed (Kumbhakar et al. 2014). The empirical evidence shows a positive relationship between bank performance and financial stability and supports the ‘concentration–stability’ view for non‐cooperative banks only when concentration is measured on the whole sample of banks. Differences in the performance–stability nexus seem to depend more on the type of banks rather than different levels of market concentration. Higher market concentration of cooperative banks affects systemic stability by reducing the z‐scores of non‐cooperative banks, supporting the hypothesis that the presence of non‐profit‐maximizing entities can pull down stability of other financial institutions.     

BUNDLING IN AUCTIONS WITH NON‐LINEAR VALUATIONS*

We examine when a revenue‐maximising auctioneer prefers to auction a homogenous product in one bundle (a single‐object auction) than to sell the item in two or more shares. When the items are super‐additive the auctioneer always prefers a single‐object auction. When the product valuations are sub‐additive, the auctioneer is more likely to choose a share auction when there are a large number of potential bidders. When there are a small number of bidders the auctioneer will tend to prefer a single‐object auction.     

OWNERSHIP,CONTROL, AGENCY AND RESIDUAL CLAIMS IN HEALTHCARE: INSIGHTS ON COOPERATIVES AND NON‐PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Many issues surrounding healthcare entities’ performance can be traced to their governance and ownership. Increasingly, public services are being provided by non‐profit organizations and/or cooperatives, particularly in the healthcare sector. This is not unproblematic. We draw on the conceptual separation of ownership and control, and the notion of firm ownership to derive a taxonomy of dimensions along which a contractual‐ and property rights theory of the firm can be structured, in order to determine the nature of firms’ differences. We utilize the taxonomy to illustrate important distinctions between non‐profit and cooperative firms in the primary healthcare sector and propose testable hypotheses. Funders and regulators must recognise the differences between these firms, if public funding of healthcare is to achieve the expected outcomes.     

THE NON‐TRADED SECTOR,LOBBYING, AND THE CHOICE BETWEEN THE CUSTOMS UNION AND THE COMMON MARKET

This paper models immigration policy as the outcome of political competition between interest groups representing individuals employed in different sectors. In standard positive theory, restrictive immigration policy results from a low‐skilled median voter voting against predominantly low‐skilled immigration. In the present paper, in contrast, once trade policies are liberalized, restrictive immigration policy results from anti‐immigration lobbying by interest groups representing the non‐traded sectors. It is shown that this is in line with empirical regularities from recent episodes of restrictive immigration legislation in the European Union. It is further shown that if governments negotiate bilaterally over trade and migration policy regimes, the equilibrium regime depends (i) on the sequencing of the international negotiation process and (ii) on the set of available trade and migration policy regimes. In particular, the most comprehensive and most welfare‐beneficial type of liberalization may be rejected only because a less comprehensive type of liberalization is available.     

中国企业对外投资的政治风险及 量化评估模型

后金融危机时代,中国企业的对外投资也正处于一个新的发展阶段,在拥有广泛发展前景的同时也面临着巨大的政治风险,由于政治风险影响力大、辐射面广、破坏力强,已严重影响我国海外投资的安全和利益,同时也影响着我国的经济发展和国家安全。然而,我国企业海外投资无论从历史还是经验看,往往对政治风险认识不足,也缺乏防范工具和防范策略。因此,中国企业对外投资如何对东道国政治风险进行界定、分析和评估,显得愈加重要和迫切。虽然国内学者已就政治风险分析评估做了大量研究,但主要以定性分析为主。本文盘点了我国企业遭遇的政治风险种类,并通过引入理论模型对东道国的政治风险进行量化分析,有助于我国企业对世界各国政治风险的量化评估;在此基础上结合趋势分析法充分反映现代政治风险的特性,有效预测东道国政治风险。     

ARE LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION RATES NON‐STATIONARY? EVIDENCE FROM 130 YEARS FOR G7 COUNTRIES*

This paper applies a unit root test with a non‐linear threshold to examine whether labour force participation rates are mean reverting for G7 countries using annual data over a 130 year period. We find some evidence of mean reversion for just over half the sample; however, this result is sensitive to regime shifts. We also examine whether the labour force participation rate is trend reverting through employing a lagrange multiplier (LM) unit root test with one and two structural breaks in the intercept and slope. The LM unit root test provides no additional evidence in support of stationarity. On the basis of the unit root tests for mean reversion we conclude that there is at best mixed evidence that long‐term changes in unemployment rates translate into long‐term changes in employment rates and that the unemployment rate is a useful indicator of joblessness.     

FURTHER EVIDENCE ON REAL INTEREST RATE EQUALIZATION: PANEL INFORMATION,NON‐LINEARITIES AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES

Previous studies applying traditional unit root tests generally have difficulty providing widespread evidence supporting the real interest rate parity hypothesis (RIPH). This paper aims to analyse the empirical fulfilment of RIPH for 17 OECD countries by employing many recently developed unit root tests. Power of the tests is raised by taking different approaches, such as using cross‐sectional information, accounting for non‐linear adjustment towards the equilibrium and allowing for structural changes. The combined results of the tests using panel information show that broad evidence in favour of RIPH prevails for 13 of the 17 countries. By contrast, univariate tests fail to make widespread rejections of the unit‐root hypothesis. Our evidence reveals a high degree of market integration for developed countries, and the effect of monetary policies as a stabilization tool might be limited at least in the long run.