Multidivisional firms, internal competition, and the merger paradox

Abstract.  Traditional modelling of mergers has the merged firms (insiders) cooperate and maximize joint profits. This approach has several unappealing results in quantity‐setting games, for example, mergers typically are not profitable for insiders, but are profitable for non‐merging firms (outsiders). We take a different approach and allow for a parent company that can play each insider off one another. In quantity‐setting games, with our approach mergers are profitable for insiders, unprofitable for outsiders, socially beneficial, and involve (in a non‐monopolizing merger) a small number of firms. Finally, we find that the optimal strategy depends on whether firms compete in quantity or prices. JEL classification: L000     

Preferential trade areas, multinational enterprises, and welfare

Abstract.  The effects of preferential trade areas (PTAs) on the investments by multinational enterprises and their implications for the welfare of members and non‐members are studied in a model with two types of firms: national firms and multinational firms. In the presence of multinational activity PTAs can create new investment as well as divert investment from non‐members to members. Both affect the welfare of members positively. More interestingly, if the investment creation effect of a PTA is sufficiently strong, then the PTA could be welfare enhancing for non‐members as well. JEL classification: F2, L1     

Nash Equilibria in Pure Strategies

We consider an n ‐person non‐zero‐sum non‐cooperative game in normal form, where the strategy sets are some closed intervals of the real line. It is shown that if the pay‐off functions are continuous on the whole space and if for each pay‐off function the smallest local maximum in the strategy variable is a global maximum, then the game possesses a pure strategy Nash equilibrium.     

Are migrants more skilled than non‐migrants? Repeat,return, and same‐employer migrants

Abstract.  I examine the determinants of inter‐state migration of adults within western Germany, using the German Socio‐Economic Panel from 1984–2000. Migrants who do not change employers represent one‐fifth of all migrants and have higher education and pre‐move wages than non‐migrants. Skilled workers thus have a low‐cost migration avenue that has not been considered in the previous literature. Other migrants are heterogeneous and not unambiguously more skilled than non‐migrants. I confirm that long‐distance migrants are more skilled than short‐distance migrants, as predicted by theory, and I show that return migrants are a mix of successes and failures. Most repeat migration is return migration. JEL classification: J6     

Exporting and performance: evidence from Chilean plants

Abstract.  Recent empirical evidence documents the superior characteristics of exporters relative to non‐exporters. Three explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed: self‐selection; learning‐by‐exporting; and conscious self‐selection. We test these three hypotheses using plant‐level data from Chile. We find that plants that enter international markets show superior initial performance compared with non‐exporters, consistent with self‐selection; we observe increases in productivity after plants begin to export, which is consistent with learning‐by‐exporting. We also find strong evidence supporting the idea that self‐selection is a conscious process by which plants increase productivity with the purpose of becoming exporters. JEL classification: F14; O54; D21     

Canadian and U.S. financial markets: testing the international integration hypothesis under time‐varying conditional volatility

Abstract.  This paper evaluates the international integration hypothesis, that is, that risk‐adjusted anticipated returns are identical, even when financial instruments are traded in different countries. Under time‐varying conditional volatility, this hypothesis is tested by verifying the equality between domestic and foreign risk prices associated with a multi‐factor analytic specification. The maximum‐likelihood and Kalman‐filter estimates are used to assess the national risk prices and interpret the factors. Empirically, the integration of Canadian and U.S. financial markets depends on the risk prices of two factors, which are related to certain non‐monetary events and to the conduct of monetary policies. JEL classification: G15, C32     

Money, capital, and real liquidity effects with habit formation

Abstract.  The money in utility model is reconsidered in the presence of endogenous labour and habits. With standard assumptions about preferences and a policy rule that sets the nominal interest rate by adjusting the growth rate of money, the model exhibits superneutrality in the steady state. Nevertheless, habits give rise to real liquidity effects in the short run. After an increase in the nominal interest rate, employment falls, resulting in a fall in capital accumulation and in the short‐ and long‐term real interest rates. The adjustment of the capital stock is non‐monotonic. Employment and the short‐ and long‐term real interest rates may also adjust non‐monotonically. JEL classification: E22, E52, E58     

Minimum wage impacts on youth employment transitions, 1993–1999

Abstract.  The longitudinal nature of the Master File of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for the period 1993–9, enables comparing transitions from employment to non‐employment for individuals affected by minimum wage changes with appropriate comparison groups not affected by minimum wages. This is based on the large number (24) of minimum wage changes that have occurred across the different provincial jurisdictions in Canada over the 1990s. The results indicate that the minimum wage increases have increased the transition from employment to non‐employment of employed low‐wage youths, who are at‐risk of being affected by a minimum wage increase, by around 6 percentage points (ranging from 4 to 8 percentage points). These disemployment effects in turn imply 'minimum wage' elasticities of about −0.4 (ranging from −0.3 to −0.5).     

Grant Assistance and Small Firm Development in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland

Small business support is an important element of industrial development policy in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This paper examines the effect of grant support on small business performance from 1991–94. Around 50% of small businesses in Northern Ireland and 30% of small businesses in the Republic of Ireland received financial support over this period. In Northern Ireland, three clusters of assisted companies were identified who received support for marketing, training and capital investments. In the Republic of Ireland, two assisted clusters of firms were identified who received marketing and training grants. In each case, firms in the assisted clusters grew faster, tended to be more profitable, were more active in terms of sales and market development and adopted more ambitious strategic directions than those in the non‐assisted clusters. Selection models are used to explore whether these differences are due to differences in the characteristics of the assisted and non‐assisted groups or can be directly attributed to the effect of government financial support. In the Republic of Ireland there is no evidence of any effective targeting of assistance at better performing firms. In Northern Ireland, there is some evidence that assistance was targeted at firms with higher productivity growth. Grant aid had no effect on either the turnover growth or profitability of small businesses in either area. It did, however, boost employment growth. This is good‐news for job creation but has potentially worrying implications for firms' longer‐term competitive position through its negative effect on productivity.     

Ex post bidding and efficient coordination unemployment

Abstract.  We study the implementation of constrained‐efficient allocations in labour markets where a basic coordination problem leads to an equilibrium matching friction. We argue that these allocations can be achieved in a non‐cooperative equilibrium if wages are determined by ex post bidding. This holds true even in finite‐sized markets where the equilibrium‐matching process has decreasing returns to scale – where the 'Hosios rule' does not apply – both with and without heterogeneity. JEL classification: D83, J64     

Forecasting Canadian inflation: A semi-structural NKPC approach

We examine whether alternative versions of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve equation contain useful information for forecasting the inflation process. We notably consider semi-structural specifications which combine, for closed- and open-economy versions of the model, the structural New Keynesian equation with time series features. Estimation and inference are conducted using identification-robust methods to address the concern that NKPC models are generally weakly identified. Applications using Canadian data show that all the considered versions of the NKPC have a forecasting performance that comfortably exceeds that of a random walk equation, and moreover, that some NKPC versions also significantly outperform forecasts from conventional time series models. We conclude that relying on single-equation structural models such as the NKPC is a viable option for policymakers for the purposes of both forecasting and being able to explain to the public structural factors underlying those forecasts.     

A test of the Hotelling rule using old‐growth timber data

Abstract.  The paper tests Hotelling's prediction that scarcity rent for a non‐renewable resource will rise at the rate of discount in a market equilibrium. We perform the test using data for old‐growth timber, a resource that is effectively non‐renewable. In contrast to previous studies, for this resource a measure of scarcity rent is directly observable in the form of stumpage price bids in timber auctions. We construct a model that allows for replanting and captures the institutional framework of the western U.S. timber market. The modified Hotelling rule that we derive is not rejected in several of our specifications.     

An Empirical Analysis of Cost Efficiency in Non‐profit and Public Nursing Homes

Abstract *** :  This paper examines the issue of cost‐efficiency in Switzerland's nursing homes, an issue of concern to policy makers because of the rapid growth of elderly care expenditure and the aging of the population. The fact that nursing homes in Switzerland exist in different institutional forms, private for‐profit, government and non‐profit status, raises the issue of their relative cost efficiency. A panel data of 17 public and 19 nonprofit nursing homes operating over the 9‐year period from 1993 to 2001, in one of the 26 Swiss cantons, Ticino, is studied. Ticino's nursing homes are heavily regulated and monitored by the canton's authorities. However, given that in public firms there are more bureaucratic constraints and agency problems, one can expect a relatively low level of cost‐efficiency. In this paper the effect of institutional form on efficiency is studied using a translog stochastic cost‐frontier model. Several specifications are used to study the robustness of the results. The results suggest that the institutional form influences the efficiency of the studied nursing homes in that non‐profit foundations are likely to be more cost‐efficient than the nursing homes operated by government administration. The results also suggest that a great majority of the nursing homes in the sample do not fully benefit from scale economies. This implies that efficiency gains can be obtained with larger capacities or joint operations .     

Enrolment in Higher Education and Changes in Income Inequality

Using a cross‐section of countries, this paper empirically examines whether greater enrolment rates in higher education are associated with increases or decreases in subsequent income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient. It finds a negative association between the two, suggesting that countries with larger enrolment rates saw their income inequality decrease relative to other countries. These findings are robust to the inclusion of several control variables and to limiting the sample to non‐OECD countries.     

Smuggling, non‐fundamental uncertainty, and parallel market exchange rate volatility

Abstract.  We explore a model where smuggling and a parallel currency market arise, owing to government restrictions that prevent agents from legally holding foreign exchange. Despite such restrictions, agents are able to diversify their savings, holding both domestic and parallel foreign cash, basing their portfolio allocation on current and prospective parallel exchange rates. We attribute movements in parallel rates to non‐fundamental uncertainty. The model generates equilibria with both positive and negative parallel premia and correlations between illegal trade and the premium. The model has the novel implication that currency speculation drives smuggling, affecting real activities in all sectors of the economy. JEL classification: F31     

Russian Railways Reform and the Problem of Non‐discriminatory Access to Infrastructure

Abstract Restructuring of the Russian railways system is well under way. Among the policies just now coming into practice are two that are standard in railways restructuring in other countries: the provision of access to the infrastructure by independent train operating companies, and assurances of non‐discriminatory access terms for such companies. However, 'discrimination'– in the traditional economic sense – is a standard and often welfare‐enhancing pricing strategy for the recovery of fixed costs in a sector, like railways, with declining average costs. If competition regulators are unable to distinguish between discrimination that harms competition and discrimination designed only to recover fixed costs, policy makers in Russia and elsewhere will face a choice between large government subsidies and large welfare losses. In these circumstances, other restructuring models should be considered.     

Rebates as incentives to exclusivity

Abstract.  We show how rebates (or fidelity discounts) that take the form of lump‐sum payments made to retailers can be used by an incumbent manufacturer to achieve exclusivity and to deter the entry of a more efficient rival. The results, which hold whatever the degree of differentiation between retailers and whatever the cost advantage of the entrant, are found, despite minimizing asymmetries that may favour the incumbent. As such, there is no need to introduce buyers' disorganization, discriminatory offers, economies of scale, non‐coincident markets, or liquidated damages to find that exclusivity can lead to anti‐competitive effects. JEL classification: L12, L42     

Inequality and trade

Abstract.  We incorporate demand‐side considerations in trade in a systematic but straightforward way. We do so by focusing on the role of inequality in the determination of trade flows and patterns. With non‐homothetic preferences, when countries are similar in all respects but asset inequality, we find that trade is driven by specialization in consumption , not production. Besides, these assumptions allow us to generate some interesting international spillover effects of redistributive policies. Finally, we study a model of monopolistic competition and find a novel V‐shaped relationship between the ratio of inter‐industry to intra‐industry trade and a country's inequality. JEL classification: F11, F12     

Finite Sample Limited Information Inference Methods for Structural Equations and Models With Generated Regressors

We propose exact tests and confidence sets for various structural models typically estimated by IV methods, such as models with unobserved regressors, which remain valid despite the presence of identification problems or weak instruments. Two approaches are considered: (1) an instrument substitution method, which generalizes the Anderson–Rubin procedure, and (2) a sample‐split method, that allows the use of “generated regressors.” Projection techniques are also proposed for inference on general parameter transformations. The asymptotic theory of the tests under weaker assumptions is discussed. Simulation results are presented. The suggested techniques are applied to a model of Tobin's q and to a model of academic performance.