Unemployment Duration: An Analysis of Incomplete,Completed, and Multiple Spells in Emilia-Romagna

Sets of incomplete and completed spells of unemployment wereobtained from the Italian Quarterly Labour Force Survey,carried out by ISTAT in Emilia-Romagna (1993:1–1995:1).The data were analysed through a proportional hazards modelwith a Weibull specification of the baseline hazard, includingboth unobserved heterogeneity applied to the scale parameterof the duration distribution, and telescoping effect to accountfor spikes in the distribution of unemployment spells.They were compared formally also with a non-proportional hazardmodel based on a log-logistic distribution of duration.The estimation of the parameters was carried out separately on bothcompleted spells and quarterly incomplete spells to ascertaindifferences and to envisage the potential seasonal effect.The results showed that the shape parameters changed over time.The parameters of each covariate proved to be statisticallystable over time and were also equal to the parameters ofthe completed spells model.Therefore, the analysis of incomplete spells is fairly feasiblewhen an even (closed form) baseline hazard function is suitablefor data.     

Intergenerational Mobility in Britain: Evidence from Unemployment Patterns

Recent papers have examined the intergenerational transmission of well-being by looking at the relationship between parents' and children's income. However, by concentrating on those who are working these studies exclude some of the very poorest in society, the unemployed. In this paper we extend the empirical work on intergenerational welfare in the UK by looking at the links between fathers' and sons' unemployment histories. Using an approach which takes account of both incidence and intensity of son's unemployment, we provide further evidence showing that parental background is an important determinant of a child's future welfare. A son whose father was unemployed 20 years earlier is almost twice as likely to be unemployed as a son whose father was not unemployed. Furthermore, this dependency remains significant after controlling for a range of son's characteristics including education, ability and family composition.     

The impact of productivity adjusted deviations from PPP on the U.S. inbound FDI: Evidence from Japan, U.K. and Germany

In this paper, we investigate the degree to which productivity adjusted deviations from PPP influence the U.S. inbound FDI. Our results show a significant negative relationship between productivity adjusted misalignments and the U.S. inbound FDI from Germany and the United Kingdom in the short-run, and a positive relationship in the long-run. Hence, indicating that a positive misalignment—undervalued U.S. dollar—leads to a decrease in the U.S. inbound FDI in the short-run and to an increase in the long-run. No significant evidence is found for Japan. Interestingly, unadjusted real exchange rate changes show no statistically significant relationship with respect to the U.S. inbound FDI. The authors thank the reviewers for their insightful comments.     

Ford in U.K. Car-tel?

The British car industry has long been suspected of provoking higher prices by restricting the importation of cheaper models. Four oconomists at the Poiytechnic of Central London arguo for the revision of UK design copyright laws to increase competition.     

Small firm policy in the U.K.

Public policy emphasis in the U.K. has moved to favour small firms, and towards creating a healthy and stimulating environment rather than trying to influence directly the rate and direction of industrial and technological change. Different types of policy initiatives have been tried with varying degrees of success: the DTl schemes were amalgamated into the “Support for Business” programme, concerned with advice, innovation, investment and exports. Though specific technologies are being identified for support, and the MoD has increased its direct support for small firms, the authors argue that the U.K. Government's policies are piecemeal and luck true coherence as evidenced by the failure of innovation policies to redress the regional imbalances.     

Cultural Diversity and Export Growth in the U. K.

Abstract

This study provides comparative empirical evidence concerning the motives for exporting of Asian and indigenous¹(white)-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the U.K. Findings are primarily based on a large scale sample of U.K. firms and Factor Analysis together with MANOVA are employed to establish whether statistical differences exist between the groups of firms in relation to their motives for undertaking export activities. Also reported, are selected findings from a series of in-depth interviews. This investigation provides a contribution to the literature since it questions whether current export assistance and targeting procedures are suitable for addressing the export stimuli perceived as important by managers from different sub-cultures.     

Optimal geographic diversification and firm performance: evidence from the U.K.

This paper examines the relationship between multinationality and firm performance. The analysis is based on a sample of over 400 UK multinationals, and encompasses both service sector and manufacturing sector multinationals. This paper confirms the non-linear relationship between performance and multinationality that is reported elsewhere in the literature, but offers further analysis of this relationship. Specifically, by correcting for endogeneity in the investment decision, and for shocks in productivity across countries, the paper demonstrates that the returns to multinationality are greater than those that have been reported elsewhere, and persist to higher degrees of international diversification.

Unemployment in Greece: Evidence from Greek regions using panel unit root tests

The purpose of the paper is to examine the nature of Greek regional unemployment. The paper contributes to the literature assessing the stochastic properties of Greek unemployment rate in the context of the Greek regions by relying on various univariate and panel unit root tests. In particular, recently developed and more powerful panel unit-root tests that control for structural breaks, heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence in the panel are employed. The results show that in all cases, after taking into account the fact that regional unemployment rates in Greece are subject to a structural break, the null hypothesis of a unit root is not rejected, indicating that the Greek regional unemployment series are non-stationary with the presence of a structural break.     

An empirical analysis of self-employment in the U.K.

The paper formulates a self-employment/paid-employment choice problem that draws upon Knight's notion that the individual responds to the risk-adjusted relative earnings opportunities in each sector. Based on a development of such choice-theoretic considerations, an econometric model is developed with the purpose of empirically examining the determinants of self-employment. The model features simultaneous determination of employment status and earnings, which allows for self-selectivity. The model is estimated using a sample of 4762 individuals from the General Household Survey for 1978. The estimation of the earnings equation enables a calculation of the self-employment/paid-employment earnings differential and the estimated probit equation for self-employment/paid-employment status facilitates the prediction of the probability of self-employment. The paper finds that there is positive selection bias in the observed earnings of employees, that the probability of self-employment depends positively on the earnings difference between the two sectors and that education and age are significant determinants of self-employment.     

Information Frictions in Uncertain Regulatory Environments: Evidence from U.S. Commercial Banks

Information frictions between firms and regulators are typically seen as a means by which firms evade enforcement. In contrast, we argue that information frictions between firms and regulators can reduce the efficiency of firms’ compliance efforts when the interpretation of regulatory standards is uncertain. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in distance between firms and their regulators to demonstrate this for a panel of community banks in the US. We find that banks located at greater distance from regulatory field offices face significantly higher administrative costs, at a rate of 20% of administrative costs per hour of travel time. These differences do not come with reduced compliance, are not driven by endogenous regulator choice, and are stable over time. Further, the costs borne by distant firms are negatively related to the scale of the jurisdiction in which they operate, suggesting that information spillovers between firms limit uncertainty about regulatory expectations.     

Salience in Quality Disclosure: Evidence from the U.S. News College Rankings

This paper investigates the impact of college rankings, and the visibility of those rankings, on students’ application decisions. Using natural experiments from U.S. News and World Report College Rankings, we present two main findings. First, we identify a causal impact of rankings on application decisions. When explicit rankings of colleges are published in U.S. News, a one‐rank improvement leads to a 1‐percentage‐point increase in the number of applications to that college. Second, we show that the response to the information represented in rankings depends on the way in which that information is presented. Rankings have no effect on application decisions when colleges are listed alphabetically, even when readers are provided data on college quality and the methodology used to calculate rankings. This finding provides evidence that the salience of information is a central determinant of a firm's demand function, even for purchases as large as college attendance.     

Regional policy handles in econometric models : Evidence from U.S. development outlays

Our econometric model of growth in state employment includes outlays for 56 Federal programs in the model structure. We found that: (1) there are positive, significant coefficients for most grant and loan guarantee outlays in most industries; (2) outlays do act with a lag of one to three years and possibly longer, (3) disbursements (i.e., cash outlays) are an important explanatory variable which follow obligations (legally binding commitments) with a lag. These findings support our contention that lagged policy handles should be included in the structure of regional econometric models and that disbursements should replace the commonly-used variable, obligations.     

Interest rate and bank stock returns asymmetry: Evidence from U.S. banks

We use the multivariate extension of Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditionally Heteroscedastic (EGARCH) of Nelson, Econometrica, 59: 347–370, 1991 to test for spillover effects and examine the extent of asymmetries between short- and long-term interest rates and portfolios of money center, large, and medium-size banks in the U.S. Our results indicate the existence of price and volatility spillovers from short- and long-term interest rates to the three bank portfolios. We also provide evidence of response asymmetries for the portfolios of money center and large banks, suggesting that money center and large banks are more sensitive to negative than positive short- and long-term interest rate changes.

英国城乡规划的经验及启示——写在《英国城乡规划》第14版中文版出版之前

英国的规划体系注重经验与惯例的积累,在针对城乡规划的基本矛盾———如何应对未来的不确定性时,采取了指导型的开发规划与自由裁量式的开发控制模式,使得城乡规划有能力去处理多样的需求以及不断变化的问题。当前中国规划体系在面对社会经济转型的过程中仍暴露出许多问题,结合中国国情参考英国经验将有助于中国规划体系的构建和完善。     

The J-Curve: Evidence from commodity trade between Canada and the U.S.

Several studies in the literature have tried to assess the impact of real depreciation of the Canadian dollar on the Canadian trade balance. They have either relied on the trade data between Canada and the rest of the world or between Canada and her major trading partners. In this paper we consider the trade between Canada and her major trading partner, the U.S. However, unlike previous research, we disaggregate the trade data between the two countries by commodity. We use export and import data over the period 1962–2004 from 152 commodities and the bounds testing approach to cointegration and error-correction modeling and show that real depreciation of the Canadian dollar has short-run effects on the trade balance of two-thirds of the industries. However, only in 50% of the industries, the short-run effects translate into the long-run favorable effects.

Identity theft in the internet age: Evidence from the U.S. states

This paper examines the determinants of identity theft, focusing especially on the influence of internet diffusion. Results, based on panel data across the U.S. states, show that a 10% in increase households with internet access would increase identity theft by about 9%, ceteris paribus. Other noteworthy findings point to states with greater corrupt activity having greater identity theft but greater police employment not having a significant deterrent impact. Dynamic panel regressions results reveal the presence of inertia in identity thefts. Some implications for policy are discussed.