What aspects of the job have most effect on nurses?

The study reported here compared the influences of psychological constructs (job demands and scheduling control) and objective work characteristics (shiftwork, night‐work and hospital department type) on job satisfaction, organisational commitment, burnout and withdrawal intentions. Our hypothesis was that psychological constructs have a higher influence on work‐related attitudes than objective characteristics of work schedules. In addition to the main effects, we proposed an interactive hypothesis: poor attitudes would result from high demands and low control rather than from other combinations of both psychological variables. Using a sample of 153 hospital nurses in Israel, the hypotheses were generally supported. As night‐work, shiftwork and working in intensive care units are unavoidable characteristics of the modern medical environment, these findings are meaningful for improving the personal adjustment of hospital nurses.     

Social protection and regional convergence in a European Monetary Union

This paper addresses convergence in social protection and GDP in a European Economic and Monetary Union. We evaluate the impact of recently proposed EC social minimum requirements on regional convergence within the EC. Subsequently, we analyze a system of differentiated social norms as a means of raising social protection in countries with lower social standards.     

Delays and equilibria with large and small information in social learning

The general model of social learning with irreversible investment and endogenous timing is analyzed for any distribution of private informations. Strategic complementarities and multiple equilibria appear which are generated solely by information externalities. Different equilibria generate strikingly different amounts of information. The impacts of various assumptions (bounded beliefs, large number of agents, discrete time and short periods) are examined carefully. The properties are robust to the introduction of observation noise with a continuum of agents.     

Fish as the “bank in the water” – Evidence from chronic-poor communities in Congo

Small-scale fisheries in developing countries are often perceived as being a low-productivity and backward informal sector. As a result they are rarely considered in poverty reduction programmes and rural development planning. In this paper, we investigate the dual role of fish as a food and cash crop through data collected in river fisheries in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Fishing in this very remote rural region of DRC is operated both by men and women, as part of a household multiple activity livelihood strategy. The data shows that poor households rely heavily on fishing for their supply of protein-rich food, in particular through women’s subsistence catches. Fishing also appears to be the main source of cash-income for the majority of households, including local farmers. Based on these findings and a review of the literature, the paper argues that small-scale fisheries can play a fundamental role in local economies, especially in remote rural areas where they strengthen significantly the livelihoods of people through their role in both food security and cash-income generation.     

Improving Environmental Performance: A Challenge for Romania

The transition process in Central and Eastern Europe was associated with growing environmental awareness. This paper analyses the determinants of pollution abatement and control expenditure at plant level in the case of Romania using survey data and a multilevel regression model. Our findings suggest that, although Romania has improved its environmental performance, formal and informal regulations are still only partially developed owing to the difficulties of economic transition, and heterogeneity across regions remains considerable.     

Why Divorce Laws Matter: Incentives for Noncontractible Marital Investments under Unilateral and Consent Divorce

The Coase Theorem suggests that married couples will divorceif and only if doing so increases their joint surplus, regardlessof the legal rules governing divorce. This does not mean, however,that divorce laws only affect the distribution of rents. Becausethe distribution of rents affects each spouse's incentives fornoncontractible investments, divorce laws can affect the jointwelfare of the couple. This article analyzes the effects ofthe consent divorce regime and the unilateral divorce regimeon incentives for selfish and cooperative marital investments.Using these results, the article demonstrates how endogenouschoice of marriage with noncontractible investments can explainsome recent empirical results concerning the effects of theshift from consent divorce to unilateral divorce. (JEL C78,D1, D23, J12, J18, K3, K36)     

Estimating the Competitive Storage Model with Trending Commodity Prices

We present a method to estimate jointly the parameters of a standard commodity storage model and the parameters characterizing the trend in commodity prices. This procedure allows the influence of a possible trend to be removed without restricting the model specification, and allows model and trend selection based on statistical criteria. The trend is modeled deterministically using linear or cubic spline functions of time. The results show that storage models with trend are always preferred to models without trend. They yield more plausible estimates of the structural parameters, with storage costs and demand elasticities that are more consistent with the literature. They imply occasional stockouts, whereas without trend the estimated models predict no stockouts over the sample period for most commodities. Moreover, accounting for a trend in the estimation implies price moments closer to those observed in commodity prices. Our results support the empirical relevance of the speculative storage model, and show that storage model estimations should not neglect the possibility of long‐run price trends. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rental housing for a French taxpayer: are there tax arbitrage opportunities in the USA?

The aim of this paper is to identify tax arbitrage opportunities in the field of rental housing in France and the USA. We conducted tax simulations for investments made in the USA or France. We compared total net rental incomes, capital gains and present investment values based on different tax regimes. Our results show that rental housing in the USA under the Effectively Connected Income classification serves as the best option, as it generates the highest present investment value. We performed several robustness exercises and we showed that our results are strengthened in cases of stronger price appreciation in the USA than in France and in cases of high landlord tax brackets.