What Makes Older Job-Seekers Attractive to Employers?

Using a conjoint analysis with an hypothetical hiring process, in which managers chose repeatedly between two hypothetical candidates for a relevant vacancy, our study confirms that hiring probabilities decline with age, particularly after the age of 58. Several theoretical arguments are given for this, both from the economic and psychological literature. Estimation results point at three important mechanisms that may explain declining hiring probabilities with age: (1) Uncertainty about productivity levels of older job-seekers may cause risk averse employers to chose younger job-seekers with lower, but more certain productivity levels. All factors and policy measures that are informative about productivity levels and reduce uncertainty for employers, also increase the average hiring probability for older job-seekers. (2) Increasing labour costs compared to steady or declining productivity levels of older workers. Some of these costs are determined on a national level, but many are negotiated between employers and employees in central bargaining agreements. Employers themselves therefore have an important key to increase the attractiveness of older job-seekers. (3) Older managers hire more older job-seekers, the same is true for employers with an older workforce. It means that in an ageing society, the hiring probability of older job-seekers will increase, even if no additional policy measures are taken. The effect of this ageing is stronger than any of the policy measures analysed in our study.     

The Effect of VaR Based Risk Management on Asset Prices and the Volatility Smile

Value-at-risk (VaR) has become the standard criterion for assessing risk in the financial industry. Given the widespread usage of VaR, it becomes increasingly important to study the effects of VaR based risk management on the prices of stocks and options. We solve a continuous-time asset pricing model, based on Lucas (1978) and Basak and Shapiro (2001), to investigate these effects. We find that the presence of risk managers tends to reduce market volatility, as intended. However, in some cases VaR risk management undesirably raises the probability of extreme losses. Finally, we demonstrate that option prices in an economy with VaR risk managers display a volatility smile.     

Personalmanagement-Ethikkodex: Welchen Beitrag leistet eine kodifizierte Berufsethik zur Professionalisierung des Personalmanagements?

The path of professionalization has been a subject of thought in the field of personnel management for a long time. One central indication for a profession is the existence of specific norms and values in an occupational group. Up to now, however, the discussion of professionalization of HRM has not really brought this aspect into focus. Therefore, the relationship between specific norms and values and a code of ethics for personnel management has been addressed only marginally. Starting from the overall discussion of professionalization, this article deals with possible norms and values of a codified occupational ethics for HRM. Opportunities and limitations of a code of ethics for personnel management are discussed on this basis. Thereby, the article delivers some new insights and starting points for the further discussion of a HRM code of ethics.     

Opportunity Cost Estimation of Ecosystem Services

Land-use changes rank among the most significant drivers of change in ecosystem services worldwide. The enhancement of important services such as biodiversity and carbon sequestration requires modifications in land-use that can lead to the decline in other ecosystems services. Targeting the most suitable areas for particular land-uses based on comparative advantages requires opportunity cost information across large regions. This is a demanding task because the input–output relations are ill-defined and determined by spatially heterogeneous operational and environmental conditions. To address this methodological challenge, this paper presents a two-stage semiparametric technique that enables multi-dimensional production possibility frontiers to be estimated from data provided by biophysical models. Specific advantages of the proposed frontier approach are its flexibility with regard to assumptions on the convexity of the production possibility set and its freedom from any separability assumptions for the input–output space and the space of the heterogeneous background variables. The method is illustrated for a case study of 18 Central and Eastern European countries. Results show that opportunity costs of changes in ecosystem services provision differ substantially between regions. Those areas having already relatively high levels of carbon sequestration have a comparative advantage in sequestering carbon. Opportunity costs of biodiversity are generally positively related with the level of biodiversity up to a turning point after which they are negatively related. To illustrate the policy consequences of the observed economies and diseconomies of scope we compare two management regimes to illustrate the potential gains from smart land management.     

Prepayment Behavior of Dutch Mortgagors: An Empirical Analysis

The suboptimal exercise of the prepayment option in a mortgage is relevant for mortgage pricing and the management of a mortgage portfolio. Construction of an accurate prepayment model requires quantification of driving factors such as seasoning, seasonality, refinance incentive and burnout. We focus on Dutch mortgages but also discuss the Dutch market in a European setting. Within the euro-denominated MBS market, the Dutch market is often referred to as the benchmark market. In our application we include typical Dutch market and contract characteristics such as the annual penalty-free prepayment of 10 to 20% of the original loan amount. We use loan-level historical data on mortgages originated between January 1989 and June 1999 to estimate separate models for two popular redemption types: savings mortgages and interest-only mortgages. In both models we allow for suboptimal prepayment behavior. The results clearly indicate that prepayment rates depend on interest rates and the age of the mortgage contract. Moreover, we find that burnout is an important element in describing the prepayment behavior of Dutch mortgagors.     

The Virtual IELab – an exercise in replicating part of the EXIOBASE V.2 production pipeline in a virtual laboratory

ABSTRACT

We explore options to replicate the EXIOBASE2 multi-region input–output (MRIO) database in the Virtual IELab cloud-computing laboratory environment. Whereas EXIOBASE2 is constructed using a multi-process reconciliation procedure, we present an alternative compilation technique that uses EXIOBASE2's pre-processed data and final tables in reconciling the IELab MRIO with conflicting raw data information. This approach skips the labour-intensive step of detailing and harmonising country tables. Adherence metrics reveal the EXIOBASE2-based IELab table to be considerably less balanced than the original but with stronger adherence to other constraints data. However, these metrics are not comparable to the original EXIOBASE2 statistics due to the distinctive implementation of constraint sets in the two platforms. IELab's main value-added is its flexibility in tailoring EXIOBASE2-based MRIOs beyond the original recipe. Finally, IELab's global carbon, water and material footprints are shown to be comparable with previously reported resource footprints. In contrast, deviations in land footprints warrant further investigation.     

Identifying hubs and spokes in global supply chains using redirected trade in value added

The increasing importance of global supply chains has prompted the use of analytical tools based on trade in value added – instead of traditional measures in gross value. We use this analytical framework to develop indicators that identify production hubs and supply spokes in global supply chains. Using these indicators and the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database, we quantify the relative importance of redirected value-added trade and the hub and spoke relationships at the aggregate level and for specific highly integrated industries.     

Cheaper and More Haircuts After VAT Cut? Evidence from the Netherlands

We study the effect of the reduction in the VAT rate on hairdresser services from 17.5 to 6% in the Netherlands in January 2000. Following Kosonen (J Public Econ 131:87–100, 2015), we use differences-in-differences to estimate the effects of this reform, with beauty salons as the main control group. In our preferred specification, we find close to full pass-through of the VAT cut into lower prices. However, we find no statistically or economically significant effect on the volume of sales or employment.     

Welfare and Distribution Effects of Water Pricing Policies

In this paper, distribution and welfare effects of changes in block price systems are evaluated. A method is discussed to determine, for a Marshallian demand function, equivalent variation in case of a block price system. The method is applied to compare, for the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, alternative pricing policies on the basis of their demand, welfare and distribution effects of changing water prices. Results show that there is a trade off between average welfare and income distribution. A pro-poor price system may result in lower average welfare than a flat price system, but in higher individual welfare for the poor. Moreover, there is a trade off between revenues for the water company and income distribution. Even though pro-poor price systems may not be as good for average welfare as flat price systems, their direct effects on poverty are important. Introducing pro-poor price systems, however, may have financial consequences for the water companies.