Using mean reversion as a measure of persistence

This paper suggests a new scalar measure of persistence together with a companion estimator, which has the advantage of not requiring the specification and estimation of a model for the series under investigation. The statistical properties of the companion estimator are established, which allow tests of hypotheses to be performed, under very general conditions. The use of the new measure is illustrated by re-evaluating persistence of inflation for the United States and the Euro Area. The conclusions for the United States do not differ significantly from what has been found in previous empirical studies. However, for the Euro Area we find evidence of a significant break occurring in 2001/2002, such that persistence becomes virtually nil for the period that follows the launch of the euro and the implementation of a common monetary policy by the European Central Bank.     

Patterns of international capital raisings

This paper documents several new patterns associated with firms issuing stocks and bonds in foreign markets that motivate the need for and help guide the direction of future research. Three major patterns stand out. (1) A large and growing fraction of capital raisings, especially debt issuances, occurs in international markets, but a very small number of firms accounts for the bulk of international capital raisings, highlighting the cross-firm heterogeneity in financial globalization. (2) Changes in firm performance following equity and debt issuances in international markets are qualitatively similar to those following domestic issuances, suggesting that capital raisings abroad are not intrinsically different from those in domestic markets. (3) Firms continue to issue securities both abroad and at home after accessing international markets, suggesting that international and domestic markets are complements, not substitutes. Existing theories do not fully account for these patterns.     

Perceptions of Urban Parks as Havens and Contested Terrains by Mexican-Americans in Chicago Neighborhoods

The objectives of this study were to (1) identify the benefits of parks for Mexican-American urban residents and the roles they play in the dynamics of their communities and (2) explore issues related to their existence and utilization in Latino communities. Bedimo-Rung, Mowen, and Cohen's (2005) model of the Role of Parks in Public Health was employed as a conceptual framework in this study. Data were collected in the summer of 2007 with two focus groups with 26 Mexican-American residents from two predominantly minority Chicago communities. Benefits of urban parks for Mexican-American residents were classified into five categories—environmental, social, psychological health, physical health, and cultural. The study also identified many problems related to the existence and utilization of parks in Latino communities that detracted from the benefits Mexican-Americans could obtain from visiting parks. They included insufficient access to parks, poor maintenance of the existing parks, crime and safety issues, and interracial conflict and discrimination. A new framework was proposed to model the benefits of parks for minority urban residents and factors that affect utilization of parks in minority communities.     

Influence of institutional environment on entrepreneurial intention: a comparative study of two countries university students

Institutional environment influences the perceptions of desirability and feasibility, society’s social and cultural environment, such as beliefs, values and attitudes, conditions behaviour and decisions made by individuals. This research evaluates the influence of institutional environment on entrepreneurial intention using a comparative analysis of different attitudes among university students in two countries: Portugal and Spain. In particular, this study aims to examine the perceptions of desirability, feasibility and intention toward the creation of one’s own business and how that variables influence the entrepreneurial intention as compared these two different institutional contexts. Results revealed difference among attitudes toward entrepreneurship in both countries. With respect to the perception of feasibility, the majority of students in Extremadura (Spain) consider that it is easier to create a business in nowadays than it was several decades ago. However, from the students of Beira Interior (Portugal) consider that it is more difficult. Furthermore, in Extremadura, the entrepreneurial intention is higher than in Beira Interior.     

Integrating public demands into model-based design for multifunctional agriculture: An application to intensive Dutch dairy landscapes

The contribution of agriculture to the welfare of society is determined by its economic, social and environmental performance. Although theoretical discussions can be found in the literature, few reports exist that integrate the social demand for multifunctional agriculture in the evaluation of the sustainability and the global welfare of society. This paper presents a methodology that combines economic valuation, integrated modelling, stakeholder analysis, and multi-criteria evaluation. It consists of three steps to determine: (1) social demands for multifunctional agriculture; (2) feasible technical alternatives available from the supply part of the market; (3) the net utility of alternatives for society measured as the change in social net benefit, i.e. the sum of changes compared to the current situation expressed in utility of market and non-market net benefits. Market net benefits are represented by their monetary value. Quality Function Deployment combined with Analytic Network Process (QFD/ANP) were used to estimate the non-market net benefits. The methodology is applied to the case study of a dairy-farming based agricultural landscape in the Northern Friesian Woodlands, The Netherlands. Social net benefit depended on land use, i.e. pasture management regimes on each of the agricultural fields and on presence or absence of hedgerows around the fields. Changes in market net utility were expressed in terms of changes for farmers, consumers and government. Changes in non-market net utility were expressed in terms of changes in landscape quality, nature value and environmental health for Dutch society as a whole, as estimated from European public surveys (Eurobarometer). The complete solution space defined by the market and non-market net benefits of landscapes with alternative patterns of land use was estimated to offer insight in the trade-off between market and non-market performance and enable selection of ‘icon’ landscapes to target or avoid. Improvement of the current landscape towards the social optimum would involve changes in pasture management resulting in higher gross margin for farmers, slightly relaxing current environmental restrictions, which could be reached at lower levels of subsidies in agri-environmental programs. In addition to such overall optimum the results demonstrate the trade-off between market and non-market benefits and the characteristics of current, utopian and dystopian landscapes. The approach provides an alternative to current economic valuation methods which focus on assessment of economic value as an input to analysis. Here, economic value emerges as the trade-off between market and non-market functions which is an output of the analysis.     

Quantifying the impact of economic crises on infant mortality in advanced economies

Policy makers rely on a mix of government spending and tax cuts to address the imbalances in the economy during an economic crisis, by promoting price stability and renewed economic growth. However, little discussion appears to focus explicitly on quantifying the cost of economic crises in terms of human lives, especially the lives of the most vulnerable members of society, infants. Using a statistical approach that is robust to the increases of mortality in outlying years, we quantify the effect that economic crises, periods of prolonged economic recession, have on infant mortality. Moreover, we investigate whether different levels of public spending on health across advanced industrialized democracies can mitigate the impact of crises on infant mortality. We find that economic crises are extremely costly and lead to a more than proportional increase in infant mortality in the short-run. Substantial public spending on health is required in order to limit their impact.     

Labour participation in Colombia

A model is estimated for the decision of participating in the labour market for different groups of household members: not coupled (single, divorced and widow) women and men and coupled (married and in permanent union) women and men. The differences among these groups are significant. Probit models are estimated for the period 1984?:?1–2000?:?4 using the National Housing Survey. The neoclassical static model performs fairly well in describing the empirical determinants of the decision of participating. In terms of sign and significance of estimated coefficients the best performance of the model is reached for women. In terms of prediction the model proves useful for not coupled persons. Except for the variable named ‘children aged less than six years’, all variables perform well.