DOES STUDENT WORK REALLY AFFECT EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES? A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

We review the theories put forward, methodological approaches used and empirical conclusions found in the multidisciplinary literature on the relationship between student employment and educational outcomes. A systematic comparison of the empirical work yields new insights that go beyond the overall reported negative effect of more intensive working schemes and that are of high academic and policy relevance. One such insight uncovered by our review is that student employment seems to have a more adverse effect on educational decisions (continuing studies and enrolment in tertiary education) than on educational performance (test and exam scores).     

Inflation persistence in the Euro area before and after the European Monetary Union

This paper provides new evidence on inflation persistence before and after the European Monetary Union (EMU). Taking into account fractional integration of inflation, we confirm that inflation dynamics differed considerably across Euro area countries before the start of EMU. Since 1999, however, results obtained from panel estimation indicate that the degree of long run inflation persistence has converged. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that the persistence of inflation has significantly decreased in the Euro area, probably as a result of the more effective monetary policy of the ECB.     

Monetary policy implementation and overnight rate persistence

Overnight money market rates are the predominant operational target of monetary policy. As a consequence, central banks have redesigned the implementation of monetary policy to keep the deviations of the overnight rate from the key policy rate small and short-lived. This paper uses fractional integration techniques to explore how the operational framework of four major central banks affects the persistence of overnight rates. Our results suggest that a well-communicated and transparent interest rate target of the central bank is a particularly important condition for a low degree of overnight rate persistence.     

Social Network Analysis and the Sociology of Economics: Filling a Blind Spot with the Idea of Social Embeddedness

Today, social networks analysis has become a cross‐disciplinary subject with applications in diverse fields of social and economic life. Different network designs provide different opportunities to communicate, to receive information, and to create different structures of cultural capital. Network analysis explores modes and contents of exchanges between different agents when symbols, emotions, or goods and services are exchanged. The message of the article is that social network analysis provides a tool to foster the understanding of social dynamics, which enhances recent debate on a micro‐macro gap and on limitations of the cognitive and explanatory potential of economics.     

The Processing of Non-Anticipated Information in Financial Markets: Analyzing the Impact of Surprises in the Employment Report

This paper delineates the simultaneous impact of non-anticipated information on mean and variance of the intraday return process by including appropriate variables accounting for the news flow into both the mean and the variance function. This allows us to differentiate between the consistent price reaction to surprising news and the traders' uncertainty about the precise price impact of this information. Focussing on the US employment report, we find that headline information is almost instantaneously incorporated into T-bond futures prices. Nevertheless, large surprises, and `bad' news in particular, create considerable uncertainty. In contrast, if surprises in related headlines cross-validate each other, less room for differences of opinion is left and hence volatility is decreased.