Feasible taxation in advanced democracies

One usually considers tax pressure as the result of the policymakers’ efforts to increase public expenditure, while populism is resorted to in order to alleviate tensions among the taxpayers. This paper takes a different view. It assumes that populism is exogenous in the short run and defines the tolerable degree of tax pressure required to bring about redistribution; however, taxpayers also resent disappointing economic performances and low-quality public expenditure. Within this context, therefore, policymakers try to find a compromise between their desire to engage in rent-seeking and their electoral ambitions. This paper shows under which circumstances compromise is obtained, how tensions arise, and what outcomes the taxpayers’ reactions may generate.     

Analysen und Berichte

Enste and Wicher suggest that political regulation is always wealth-reducing. However, their analysis neglects various relevant determinants of the wealth indicator. Economic wealth cannot be estimated from the quantity of regulation, as quality and other aspects matter. Hence, political acumen is required. Enste and Wicher reply to criticism of the regulation index and the analysis of the impact of regulation on education. They argue that they neither ignore the positive effects of regulation (taken into account with the data on good governance indicators) nor demand a zero regulation policy. Instead, the main goal of the analysis is to provide an international comparison for “better regulation”.     

Unifractality and multifractality in the Italian stock market

Tests for random walk behaviour in the Italian stock market are presented, based on an investigation of the fractal properties of the log return series for the Mibtel index. The random walk hypothesis is evaluated against alternatives accommodating either unifractality or multifractality. Critical values for the test statistics are generated using Monte Carlo simulations of random Gaussian innovations. Evidence is reported of multifractality, and the departure from random walk behaviour is statistically significant on standard criteria. The observed pattern is attributed primarily to fat tails in the return probability distribution, associated with volatility clustering in returns measured over various time scales.     

A note on the relationship between the total factor productivity and the network of firms

In this paper we study the robustness of the results found recently by Guzzini and Palestrini (J Econ Interact Coord 11:35–55, 2016). Since the original analysis was carried out in a static setting, we perform a dynamic panel analysis by using the same dataset. The inclusion of the lagged value of the endogenous variable, missing in the original paper, could be justified for several reasons. Firstly, the statistical relationship may have itself a dynamical nature; secondly the inclusion of lagged-endogenous variable is a way to mitigate the possibility of an omitted variable problem. We find that the results are only qualitatively the same, and we discuss the quantitative differences.

     

Technological and organizational changes as determinants of the skill bias: evidence from the Italian machinery industry

Recent empirical literature has introduced the ‘Skill Biased Organizational Change’ (SBOC) hypothesis, according to which organizational change can be considered as one of the main causes of the skill bias (increase in the number of highly skilled workers) exhibited by manufacturing employment in developed countries. This paper focuses on the importance of the SBOC with respect to the more traditional ‘Skill Biased Technological Change’ in driving the skill composition of workers in the Italian machinery sector. A dynamic panel data analysis is proposed which uses a unique firm‐level dataset. The results show that both skilled and unskilled workers are negatively affected by technological change, while organizational change—which in turn may be linked to new technologies—is positively linked to skilled workers. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中国宽带的下一步

如何将光纤、数字用户线、移动通讯领域的各种数字技术以及移动宽带的路线图设计结合在一起，已经是一个迫在眉睫的现实问题。     

Stochastic mortality under measure changes

We provide a self-contained analysis of a class of continuous-time stochastic mortality models that have gained popularity in the last few years. We describe some of their advantages and limitations, examining whether their features survive equivalent changes of measures. This is important when using the same model for both market-consistent valuation and risk management of life insurance liabilities. We provide a numerical example based on the calibration to the French annuity market of a risk-neutral version of the model proposed by Lee & Carter (1992).