Islamic Economics in the Late Ottoman Empire: Menâpirzâde Nuri Bey's Mebâhis-i İlm-i Servet

The existing literature on Islamic economics suggests that Islamic economics is a twentieth-century phenomenon with its roots in medieval Islamic intellectual and theological history, thereby leaving a centuries-long gap in the history of Islamic economic thinking. This study aims at taking a first step towards filling this gap by examining a nineteenth-century example of Islamic economics in late Ottoman economic literature. Suggesting a broader definition of Islamic economics, this article investigates a prominent Ottoman intellectual's efforts to define, reveal, and revive a tradition of Islamic economics in historical and intellectual context.     

Discounting and welfare evaluation of policies

We start with the premise that if policy discounting is to have any welfare relevance, one has to accept it being a derivative of a social welfare function (SWF). We show that if that derivative is to have a net present value (NPV) form, then the baseline allocation must be stationary. In addition, we show that at a stationary baseline in an overlapping generations growth economy, the intergenerationally fair discount rate equals the growth rate of per‐capita consumption, which is, roughly, 2% for the United States. This differs from the interest rate, even in the golden rule equilibrium, unless population growth is null. The last result is based on the main theorem in Mertens and Rubinchik (2012) and is demonstrated for a policy space that might naturally arise in applications.     

Climate Change,Heterogeneities, and Stability of International Fiscal Harmonization

This paper analyzes the instability introduced into multilateral agreements by two types of heterogeneity: heterogeneity of countries (size and number of producing members) and heterogeneity of lobbies (asymmetric influence at the national versus the international level). The work extends theoretical prospective analyses on environmental taxation, as illustrated by the harmonization of fuel taxes. We show that the acceptability of the tax set at the multilateral level depends on the type of coalitions that participate in the multilateral negotiation (size and number of producing countries) and the asymmetry in the local (state-level) power of lobbies during negotiations.     

Healthcare costs of stroke and major bleeding in patients with atrial fibrillation treated with non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants

Objective: To assess long-term healthcare costs related to ischemic stroke and systemic embolism (stroke/SE) and major bleeding (MB) events in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) treated with non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs).

Materials and methods: Optum’s Clinformatics Data Mart database from 1/2009–12/2016 was analyzed. Adult patients with ≥1 stroke/SE hospitalization (index date) were matched 1:1 to patients without stroke/SE (random index date), based on propensity scores. Patients with an MB event were matched to patients without MB. All patients had an NOAC dispensing overlapping index date, ≥12?months of eligibility pre-index date, and ≥1 NVAF diagnosis. The observation period spanned from the index date until the earliest date of death, switch to warfarin, end of insurance coverage, or end of data availability. Mean costs were evaluated: (1) per-patient-per-year (PPPY) and (2) at 1, 2, 3, and 4?years using Lin's method.

Results: The cost differences were, respectively, $48,807 and $28,298 PPPY for NOAC users with stroke/SE (n?=?1,340) and those with MB (n?=?3,774) events compared to controls. Cost differences of patients with vs without stroke/SE were $49,876, $51,627, $57,822, and $60,691 at 1, 2, 3, and 4?years post-index, respectively (p?p?Limitations: Limitations include unobserved confounders, coding and/or billing inaccuracies, limited sample sizes over longer follow-up, and the under-reporting of mortality for deaths occurring after 2011.

Conclusions: The incremental healthcare costs incurred by patients with vs without stroke/SE was nearly twice as high as those of patients with vs without MB. Moreover, each additional year up to 4?years after the first event was associated with an incremental cost for patients with a stroke/SE or MB event compared to those without an event.     

How resilient is La Réunion in terms of international tourism attractiveness: an assessment from unit root tests with structural breaks from 1981-2015

Even if local policymakers increasingly claim that tourism is one of the key factors of future economic development for the French small island La Réunion, international tourist arrivals are observed to be locked in a stagnation phase since the beginning of the 2000s. Starting from this stylized fact, this article aims to study if this phenomenon results from major external events hurting this economy regularly. Next, by using univariate unit root procedures with structural breaks, we test for evidence of permanent or transitory effects of external shocks on international tourist inflows (total, by source markets, and by category) over the period 1981–2015. Finally, the empirical analysis allows us to reject the null of a unit root. Then, stagnation of tourism arrivals to La Réunion is not due to exogenous shocks but probably results from endogenous impediments within the domestic tourism industry and unsuitable public policies.     

Multi-dimensional skills,specialization, and oligopolistic competition in higher education

This paper develops a differentiated products model of school competition that distinguishes among different dimensions that matter in the skill acquisition process. The model predicts that when identical schools compete for students, specialization may arise as a competition strategy. This serves rich students' education goals well. Poorer students, however, may attend schools with specializations that do not cater to their relative strengths. By doing so, these poorer students complement the weaknesses of the richer students through peer effects and receive financial aid in return. The empirical analysis provides strong support for the model's predictions about within-school implications of specialization.     

Propensity to firm creation: empirical research using structural equations

The identification of the entrepreneurs’ characteristics and the knowledge of the entrepreneurial profile of university students have been assuming a growing importance in the development of educational programs directed towards the entrepreneurship and start-up processes. This study aims to identify the factors that most contribute for the intention to start up a business. The research also tries to identify the profile of a potential entrepreneur student concerning several characteristics: personal attributes, family, demographic variables and motivations. Research findings include the idea that entrepreneurship education is the most relevant factor in what concerns the propensity to business creation. On the other side, personal characteristics have an important role in shaping motivation to start-up a business and perceived hurdles have a negative impact in the intention to start-up. The results may be relevant when developing an adequate educational program directed to the entrepreneurship education and start-up processes.     

A Tutorial on Palm Distributions for Spatial Point Processes

This tutorial provides an introduction to Palm distributions for spatial point processes. Initially, in the context of finite point processes, we give an explicit definition of Palm distributions in terms of their density functions. Then we review Palm distributions in the general case. Finally, we discuss some examples of Palm distributions for specific models and some applications.     

Trade liberalization and the inter-industry wage premia: the missingf role of productivity

The literature concerning the effect of tariffs on the inter-industry wage premium has not addressed the role of total factor productivity (TFP) in determining both the wage premium and tariffs. This omission not only overlooks an important determinant of wage premium but also invalidates the use of the pre-reform tariff level as an instrument for the change in tariffs. Based on an analysis of Colombian data, I find that including TFP in the estimated model of the effects of tariffs on the wage premium leads to a 41% decrease in the effect of tariffs on the inter-industry wage premium relative to the model that omits TFP. More specifically, a 10 percentage point decrease in tariffs reduces the wage premium by 1.01%, whereas a 10% increase in TFP raise wage premium by 1.6%. This finding suggests the importance of using policies that boost productivity to offset the effect of tariffs on the wage premium.