Is inequality the price to pay for higher growth in middle-income countries?

An evolutionary two-sector model is used to study the impact of skill-biased technological change on the growth and inequality paths of a middle-income developing economy. We present four scenarios resulting from changes in a country’s structural conditions and the characteristics of the shock. We show that wage inequality is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for growth. A Kuznets dynamic may emerge in the long run in the case of successful catching-up to the high-growth steady state. However, this only happens if adjustment costs significantly hamper the process of skill upgrade. The business cycle and the process of structural change may give rise to sizeable rises in wage inequality in the short term, even when the economy does not break out from the low-growth steady state.     

(Non‐)Participation in deliberation at work: a case study of online participative decision‐making

Social media are implemented by organisations to enhance productivity and knowledge sharing among employees, but they can also support group deliberation and employee voice. This paper presents a case study of an online deliberation initiative involving the discussion of a contentious internal policy within an organisation of around 550 knowledge workers. The deliberation process lasted 5 weeks and actively involved 167 employees. Different sources of information (user interaction logs, activity patterns, questionnaire responses) were analysed to investigate the impact of participation, or non‐participation, on the level of satisfaction with the deliberation, and on the understanding of the issue discussed. The findings suggest that (1) interest is a driver for participation, but it does not explain active participation, (2) participation, either active or passive, positively influences the understanding of the issue and (3) satisfaction with the outcome is not related to participation, but it may support participation in future initiatives.     

The determinants of university–industry collaboration in food science in Italy

Firms’ collaboration with academic institutions expands their range of expertise and can support the development of business innovations in several industries. For technological as well as structural reasons, university–industry collaborations are especially important in the case of the food industry. This paper aims at assessing the drivers of knowledge transfer from academic departments to industry. We analyse the dynamics of private funding of university research activities and investigate the drivers of university knowledge transfer from food science university departments, identifying how they differ from drivers in other areas of science. The empirical investigation is based on the econometric analysis of financial data on the whole population of university departments in Italy. We provide some implications for policy, highlighting whether and how university food science departments differ from university departments engaged in other areas of science, and how their interactions with industry can be increased.     

Exploring factors motivating entrepreneurial intentions: the case of Italian university students

This study aims to identify the factors motivating the intentions of university students to become entrepreneurs. Leveraging data from a survey of 941 Italian students and adopting Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour, this paper employs the structural equation model to identify factors explaining students’ entrepreneurial intentions. The findings show that attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control positively shape Italian students’ intentions. Moreover, the findings signal that the skills acquired during the university pathway play a crucial role in encouraging students to consider entrepreneurial choices. The paper extends and complements the academic and policy debate in the field of entrepreneurship offering a comprehensive investigation of the factors affecting entrepreneurial intentions. It also allows us to contend that higher education may have an important role to play in fostering the entrepreneurial intentions of young people. This is especially significant given current global economic conditions and the renewed importance of self‐employment strategies.     

Dynamics of Asset Prices and Transaction Activity in Illiquid Markets: the Case of Private Commercial Real Estate

This paper investigates the relationship between capital flows, turnover and returns for the UK private real estate market. We examine a number of possible implications of capital flows and turnover on capital returns testing for evidence of a price pressure effect, ‘return chasing’ behaviour and information revelation. The main tool of analysis is a panel vector autoregressive (VAR) regression model in which institutional capital flows, turnover and returns are specified as endogenous variables in a two equation system in which we also control for macro-economic variables. Data on flows, turnover and returns are obtained for the ten market segments covering the main UK commercial real estate sectors. Our results do not support the widely-held belief among practitioners that capital flows have a ‘price pressure’ effect on property prices. However, we do find a significant positive relationship between lagged turnover and contemporaneous capital returns, suggesting that asset turnover provides increased price revelation which, in turn, reduces investment risk and increases property values.     

Inflation Differentials in a Currency Area: Facts,Explanations and Policy

The determinants of inflation differentials in a currency area are analyzed both from an empirical and a theoretical perspective. The empirical analysis shows that a sizeable dispersion of HICP inflation rates across euro-area countries arises mostly in the components based on non-traded goods. There is also a significant cross-country heterogeneity in the response to changes in a common latent factor which accounts for a large fraction of the dispersion in national inflation rates. A stylized model of a currency area is used to understand the interrelation among shocks, structures and policies in driving the data generating process. The model shows that the dynamic of the inflation differentials is largely driven by the variability of productivity in the non-tradable sector of the more flexible economy. Conversely, the output differentials is largely driven by the variability in the productivity of the tradable sector, also of the more flexible economy. Optimal policy is investigated together with an analysis of the optimal adjustment to adopting a common currency with initial incorrect real exchange rate parity.     

An alternative solution to the Autoregressivity Paradox in time series analysis

This note concerns with the marginal models associated with a given vector autoregressive model. In particular, it is shown that a reduction in the orders of the univariate ARMA marginal models can be determined by the presence of variables integrated with different orders. The concepts and methods of the paper are illustrated via an empirical investigation of the low-frequency properties of hours worked in the US.     

Debt deleveraging and the exchange rate

Deleveraging from high debt can provoke deep recession with significant international side effects. Swings in the nominal exchange rate and large variations in consumption, output, and terms of trade can happen during the adjustment. All these movements are inefficient and interesting trade-offs emerge from the perspective of global welfare. The optimal adjustment to global imbalances should not necessarily require large movements in the nominal exchange rate. A global liquidity trap can be desirable when countries are more open to trade.     

Aircraft safety analysis using clustering algorithms

In recent years, there have been many cost-benefit studies on aviation safety, which deal mainly with economic issues, omitting some strictly technical aspects. This study compares aircraft accidents in relation to the characteristics of the aircraft, environmental conditions, route, and traffic type. The study was conducted using a database of over 1500 aircraft accidents worldwide, occurring between 1985 and 2010. The data were processed and then aggregated into groups, using cluster analysis based on an algorithm of partition binary ‘Hard c means.’ For each cluster, the ‘cluster representative’ accident was identified as the average of all the different characteristics of the accident. Moreover, a ‘hazard index’ was defined for each cluster (according to annual movements); using this index, it was possible to establish the dangerousness of each ‘cluster’ in terms of aviation accidents. Obtained results allowed the construction of an easy-to-use predictive model for accidents using multivariate analysis.     

An Application of Convergence Theory to Japan's Post-WWII Economic “Miracle”

The author provides an interpretation of the post-World War II economic “miracle” of Japan as a process of economic convergence within the framework of the neoclassical Solow-Swan model of economic growth. He shows how the predictions of the Solow-Swan model are qualitatively consistent with the actual economic record of Japan in the decades following World War II. The article is intended to help in the teaching of economic growth and the Japanese economic miracle, either as part of a macroeconomics course or in an advanced elective course in economic growth and development or in Japan's modern economic history.