Growth and Welfare Effects of Fiscal Policy in an Endogenous Growth Model with Public Investment

In this paper we analyze growth and welfare effects of fiscal policy in an endogenous growth model along the balanced growth path. As to the model we assume that sustained per capita growth results from public investment. The government uses its tax revenue for investment in public capital, for investment subsidy and for transfer payments. We then analyze how the balanced growth rate reacts to variations in those policy variables. Further, we study welfare effects of varying the fiscal parameters and demonstrate that, in general, maximizing economic growth is not equivalent to maximizing welfare on the balanced growth path.     

Business regulation and labor market performance around the world

Using data from 74 industrial, developing and transition countries for the years 2000–2003, this paper analyzes empirically whether and to what extent anticompetitive business regulations affect the performance of the labor market. According to the regression results, they appear to increase unemployment rates and lower employment rates. It seems that they particularly worsen the employment situation of young people. Our results are robust to variations in specification.      

Combining random sampling and census strategies - Justification of inclusion probabilities equal to 1

Very often values of a size variable are known for the elements of a population we want to sample. For example, the elements may be clusters, the size variable denoting the number of units in a cluster. Then, it is quite usual to base the selection of elements on inclusion probabilities which are proportionate to the size values. To estimate the total of all values of an unknown variable for the units in the population of interest (i.e. for the units contained in the clusters) we may use weights, e.g. inverse inclusion probabilities. We want to clarify these ideas by the minimax principle. Especially, we will show that the use of inclusion probabilities equal to 1 is recommendable for units with high values of the size measure. AMS Classification 2000: Primary 62D05. Secondary 62C20     

Silber in Wundauflagen – scheiden sich hier die Geister?

Silberionen in der Wundbehandlung - Die bakterienabt?tende Wirkung von Silberionen-freisetzenden Wundauflagen bei der Behandlung kritisch kolonisierter und infizierter Wunden ist unbestritten. Trotzdem wird der Einsatz immer wieder diskutiert. Wann ist er gerechtfertigt und wie ist die aktuelle Studienlage?     

Innovation processes in small and medium-size companies

Innovation in small manufacturing companies often proceeds in an unstructured way. For the most part there is no previous well-defined plan. Small companies manage to introduce product and process innovations in a great variety of ways. The activities involved in the innovation process vary from one company to another, as does the total duration of the process.

With product innovations, the market to which the companies orient largely determines how the innovation evolves. With process innovations, it is the novelty of the innovation that determines the mode of evolution.

Next to the know-how invested in the company, sources of information in the business sector are particularly intensively used, such as customers and suppliers. The use of other sources depends strongly on the stage in the innovation process.

These are the most important conclusions from an investigation that has been carried out under commission from the Dutch government. Its objective was to establish how innovation is accomplished in small companies and which sources of information are used at the successive stages of the innovation process.     

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Consistent probability attitudes

In this paper, the principle of meaningful measurement of probabilistic attitudes is revisited. A new principle of consistency in probability attitudes is proposed, which allows for the identification of decision weights completely separate from utility. In the familiar and elegant von Neuman–Morgenstern setup of decision under risk with given objective probabilities, it is shown that, in the presence of standard properties for preferences, adding the new consistency principle leads to rank-dependent utility.