Trade in variety and domestic production: Evidence from US manufacturing

Welfare gains from increasing product variety are an important source of the gains from international trade. Previous empirical studies, however, typically focus on measuring gains from imported varieties. This paper introduces a measure to analyze changes in domestically produced varieties to estimate the total variety gains. Our analysis suggests that, for US manufacturing, losses in domestic varieties from 1992 to 2006 seem substantial given the large decline in the number of US establishments. Yet, once we account for the reallocation of resources towards large multi‐variety firms, we find considerable domestic variety gains, adding to those from imported varieties.     

Firm-hosted online brand communities and new product success

Many firms use online brand communities to support the launch of their new products. This study proposes a typology of firm-hosted online brand communities and examines whether such a classification system can improve predictions of new product success. A cross-industry analysis of 81 firm-hosted online brand communities shows that these communities reflect three archetypes. A subsequent survey of 170 community-hosting firms in the consumer durable goods industry reveals that the three types of communities are not equally important for new product success. Moreover, one archetype generally underperforms the other two as a new product support mechanism. Overall, the results demonstrate that firm-hosted online brand communities can be a predictor of new product success.     

Do the COVID-19 Crisis,Ageing and Climate Change Put Swiss Fiscal Sustainability at Risk?

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic crisis as well as demographic and climate change pose major challenges for public finances. This article deals with the implications of demographic trends in Switzerland, i.e. the progressive ageing of the population and its impact on the country’s public finances in the long run. As the analysis shows, the brunt of the demographic burden is borne by the old-age pension scheme, health and long-term care. This article also addresses the financial ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis and shows the need for economic policy action over the longer term to ensure the sustainability of public finances in Switzerland. Furthermore, a qualitative assessment of climate change is included, as it constitutes an additional major long-term challenge for public finances.

     

Der antizyklische Kapitalpuffer: Reformoptionen

Wirtschaftsdienst - Der antizyklische Eigenkapitalpuffer, dessen Anforderung Kreditinstitute erfüllen müssen, soll die Widerstandskraft des Bankensystems stärken und dadurch die...     

Sharp IV Bounds on Average Treatment Effects on the Treated and Other Populations Under Endogeneity and Noncompliance

In the presence of an endogenous binary treatment and a valid binary instrument, causal effects are point identified only for the subpopulation of compliers, given that the treatment is monotone in the instrument. With the exception of the entire population, causal inference for further subpopulations has been widely ignored in econometrics. We invoke treatment monotonicity and/or dominance assumptions to derive sharp bounds on the average treatment effects on the treated, as well as on other groups. Furthermore, we use our methods to assess the educational impact of a school voucher program in Colombia and discuss testable implications of our assumptions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The gains from variety in the European Union

Over the last decade, European Union members have experienced a steady increase in imports. This increase was accompanied by a strong growth in the number of imported goods and trading partners, suggesting positive welfare gains for consumers via an extended set of consumption possibilities, as pointed out in the ??New Trade Theory??. In this paper, we apply the methodology developed by Feenstra (Am Econ Rev 84(1):157?C177, 1994) and Broda and Weinstein (Q J Econ 121(2):541?C585, 2006) to structurally estimate the gains from imported variety for the 27 countries of the European Union using highly disaggregated trade data at the CN-8 level from Eurostat for the period from 1999 to 2008. Our results show that, within the European Union, especially ??newer?? and smaller member states exhibit high gains from newly imported varieties. Furthermore, we find that the majority of the gains from variety for consumers stems from intra-European Union trade.     

The use of trading strategies by fund managers: some first survey evidence

A questionnaire survey has found that most fund managers rely on the strategies of buy-&-hold, momentum and contrarian trading. These strategies are typically applied mutually. Their use is rooted in the attributes and beliefs of the respective fund managers: buy-&-hold traders are fundamentally oriented, risk averse and are less (over)confident than others. Momentum traders appear as the least risk-averse professionals, going aggressively with the trend. Contrarian traders, however, show signs of overconfidence and peculiar risk aversion, both indicating difficulties in successful strategy implementation. The behavioural patterns revealed are not easily reconciled with efficient markets.