Proposal of a model to measure competitiveness through factor analysis

This article presents a proposal for a simultaneous competitiveness measurement model for the three geographical levels: country, states, and municipalities. For this, a multivariate factor analysis method is used to help identify five factors, seven sub-factors, and thirty variables, which will be used for the measurement and to present the results of an empirical study on eleven entities: the country, the State of Sonora, and nine municipalities, which represent 80% of the population and 80% of their TGP. The results indicate that, in 2010, the municipality of Hermosillo was the most competitive.     

A Dualistic Model of Harmony and its Implications for Conflict Management in Asia

Conflict avoidance is common in East Asia, and the Confucian notion of harmony is often invoked to explain this tendency. We review the classical Confucian doctrines and found no encouragement of conflict avoidance in Confucian teachings. Quite the contrary, the Confucian notion of harmony embodies disagreement and open debates. Thus, we argue that harmony as conflict avoidance is not a main feature of classical Confucianism, but a characteristic of the secular version that is associated with cultural collectivism. We then review several theories that are based on the notion of harmony, and show that they are compatible with a dualistic model of harmony, which posits an instrumental as well as a value motive in harmony-seeking behavior. In the instrumental perspective, harmony is viewed as a means to a typically materialistic end, whereas in the value perspective, harmony is deemed an end in its own right. Conflict avoidance is primarily driven by the instrumental motive. These two motives are then crossed to form four types of harmony-seeking behaviors. This typology is discussed in terms of its implications for future research and its applications in conflict management.     

Conservation Payments under Risk: A Stochastic Dominance Approach

Conservation payments can be used to preserve forest and agroforest systems. To explain landowners' land-use decisions and determine appropriate conservation payments, it is necessary to focus on revenue risk. Marginal conditional stochastic dominance rules are used to derive conditions for determining the conservation payments required to guarantee that the environmentally preferred land use dominates. An empirical application to shaded coffee protection in the biologically important Chocó region of West Ecuador shows that conservation payments required for preserving shaded coffee areas are much higher than those calculated under risk-neutral assumptions. Further, the extant distribution of land has strong impacts on the required payments.     

The Effects of Unionism on Recruitment and Selection Methods

This study develops and tests a model of union effects on staffing practices. Unionism is found to be associated with fewer recruitment sources—suggesting that unionism reduces the need to increase applicant supply. Some data suggest that unionization increases the use of formal selection methods—consistent with arguments that higher costs make it important that the best applicants be selected. Other data support the idea that unions resist selection practices that break down the collective identity among workers.     

Markttransparenz durch Versicherungsaufsicht — Informationsökonomische Begründung der dritten Säule von Solvency II

The paper shows that there will be the possibility of adverse selection in insurance markets, if policyholders are inadequate informed about the solvency of the insurance companies. We analyse potential methods of resolution of the insurance market itself to overcome the informational disadvantages of the policyholders. While screening and signalling by the original market participants do not seem to be successful, transparency of solvency may be obtained by a regulating authority. However the actual instruments of the German regulating authority BAFin do not turn out to be satisfactory in this point. Hence the paper gives chapter for a statement for the third pillar of the Solvency II project. Finally we point out additional demand of research concerning the detailed design of the disclosure requirements.     

Projection of input–output tables by means of mathematical programming based on the hypothesis of stable structural evolution

The high costs involved in the construction of input–output tables (IOTs) using survey methods, makes the development of mathematical projection techniques attractive. An adjustment and projection method of IOTs, based on mathematical programming techniques, is proposed here. The flexibility and ability to include information on elements and aggregates is one of this method's main advantages over alternative adjustment methods. Among the information included in the adjustment, the most relevant is related to the evolution hypothesis of the production structure under stable conditions. This leads to the inclusion of intervals for coefficients. A set of adjusted tables, consistent with their own internal structure, is obtained after an interactive and iterative process that reconciles all information sources. A projection of IOTs in Spain for the period 1995–1998 is undertaken to examine the accuracy of the method.     

Policy implications of potential conflicts between short-term and long-term efficiency in CO2 emissions abatement

This paper shows that, under certain conditions (including path dependence and lock-in), policies and measures leading to a cost-effective GHG emissions mitigation in the short term may not allow reaching long-term emissions targets at the lowest possible cost, that is, they might not be cost-effective in the long term. The reason is that, in a situation where currently expensive technologies have a large potential for cost reductions through learning effects and R&D investments, the implementation of incentive-based mitigation policies such as taxes or tradable permits will encourage the adoption and diffusion of currently low-cost abatement technologies, but might not be enough to make attractive the diffusion of expensive ones, which is a necessary condition for these technologies to realise their cost-reduction potential through the aforementioned effects. A simple model and a numerical simulation are provided to show this possible conflict between static and dynamic efficiency, which points out to the need to combine different instruments, some aiming at short-term cost-efficiency (such as incentive-based environmental policy) and others at encouraging dynamic cost reductions (such as technology/innovation policy).     

Index futures leadership,basis behavior,and trader selectivity

Employing intraday data for futures and cash values for the S&P 500 over the 1993–1996 period, we attempt to characterize the lead–lag relationship between these two markets and their basis behavior. Our findings show evidence of pronounced futures leadership when markets are rising, with no feedback from the cash market. However, when markets are falling, futures leadership is less evident and significant feedback from the cash market is noted. We also provide evidence of a positive relationship between the basis and return volatility. We offer an explanation, based on trader selectivity, for the leadership‐asymmetry and the basis–volatility relationship. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:649–677, 2002     

Latent Multilateral Trade Resistance Indices: Theory and Evidence

Anderson and van Wincoop (American Economic Review (2003), 69 :106) make a convincing argument that traditional gravity equation estimates are biased by the omission of multilateral resistance terms. They show that these multilateral resistance terms are implicitly defined by a system of non‐linear equations involving all regions' GDP shares and a global interdependence structure involving trade costs. We show how linearizing the system of non‐linear relationships around a free trade world leads to an interdependence structure that can be used as a Bayesian prior to produce statistical estimates of the inward and outward multilateral resistance indices. This reflects a statistical approach that has advantages over the non‐stochastic numerical approach used by Anderson and van Wincoop (2003) to solve for these indices.