Distortions in world trade: Recent developments

The functioning of the world trading system is seriously distorted by a multitude of protectionist measures that impede a possible expansion in world trade and national product. Hans Joachim Hochstrate and Ralf Zeppernick analyse the latest developments against the background of the current Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations.     

Market-testing Healthcare: Managed Care, Market Evolution and the Search for Regulatory Principles

The growing costs of healthcare as a percentage of GDP in the industrial countries are causing considerable problems for these economies, but any attempt to change the existing healthcare system in any given country is usually accompanied by hefty political debate. A system needs to be found that rations healthcare efficiently and effectively, and which is also politically acceptable. The following article examines recent changes in the healthcare systems in the UK and USA and discusses the extent to which they meet these criteria.     

Henry George and His Philosophy: He Sought Equality of Opportunity to Use the Earth's Resources as Well as the End of Land Monopoly

Abstract . The George scholars today appear to be interesting the academic community in re-evaluating Henry George and his ideas. George, the 19th century American economist and social philosopher, dedicated himself to ending poverty by giving everyone equal access to the earth and its resources. He believed that land monopoly could be ended by taking the economic rent of all land and natural resources to meet the costs of government in lieu of taxes on labor and capital. George's writings revived interest in the ethos of the early settlers a time when sight was being lost of Pioneer America's contribution to the world's march toward freedom.     

Rentenversicherung, Bev?lkerungsentwicklung und Kapitalmarktrendite – Eine Simulationsrechnung

How can the pension schemes be sustainably financed? This is an important issue particularly with regard to the demographic changes in many industrialized countries but also in other emerging economies such as China and India. In this paper, we use a macroeconomic model of overlapping generations to analyze the impacts of the demographic changes as well as the interactions between pension system, bond and stock markets. Furthermore, we examine how the pension system influences the distribution of wealth, consumption and saving within generations. We found out that an aging population will cause a drastic decline. Moreover, we examined which impacts on individuals?? welfare demographic changes can have for an existing pay-as-you-go pension scheme. An increase of pension age combined with a decrease of the contributions seems to be the best policy. On the other hand, increases in contributions as a result of demographic changes show the highest welfare losses.     

Forecasting Macroeconomic Labour Market Flows: What Can We Learn from Micro‐level Analysis?

Forecasting labour market flows is important for budgeting and decision‐making in government departments and public administration. Macroeconomic forecasts are normally obtained from time series data. In this article, we follow another approach that uses individual‐level statistical analysis to predict the number of exits out of unemployment insurance claims. We present a comparative study of econometric, actuarial and statistical methodologies that base on different data structures. The results with records of the German unemployment insurance suggest that prediction based on individual‐level statistical duration analysis constitutes an interesting alternative to aggregate data‐based forecasting. In particular, forecasts of up to six months ahead are surprisingly precise and are found to be more precise than considered time series forecasts.     

Emotional framing of NGO press releases: Reformative versus radical NGOs

Drawing on the literature on framing, we explore the emotional framing differences in radical and reformative NGOs over time. We analyse the sentiment of a sample of 5880 press releases issued by five NGOs positioned differently on the reformative-radical spectrum and examine how they address large companies. Our findings reveal an increasing polarisation of sentiment in these NGOs' framing, with individual NGOs gravitating towards ideal-type radical or reformative positions, respectively. In alignment with the differences in their framing, we observe differences in their approaches to cross-sector partnerships. Policymakers need to note the implications of the observed polarisation for the effectiveness and credibility of cross-sector partnerships and multi-stakeholder initiatives more generally, given the risk of co-optation (for reformative NGOs) as well as the risk of foregoing significant funding and governance opportunities (for radical NGOs).     

Can outstanding dividend payments be estimated by American options?

Based on historical market data for American options on a stock and no-arbitrage bounds on future dividends they can!      

National information and euro area monetary policy: a generalized ordered choice approach

We empirically analyze the influence of inflationary pressure originating from persistent national misalignments on the ECB’s interest rate decisions between 2000 and mid-2010. To do so, we introduce an indicator that summarizes the threat to euro area price stability originating from self-reinforcing expected inflation differentials. The indicator is computed based on persistent deviations of national expected inflation and GDP growth rates from the corresponding euro area aggregate. It thereby captures area-wide excess demand pressure on the euro area inflation rate. In order to determine the information content of this indicator, we add it to an empirical monetary policy reaction function. We then analyze this reaction function in the framework of a generalized ordered choice model that fits the data a lot better than its commonly used, more restricted counterpart. Within this empirical framework, we find that after controlling for several area-wide aggregates, national information does not provide additional information that is indicative of the ECB’s policy rate decision.