ASEAN as supplier of raw materials

This article offers an interesting survey of the ASEAN countries’ role as raw material suppliers to Western Germany and the EC, its history, present performance and future prospects. Some of this paper’s contents are very informative and surprising indeed.     

FDI,Technology Spillovers,and Wages

This study distinguishes multinational firm (MNE) technology‐spillover from learning effects. Whenever learning takes time, the model predicts that foreign investors deduct the economic value of learning from wages of inexperienced workers and add it to experienced ones to prevent them from moving to local competitors. Hence, the national wage bill is unaffected by the presence of MNEs. In contrast to learning, technology spillover effects occur whenever a worker with MNE experience contributes more to local firms' than to MNEs' productivity. In this case, experienced MNE workers are hired by indigenous firms and the host country obtains a welfare gain from the presence of MNEs.     

EEC’s association policy

In Part IV of the Treaty of Rome, Articles 131–136, it is laid down that all overseas countries and territories which were or had been dependencles of EEC member countries should be associated with the Community in order to assist economic and social development of such countries and to bulld close economic relations between them and the European Community. The present article discusses the effects which this policy has had up to the present time.     

Parametric Lorenz Curves and the Modality of the Income Density Function

Similar looking Lorenz curves can imply very different income density functions and potentially lead to wrong policy implications regarding inequality. This paper derives a relation between a Lorenz curve and the modality of its underlying income density: given a parametric Lorenz curve, it is the sign of its third derivative which indicates whether the density is unimodal or zeromodal (i.e., downward‐sloping). The density modality of several important Lorenz curves such as the Pareto, Weibull, Singh–Maddala parametrizations and hierarchical families of Lorenz curves are discussed. A Lorenz curve performance comparison with Monte Carlo simulations and data from the UNU–WIDER World Income Inequality Database underlines the relevance of the theoretical result: curve‐fitting based on criteria such as mean squared error or the Gini difference might lead to a Lorenz curve implying an incorrectly‐shaped density function. It is therefore important to take into account the modality when selecting a parametric Lorenz curve.     

Structural problems of the next few years

The Federal Republic of Germany will be facing in the next few years changes in its economic structure which, if not in their extent, in their effect on the employment situation will be without parallel in the post-war period. After fifteen years of nearly uninterrupted full employment, it is reasonable to expect in the medium term an over-all rate of unemployment of the order of 2–3 p.c. (0.5–0.7 mn).     

Same Work,Different Pay? Evidence from a US Public University

Abstract

This study examines detailed data for faculty at a typical public research university in the United States between 1995 and 2004 to explore whether gender wage differentials can be explained by productivity differences. The level of detail – including the number of courses taught, enrollment, grant dollars, and number and impact of publications – largely eliminates the problem of unmeasured productivity, and the restriction to one firm eliminates unmeasured work conditions that confound investigations of wider labor markets. The authors find that direct productivity measures reduce the gender wage penalty to about 3 percent, only 1 percentage point lower than estimates from national studies of many institutions and with fewer productivity controls. The wage structure for women faculty differs markedly from the wage structure for men. Interpreted against the institutional features of wage setting for this population, the paper concludes that penalties for women arise at the department level.     

The German Public Budgets in 2003/2004: No Sign of Improvement—Deficits set to Rise Further

Original Papers

The German Public Budgets in 2003/2004: No Sign of Improvement—Deficits set to Rise Further