Exchange Rate Uncertainty and the Law of One Price

This paper develops a framework for analyzing the impact of exchange rate uncertainty on the Law of One Price. Using the prices of very disaggregated, homogeneous products in a very open economy, Chile, where no institutions exist for hedging exchange risk, it then tests the model in a bivariate GARCH in mean context. Little evidence is found that short-run exchange rate uncertainty consititutes a barrier to goods arbitrage.     

Intergenerational Welfare Participation in New Zealand

New Zealand panel data, which provide extensive information on the benefit histories of parents and their children, are used to estimate an intergenerational correlation coefficient in social welfare dependency. Recent estimation techniques for addressing issues of measurement error are applied to this analysis. The long-term benefit histories of parents and instrumental variable techniques provide useful lower and upper-bound estimates of the true intergenerational correlation. Our results suggest that the true correlation coefficient between the welfare participation of parents and their offspring is somewhere between one-third and two-thirds, but probably much closer to the lower limit in this range. Approximately one-quarter of this effect appears to operate through the lower educational attainment of children reared in families receiving social welfare benefits.     

Did Gladstone make a difference? Rhetoric and reality in mid-Victorian finance

'Gladstonian finance' is generally taken to mean balancing the budget, limiting the level of public expenditure, and making progress in paying off the national debt. Gladstone also distinguished himself from contemporary Conservatives (and most classical economists) by having no especial dislike for direct taxes. After putting Gladstone's public utterances in the context of his rivals, classical political economy, and contemporary views of the role of the state, we use cointegration analysis to see if Gladstone, as Chancellor or Prime Minister, made a statistically detectable difference to trends in public spending, taxation, the balance of the budget or the size of the national debt. He did not.     

Kooperation zwischen absatzmittlern und herstellern als erfolgsfaktor der markenführung

Immer weniger Marken gelingt es, ihre Markenidentit?t in konsistenter Weise an allen Marke-Kunden-Kontaktpunkten umzusetzen. Insbesondere „im pers?nlichen Dialog mit den Kunden”, am PoS, versagen viele Marken. Ein zur Markenidentit?t konsistentes Auftreten der Herstellermarke kann hier nur in Kooperation mit Absatzmittlern erfolgen. Dafür unerl?sslich sind Absatzmittler, die ein hohes Brand Commitment gegenüber der Herstellermarke besitzen. Der Beitrag untersucht die Bedeutung der Absatzmittler für den Erfolg von Herstellermarken. Es werden Kriterien entwickelt, an- hand derer sich prüfen l?sst, für welche Marken die Bedeutung der Absatzmittler besonders gro? ist. Darüber hinaus wird ein Modell für ein absatzmittlergerichtetes Markenmanagement in Auszügen Vorgestellt     

Does Informality Imply Segmentation in Urban Labor Markets? Evidence from Sectoral Transitions in Mexico

This article offers an alternative to the traditional dualisticview of the relationship between formal and informal labor markets.For many workers inefficiencies in formal sector protectionsand low levels of labor productivity may make informal sectoremployment a desirable alternative to formal sector employment.The analysis offers the first study of worker transitions betweensectors using detailed panel data from Mexico and finds littleevidence in favor of the dualistic view. Traditional earningsdifferentials cannot prove or disprove segmentation in the developing-countrycontext. The patterns of worker mobility do not suggest a rigidlabor market or one segmented along the formal/informal division.     

Towards a strategic understanding of global teams and their HR implications: an expert dialogue

Abstract

Drawing on initial insights emerging from a panel at the EIBA 2016 Conference in Vienna, here discussants and expert panelists engage in a follow-on conversation on the HRM implications of global teams for international organizations. First we set out how HRM can enable global teams and their constituent members to overcome the new and considerable challenges of global teams. These challenges span levels of analysis, time and space. Next we debate global teams as a strategic response to the dual pressures of global integration and local adaptation. We consider what HRM is needed for global teams to successfully resolve this dilemma, challenging practitioners to move beyond the ‘best practices’ and ‘alignment’ dichotomy. Lastly we look to the future to consider implications for research. We propose a rich research agenda focused on the complexities of the global team context.     

Fiscal versus monetary policy: An application of transfer functions

This paper supports the arguments that monetary policy is stronger than fiscal policy but that both are seriously inadequate when used in a discretionary fashion. These conclusions are reached by estimating a dynamic reduced form equation ( a transfer function) of gross national product on monetary base and government spending for the period 1953–1975. The estimating procedure follows the outline of Box and Jenkins (1976). This transfer function is used both to make some general remarks concerning the specification of the structural form of a small macroeconomic model and to evaluate actual stabilization policy by means of various simulations.     

Economies and Diseconomies: Estimating Electricity Cost Functions

This paper presents estimates of the variable cost function ofelectricity generation. The cost function is estimated using a two dimensional definition of capacity utilization. Because electricity cannot be conveniently stored, generation facilities follow the load across demand cycles. Capacity utilization can be captured empirically in two ways. One is generation relative to capacity when a unit is connected to the system; the other is thepercent of time the unit is disconnected. The estimated cost function shows that both dimensions affect average cost, which generally declines as capacity utilization increases.     

Informal self-employment and macroeconomic fluctuations

Informal self-employment is a major source of employment in developing countries. Its cyclical behavior is important to our understanding of the functioning of LDC labor markets, but turns out to be surprisingly complex. We develop a flexible model with two sectors: a formal salaried (tradable) sector that may be affected by wage rigidities, and an informal (non tradable) self-employment sector faced with liquidity constraints to entry. This labor market is then embedded in a standard small economy macro model. We show that different types of shocks interact with different institutional contexts to produce distinct patterns of comovement between key variables of the model: relative salaried/self-employed incomes, relative salaried/self-employed sector sizes and the real exchange rate. Model predictions are then tested empirically for Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. We confirm episodes where the expansion of informal self-employment is consistent with the traditional segmentation views of informality. However, we also identify episodes where informal self-employment behaves “pro-cyclically”; here, informality is driven by relative demand or productivity shocks to the non tradable sector.     

Spatial Dimensions of Trade Liberalization and Economic Convergence: Mexico 1985-2002

This article employs established techniques from the spatialeconomics literature to identify regional patterns of incomeand growth in Mexico and to examine how they have changed overthe period spanned by trade liberalization and how they maybe linked to the income divergence observed following liberalization.The article first shows that divergence has emerged in the formof several income clusters that only partially correspond totraditional geographic regions. Next, when regions are definedby spatial correlation in incomes, a "south" clearly exists,but the "north" seems to be restricted to the states directlyon the U.S. border and there is no "center" region. Overall,the principal dynamic of both the increased spatial dependencyand the increased divergence lies not on the border but in thesustained underperformance of the southern states, startingbefore the North American Free-Trade Agreement, and to a lesserextent in the superior performance of an emerging convergenceclub in the north-center of the country.