A disaggregated analysis of the export performance of some industrial and emerging countries

The paper describes the evolution of export shares and quantifies the contribution of geographical and sectoral specialization as well as that of “competitiveness” of some industrial and emerging market economies between 1985 and 2003. While the strong growth of emerging countries as world competitors has lowered the market shares of all industrial countries, the results of a constant-market-share analysis indicate that the latter have benefited from positive specialization effects. Specifically, industrial countries gained from being specialized in fast-growing sectors (high-tech) or destinations (Asia). The magnitude of these effects, however, has been quite diversified across the main countries. Among the emerging economies, the striking export growth of China was determined by a strong rise in competitiveness that allowed the country to gain market shares across all sectors and destinations.     

The economics of netting in financial networks

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - Can the netting of on-balance-sheet interbank assets and liabilities be useful in thwarting financial contagion during a systemic crisis episode?...     

Social Position and Behaviour: A Formalization

Modern society has witnessed anever-increasing development in the social sciences;partly due to changes in mentality, and partly due tothe growing requirements of the economic and political world – requirements which frequently takeon the guise of necessity, as for instance in thecases of market research and electoral opinion polls.Such development has produced an increasing paralleldemand for mathematical accuracy and exactitude inthese fields.The intention here is to rationalize the basic logicand methodology of the sociological procedure; anintention, it is hoped, which could be influential inimproving practical sociological work by rendering itmore comprehensible. This requires the employment offairly sophisticated mathematical and statisticalnotions.Section 1 outlines the definitions considered essential for the rationalization of the basiclogic framework previously described.Section 2 discusses the general concept of statisticalvariance. Section 3 introduces the notion of ``heterogeneity'and offers several propositions linked to this concept.Section 5 revolves around the notion of ``inaccuracy'.Section 6 presents a theorem relating to theimmersion of metric spaces in Banach spaces, andshows how the theorem can be used to constructtheoretically satisfactory immersion algorithms.Section 7 together with the material, which ispreviously introduced in Section 4, outlines thecluster analysis and the principal components methodologies.     

An econometric model of nonlinear dynamics in the joint distribution of stock and bond returns

This paper considers a variety of econometric models for the joint distribution of US stock and bond returns in the presence of regime switching dynamics. While simple two‐ or three‐state models capture the univariate dynamics in bond and stock returns, a more complicated four‐state model with regimes characterized as crash, slow growth, bull and recovery states is required to capture their joint distribution. The transition probability matrix of this model has a very particular form. Exits from the crash state are almost always to the recovery state and occur with close to 50% chance, suggesting a bounce‐back effect from the crash to the recovery state. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Large,entrepreneurship and regional development policy: ‘growth poles’ in the Mezzogiorno over 40 years

Large firms are often perceived by economists and policy-makers as ‘growth poles’ to promote development in backward regions. The idea behind the ‘growth poles’ is that large firms may have a leverage effect on the birth and growth of small and medium sized firms. Regional policy in Italy, particularly in the Mezzogiorno, has subsidized large external plants since the 1950s. A new wave of planning agreements in the 1990s is going to redesign and to strengthen this policy orientation. This paper offers empirical data on plant location and growth at provincial level over 40 years. There is no evidence of overall long term growth impact of large acternal plants in the Mezzogiorno, while there are interesting variations by sectors. A theoretical interpretation of the impact of large firms on local entrepreneurial resources is offered, pointing to the negative effects of large firms on the supply of local entrepreneurship. Policy implications are discussed.     

Timing of Mitigation and Technology Availability in Achieving a Low-Carbon World

This paper analyzes the economic and investment implications of a series of climate mitigation scenarios, characterized by different levels of ambition for long-term stabilization goals and transitional pathways. Results indicate that although milder climate objectives can be achieved at moderate costs, stringent stabilization paths, compatible with the 2°C target, might require significant economic resources. Innovation and technology are shown to be able to mitigate, but not structurally alter, this trade-off. Technologies that allow capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere are shown to be important for expanding the feasibility space of stringent climate policies, though only if deployed at a scale which would represent a tremendous challenge. In general, the analysis indicates that the timing of mitigation is an important factor of cost containment, with early action being desirable. It also elaborates on the set of mitigation strategies and policies that would be required to achieve climate protection at maximum efficiency.     

Temporary hires and innovative investments

The flexicurity approach claims a positive effect of flexible labour on firm performance, also through an increased ability to innovate. Critics consider it a deregulation of the labour market, decreasing investment in human capital and innovation. We contribute to this broad debate providing an estimate of the relationships linking innovative investment, substitution investment, permanent hires and temporary hires. In particular, we aim at affirming or denying that innovative investments are accompanied by a specific kind of workforce, being it stable or flexible. In doing so, we contribute to bridge the gap among two quite separate strands of literature, as existing literature usually analyses capital and labour separately. Estimating a nonlinear recursive equation system we highlight a significant increase in the likelihood of hiring on a permanent base when the firm innovates; this holds till 2008. Afterward, during the crisis, innovating firms are more likely to hire using temporary contracts instead, a possible signal of a cost saving strategy adopted in a loose labour market by firms still able to innovate. Furthermore, both permanent and temporary hires never depend on increases in labour costs; however, substitution investment increases when labour cost increases, maybe in an attempt to increase labour productivity through a more efficient capital equipment.     

Nominal bargaining power, selection protocol, and discounting in legislative bargaining

The comparative static predictions of the Baron and Ferejohn [Baron, D.P., and Ferejohn, J.A., (1989). Bargaining in legislatures, American Political Science Review 83 (4), 1181-1206] model better organize behavior in legislative bargaining experiments than Gamson's Law. Regressions similar to those employed in field data produce results seemingly in support of Gamson's Law (even when using data generated by simulating agents who behave according to the Baron-Ferejohn model), but this is determined by the selection protocol which recognizes voting blocks in proportion to the number of votes controlled. Proposer power is not nearly as strong as predicted in the closed rule Baron and Ferejohn model, as coalition partners refuse to take the small shares given by the continuation value of the game. Discounting pushes behavior in the direction predicted by Baron and Ferejohn but has a much smaller effect than predicted.     

Perceived quality of public services, liquidity constraints, and the demand of private specialist care

In this article we offer direct evidence on the role of perceived quality differences in publicly provided health care services, in determining the incentive to opt out for private services and, for poor individuals, short-run credit constraints in the access to these services. We concentrate on private specialist care, a category of services for which disparities in the access are highest. We use Bank of Italy—SHIW data to first study the determinants of demand for private and public specialist care, estimating probit and bivariate probit models, and ZIP models. We then apply the Carneiro–Heckman procedure to identify the share of people constrained and study how perceived quality of public services affects the percentage of people short run constrained. Our estimates suggest the presence of large territorial differences, as for the role of income and the quality of public services.