A structuralist North–South model on structural change,economic growth and catching-up

This paper presents a structuralist North–South model on structural change, industrialization and economic convergence. In a balance-of-payments-constrained macro-setting, we assume a cumulative process between industrialization and growth. Differently from the traditional post-Keynesian models, we endogenize the productive structure of developing countries. We enquire how industrialization affects uneven development and convergence processes. Multiple growth paths and a long-run path-dependent equilibrium emerge. Industrialization proves to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for catching-up. Good management by the domestic institutions of domestic industrialization is a complementary requirement.     

Liquidity, Trading Size, and the Co-existence of Dealership and Auction Markets

This paper analyses the co-existence of two markets for the same shares, a quote-driven market and an order-driven market, as observed for example for the trading of continental shares on the London SEAQ International. The focus is on the trade-off between the uncertain execution price faced by investors on an auction market and the implicit transaction cost represented by the spread in a dealer market. We obtain that those investors who desire to make large trades will prefer to trade with the dealer, while trades of smaller size will be carried out on the auction market. Moreover, we explicitly investigate the interrelations between the two markets showing that the pricing policy followed by a dealer depends on the conditions prevailing on the auction market.
(J.E.L: G10, D40)     

Gender Differences in Recruitment Outcomes

The paper tests the hypothesis that female applicants have a lower probability of being hired from a pool of applicants than their male counterparts. The results indicate that male and female candidates have about the same probability of being hired independently of the type of vacancy. The probability of hiring a candidate of a certain sex is therefore determined by the gender composition of the pool of applicants who have selected themselves on the basis of job characteristics, hiring standards and the type of sector. This indicates that male and female job-seekers select themselves in such a way that they have equal probabilities of being accepted.     

Does the quality of public-sponsored training programs matter? Evidence from bidding processes data

This paper analyzes the link between training quality and labor-market outcomes. Multiple proxies for training quality are identified from bidding processes in which public and private training institutions compete for limited public funding in Peru. Information about exact dates of program enrollment is analyzed to show whether the first-come-first-served assignment rule randomized eligible individuals across courses of varying quality. Generalized propensity score (GPS) is implemented to estimate dose–response functions in the context of multiple treatments. We find that beneficiaries attending high-quality training courses show higher earnings and better job-quality characteristics than either beneficiaries attending low-quality courses or nonparticipants. The returns are particularly robust for women, making the provision of high-quality training services cost-effective. Furthermore, the most important training attribute is expenditures per trainee. Class size and infrastructure are weakly related to the expected impacts, while teacher experience, curricular activities, and market knowledge seem to bear no relationship with the expected impacts. External validity was assessed by using five cohorts of individuals over an eight-year period.     

OBSERVABLE MANAGERIAL INCENTIVES AND SPATIAL COMPETITION

In this paper we investigate the relationship between product market competition and managerial incentives within a circular city model with observable agency contracts. With respect to the case of unobservability studied by Raith (2003 ), we find that optimal managerial contracts provide lower incentives, and that equilibrium expected prices and profits are higher. Changes in competition fundamentals have ambiguous effects, but observable contracts alleviate their impact on incentives. Finally, observability involves three major implications: managerial incentives are higher under price regulation than under competition; prices may increase with the number of firms; consumer welfare may diminish when competition increases.     

On the role of retaliation in trade agreements

This paper analyzes the role of retaliation in trade agreements. It shows that, in the presence of private information, retaliation can always be used to increase the welfare derived from such agreements by the participating governments. In particular, it is shown that retaliation is a necessary feature of any efficient equilibrium.We argue that retaliation would not be necessary if governments could resort to international transfers or export subsidies to compensate for terms-of-trade externalities. Within the current world trading system, though, in which transfers are seldom observed whereas export subsidies are prohibited, the use of the remaining trade instruments in a retaliatory fashion might be optimal. The model is used to interpret the retaliatory use of antidumping observed in the last decades, and the proliferation of these measures relative to other trade remedies.