The effect of fertility on labour force participation: The Spanish evidence

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to estimate the effect of fertility on the decision of labour force participation of married females in Spain, allowing for the existence of unobserved characteristics that affect both fertility and participation. We use a pooling of five waves of the European Household Panel for Spain (1994–1998). Results indicate that not taking into account the unobserved characteristics that affect both variables imposes on average a strong downward bias on the true effect of fertility on participation. This bias is especially strong for highly educated females. We are grateful to Raquel Carrasco and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. Financial support from Gobierno Vasco (PI-1999-160)), Ministry of Education and Science (BE2000-1394), Instituto de la Mujer and Universidad del País Vasco (UPV 00035.321-13511/2001) is gratefully acknowledged.     

The impact of product diversification strategy on the corporate performance of large Spanish firms

We analyze the impact of product diversification on performance. This topic has been discussed in the literature, and there is no consensus so far as to the significance or the direction of the impact. Performance is measured using Tobin's q for a sample of 103 large, non-financial Spanish firms (1992–1995). Diversification is measured by means of a categorical variable, as suggested by Varadarajan. The principal results indicate that the firms with intermediate levels of product diversification have the highest performance, while the firms with low and high levels of diversification show significantly lower performance, which performance is not significantly different between them.     

Economic mechanisms for environmental protection: Business versus market transaction costs

This study presents theoretical arguments and evidence that attempt to show the contribution of economic mechanisms typical of a business for resolving problems of environmental protection. Firstly, a brief synopsis is given of the classic solutions that environmental economics proposes for correcting environmental externalities. Next, the benefit of expanding these two mechanisms is discussed so that they include those intermediate mechanisms for which it is not possible to clearly establish if they are developed within the domain of the market or the business. The study's focus resides in the fact that the explicit expansion of the range of solutions proposed from a macroeconomic point of view establishes a connecting point between environmental economics and business economics, an area in which academic attention to environmental matters has been significantly less. The present work forms part of research project SEC2002-00835, financed by MCYT-FEDER.     

Delegation and polarization of platforms in political competition

Summary. We consider a model of political competition among two ideological parties who are uncertain about the distribution of voters. The distinguishing feature of the model is that parties can delegate electoral decisions to candidates by nomination. It is shown that if the credible platform commitments of the candidates is feasible, then at least one of the parties nominates in equilibrium to a candidate who has an ideology that is more radical than the delegating party's ideology. In a variety of circumstances, this, in turn, yields a polarization of equilibrium policy choices of the candidates. It is thus argued formally here that strategic nomination of the candidates may well be one of the major reasons behind the well documented observation that the platforms associated with the political parties in two-party democracies are often surprisingly polarized. Received: January 10, 2002; revised version: May 8, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We thank Alberto Alesina, Levent Ko?kesen, Antonio Merlo, Ronny Razin, Vijay Krishna, Alessandro Lizzeri, and seminar participants at Alicante, Columbia, Copenhagen, and NYU for helpful comments. We also thank an anonymous referee for its useful suggestions. A good fraction of this research was conducted while Ok was a visitor in the Department of Economics at University of Alicante; he thanks for the kind hospitality of this institution. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education through grant CICYT BEC2001-0535 (Faulí-Oller) and BEC2001-0980 (Ortu?o-Ortín). Correspondence to:I. Ortu?o-Ortin     

Self-enforcing international environmental agreements with a stock pollutant

In this paper the stability of an International Environmental Agreement (IEA) among N identical countries that emit a pollutant are studied using a two-stage game. In the first stage each country decides noncooperatively whether or not to join an IEA, and in the second stage signatories jointly against nonsignatories determine their emissions in a dynamic setting defined in continuous time. A numerical simulation shows that a bilateral coalition is the unique self-enforcing IEA independently of the gains coming from cooperation and the kind of strategies played by the agents (open-loop or feedback strategies). We have also studied the effects of a minimum participation clause finding that for this case a self-enforcing IEA just consists of the number of countries established in the clause.JEL Classification: C73, D62, Q28 Corresponding author : Santiago J. RubioThis paper is based on chapter four of Begoña Casinos Ph. Dissertation. Financial support from the Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under grant BEC2000-1432 and Fundación BBVAis gratefully acknowledged. We also appreciate the helpful comments of three anonymous referees, whose suggestions improved the paper. Regarding any remaining inadequacies, the usual caveat applies.     

北京市下岗职工的再就业分析

该文利用独自收集到的有关北京市下岗职工的样本数据,分析了影响下岗职工失业持续时间的原因,探讨了影响下岗职工再就业前后收入变化的原因.通过分析得出以下主要结论:第一,下岗政策虽然在一定程度上促进了劳动力市场的形成,但随着下岗职工失业持续时间的延长,下岗政策已成为阻碍劳动力市场化的因素,同时也妨碍了市场经济体制下社会失业保障体制的建立和完善.第二,为了使更多的有在传统体制下工作经历的下岗职工,尤其是大量从事过企业管理工作的下岗职工尽快地实现再就业,不仅需要对他们进行各种技能的培训,而且更需要对他们进行如何适应新的经济环境的再教育.第三,"下岗"不仅是中国经济体制转型过程中的一个特殊时期的政策,实际上也是结构性失业在中国特有经济体制中表现出来的一种特有的现象.对于这种由于产业结构变化带来的失业问题,政府有必要制定更多的积极性的失业政策.     

西方融资担保理论综述

西方融资担保理论经过20多年的迅速发展，已经成为微观金融领域最活跃、最成功的重要分支之一。但国内对这一理论仍比较陌生，有价值的研究还很少。但随着中国利率市场化改革步伐的加快及利率竞争的日益加剧，担保作为最重要的非利率因素，势必将成为金融机构之间竞争的另一重要要素。为此，本文围绕担保的经济功能和意义，从公司治理、债务契约和宏观经济等视角系统介绍了融资担保理论的主要进展情况，最后对这一理论的前沿问题及在中国的借鉴与应用进行了简要评述。     

韩国游客来华旅游市场拓展战略研究

自1992年中韩建交以来，来华旅游的韩国游客数量保持快速、稳定的增长。本文针对韩国游客来华旅游市场存在问题，提出未来应改善邮电通讯、交通、餐饮、购物和宣传方式等对策。     

On wage- and profit-led demand regimes: learning from the evidence

Abstract

This paper contributes to the empirical research around the “wage-led” or “profit-led” demand regimes. It first reviews how Kalecki, and then Steindl, approached the relationship between economic growth and income distribution. Then, empirical analysis carried out under the probabilistic approach to econometric modeling shows statistical evidence, estimated through cointegration analysis, that in the long run, in three very open economies—Mexico, France, and Korea—the wage share is positively associated with demand and output. It finally discusses the macroeconomic dilemma that almost all countries have to face, i.e., a positive effect of a high-wage policy on demand and employment may diverge from a negative effect on output compatible with external equilibrium.     

风险承担、风险缓冲与管理理念——关于信托公司风险管理的思考

由于信托制度的独特设计,信托公司或直接或间接均要承担信托财产损失风险,从近期来看,信托公司应构建以资本金为核心的风险缓冲机制。从长期来看,引入业绩评价基准,进行相对业绩评价是信托公司风险缓冲的必然选择。信托公司在风险管理时应树立两个理念,一是要将风险管理列为企业管理活动的核心,二是要认识到风险管理是一项长期性的工作,不能寄希望“毕其功于一役”。