Contributions of state to regional income dispersion

This paper examines proportionate contributions of states to total income dispersion among the states within the regions in the United States from 1929 to 1997. The criterion for equitable distribution is that each state receices a share of the total population comparable to its share of income. The coefficient of variation for each region on a yearly basis is employed. The results provide evidence for minor differences in contribution to regional income dispersion between component states.     

Forecasting tourist arrivals using origin country macroeconomics

This study utilizes both disaggregated data and macroeconomic indicators in order to examine the importance of the macroeconomic environment of origin countries for analysing destinations’ tourist arrivals. In particular, it is the first study to present strong empirical evidence that both of these features in tandem provide statistically significant information of tourist arrivals in Greece. The forecasting exercises presented in our analysis show that macroeconomic indicators conducive to better forecasts are mainly origin country-specific, thus highlighting the importance of considering the apparent sharp national contrasts among origin countries when investigating domestic tourist arrivals. Given the extent of the dependency of the Greek economy on tourism income and also the perishable nature of the tourist product itself, results have important implications for policymakers in Greece.     

Regulation and investment in the U.S. telecommunications industry

Reversing a two-decade deregulatory trend of telecommunications services, in 2010 U.S. regulators embarked on an aggressive regulatory agenda including, but not limited to, the regulation of high-speed Internet services under the auspices of net neutrality using utility-style regulations codified in the 1930s. Firms, regulators, and analysts feared a reduction in capital spending, contradicting established policy goals of expanding Internet availability and adoption. In this article, a difference-in-differences regression model augmented with randomization inference is applied to government data on capital spending in telecommunications. Large negative effects on investment are found. The estimated effects are robust across changes in estimation periods and model specifications, and multiple tests of the model’s assumptions lend credibility to the findings.     

Economic Growth with Institutional Saving and Investment

This article develops a two-sector growth model in which institutional investors play a significant role. A necessary and sufficient condition is established under which these investors own the entire capital stock in the long run. The dependence of the long-run growth rate on the behaviour of such investors and the effects of a productivity increase are analysed.     

Political Economy of Agricultural Reform in Japan under Abe's Administration

As a symbol of regulations as “solid as bedrock,” Japanese agriculture is a key target for structural reform under the Abe administration's “Abenomics” growth strategy. Its reform proposals have encompassed long‐standing rice production regulations, agricultural organizations, including the agricultural cooperatives (JA), and the controlled system of milk distribution. The government also seeks to promote agricultural exports and farmers’ participation in processing and distributing agricultural products. Led by the Prime Minister's Office, and taking advantage of changes in the political environment of agriculture that have weakened the political power of farmers and JA, the government has launched a reform offensive with variable impact: progress has been made in some areas (e.g. JA reform) but little change in others (such as rice production adjustment). The most significant challenge lies ahead in reforming the farmland system, which is yet to be tackled.     

Revisiting carbon Kuznets curves with endogenous breaks modeling: evidence of decoupling and saturation (but few inverted-Us) for individual OECD countries

This paper tests for a carbon Kuznets curve (CKC) by examining the carbon emissions per capita–GDP per capita relationship individually, for 21 OECD countries over 1870–2010 using a reduced-form, linear model that allows for multiple endogenously determined breaks. This approach addresses several important econometric and modeling issues, e.g., (1) it is highly flexible and can approximate complicated nonlinear relationships without presuming a priori any particular relationship; (2) it avoids the nonlinear transformations of potentially nonstationary income. For 10 of 14 countries that were ultimately estimated, the uncovered emission–income relationship was either (1) decoupling—where income no longer affected emissions in a statistically significant way, (2) saturation—where the emissions elasticity of income is declining, less than proportional, but still positive, or (3) no transition—where the emissions elasticity of income is (or very near) unity. For only four countries did the emissions–income relationship become negative—i.e., a CKC. In concert with previous work, we conclude that the finding of a CKC is country-specific and that the shared timing among countries is important in income-environment transitions.     

States and Caliphates

ABSTRACT

At the end of June 2014, Abu Baqr al-Baghdadi, the leader of what was to become Da’ish or the Islamic State, announced at the main mosque in Mosul the creation of an ‘Islamic caliphate’ with himself as caliph. With its creation, he announced, the division of the Middle East, forced upon the region by the 1916 Sykes–Picot agreement, was ended, to be replaced by a territorially limitless caliphate for all Muslims. Despite the obvious political rhetoric that the announcement involved, al-Baghdadi’s aspirations raised interesting questions of historical and legal interpretation. Quite apart from what the Sykes–Picot agreement actually established, to what extent, for instance, is there an innate contradiction between visions of state and boundary in international law and the Islamic concept of the caliphate? How have those concepts evolved over the past century and how inimical are contemporary views of ‘the caliphate’ to established principles of territorial delimitation? And, to what extent do the actual territorial delimitations of Middle Eastern states reflect pre-colonial patterns of spatial division rather than simply the consequences of colonial imposition? How distinct, in short, are the apparently opposed concepts of state and caliphate in the contemporary world? This article will attempt to show that the points of similarity between them are probably far greater than is usually recognised.     

The (S,s) Policy is an Optimal Trading Strategy in a Class of Commodity Price Speculation Problems

This paper introduces a model of commodity price speculation and proves that the optimal trading strategy is of the (S,s) form when a no expected loss condition holds. A strong form of this condition is that the retail price charged to consumers at time t exceeds the expected wholesale price of the commodity at time t+1, i.e. , where β ∈(0,1) is the speculator’s discount factor. We are extremely grateful to Herbert Scarf for pointing out an important error in a previous draft of this paper and for suggesting the key argument in a revised proof that fixed the problem. We also benefited from helpful feedback from an anonymous referee, William Brainard, Zvi Eckstein, participants of seminars at Yale, the Operations Research Center at MIT, and the Econometric Society Winter School at the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi.     

FISCAL INDULGENCE IN CENTRAL EUROPE: LOSS OF THE EXTERNAL ANCHOR?

In recent years, fiscal performance in Central Europe has steadily deteriorated, in contrast to the improvement in the Baltics. This paper explores the determinants of such differences among countries on the path to European Union (EU) accession. Regression estimates suggest that economic and institutional fundamentals do not provide a full explanation. An alternative explanation lies in the political economy of the accession process, and a game‐theoretic model illustrates why a country with a stronger bargaining position might have an incentive to deviate from convergence to the Maastricht criteria. The model generates alternative fiscal policy regimes – allowing for regime shifts – depending on country characteristics and EU policies.