Testing structural equation models: the impact of error variances in the data generating process

Yet another paper on fit measures? To our knowledge, very few papers discuss how fit measures are affected by error variance in the Data Generating Process (DGP). The present paper deals with this. Based upon an extensive simulation study, this paper shows that the effects of increased error variance differ significantly for various fit measures. In addition to error variance the effects depend on sample size and severity of misspecification. The findings confirm the general notion that good fit as measured by the chi-square, RMSEA and GFI etc. does not necessarily mean that the model is correctly specified and reliable. One finding is that the chi square test may give support to misspecified models in situations with a high level of error variance in the DGP, for small sample sizes. Another finding is that the chi-square test looses power also for large sample sizes when the model is negligible misspecified. Other results include incremental fit indices as NFI and RFI which prove to be more informative indicators under these circumstances. At the end of the paper we formulate some guidelines for use of different fit measures.     

Fortgesetzter Aufschwung bei weltwirtschaftlichen Risiken

Der konjunkturelle Aufschwung setzt sich weltweit und auch in Deutschland fort. Wie hat sich die Immobilienkrise in den USA ausgewirkt? Welche Zins- und welche Rohstoffpreisentwicklung wird erwartet? Mit welchen Wachstumsraten wird in Deutschland gerechnet und welche Effekte hatte die Mehrwertsteuererh?hung? Wie wird sich die Situation auf dem Arbeitsmarkt entwickeln?     

Konjunkturschlaglicht: Geldpolitik im Dilemma

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Environmental impact assessment of urban land use transitions—A context-sensitive approach

Land consumption due to residential development, economic growth and transportation belongs to the most serious environmental pressures on landscapes worldwide, in particular in urbanised areas. Accordingly, the aim of containing the development of land is rated increasingly high on the agenda of environmental policy, at least in densely populated countries such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands or the UK. As a result, different strategies and instruments to prevent excessive land consumption are being discussed. However, many of these strategies and instruments adopt a rather general approach, while it seems more effective to define the particular areas where the goal of reducing land consumption is to be pursued. Such an approach must draw on information about how detrimental specific land use transitions are with regard to, for instance, the functionality of soils, water balance or habitat quality at specific locations. This paper introduces a conceptual framework for the impact assessment of land use transition in urban areas which highlights how such information can be acquired. This framework includes the differentiation of two levels of impact assessment: the level of the single land unit and the context level which takes into account regional and aggregated impacts of land use transition bound to the spatial context. The conceptual framework provides a basis to disaggregate (supra-)national policy targets regarding land use, to scale them down to the regional level, and thus to clarify the spatially explicit implications of land use policies.     

Who trades water allocations? Evidence of the characteristics of early adopters in the Goulburn–Murray Irrigation District,Australia 1998–1999**

This article applies a model of innovation to analyze the characteristics of irrigators within the Goulburn–Murray Irrigation District in Australia and examines the efficiency of the early water market in the late 1990s. Using multinominal and binary logit analyses we identify the factors associated with irrigators who sold or bought water allocations during 1998–1999 and irrigators who at that time had never participated in any kind of water trading. Contrary to expectations we find that early adopters of water trading were older farmers with low farm productivity, but that in line with theory they had higher levels of education, had spent less time farming, had larger irrigated area, farm operating surplus and farm assets, owned farms that were more intensively farmed, and were more progressive in their planning. There was only weak evidence to suggest that water moved from lower value uses to higher value uses, suggesting the water allocation market had limited efficiency in its’ initial years.     

Intergenerational risk sharing and fiscal policy

Risk-sharing implications of alternative fiscal policies are compared in a stochastic production economy with overlapping generations. Ex ante efficiency is shown to be achievable with optimal transfers, regardless of distributional concerns. For CRRA preferences, stylized real-world policies (notably safe debt and safe pensions) are found inefficient in the direction of imposing not enough productivity risk on retirees and too much on future generations. Safe transfers can be rationalized as efficient if preferences display age-increasing risk aversion, such as habit formation. The ubiquity of safe transfers suggests that governments treat the young as more risk tolerant than older cohorts.