Sacrifice ratio dispersion within the Euro Zone: what can be learned about implementing a single monetary policy?

This article focuses on the comparison of sacrifice ratios as an indicator for structural dispersion within the euro area over the period 1972–2003. Estimates of the sacrifice ratio, defined as the cumulative output cost arising from permanent inflation reduction, are obtained using structural VAR models. Results from sub‐period analysis as well as 10‐year‐period rolling estimates lead to two main conclusions. First, empirical evidence displays a recent increase in the average sacrifice ratio, which can be linked to the simultaneous decrease in the average inflation rate: this negative relationship between the initial level of inflation and the cost of disinflation can be seen as a justification for the choice of an inflation objective close to 2% for the European Central Bank (ECB) rather than a target of perfect price stability, potentially very damaging. Second, we cannot provide evidence of any reduction in European sacrifice ratio dispersion, which would suggest that the nominal convergence triggered by the Maastricht Treaty did not involve a true reduction of structural differences. It is likely to be a problem in the stance of a single monetary policy, because structural differences imply asymmetric responses of real national economies to the same monetary impulse.     

The psychosocial and financial impact of non-severe hypoglycemic events on people with diabetes: two international surveys

Objectives:

To understand the impact of nocturnal and daytime non-severe hypoglycemic events on healthcare systems, work productivity and quality of life in people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes.

Methods:

People with diabetes who experienced a non-severe hypoglycemic event in the 4 weeks prior to the survey were eligible to participate in a nocturnal and/or daytime hypoglycemia survey. Surveys were conducted in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Mexico and South Africa.

Results:

In total, 300 respondents were included in nocturnal/daytime hypoglycemia surveys (50/participating country/survey). All respondents with type 1 diabetes and 68%/62% (nocturnal/daytime) with type 2 diabetes were on insulin treatment. After an event, 25%/30% (nocturnal/daytime) of respondents decreased their insulin dose and 39%/36% (nocturnal/daytime) contacted a healthcare professional. In the week after an event, respondents performed an average of 5.6/6.4 (nocturnal/daytime) additional blood glucose tests. Almost half of the respondents (44%) reported that the event had a high impact on the quality of their sleep. Among nocturnal survey respondents working for pay, 29% went to work late, 16% left work early and 12% reported missing one or more full work days due to the surveyed event. In addition, 50%/39% (nocturnal/daytime) indicated that the event had a high impact on their fear of future hypoglycemia.

Conclusions:

The findings suggest that nocturnal and daytime non-severe hypoglycemic events have a large financial and psychosocial impact. Diabetes management that minimizes hypoglycemia while maintaining good glycemic control may positively impact upon the psychological wellbeing of people with diabetes, as well as reducing healthcare costs and increasing work productivity.     

Stages of diversification in a neoclassical world

Recent research has documented a U-shaped industrial concentration curve over an economy’s development path. How far can neoclassical trade theory take us in explaining this pattern? We estimate the production side of the Heckscher–Ohlin model using industry data on 44 developed and developing countries for the period 1976–2000. Decomposing the implied changes in industrial concentration over time shows that at least one third of these changes seems to be explained by a Rybczynski effect. This result suggests that capital accumulation led poor countries to diversify their industrial production, while rich countries made their production more concentrated in highly capital-intensive industries.     

ON THE TREATMENT OF TAXES AND GOVERNMENT IN THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

Framed in the context of the ongoing revision of the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA), this note proposes a new presentation of the National Accounts. While it does not require new information, nor difficult calculations, it is suggested to be conceptually clearer and practically simpler. The changes concern the treatment of taxes and government in the national accounts which imply that: (i) GDP, measured at basic price, is now exactly the sum of all value added, which is split in the compensation of employees and an enlarged operating surplus; (ii) the two functions of government are clearly distinguished in a modified sequence of accounts, that is, as producing non-market services up to the allocation of primary income account, and then as redistributing the national income; and (iii) with a conventional allocation of government services and GDP broken down between market GDP and non-market GDP, households remain the only final consumer and the so called question of consumption subsidies is resolved.     

Transnational networking and business performance: Ethnic entrepreneurs in Canada

It is generally acknowledged that transnational networking plays an important role in promoting the performance of ethnic entrepreneurial firms. Yet distinctions between the different types of transnational networking and their effects on business performance have received scant attention in the literature, probably because ethnicity has been considered to be the main actor in the networking–performance relationship. This paper argues that one of the reasons why business performance differs across ethnic entrepreneurial firms is that ethnic entrepreneurs engage in dissimilar types of transnational networking. Analyses of the data generated by 720 ethnic entrepreneurs in Canada revealed that ethnicity, along with human capital and push/pull factors, both of which are part of our conceptual framework, plays a central role in the engagement of different types of transnational networking and that the different types of transnational networking affect business turnover (sales) and business survival (age). Push/pull factors were found to play a marginal role in business performance. These results highlight the competitive market that immigrants and members of ethnic minority groups encounter in the hosting economy and stress the value of transnational networking.     

Information technologies and entrepreneurship

This article shows how the increase of information availability due to new technologies positively affects aggregate entrepreneurship in national economies. We rely on an “occupational choice” model of managerial production, extended to include the managerial use of information, to explain variations in the number of entrepreneurs, and thus of firms, as measured by the aggregate new business creation data. We present evidence that supports such a theory of industrial organization dynamics for a sample of 78 economies over the period 2004–2012 using panel data instrumental variable regressions.     

On the optimality of the full-cost pricing

This article is aimed at defining the full-cost pricing as a leader-follower game in two-tier organizations: (i) the upstream unit fixes the production capacity and uses it as a cost driver to compute the average cost; (ii) the downstream unit operates on the market and chooses the output level on the basis of the average cost. In the Cournot oligopoly case, the full-cost pricing is compared with other pricing rules. There exists a wide range of values of the fixed cost, for which the full-cost pricing dominates any other pricing rules, in terms of gross profit.     

Uses,Abuses and Misuses of Significance Tests in the Scientific Community: Won't the Bayesian Choice be Unavoidable?

The current context of the “significance test controversy” is first briefly discussed. Then experimental studies about the use of null hypothesis significance tests by scientific researchers and applied statisticians are presented. The misuses of these tests are reconsidered as judgmental adjustments revealing researchers’requirements towards statistical inference. Lastly alternative methods are considered. Consequently we automatically ask ourselves “won't the Bayesian choice be unavoidable?”     

Help with solving technological problems in project activities

In France, project activities figure predominantly in technology education. The general idea behind learning based on project activity is to allow the pupil to get involved in the activity in question, with the pupil tackling real situations rather than ones of an abstract nature. But too often, we notice that the pedagogical strategies used by teachers in project activities are not particularly effective from a learning point of view. What must be done in order to render project work in technology teaching genuinely effective? In this article, we make the following suggestion: if specific help, based on the pupil’s level of understanding of the activity relating to technologically based problem solving in project work, is made available by the teacher, then project activity can become much more effective from a learning point of view. By using situations highlighting project activities in the technology teaching domain, we analyse the knowledge used by pupils. We then present the specific help used by the teacher as well as the resulting effects upon student activity. We highlight the fact that if specific help conceived as a result of analysing student activity is put in place, the pupil learns more effectually.