Life after school: How science and technology teachers construe capability

Science and technology teachers create microcosms of the world beyond school as responses to perceived student needs. The focus of these microcosms for both science and technology classrooms was less of a concern for work preparation than for the development of social and intellectual habits. All of the teachers have strong views of the virtues of civil daily life and what it might take for their students to live the good life. The practical capability the teachers want their students to have transcends the instrumental to become moral.     

Using dead reckoning in economic projections

Economics is an inexact science, measurement of basic data is at best approximate, and most interesting relationships change relatively rapidly in developing countries. Key variables determining economic prospects are often impossible to include into models. Models and their mathematical algorithms however are deceptively precise, which often complicates the process of constructing and using economic projection models in developing countries.This paper will examine those macro models intended for operational policy purposes and how they are used. These models try to be analytically good and have sufficient plausibility to influence policy. Thus, a great deal of judgment is required in constructing, using, and interpreting projection models in developing countries: the “dead reckoning” element.     

Nurse shortage or nursing shortage: have we missed the real problem?

Many strategies have been used to solve the nurse shortage. The shortage of nurses has in many ways alerted us to the need to provide safe and efficient care using the latest technology. Nursing needs to adopt, refine, and use this technology so the impact of the nursing shortage is just another statistic and not a disruptive and costly threat to the public.     

Asymmetric auctions with resale: An experimental study

We study auctions with resale based on Hafalir and Krishna's (2008) [6] model. As predicted, weak bidders bid more with resale than without, so that average auction prices tend to increase. When the equilibrium calls for weak types to bid higher than their values with resale they do, but not nearly as much as the theory predicts. In other treatments outcomes are much closer to the risk neutral Nash model's predictions. Bid distributions for weak and strong types are more similar with resale than without, in line with the theory.     

OPTIMAL RULES FOR PATENT RACES*

There are two important rules to patent races: minimal accomplishment necessary to receive the patent and the allocation of the innovation benefits. We study the optimal combination of these rules. A planner, who cannot distinguish between competing firms in a multistage innovation race, chooses the patent rules by maximizing either consumer or social surplus. We show that efficiency cost of prizes is a key consideration. Races are undesirable only when efficiency costs are low, firms are similar, and social surplus is maximized. Otherwise, the optimal policy involves a race of nontrivial duration to spur innovation and filter out inferior innovators.     

Mankind at the Starting Point

The most striking feature of the current economic situation in Spain is the huge unemployment rate, above 25 percent. From an orthodox perspective, we suggest that this unemployment is the result of a highly inflexible labor market, which needs to be reformed by introducing flexibility measures. The paper argues, however, that labor market reforms introduced since the early 1980s, allowing an excessive use of temporary employment contracts, have had perverse effects on the Spanish economy. They have affected negatively not only aggregate demand and supply, but also income distribution. The emergence of these market reforms helps explain the current rate of unemployment as well as the deep impact of the global financial crisis on overall Spanish economic activity.     

Exploring the impact of economic integration agreements through extreme bounds analysis

This article provides an empirical strategy guided by the data to estimate the effects of Economic Integration Agreements (EIAs) on trade flows and their transitional dynamics. The strategy uses Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA) to guide the choice of lags and leads in the effects without researchers' discretion involved. We show that arbitrarily selected year intervals and starting year can result in non-robust estimates of transitional dynamics of the effects of EIAs on trade flows. The empirical strategy follows two steps: EBA first sifts lags and leads of EIAs robustly related to trade flows from candidates, then these are included in the gravity equation to estimate the effects of EIAs on trade. We find that various lags and leads are robustly and positively related to trade flows, and the lag and lead structure depends on the level of integration. Our results show that EIAs have a long-term effect of 63% on trade flows. Under the richer lag and lead structure, deep-integration agreements beyond the level of free trade agreements have a much higher impact on trade flows than free trade agreements do (132% vs 31%). The estimates of effects of EIAs obtained from EBA-based estimation have a smaller contemporaneous effect and larger phased-in effects compared to previous studies relying on the subjective choices of year intervals while similar results are observed with the decomposed EIAs.     

THE EFFECTS OF LOTTO GAME CHANGES AND LARGE JACKPOTS ON INCOME ELASTICITIES AND SALES

Using daily lottery data from Washington State by zip code from January 2011 through mid‐March 2016, we estimate that Powerball income elasticities range from ?0.16 to 0.16 as the Powerball jackpot increases from its minimum to $1.5 billion, while Mega Millions income elasticities range from ?0.08 to 0.03 as the Mega Millions jackpot increases from its minimum to $640 million. Controlling for jackpot size, each of three major game changes during this time period has a significant effect on own‐game and cross‐game sales. Despite these significant game changes, however, these lotto games are a highly regressive source of revenue for Washington State. (JEL H22, H71, L83)