Birth,death and public good provision

We explore the effect of fixed versus dynamic group membership on public good provision. In a novel experimental design, we modify the traditional voluntary contribution mechanism (VCM) by periodically replacing old members of a group with new members over time. Under this dynamic, overlapping generations matching protocol we find that average contributions experience significantly less decay over time relative to a traditional VCM environment with fixed group membership and a common termination date. These findings suggest that the traditional pattern of contribution and decay seen in many public goods experiments may not accurately reflect behavior in groups with changing membership, as is the case in many real-world environments.     

Learning CAD at university through summaries of the rules of design intent

The ease with which 3D CAD models may be modified and reused are two key aspects that improve the design-intent variable and that can significantly shorten the development timelines of a product. A set of rules are gathered from various authors that take different 3D modelling strategies into account. These rules are then applied to CAD strategic-knowledge learning methodology and included in 3D CAD modelling exercises for students following the degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Burgos (Spain). The experiment was conducted in two groups with a total of 75 students. The design-intent rules were introduced in the different exercises that the teacher explained in both the theoretical and the practical classes. In addition, a summary of the different design rules in each of the practical exercises was explained in the practical classes in only one of the groups. The experimental results, reported in this paper, tested the influence of these summaries on overall improvements in 3D modelling and on the design-intent variable, which is subdivided into four sections: skeleton, structures, alterations and constraints. The use of the summaries of the design intent rules led to statistically significant improvements in 3D modelling in the experimental group, in comparison with the group of students to whom those summaries were not explained.     

Does European development have Roman roots? Evidence from the German Limes

This paper contributes to the understanding of the long-run consequences of Roman rule on economic development. In ancient times, the area of contemporary Germany was divided into a Roman and a non-Roman part. The study uses this division to test whether the formerly Roman part of Germany are more developed than the non-Roman part. This is done using the Limes Germanicus wall as geographical discontinuity in a regression discontinuity design framework. The results indicate that economic development—as measured by luminosity—is indeed significantly and robustly larger in the formerly Roman part of Germany. The study identifies the persistence of the Roman road network until the present as an important factor causing this developmental advantage of the formerly Roman part of Germany both by fostering city growth and by allowing for a denser road network.     

Fueling the buyout machine: fundraising in private equity

This paper analyzes the impact of performance, investment-firm-related, and macroeconomic variables on fundraising activities in private equity (PE). We use a novel, backward-looking approach to link current to preceding funds, which allows for including several parallel predecessor funds in our analysis. We employ logit and tobit models to a global sample of 1463 fundraising events observed between 2000 and 2010 in order to estimate the probability of raising and the volume of follow-on funds. Our results show that the average buyout duration of past transactions has a negative impact, whereas exits via an initial public offering (IPO) and deals without industry-style drift positively affect fundraising activities. Larger, industry-diversified, and independent PE firms exhibit a higher likelihood of fundraising and collect larger amounts.     

Wage Differentials among Ownership Groups and Worker Quality in Vietnamese Manufacturing

Wholly foreign multinational enterprises (WFs), joint-venture multinationals (JVs), state-owned enterprises (SOEs) pay higher wages than domestic private firms in Vietnamese manufacturing. In large samples of medium–large (20+ employees) firms, conditional differentials accounting for worker education and occupation, as well as capital intensity, size, and shares of female workers, were substantially smaller, but positive and significant. Wage levels and differentials varied substantially among industries. Conditional differentials remained positive and significant for WFs and JVs in most of the 11 industries examined, but estimates of SOE-private differentials were insignificant in most industries. Robustness checks using 2007 data yielded similar results.     

Testing for the bivariate Poisson distribution

This paper studies goodness-of-fit tests for the bivariate Poisson distribution. Specifically, we propose and study several Cramér–von Mises type tests based on the empirical probability generating function. They are consistent against fixed alternatives for adequate choices of the weight function involved in their definition. They are also able to detect local alternatives converging to the null at a certain rate. The bootstrap can be used to consistently estimate the null distribution of the test statistics. A simulation study investigates the goodness of the bootstrap approximation and compares their powers for finite sample sizes. Extensions for testing goodness-of-fit for the multivariate Poisson distribution are also discussed.     

Russian enterprises at the end of 2016: Reaction to varying ruble exchange rate and the workforce situation

This article represents an analysis of and comments on the results of a regular survey of Russian enterprises operating in the real sector, which was conducted by the Institute of Economic Forecasting, Russian Academy of Sciences. It represents opinions of enterprises, the modern macroeconomic problems of which they believe to be the most acute. This article considers the responses of enterprises regarding how their activities have been affected by the mutual sanctions between Russia and Western countries, as well as by Russia’s WTO accession. We have shown the opinions of enterprises on their interests in the ruble exchange rate. This ref lects the current situation with the workforce at enterprises and gives data on their participation in solving of housing problems faced by their employees. This article contains information on how enterprises rate today’s level of competition with foreign manufacturers on Russian markets.