Mortality transition and differential incentives for early retirement

Many studies specify human mortality patterns parametrically, with a parameter change affecting mortality rates at different ages simultaneously. Motivated by the stylized fact that a mortality decline affects primarily younger people in the early phase of mortality transition but mainly older people in the later phase, we study how a mortality change at an arbitrary age affects optimal retirement age. Using the Volterra derivative for a functional, we show that mortality reductions at older ages delay retirement unambiguously, but that mortality reductions at younger ages may lead to earlier retirement due to a substantial increase in the individual?s expected lifetime human wealth.     

Supporter Influence on Club Governance in a Sports League; a “Utility Maximization” Model

The article formalizes a seminal suggestion of Sloane ( 1971 ), studying a sports league in which club objectives are multi‐argument utility functions defined over profits, win percentages and fan (=supporter) welfare, thus combining the three objectives that have been addressed separately in previous models. Particular focus is on the consequences of increasing the utility weight on fan welfare, to capture the recent increasing supporter involvement in club governance in UK football. Positive consequences are unambiguously higher attendances, with more nuanced affects on ticket prices and player expenditure. A normative consequence is that positive profits for club owners indicate social sub‐optimality.     

A Note on Perry's Reconsideration of Macroeconomic Evidence from New Zealand

Perry in this journal draws on two new sources to challenge claims by Dalziel (2002) and Peetz (2005) about relatively weak labour productivity growth in New Zealand after the introduction of its Employment Contracts Act (ECA) in 1991. While new data raise further research questions, they do not overturn our original conclusions. Whether the ECA contributed to higher labour input growth compared with Australia, it failed to improve labour productivity growth.     

Stock return, risk, and legal environment around the world

This paper investigates how the legal environment in a country influences performance and risk of stock across countries at different developmental stages and of various rules of jurisdiction. Using data of 4916 stocks from 37 countries, our empirical findings confirm that equities in countries with English common law origin have higher risk premiums than those in civil law countries, particularly for countries of the French/Spanish code. The indicators representing high efficiency in law system, low corruption, strong legal protection of investors' rights, and reliable political environment are associated with low risk and high performance. The various elements of legal procedural formalism, however, have differing effects on volatility and return.     

Entrepreneurship,novel combinations,capital regrouping,and the structure-agency relationship: an introduction to the special issue on innovation and Austrian economics

This introduction outlines some key aspects of an Austrian perspective on innovation, which is viewed as an ongoing, dynamic process in which entrepreneurs combine heterogeneous capital resources in new ways order to develop and deploy new technologies, products, and methods of business organisation. It goes on to introduce the contributions to this special issue on Austrian economics and innovation.

     

The transmission of partner mental health to individual life satisfaction: Estimates from a longitudinal household survey

This paper investigates the relationship between partner's mental health and individual life satisfaction, using panel data and calculating the monetary valuation of mental illness. Accounting for measurement error and endogeneity of income, partners' mental health has a significant association with individual well-being. The additional income needed to compensate someone living with a partner with a mental condition is substantial (ranges between USD 33,000 and USD 50,000). Further, individuals do not show adaptation to partners' mental illness. The results have implications for policy-makers wishing to value the effects of policies that aim to impact on mental health and levels of well-being.     

The politics of experimentation: Political competition and randomized controlled trials

This paper provides an analysis of how political factors affect the incidence of the evaluation of public policies, with a focus on Randomized Control Trial (RCT) experiments in international development. We argue that political environments where incumbents face greater electoral competition and smaller ruling margins are more likely to host RCT experiments. Using various data sources for the incidence of RCTs both at the cross-country level and at the sub-national level in India, we find that RCTs are more likely to occur in politically competitive jurisdictions. We employ fixed effects regressions using various estimators and an instrumental variable strategy that exploits an electoral reform in India which limited the entry of independent candidates and exogenously affected the degree of electoral competition in state-level politics. The effect seems concentrated on RCTs that have the government as a partner, suggesting that political competition has an important demand-side effect on the incidence of RCTs.     

Impact on Firm Liquidity Arising from Outsourcing Decisions as Evidenced by Off-Balance-Sheet Disclosures

International Advances in Economic Research - Based on transaction-cost and resource-based theories (and other approaches), there is an extensive literature on the range of factors that are viewed...     

Does sport make you happy? An analysis of the well‐being derived from sports participation

This paper examines the impact of sports participation upon the subjective well‐being of individuals. Encouraging participation in sports activity is now an important public policy issue, as it is argued that there are benefits in terms of health and well‐being to individuals as well as to society through externalities. Controlling for personal and socio‐demographic characteristics affecting well‐being, this paper examines if participation in, and the frequency and duration of, 67 sports activities affects well‐being. The form in which sports participation takes place is also investigated by examining if social‐interaction sports produce more well‐being. This paper demonstrates that sports participation has a positive affect upon the subjective well‐being of the population and, moreover, estimates its monetary value. The effects are larger if one allows for social interactions.