Fiscal harmonization in the European Union with public inputs

Fiscal harmonization among the European Union member states is a goal involving major difficulties for its implementation. Each country faces a particular trade-off between fiscal revenues generated by taxation and the productive efficiency loss induced by their respective tax code. This paper provides a quantitative analysis of these trade-offs for a number of the European Union (EU-15) member states using a dynamic general equilibrium model with public inputs. Calibration of the model for the EU-15 member states provides the following results: i) the maximum tax revenue level is relatively far from the current tax levels for most countries; ii) the cases of Sweden, Denmark and Finland are anomalous, as productive efficiency can be gained by lowering tax rates without affecting fiscal revenues; iii) in general, countries would obtain efficiency gains without changing fiscal revenues by reducing the capital tax and increasing the labor tax; and iv) capital tax harmonization to the average capital tax rate can be done with quite small changes in both fiscal revenues and output for most countries.     

An application of co-word analysis and bibliometric maps for detecting the most highlighting themes in the consumer behaviour research from a longitudinal perspective

This article presents an application of a bibliometric and visual study of the research carried out on a social science subfield, concretely the consumer behaviour research (CBR), from a longitudinal perspective (period 1966–2008). The study combines performance analysis and science mapping for detecting and visualizing conceptual subdomains. Quantitative and qualitative measures are used in order to identify the most prominent themes. Quantitative data are used to put together very related concepts (themes or clusters of topics), while qualitative indicators (as those based on citations) are used to measure the quality and/or impact of the detected themes. The study also uses bibliometric maps to show in a visual way the associations between the main concepts treated by the CBR community. The maps provide insight into the structure of the CBR, visualize the division of the field into several subfields, and indicate the relationships between these subfields. Co-word analysis is the bibliometric technique used to identify the main themes. All this allows us to quantify and visualize the thematic evolution of the CBR. It also helps to both experts and novices to understand the current state of the art of the CBR and to predict where future research could lead.     

A qualitative approach to the challenges for women in management: are they really starting in the 21st century?

Traditionally, the role of women in business responsibility jobs has provided extensive and much discussed issues. Almost 20?years ago research on WIB was very rich. Some discussions surrounding women in business included, for instance: learning about their situation at work, their strong and weak management capabilities and possible setbacks to their promotion and consolidation in positions of responsibility. In any case, it did seem that conciliation between family and work lives, in general, was a setback for most women. By the beginning of 21st century the work of Leonard (Women??s Stud Int Forum 24:67?C78, 2001) analyzed the state-of-the-art, concluding that not much had changed in terms of the challenges faced by women. Therefore, it may seem appropriate, to readdress the situation for women in management as this new century reaches its first decade. This paper takes as a reference the context of an occidental and developed country such as Spain. We develop a multi-case study which allows us to (i) analyze the opinion of a group of women and men who work in high and intermediate management positions, (ii) defend the suitability to overcome the differences between men and women and (iii) admit the consideration of different female profiles. In such cases, firms may take several advantages stemming from both gender and personal characteristics.     

Union games: technological unemployment

Summary. Given a production economy, we define union games by considering strategic behavior of the suppliers of factors. We refer to the Nash equilibria of this game as union equilibria. We analyze situations where the unemployment of factors is supported as a union equilibrium. The degree of unemployment depends on technological conditions. This allows us to model a source of unemployment which differs from the usual sources provided in the literature. We state a limit result that demonstrates that, as the market power of unions decreases, the corresponding sequence of union equilibria converges to the Walrasian equilibrium, that is, to full employment of factors. We also provide some examples that illustrate the main results.Received: 21 October 2004, Revised: 14 December 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D51, C72. Correspondence to: Emma Moreno-GarcíaE. Moreno acknowledges financial support from the Research Grant BEC2000-1388-C04-01 (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and FEDER). G. Fernández de Córdoba and E. Moreno acknowledge financial support from the Research Grant SA091/02 from Junta de Castilla y León. We are indebted to C. Alós-Ferrer, C. Pita, D. Anisi, J. A. Ortega, F. Jimeno, J. P. Torres-Martínez, M. Steinert and C. Hervés for helpful comments and insights. We are particularly grateful to T. Kehoe and an anonymous referee for suggestions that improved this paper.     

Dominance Statistics: A Simulation Study on the d Statistic

Quality &; Quantity - Cliff (1993) has proposed the use of a measure of effect size alternative to traditionalmean differences: δ {? = Pr(xi1 &;gt; xj2) - Pr(xi1 &;lt; xj2)}which,...     

Stock market volatility forecasting: Do we need high-frequency data?

The general consensus in the volatility forecasting literature is that high-frequency volatility models outperform low-frequency volatility models. However, such a conclusion is reached when low-frequency volatility models are estimated from daily returns. Instead, we study this question considering daily, low-frequency volatility estimators based on open, high, low, and close daily prices. Our data sample consists of 18 stock market indices. We find that high-frequency volatility models tend to outperform low-frequency volatility models only for short-term forecasts. As the forecast horizon increases (up to one month), the difference in forecast accuracy becomes statistically indistinguishable for most market indices. To evaluate the practical implications of our results, we study a simple asset allocation problem. The results reveal that asset allocation based on high-frequency volatility model forecasts does not outperform asset allocation based on low-frequency volatility model forecasts.     

ROSA,ROSAE, ROSIS: modelling a regional open sectoral innovation system

The literature on territorial innovation modes has identified the development of a diverse set of innovation systems at multiple levels of analysis. However, there are certain gaps that do not allow their adaptation to the particularities of certain territories. Despite the multiple concepts related to innovation systems approach, the state of the art does not yet provide a useful analytical approach for a deep and comprehensive characterization of territories with a high sectoral and technological specialization. This paper introduces an analytical framework based on a regional open and sectoral innovation system, which is qualitatively tested in the Durango County (Spain). The aim of this paper is to introduce a subtype of innovation system that meets the requirements and needs of a located micro-territory with a high level of sectoral specialization.     

On the generic impossibility of truthful behavior: A simple approach

Summary We provide an elementary proof showing how in economies with an arbitrary number of agents an arbitrary number of public goods and utility functions quasi-linear in money, any efficient and individually rational mechanism is not strategy-proof for any economy satisfying a mild regularity requirement.The authors wish to thank William Thomson, Salvadpr Barberá, José Angel Silva and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. The remaining errors are our exclusive responsibility. Financial support from DGICYT under project PB 91-0756 and the Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas is gratefully acknowledged.     

Asymptotic properties of MLE and UMVUE in one-parameter truncated distributions

Consider one-parameter families of continuous distributions whose range depend on an unknown parameter. In case a single sufficient and complete statistic exists, we obtain the limiting distributions of MLE and UMVUE. Both distributions are different transformations of a standard exponential variable.     

Bivariate and multivariate scaled association models. An application to homogamy of social origin and education in Hungary between 1930 and 1979

In this article we compare bivariate and multivariate models for homogamy of social origin and education to test whether bivariate models of homogamy lead to biased results. We use data on Hungarian couples married between 1930 and 1979 and loglinear models of scaled association. The results indicate some differences between bivariate and multivariate analyses. At each point of time bivariate models overestimate homogamy, both with respect to education and social origin. However, results on trends in time do not differ much between the two analyses. The exception is the period 1940–1959, in which bivariate analysis showed decreasing educational homogamy, and multivariate analysis showed an increasing trend. The latter finding can be explained by declining homogamy of social origin, as well as the weaker reproduction and cross-effects in this period.