A Long History of FOMC Voting Behavior

We devise and apply a method for estimating monetary policy reaction functions for individual members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve. Our method uses members' votes on the monetary policy directive in FOMC meetings as the key source of data on individual preferences. The analysis provides a ranking by preference for ease for 84 FOMC members who served during the 1966-1996 period.     

Opportunities to improve container barge handling in the port of Rotterdam from a transport network perspective

This paper presents and evaluates an opportunity to improve the competitiveness of container barge transport in the hinterland of Rotterdam through a reorganization of container barge services. This reorganization improves the handling of barges in the port and consists of splitting existing services into a trunk line operation in the hinterland and collection/distribution operations in the seaport. A marginal cost model is used to demonstrate the potential net benefits of these revised services. The main conclusion is that these split services can improve the competitiveness of barge hinterland transport, but the effectiveness depends on several conditions. These conditions are first of all related to the design and organization of collection and distribution transport, but also to the characteristics of the trunk line operation in the hinterland.     

Trade Liberalization and Poverty in Ecuador: A CGE Macro-Microsimulation Analysis

Cross-country analysis of the aggregate growth-poverty link is likely to miss important country-specific detail and possible offsetting forces in the underlying labour market adjustment process. This paper combines a CGE model analysis with a microsimulations approach to analyse the effects of trade liberalization on poverty and income distribution in Ecuador. The CGE model enables us to disentangle the general equilibrium effects of various trade policy scenarios on sector output, employment, factor incomes and household consumption. However, as is typical of CGE models, this analysis only provides distribution results for fairly aggregated groups of workers and a reduced number of representative households. The microsimulations approach adds the full distribution to the analysis and allows simulation of the effects of trade reform on the job status and remuneration of individual workers and thereby on household income distribution and poverty. The macro- microsimulation results indicate that the trade opening in Ecuador induced mild aggregate welfare gains, but rising income inequality due to rising wage differentials between skilled and unskilled workers implies virtually no poverty-reducing effect from trade liberalization.     

Venturing to Succeed

Corporate venturing reached a peak of popularity at the height of the dot–com boom. But that was only the latest in a series of popularity peaks for an idea that has been around for 40 years. In spite of slipping out of corporate fashion, corporate venturing will return once again. The question is whether organisations will have learned the lessons in making the idea work.     

Notes and Communications

Summary The relationship between home ownership of Dutch elderly households and age is strongly negative. Other studies suggest that this age gradient should be attributed to a cohort effect. In this paper, we investigate where those cohort effects come from. We also observe that mortgage ownership among elderly home owners increased considerably during the nineties. Using panel data, we estimate models explaining home and mortgage ownership by age, cohort, and time effects, as well as other factors. Cohort and time effects are modelled explicitly using macro economic and housing market related variables. We find that the level of GDP per capita when the household head was young is the main factor explaining generation effects in home ownership among the elderly. After accounting for cohort effects it also appears that home ownership decreases slightly with age. Mortgage ownership among elderly home owners rose considerably during the nineties due to house price increases and due to financial innovation in the mortgage market. Cohort effects are also important. A supplementary analysis suggests that those cohort effects are due to the fact that the accidental bequest motive is becoming less important. We thank Maarten van Rooij, Konstantinos Tatsiramos, Casper van Ewijk, Wouter Vermeulen, Frederic Vermeulen, Frank de Jong and Marcel Lever for their useful comments     

ELECTION MANIFESTO POLICIES COMPARED

In this Forecast Release we compare the likely outcomes of the economic policies proposed by the three main contenders in the General Election. The results of some Dolicies. such as Labour's import controh and exchannge controls and the Allianie incomes policy, aie particularly dificult to evaluate using a conventional model; even for Conservative policies which are similar to those pursued so far, there remains considerable uncertainty about their consequences in future years. We have therefore prepared two forecasts for each of the three parties. One of these forecasts assumes that their policies are broadly successful, the other assumes they are unsuccessful.     

Research Note: Addressing Tourism Public Policy Issues through Attitude Segmentation of Host Communities

Resident attitudes are important in identifying the impact of tourism within communities and in determining local policy, planning and management responses for the development of tourism. Additionally, tourism policies established are vital for the marketing of cities, regions and countries. This paper examines tourism public policy, with particular reference to the importance of addressing host community interests and involving host communities in public policy decision making. It outlines a segmentation study undertaken on New Zealand residents' views on tourism and how these segments can be applied to tourism policy making.