From sending to host societies: immigration in Greece,Ireland and Spain in the 21st century

In a relatively short period of time, new immigration patterns have changed the geography of immigration of the EU15, bringing three old emigration countries, Ireland, Spain and Greece, to the forefront of the new immigration wave. This article studies the analogies and differences of the recent immigration experience of this group of countries, focusing on the demographic characteristics of the immigrants (origin, sex, gender and education), labour market insertion (wages, labour market segregation and quality of matching) and overall economic performance in terms of poverty rates.     

Health effects on labour market exits and entries

This paper analyses the role of health on exits out of and entries into employment using data from the first twelve waves of the British Household Panel Survey (1991–2002). We use discrete-time duration models to estimate the effect of health on the hazard of becoming non-employed and on the hazard of becoming employed. The results show that general health, measured by a variable that captures health limitations and by a constructed latent health index, affects entries into and exits out of employment; the effects being higher for men than for women. The results are robust to different definitions of employment, and to the exclusion of older workers from the analysis.     

Estimation of Asymmetric Stochastic Volatility Models: Application to Daily Average Prices of Energy Products

Energy supply and demand, and as a consequence energy prices, are likely to represent one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. Commodity markets exhibit increased volatility when there is little or no underutilized supply capability to meet natural fluctuations in demand. In the case of energy markets, the large capital requirements and significant lead times associated with energy production and delivery make them more susceptible to the imbalances in supply capability and demand. Energy price volatility has destructive impact on market agents, and this impact is intensified when the prices exhibit asymmetric volatility. This article pursues two aspects of the issue. First we consider general aspects, especially the asymmetric pattern of volatility of daily returns of different types of energy products. Then, we analyze the behaviour of daily returns by using traditional models of volatility that include AGARCH, TGARCH, EGARCH, and ARSV strategies, as well as a threshold asymmetric autoregressive stochastic volatility (TA-ARSV) model that we propose. The energy products considered in this analysis are probably the most relevant energy products for the economic activity of the nations and the economic relations between countries: Crude Oil (OPEC reference basket and London Brent index), Gasoline, Natural Gas, Butane, and Propane. We use spot prices and the time reference ranges from 1986–1993 to 2009 depending on the product.     

Why Sweden's pension reform was able to be successfully implemented

Governments that do not reform pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems will eventually face a pension crisis. In a democracy, reforms require majority support. The problem is that pension reform requires today's generation to bear the burden to avoid burdening tomorrow's generation. Sweden recently passed pension legislation that specifies a gradual transition from a public defined-benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. Why was Sweden successful in reforming its pension system? We find that a political economy perspective helps to answer this question: there are more winners who would vote in favour of the reform than non-winners who would vote against it. When comparing the net effect (present value of expected benefits minus present value of remaining contributions) of the new and old systems, contributions of the working generation (age < 53) are reduced by more than their expected benefits.     

Inequality of Opportunity in Europe

Using the EU‐SILC database, we estimate and compare the Inequality of Opportunity (IO) of 23 European countries in 2005. IO is estimated as the between‐type (ex‐ante) inequality component following the parametric procedure of Ferreira and Gignoux (2011 ), which allows for the inclusion of the large set of circumstances in the database. We also measure the degree of correlation between IO estimates and a set of past and contemporaneous economic factors related to the degree of development, labor market performance, investment in human capital, and social protection spending.     

Codes of Best Practice in competitive markets for managers

We study the corporate governance of firms in environments where possibly heterogeneous shareholders compete for possibly heterogeneous managers. A firm, formed by a shareholder and a manager, can sign either an incentive contract or a contract including a Code of Best Practice. A Code allows for better management control, but makes it hard for managers to react quickly when market conditions change. Codes tend to be adopted in markets with low volatility and in environments where managers obtain low levels of benefits. The firms with the best projects tend to adopt a Code when managers are not too heterogeneous, while the best managers tend to be hired through incentive contracts when the projects are similar. Although the matching between shareholders and managers is often positively assortative, shareholders with the best projects might be willing to renounce hiring the best managers; instead, signing contracts including Codes with lower-ability managers.     

Volunteerism,compassion and religiosity as drivers of donations practices

• The topic of donations is one of high relevance and has been widely covered in contemporary marketing literature. It is a topic of interest to both theoreticians and practitioners alike, particularly due to its implicit links to fundraising activities and research. The reality of what makes an individual donor ultimately part with his money and give it away to a nonprofit organization is a hot contemporary topic. This study looks into the role of religiosity as a predictor of donations practices. Also volunteerism and compassion, two acts of pro‐social behaviour are analysed as predictors of donations practices. Using data collected from a survey of 612 charity donors in Portugal, the results show unequivocally that religiosity does influence donations practices, and so being a predictor of donations practices. Moreover, pro‐social behaviour is a predictor of donations practices when in the case of volunteerism, but not in the form of compassion.
• The findings are particularly useful for nonprofit organizations that want to attract and retain individual charitable donors and may also help to increase donation regularity, to obtain higher amounts, and donations both to religious and to secular organizations. Finally, it can be stated that the understanding of religiosity sheds light on knowledge about donations practices, and that this study also makes an important contribution to academia, as it is the first study conducted in Portugal that assesses the drivers of donations practices.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Production Technology Estimates and Balanced Growth

Capital‐labour substitution and total factor productivity (TFP) estimates are essential features of many economic models. Such models typically embody a balanced growth path. This often leads researchers to estimate models imposing stringent prior choices on technical change. We demonstrate that estimation of the substitution elasticity and TFP growth can be substantially biased if technical progress is thereby mis‐specified. We obtain analytical and simulation results in the context of a model consistent with balanced and near‐balanced growth (i.e. departures from balanced growth but broadly stable factor shares). Given this evidence, a constant elasticity of substitution production function system is then estimated for the US economy. Results show that the estimated substitution elasticity tends to be significantly lower using a factor‐augmenting specification (well below one). We are also able to reject conventional neutrality forms in favour of general factor augmentation with a non‐negligible capital‐augmenting component. Our work thus provides insights into production and supply‐side estimation in balanced‐growth frameworks.     

Motivation in the teaching of Physical Education according to the Achievement Goal Theory: methodological considerations

The present study shows how the evaluation of sport motivation according to Achievement Goal Theory is different if the criteria used are predominant goal orientation or motivational profile combination, as well as presenting its relationship with other variables such as the amount of sport practise or the level of competition and success achieved. Seventy two men and women participated, all students of Physical Educational and Sport Science, completing the Questionnaire on Motivational Orientation in Sport ((Guivernau and Duda, Revista de Psicología del Deporte, 5, 1994) a Spanish adaptation of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire, TEOSQ, (Duda, J Sport Exerc Psychol, 11, 1989)). The results showed the existence of different motivational relationships with variables of the practise of sport, depending on the type of profile used. Finally, the practical implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the motivational climate generated in the teaching of Physical Education.