Will They Stay or Will They Go? Simulating the Dynamics of Single‐Holder Farms in a Dualistic Farm Structure in Slovakia

This paper investigates the dynamic interplay between farm exit and entry of single‐holder farms (SF) in a dualistic farm structure in the Nitra region of the Slovak Republic. Our focus is on economic and noneconomic reasons for farm exit. The impact of varying both the likelihood of succession and the initial farm operator age distributions is studied. An agent‐based simulation model of structural change in agriculture is applied, which brings together farm‐internal and ‐external determinants and creates a set of endogenous adjustment reactions. We show that the stepwise introduction of direct payments of the Common Agricultural Policy in Slovakia has a strong impact on its structural development. In the short‐ to medium‐term, the dualistic farm structure together with a specific age structure of farms still persists as a response to the policy. The phasing‐in of payments persuades SF to stay and potential successors to enter. In the longer run, the initially heterogeneous farm structure becomes increasingly homogeneous toward larger SF. The prevalence of small SF in the medium‐ to long‐term is not necessarily a given. This may lead decision makers to reconsider the role of individual farms in rural development. Dans le présent article, nous avons étudié la relation entre l'entrée en agriculture de fermes à propriétaire unique et leur sortie dans un contexte d'agriculture dualiste dans la région de Nitra, en Slovaquie. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur les raisons économiques et non économiques qui motivent la sortie. Nous avons étudié l'impact liéà la possibilité de relève et à la répartition par âge des agriculteurs. Pour évaluer le changement structurel en agriculture, nous avons utilisé un modèle de simulation multi‐agent qui réunit les facteurs internes et externes et crée un ensemble de réactions d'adaptation endogènes. Nous avons montré que l'introduction progressive des paiements directs accordés dans le cadre de la Politique agricole commune en Slovaquie a des répercussions considérables sur son développement structurel. À court et à moyen termes, l'agriculture dualiste, combinée à la structure de l'âge des exploitations agricoles, demeure une réaction à la politique en place. La mise en place progressive des paiements persuade les exploitations à propriétaire unique de demeurer dans le secteur et encourage les successeurs potentiels à y entrer. À plus long terme, la structure agricole qui était hétérogène au départ devient de plus en plus homogène et compte de plus grandes fermes à propriétaire unique. À court et à moyen termes, la prévalence de petites fermes à propriétaire unique ne va pas nécessairement de soi. Cette situation pourrait amener les décideurs à réexaminer le rôle des exploitations individuelles dans le développement rural.     

Is Passive Farming A Problem for Agriculture in the EU?

We address a new agricultural policy concern following the decoupling of CAP direct payments in 2005: passive farming, whereby landowners maintain their agricultural area to collect payments without producing commodities. It is claimed that passive farming is hindering agricultural development by ‘blocking’ access to farmland for expanding farmers. We evaluate the links between the EU's Single Payment Scheme (SPS), passive farming, land use and agricultural development. Following identification of the rational landowners’ optimal land‐use choice, we evaluate the effects of the SPS using a spatial, agent‐based model that simulates farmers’ competition for land in a case‐study region of Sweden. We show that passive farming does not constrain land from being used in production; on the contrary more land is used than would be the case without the SPS. We conclude that passive farming is not a problem for agriculture, but provides public goods that would otherwise be under provided: preservation of marginal farmland and future food security. However SPS payments on highly productive land inflate land values (capitalisation) and slow structural change, which hinder agricultural development. Consequently CAP goals could be better served by targeting payments on marginal land and phasing out payments to highly productive land.     

Who instigates university–industry collaborations? University scientists versus firm employees

While evidence on the causes and effects of university–industry interaction is abundant, little is known about how, and particularly by whom, such interaction is instigated in the first place and subsequently managed. In this paper, we investigate which mode of collaboration (joint research, contract research, consulting, in-licensing, or informal contacts) is more likely to be initiated and managed by firm employees versus by university scientists. Moreover, we are interested in the differences between small and large firms to see whether initiation and management are affected by firm size. Using a sample of 833 German manufacturing firms, our results indicate that university scientists typically start collaborations with industry, while firm employees would take over the management of projects. Results vary markedly between small and large firms, with university scientists having somewhat higher difficulties initiating collaborations with large firms than with small firms.     

A reappraisal of the evidence on PPP: a systematic investigation into MA roots in panel unit root tests and their implications

Panel unit root tests of real exchange rates—as opposed to univariate tests—usually reject non-stationarity. These tests, however, could be biased if the real exchange rate contained MA roots. Indeed, two independent arguments claim that the real exchange rate, being a sum of a stationary and a non-stationary component, is possibly an ARIMA (1, 1, 1) process. Monte Carlo simulations show how systematic changes in the parameters of the components, of the test equation and of the correlation matrix affect the size of first and second-generation panel unit root tests. Two components of the real exchange rate—the real exchange rate of a single good and a weighted sum of relative prices—are constructed from the data for a panel of countries. Computation of the relevant parameters reveals that panel unit root tests of the real exchange rate are severely oversized, usually much more so than simple augmented Dickey-Fuller tests. Thus, the evidence for purchasing power parity from first and second-generation panel unit root tests may be merely due to extreme size biases.     

Der Marktplatz E-Energy aus elektrizitätswirtschaftlicher Perspektive

The E-Energy Market is the place in a future energy system that integrates the markets for energy and Information/Communication Technologies (ICT). From the economic perspective of electricity, business models and business cases can already be developed for sub-markets and sub-areas of network load management, wholesale marketing and energy-market regulations, which as core elements manage consumer load in the mass customer area. As it turns out, the expected surplus value for all business cases is still tightly assessed and the E-Energy Market is therefore no automatic process. It has been assumed that the costs of the necessary information and communication technologies either do not have to be observed or are relatively insignificant. Additionally, considerable fine-tuning of the design of the sub-markets and the regulatory framework is necessary in order to enable the possibility for the business cases to be implemented. In a larger perspective, however, this market will play an important role when it comes to optimizing the power system around fluctuating power generation.     

The Effect of CEO Extraversion on Analyst Forecasts: Stereotypes and Similarity Bias

In an experiment with professional analysts, we study their reliance on CEO personality information when producing financial forecasts. Drawing on social cognition research, we suggest analysts apply a stereotyping heuristic, believing that extraverted CEOs are more successful. The between‐subjects results with CEO extraversion as treatment variable confirm that analysts issue more favorable forecasts (earnings per share, long‐term earnings growth, and target price) for firms led by extraverted CEOs. Increased forecast uncertainty leads to even stronger stereotyping. Additionally, personality similarity between analysts and CEOs has a large effect on financial forecasts. Analysts issue more positive forecasts for CEOs similar to themselves.     

Recurrent Neural Networks for Time Series Forecasting: Current status and future directions

Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) have become competitive forecasting methods, as most notably shown in the winning method of the recent M4 competition. However, established statistical models such as exponential smoothing (ETS) and the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) gain their popularity not only from their high accuracy, but also because they are suitable for non-expert users in that they are robust, efficient, and automatic. In these areas, RNNs have still a long way to go. We present an extensive empirical study and an open-source software framework of existing RNN architectures for forecasting, and we develop guidelines and best practices for their use. For example, we conclude that RNNs are capable of modelling seasonality directly if the series in the dataset possess homogeneous seasonal patterns; otherwise, we recommend a deseasonalisation step. Comparisons against ETS and ARIMA demonstrate that (semi-) automatic RNN models are not silver bullets, but they are nevertheless competitive alternatives in many situations.     

Do Immigrants Take or Create Residents’ Jobs? Evidence from Free Movement of Workers in Switzerland*

In 2002, Switzerland began to adopt free movement of workers with the European Union. We study the effects of the resulting immigration wave on resident workers. We focus on the level of national skill groups and propose an instrumental variable approach to address the endogeneity of immigration in this setting. Mostly relying on administrative data for the 2002–2011 period, we find that the immigration of foreign workers reduced unemployment of residents, and had limited adverse effects on their wages and employment. One reason for this is that younger residents changed to more demanding jobs as a response to the arrival of immigrants.