Education and Intergenerational Mobility in Occupations

A bstract The problem of measuring the intergenerational transmission of inequality and its implications for social welfare is studied. A possible decomposition of relevant factors–namely, educational attainments and other factors–is proposed and applied to three individual data sets regarding Germany, Italy, and the United States. The main result is that educational attainment is responsible for almost half of observed immobility The possibility that increasing equality of opportunity in entering the educational system may result in less inequality in income distribution is considered.     

Capital controls and distribution of income: Empirical evidence for Great Britain Japan and Australia

Zusammenfassung Kapitalverkehrskontrollen und Einkommensverteilung. Empirische Befunde für Gro?britannien, Japan und Australien. - Der Verfasser geht davon aus, da? die Einführung von Kapitalverkehrskontrollen die nationale Einkommensverteilung beeinflu?t; insbesondere zeigt er, da? Ma?nahmen zur Verhinderung von Kapitalabflüssen die Einkommensverteilung zugunsten der Lohnempf?nger verschiebt. Nachdem er die Wirksamkeit von Kontrollen mit Hilfe der Unterschiede zwischen in- und ausl?ndischen Zinss?tzen gemessen und die Erfahrungen dreier L?nder (Gro?britannien, Japan und Australien) berücksichtigt hat, pr?sentiert er einige Korrelationsindizes und Kausalit?tstests, um zu untersuchen, ob m?glicherweise Beziehungen zur Verteilung des Volkseinkommens bestehen. Danach entwickelt und sch?tzt er ein Strukturmodell. Der Autor zeigt, da? das Ausma? der finanziellen Protektion die (optimale) Wahl von Besch?ftigung und Lohn durch heimische Firmen und Gewerkschaften tendenziell beeinflu?t hat.

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Résumé Les contr?les de capitaux et la distribution du revenu: La preuve empirique pour La Grande Bretagne, le Japon et l’Australie. - Dans cette étude l’auteur soutient l’opinion que l’adoption des contr?les de capitaux se répercutent sur la distribution du revenue national; et plus spécifiquement elle montre qu’en empêchant l’exportation des capitaux, la distribution du revenu change en faveur des salariés. Après avoir mesuré l’efficacité des contr?les à l’aide de l’écart entre les taux d'intérêt nationaux et les taux off-shore et après avoir reconsidéré les expériences de trois pays (Grande Bretagne, Japon, Australie) on présente quelques indices de corrélation et des tests de causalité pour étudier s’il y a des rapports avec la distribution du revenu national. Puis on propose un modèle structurel. Les estimations montrent que le degré de protection financière pourrait avoir influencé la sélection optimale de l’emploi et du salaire par les entreprises nationales et les syndicats.

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Resumen Controles de capital y distributión del ingreso: evidencia empírica para el Reino Unido, el Japón y Australia. - En este trabajo se argumenta que la adoptión des controles de capital afecta a la distributión del ingreso national. Más específicamente, se demuestra que al impedirse las exportaciones de capital se modifica la distributión del ingreso en favor de los asalariados. Después de medir la efectividad de los controles con el diferencial entre las tasas nacionales y las tasas offshore, y de pasar revista a la experiencia de tres países (el Reino Unido, el Japón y Australia), se presentan algunos índices de correlatión y tests de causalidad, con el fin de investigar la existencia de una relatión potential con la distributión del ingreso national. Finalmente, se propone y estima un modelo estructural que muestra que el grado de proteción financiera podría haber afectado la decisión sobre el empleo y el salario (óptimos) por parte de empresas y sindicatos nationales.

     

Climate Change,Innovation, and Economic Growth: The Contributions of William Nordhaus and Paul Romer

ABSTRACT

William Nordhaus and Paul Romer shared the 2018 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for their work on long-run macroeconomic analysis. Nordhaus adapted the neoclassical growth model to study climate change, while Romer developed a model of innovation-based growth. The authors provide two distinct explanations of what drives growth, and employ contrasting methodologies for interpreting the results of their mathematical models. Macroeconomic policy in general, and climate policy in particular, would benefit from better integrating the theory and methods of these two laureates.     

Technical Change, Growth and Trade: New Departures in Institutional Economics

This article analyses the main theoretical and policy issues emerging from the literature on the evolutionary-institutional economics of technical change, the four distinguishing characteristics of which are that technology is often proprietary in nature; only a part of knowledge is codifiable in handbooks, blueprints, patents, and so on; there are fundamental variations in the above two points across different technological fields; and the evolution of knowledge is highly path-dependent.     

Can Linear Predictability Models Time Bull and Bear Real Estate Markets? Out-of-Sample Evidence from REIT Portfolios

A recent literature has shown that REIT returns contain strong evidence of bull and bear dynamic regimes that may be best captured using nonlinear econometric models of the Markov switching type. In fact, REIT returns would display regime shifts that are more abrupt and persistent than in the case of other asset classes. In this paper we ask whether and how simple linear predictability models of the vector autoregressive (VAR) type may be extended to capture the bull and bear patterns typical of many asset classes, including REITs. We find that nonlinearities are so deep that it is impossibile for a large family of VAR models to either produce similar portfolio weights or to yield realized, ex-post out-of-sample long-horizon portfolio performances that may compete with those typical of bull and bear models. A typical investor with intermediate risk aversion and a 5-year horizon ought to be ready to pay an annual fee of up to 5.7 % to have access to forecasts of REIT returns that take their bull and bear dynamics into account instead of simpler, linear forecast.     

Monitoring the technological performance of a small economy using patent data: the case of denmark

The technological performance of the Danish economy is assessed using data on patenting. It is shown that small and medium-sized countries are more inclined to protect their innovations using patents taken out inforeign countries. Foreign patentjowsjom and to Denmark are considered, and a comparison with tradejows is attempted. The Danish economy has its sectoral strengths in technologies related to the agro-industrial complex and, more general, in areas linked to its specialization in international trade. The rate of growth ofpatent classes is finally considered to assess the vital of Danish technological perfomance. Patenting can be a vital instrument to gather information to design appropriate technology policies which may be crucial to strengthen the economic performance of small countries.     

Revisiting EMU's Stability Pact: A Pragmatic Way Forward

The Stability and Growth Pact is under fire. Some countriesare meeting major problems in sticking to the rules. Proposalsto reform the Pact or ditch it altogether abound. The allegedweaknesses of the Pact tend to reflect trade-offs typical ofsupra-national arrangements. This aspect has to be factoredin when considering reforms of the current fiscal rules: thereis no miracle solution. EMU without rules would be an interestingexperiment, but a risky policy option. Given the existing degreeof political integration in EMU, internal adjustment ratherthan attempting to redesign the rules from scratch appears amore suitable way forward. Redefining the medium-term budgetarytarget, improving transparency, tackling the pro-cyclical fiscalbias in good times, moving towards non-partisan applicationof the rules, and improving transparency in the data can achieveboth stronger discipline and higher flexibility.     

Functional separability within a quadratic inverse demand system

In this paper, a quadratic inverse (almost ideal) demand system (IQUAIDS) is derived, that generalizes the inverse (almost ideal) demand system (IAIDS). Starting from a flexible parameterization of the distance function, this model allows a more flexible specification by overcoming the potential restrictiveness of linear scale curves. However, at a point of normalization, the IQUAIDS boils down to the IAIDS, thus the additional flexibility pertains only to the specification of scale elasticities away from the point of approximation. Previous work on functional separability is extended to the case of inverse demands, and necessary and sufficient conditions for weak separability of the direct and indirect utility function derived, in terms of the Antonelli elasticities of complementarity and of the scale elasticities. Their proper parametric representation within the inverse specification is also derived. An empirical application to fish demand in Italy is provided, mainly for illustrative purposes.     

A tale of two Ginis in the US, 1921–2012

Following a methodology by Jantzen and Volpert (2012), we use IRS Adjusted Gross Income data for the US (1921–2012) to estimate two Gini indices representing inequality at the bottom and the top of the income distribution, and to calculate the overall Gini as a function of the parameters underlying the two indices. A steady increase in the overall Gini since the Second World War actually hides two different periods of distributional changes. First, the increase in inequality from the mid 1940s to the late 1970s is driven by rising inequality at the bottom of the income distribution that more than offsets a decrease in inequality at the top. The implication is that middle-income earners gained relative to high-incomes, and especially relative to low-income earners. Second, the rise in the Gini after 1981 is driven by rising inequality at the top. Third, top-driven inequality follows a U-shaped trajectory consistent with Piketty and Saez (2003, 2006). Fourth, the welfare effects of the different distributional changes behind increasing inequality can be evaluated in light of the Lorenz-dominance criterion by Atkinson (1970): we argue that the rise in inequality since 1981 is much more likely to be associated with a social welfare loss net of compensating growth.