The political economy of seigniorage

While most economists agree that seigniorage is one way governments finance deficits, there is less agreement about the political, institutional and economic reasons for relying on it. This paper investigates the main political and institutional determinants of seigniorage using panel data on about 100 countries, for the period 1960–1999. Estimates show that greater political instability leads to higher seigniorage, especially in developing, less democratic and socially-polarized countries, with high inflation, low access to domestic and external debt financing and with higher turnover of central bank presidents. One important policy implication of this study is the need to develop institutions conducive to greater political stability as a means to reduce the reliance on seigniorage financing of public deficits.     

Do Colored Photographs Affect Willingness to Pay Responses for Endangered Species Conservation?

The NOAA panel suggested that use of photographs should be pre-tested to explore their effects on subjects (Arrow et al. 1993). For this paper, a modification to the test suggested by the NOAA Panel was made. We tested whether use of colored, as opposed to black and white (B & W), photographs influence respondents’ valuation of the environmental commodity in question. The context of the test is a CVM study valuing the benefits from protecting the national bird. This was performed using two drop-off surveys that were identical except for the color of the photographs incorporated in the survey instrument. The dichotomous choice logit equations were statistically different between the two treatments of the questionnaire, indicating the significant effect of colored photographs on the respondents’ WTP. The findings support the NOAA Panel recommendation of careful pre-testing and scrutiny of the photographs integrated in the questionnaire since ‘packaging’ of the environmental good (i.e., endangered species protection) matters in valuing benefits associated with it. Since colored photographs are found to be value-enhancing, to simply use B & W photos as an attempt to reduce cost associated with implementing the contingent valuation (CV) survey, especially when limited research money is involved, would result to lower the estimated value of the environmental good.     

Does context matter more for hypothetical than for actual contributions? Evidence from a natural field experiment

We investigated the importance of the social context for people’s voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica, using a natural field experiment. Some subjects make actual contributions while others state their hypothetical contribution. Both the degree of anonymity and information provided about the contributions of others influence subject contributions in the hypothesized direction. We found a substantial hypothetical bias with regard to the amount contributed. However, the influence of the social contexts is about the same when the subjects make actual monetary contributions as when they state their hypothetical contributions. Our results have important implications for validity testing of stated preference methods: a comparison between hypothetical and actual behavior should be done for a given social context.      

The impact of state legitimacy on entrepreneurial activity

The purpose of this research is to analyze the influence of the state legitimacy on of the different countries’ entrepreneurial activity’s development, the opportunities’ perception and the entrepreneurship’s motivations. This paper is set into the research field which analyze how the institutional environment influence entrepreneurship in different countries. Research framework has been built based on the Institutional Theory. To develop the model we use a set of data extracted from the European Social Survey and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor about 28 European countries and we analyze them through Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling. Results show that state’s legitimacy influences the level of entrepreneurship in the different countries and the perception of the entrepreneurial opportunities and chances. Besides, the research shows that, in the scenario of the most legitimated countries, entrepreneurial activities is related to the need of self-employment. Based on the Institutional Theory, this research provide relevant contributions in the research field about entrepreneurship and countries’ institutions. From a practical point of view, the research shows ideas on how policymakers can improve entrepreneurial activity managing state legitimacy. Furthermore, the results provide new contributions in the research on the influence of the institutional context on the states entrepreneurial activity, providing an analysis and a comparison of the differences between countries, based on institutional theory.

     

The dynamics of international trade integration: 1967–2004

This article explores how trade integration has advanced over the last four decades and what the foreseeable future holds, among other related questions. To this end, we consider certain methods which have scarcely been used in the literature on trade integration. First, we measure trade integration through a set of indicators which control not only for how open economies are, but also for their degrees of connectedness in the World Trade Web. Second, we assess how these indicators have evolved over time, what the likely steady state distribution might be, and whether results could differ depending on a variety of weighting schemes (GDP, population). The results show that, under current trends, future world trade will be much more trade-integrated, especially for the most heavily populated countries. However, there is still a long way to go before reaching the hypothetical scenario of geographically neutral trade.     

USING A CGE MODEL TO IDENTIFY THE POLICY TRADE-OFF BETWEEN UNEMPLOYMENT AND INFLATION. THE EFFICIENT PHILLIPS CURVE

This paper provides a new reading of a classical economic relation: the short-run Phillips curve. Our point is that, when dealing with inflation and unemployment, policy-making can be understood as a multicriteria decision-making problem. Hence, we use so-called multiobjective programming in connection with a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to determine the combinations of policy instruments that provide efficient combinations of inflation and unemployment. This approach results in an alternative version of the Phillips curve labelled as efficient Phillips curve. Our aim is to present an application of CGE models to a new area of research that can be especially useful when addressing policy exercises with real data. We apply our methodological proposal within a particular regional economy, Andalusia, in the south of Spain. This tool can give some keys for policy advice and policy implementation in the fight against unemployment and inflation.     

Generalised shape theory via SV decomposition I

This work finds in terms of zonal polynomials, the non isotropic noncentral elliptical shape distributions via singular value decomposition; it avoids the invariant polynomials and the open problems for their computation. The new shape distributions are easily computable and then the inference procedure is based on exact densities, instead of the published approximations and asymptotic distribution of isotropic models. An application of the technique is illustrated with a classical landmark data of Biology, for this, three Kotz type models are proposed (including Gaussian); then the best one is chosen by using a modified BIC criterion.     

Economic Growth and CO2 Emissions in the European Union

This paper examines the relationship between economic growth and CO₂ emissions in the European Union. A panel data analysis for the period 1981 to 1995 is applied in order to estimate the relationship between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and CO₂ emissions in ten selected European countries. The analysis shows important disparities between the most industrialised countries and the rest. The results do not seem to support a uniform policy to control emissions; they rather indicate that a reduction in emissions should be achieved by taking into account the specific economic situation and the industrial structure of each EU member state.     

A dynamic model of entrepreneurship with borrowing constraints: theory and evidence

Does wealth beget wealth and entrepreneurship, or is entrepreneurship mainly determined by an individual’s ability? A large literature studies the relationship between wealth and entry to entrepreneurship to inform this question. This paper shows that in a dynamic model, the existence of financial constraints to the creation of businesses implies a non-monotonic relationship between wealth and entry into entrepreneurship: the probability of becoming an entrepreneur as a function of wealth is increasing for low wealth levels—as predicted by standard static models—but it is decreasing for higher wealth levels. U.S. data are used to study the qualitative and quantitative predictions of the dynamic model. The welfare costs of borrowing constraints are found to be significant, around 6% of lifetime consumption, and are mainly due to undercapitalized entrepreneurs (intensive margin), rather than to able people not starting businesses (extensive margin).