Does the quality of public-sponsored training programs matter? Evidence from bidding processes data

This paper analyzes the link between training quality and labor-market outcomes. Multiple proxies for training quality are identified from bidding processes in which public and private training institutions compete for limited public funding in Peru. Information about exact dates of program enrollment is analyzed to show whether the first-come-first-served assignment rule randomized eligible individuals across courses of varying quality. Generalized propensity score (GPS) is implemented to estimate dose–response functions in the context of multiple treatments. We find that beneficiaries attending high-quality training courses show higher earnings and better job-quality characteristics than either beneficiaries attending low-quality courses or nonparticipants. The returns are particularly robust for women, making the provision of high-quality training services cost-effective. Furthermore, the most important training attribute is expenditures per trainee. Class size and infrastructure are weakly related to the expected impacts, while teacher experience, curricular activities, and market knowledge seem to bear no relationship with the expected impacts. External validity was assessed by using five cohorts of individuals over an eight-year period.     

Measuring input-specific productivity change based on the principle of least action

In for-profit organizations, efficiency and productivity measurement with reference to the potential for input-specific reductions is particularly important and has been the focus of interest in the recent literature. Different approaches can be formulated to measure and decompose input-specific productivity change over time. In this paper, we highlight some problems within existing approaches and propose a new methodology based on the Principle of Least Action. In particular, this model is operationalized in the form of a non-radial Luenberger productivity indicator based on the determination of the least distance to the strongly efficient frontier of the considered production possibility sets, which are estimated by non-parametric techniques based upon Data Envelopment Analysis. In our approach, overall productivity change is the sum of input-specific productivity changes. Overall productivity change and input-specific changes are broken up into indicators of efficiency change and technical change. This decomposition enables the researcher to quantify the contributions of each production factor to productivity change and its components. In this way, the drivers of productivity development are revealed. For illustration purposes the new approach is applied to a recent dataset of Polish dairy processing firms.     

Trump’s New Trade Tariffs: A Response to Voters’ Demands?

President Trump has dramatically changed U.S. trade policy through the adoption of steep tariffs. We argue in this article that even when there are significant geopolitical reasons, Trump’s actions on trade are a response to internal demands resonant with a long history of protectionism. We provide clear evidence of the impacts of social demographics on U.S. trade policy and show that individuals from capital-intense regions with high educational attainment tend to support protectionism.     

When is escalation of commitment unstoppable in group settings? An iterative economic modeling approach to unveil the dark side of group decision-making

Escalation of commitment (EOC) has been usually studied from a psychological lens, and only recently have scholars approached EOC from an economic perspective. We contribute to this by focusing on iterative decision-making in group settings with a game theory approach. We study how the group members' strategic interaction may result in continuing failing courses of action. Drawing on the Byzantine generals' problem, our model considers an iterative decision-making process where committee participants vote based on private information to escalate or not. Our article demonstrates that if decision-makers reset their beliefs based on the committee's previous decision, then EOC becomes perpetual.     

Modelling regional policy scenarios in the agri-food sector: a case study of a Spanish region

The agri-food industry has several features of great importance for sustainable economic growth in rural areas. The objective of this work is to evaluate the effects associated with different scenarios of growth, and changes in the regional agri-food industry. These scenarios simulate changes in exports and imports, changes in technology and changes in the level of industrial integration. We develop a computable general equilibrium model calibrated for the region. Our results indicate that policies trying to improve the competitiveness and dynamism of strategic sectors as the agro-industrial complex in this regional economy exert positive effects on its growth and income, having notable impacts on local job markets but also in other sectors and activities linked through the whole production chain.     

Modelling Electricity Prices: International Evidence*

This article analyses the evolution of electricity prices in deregulated markets. We present a general class of models that simultaneously takes into account several factors: seasonality, mean reversion, GARCH behaviour and time‐dependent jumps. The models are applied to daily equilibrium spot prices of eight electricity markets. Eight different nested models were estimated to compare the relative importance of each factor in each of the eight markets. We find strong evidence that electricity equilibrium prices are mean‐reverting, with volatility clustering (GARCH) and with jumps of time‐dependent intensity, even after adjusting for seasonality.     

HUMANITARIAN CRISES AND ADOLESCENT WELL-BEING: KNOWLEDGE,GAPS, AND PROSPECTS

Adolescence constitutes the second and final window of human growth and a period of specific vulnerabilities, such as early pregnancy, early marriage, HIV infection, suicide, violence, alcohol, and drugs. Only a limited body of research investigates the effects of humanitarian crises on the human capital and well-being of adolescents. The evidence focuses on the short-term effects of conflict and, to a lesser extent, natural disasters on education, physical health, and nutrition, but not on mental health. Most analyses examine the situations of individuals exposed in utero and young childhood, but rarely during adolescence. Typically missing are robust empirical identification strategies and estimates on heterogeneous effects across age or gender. The lack of quality data and challenges in defining adolescence, establishing causality, or ensuring ethical research explain the knowledge gaps. Possible ways to expand the evidence base include mixing georeferenced data on individual location with georeferenced data on crises, sharpening quasi-experimental analytical techniques, and reconsidering the current timing of demographic data collection, now spanning 4- or 5-year intervals. The failure to make such adjustments will end by ignoring specific vulnerabilities among adolescents and render sustainable progress in well-being globally, narrowing inequalities, and guaranteeing human rights to all more difficult to achieve.     

Rational Underdevelopment*

We propose a two‐region two‐sector model of uneven development, where technological change benefits either the lagging or the leading region. In this framework interregional transfers may lead to persistent underdevelopment; by raising wages, transfers reduce the chance of the backward region adopting a new technology and taking off. Due to uncertainty about which region benefits from technological change, the backward region may rationally choose to remain underdeveloped, while the advanced region continues to pay transfers. The model provides a rationale for cases, such as Italy's Mezzogiorno, where the same rich region subsidizes the same poor region on a continuous basis.     

Information feedback in first price auctions

I apply the notion of a self‐confirming equilibrium (SCE) to study how feedback in first price auctions influences bidders' perceptions about their strategic environment, and consequently their bidding behavior. In a private values setting, revealing the two highest bids at the end of each auction is sufficient for bidders to have correct beliefs (justifying the assumption of Nash equilibrium). In contrast, in every symmetric SCE of a symmetric, affiliated, private values model, bidding strategies and revenue are (weakly) higher if only the highest bid is revealed. I also consider interdependent valuations and discuss implications for the empirical auction literature.