Measuring wage effects of plant size

There are large plant size–wage effects in the Nordic countries after taking into account individual and job characteristics as well as systematical sorting of the workers into various plant-sizes. The plant size–wage elasticities we obtain are, in contrast to other dimensions of the wage distribution, comparable to the plant-size effects in other countries such as the U.S. with completely different institutions of wage setting. We also investigate the consequence of measurement error associated with the common practice of using midpoints of plant-size classes to estimate the plant size–wage elasticity. Our results indicate that using size–class midpoints yields essentially the same results as using exact measures of plant size.     

International maritime transport and climate policy

The contribution of international maritime transport to anthropogenic climate change has so far attracted little attention. This may be expected to change in the near future due to both ongoing research and the political processs. The present article looks at the relevant trends in international maritime transport and discusses both the greenhouse gas emissions from shipping and the possible repercussions of climate change on shipping. It concludes with an overview of policies and measures that should be implemented to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from shipping in a cost-efficient way.     

Self-serving legislators? An analysis of the salary-setting institutions of 27 EU parliaments

It is often criticized in public debates that politicians in many jurisdictions have the power to set their own salaries. This paper scrutinizes this practice from a constitutional political economy perspective. A novel dataset is presented which provides an empirical overview of the methods used to set the pay for members of parliament (MPs) in the national parliaments of 27 member states of the European Union. There is considerable cross-country variation in this respect. While in the majority of national legislatures MPs to some degree decide on their own salaries (i.e., ‘self-service’ model), in some systems MP pay is set by bodies independent from MPs. A multiple regression analysis provides empirical support for the self-serving-legislators prediction derived from Public Choice theory: controlling for population size and living costs, salaries are systematically higher in legislatures in which MPs have some say in their own salaries. However, this result has to be interpreted with caution as (1) independent wage-setting bodies exist only in five parliaments, and (2) this study could only include MPs’ basic salaries.     

Parameter orthogonalization and Bayesian inference with many instruments

It is examined how Bayesian inference might proceed in models with many instruments. A new prior specification based on Lancaster’s (1997) parameter orthogonalization is developed. This orthogonalization is shown to guarantee that the statistical problems associated with the first stage coefficients are not carried over in estimating the parameter of interest.     

厚积薄发 干线66旁蓬勃发展的小镇上适合采用迪亚兹标识艺术

许多人都预计,对美国以至全球而言2009年将会发生重大转变。因此,让我们来看看照明标识发展。大约30年前,在欧洲城市限制之外的绿色领域出现了第一家商场,其中一些商场到现在仍然繁荣,而一些如雨后春笋般快速出现的商场也以同样的速度迅速地消失了。     

Considering Market-Based Instruments for Consumer Protection in Higher Education

Based on the economics of consumer protection and contributions from the economics of education, this article presents an analytical framework to deal with the problem of consumer protection in the higher education sector. It is demonstrated that there are not only governmental mechanisms (information provision, quality regulation) but also market-based mechanisms (seller signalling, private certification, private information intermediaries, student screening) to mitigate the informational asymmetry between buyers and sellers of educational services. This informational asymmetry, called students’ ex ante quality uncertainty, provides the central economic rationale for thinking about student protection, quality assurance and consumer information in the higher education marketplace. The basic argument of this paper is that governmental quality assurance is unnecessary in higher education if the market participants themselves, with the help of private third parties (i.e., certifiers and information intermediaries), are able to cope with market failure due to asymmetric information.     

U.S. tax policy and health insurance demand: Can a regressive policy improve welfare?

The U.S. tax policy on health insurance is regressive because it subsidizes only those offered group insurance through their employers, who also tend to have a relatively high income. Moreover, the subsidy takes the form of deductions from the progressive income tax system giving high income earners a larger subsidy. To understand the effect of the policy, we construct a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogenous agents and an endogenous demand for health insurance. A complete removal of the subsidy may lead to a partial collapse of the group insurance market, reduce the insurance coverage and deteriorate welfare. There is, however, room for improving the coverage and welfare by extending a refundable credit to the individual insurance market.