An Econometric Analysis of U.S. Antidumping Sunset Review Decisions

This paper is the first comprehensive analysis of the U.S. antidumping sunset review process required under WTO commitments. The econometric models study determinants of decisions by three U.S. actors: the petitioning industry, the Department of Commerce (DOC), and the International Trade Commission (ITC). Domestic industries facing potential vigorous competition seem to use sunset reviews to maintain current high domestic profits. U.S. governmental institutions use criteria broadly consistent with their legal obligations. Exports involving Chinese firms may face negative bias in the ITC process. JEL no. F1, F13     

The Poverty of Politics: How Income Redistribution Hurts the Poor

In spite of the significant research literature identifying a tradeoff between income redistribution and economic growth, massive public programs have been implemented to help the poor by transferring income to them. Since Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty began in 1964, over 3.5 trillion dollars have been transferred. However, the possibility that everyone, including the poor, may in fact be made worse off by the transfer has largely been ignored. With a simple algebraic model, the authors demonstrate that, over time, both high and low-income groups are harmed by redistribution. In addition, social mobility, as well as political concerns with relative poverty and international income redistribution increases the damage to all income groups produced by redistribution.     

Macroeconomic factors of growth of Russian cities and town planning policy objectives

This paper was prepared for the 70th birthday of Oleg Sergeevich Pchelintsev, but he did not live to see it in print. For memorials of O.S. Pchelintsev, see www.demoscope.ru Nos 243–244 of April 17–30, 2006. The paper analyzes the channels and ways by which macroeconomic policy impacts the development of urban settlement and individual groups of cities. Its findings are used to validate new directions and measures of urban policy     

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ELDERLY PERCEPTIONS OF THE CONSUMER MOVEMENT*

The decade of the 1970s witnessed the passage of an unparallelled amount of legislation designed to protect the needs of disadvantaged and low income consumers, characteristics which describe many members of the elderly population segment. This research was designed to assess elderly perceptions of the market-place today and of the performance of businesses and government agencies in protecting and promoting their interest as buyers. The elderly, when compared to other population segments, showed a more negative attitude toward the accomplishments of the consumer movement and the role of businesses and government in protecting buyers than other population segments.     

Measuring the dynamics of APEC output connectedness

We examine the dynamics of output connectedness of Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies using time‐varying, region‐specific, generalised connectedness measures. We find that the connectedness of APEC economies with the rest of the world is quite substantial, with the 2008–09 Global Financial Crisis increasing the connectedness measures above their precrisis levels. The USA, China, and Korea are shown to be systemically important and to dominate APEC’s real activities, while outside the APEC region the roles of India and the UK are also non‐negligible. These results suggest that the majority of APEC economies are considerably open to output shocks from the dominant economies such that policymakers in APEC must be continuously conscious of headwinds originating from these sources.     

Fixed-Term Contracts and Labor Market Duality in France

The French labor market is segmented between permanent and temporary workers. The second category has difficulty in getting an open-ended contract. This paper aims at depicting workers on short-term contracts and shows the consequences on their professional career are negative and significant. A large part of the wage gap between permanent and temporary workers remains unexplained by observable characteristics. They receive less on-the-job training and their likelihood of obtaining a stable job is lower than 30% after 1 year and a half. They have also a higher probability of being the adjustment variable in case of an economic negative shock. These different findings show the importance of using public policies to encourage transitions from fixed-term to permanent employment and reducing labor-market duality.     

The Surge in Short-Duration Contracts in Spain

Until the outbreak of the recent economic and financial crisis, Spain was leading the ranking of countries with the largest share of temporary employees. During the crisis this share has fallen to its lowest level in decades, but this does not mean that working conditions in Spain have improved. The flow of new temporary contracts is larger than ever before. A particularly striking feature is the steep growth in the volume of fixed-duration contracts lasting less than a week or a month. We document these trends and analyse how this phenomenon has affected the transition from temporary to permanent employment.     

The Diffusion of Local Differentiated Waste Disposal Taxes in the Netherlands

The diffusion of a novel taxing scheme (among Dutch municipalities over the period 1998–2005) is studied in which the waste disposal tax is increasing in the amount of waste a household produces. Inspection of the rise and spread of this tax shows that it is contagious: the probability of introduction is increasing in the number of neighboring municipalities that have already introduced this taxing scheme. A possible rationale is that the tax encourages the dumping of waste in neighboring municipalities. These municipalities may then introduce a similar tax to prevent dumping (spillover effect). Using panel data and a recently developed spatial probit approach (Elhorst et al. in J Appl Econom 32:422–439, 2017), it is possible to distinguish this spillover effect from time-specific effects. The results indicate the presence of strong spillovers.