Relevance and advantages of using the item response theory

The item response theory (IRT) also known as latent trait theory, is used for the development, evaluation and administration of standardized measurements; it is widely used in the areas of psychology and education. This theory was developed and expanded for over 50 years and has contributed to the development of measurement scales of latent traits. This paper presents the basic and fundamental concepts of this IRT and a practical example of the construction of scales is proposed to illustrate the feasibility, advantages and validity of IRT through a known measurement, the height. The results obtained with the practical application of IRT confirm its effectiveness in the evaluation of latent traits.     

The Effect of EMU on Tourism*

This paper estimates the effect of the euro on intra‐EMU tourist flows by using a panel dataset of 20 OECD countries over the period 1995–2002. The results reveal that the euro has increased tourism, with an effect of around 6.5%. This is a noticeable impact given the early stage of the EMU analyzed. The robustness checks show that the evidence of a positive impact is quite widespread across EMU destination countries.     

Macrodynamics of debt regimes, financial instability and growth

This paper develops a post-Keynesian dynamic model of capacityutilisation and growth, in which the supply of credit-moneyis endogenous and firms' debt position—and thus the financialfragility of the economy à la Hyman Minsky—is explicitlymodelled. The interest rate is set by banks as a markup overa base rate exogenously determined by the monetary authority.The banking markup varies with changes in capacity utilisation,while the debt ratio varies with changes in the rates of interest,capital accumulation and growth. Regarding dynamics, it is shownthe possibility of relating the stability properties of a systemwith the interest rate and the debt ratio as state variablesto the prevailing Minskyan regime—hedge, speculative orPonzi.     

Does ownership structure affect value? A panel data analysis for the Spanish market

This paper analyzes the influence of ownership structure on firm value. We find a non-significant relationship between the ownership of large blockholders and firm value. We also find a positive effect of the degree of control with regard to firm value. Endogenous treatment of these variables then reveals a positive effect for the ownership by major shareholders on firm value, although the opposite relationship is not significant; and a positive effect of the degree of control on Tobin's Q and vice versa. A positive effect is seen when the major shareholders are individuals.     

Factor decomposition of cross-country income inequality, 1960–1990

In this paper we present Esteban's 1994 [Esteban, J., 1994. La desigualdad interregional en Europa y en España: descripción y análisis. In: Esteban, J.M^a., Vives, X. (dirs.), Crecimiento y convergencia regional en España y en Europa, Vol. 2, Instituto de Análisis Económico] decomposition of the Theil index of inequality over per capita incomes into the (unweighted) sum of the inequality indices of (i) the productivity per employed worker, (ii) the employment rate, (iii) the active over working-age population rate, and (iv) the working-age over total population rate. Each of these factors clearly have different meanings for analysis as well as for policy. We apply this factoral decomposition to a set of 120 countries. We also contrast the empirical findings with the results obtained for the 23 OECD countries. [OECD, Labour Force Statistics, Several issues, Paris].     

Risk and Crisis Management in the Reformed European Agricultural Policy

Currently there is ample discussion among EU Institutions (European Commission, European Parliament, and Member States' governments) on the opportunity for setting up a comprehensive EU‐wide framework on risk and crises in agriculture. In the meantime, within the limits of the WTO rules on agriculture, national governments are allowed to intervene through direct compensation to farmers in case of exceptional events that cause damages to farming operations and through subsidies to crop insurance programs. Such schemes are quite expensive for domestic budgets and some Member States are trying to switch some of their cost to the Community's budget, although an expansion of financial resources devoted to agriculture in Europe is rather unlikely. Moving from the recently emanated proposal of the European Commission, this paper discusses the main issues related to public intervention for risk and crises management in agriculture. Actuellement, les institutions européennes (Commission européenne, Parlement européen et gouvernements des pays membres) discutent intensément de l'opportunité d'élaborer un cadre général pour l'ensemble de l'Union européenne sur les crises et les risques dans le secteur agricole. Entre‐temps, selon les règles de l'OMC sur l'agriculture, les gouvernements nationaux peuvent intervenir en accordant des compensations financières directes aux agriculteurs en cas de circonstances exceptionnelles causant des dommages aux exploitations agricoles ainsi que des subventions aux programmes d'assurance récolte. Ces interventions amputent considérablement les budgets nationaux, et certains pays membres tentent de transférer une partie de leurs coûts au budget de l'Union européenne, bien qu'il soit peu probable que les ressources financières consacrées à l'agriculture en Europe augmentent. A la lumière de la récente proposition de la Commission européenne, le présent article traite des principaux thèmes liés à l'intervention publique dans la gestion des risques et des crises dans le secteur agricole.     

Foreign Direct Investment,Regulations and Growth

The paper explores the linkage between income growth rates and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. So far the evidence is rather mixed, as no robust relationship between FDI and income growth has been established. We argue that countries need a sound business environment in the form of good government regulations to be able to benefit from FDI. Using a comprehensive data set for regulations, we test this hypothesis and find evidence that excessive regulations restrict growth through FDI only in the most regulated economies. This result is robust to different specifications of the econometric model.     

The effect of seasonal adjustment on the properties of business cycle regimes

We study the impact of seasonal adjustment on the properties of business cycle expansion and recession regimes using analytical, simulation and empirical methods. Analytically, we show that the X‐11 adjustment filter both reduces the magnitude of change at turning points and reduces the depth of recessions, with specific effects depending on the length of the recession. A Monte Carlo analysis using Markov‐switching models confirms these properties, with particularly undesirable effects in delaying the recognition of the end of a recession. However, seasonal adjustment can help to clarify the true regime when this is well underway. These results continue to hold when a seasonally non‐stationary process with regime‐dependent mean is misspecified as one with deterministic seasonal effects. The empirical findings, based on four coincident US business cycle indicators, reinforce the analytical and simulation results by showing that seasonal adjustment leads to the identification of longer and shallower recessions than obtained using unadjusted data. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.