CURRENCY UNION WITH OR WITHOUT BANKING UNION

We build a symmetric two‐country monetary model with credit to study the interplay between currency integration and credit markets integration. The currency arrangement affects credit availability through default incentives. We capture credit markets integration by the extra cost incurred to obtain credit for cross‐border transactions and, with the euro area context in mind, label as banking union a situation where this cost is low. For high levels of the cross‐border credit cost, currency integration may magnify default incentives, leading to more credit rationing and lower welfare. The integration of credit markets restores the optimality of the currency union.     

Global modelling…Without models?: Theory,methodology, and rhetoric in world modelling

Global models have provided images of the world and its evolution, as well as assessments of the contemporary world and the debates relating to such issues. However, this article addresses the inquiries and attitudes that are fundamental to the development of global modelling, and it emphasizes that a single image, or model, is incapable of valid, universal representation.     

Who benefits from job placement services? A two-sided analysis

In light of additional information market agents would achieve better outcomes, for example, a lower ask price for the buyer and a higher offer price for the seller. I examine this notion in a labor market, where employers and employees do not possess perfect information about wages, and address the question of who benefits from the information provided by job placement services? The empirical strategy considers the two-sided nature of the labor market. Estimates of employee and employer incomplete information are contrasted between users and non-users of placement services provided by Job Corps, America’s largest and most important job training program for youths. Findings suggest that employees that use placement services don’t have more information about better offer wages, relative to non-users. Interestingly, firms that employed users of placement services are better informed about reservation wages relative to firms that employed non-users.     

Neural network volatility forecasts

We analyse whether the use of neural networks can improve ‘traditional’ volatility forecasts from time-series models, as well as implied volatilities obtained from options on futures on the Spanish stock market index, the IBEX-35. One of our main contributions is to explore the predictive ability of neural networks that incorporate both implied volatility information and historical time-series information. Our results show that the general regression neural network forecasts improve the information content of implied volatilities and enhance the predictive ability of the models. Our analysis is also consistent with the results from prior research studies showing that implied volatility is an unbiased forecast of future volatility and that time-series models have lower explanatory power than implied volatility. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Water pricing policies,public decision making and farmers' response: implications for water policy

The problems caused by water scarcity demand important changes in the criteria and objectives of water policies. The agricultural sector in Spain consumes up to 80% of all available hydric resources and the need to increase the efficiency of current uses of water in the agricultural sector is at the core of the country's national water policy. One alternative would be to resort to water pricing policies with the aim of providing incentives to save water consumption although it would inflict a certain degree of income losses to the farmers and raise the revenue collected by the water authorities. The objective of this research is to analyze the effect caused by the application of different water pricing policies on water demand, farmers' income and the revenue collected by the government agency. To undertake this analysis a dynamic mathematical programming model has been built that simulates farmers' behavior and their response to different water pricing scenarios. Empirical application of the model has been carried out in several irrigation districts in Spain covering varied farm regions and river basins. Results show that the effects of alternative pricing policies for irrigation water are strongly dependent on regional, structural and institutional conditions and that changing policies produce distinct consequences within the same region and water district. Thus, equivalent water charges would create widespread effects on water savings, farm income and collected government revenue across regions and districts.     

Work incentives and other effects of the transition to social assistance in the transition economies: Evidence from Bulgaria

The compensation levels, duration structure and means-tested aspects of the income support system for the unemployed in Bulgaria are considered. The available evidence points to the emergence of long term unemployment as a major problem, to a system of social assistance (SA) which is not overly generous and to growing poverty. Nevertheless, econometric analysis using micro data indicates that disincentives for job search exist for SA recipients. In the context of an acute fiscal crisis, systemic efficiency might be improved by restricting access to some benefits, by some changes in scaling, in moves towards targeted contributions and in improvements in administrative capacity.     

Inference for treatment effects of job training on wages: using bounds to compute Fisher’s exact p-value

In the context of a training program’s randomized evaluation, where estimating wage effects is of interest, we propose employing bounds that control for sample selection as a model-based statistic to conduct randomization-based inference à la Fisher. Inference is based on a sharp null hypothesis of no treatment effect for anyone. In contrast to conventional inference, Fisher p-values are nonparametric and do not employ large sample approximations.     

Has financial market integration increased during the nineties?

This paper analyses whether there has been an increase in the degree of financial market integration during the nineties. To do this, we focus on stock markets and compute two alternative measures of market integration based on a refinement of the approach suggested by Chen, Z., Knez, P.J., 1995. [Measurement of market integration and arbitrage, Review of Financial Studies 8(2), 287–325]. The main advantage of this approach is that it relies on the condition of absence of arbitrage opportunities, which is directly related to the idea that more integration means less barriers to trade across markets — and does not depend on any particular asset pricing model. The evidence found suggests that during the nineties there has been an increase of the degree of market integration between stock markets.