Currency boards as a path towards the Eurozone: lessons from the Baltics

In the early 1990s, the three Baltic states adopted de jure (Estonia 1992, Lithuania 1994) or de facto (Latvia) currency boards. After operating under boards for two decades, Estonia (2011), Latvia (2014) and Lithuania (2015) exited to the Eurozone. The paper takes a qualitative look at their experience through the lens of the currency board literature. Viewed over the entire period of operation, the boards delivered on the inflation stabilization objective with little evidence of a growth or trade penalty. The high average performance was however accompanied by high volatility on both the nominal and the real side. While the boards avoided both currency and sovereign debt crises, they contributed to vulnerabilities, notably the 2004–2010 boom-bust cycle. The Baltic experience re-enforces policy lessons from earlier crisis under fixed exchange rates: vigilance and timely response to incipient vulnerabilities associated with short-term capital-inflows and over-heating.     

A Review of: THE EVALUATION OF RISKY INTERRELATED INVESTMENTS by Frederick S. Hillier

The flood of publications and seminars on activity costing in the last few years suggests that companies suddenly encountered a need for better management accounting information in the 1980s. In fact, management accounting's relevance to most business decision-making deteriorated steadily since the 1950s. However, most companies did not perceive these inadequacies in management accounting until the early 1980s. Current interest in activity management and activity costing reflects the convergence around 1980 of two forces: a long-undetected set of problems in management accounting that seems to originate in the 1950s; and the growth of new competitive pressures in the 1970s that made companies acutely aware of these problems. Although these two forces arose independently, their interaction in the 1970s led to the rise of activity-based management thinking. This paper describes the past, present, and future of activity-based management: past uses of financial accounting information that confounded companies' efforts to plan marketing strategies and to control operations after the 1950s; present ideas for solving these problems with activity-based management concepts such as activity costing; and the likely future direction of activity-based management thought.     

Boredom in Free Time: Relationships with Personality,Affect, and Motivation for Different Gender,Racial and Ethnic Student Groups

The propensity to experience boredom in free time was investigated by exploring relationships with the individual's demographic characteristics, personality, motivational orientation, and affective style assessed through group-administered questionnaires to 999 university students. The self-as-entertainment personality attribute consistently predicted the likelihood that students would be bored, and inverse relationships with extraversion and intrinsic motivational orientation were found for all student groups. Multiple regression analyses revealed that race, ethnicity, and gender were the only significant demographic predictors of the likelihood an individual would be bored in free time. Group similarities and differences in depicting students who were prone to experience boredom in free time are described.     

Die heimlichen Entscheider

Facing the spread and importance of information technology, the lack of empirical studies of IT journalists must be considered a research gap. The small group of IT journalists includes important gatekeepers in the IT market, who play a major part in determining the success and failure of IT products. To examine the powerful position derived from this role is the central aim of this study: How do IT journalists in Germany perceive their influence on buyers and users of IT products? How do they perceive their influence on the IT industry? Based on an online survey of 102 IT journalists in Germany, the study measures subjective perceptions of effects on the general audience and the industry. The findings indicate that IT journalists view themselves as influencing consumer decisions of the general audience as well as corporations’ decisions in product development. However, these perceptions of effects are not related to (1) the audience size of the IT medium, or to journalists’ images of (2) the audience and (3) the IT industry. The perception of their own influence seem to be commonplace among IT journalists, independent of the power of media outlets and particular professional perceptions. The accuracy of journalists’ perceptions of effects and their normative implications are discussed.     

Caste and Religion-Based Wage Discrimination in the Indian Private Sector: Evidence from the Indian Human Development Survey

Using data from the Indian Human Development Survey, we examine evidence of caste and religion-based discrimination in the Indian private and public sector. Both Dalits and Adivasis show significant results of discrimination in the private sector, and benefit disproportionately from working in the public sector. This is strong evidence that at least some of the affirmative action policies in the public sector are proving effective. The policy implications are relevant: should similar affirmative action policies be implemented in the private sector? Further, this research suggests a path for further research to understand why protected castes do not benefit from affirmative action programs to the same extent as Dalits and Adivasis.     

The determinants and labour market effects of lifelong learning

Despite the policy importance of lifelong learning, there is very little hard evidence from the UK on (a) who undertakes lifelong learning and why, and (b) the economic benefits of lifelong learning. This paper uses a rich longitudinal panel data set to look at key factors that determine whether someone undertakes lifelong learning and then models the effect of the different qualifications acquired via lifelong learning on individuals’ economic outcomes, namely wages and the likelihood of being employed. Those who left school with O-level qualifications or above were much more likely to undertake lifelong learning. Undertaking one episode of lifelong learning also increased the probability of undertaking more lifelong learning. We found little evidence of positive wage effects from lifelong learning. However, males who left school with only low-level qualifications do earn substantially more if they undertake a degree via lifelong learning. We also found important positive employment effects from lifelong learning.     

Rational Choice in Strategic Environments: Further Observations

This note clarifies some aspects of Bernheim's (1986) characterization of Nash and correlated equilibria.     

The liquidity of bank assets and banking stability

This paper shows that an increased liquidity of bank assets, paradoxically, increases banking instability and the externalities associated with banking failures. This is because even though higher asset liquidity directly benefits stability by encouraging banks to reduce the risks on their balance sheets and by facilitating the liquidation of assets in a crisis, it also makes crises less costly for banks. As a result, banks have an incentive to take on an amount of new risk that more than offsets the positive direct impact on stability.