Restructuring the State-Owned Banking Sector: A Comparative Assessment of Approaches in Central Europe

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

CAPITALIZATION OF GOVERNMENT SUPPORT IN AGRICULTURAL LAND PRICES: WHAT DO WE KNOW?

Abstract.  The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of existing literature, both theoretically and empirically, on the extent to which agricultural subsidies do translate into higher land values and rents and finally benefit landowners instead of agricultural producers. Our review shows that agricultural support policy instruments contribute to increasing the rental price of farmland, and that the extent of this increase closely depends on the level of the supply price elasticity of farmland relative to those of other factors/inputs on the one hand, and on the range of the possibilities of factor/input substitution in agricultural production on the other hand. The empirical literature shows that land prices and rents have in general a significant positive and inelastic response to government support. Such inelastic response is thought to reflect the uncertain future of the farm programmes. And in general, studies have indicated that land prices are more responsive to government-based returns than to market-based returns.     

Shadow vs. market prices in explaining land allocation: Subsistence maize cultivation in rural Mexico

Prices may fail to explain farmers’ land allocation if the relevant decision prices are “shadow prices” that deviate from market prices. This may be the case for farmers who attach significant non-market values to their crops. I theoretically explain why land allocation may not respond to market signals even if transaction costs are not binding. I use nationally representative rural household data from Mexico to show that shadow prices better explain the land subsistence farmers allocate to traditional maize in this center of maize diversity. I discuss the importance of non-market values in understanding supply response and on-farm conservation of traditional crops.     

Normative Violence in Domestic Service: A Study of Exploitation,Status, and Grievability

Journal of Business Ethics - This paper contributes to business ethics by focusing on consumption that is characterized by normative violence. By drawing on the work of Judith Butler this study of...     

On synthesis of judgements

We discuss several conditions which are reasonable to require for functions synthesizing either ratio or measure judgements, (or both) and determine all synthesizing functions satisfying either shorter or longer lists of such assumptions (yielding more general or more specific synthesizing procedures, respectively).     

Why did a majority of French voters reject the European Constitution?

This article assesses the reasons that led a majority of French voters to reject the 29 October 2004 Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. Their reasons are less connected with the Treaty itself than with a fear of loss of national sovereignty, immigration, and relocation of firms to European countries where the workforce is cheaper.     

Estimation in the first-order moving average model through the finite autoregressive approximation: Some asymptotic results

To estimate α in the model y_t = u_t+αu_t?1, we consider a proposal by Durbin (Biometrika, 1969). It consists in fitting an autoregression of order k to the data, and deriving from there an estimate α^. The probability limit and the variance of the limiting normal distribution of α^ are presented and discussed in detail, when the sample size T → ∞, but k remains fixed. The differences between the resulting values and those corresponding to the maximum likelihood estimator are exponentially decreasing functions of k. Several modifications of the estimator are discussed and found consistent, but asymptotically inefficient.     

Wirtschaftslehre der Unternehmung in Hauptgedanken ihrer theoretischen Begründung

Ohne ZusammenfassungGewidmet der Tschechischen Technischen Hochschule in Prag — dieser ältesten öffentlichen ingenieurwissenschaftlichen Schule Europas —zum 250-jährigen Jubiläum (1707 bis 1957) im festen Glauben an eine baldige Vereinigung aller Prager Hochschulen technischer Richtung in das organische Ganzeder Technischen Universität und in der Überzeugung von der Notwendigkeit der wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät als eines unabtrennbaren Bestandteiles dieser Universität.     

Hayek Reads the Literature on the Emergence of Norms

Hayek’s approach to cultural and institutional evolution has been frequently criticized because it is explicitly based on the controversial notion of (cultural) group selection. In this paper this criticism is rejected on the basis of recent works on biological and cultural evolution. The paper’s main contention is that Hayek employed group selection as a tool for the explanation of selection among several equilibria, and not as a vehicle for the emergence of out of equilibrium behavior (i.e., altruism). The paper shows that Hayek’s ideas foreshadowed some of the most promising developments in the current literature on the emergence of norms. JEL Classification: B31, B41     

Macroeconomic transitions and the transmission mechanism: Evidence from Turkey

This paper investigates changes to the macroeconomic transmission mechanism in Turkey following a major reform of monetary policy in the early 2000s. We use a Threshold VAR (TVAR) framework to test for and then estimate a model with endogenous transitions between regimes. We detect two regimes, with a clear transition between them in 2003–4. The pre-reform regime is characterized by high inflation, passive monetary policy and persistent responses to shocks. The post-reform regime is characterized by low inflation, active and credible monetary policy and markedly less persistent responses to shocks. Using a model that contains sufficient variables to capture diverse transmission mechanisms, working through the real exchange rate, domestic credit and monetary policy, we find evidence of sharp changes in transmission mechanisms. Post-reform, the response of Turkey to macroeconomic shocks has changed to be similar to those in other modern, market-orientated economies.