Bargaining, coalitions and competition

We study a Gale-like matching model in a large exchange economy, in which trade takes place through non-cooperative bargaining in coalitions of finite size. Under essentially the same conditions of core equivalence, we show that the strategic equilibrium outcomes of our model coincide with the Walrasian allocations of the economy. Our method of proof makes use of the theory of the core. With respect to previous work, our positive implementation result applies to a substantially larger class of economies: the model relaxes differentiability and convexity of preferences, and also admits an arbitrary number of divisible and indivisible goods.     

Aplicación de bicorrelación cruzada al rendimiento diario del precio del café

This paper uses the cross bicorrelation methodology, which can capture nonlinear trascendence periods through window functions and third-order moments. It applies to the return of four sets of commodities of coffee traded on the New York market (Arabica Colombian, mild Arabica, Arabica Brazilian and Other Arabicas), during the 20/06/1997 - 27/10/2010 period. The results conclude that there is a cross bicorrelation among the four series, with Brazilian type coffee being the leader and a lower bicorrelation with other Arabicas. This complicates decisions for investors in such series.     

SEBI index: Measuring the commitment to the principles of social banking

As a result of the financial crisis, ethical banking has become a visible phenomenon that has aroused the interest of those clients that are disappointed with conventional banking, as well as that of the scientific community. However, research on ethical banking has just started, with several subjects pending consensus, such as the proper definition or identification of banks considered to be ethical. In view of the above, the objective of this study is, first and foremost, to define the common characteristics of all banks affiliated to the movement; empirically, we shall quantify the level of commitment with the same and, thus, as a result of this quantification, obtain a ranking that classifies the selected banks according to the scores obtained. Regarding the methodology used, the quantification of the level of commitment with ethical banking is done through a new index called SEBI (Social and Ethical Banking Index), designed from the characteristics defined in the study and applied to the banks identified as ethical due to being a part of the main network of this type of banking: The Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV).     

The Spanish Labour Market: Reforms and consequences

The institutional design of the Spanish labour market has been subjected, during the last three decades, to permanent pressure fuelled by two beliefs. On the one hand, by the assumption that a higher degree of flexibility would help to reduce unemployment; on the other, by the assumption that such increased flexibility would also help to reduce inflation rates and, consequently, the inflation gap between Spain and the rest of the European countries. The recent history of the Spanish labour market is, therefore, the history of the reforms implemented to increase the flexibility in such a market. The aim of this paper is, firstly, to describe the main features of these reforms, showing the measures implemented in order to increase the flexibility in the labour market and, secondly, to show the degree of flexibility reached in the labour market. Finally, we will briefly analyse the macroeconomic consequences of these reforms.     

Explaining the US–EU productivity growth gap: Structural change vs. intra-sectoral effect

This paper proposes a decomposition of labour productivity growth in the EU15 and the the US since the mid 1990s. The results suggest that the EU's relative slowdown is due to modest “pure” gains of productivity within sectors.     

The Border Effect in Spain

This paper analyses the border effect in Spain using a unique dataset on intranational trade flows over the period 1995–98. The results indicate that, after controlling for market size and distance, Spanish regions trade around 22 times more with the rest of Spain than they do with OECD countries. Moreover, the size of the Spanish bias is lower in the case of the Spanish regions’ exports than in the case of imports, although the difference is not statistically significant in most cases. Finally, the border effect is not uniform across Spanish regions.     

EFFECTS OF FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL GRANTS IN BRAZILIAN MUNICIPALITIES

The objective of the present study is to verify the flypaper effect of 476 Brazilian municipalities from 2005 to 2012, considering the new variables as instruments of grants. Political alignment, alignment of the party, and coalition of the mayor with the federal president and of the state governor were considered as instruments of grants. A municipal tax autonomy index was considered as a control variable, which represents the percentage of local taxes in the municipal total revenues. The results allow concluding that the flypaper effect exists in Brazilian municipalities and is intensified by the alignment of the representatives in the same way of theoretical literature (Hamilton 1983; Hines & Thaler 1995; Inman 2008) and previous empirical studies in Brazil. Moreover, evidences of higher flypaper effect were found in municipalities with low tax autonomy.     

Compensating Wage Differentials for Schooling Risk in Denmark*

In this paper we analyse the association between wage differentials and risk using detailed information on length and type of education as seen in Danish administrative registers. Our contribution to the literature is that we distinguish between transitory (time‐series) and permanent (cross‐sectional) income shocks, and estimate the compensation for both sorts of risk. We find that wage risk in a given education cell is associated with higher wages, while skewness is associated with lower wages. As a robustness check, we see that ad hoc risk measures based on earnings‐mobility indicators confirm these findings.     

A characterization of virtual Bayesian implementation

We provide a characterization of virtual Bayesian implementation in pure strategies for environments satisfying no-total-indifference. A social choice function in such environments is virtually Bayesian implementable if and only if it satisfies incentive compatibility and a condition we term virtual monotonicity. The latter is weaker than Bayesian monotonicity—known to be necessary for Bayesian implementation. Virtual monotonicity is weak in the sense that it is generically satisfied in environments with at least three alternatives. This implies that in most environments virtual Bayesian implementation is as successful as it can be (incentive compatibility is the only condition needed).     

Patterns of dominant flows in the world trade web

The large-scale organization of the world economies is exhibiting increasing levels of local heterogeneity and global interdependency. Understanding the relation between local and global features calls for analytical tools able to uncover the global emerging organization of the international trade network. Here we analyze the world network of bilateral trade imbalances and characterize its overall flux organization, unraveling local and global high-flux pathways that define the backbone of the trade system. We develop a general procedure capable to progressively filter out in a consistent and quantitative way the dominant trade channels. This procedure is completely general and can be applied to any weighted network to detect the underlying structure of transport flows. The trade fluxes properties of the world trade web determine a ranking of trade partnerships that highlights global interdependencies, providing information not accessible by simple local analysis. The present work provides new quantitative tools for a dynamical approach to the propagation of economic crises.