The Italian airport industry in transition: a performance analysis

This paper analyzes the impacts of Italian government actions on the efficiency of 36 airports between 2001 and 2003. The changes have included privatization, enlargement of the services provided directly by airport management companies, through the modification of the concession agreements, and the creation of two hubs. The analysis, using the consolidated two-stage data envelopment analysis with bootstrapping, indicates that airports with a majority public holding are on average more efficient and the presence of two hubs is source of inefficiency.     

Resources, innovation and growth in the global economy

The relative performance of open economies is analyzed in an endogenous growth model with asymmetric trade. A resource-rich country trades resource-based intermediates for final goods produced by a resource-poor economy. The effects of an increase in the resource endowment depend on the elasticity of substitution between resources and labor in intermediates' production. Under substitution (complementarity), the resource boom generates higher (lower) income, lower (higher) employment in the primary sector and faster (slower) growth in the resource-rich economy. In the resource-poor economy, the shock induces a higher (lower) relative wage and positive (negative) growth effects that are exclusively due to trade.     

Strategisches Asset-Liability Management in der Versicherungswirtschaft — Ein Ansatz zur integrierten Bilanzstrukturoptimierung

Asset-Liability Management has gained increased significance within the German insurance industry. This was mainly driven by recent capital market developments. In fact, insurers have encountered challenges to earn given interest guarantees. Regulatory changes also require more sophisticated ALM-tools. Solvency II will change the underlying paradigm and shift balance sheets perception towards a market value oriented view. Especially liabilities will have to be accounted for using the fair value approach. Most ALM-tools appear to be unable to cope with these demands. To improve this current practice, in this paper a Markowitz-approach is employed in order to generate an integrated method for the optimization of assets and liabilities in the life insurance industry. This technique aims to link new regulatory requirements to the latest capital market theory and therefore delivers a procedure for an integrated asset allocation policy in the insurance industry.     

When a Door Closes,a Window Opens? Long‐Term Labor Market Effects of Involuntary Separations

This study estimates the earning losses of workers experiencing an involuntary job separation. We employ, for the first time in the earning losses literature, a Poisson pseudo‐maximum‐likelihood estimator with fixed effects that has several advantages with respect to conventional fixed effects models. The Poisson estimator allows considering the full set of involuntary separations, including those with zero labor market earnings because of unemployment. By including individuals with zero earnings and by using our new method, the loss in the year of separation becomes larger than in previous studies. The loss starts with roughly 30% and, although it quickly shrinks, it remains at around 15% in the following years. In addition, we find that compared to other reasons for separation, the earning loss pattern is unique for involuntary separations, because no other type of separation implies such permanent scarring. This latter finding makes us confident that the self‐reported involuntariness of a separation is a reliable source of information.     

The Euro-area Financial System: Structure, Integration, and Policy Initiatives

Four years after the introduction of the euro, this paper providesan overview of the current structure and integration of theeuro-area financial systems and related policy initiatives.We first compare the euro-area financial structure with thoseof the United States and Japan. Using new and comprehensivefinancial account data, we also describe how the euro-area financialstructure has evolved since 1995. We document the progress towardsintegration of the major euro-area financial segments, namelymoney markets, bond markets, equity markets, and banking. Finally,we discuss recent policy initiatives aimed at further improvingEuropean financial integration.     

Straddling the Divides: Remaking Associational Life in the Informal African City

Actors in fluid African urban environments endeavor to construct effective means to generate collaborative social action, enforce collective responsibility, and deploy effective and legitimate instruments of power. This effort configures an uneasy tension between the adoption of normative discourses of urban management and governance, and the proliferation of more provisional and informal modalities of association. The article treats informalization as a dynamic process related to new challenges faced by urban citizens in their attempts to access opportunities and, at the same time, maintain social coherence. It explores a broad range of tactics and institutions being used to access livelihood opportunities that more often are now external to the quarter, while maintaining some functional sense of local solidarity. Les acteurs intervenant dans l'incertitude des contextes urbains africains s'efforcent d'élaborer des moyens efficaces pour générer des collaborations d'action sociale, faire valoir une responsabilité collective, et déployer des instruments de pouvoir performants et légitimes. Cette entreprise crée un malaise entre les discours normatifs adoptés par l'autorité et l'encadrement urbains, et la prolifération de modalités d'association provisoires et informelles. L'article traite de ‘l'informalisation’ en tant que processus dynamique dans le cadre des nouveaux défis que les citoyens urbains rencontrent dans leurs tentatives d'accéder à des opportunités tout en préservant la cohérence sociale. Il explore un large éventail de tactiques et institutions utilisées pour obtenir des possibilités de subsistance – désormais plus souvent extérieures au quartier – et protéger parallèlement un certain sens fonctionnel de solidarité locale.