Economic growth,public, and private investment returns in 17 OECD economies

Portuguese Economic Journal - We study the macroeconomic effects of public and private investment in 17 OECD economies through a VAR analysis with annual data from 1960 to 2014. From impulse...     

Sequential location under one-sided demand uncertainty

In entering a new market, firms face demand uncertainty. We depart from the usual Hotelling duopoly model with sequential entry. We allow firms to locate outside of the city and assume that market conditions are common knowledge. We then introduce one-sided demand uncertainty. We find that demand uncertainty can be seen as a differentiation force when faced by the first entrant and as an agglomeration force when faced by the second entrant. Finally, the second firm’s imperfect information implies higher welfare losses.     

The pervasive absence of compensating differentials

We study the relation between individual preferences for job amenities (e.g., type of work, job security) and compensating wage differentials in cross‐section. To this end, we estimate a partial equilibrium job search model on panel data from eight European countries. There are five non‐wage job characteristics and two sources of job‐to‐job mobility: on‐the‐job search and reallocation shocks. We also allow for two types of unobserved heterogeneity. We find strong preferences for amenities, especially job security, yet, these preferences do not translate into significant wage differentials in cross‐section. Counterfactual experiments show that one would need extremely low levels of search frictions for compensating differentials to arise. Lastly, a similar exercise on the distribution of job change outcomes reveals the role of constrained job‐to‐job mobility in the absence of compensating wage differentials. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

IATA—A cartel that needs reforming

On November 19,1971, during the 27th annual International Air Transportation Association’s ’ IATA ’ meeting, a new fare structure on the North Atlantic route was reached. Has this new agreement saved IATA as “a system of freely arrived-at and freely-respected basic rules”, or does this new accord only serve to mask, with difficulty, the “pile of debris”?     

Sharing Money Creation in a Monetary Union*

How to share money creation among the members of the European Monetary Union? To address this issue, we construct a two‐country New Open‐economy Macroeconomics model of an asymmetric monetary union with an incomplete financial market and home bias in consumption. We consider two sharing rules consistent with the current regulations of the European System of Central Banks. First, each participating National Central Bank supplies half of the European Central Bank determined money creation in the monetary union. Secondly, each National Central Bank adapts the national increase in money demand, under the constraint that the total money creation in the union does not exceed the level determined by the ECB for the whole union. We show that the current sharing rule, which ignores countries’ heterogeneity, is superior in terms of welfare. The key role of the current account is emphasized. It proves an efficient decentralized mechanism for allocation of money.     

On International compensations for environmental stocks

This paper sheds some light on the possible implications of compensations which are paid for the maintenance of an environmental stock. It shows that serious complications can arise if the resource-owner may influence the compensation price strategically. If the incentive to raise the compensation price dominates the preservation incentive, the steady-state stock falls short from that which is voluntarily held. Whether compensation policies can neglect this feature depends crucially on the institutional setting which determines the compensation price.This paper originated from a research project about the stability of international environmental agreements. I gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Volkswagen Foundation. A predecessor of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Ausschuß für Umwelt- und Ressourcenökonomie of the Verein für Socialpolitik in Ladenburg. I am indebted to the participants for many helpful comments which improved this paper significantly. Thanks are also due to Gernot Klepper, Peter Michaelis and two anonymous referees whose comments and suggestions were very helpful. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Buchbesprechungen

Zusammenfassungen  Im Fach Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft liegen bislang kaum empirische Daten zur Situation des promovierten wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses vor. Diese Studie gibt Aufschluss über Besch?ftigungssituation, Berufszufriedenheit, Betreuung sowie Karrierevorstellungen und -strategien der Post-Doktorandinnen und-Doktoranden des Faches. Die Ergebnisse einer Befragung im deutschsprachigen Raum zeigen, dass die Postdocs mit ihrer beruflichen Situation, vor allem mit den Arbeitsinhalten und der Flexibilit?t der Arbeitszeiten zufrieden sind und eine akademische Karriere anstreben. Die Konkurrenz und die Hürden auf dem Karriereweg werden allerdings als gro? wahrgenommen. Zudem scheinen die als vielversprechend eingesch?tzten Karrierestrategien wie das Publizieren in internationalen Fachzeitschriften nur schwer umsetzbar zu sein. Einzig jene Postdocs, die von ihrer/m vorgesetzten Professor/in beim Publizieren und beim Aufbau eines Netzwerks unterstützt und betreut werden, schaffen es, viel zu publizieren und international in Erscheinung zu treten. Hingegen sind zwei andere Gruppen weniger erfolgreich in der Umsetzung der eigenen Ziele bzw. verfolgen mit der Habilitation eher traditionelle Karrierestrategien.

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Are many paths leading to Rome? Professional situation and career strategies of post-doc scholars in communication and media studies

There are hardly any data on the situation of post-doc scholars in the field of communication and media studies. This study describes the employment, job satisfaction, mentoring, and career concepts and strategies of post-docs in the field. A survey among post-docs in the German-speaking countries shows that they are satisfied with their job situation, especially the kind of work they have to do and the flexibility of their working hours. They also aspire to a career in academia. Competition and obstacles on the career path are, however, perceived as considerable. Some strategies such as publishing in international journals are seen as promising, but hard to attain. Only those post-docs who are supported by the professor they work for succeed in publishing much and getting to be known internationally. Other groups are less successful in reaching their goals or pursue the traditional career path of habilitation.

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Dr. Werner Wirth ist ordentlicher Professor für empirische Kommunikations- und Medienforschung am Institut für Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung (IPMZ) der Universit?t Zürich. Ilona St?mpfli (lic. rer. soc.) ist wissenschaftliche Assistentin am IPMZ. Saskia B?cking (Dr. des.) ist ebenfalls wissenschaftliche Assistentin und Dr. J?rg Matthes wissenschaftlicher Assistent am IPMZ.     

Cost and Production Duality: The Case of the Regulated Firm

This paper examines a generalization of cost-production duality for regulated firms. It derives an equivalency between the production function and conditional factor demands for the case where the firm's optimization problem is subject to a set of additional (regulatory) constraints. This procedure is extended to an optimization problem within a dynamic framework which leads to the recovery of the firm's technology.     

Government measures in support of the financial sector in the EU and the United States

In the last issue of Intereconomics, a first article by the present authors looked into the measures that central banks have taken in support of the financial sector in an effort to mitigate the effects of the financial crisis. This second article describes the measures taken by governments to contain the impact of the financial crisis and discusses potential exit strategies. Although the focus is on the measures implemented by euro area governments, the article also compares these measures with the ones taken in the United Kingdom and the United States.