Extreme value statistics for censored data with heavy tails under competing risks

This paper addresses the problem of estimating, from randomly censored data subject to competing risks, the extreme value index of the (sub)-distribution function associated to one particular cause, in a heavy-tail framework. Asymptotic normality of the proposed estimator is established. This estimator has the form of an Aalen-Johansen integral and is the first estimator proposed in this context. Estimation of extreme quantiles of the cumulative incidence function is then addressed as a consequence. A small simulation study exhibits the performances for finite samples.     

Unreformed or Hybrid? Accounting for Pension Arrangements Diversity in the EU

EU27 pension systems are diverse and different from textbook ideal-type. They are hybrids because they combine public and private pension features. Over a century, public and private pensions have been designed and reformed simultaneously. We examine how the history of those reforms can explain the emergence of existing hybrid pension arrangements.     

Public interest versus regulatory capture in the Swedish electricity market

This article tests the public interest and regulatory capture hypotheses, in the context of the Swedish electricity market, by studying the factors influencing the Swedish Energy Agency’s decision to replace decision-makers it employs to hear customer complaints against utilities. The study covers the period from the beginning of 1996, when a series of regulatory reforms were introduced to improve consumer protection, until the end of 2008. The study concludes that decision-makers who find in favor of customers have had a statistically lower probability of being removed, consistent with public interest theory. A transitory effect of favoring utilities can be observed for the period from 2 to 6 years following the reforms. In this period, government and public scrutiny of the regulator, which had been high in the immediate aftermath of the reforms, had waned and there were few precedents decided by the courts that the regulator was required to follow. This vacuum created an opportunity for the utilities to increase their influence over the regulator. Once the courts started establishing precedents in relatively large numbers, the supervisory role of the courts ensured that the actions of the regulator were scrutinized. This development has served a similar function to government and public scrutiny in the years immediately following the reforms in promoting the public interest.     

Pollution Abatement Subsidies and the Eco-Industry

This paper considers the combination of pollution taxes and abatement subsidies when some polluting firms procure their abatement goods and services from an oligopolistic eco-industry. The regulator must here cope with two simultaneous price distortions: one that comes from pollution and the other which is caused by the eco-industry’s market power. In this context, we show that taxing emissions while subsidizing polluters’ abatement efforts cannot lead to first-best, but the opposite occurs provided it is the eco-industry’s output which is subsidized. When public transfers also create distortions, welfare can be higher if the regulator uses only an emission tax, but subsidizing abatement suppliers while taxing emissions remains optimal when the eco-industry is concentrated.     

Demand for redistribution,support for the welfare state,and party identification in Austria

This paper describes subjective wage inequality and the demand for redistribution in Austria using individuals’ estimates of occupational wages from the International Social Survey Program. Although these estimates differ widely across individuals, the data clearly show that most individuals would like to decrease wage inequality, relative to the level of inequality which they perceive to exist. The empirical analysis also shows that the demand for redistribution is strongly associated not only with variables describing self-interested motives for redistribution, but also with perceptions of and social norms with respect to inequality. Further, the demand for redistribution is a strong predictor for whether an individual is supportive of redistribution by the state. On the other hand, however, I find almost no evidence for an empirical association between the demand for redistribution and individuals’ party identification.     

A CGE analysis of oil price change

As Chinese economy system has been depended more on the import of petroleum with the development of China, the change in the price of international oil have caused concern among economists and policy makers. This paper is to present a financial Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of the Chinese economy which integrates real economy and financial sectors, and to apply it to quantitatively evaluate the impacts on Chinese economy caused by international oil price changes. And the model endogenously determines the exchange rate, covering fixed, partially flexible, and completely flexile exchange rate system to consider the effect of foreign oil price changes from the point of view of macro and industrial aspects. Finally, this paper presents concluding remarks.     

Bounds for the mean residual life function of a <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-out-of-<Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis> system

In the reliability studies, k-out-of-n systems play an important role. In this paper, we consider sharp bounds for the mean residual life function of a k-out-of-n system consisting of n identical components with independent lifetimes having a common distribution function F, measured in location and scale units of the residual life random variable X _t  = (X−t|X > t). We characterize the probability distributions for which the bounds are attained. We also evaluate the so obtained bounds numerically for various choices of k and n.     

Employment and wage practices of Japanese firms in the Philippines: convergence with Filipino-Chinese and Western-owned firms

In foreign-owned Philippine firms, human resource approaches and practices tend to converge. Japanese-owned firms localize their human resource practices by emphasizing local standards and practices in compensation, hiring, recruitment, job assignments and the like. On the other hand, Western-owned firms tend to adopt well-known Japanese style practices. Filipino-Chinese-owned firms tend to be traditional, emphasizing both informal and hierarchical control mechanisms which put a premium upon loyalty and trust, through familistic, informal but hierarchical control mechanisms. As the owners of these firms pass on control to the next generation, they tend to hire professional managers. These managers include younger generation Filipino-Chinese educated abroad. They are torn between the rational, and traditional norms and practices insisted upon by their Confucian-oriented elders, and the demands of a competitive and ever-changing technology and economy.

It is quite meaningless to attach adjectives like ‘Japanese’, ‘Filipino-Chinese’ or ‘Western’ to universal concepts like industrial relations and human resource approaches - the search for the best approach in work relations is beyond the issue of convergence or divergence.