SCALE‐INDEPENDENT TECHNOLOGICAL‐KNOWLEDGE BIAS,HUMAN‐CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND GENDER INEQUALITY

We present a dynamic, non‐scale general‐equilibrium model with female and male human capital where Schumpeterian R&D and human‐capital accumulation are the engines of growth and gender wage inequality. Gender wage inequality is encouraged by changes in relative supply and relative demand of both human‐capital types. Relative supply restricts the levels of employed human capital. Relative demand is affected by the technological‐knowledge bias, which is driven by the price channel and is affected by human‐capital accumulation. In particular, the female‐premium per unit of human capital and per worker increases when the observed discrimination against women decreases or is removed.     

An axiomatic characterization of the Theil inequality ordering

We axiomatically characterize the Theil ordering of income inequality. In addition to the uncontroversial axioms of anonymity, homogeneity, replication invariance, strong directedness, and a standard continuity property, we appeal to both an independence and a decomposability axioms. These two axioms are ordinal implications of Theil decomposability, the central axiom in previous characterizations of the Theil index. To the best of our knowledge, the present is the first fully ordinal characterization of this index.     

Location and the theory of production: A review,summary and critique of recent contributions

This paper has two main objectives. First, a generalized version of the Moses-type production- location model is developed where both the input variables and the location variables are allowed to adjust simultaneously. Secondly, the results of the recent articles relating to the Moses framework are discussed in the context of our generalized structure. We conclude that - unless one is willing to assume either the transport rate of output is zero or the location is constrained to be on the Moses arc - if transport rates do not depend on quantities shipped then location is independent of output when the production function is homogeneous of degree one. If transport rates depend on quantities shipped (e.g. quantity discounts), then a production function which is linearly homogeneous is not sufficient to insure that location is independent of output unless the transport rate functions have constant elasticities.     

“Surfeiting,the appetite may sicken”: entrepreneurship and happiness

Do the presence and nature of entrepreneurship impact on national happiness, and are nations with happy citizens better for entrepreneurs to start new businesses? To provide tentative answers we survey the literature on entrepreneurship and subjective well-being and use various data sources to uncover the first evidence of the relationship between entrepreneurship and happiness at the country level. We find that opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship may contribute to a nation’s happiness but only to a certain point, at which the effects of happiness begin to decline. Moreover, our results suggest that a nation’s happiness affects early-stage opportunity-driven entrepreneurial activity.     

Measuring Productivity from Vertically Integrated Sectors

There are many ways to measure productivity. The choice will depend on the suitability of each index to the main purpose the researcher has in mind. Whenever we are interested in 'competitiveness', the proper measure will be the inverse of the total labour embodied in one unit of final product; or, what amounts to the same, the labour employed in the vertically integrated sector corresponding to each final good. A weighted mean of these yields an index of aggregate productivity suitable for measuring social welfare. Another index of aggregate productivity (this one related to the profit rate and potential growth) coincides with the inverse of the maximum eigenvalue of the 'socio-technical matrix'. These indices are computed for the Spanish economy and compared with more conventional ones.     

Walkability and the built environment: validation of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS) for urban areas in Mexico

The article gives the results of adjusting an abbreviated version of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale to the situation in Mexico. The results were obtained through the application of 156 instruments to individuals selected through a probability sampling in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, in the state of Nuevo León, Mexico. The validation process was done over four stages; in the first stage, the questions were analyzed and the sampling was adjusted. In the second stage, a factor analysis was carried out; as the questions were Likert-scale type, we use principal components with a matrix of polychoric correlations. In the third stage, the ordinal and non-ordinal Cronbach Alpha coefficients were determined, as were the ordinal and non-ordinal McDonald Omega coefficients, showing that the non-ordinal ones tend to underestimate the level of reliability, as they assume that it is a continuous scale when in this case it is not; however, the literature shows that these coefficients have been the most used in the validation of this scale. Finally, the intervals of trust were calculated with the bootstrap method, with the goal of incorporating the sensitivity that the coefficients could imply in aspects such as the number of questions, intercorrelations between the questions, and the size of the sample. The results show that the ordinal Alpha and Omega coefficients for the three factors, as well as for the entire scale, will have robust values 95% of the time that the questionnaire is used.     

Testing for pre‐committed quantities of Australian meat demand

Pre‐committed consumption represents the portion of demand that is determined by non‐price and non‐income factors. This study uses quarterly data to estimate a Generalised Almost Ideal Demand System (GAIDS) to test for the existence of pre‐committed meat consumption in Australia. Two specifications are estimated to evaluate the impact of seasonal and time trend factors on pre‐committed demand. Evidence is found for the existence of pre‐committed chicken consumption when jointly estimated with seasonal and time trend factors. Results support improved demand modelling of Australian meat consumption using the GAIDS and provide insights into how Australian meat demand is affected by price, expenditures, pre‐committed consumption, seasonality, and trends.     

The impact of public goods and services and public R&D on the non-observed economy size,wages inequality and growth

We develop a general equilibrium endogenous growth model in which final goods can be produced either in the Non-Observed Economy (NOE) or in the Official Economy (OE). In particular, by solving transitional dynamics numerically towards the unique and stable steady state, we show that, by affecting the technological-knowledge bias in favour of the OE, productive public goods and services and public policies promoting R&D explain the simultaneous rise in the OE size, the wage premium in favour of OE workers and the economic growth rate. These results are mainly in line with empirical evidence for developed countries, since the 1990s.     

Exploring modern bank penetration: Evidence from early twentieth-century Netherlands

We analyse the estate composition of the richest 30 per cent of people who died in the Netherlands in 1921 to find that households used a broad range of institutions to meet their financial demands. Goods and services were either paid in cash or settled periodically with suppliers. Despite the strong growth of commercial banking in the previous decades, households still made extensive use of peer-to-peer loans, with or without the added security of notarial contracts. Banks only possessed a competitive edge in savings accounts for small surpluses and current accounts, the latter used most frequently by business owners born after 1870. Distance to the nearest bank office did not matter for these people, but wealthy urbanites were more inclined to use banks than their counterparts in the countryside.     

The Efficiency of Net Asset Values for Asian–Country Mutual Funds in the US

The net asset values for Asian–country mutual funds in the US come from the underlying market's close a half–day earlier and create inefficiencies that improve returns 6 to 12 times in a pure sense. While these are mitigated because of loads, restrictions on trading and fair value pricing, informational biases exist in trading such funds. These can be exploited with a simple rule: If one plans to trade at all, then one should buy (sell) the fund after its own Asian–country index falls (rises). Basing NAVs on the underlying market's close after the NY market closes can eliminate this inefficiency.