A model of the skill composition of US immigration

A human capital model is specified to explain the skill composition of US immigration. A unique set of panel data (57 source countries and 15 annual observations) and a methodology not previously used to study a demographic phenomenon are employed to estimate the model. Coefficients on time-invariant variables are recovered by means of the Hausman - Taylor instrumental variable procedure, which yields considerably different results than the generalized least squares model.     

Evolutionary competition between prediction rules and the emergence of business cycles within Metzler’s inventory model

We revise Metzler??s well-known inventory model by developing a framework in which producers can either apply a simple but cheap extrapolative or a more sophisticated but expensive regressive forecasting rule to predict future sales. Producers are boundedly rational in the sense that they tend to select forecasting rules with a high evolutionary fitness. Using a mixture of analytical and numerical tools, we attempt to describe the characteristics of our model??s dynamical system. Our results suggest that the evolutionary competition between heterogeneous predictors may lead to irregular fluctuations in economic activity.     

Religion, longevity, and cooperation: The case of the craft guild

When the mortality rate is high, repeated interaction alone may not sustain cooperation, and religion may play an important role in shaping economic institutions. This insight explains why during the fourteenth century, when plagues decimated populations and the church promoted the doctrine of purgatory, guilds that bundled together religious and occupational activities dominated manufacturing and commerce. During the sixteenth century, the disease environment eased, and the Reformation dispelled the doctrine of purgatory, necessitating the development of new methods of organizing industry. The logic underlying this conclusion has implications for the study of institutions, economics, and religion throughout history and in the developing world today.     

An advantage of the bargaining set over the core

An example of a market game is described for which the bargaining set seems to be intuitively more acceptable than the (nonempty) core. It also yields more insight into the nature of the competition that may exist among the traders.     

Cointegration analysis of quarterly tourism demand by Hong Kong and Singapore for Australia

Hong Kong and Singapore are two of the most important and fastest growing markets for tourists to Australia. The purpose of this paper is to investigate movements in the long-run demand for tourist travel by these two origin countries for Australia. Some of the leading macroeconomic variables examined to explain tourism demand are incomes in Hong Kong and Singapore, tourism prices in Australia, and transportation costs and exchange rates between the two countries and Australia. Seasonally unadjusted quarterly data are used for Hong Kong for the period 1975(1)–1996(4), and for 1980(4)–1996(4) for Singapore. Several proxy variables are used for the incomes of tourists from Hong Kong and Singapore to explain quarterly tourist arrivals to Australia. The augmented Dickey-Fuller test for unit roots is examined in the univariate framework, and Johansen's maximum likelihood procedure is used to test for cointegration and to estimate the number of cointegrating vectors. Error correction models are estimated to explain quarterly tourism demand by Hong Kong and Singapore for Australia.