ON‐THE‐JOB SEARCH,PRODUCTIVITY SHOCKS,AND THE INDIVIDUAL EARNINGS PROCESS*

Individual labor earnings observed in worker panel data have complex, highly persistent dynamics. We investigate the capacity of a structural job search model with on‐the‐job search, wage renegotiation by mutual consent, and i.i.d. productivity shocks to replicate salient properties of these dynamics, such as the covariance structure of earnings, the evolution of individual earnings mean, and variance with the duration of uninterrupted employment, or the distribution of year‐to‐year earnings changes. Structural estimation of our model on a 12‐year panel of highly educated British workers shows that our simple framework produces a dynamic earnings structure that is remarkably consistent with the data.     

Global competition and cooperation in the electronics industry: the case of X-ray equipment, 1900–1970

The electronics industry is often regarded by scholars as an example of a sector driven by endless technological innovation and major competition between a few large companies, thus embodying the common view whereby the free market leads firms to innovate. On the other hand, some business historians have also emphasised that, since the beginning of the twentieth century, most of these companies were engaged in various international cartel agreements. The business and economic history literature on this industry reveals a clear-cut divide between the inter-war years and the post-war era. In this paper, however, we argue that technical and commercial cooperation between large electronics companies continued in various forms despite the spread of anti-trust policies after 1945. In this case study, we explore the global X-ray equipment industry from its beginnings around 1900 to the advent of the CT scanner in the early 1970s. The paper focuses on Siemens and Philips, the two largest manufacturers of radiological equipment. It demonstrates that both companies pursued their commercial and technical cooperation at least until the 1970s, although it was much less overt as during the interwar years.     

Wage differences between Austrian men and women: <Emphasis Type="Italic">semper idem?</Emphasis>

In most OECD countries, the wage gap between men and women has narrowed during the past two decades. Developments of the last 20 years, e.g., increased labour market attachment of women or the introduction of equal pay laws, may have reduced the gender wage gap. We investigate the extent, persistence, and socio-economic determinants of the gender wage gap in Austria, for the years 1983 and 1997. Using wage decomposition techniques, we find that the average gender wage gap was almost as high in 1997 as it was in 1983. Not accounting for differences, the gender wage gap dropped from 25.5 to 23.3% of men’s wages. Taking observable differences between men and women into account, we estimate that the mean gender wage gap that cannot be explained, i.e., discrimination against women, dropped from 17 to 14% of men’s wages. A decomposition of the gender wage gap over time indicates that both returns to human capital and less discrimination were responsible for the narrowing of the gender wage gap.

Value at Risk and Economic Growth

The improvement of data statistics as well as the econometrician methods have facilitated the introduction the new variables and factors I the economic growth analysis. In this sense, real variables have mainly been considered in the economic growth studies, but not financial or risk management aspects. In this sense, it is interesting to analyze the relationship between economic growth and value at risk and the feed-back process. The goal of the paper is to analyze the relationship between economic growth and risk management and the feed-back process. We will consider economic variables, including economic growth, rule of law, human capital, fiscal policy and monetary policy, among others, in our analysis. We will analyze the theoretical relationships between these variables and risk and the effects of risk on economic growth. We will also develop an empirical analysis considering the case of 15 European Union countries.

The evaluation of a surveillance system for violent and non-intentional injury mortality in Colombian cities

Since 2002, the Institute for Peace Promotion and Injury/Violence Prevention (CISALVA) at the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia and the Colombia Program at Georgetown University have developed and implemented 21 epidemiologically based municipal crime observatories in intermediate-sized municipalities in Colombia. These crime observatories serve as monitoring centres that provide low cost, geo-referenced methods of data collection and analysis, which allow cities to develop more responsive policies and prevention programmes and enhance governance. This article focuses on the methodology employed and lessons learned that may be applicable to similar settings. Worth noting within the results was a significant decrease in homicides after the first year of the programme. Whether or not such results could be attributed to the method or to the nature of the interventions and policy initiatives stemming from it remains open to conjecture.     

Optimal research and development and the cost of business cycles

While research and development (R&D) investment has been procyclical in the post-war period, recent literature suggests that the optimal path for R&D is countercyclical, and that the economy would be better off by subsidizing R&D in recessions. The objective of this paper is to analyze the welfare effects of distortions in the intertemporal allocation of R&D resources and to compare diverse policy interventions so as to improve social welfare. To this end, we introduce a calibrated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with Schumpeterian endogenous growth that is capable of explaining the observed procyclicality of R&D. Our results show that the cost of business cycles is lower in the decentralized economy with procyclical R&D than in the efficient allocation with countercyclical R&D. This is because the suboptimal propagation of shocks in the decentralized equilibrium offsets some of the existing steady-state distortions. In this second-best context, countercyclical R&D subsidies have no positive effect on welfare. In contrast, fiscal policies aimed at restoring the optimal steady-state produce large welfare gains.     

“A profit table or a profit calculator?” A note on the design of Cournot oligopoly experiments

We report on an experiment conducted to evaluate the effects of varying the way in which market information is presented to participants in laboratory Cournot duopolies. We find that the most standard variations, which are the use of a profit table or a profit calculator, yield indistinguishable performance. However, the addition of a best-response option to the profit calculator tends to increase aggregate output to the Cournot level and decrease the incidence of tacit collusion.