Illustrating the importance of Austrian business cycle theory: A reply to Murphy,Barnett, and Block; A call for quantitative study

Murphy et al. (2009) criticize Young’s (2005) test of Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) using US industry-level quarterly job reallocation data and the federal funds rate as a monetary policy indicator. I argue that not only are Murphy et al.’s specific criticisms misguided; more importantly, they all but completely rule out the type of empirical study that Young (2005) advocates: specifically, one that (1) is quantitative and distinguishes between statistical and economic significance and (2) attempts to exploit a hypothesis that is both a prediction of ABCT and not a prediction of competing monetary theories of the cycle. I argue that empirical studies embodying (1) and (2) are critical to ABCT as a research program. Furthermore, I review the existing econometric studies of ABCT from the last 10 years and conclude that there is much room for improvement along these lines.     

Identifying contracts,combinations and conspiracies in restraint of trade

Antitrust guidelines rely on structural screens to review horizontal merger proposals for possible anti-competitive effects. This paper extends this screening approach to forecast where industry cartels will form, and where cartel agreements are more likely to raise price. I test the screen's reliability for a unique data set of legal, privately enforced industry cartels that formed under the Webb-Pomerene Export Trade Act. Consistent with screening assumptions, I find that cartels formed more frequently in industries with significant potential market power, high barriers to entry, and conditions facilitating the enforcement of agreements. However, these characteristics generally perform less well at distinguishing when cartels are likely to raise price without generating offsetting cost-savings, suggesting that screening is reliable only as a preliminary check for possible anti-competitive behavior.     

Assessing Preference Change on the US Supreme Court

The foundation upon which accounts of policy-motivated behaviorof Supreme Court justices are built consists of assumptionsabout the policy preferences of the justices. To date, mostscholars have assumed that the policy positions of Supreme Courtjustices remain consistent throughout the course of their careersand most measures of judicial ideology—such as Segal andCover scores—are time invariant. On its face, this assumptionis reasonable; Supreme Court justices serve with life tenureand are typically appointed after serving in other politicalor judicial roles. However, it is also possible that the worldviews,and thus the policy positions, of justices evolve through thecourse of their careers. In this article we use a Bayesian dynamicideal point model to investigate preference change on the USSupreme Court. The model allows for justices' ideal points tochange over time in a smooth fashion. We focus our attentionon the 16 justices who served for 10 or more terms and completedtheir service between the 1937 and 2003 terms. The results arestriking—14 of these 16 justices exhibit significant preferencechange. This has profound implications for the use of time-invariantpreference measures in applied work.     

LGBT Neighbourhoods and ‘New Mobilities’: Towards Understanding Transformations in Sexual and Gendered Urban Landscapes

In this article we apply insights from ‘new mobilities’ approaches to understand the shifting sexual and gendered landscapes of major cities in the global North. The empirical context is the purported ‘demise’ of traditional gay villages in Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia, and the emergence of ‘LGBT neighbourhoods’ elsewhere in the inner city. We reinterpret the historical geography of twentieth century LGBT lives and the associated ‘rise and fall’ of gay enclaves through the lens of the ‘politics of mobility’. In this reading, it is apparent that multifaceted movements — migration, physical and social mobility, and motility — underpin the formation of gay enclaves and recent transformations in sexual and gendered landscapes. After the second world war, LGBT communities in the global North were embedded in specific historical geographies of mobility and we trace these in the Canadian and Australian contexts. The ‘great gay migration’ from the 1960s to the 1980s has been joined by new LGBT constellations of mobility in the 2000s, and these have imprinted upon the sexual and gendered landscapes of Toronto and Sydney.     

A SURVEY OF THE ECONOMICS OF PATENT SYSTEMS AND PROCEDURES

The last several decades have seen increases in patenting activity worldwide, as well as growing issues related to patent quality. In response to these quality issues a recent patent literature has emerged, that investigates the behavior and incentives of patent examiners, applicants, and third parties. In this paper, we provide an overview of patent procedures, patent systems and a survey of the new economic literature on patent systems. Both theoretical and empirical papers are considered. Policy implications coming from this literature are presented.     

Health effects on labour market exits and entries

This paper analyses the role of health on exits out of and entries into employment using data from the first twelve waves of the British Household Panel Survey (1991–2002). We use discrete-time duration models to estimate the effect of health on the hazard of becoming non-employed and on the hazard of becoming employed. The results show that general health, measured by a variable that captures health limitations and by a constructed latent health index, affects entries into and exits out of employment; the effects being higher for men than for women. The results are robust to different definitions of employment, and to the exclusion of older workers from the analysis.     

How similar is the world in the internet era? A comparison of e‐business in China,Russia, and Sweden

Much has been written about how e‐business can serve as a strong homogenizing influence and essentially make the world into one market. Yet, little research has empirically investigated this question. This study seeks to describe e‐business activity in China, Sweden, and Russia to identify similarities and differences in the portfolios of e‐business applications in these countries. Our results indicate that different e‐business applications are emerging as more prevalent in different countries. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Managing business performance: The contrasting cases of two multiple retailers 1920 to 1939

Abstract

Business performance measurement and management (PMM) systems are often viewed as relatively recent phenomena, responding to the failure of historical practices which prioritised financial measures. But despite the considerable focus on these systems over the last 25 years, they have not lived up to their early promise. This article looks backwards to understand how practitioners managed their performance in the past. It focuses on two British multiple retailers between 1920 and 1939 and highlights not only the formal processes they adopted but also the role of the informal processes which shaped how they achieved their objectives.     

Contingency Factors in the Effects of Rater Training on Interrater Agreement: Some Lint in the Bellybutton of Past Research

Researchers, examining the need to train performance appraisal raters, have typically used a complex rating task with several dimensions. However, results of a recent training survey (Mealiea and Duffy, 1986) showed that a number of Canadian organizations use a simple one-item, global rating of employee performance, and they are satisfied with their rating process. The present study looks at the influence of the rating task and the type of measurement on the relationship between rater training and rater effectiveness. Subjects were 105 (approximately 50 per cent female and 50 per cent male) patrons of a tavern in upstate New York who served as contestants in a contest of belly button beauty. Four judges, randomly selected from the audience, served over a three week period. Interrater reliability was assessed using a version of the intraclass correlation coefficient, and the Spearman Brown formula was used to estimate the mean reliability of the four judges. The results indicated an absence of leniency and central tendency bias and high interrater reliability without benefit of training. During the three weeks of the study, the average interrater reliabilities were .85, .99, and .99, respectively. The results, as hypothesized, extend the rater training and measurement literature and can be most parsimoniously explained by adding a contingency factor of task/scale characteristics to the rater training effectiveness theory. Résumé Les chercheurs qui ont examiné le besoin de formation pour les évaluateurs de performance ont toujurs utilisé une tǎche d'évaluation complexe au cours de laquelle plusieurs dimensions étaient évaluées. Cependfant les résultats d'un sondage récent (Mealiea et Duffy, 1986) ont démontré qu'un grand nombre d'entreprises canadiennes utilisent un système global à composante unique pour l'évaluation de la performance et sont satisfaits de cette méthode. La présente étude évalue l'influence de la tǎche d'évaluation et le type de mesure sur la relation entre la formation de l'évaluation et son efficacité. Les sujets de cette étude étaient formés de 105 clients (moitié hommes et moitié femmes approximativement) d'un bar de l'état de New York qui participaient à un concours de beauté ombilicale. Quatre juges choisis au hazard dans la salle ont servi pendant une période de trois semaines. La fiabilité a été évaluée à l'aide d'une version du coefficient de correlation interclasse et la formule Spearman Brown a été utilisée pour estimer la fiabilité moyenne des quatre juges. Les résultats ont démontré l'absence de laxisme et de préjugé à tendance centrale et une fiabilité relative élevées des évaluateurs. Pendant les trois semaines de l'étude, les moyennes de fiabilité étaient de .85, .99, et .99 respectivement. Les résultats, tel que prévu confirment les ouvrages concernant la formation et l'évaluation des évaluateurs et peut ětre expliquée avec grand parcimonie en ajoutant un facteur de contingentement de caractéristiques tǎche/ échelle a la théorie d'efficacité de formation de l'évaluateur.