TRADE,DEBT, AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN A NORTH-SOUTH MODEL

This paper examines a simple model of North-South trade and capital flows along structuralist lines. The South can choose its growth rate, but must finance its growth in excess of its savings by borrowing from the North. The long-run consequences of this process for the process of uneven development and for Southern debt-dependence are explored. The appropriate responses to a debt crisis are considered.     

THE IMPACT OF LABOR MARKET REGULATION ON EMPLOYMENT IN LOW‐INCOME COUNTRIES: A META‐ANALYSIS

Controversy over labor market policy often centers on achieving a balance between preventing worker exploitation, and avoiding loss of productivity or employment through excessive regulation. Although the literature documenting the impact of labor market regulation on employment is extensive, there is a dearth of evidence on the impact of such policies in low‐income countries (LICs). Since it is easier for workers, especially women, to slip into the informal sector in LICs, regulations are likely to have stronger impacts on formal employment in these countries (but lower impacts on unemployment). We systematically reviewed available research from countries that are, or were until recently, LICs. Most studies document that more stringent labor regulations are associated with lower formal sector employment and higher informal sector employment. We also conducted a metaregression analysis of the impact of minimum wages on formal and informal employment. After controlling for publication bias, higher minimum wages are associated with lower formal employment and a higher share of informal workers.     

Tasks and Organizations: A Signal Detection Model of Organizational Decision Making

This paper presents a mathematical model to study the joint impact of organizational design and of the task environment on the decision performance of hierarchical organizations with limited internal communication. The problem context is a special class of distributed situation assessment problems, where possible patterns of binary variables are to be classified on the basis of partial and noise-corrupted information. Structural properties of tasks and organizations are described using a graph formalism, and optimal decision strategies at all decision makers are determined. Organizational expertise is characterized in the form of a Team Relative Operating Characteristic (TROC) curve, thereby replacing the organization by an equivalent single decision maker. Implementing the model, issues of task decomposition and the process of matching organizations with tasks are discussed.     

Diversification strategy,profit performance and the entropy measure

Several industrial organization studies, using diversification index measures, examined corporate diversification and economic performance and failed to find any significant relationship between them. Rumelt and other strategy researchers used a semisubjective classification scheme and uncovered a systematic relationship between diversification strategies and performance. This study combines the strengths of the index approach, namely, simplicity, objectivity and replicability, with the essential richness of Rumelt's methodology. Using the Jacquemin-Berry entropy measure of diversification and the line-of-business data, this study finds that firms with predominantly related diversification show significantly better profit growth than firms with predominantly unrelated diversification.     

Stationary measures for some Markov chain models in ecology and economics

Summary. Let continuous, exists in for x in . Let be an i.i.d. sequence from F and X₀ be a nonnegative random variable independent of . Let be the Markov chain generated by the iteration of random maps by . Such Markov chains arise in population ecology and growth models in economics. This paper studies the existence of nondegenerate stationary measures for {X_n}. A set of necessary conditions and two sets of sufficient conditions are provided. There are some convergence results also. The present paper is a generalization of the work on random logistics maps by Athreya and Dai (2000).Received: 20 March 2002, Revised: 4 December 2002, JEL Classification Numbers: C22, D9.The author wishes to thank Professor Mukul Majumdar and the referees for several useful suggestions.     

Beta adjustment methods

This study is an analysis of the forecasting ability of adjusted and unadjusted betas. Based on the Canadian data for 252 stocks, random errors in betas are the most important reason for the poor predictive ability of individual security betas. Most of this random error is eliminated if securities are grouped into portfolios. However, further improvements in forecasting ability are gained by adjusting the security betas for bias and inefficiency. Five methods of adjusting the naive beta estimates have been tried, including two methods not tested before. These two, Vasicek's two-stage method and order-bias adjustment method, gave results generally superior to others.     

Analysts' Forecasts of German Firms' Earnings: a Comparative Analysis

This paper examines analysts' forecasts of the annual earnings per share of German firms over the period of February 1987 to December 1995. The German case is particularly interesting as the accounting and institutional structures vary from those in more thoroughly researched markets such as the U.S. or U.K. The paper therefore considers the features of the German forecasting environment which distinguish it from the Anglo-American model, and whether these might be reflected in forecasting performance. The results for Germany show that the accuracy of analysts' forecasts improves as the forecast horizon shortens, are less accurate than a naive prediction model over longer horizons, and contain a positive bias. When the results for Germany are contrasted with the results for the U.K., as reported in a recent paper, they are found to be a little less accurate but the positive bias is greater in U.K. forecasts. Taken overall the forecasting process in Germany appears to be less efficient than in the U.K., but this may be due to the distinct features of the German forecasting environment.