Structural aspects of social capital: tests for cross-national equivalence in Europe

In this contribution we start from the emerging consensus on the widely disputed phenomenon of social capital. We propose to focus on structural aspects of social capital: formal (contacts within formal organizations) and informal (contacts outside of formal organizations). First, we address methodological questions on the cross-national equivalence of these social capital measurements. Second, we re-visit substantive questions on the patterns of relationships in different European countries. In particular, we inquire to which degree formal and informal social capital can substitute each other, as well as being complementary. We take advantage of recent Eurobaromer data (2004) containing a wide range of valid measurements on both structural aspects of social capital. We find strong evidence for cross-national equivalent measurements regarding formal social capital, employing probabilistic scalogram analyses. For informal social capital, we find strong evidence for configural and metric invariance as well as evidence for partial scalar invariance, employing multi group confirmatory factor analyses. We have to reject the substantive hypothesis on substitution of formal and informal social capital for all countries under consideration, except for Romania. We corroborate the hypothesis on complementarity of formal and informal social capital.     

Beeinflussen Politiker das Ergebnis von nationalen Steuerschätzungen?

As voters increasingly favour sound public finances, solid budgets serve as an important quality signal. National tax revenue forecasts are a core element of national budget plans. Therefore, politicians might be tempted to influence them strategically. Examining 18 OECD countries from 1996 to 2012, the authors explore whether national tax revenue forecasts are manipulated by politicians. Their evidence points to partisan politics and the influence of fragmentation. Surprisingly and in contradiction to the theoretical conclusions from the ‘common pool’ problem, more fragmented governments or parliaments seem to underestimate tax revenues. There is no empirical evidence to support opportunistic behaviour, i.e. that tax revenue forecasts lead to political business cycles.     

Sources of increasing systemic risk in international financial markets

In its annual report, published in June, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warned of increasing systemic risk in international financial markets. Competitive pressures will intensify in the years to come and financial institutions and regulators around the world appear ill-prepared to cope with the resulting challenges. The pressures are expected to grow for three reasons above all: the prospective “Big Bang” of the Japanese financial system, a further erosion of the Glass-Steagall restrictions in the United States and the preparations of financial institutions in Europe to position themselves for the introduction of the euro.¹     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Sunspot equilibria and the transfer paradox

Summary. We show that for international economies with two countries, in which agents have additively separable utility functions, the existence of sunspot equilibria is equivalent to the occurrence of the transfer paradox. This equivalence enables us to provide some new insights on the relation of the existence of sunspot equilibria and the multiplicity of spot market equilibria.Received: 1 October 2003, Revised: 1 April 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: C62, D52, F3, F20, 012.Correspondence to: Thorsten HensWe would like to thank Anke Gerber for carefully checking and improving our arguments. Moreover, we are grateful to Piero Gottardi for his encouragement and his comments, to Andreu Mas-Colell and Mike Jerison for very fruitful discussions and to Klaus Schenk-Hoppé for his support in using . All remaining errors are ours.