Does taking vacations make people happy? A regional disparity perspective

This study examines happiness determinants from a regional disparity perspective. Data from a national leisure survey conducted in South Korea was used. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression was performed. Findings indicate that leisure satisfaction, vacationing, participation in club activities, participation in volunteer activities, gender, marital status, household income, and education level were significantly related to respondents’ happiness. These determinants were further investigated by regional segmentation. In tests to determine the strength of vacationing and self-rating of leisure satisfaction on happiness, leisure satisfaction was found to be significantly and positively related to happiness levels after controlling for respondents’ characteristics.     

Spatial integration at multiple scales: rice markets in Madagascar

The dramatic increase in the price of rice and other commodities over the past year has generated new interest in how these markets work and how they can be improved. This article uses an exceptionally rich data set to test the extent to which markets in Madagascar are integrated across space at different scales of analysis and to explain some of the factors that limit spatial arbitrage and price equalization within a single country. We use rice price data across four quarters of 2000–2001 along with data on transportation costs and infrastructure availability for nearly 1,400 communes in Madagascar to examine the extent of market integration at three different spatial scales—subregional, regional, and national—and to determine whether non-integration is due to high transfer costs or lack of competition. The results indicate that markets are fairly well integrated at the subregional level and that factors such as high crime rates, remoteness, and lack of information are among the factors limiting competition.     

Forecasting h(m)otel guest nights in New Zealand

The purpose of this paper is to highlight some time series models which hotel and motel industry practitioners could use to forecast guest nights. Given their considerable practicality, the lodging industry can easily benefit from using these models as forecasts can be obtained at low cost for effective management and planning. Monthly observations are used for estimating the model from 1997(1) to 2006(12). The Holt–Winters and Box–Jenkins ARMA models are able to forecast guest night demand accurately as 99% of the variations in the guest night forecast are associated with variations in actual guest nights in 2007.     

Sparen in Zeiten niedriger Zinsen — wirtschaftspolitische Unterstützung nötig?

Critics of the low interest rate environment claim that German households have had difficult times generating positive returns from their savings since interest rates reached levels around zero. Therefore, direct public support is increasingly being called for. This article shows that, from a macroeconomic perspective, households have in fact generated positive real returns to date. However, portfolio returns may vary among households due to differences in portfolio structure and size. In addition, aggregate portfolio returns might decrease in the years to come if nominal interest rates remain low. Regarding policy responses, it is therefore proposed to undertake measures which increase total factor productivity and improve the financial literacy of households. Both approaches promise to be more effective than direct public support of savings.     

On consistency of redescending M-kernel smoothers

M-estimators and M-kernel estimators with a redescending ψ-function are not in general consistent. This is often handled by means of coupling the estimator to a consistent one. Coupling the estimator to the (inconsistent) starting point improves the jump preserving properties. However, the consistency depends heavily on the shape of the density of the residuals. This paper shows inconsistency under convenient conditions as well as consistency – even at jump points – under somewhat stronger conditions. Research supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and by grant Mu 1031/4-1/2 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft     

A New U.S. Farm Household Typology: Implications for Agricultural Policy

Changes in U.S. agriculture have yielded a diversity of farm types. These changes have extended beyond the farm business and into the farm household. The objective of this research is to motivate, develop, and discuss the policy implications of a new typology of U.S. farm households, which is based on household economic theory. Using the 2003 Agricultural Resource Management Survey and statistical analysis, the U.S. Farm Household Typology identifies six mutually exclusive groups of U.S. farm households. This typology is then compared to the current Economic Research Service Farm Typology and used to investigate the distribution of government payments.     

US imperialism in action: An audit-based appraisal of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq

This paper drawing from audit reports reflects upon the post-Iraq war administration the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). It argues that the CPA's compliance with basic levels of decent public administration were akin to Guantanamo's compliance with basic levels of natural justice. The audit reports demonstrate that the CPA was a chaotic administration which spent billions without proper controls or procedures and left precious Iraqi oil revenues open to fraudulent acts. The CPA failed to comply with its obligations under UN resolutions. It identifies the geopolitical/economic implications of the US government which was partly motivated by economic concerns but it was also motivated by political concerns—the imposition of US hegemony. It then turns to the broader economic imperatives of the falling rate of profit and the imposition of neoliberalism (market fundamentalism).     

Hedging and competition

We consider firms that, all else equal, wish to minimize variability in their internal capital (due to convex costs of raising external funds). The firms can hedge the cash flow risk of the project, but not that of winning or losing the auction. We characterize optimal hedging and bidding strategies in this competition framework. We show that access to financial markets makes firms bid more aggressively, possibly even above their valuation for the project. In addition, hedging increases the variance of bids and makes firm values more dispersed. Further, with hedging, the covariance of internal capital changes with the risk factor is negative, and is more negative, the higher the correlation of the hedging instrument with the risk factor.     

Consistent Estimation of Censored Demand Systems Using Panel Data

We derive a joint continuous/censored commodity demand system for panel data applications. Unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for using a correlated random effects specification and a generalized method of moments framework used to estimate the model. While relatively small differences in elasticity estimates are found between a flexible random effects specification and one that restricts the random effect coefficient to be time invariant, larger differences are observed when comparing the flexible model to a pooled cross-sectional estimator. The results suggest the limited ability of such estimators to control for preference heterogeneity and unit-value endogeneity leads to parameter bias.