Has the Program 3×1 for Migrants Contributed to Community Development in Mexico? Evidence from Panel Data of 2000 and 2005

This paper examines how collective remittances contribute to regional development by using the community‐level two‐year panel data for the states of Jalisco and Zacatecas in Mexico, which have received the higher amounts of the budget of the Program 3×1 for Migrants. The results from empirical analyses show that the communities that received this program became better‐off between 2000 and 2005, according to the marginalization level. Further analyses suggest that specifically investment in roads, water supply, and non‐agricultural productive projects by the 3×1 program improved community welfare. The regression results on access to the program show, however, that neither the marginalization level nor the migration level determined the access to the program. This suggests that the 3×1 program was not necessarily targeted at the communities with higher marginalization and migration levels.     

Asset Price Bubbles: Existence,Persistence and Migration

Econometric tests are performed for the detection and migration of asset‐price bubbles in the housing, currency and stock markets of seven countries. This set of countries includes both developed and emerging economies that have good historical data on housing prices. Our empirical results suggest that this type of exuberant behaviour in prices occurs more frequently in the housing market than in the currency and stock markets. Additionally, we find significant evidence of bubble migration across markets within some of the studied countries.     

Input,Output, and Environmental Management Productivity: Effects on Firm Performance

Firms invest considerable resources to control any of their operations that may have environmental impacts in an attempt to reduce such impacts but also generate economic value. Various studies of the basic creation or destruction of monetary value through environmental performance offer contradictory evidence. Therefore, the present study proposes a new definition of environmental management as the transformation of inputs (resources assigned) into outputs (valuable results). Both inputs and outputs should be taken into account to explain financial outcomes; further consideration should also include a third aspect, namely, ‘environmental management productivity’, which describes the relationship between the outputs and inputs of environmental management. Empirical analyses of Spanish firms with a certified environmental management system subject to the European Union's CO₂ emissions trading system provide evidence that all three aspects must be considered in combination to achieve a more comprehensive view of the impact of environmental management on financial performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

COMPROMISE-RISK PROGRAMMING FOR AGRICULTURAL RESOURCE ALLOCATION PROBLEMS: AN ILLUSTRATION

This paper presents a novel approach for dealing with risk in agricultural resource allocation decisions by synthesising the conventional Markowitzean, or MOTAD, methods within a compromise programming model to generate ‘best-compromise’ solutions which come closest to an ideal point defined in terms of risk minimisation. This approach can be regarded as the compromise-risk programming model. The purpose here is to show how this ‘hybridisation’ of Markowitz/MOTAD and compromise programming approaches overcomes some of the weaknesses of the traditional approach to handling risk in resource allocation models.     

Time-driven activity-based costing for health care provider supply chains

ABSTRACT

Health care providers currently operate in an environment of complex supply chains and increasing costs where approximately one third of hospital operating expenses are related to supplies. It is pertinent that health care providers have a clear understanding of their supply chain process costs. Knowing how these costs are driven and where opportunities for cost reduction exist can support health care provider supply chain (HPSC) efficiency. In this article, we present a time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) supply chain cost methodology for health care providers. A TDABC management system can provide health care providers with valuable product and process supply chain cost information by investigating logistics activities, resource consumption, and time drivers. Our HPSC TDABC methodology is demonstrated in a case study conducted for the supply chain department of a 200-bed, not-for-profit hospital.     

Estimating and Forecasting the Yield Curve Using A Markov Switching Dynamic Nelson and Siegel Model

We estimate versions of the Nelson–Siegel model of the yield curve of US government bonds using a Markov switching latent variable model that allows for discrete changes in the stochastic process followed by the interest rates. Our modeling approach is motivated by evidence suggesting the existence of breaks in the behavior of the US yield curve that depend, for example, on whether the economy is in a recession or a boom, or on the stance of monetary policy. Our model is parsimonious, relatively easy to estimate and flexible enough to match the changing shapes of the yield curve over time. We also derive the discrete time non‐arbitrage restrictions for the Markov switching model. We compare the forecasting performance of these models with that of the standard dynamic Nelson and Siegel model and an extension that allows the decay rate parameter to be time varying. We show that some parametrizations of our model with regime shifts outperform the single‐regime Nelson and Siegel model and other standard empirical models of the yield curve. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An empirical analysis of the U.S. Senate vote on NAFTA and GATT

This paper examines the determinants of the voting behavior of the U.S. Senate on the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Public choice theory suggests that the voting behavior of senators is influenced by constituent interests, special interest politics, and their ideology. This paper uses probit analysis to test the significance of the above factors. The results indicate that constituent economic interests and special interest money were significant determinants of the Senate voting on the North American Free Trade Agreement but not on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.     

Precautionary Principle and Robustness for a Stock Pollutant with Multiplicative Risk

The interest shown by policy makers and economists in the precautionary principle indicates the importance of model uncertainty in global warming policy. I show that through robust control, policy makers can implement the precautionary principle to regulate a stock pollutant, and I analyze its effect on expected steady state pollution taxes, stocks and welfare. The paper is broadly comprised of a theoretical part and an application to global warming policy. I find that: (1) an increase in either uncertainty about the model or risk about abatement cost increases expected steady state pollution taxes; (2) a robust policy is preferred for any level of model uncertainty and this preference increases for either higher model uncertainty or higher multiplicative risk and (3) the effect on expected steady state pollution taxes and stock of introducing model uncertainty is relatively small for high levels of model uncertainty. These results advocate using robust policies for a stock pollutant in the presence of model uncertainty.