The internationalization of energy supply structures

The World Energy Conference will be held in Munich in mid-September. It will have to deal with diverse and complex problems of energy policy, for the seventies have presented tremendous challenges in the energy field. The control over oil—with 46% of the world supply still by far the most important source of energy—has been reorganized and two oil crises have exposed the flow of supplies to severe disruption and political hazards. As far as can be foreseen, the supply is unlikely to keep abreast of the world-wide rise of energy consumption. To replace the oil gradually will therefore be the major task in the energy field in the coming decades. What will be the supply position between now and the year 2000? And which structural changes will have to be effected?     

LA GESTION DES ENTREPRISES MUNICIPALES ENTRE MISSIONS DE SERVICE PUBLIC ET AUTONOMIE*

RESUME: Dam les Etats fédéraux, comme en Allemagne, les entreprises communales font partie intégrante de l'autommie de gestion locale par la mise à disposition d'une certaine infrastructure. Dernièrement, du côtéétatique et scientifique, on réclame de plus en plus une gestion de type commercial pour les entmprises publiques, et donc communales, d'infrastructure (approvisionnement, transport, évacuation). Cet article postule, à l'encore de ces tendances à l'uniformisation, de clairement marquer la distinction entre les fournisseurs privés et ceux du service public en raison de leur objet social différent. Même si la problématique de fond d‘une gestwn tutélaire d‘une entreprise est la même dam le secteur public que dans le secteur privé, le contnôle du comportement des gestwnnaires engagés est toutefois fort différent. La reddition de comptes de type commercial - qui est proposée également pour les entreprises publiques - permet plutôt de contnôler la gestion commerciale que cell d'un service public. Dam les deux cas, le contrôle comptable est complété par des dispositions organisationnelles. Dans le cas (d'infrastrmture), ces dispositions doivent satisfaire des exigemes différentes et nettement plus importantes que celles d'gpplication dans le secteur commercial en raison de la faible signification des résultats commerciaux dam le secteur public.     

New jobs or recalls?

This study demonstrates the importance of explicitly accounting for the possibility of recalls in the analysis of unemployment composition and the determinants of unemployment spell durations. Using Austrian administrative data we estimate that recalls accounted for nearly one half of the employment to unemployment to re-employment transitions in 1985 with the probability of recall being mainly dependent on industry and job characteristics related to seasonal work. We then analyse unemployment spell durations in a competing risks framework and, indeed, find significantly different duration patterns across new jobs and recalls.This paper draws on research in which the first author has collaborated with Georg Fischer. We would like to thank seminar participants at the ZEW, Mannheim, the Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna, participants of the European Economic Association congress, Dublin, and two referees of this journal for valuable comments and criticisms.     

Editorial data

A number of recent studies have attempted to test propositions concerning ‘long-run’ economic relationships by means of frequency-domain time-series techniques that concentrate attention on low-frequency comovements of variables. The present paper emphasizes that many of these propositions involve expectational relationships that are not inherently related to specific frequencies or periodicities. Thus the association of low-frequency time-series test statistics with long-run economic propositions is not generally warranted. That such an association can be misleading is demonstrated by analysis of examples taken from notable papers by Geweke, Lucas, and Summers.     

Money and economic activity,inventories and business cycles

Incomplete information is a necessary condition for any real effects produced by monetary impulses. An alternative to the local-global inference problem is explored in this paper. Agents are confronted with permanent and transitory shocks. Even with full knowledge about the stochastic structure their best perception at any particular time will usually be erroneous. Prices for each period are set at the beginning of the period on the basis of market conditions. The realization of the shock process thus creates a short-run ‘disequilibrium’ absorbed by inventory adjustments. This adjustment translates perceived transitory monetary shocks into serially correlated output movements. The analysis proceeds within the context of rational expectations It offers a generalization of equilibrium analysis in two respects. Prices are always in equilibrium relative to perceived conditions, but they do not reflect all ongoing shocks. Quantity adjustments reflect the perceived transitory shocks. The framework used involves moreover a stock-flow interaction operated by inventory adjustments. The stock-flow interaction imposes at any time a future expected adjustment path (for price-level and quantities) to the system's unique stock equilibrium. A major implication of the analysis resolves a puzzle experienced in a recent paper by Robert Hall. It reconciles intertemporal substitution with lagged effects of monetary impulses. It also reconciles small and inconclusive cyclic movements in real wages with the occurrence of production function and large variations in unemployment. Lastly, the nature of the inference problem determined by the pattern of incomplete information produces serially correlated movements conditioned on large permanent shocks.     

New Ventures and Small Business Innovation for Economic Growth

Over the last twenty years evidence has been accumulating in favour of targeting innovative early-stage entrepreneurs for new forms of assistance. Experimental programming has been underway to find new ways to effectively support technologically innovative entrepreneurs. Further experimentation is needed to overcome remaining uncertainties and continuing objections.