Macro Prudential Supervision in the Open Economy,and the Role of Central Banks in Emerging Markets

In this paper we explore lessons from the global liquidity crisis pertaining to the prudential supervision role of central bank in an open economy. The crisis validates the need for external debt management policy in emerging markets. Hoarding international reserves (IR) is a potent self-insurance mechanism. However, it is associated with relatively high costs and is also less efficient in absence of assertive external debt management policies. In the presence of congestion externalities associated with deleveraging, optimal external borrowing-tax-cum-IR-hoarding-subsidy reduces the cost as well as the scale of hoarding IR.     

Trading away what kind of jobs? Globalization,trade and tasks in the US economy

Economists and other social scientists are calling for a reassessment of the impact of international trade on labor markets in developed and developing countries. Classical models of globalization and trade, based upon the international exchange of finished goods, fail to capture the fragmentation of much commodity production and the geographical separation of individual production tasks. This fragmentation, captured in the growing volume of intra-industry trade, prompts investigation of the effects of trade within, rather than between, sectors of the economy. In this paper we examine the relationship between international trade and the task structure of US employment. We link disaggregate US trade data from 1972 to 2006, the NBER manufacturing database, the Decennial Census, and occupational and task data from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Within-industry shifts in task characteristics are linked to import competition and technological change. Our results suggest that trade has played a major role in the growth in relative demand for nonroutine tasks, particularly those requiring high levels of interpersonal interaction.     

Regional Comparisons,Spatial Aggregation,and Asymmetry of Price Pass-Through in U.S. Gasoline Markets

Spot to retail price pass-through behavior of the U.S. gasoline market was investigated at the national and regional levels, using weekly wholesale and retail motor gasoline prices from January 2000 to the present. Asymmetric pass-through was found across all regions, with faster pass-through when prices are rising. Pass-through patterns, in terms of speed and time for completion, were found to vary from region to region. Spatial aggregation was investigated at the national level and the East Coast with the aggregated cumulative pass-through being greater than the volume-weighted regional pass-through when spot prices increase. These results are useful to the petroleum industry, consumers, and policy makers by providing a basis to estimate the retail price effects that result from a change in spot price.     

Luft zum Atmen

Mehr Sicherheit im Umgang mit Trachealkanülen - Pflegende, die Patienten mit einer Trachealkanüle betreuen, müssen den Kanülenwechsel sicher beherrschen. Denn bei Komplikationen kann das Warten auf den Arzt katastrophale Folgen haben. Daher muss der Umgang mit den Kanülen zur Routine werden.     

The role of foreign direct investment in the host-country firm selection process: firm-level evidence from Slovenian manufacturing

This paper examines the role of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in firm selection processes in the Slovenian manufacturing sector in the 1994–2003 period. It adopts the firm dynamics framework that allows testing of selection effects directly by assessing the impact of foreign firms’ activity on the probability of exiting of local firms (crowding out). The results show that intra-industry productivity spillover effects offset only a minor part of the competition pressure which results from foreign firm entry, hence incumbent firms experience a drop in their survival probability upon a foreign firm’s entry within a particular industry. This result is driven by foreign firm entry of the greenfield type, as entry through the acquisition of existing firms has no significant effect. The strength of the crowding-out effect decreases with the incumbent firm’s export propensity. There is no significant evidence that inward FDI would stimulate the selection process through backward linkages in the upstream supplying industries, whereas foreign firms’ activity reduces the exit probability of downstream local customers (through forward linkages).