Capital and labor misallocation in the Netherlands

Journal of Productivity Analysis - Using firm-level panel data we analyze the misallocation of capital and labor for the Netherlands in the period 2001–2017. We use the dispersion in marginal...     

Flexible Working Practices In the Public,Not-For-Profit and Commercial Leisure Sectors In SCotland

Public sector leisure managers in the UK have been struggling, since the extension of compulsory competitive tendering to leisure management in 1989, to reconcile the conflicts between becoming more consumer led and satisfying the needs of the ‘recreationally deprived’. Rationalization has ensured that a fundamental priority for managers has been the introduction of more cost-effective working practices. This article examines the diversity in employment practices across the three sectors of the leisure industry, that is, the public, not-for-profit and private sectors. The case study evidence presented found clear differences between the sectors. Although managers in not-for-profit leisure facilities have more freedom to use greater flexibility in employment practices as compared with their public sector counterparts, they are still somewhat constrained by having to meet the social objectives set by their Board of Directors. Private sector managers were found to be providing the highest proportion of full-time jobs, although they offered lower conditions of employment. This was made possible by the funding certainties created by regular monthly/annual customer memberships.     

保险业要么锁定客户，要么收购

贝恩公司调查发现,仅有1／10的保险公司成功地实现连年持续地创造价值。许多公司最终表现欠佳的主要原因在于,他们严重误判自己提供客户所需产品／服务的能力。当高级主管被问及是否认为本公司提供最佳客户体验时,77％的高管自认为是,但仅有6％的客户认同。那么,究竟什么才是保险业实现最佳股东回报的关键呢?     

What is extreme about Mises’s extreme apriorism?

There is something extreme about Ludwig von Mises’s methodological apriorism, namely, his epistemological justification of the a priori element(s) of economic theory. His critics have long recognized and attacked the extremeness of Mises’s epistemology of a priori knowledge. However, several of his defenders have neglected what is (and what has long been recognized by his critics to be) extreme about Mises’s apriorism. Thus, the argument is directed less against Mises than against those contributions to the secondary literature that assert his methodological moderation while overlooking what the most prominent critics have found extreme about Mises’s apriorism. Defending Mises as a merely moderate apriorist because he held only a narrow part of the foundation of economics to be a priori is a straw-man defense against criticisms of his apriorism as epistemologically extreme.     

Competitive balance and the participation–spectatorship gap in Chinese table tennis

Excessive competitive imbalance holds the potential to render teams and, by extension, leagues inviable. The China Table Tennis Super League has languished in its attempt to catch on as a popular spectator sport in spite of the sport’s popularity as recreational activity. One of the primary reasons for the participation–spectatorship gap cited by officials is competitive imbalance. This research estimates a number of within-season balance measures, including the standard deviation of winning, concentration ratio, and Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. The results show that both the men’s and women’s leagues have been relatively balanced over time. Implications regarding competitive balance and other league policy considerations are explored.     

The Higher Earning in America: Are 529 Plans a Good Way to Save for College?

This article studies whether 529 plans are an effective way for most people to save for college. The 529 plans were created in 1996 to help low- and middle-income American families save for college. Since this time they have adopted more tax advantages and grown substantially as a result. While total balances in 529 plans now exceed $250 billion, less than 3.0 percent of households have a 529 plan. And the majority of 529 plan accounts are held by the wealthiest households. Low- and middle-income households receive little tax savings from investing in 529 plans, and some states count these plans against financial aid. Also, 529 plans are complicated, rules vary by state, and fund management fees tend to be high. Thus, 529 plans are not the panacea to college affordability.     

House arrest: the effects of underwater and low-equity mortgages on small business failure and mobility

This paper studies the effects of the recent housing crash on small business survival and household geographic mobility. Although a number of other works have studied these issues, our analysis differs from these because we do not focus only on underwater mortgages (less than 0% home equity), but also those slightly above water (0-10% equity). Homeowners with little or no equity face considerable constraints regarding moving, starting a business or keeping a current business open. They are more like underwater homeowners, but they differ enough to deserve a separate categorization in comparative studies, rather than being conflated with all other homeowners that have positive equity. We use the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances panel data for 2007 and 2009, which allows us to track the exact same households during this critical time in the housing crisis.     

Hungarian Border Politics as an Anti-Politics of the European Union

ABSTRACT

This essay contextualises Hungarian antipolitics of Europe as an element of radical conservative nation-building and as a reflection of the strategic use of borders. Two concrete examples of border politics will be elaborated that document shifts from EU-conformity to EU-contestation and the increasing political significance of culturalist arguments. These cases, moreover, are exemplary of the dual nature of then nationalist-conservative agenda which involves: 1) the implementation of an ethnopolitical and thus extraterritorial, de-bordered notion of nation and 2) the unilateral securitisation of Hungary’s borders, for example with Serbia, in a self-proclaimed defence of European integrity. The research that informs this essay is based on a review of media sources, academic and policy-focused literature. The essay begins with a discussion of links between Hungarian euroscepticism and the radical conservative nation-building project and continues with an analysis of post-1989 border politics with regards to the areas mentioned above. Considerable attention will be devoted to the Hungarian government’s politics of borders and contestations of European Union within the context of the so-called refugee crisis and wider debates regarding immigration and asylum.     

A note on the evaluation of long-run investment decisions using the sharpe ratio

This paper reexamines the use of the Sharpe ratio to measure the performance of large and small company stocks along with corporate bonds over different holding periods. It builds on previous research which cites the effects of serial correlation and non-normality in the creation of estimation error in the calculation of the Sharpe ratio. It finds that higher order moments such as skewness and kurtosis are a further source of error that must be accounted for when making inferences about asset performance.