Access regulation and investment in next generation networks — A ranking of regulatory regimes

This paper analyses how different types of access regulation to next generation networks affect investments and consumer welfare. The model consists of an investment stage with uncertain returns and subsequent quantity competition. The access price is a function of investment costs and the regulatory regime. A regime with fully distributed costs or a regulatory holiday induces highest investments, followed by risk-sharing and long run incremental costs regulation. Simulations indicate that risk-sharing creates most consumer welfare, followed by regimes with fully distributed costs, regulatory holiday and long run incremental costs, respectively. Risk-sharing benefits consumers as it combines relatively high ex-ante investment incentives with strong ex-post competitive intensity.     

A data mining approach to financial time series modelling and forecasting

This paper describes one of the relatively new data mining techniques that can be used to forecast the foreign exchange time series process. The research aims to contribute to the development and application of such techniques by exposing them to difficult real-world (non-toy) data sets. The results reveal that the prediction of a Radial Basis Function Neural Network model for forecasting the daily $US/$NZ closing exchange rates is significantly better than the prediction of a traditional linear autoregressive model in both directional change and prediction of the exchange rate itself. We have also investigated the impact of the number of model inputs (model order), the number of hidden layer neurons and the size of training data set on prediction accuracy. In addition, we have explored how the three different methods for placement of Gaussian radial basis functions affect its predictive quality and singled out the best one. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Targeting Aid to the Needy and Deserving: Nothing But Promises?

By reallocating aid to where it is needed most and where a productive use is most likely, donors could help alleviate poverty in developing countries. The rhetoric of donors suggests that this insight has increasingly shaped the allocation of aid. We assess the poverty and policy orientation of bilateral and multilateral aid in different ways. In addition to presenting stylised facts based on bivariate correlations, we apply a Tobit model that captures both altruistic and selfish donor motives. We find little evidence supporting the view that the targeting of aid has improved significantly. Most donors provide higher aid to relatively poor countries, but so far the fight against poverty has not resulted in a stronger focus on needy recipients with favourable local conditions. The estimation results reveal that the policy orientation of aid critically depends on how local conditions are measured. In general, however, donors appear to be less policy‐oriented than poverty‐oriented. The response of donors to changing institutional and policy conditions in recipient countries turns out to be fairly weak. We reject the proposition that multilateral aid is clearly superior to bilateral aid in terms of rewarding poor countries with better policies and institutions.     

Adjustment policies and economic growth in developing countries — Is devaluation contractionary?

Zusammenfassung Anpassungspolitik und wirtschaftliches Wachstum in Entwicklungsl?ndern: Wirken Abwertungen kontraktiv? — Der Auffassung, da? abwertungsbedingte Substitutionseffekte ausreichend stark sind, um eine Ausweitung der Produktion zu gew?hrleisten, wird vielfach entgegengetreten. Eine verwirrende Vielzahl theoretischer Modelle verweist auf kontraktive Auswirkungen einer realen Abwertung. Empirische Analysen von Wechselkurseffekten auf das gesamtwirtschaftliche Wachstum fehlen jedoch weitgehend. Die vorliegende gepoolte L?nderquerschnittsuntersuchung für den Zeitraum 1982—1987 soll dazu beitragen, diese Lücke zu schlie?en. Die Ergebnisse der Regressionssch?tzungen widersprechen dem weitverbreiteten Pessimismus über die Wachstumseffekte realer Abwertungen. Die Sch?tzungen für verschiedene L?ndergruppen zeigen allerdings, da? die Richtung, das Ausma? und die zeitliche Abfolge der Wirkungen von den charakteristischen Strukturmerkmalen der untersuchten L?nder abh?ngen. Insbesondere die Exportstruktur erweist sich als wichtig.

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Résumé Les politiques d’ajustement et la croissance économique dans les pays en voie de développement: Est-ce que la dévaluation empêche la croissance? — La série déconcertante des théories qui posent qu’une dévaluation empêche la croissance doute de plus en plus de l’opinion que les effets de substitution causés par une dévaluation sont suffisamment forts pour augmenter la production macroéconomique. Avec cette étude on a l’intention de diminuer le trou frappant concernant la recherche empirique sur des effets d’une dévaluation. Les résultats de cette analyse de regression faite à travers des pays pour la période de 1982 à 1987 s’opposent au pessimisme général en ce qui concerne la répercussion d’une dévaluation réelle sur la croissance économique des pays en voie de développement. Les estimations pour des groupes de pays spécifiques indiquent que la direction, le degré et la structure temporelle des effets de croissance dépendent des caractéristiques structurelles des économies, principalement des exportations prépondérantes.

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Resumen Politicas de ajuste y crecimiento de países en desarrollo: ?puede una devaluación ser contractiva? — El impresionante número de marcos teóricos que tratan la devaluación contractiva está cuestionando seriamente la noción de que los efectos substitutivos inducidos por la devaluación son suficientemente fuertes como para garantizar un impacto netamente expansivo sobre el producto. La intención de este trabajo es llenar el vacío que existe en el studio empirico de los efectos de una devaluación. Los resultados del análisis de regresión de una muestra de varios países para el periodo 1982—1987 refutan el pesimismo generalizado sobre el impacto de una devaluación del tipo de cambio real sobre el crecimiento. Sin embargo, las estimaciones para ciertos grupos de países indican que el signo, el nivel y la estructura temporal de los impactos sobre el crecimiento dependen de las características estructurales, ante todo de las exportaciones más importantes de las economías estudiadas.

     

How far away is Europe?

Institutional development in new and potential member countries determines the success of deepening European integration. This papers argues that the timing of future enlargement should depend on institutional convergence between the EU and potential accession candidates. It therefore looks at institutional quality in the EU, in the EU's neighbouring Balkan and Black Sea regions, and especially in Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, and Turkey, i.e. the next countries in the queue for entry. Three dimensions of institutional quality—legislative, administrative and judicial institutions—are analysed on the basis of the World Bank Governance Indicators using institutional quality in EU member states as a benchmark in order to reveal institutional deficits.     

Bounds for median and 50 percetage point of binomial and negative binomial distribution

Inequalities for comparing the binomial distribution function/operating characteristic function with value 0.5 have been established long ago. It is a trivial task to infer from these inequalities bounds for the 50 percentage point of the binomial operating characteristic function. However, it is also possible to use these inequalities to establish good bounds for the median of the binomial distribution function. By a relation of binomial distribution function/operating characteristic function and negative binomial distribution function/operating characteristic function we can get bounds for the respective parameters of negative binomial distribution, too.