Do interventions in foreign exchange markets modify investors' expectations? The experience of Japan between 1992 and 2004

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the Bank of Japan's official interventions on the JPY/USD parity during the period 1992–2004. The novelty of our approach is to combine two recent advances of the empirical literature on foreign exchange interventions: (i) drawing on over-the-counter option prices to characterize more precisely the distribution of market expectations; (ii) redefining interventions in terms of events as they tend to come in clusters. Moreover, in order to deal with the features of the data (small sample size, non-standard distribution), we use bootstrap tests.We show that interventions have a significant impact on the mean expectation (the forward rate). The results are more ambiguous for variance. Additionally, we find that the effect of interventions on skewness is significant, robust to different definitions of skewness, and consistent with the direction of interventions. On the contrary, our results clearly show that kurtosis is not affected by interventions. We finally show that: (i) coordination increases effectiveness of interventions; (ii) results are not altered when controlling for other economic and political news.     

Bivariate and multivariate scaled association models. An application to homogamy of social origin and education in Hungary between 1930 and 1979

In this article we compare bivariate and multivariate models for homogamy of social origin and education to test whether bivariate models of homogamy lead to biased results. We use data on Hungarian couples married between 1930 and 1979 and loglinear models of scaled association. The results indicate some differences between bivariate and multivariate analyses. At each point of time bivariate models overestimate homogamy, both with respect to education and social origin. However, results on trends in time do not differ much between the two analyses. The exception is the period 1940–1959, in which bivariate analysis showed decreasing educational homogamy, and multivariate analysis showed an increasing trend. The latter finding can be explained by declining homogamy of social origin, as well as the weaker reproduction and cross-effects in this period.     

专门化、多样化和中国地区工业产业增长的关系

本文通过分析中国29个省（除西藏外）的30个工业产业在1988－1997期间的数据。揭示了工业结构和经济增长之间的关系。本文除研究了传统的生产要素的影响外，重点探讨了产业专门化、专业多样化、竞争度和一省发展的初始水平等因素的作用。结果表明，一个产业外部工业环境的多样性和产业内的竞争度有利于产业的增长，但产业专门影响为负。工业结构对于增长的影响在很大程度上依赖于产业的性质及其地理位置。     

Patterns of Entry,Post-Entry Growth and Survival: A Comparison Between Domestic and Foreign Owned Firms

This study compares the patterns of entry, survival and growth of domestic and foreign owned firms. We show that the post-entry behavior of foreign owned firms is quite different from that of their domestic counterparts. Among foreign entrants, we were able to distinguish between those which proceed by creating a new firm and those that acquire an already existing business. Our evidence reveals that the choice of the mode of entry in foreign markets exerts an impact upon the performance of firms that persists long after the moment of entry. As a consequence, our work clearly indicates that there is much to be gained in the understanding ofthe process of entry in foreign markets by studying the behavior of entrants over their first years in these markets.     

Food Safety Through Food Irradiation: Should it be Adopted More by the EU?

Food Safety Through Food Irradiation: Should it be Adopted More by the EU? Food Irradiation is a food safety technology that can eliminate disease‐causing germs from foods. Faut il encourager ?irradiation pour améliorer la sécurité des aliments en Europe? ?irradiation des aliments est une technique de sécurité alimentaire, qui permet ?en éliminer les germes pathogènes. De même que la pasteurisation du lait, le traitement par des radiations ionisantes permet de tuer les bactéries susceptibles de causer des infections ?origine alimentaire. Celles‐ci sont toujours présentes, et ont de graves conséquences tant pour la santé que pour ?économie. Aux Etats‐Unis, ?irradiation est une technique autorisée pour beaucoup de produits alimentaires. Dans ce pays, le nombre de restaurants et de supermarchés vendant des produits irradiés a augmenté de façon considérable au cours des trois dernières années. Des expérimentations économiques montrent que les consommateurs américains sont disposés à dépenser pour le b?uf irradié des sommes sensiblement supérieures aux suppléments de coûts associés à?irradiation. En Europe, ?utilisation de ?irradiation comme technique de conservation des aliments, susceptible de s'insérer dans des programmes de sécurité alimentaire rigoureux, est beaucoup plus limitée. Jusqu'ici, laliste des produits dont ?irradiation est autorisée dans ?ensemble de la Communauté Européenne ne contient qu'une seule catégorie de produits alimentaires:les herbes aromatiques, épices, et assaisonnements ?origine végétale. Avec la globalisation des circuits commerciaux et le renforcement, exigé par les agences de régulation, des normes de sécurité du champ à la fourchette, la généralisation de l0'irradiation des produits alimentaires devrait profiter à?ensemble des producteurs et des consommateurs européens. Nahrungsmittelsicherheit durch Bestrahlung von Nahrungsmitteln: Sollte dies in der EU verstärkt angewandt werden? Bei der Bestrahlung von Nahrungsmitteln handelt es sich um ein Verfahren zur Gewährleistung der Nahrungsmittelsicherheit, bei der krankheitsverursachende Keime in den Nahrungsmitteln abgetötet werden. Wie bei der Pasteurisierung von Milch können Bakterien mit Hilfe von ionisierenden Strahlen in Nahrungsmitteln abgetötet werden, die anderenfalls durch Nahrungsmittel übertragbare Erkrankungen hervorrufen würden. Diese Erkrankungen stellen eine permanente Bedrohung dar und Ziehen ernstzunehmende Konsequenzen für Gesundheit und Wirtschaft nach sich. In den USA dürfen verschiedene Nahrungsmittelarten bestrahlt werden. In den vergangenen drei Jahren hat die Anzahl der Supermärkte und Restaurants in den USA, die strahlungsbehandelte Produkte anbieten, enorm zugenommen. Erste ökonomische Versuche in den USA legen es nahe, dass die Bereitschaft der Verbraucher, einen höheren Preis für bestrahltes Rinderhackfleisch zu zahlen, sehr viel höher ist als die mit der Bestrahlung verbundenen zusätzlichen Kosten. Die Anwendung der Bestrahlung von Nahrungsmitteln als Werkzeug zur Gewährleistung der Nahrungsmittelsicherheit, welches die strengenNahrungsmittelsicherheitspro‐gramme ergänzen könnte, ist in Europa eher begrenzt. Bislang handelt es sich bei den Produkten, die für die Bestrahlung innerhalb der gesamten EU zugelassen sind, nur um eine einzige Nahrungsmittelklasse: getrocknete aromatische Kräuter und Gewürze. Durch die zunehmende Nachfrage der Aufsichtsbehörden nach Nahrungsmittelsicherheit ?vom Stall bis zum Teller? und die Globalisierung des Nahrungsmittelhandels könnten die Produzenten und Verbraucher in der EU von einer verstärkten Anwendung der Bestrahlung von Nahrungsmitteln profitieren. Like pasteurization of milk, treating food with ionizing radiation can kill bacteria that would otherwise cause foodborne disease. Foodborne illnesses are ever present and have serious health and economic consequences. In the US, food irradiation is approved for use in various foods. The number of supermarkets and restaurants in the US that offer irradiated products has increased dramatically in the last three years. Preliminary economic experiments in the US suggest that consumer willingness to pay for irradiated ground beef is substantially greater than the additional costs associated with irradiation. The use of food irradiation as a food safety tool that could complement rigorous food safety programmes is rather limited in Europe. So far, the list of products authorized for irradiation within the whole EU contains only a single food category: dried aromatic herbs, spices, and vegetable seasonings. With increasing demand by regulatory authorities on food safety from ‘farm to fork’ and the globalization of food trade, EU producers and consumers may benefit from wider adoption of irradiation of food products.     

Sustaining Collusion in Growing Markets

The impact of demand growth on the collusion possibilities is investigated in a Cournot supergame where market growth may trigger future entry and the collusive agreement is enforced by the most profitable ‘grim trigger strategies’ available. It is shown that even in situations where perfect collusion can be sustained after entry, coping with a potential entrant in a market which is growing over time may completely undermine any pre‐entry collusive plans of the incumbent firms. This is because, before entry, a deviation and the following punishment phase may become more attractive thanks to their additional effect in terms of delaying entry.     

Public-Private Partnerships and Prices: Evidence from Water Distribution in France

We use an original database of 5000 French local public authorities to explore the impact of organizational choice and performance as measured by consumer prices. In quantifying the impact of the choice of public-private partnerships (PPPs) on performance, we consider the related issue of the determinants of organizational choice. We estimate a switching regressions model to account for the endogeneity of organizational choice, and find that in our sample, (i) the choice by local public authorities to engage in a PPP is not random, and (ii) conditional on the choice of a PPP, consumer prices are significantly higher on average.