An instrument for collecting informed opinions

For collecting informed public opinions a special kind of questionnaire has been developed: the Choice Questionnaire. With this questionnaire, information relating to a decision problem is made available to respondents. This information includes the various options from which a choice has to be made, and the consequences of these options. The Choice Questionnaire also contains a procedure that is designed to assist participants in processing this information and in making a choice based on it. This paper studies the extent to which the Choice Questionnaire is a useful instrument for collecting informed opinions and the effects the instrument has on the decision-making process of the participants. The factors influencing its performance are also considered. This evaluation study has been carried out in a real life context: the choice made by the Dutch population concerning the further application of nuclear power.     

Delimitation of the class of budget-constrained utility maximizing partially linear consumer expenditure functions: An alternative approach

Zusammenfassung Dieser Aufsatz behandelt eine alternative Herleitung notwendiger und hinreichender Bedingungen, denen Nachfragefunktionen, die linear im Einkommen jedoch nicht notwendigerweise linear in den Preisen sind, genügen müssen, um zu sichern, daß bei gegebenem Einkommen ein Nutzenmaximum realisiert wird. Diese Bedingungen erscheinen weniger einschränkend als jene, die Gorman (1953, 1961) abgeleitet hat. Beispiele für derartige Funktionen werden im dritten Abschnitt angeführt. Einige kritische Anmerkungen beschließen den Aufsatz.

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The author is indebted to Mr. P. M. C. de Boer, Dr. J. van Daal, and Mr. W. J. Keller, staff members of the Netherlands School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, for their helpful criticisms and suggestions.     

European Integration and Manufactures Import Demand: An Empirical Investigation of Ten European Countries

This paper studies import demand in ten European countries over the period 1970–95, and our objective is to investigate whether the process of European integration has affected imports. We provide evidence for parametric change in traditional import demand equations, suggesting that important variables or structural factors are missing from the long-run equations. We present equations based on new trade theory, where effects of technology and foreign direct investment are present. Once we include these there is little evidence that the creation of the Single Market has directly increased aggregated imports in European countries.     

The appropriate intermediate target for monetary policy in less developed countries: Empirical evidence

It is argued in this paper that recent financial innovations and deregulation in less developed countries may have established a case for an intermediate target strategy for monetary policy. The question of which financial aggregate to target is not, however, a trivial one. Three criteria have to be met for a financial aggregate to serve as an appropriate target for monetary policy. Using time series data from a sample of six less developed countries, these three criteria are empirically tested to determine whether narrow money, broad money or domestic credit is the most appropriate target for monetary policy in less developed countries. The results indicate that it is difficult to generalize and that until monetary policy can be independent of fiscal policy in these countries, none of the tested financial aggregates would be appropriate as an intermediate target.     

Private rates of return to education of Africans in South Africa for 1995: a Double Hurdle model

In this study, the private rates of return to education of African males and females in South Africa are estimated. Both Heckman's (1976) two-stage selection model and the more recent Double Hurdle model, with correlated errors between the participation and employment equations, is found to be more suitable for the earnings analysis than the one with uncorrelated errors. This might imply that people make the decisions to participate in the labour force and to take up a job offer simultaneously. The private rate of return to education of Africans is found to be 12 and 11 per cent for males and females, respectively. These rates are significantly higher than those found in previous analyses of rates of return to education in South Africa. In these older studies, the private rate of return to education of Africans was found to vary from 2,5 to 7,7 per cent.     

Economic,Political, and Institutional Prerequisites for Monetary Union Among the Members of the Gulf Cooperation Council

The paper reviews the arguments for and against monetary union among the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council—the United Arab Emirates, the State of Bahrain, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar and the State of Kuwait. Both technical economic arguments and political economy considerations are discussed. I conclude that there is an economic case for GCC monetary union, but that it is not overwhelming. The lack of economic integration among the GCC members is striking. Without anything approaching the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons among the six GCC member countries, the case for monetary union is mainly based on the small size of all GCC members other than Saudi Arabia, and their high degree of openness. Indeed, even without the creation of a monetary union, there could be significant advantages to all GCC members, from both an economic and a security perspective, from greater economic integration, through the creation of a true common market for goods, services, capital and labour, and from deeper political integration. The political arguments against monetary union at this juncture appear overwhelming, however. The absence of effective supranational political institutions encompassing the six GCC members means that there could be no effective political accountability of the GCC central bank. The surrender of political sovereignty inherent in joining a monetary union would therefore not be perceived as legitimate by an increasingly politically sophisticated citizenry. I believe that monetary union among the GCC members will occur only as part of a broad and broadly based movement towards far-reaching political integration. And there is little evidence of that as yet.