Community Energy Taxation to Limit CO2 and Price Distortions: Spain as a Pilot Study

Within the framework of the European Community's policy response to the risks of global climate change, the Commission is analyzing the options for using a mixed energy and CO2 tax as one policy instrument in a package of measures. The taxes planned to cut CO2 emissions are designed as a production tax on energy products, based on their fuel content or, in the case of a CO2 tax, on the CO2 content. Although the precise tax rate has not yet been confirmed, that of US$10 per barrel seems to be the most probable. Against this background, the aim of the study is to investigate, on the basis of the input–output model, the effects of both a general energy and a CO2 tax on the producer prices of the different economic sectors in Spain as a case-study. Additionally, the paper attempts to shed some light on other related issues, such as the evaluation of the effects of energy and CO2 taxes on domestic goods' competitiveness with respect to other non-Community countries.     

Optimal maturity of government debt without state contingent bonds

This paper shows that state contingent debt can be synthetically constructed using non-contingent debt of different maturities. A main policy implication of this principle is that the Ramsey allocation with complete markets can be sustained with non-contingent debt only by properly managing its maturity structure. The numerical experiments, however, suggest that this policy implication ought to be taken with care. We find that the debt positions that sustain the Ramsey allocation are very high (on the order of a few hundred times total GDP for a very simple four state economy) and increasing in the number of states. In addition, they are very sensitive to small variations in the parameters of the model.     

INEQUALITY, REDISTRIBUTION, AND RENT-SEEKING

This paper presents a non-median voter model of redistribution in which greater inequality leads to lower redistribution. Bargaining between interest groups and politicians over exemptions implies that individuals with sufficiently high income will not pay taxes in equilibrium. Therefore, voters will set tax rates low enough so as to control the incentives for rent-seeking. An increase in inequality, by putting more income in the hands of individuals that can buy exemptions, will lead to lower equilibrium redistribution. The model can be used to account for a negative relationship between inequality and growth and provides a new explanation of why the poor do not expropriate the rich in democracies.     

Efficiency,Profitability, and College Football: do Bettors Overrate the Major Conferences in Interconference Play?

This article tests the efficient market hypothesis and the profitability of a simple betting strategy in college football. All games are examined that have a point spread for inter-conference matches involving a Power Five/Automatic Qualifying team from September 2003 through January 2016. The tests reject the efficient market hypothesis for these matchups, with a large subset of matches driving this result. The betting strategy evidence suggests it is nonrandom but it is not particularly profitable for the entire sample. However, there is evidence that betting on certain conferences to cover the point spread (win the bet) results in profitable returns over the period.

     

Size matters: Optimal calibration of shrinkage estimators for portfolio selection

We carry out a comprehensive investigation of shrinkage estimators for asset allocation, and we find that size matters—the shrinkage intensity plays a significant role in the performance of the resulting estimated optimal portfolios. We study both portfolios computed from shrinkage estimators of the moments of asset returns (shrinkage moments), as well as shrinkage portfolios obtained by shrinking the portfolio weights directly. We make several contributions in this field. First, we propose two novel calibration criteria for the vector of means and the inverse covariance matrix. Second, for the covariance matrix we propose a novel calibration criterion that takes the condition number optimally into account. Third, for shrinkage portfolios we study two novel calibration criteria. Fourth, we propose a simple multivariate smoothed bootstrap approach to construct the optimal shrinkage intensity. Finally, we carry out an extensive out-of-sample analysis with simulated and empirical datasets, and we characterize the performance of the different shrinkage estimators for portfolio selection.     

Individual entrepreneurial orientation and performance: the mediating role of international entrepreneurship

This paper analyses the role that individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) plays in the success of international entrepreneurship moves. We focus on the mediation effect of international entrepreneurship in the relationship between IEO and firm performance. We argue that entrepreneurial experience constitutes an important source of IEO and propose an objective measure of IEO. The hypotheses are empirically analysed using a 22-year panel of family SMEs. Our results confirm the hypotheses and provide a better understanding of the role of IEO in the success of corporate strategies such as internationalisation. Specifically, IEO is found to improve firm performance indirectly by increasing the speed of internationalisation, and this effect is non-linear. Our study contributes to the literature by extending international entrepreneurship literature by offering a more complete view of the causes and consequences of IEO. Finally, our results also contribute to the literature on family firm heterogeneity.

     

Training policy and organisational performance in the Spanish hotel industry

There is currently a general agreement about the importance of training as a tool to help companies in the development of sustainable competitive advantages based on their human resources. Staff qualification is not an option in the tourism industry; human capital training actually becomes a determining factor to be able to achieve a differential positioning within the sector. In Spain, where the tourism sector is a strategic element, it becomes essential to analyse the training policy applied by tourism enterprises with the aim of assessing its quality and effectiveness. The objective sought in this study is to identify the main factors related to training policy that have an impact on performance. The study carries out an empirical research into the effects that training practices cause on performance levels in the Spanish hotel industry using a sample of 110 hotels.     

Human capital accumulation in emerging Asia, 1970–2030

Emerging Asian economies have made strong progress in improving educational capital in the past 40 years. High educational attainment, especially at the secondary level, has significantly improved emerging Asia's educational achievement. Regressions show that better parental education and income, lower income inequality, declining fertility, and higher public educational expenditures account for higher educational enrollment. But Asia's average years of schooling are forecast to increase to 7.6 years by 2030, from 7.0, significantly slower than the increase of 4.1 years from 1970 to 2010. That would put emerging Asia's educational capital in 2030 at only the 1970 level of the advanced countries, or still 3.5 years behind the level of advanced countries in 2010. For sustained human development, Asian economies must invest in improving educational quality and raising enrollment rates at the secondary and tertiary levels.     

Using Parametric Bootstrap to Introduce and Manage Uncertainty: Replicated Loaded Insurance Life Tables

Insurance companies develop loaded life tables to protect themselves against deviations, for example, in the number of expected deaths or in the (residual) expectation of life of their insured. In doing so, however, the single random vector of experience crude death rates from which loaded tables are constructed is treated as deterministic or, at best, as a single realization of an underlying stochastic process, omitting the fact that it is estimated and subject to error and uncertainty. This can result in serious consequences for the insurer. To solve this problem, we follow the example of other researchers and propose a method to replicate loaded life tables using parametric bootstrap. We focus on estimating period-loaded life tables from company portfolios, where the sizes of the exposed-to-risk populations are significantly smaller than those of general populations. If we have a set of B loaded life tables, the average behavior and some extreme values can be computed and subsequently used in managing premiums or reserves. This article offers life insurers a simple way of incorporating the experience uncertainty in actuarial tasks (for example, in pricing) by comparing the limits of the confidence intervals obtained between parametric bootstrap and classical approaches (such as limit theorems).