Optimal Poverty Reduction, Adjustment, and Growth

This article analyzes poverty reduction policies in an appliedoptimal growth framework. Assuming that poverty reduction iseffected through redistribution, it focuses on the static anddynamic tradeoffs between equity and efficiency and on the choicebetween current income and future income (that is, current productiveasset) transfers to the poor. By numerically estimating a stylizedeconomy, it is shown that, given reasonable assumptions aboutbehavioral parameters, the efficiency cost of poverty reductionin an economy on a steady growth path is relatively low. Ina period of adjustment following a severe exogenous shock, however,the scope for redistribution may be extremely limited if thereis a constraint on foreign borrowing. Plausible examples aregiven of adjustment cases in which poverty reduction becomesoptimal only after partial adjustment has been achieved.     

Consumer Preferences in Housing Market Analysis: An Application of Multidimensional Scaling Techniques

The value of single–family housing is a function of demographic, economic and psychographic variables. Much work has been done on the objectively measurable criteria, but virtually none on the subjective, perceptual criteria. This study uses consumer-supplied similarity measures of housing alternatives to develop a multidimensional perceptual "map" of the way consumers view housing choices. The dimensions of this perceptual space represent the evaluative criteria utilized, consciously or unconsciously, during the housing evaluation process. The analysis, although exploratory in nature, suggests that all perceptually defined market segments use the same evaluative construct; that market segments may be defined in terms of differences in the relative importance of each criterion; that market segments do not necessarily correspond to simple demographic measures; and that the major evaluative criteria in the perceptual process generally agree with those found in the literature based on objective measurements.     

Alternative interpretations of hours information in an econometric model of labour supply

This paper examines the labour supply behaviour of married women in France. A sequence of models is specified and estimated which incorporate different amounts of information on observed weekly hours. In all models the distinction is drawn between search and non-participation among non-workers. We provide extensive specification diagnostics, including Heckman-Andrews tests, as well as Hausman tests for the comparison of different handlings of the hours information. It turns out that distinguishing between part-time, full-time and long hours gives virtually the same results as treating observed hours as reflecting desired hours.     

Schumpeterian cycles with pro-cyclical R&D

Recent empirical work finds that R&D expenditures are quite pro-cyclical even for firms that are not credit-constrained during downturns. This has been taken as strong evidence against Schumpeterian-style theories of business cycles that emphasize the idea that downturns in production may be good times to allocate labor towards innovative activities. Here we argue that the pro-cyclicality of R&D investment is in fact quite consistent with at least one of these theories. In our analysis we emphasize three key features of R&D investment relative to other types of innovative activity: (1) it uses knowledge intensively, (2) it is a long-term investment with uncertain applications, and (3) it suffers from diminishing returns over time.     

Implications of the Dominant Design in Electronic Initiation Systems in the South African Mining Industry

This article analyzes an emerging technological innovation, namely, electronic initiation systems for mining explosives in South Africa. The concept of electronic initiation is presenting itself as a challenge to traditional initiation systems, particularly cap-and-fuse and shock tube technologies. From a technology strategy viewpoint, the challenge is to determine the nature of the managerial decisions that have to be addressed. The Utterback-Abernathy innovation model is used to assess the evolution of the emerging technology; it is found that the technology is still in the fluid phase and that a dominant design has not yet emerged. Since the dominant design is a very important milestone in the evolvement of the product with regard to both the technical and the business aspects, the immediate managerial focus should be on the evaluation factors that may influence the emergence of the dominant design. The emergence of a dominant design is, however, a complex process that depends on the interplay between a myriad of issues, including technological, market, social, economic, and related aspects. The paper anticipates the technological future of the innovation by exploring the factors that may influence the dominant design of electronic initiation systems, and casts the findings in a format that is useful for managerial decision support.     

Services Linkages and the Value Added Content of Trade

Working with a set of global social accounting matrices spanning intermittent years from 1992 to 2011, this paper examines the services embodied in trade on a value added basis. Data include not only the direct and indirect contribution of services to value added contained in a given country's exports, but also the extent to which third‐country value added in services, through intermediate linkages of imported goods and services, is also embodied in production and trade. Our data indicate, in line with previous findings, that the ratio of value added to gross trade has been decreasing both for goods and for services, which is consistent with growing vertical production fragmentation. On the other hand, while value added in goods sectors including indirect exports is less than the gross value of exports, in services, it is greater, highlighting the service intensity of trade.