Exchange rates and order flow in the long run

Several recent papers have underlined the importance of microstructure effects in understanding exchange rate behavior by documenting stable long-run relationships between cumulated order flows and spot exchange rates. This stands in contrast to the widely-studied failure of exchange rates to conform to the long-run behavior implied by “conventional” macroeconomic models and is consistent with the prediction of micro-structure models. We re-examine the evidence for stable long-run relationships. We find that such evidence exists only for a small number of the major currencies we examine and that it is statistically fragile. We conclude that this implication of microstructure models does not fit the data as well as previous studies suggest.     

Socially Useless Jobs

Recent research suggests that many workers in modern economies think that their job is socially useless, i.e., that it makes no or a negative contribution to society. However, the evidence so far is mainly anecdotal. We use a representative dataset comprising 100,000 workers from forty‐seven countries at four points in time. We find that approximately 8 percent of workers perceive their job as socially useless, while another 17 percent are doubtful about the usefulness of their job. There are sizeable differences among countries, sectors, occupations, and age groups, but no trend over time. A vast majority of workers cares about holding a socially useful job and we find that they suffer when they consider their job useless. We also explore possible causes of socially useless jobs, including bad management, strict job protection legislation, harmful economic activities, labor hoarding, and division of labor.     

Who's pulling the strings? The influence of network structure on standard dominance

Innovative systems and infrastructures require generally accepted common compatibility standards to enable components of such systems to interoperate. In some cases, various standards are developed by competing standards organizations, often resulting in standards battles. This paper focuses on factors that affect the outcome of these standards battles, and, specifically, on the effect of the structure of the industry-wide standards networks on standard dominance. The empirical context is the consumer electronics, telecommunications, and ICT arenas. We conduct a study of 103 standards organizations from 2000 to 2011. We find support for the hypothesis that standards that are supported by standards organizations that have a central position in the industry-wide standards network have a high chance of achieving dominance.     

Bias in estimation from type I censored samples

Summary
Let be a family of probability distributions on R¹. This paper raises the question whether a parameter θ=θ (P), Pt, is estimable on the basis of a type I censored sample (i.e. censored on a fixed set C). Two theorems are given that state conditions on θ and C that ensure that θ is not estimable. The results are applied to estimation problems for the normal and POISSON distributions; it turns out that unbiased estimation is impossible in the majority of practical cases.     

On the existence of bivariate moments of lower order given the existence of moments of higher order

Dit artikel geeft een voorbeeld van een twee-dimensionale waarschijnlijkheidsdcht-heid met de eigenschap, dat het bestaan van momenten van de vorm E(g^ky^l ) niet het bestaan garandeert van alle momenten van lagere orde, E(g^myⁿ ) met 0myⁿ ) met 0 < m < k en 0 < n < l is, dat de drie momenten E(x^k), E(y^l ) en E(x^ky^l ) bestaan, alsmede een iets algemener resultaat.     

The financing of R & D in some socialist countries of Eastern Europe

In the countries of Eastern Europe the financing of R & D represents a difficult problem in terms of economic scientific policy. In these countries it is not only a question of a simple apportionment of centrally-held financial means to subordinate institutions, but also one of supporting promising fields of science, protecting long-term and costly research programmes against risks and losses, and, above all, providing an incentive for R & D institutions to work out economically meaningful R & D results and translate them into economic practice. This last point is of particular importance in a system lacking a free market mechanism. A historical survey of the development of financing methods in the R & D field and of the numerous attempts to reform these methods will show the extent of the efforts made in Eastern Europe (whether successfully or not does not concern us here) to find an adequate solution to these problems.