Goodness-of-fit tests for conditional models under censoring and truncation

The problem of specification tests for conditional models is studied when the data are subject to left truncation and right censoring. A general method is applied to derive tests for the polynomial regression, the proportional hazards, the additive risks and the proportional odds models. Bootstrap versions to approximate the critical values of the test are introduced and proved to work both from a theoretical viewpoint as well as in a small simulation study.     

Economic role, Property rights, Labour skills and Technology in the Portuguese Wine Co-Operatives

Agricultural markets are characterised by thinner margins, greater price and income volatility. Despite these changes, agricultural raw material markets are increasingly characterised by the vertical co-ordination of farmers and processors. The organisational form of a marketing co-operative is a common means adopted by farmers to achieve this end. In a world increasingly concerned with the importance of the separation of ownership and user, the survival and growth of agricultural co-operatives (in which the primary users of the services are also the main owners) is linked to their economic role, to how members exercise their property rights, and how inputs are used by the co-operative. This paper provides a function that summarises the economic role of agricultural co-operatives and goes on to analyse the contribution to the economic performance of Portuguese wine co-operatives (PWCs) made by the use of property rights, and the skills of the human resources and technology employed. The results of a multinomial logit model show that PWCs would indeed be able to improve their economic performance through the application of integrated management strategies to solve common property and horizon problems, as well as increasing their recruitment of skilled professionals in the areas of management, wine production and marketing, and by the adoption of new technologies of production and packaging.     

The mexican financial crisis of December 1994 and lessons to be learned

When the Mexican financial crisis occurred in December, 1994, there was little information with which to analyze the prospects, but there were many similarities between the adjustment that Mexico went through in connection with the debt crisis of 1982–83. The time paths of crucial variables in the two situations, 1994–95 and 1982–83, has been studied in order to gain some insight, allowing, of course, for special circumstances that were important on each occasion.We estimated export and import equations from monthly data, 1982–83, and used these equations, together with the rest of the CIEMEX model, to make extrapolations for the period after December 1994.A main finding is that the earlier crisis required a two-year adjustment, but current circumstances lead the full model to extrapolate a milder contraction and faster (one year) recovery. These calculations have been useful in interpreting some of the noneconometric aspects of Mexico's adjustment after 1994, as well as some of the circumstances that precipitated the crisis in the first place.     

Understanding attitudes towards public transport and private car: A qualitative study

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of public transport users and car users in order to obtain a deeper understanding of travellers’ attitudes towards transport and to explore perceptions of public transport service quality. The key findings indicate that in order to increase public transport usage, the service should be designed in a way that accommodates the levels of service required by customers and by doing so, attract potential users. Furthermore, the choice of transport is influenced by several factors, such as individual characteristics and lifestyle, the type of journey, the perceived service performance of each transport mode and situational variables. This suggests the need for segmentation taking into account travel attitudes and behaviours. Policies which aim to influence car usage should be targeted at the market segments that are most motivated to change and willing to reduce frequency of car use.     

An upper bound for the correlation ratio of records

We obtain an upper bound for a measure of the performance of the least squares predictor of the jth record of a sequence of continuous i.i.d random variables as a function of the ith record. We show also that such bound is attainable, except for location and scale parameters, by exponential distributions. This work was supported in part by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia through Grants PB96-1416-CO2-02 and HA 1997-0123.     

Pricing Property Index Linked Swaps with Counterparty Default Risk

This paper extends Bjork and Clapham (Journal of Housing Economics 11:418–432, 2002) model for pricing real estate index total return swaps. Our extension considers counterparty default risk within a first passage contingent claims model. We price total return swaps on property indices with different levels of default risk. We develop this model under same assumptions as Bjork and Clapham (Journal of Housing Economics 11:418–432, 2002) and find that total return swap price is no longer zero. Total return swap payer must charge a spread over the market interest rate that compensates him for the exposure to this additional risk. Based on commercial property indices in the UK, we observe that computed spreads are much lower than a sample of quotes obtained from one of the traders in the market.     

The effects of households’ and firms’ borrowing constraints on economic growth

This paper considers an endogenous growth model with asymmetric information between lenders and borrowers, that leads to credit-rationing a proportion of borrowers. However, in contrast to the existing literature, in this model, both firms and consumers face borrowing constraints. Nonetheless, the borrowing constraints facing a firm and those encountered by a consumer have opposing effects on growth. Relaxing borrowing constraints on firms is growth-promoting, as more funds become available for productive investment. In contrast, relaxing borrowing constraints facing consumers has a detrimental effect, as funds are diverted from productive investment to consumption. Such an adverse effect may offset the externality effect present in the production function that would otherwise ensure perpetual growth. Furthermore, it is shown that the interaction between households’ and firms’ borrowing constraints may give rise to endogenous cycles.     

VW’s modular system and workers’ organization in Resende,Brazil

This article discusses the changes taking place in the Brazilian vehicle assembly industry of the 1990s with particular reference to the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It focuses upon a case study of Volkswagen’s bus and truck assembly plant, opened in 1996, and its workers at Resende. The experience of the `modular system’ of production has been presented as a major development in vehicle assembly. The article analyses the originality of VW’s new form of organization of production and the strategy of the firm to look for localities with weak labour unionism. It also argues that despite the difficulties the local union faced in its attempts to intervene in the process of wage bargaining and to influence the management of aspects of production, there has been a rapid process of mobilizing the new workers for effective labour union action. L’article traite des transformations intervenues dans l’industrie automobile brésilienne dans les années quatre–vingt dix, avec une attention particulière pour l’Etat de Rio de Janeiro. Il s’attache à l’usine d’assemblage que Volkswagen ouverte en 1996 à Resende pour y assembler des véhicules industriels. Cette expérience de production modulaire a été présentée comme une innovation organisationnelle majeure dans l’industrie automobile mondiale. Le texte met en évidence les spécificités de la nouvelle organisation de la production et la stratégie de localisation de la firme fondée sur la recherche d’espaces d’implantation à faible activisme syndical. Il montre que malgré sa faiblesse initiale et une intervention réduite dans la négociation salariale et l’organisation du travail, une mobilisation rapide des nouveaux travailleurs a permis la reconstitution d’un mouvement syndical actif.