Demand,employment, and labour productivity in the European economies

This paper presents an explanation of the causes of the slowdown in growth in labour productivity in European economies in recent decades. In first instance, the weakness of domestic demand is what determines this slowdown in productivity. However, differences with the (mediocre) rates of growth of productivity between European countries are also related to the specific features of their respective labour markets because, in a context of weak domestic demand, there is a trade-off between employment and productivity.     

Uniform confidence bands for functions estimated nonparametrically with instrumental variables

This paper is concerned with developing uniform confidence bands for functions estimated nonparametrically with instrumental variables. We show that a sieve nonparametric instrumental variables estimator is pointwise asymptotically normally distributed. The asymptotic normality result holds in both mildly and severely ill-posed cases. We present methods to obtain a uniform confidence band and show that the bootstrap can be used to obtain the required critical values. Monte Carlo experiments illustrate the finite-sample performance of the uniform confidence band.     

Obstacles to Financial Development in Transition Economies: A Literature Survey

This survey of approximately 70 studies considers five causes of weak financial system development in transition economies. These are: problem loans and inadequate capital; the absence of a credit culture, giving rise to perverse incentives to continue to make bad loans; inadequate regulatory systems; deposit insurance; and weak legal systems. There results a perverse feedback loop across the various problem areas that constrains the development of solutions. Policy recommendations include a focus on basic contract law as a way to break the perverse feedback loop.     

A consolidated model of trip distribution

This work analyzes and compares various trip distribution models with spatial aggregation within a common theoretical framework for formulating and solving multi-objective optimization problems. A new model is designed that incorporates the main characteristics of existing ones. These models are then calibrated with a single database at different spatial aggregation levels using maximum likelihood. The results show that with aggregated data the various models differ little, but with disaggregated data the differences are considerable. It is also demonstrated that changing the level of data aggregation can significantly alter the models’ parameter values.     

Can political entrepreneurs solve the free-rider problem?

A solution of the problem of voluntary collective action, employing an improved concept of political entrepreneurship is proposed. This solution is consistent with large numbers of actors and pure public goods (joint production of private goods and asymmetry are not assumed). The importance of information imperfections in producing suboptimality in the provision of public goods is emphasized. Political entrepreneurship is made to parallel the Knightian concept of the entrepreneur, emphasizing the role of risk-taking and information collecting.     

做到公平为何如此之难？

人人皆知做到公平花费寥寥而收获颇丰。但为何只有很少一部分主管才能成功地做到,尽管他们中的大部分是有此想法的呢?当A公司要裁员时,它斥巨资为被其解雇的员工提供安全网。公司与雇员断绝关系的解雇一揽子安排包含有:好几周的薪水,广泛的新职介绍咨询,以及长达一年的健康保险。但     

U.S. Pay Equity Legislation: Sheep in Wolves' Clothing

In the last century, women in the United States have made tremendous changes to their labor market behavior. What has not changed very much over this time period is the relative economic status of women compared to men. Another constant has been a high level of job segregation by gender, such that few organizations employ both men and women to do a particular job. These facts have led many scholars to conclude that employers systematically undervalue female-dominated jobs, and that legislative initiatives are needed to rectify this problem. This paper reviews 4 bills that have been introduced in the U.S. Congress. Each of these bills contains loopholes that would allow most employers to maintain their current pay rates. The Congressional initiatives are contrasted with a much more stringent bill that has been introduced in the New York state legislature.     

Testing and the Composition of the Labor Pool

We consider a continuous‐time labor matching model with endogenous separation. Firms initially lack information about the quality of workers with whom they are matched. They acquire information both from pre‐employment testing and, in the case in which a labor relationship is established, on‐the‐job performance. Testing provides a signal of a worker's quality. A firm can pick the accuracy level of its test, but it pays a cost that increases in the accuracy. Workers who perform poorly on the test are not offered employment; those who perform poorly on the job are eventually fired (after some delay). Worker quality is not match‐specific; low‐quality workers are less productive with all firms. We show that, in equilibrium, there is an inverse and complementary relation between the level of testing that firms optimally perform and the overall quality of the workers in the matching pool. We consider the properties of a steady‐state, stable equilibrium in such an environment. The complementarity between testing and the composition of the unemployed pool introduces the possibility of multiple equilibria.     

Fair allocations of a renewable resource

In an economy with finitely many agents, one renewable resource, and an infinite horizon, it is shown that there is exactly one maximal allocation corresponding to given limiting shares of consumption and this allocation converges monotonically. Therefore, if there is no discounting, at most one fair maximal program exists—that which gives an equal amount to each individual in the limit. In this allocation, envy is always finite. However, only in special cases is it envyfree. This is in contrast to the case of finite economies where envy-free and Pareto efficient allocations may not exist or, if they exist, may not be unique.