Relating ultrasonic vocalizations from a pair of rats to individual behavior: A composite link model approach

Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are crucial in the social behavior of rats. We aim to relate USV rates of pairs of rats to individual activity in an automated home cage (PhenoTyper®) where USVs are recorded per pair and not per individual. We propose a composite link model approach to parametrize a mechanistic “sum‐of‐rates” model in which the pair's USV rate is the sum of the USV rates of individuals depending on their own behavior. In generalized linear models (GLMs), the individual's USV rates are multiplied. We verified through simulation that composite link model gave lower Poisson deviance than GLM. We analyzed the data from an experiment in which half of the cages did allow the pairs to interact (Pair Housing) and the other half did not (Individual Housing). The “sum‐of‐rates” model fits best for Individual Housing and GLM for Pair Housing. An additional simulation study strongly suggests that interaction between rats changes the underlying mechanism for vocalization behavior.     

Gerschenkron Revisited: The New Corporate Russia

Our analysis is based on firm-specific data compiled from the Russian Trading System stock exchange and SKRIN (CKPиH in Russian) database. We seek to identify the factors behind Russia’s dramatically improved corporate sector performance from the beginning of the 2000s to December 2007. We argue that improved long-term corporate performance was a consequence of several policy initiatives associated with the state-dominated banking sector, which enabled statesubsidized investment funds to be channeled from a structurally reengineered energy sector to targeted investment projects located in other industries. We claim that Russia’s industrial strategy closely conforms to Alexander Gerschenkron’s catch-up theory.     

An empirical procedure to evaluate monetary management under exogenous changes in the money supply

This article proposes an empirical procedure to evaluate central banks’ monetary management in a presence of exogenous changes in the money supply. Monetary shocks deviate the market interest rate from the target, and the monetary authority decides its optimal intervention in the money market, bearing in mind the benefits and costs of re-establishing its target interest rate. According to monetary management theory, typically a central bank will allow for variation in the interest rate within a range around the target interest rate, thereby intervening in the money market when the interest rate trends toward a point outside that range. In this context, we develop an empirical strategy to analyse central bank’s reactions to exogenous money changes by making a statistical comparison of the actual and the estimated intraday shift in the money supply. We also employ our method to test the reactions of the Brazilian Central Bank to liquidity shifts caused by changes in the Treasury Single Account (TSA) balance. Using different metrics of analysis, the applications of our procedure confirms the predictions of the optimal monetary management theory.     

A NOTE ON CHAMBERS'S “LONG MEMORY AND AGGREGATION IN MACROECONOMIC TIME SERIES”*

This note reviews some results on aggregating discrete‐time long memory processes, providing a formula for the spectrum of the aggregates that considers the aliasing effect.     

Does the worldwide shift of FDI from manufacturing to services accelerate economic growth? A GMM estimation study

We examine the effect of manufacturing and service FDI (foreign direct investment) on their own sector growth, the spillover to the other sectors and the overall economy in host countries. We identify significant sectoral and inter-industry spillover effects with various data classifications and types of FDI flows. Evidence reveals that growth effect of manufacturing FDI operates by stimulating activity in its own (manufacturing) sector and is prevalent in Latin America-Caribbean, in Europe-Central Asia, middle to low-income countries and economies with large industry share. A surge of service FDI is likely to spur growth in service industries but hurt activity in manufacturing industries. Financial service FDI enhances growth in South-East Asia and the Pacific, high income countries and service-based economies by stimulating activity in both manufacturing and service sectors. However, nonfinancial service FDI drains resources and hurts manufacturing industry in the same group of countries. We conclude that a shift from manufacturing to service FDI is likely to lead to deindustrialization in certain regions and types of economies if this shift is spearheaded by nonfinancial FDI.     

Competition and diversification in public and private higher education

The development of mass higher education and growing competition between higher education institutions has given increasing visibility to the issue of diversification. This article analyses the issue of programme diversification, using a panel of 181 Portuguese higher education institutions over the period 1995 to 2007, by comparing the behaviour of public and private institutions. The results show that the legal status of institutions is the major determinant of programme diversification, as private institutions are far more specialized than their public counterparts. The study also evaluates the role of other institutional variables, such as the institution’s size, age, location, institutional mission and research intensity, to explain differences in the diversification behaviour of higher education institutions. The results provide important insights, as competition has been thought to improve the performance of higher education institutions.     

Characteristics of Innovative Firms in the Brazilian Computer Industry

A number of studies have reported characteristics of innovative firms; however, these studies have typically been conducted in freely competitive markets. Angela da Rocha, Carl Christensen and Newton Paim have studied firms within the Brazilian computer industry. The Brazilian government regulates the entrance of foreign competitors to this market. Thus, the authors are able to ask whether the characteristics of innovative firms in a protected market differ from characteristics previously reported in competitive markets. With only a few minor exceptions, the reported profiles of innovative firms are quite similar. These results suggest that characteristics of innovative firms are generalizable across certain industry and environmental conditions, including protected markets.     

LOCATION OF VERTICALLY LINKED OLIGOPOLISTS

This paper examines the geographical equilibrium of location of N vertically linked firms and its relation to the creation of an industrial cluster. In a two-region spatial economy, a monopolist firm supplies an input to N consumer goods firms that compete in quantities. When the transport cost of the input increases, downstream firms prefer to agglomerate where the upstream firm is located, to save in production cost. However, simultaneous increases in the transport cost of the input and of the consumer good or increases in the number of downstream firms lead to a relative dispersion of these firms, to reduce competition and locate closer to the local final consumer. In contrast to Mayer (2000) , when both transport costs increase, the location decision of downstream firms is based more on the geographical point that maximizes accessibility to the local final consumer than on the geographical point that minimizes the production cost.