How Does the Stock Market View Bank Regulatory Capital Forbearance Policies?

During the subprime crisis, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has shown, once again, laxity in resolving and closing insolvent institutions. Ronn and Verma (1986) call the tolerance level below which a bank closure is triggered the regulatory policy parameter. We derive a model in which we make this parameter stochastic and bank specific to infer the stock market view of the regulatory capital forbearance value. For 565 U.S. listed banks during 1990 to 2012, the countercyclical forbearance fraction in capital, most substantial in recessions, could represent 17%, on average, of the market valuation of bank equity and could go as high as 100%.     

Formación y retención de los trabajadores de más edad en la empresa. Evidencia de Alemania

La retención en las empresas de los trabajadores de más edad podría paliar carencias de capital humano derivadas del rápido envejecimiento de la población activa. Con datos de emparejamientos empresa‐asalariado de Alemania, de 2002–2008, los autores investigan la relación entre formación en la empresa, salarios y decisiones de jubilación de los trabajadores de 50–65 años y encuentran que cuando la formación está adaptada a estos trabajadores, las mujeres, sobre todo de bajos ingresos, son menos proclives a jubilarse, posiblemente por un crecimiento salarial concomitante. Este tipo de formación podría pues contribuir a retener y promover a las mujeres de edad y de bajos ingresos.     

Marriage seasonality and the industrious revolution: southern Sweden, 1690–18951

In this article we study the evolution of marriage seasonality in relation to economic change, particularly connected to changes in labour supply and work intensity of the kind implied by the ‘industrious revolution’. The focus is on southern Sweden in 1685–1894, which was a period of agricultural transformation and early industrialization, when we would expect to see an increase in work intensity. The analysis is based on about 120,000 marriages from 117 different parishes. The analysis shows that the seasonality of marriage changed dramatically over time, from a classic grain production pattern, with a marriage peak in late spring and a marriage trough at harvest time, to a much more even seasonality, although with the appearance of a very strong peak in December. This change affected rural rather than urban areas, and was present regardless of differences in institutional settings, and for almost all occupational groups below the elite. The changed seasonality pattern is consistent with increasing work intensity over the year, leaving only the weeks around Christmas as a low season. In addition to the increase in work intensity, the privatization of marriage and the availability of time and resources were also important factors in the changing seasonality pattern.     

Market wage or discrimination? The remuneration of male and female wool spinners in the seventeenth‐century Dutch Republic1

In the historical debate, the gender wage gap is usually attributed either to productivity differences or to gender discrimination. By analysing a newly constructed series of spinning wages in the seventeenth‐century Dutch Republic, the wages of male and female textile workers for the same work could be investigated. At first sight, the evidence on equal piece rates for spinning men and women seems to rule out wage discrimination. Nevertheless, more deeply rooted gender discrimination resulting from the segmented seventeenth‐century labour market restricted women's access to many professions. Exactly this segmentation determined differences in wage earning capacities between men and women.     

SHIFT WORKING AND TRADE IN LABOUR SERVICES WITH TIME ZONE DIFFERENCES

Using a two‐factor (labour and capital), two‐good (shift‐working and non‐shift‐working commodities) model with two countries (Home and Foreign), which are located in different time zones, we highlight the impact of trade in labour services (via communications networks) on the comparative advantage of countries capable of such trade. It is shown that a comparative advantage in a shift‐working commodity is held by pairs of countries in different time zones and connected through a good communication network. Concerning factor prices, if the shift‐working commodity is capital (respectively, labour) intensive, the wage rate for day‐shift labour will decrease (respectively, increase) as a result of trade in labour services. It is also demonstrated that this labour service utilization is mutual: some of Home's day‐shift labour will be utilized for the Foreign night shift, and vice versa. Thus, periodic trade in labour services occurs across countries.     

ENDOGENOUS CONSUMER PARTICIPATION AND THE RECYCLING PROBLEM*

We endogenise the extent of consumer participation in the recycling process, and analyse its effect on the ‘recycling problem’. When recycling requires consumers to undertake costly sorting activities to separate scrap from household waste, they will participate only if the net reward from sorting is positive. Consumers' sorting cost is subject to a network effect arising due to social norms. With heterogeneous consumers differing in terms of their sorting cost, the entire output of the recyclable product may not be subsequently available as scrap to the recycling firms. This increases the virgin producer's monopoly power, and may also lead to multiple equilibria if the network effect of sorting is sufficiently large. The latter result suggests a role for the government in influencing equilibrium selection to improve social welfare. Depending on the fraction of consumers that participate in recycling, increased societal pressure on consumers to recycle may decrease consumer participation and increase the virgin producer's market power.