Central Bank Independence: An Update of Theory and Evidence

This paper reviews recent research on central bank independence (CBI). After we have distinguished between independence and conservativeness, research in which the inflationary bias is endogenised is reviewed. Finally, the various challenges that have been raised against previous empirical findings on CBI are discussed. We conclude that the negative relationship between CBI and inflation is quite robust.     

Social capital,risk preference and adoption of improved farm land management practices in Ethiopia

Many developing countries grapple with high rates of farmland degradation and low agricultural productivity amidst increasing climate variability. Considerable efforts have been exerted to promote the diffusion of improved farmland management to address these challenges. Despite these efforts, adoption rates, especially of soil conservation and water harvesting technologies, are still low, which has been the subject of investigation in several studies in Ethiopia and elsewhere. Most studies on the adoption of these technologies, however, tend to focus on economic incentives only, paying little attention to the role of social capital. This article provides evidence of the effects of different dimensions of social capital on innovation adoption across households holding different levels of risk aversion. We address this issue by using cross section and panel data from Ethiopia. Results show that social capital plays a significant role in enhancing the adoption of improved farmland management practices. We also find evidence that the effect of social capital across households with heterogeneous risk taking behavior is different.     

The Q Theory and the Swedish Housing Market—An Empirical Test

We argue that major changes in economic policy have resulted in a more market driven demand for housing investment in Sweden, due to policy changes at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. Tobin’s transparent Q theory is the investment theory used. For the last period of the sample (1993–2003 quarterly data), our results indicate that there exists a high degree of correlation between the Q ratio and the (logarithm of) two different variables for housing investment. An error correction regression model, controlling for structural breaks, also indicates that a stable long-run relationship could be detected for the logarithm of building starts and the Q ratio between 1993–2003, but not between 1981–1992.      

Potential Competitive Effects of Basel II on Banks in SME Credit Markets in the United States

We examine the likely competitive effects of implementation of Basel II capital requirements on banks in the market for credit to SMEs in the U.S. Similar competitive effects from Basel II may occur for other credits and financial instruments in the U.S. and other nations. We address whether reduced risk weights for SME credits extended by large banking organizations that adopt the Advanced Internal Ratings-Based (A-IRB) approach of Basel II might significantly adversely affect the competitive positions of other organizations. The analyses suggest only relatively minor competitive effects on most community banks because the large A-IRB adopters tend to make very different types of SME loans to different types of borrowers than community banks. However, there may be significant adverse effects on the competitive positions of large non-A-IRB banking organizations because the data do not suggest any strong segmentation in SME credit markets among large organizations. JEL classification: G21, G28, G38, L51     

Efficiency Barriers to the Consolidation of the European Financial Services Industry

Cross-border consolidation of financial institutions within Europe has been relatively limited, possibly reflecting efficiency barriers to operating across borders, including distance; differences in language, culture, currency, and regulatory/supervisory structures; and explicit or implicit rules against foreign competitors. EU policies such as the Single Market Programme and European Monetary Union attenuate some but not all of these barriers. The evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that these barriers offset most of any potential efficiency gains from cross-border consolidation. Banks headquartered in other EU nations have slightly lower average measured efficiency than domestic banks and non-EU-based foreign banks.     

Poetic Economics and Experiential Knowledge,or How the Economist K. William Kapp Was Inspired by the Poet Ernst Wiechert

In the first part of this article, I analyze the phenomenon of the “double truth” in economics, which suppresses experiential knowledge and leads to the destruction of the natural environment, community, and human civility. Subsequently, I explore the positive effects of opening economics to the creative, esthetic, and ethical potential of experiential knowledge, including works of art. In the second part of the article, I showcase the way the economist K. William Kapp was inspired by the renowned German novelist, poet, educator, intellectual, and concentration-camp survivor Ernst Wiechert. Wiechert was Kapp’s teacher in high school, the Hufgymnasium in Königsberg, during the Weimar Republic. I investigate the unpublished and unexplored Kapp-Wiechert correspondence, as well as analyze some (published and unpublished) foreign language essays written by Kapp and his wife Lore Kapp. This analysis reveals how Kapp’s economics drew lasting inspiration from Wiechert’s art philosophy, pedagogy, novels, and poetry. This is a case study of a poetic economics that is open to experiential knowledge, which makes it more humane, edifying, serene, and sensitive to the natural and social environment.     

Accounting for human capital externalities with an application to the Nordic countries

Externalities caused by human capital accumulation have taken up considerable space in theoretical work on economic growth. However, less attention has been paid to this externality in traditional growth accounting exercises. This paper takes up the issue of growth accounting, suggesting a framework for quantifying human-capital externalities and illustrating it empirically using data from the five Nordic countries. Four sources of growth are identified, i.e. capital accumulation, labor force growth, and total factor productivity growth (TFP), where the traditional TFP measure is split into a part explained by human-capital formation and an unexplained part. By doing this I am able to attribute between 12 per cent and 33 per cent of growth in the Nordic countries to human capital investment.