The Sustainability of Italian Public Debt and Deficit

In this paper, we analyse the sustainability of Italian public debt using a unique database, reconstructed by Forte (2011), which covers the years 1862–2013. The study focuses on empirical tests for the sustainability and solvency of Italian public finance. The results of unit root and stationarity tests show that public debt and deficit variables are non-stationary at levels, but stationary in first-differences form, or I(1). However, some breaks in the series emerge, given internal and external crises (wars, oil shocks, regime changes, institutional reforms). Therefore, the empirical analysis is conducted for the entire period, as well as two sub-periods (1862–1913 and 1947–2013). In essence, the paper’s results reveal that Italy has sustainability problems in the Republican age (1947-2013). Our Markov-switching dynamic regression model indicates the existence of two distinct states, both for public debt and deficit, with means and standard deviations rather different. Both states are extremely persistent.     

Francesco Forte’s Contributions to <Emphasis Type="Italic">Essentials of Fiscal Sociology</Emphasis>

Francesco Forte has made major contributions to many areas of economics with the result that his theoretical work and applications have opened new areas of inquiry. This paper connects Forte’s work with the work of Jürgen Backhaus on fiscal sociology. Positioned at the crossroads of economics and sociology, the answers to these questions helped fill the void which gave rise to the field of fiscal sociology. Fiscal sociology is primarily a study of taxation and fiscal policies which illuminates core issues in the sociology of contemporary capitalism. It includes the causes of poverty and inequality in rich countries and adds to our understanding the basis for the inequality between rich and poor countries. Our paper reviews several of Forte’s papers on Pareto’s fiscal sociology and the failure of European planning for less-developed regions. The paper highlights Forte’s contributions to economic theory focusing on Pareto’s sociological theory and the influence of the European Union on regional development.     

Leadership quality and follower affect: A study of U.S. presidential candidates

Using the tripartite model of attitude structure as a conceptual basis, this article investigates voter attitudes toward presidential candidates, including cognitive and affective assessments of these leaders as well as behavioral intentions and voting behavior. Data collected from the seven most recent U.S. presidential elections were used to compare Democratic and Republican Party candidates who were successful in securing votes to those who were unsuccessful. Here, follower perceptions of leader intelligence, feelings of pride and hope, as well as feelings of fear and anger were found to be statistically different between the two groups. Additionally, regression analysis using follower assessments of candidates' leadership quality, as dependent upon certain perceptual traits of that leader, are presented. Candidates perceived to be higher in intelligence, considered to possess stronger degrees of inspirational quality, and judged more “likeable,” in terms of generating stronger degrees of positive follower affect and lower degrees of negative follower affect, are considered better quality leaders. Followers' perceptions of these traits are found to be key predictors of whether that follower will consider a leader to be of high quality.     

A cross cultural study of gender-role orientation and entrepreneurial self-efficacy

The study of gender differences in entrepreneurial self-efficacy to date has produced inconclusive results. Cross-cultural studies are virtually non-existent. The present study seeks to understand the complex interplay of biological sex, socialized gender-roles, and culture on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and motivation to become an entrepreneur. Findings indicate that among American business students the traditional view of “entrepreneur as male” is fading. For the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs, a new entrepreneur stereotype is emerging that balances stereotypical feminine and masculine characteristics. These findings were not replicated in Spain where traditional gender-role stereotypes associated with entrepreneurship persist, even among business students. Implications for entrepreneurial education are discussed as they relate to the development of skills associated with venture creation.     

Arbitrage opportunities and immunization

It is often argued that an immunization strategy violates arbitrage-free equilibrium. Because immunization is a static concept, we contend that this argument is not valid. This paper examines the immunization strategy in a dynamic setting, and shows that global immunization is feasible for any arbitrage-free affine term structure model, including the parallel shift model. Further, we show that immunization does not violate arbitrage-free pricing because the cost of immunization over time is positive. Consequently, immunization strategies based upon commonly used duration, measures are not theoretically unsound.     

Bootstrapping the Box–Pierce Q test: A robust test of uncorrelatedness

This paper describes a test of the null hypothesis that the first K autocorrelations of a covariance stationary time series are zero in the presence of statistical dependence. The test is based on the Box–Pierce Q statistic with bootstrap-based P-values. The bootstrap is implemented using a double blocks-of-blocks procedure with prewhitening. The finite sample performance of the bootstrap Q   test is investigated by simulation. In our experiments, the performance is satisfactory for samples of n=500$n=500$. At this sample size, the differences between the empirical and nominal rejection probabilities are essentially eliminated.     

The effectiveness of entrepreneurial firm’s knowledge acquisition from a business incubator

This cross-cultural research project, involving the United States and Finland, explored how the entrepreneurial firm’s acquisition of business processes’ knowledge from interaction with incubator management positively impacts on new product development, increased technical competence, enhanced reputation and lower costs of sales to customers. In a sample of 52 firms, the study’s methodology depended on single response, self-reported data. The findings suggest that the sole knowledge benefits gained by the firm, from the incubator relationship, is a perception of enhanced reputation. Also, incubator managers should focus more on assisting new technology based firms with growing the venture in the marketplace. Funding for this project was provided by The National Science Foundation, and The National Technology Agency of Finland.     

Economists' Opinions of Economists' Work

A bstract .   Economists' credibility has been waning in recent years. Critics usually cite the profession's preoccupation with abstract reasoning and its focus on seemingly irrelevant topics that hold little interest for individuals outside the discipline. While economic science has enormous potential for improving living standards, the profession's adverse reputation is indicative of a discipline seemingly void of any social contribution. This article presents the results of a recently conducted survey of professional economists. The survey was undertaken to ascertain economists' opinions of their own professional work, including the progress of economic research, its usefulness for society, and factors that determine the publication of that research.     

The topography of metropolitan employment: Identifying centers of employment in a polycentric urban area

While it is well recognized that US metropolitan areas are polycentric, there is little consensus as to the appropriate method for identifying concentrations of employment within them. Existing methods suffer from strong assumptions about parametric form, misspecification, or reliance on local knowledge to calibrate model parameters. This paper introduces a new nonparametric method for identifying subcenters. Results indicate that this, more flexible, nonparametric approach yields greater accuracy with regard to both urban and suburban centers compared with other approaches. This approach should provide better data for the numerous topics that depend on the spatial accounting of employment within metropolitan areas.     

Opening the black box: Finding the source of cost inefficiency

Parametric and nonparametric procedures are used to identify the apparent source of cost inefficiency in banking. Inefficiencies of 20–25% from earlier studies are reduced to 1–5% when, in addition to commonly specified cost function influences, variables reflecting banks’ external business environment and industry indicators of “productivity” are added. These productivity indicators explain most of the reduction in bank operating cost over 1992–2001 and was 5 times the reduction in the dispersion of inefficiency. Inefficiency appears stable over time because it is small relative to industry-wide cost changes occurring concurrently and because technology dispersion is imperfect.