Dutch Disease,factor mobility,and the Alberta Effect: the case of federations

Do reduced costs of factor mobility mitigate Dutch Disease effects to the extent that they are reversed? The case of federations provides an indication they do. We observe resource blessing (curse) effects at the provincial (federal) level, and argue the difference in outcomes stems from the difference in factor mobility costs. We construct a simple tax competition model which shows that if factor mobility costs are sufficiently low, a resource‐boom triggers an Alberta Effect that mitigates, and possibly reverses, Dutch Disease symptoms. The paper concludes with empirical evidence for the main implications of the model.     

Impact of education and health on poverty reduction: Monetary and non-monetary evidence from Fiji

Fiji signed the United Nations 2015 target of halving extreme poverty from its 1990 level, but like many developing countries it is facing challenges in meeting this goal. This paper presents the economic modelling using Fiji's Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2002/03 dataset to examine the economic and social factors crucial for poverty reduction. Two hypotheses are tested: first, we estimate the monetary effects of education at the aggregate and disaggregated returns to education (primary, secondary, tertiary levels) and by income quartiles, and second, test the non-monetary education and health factors as channels of impact promulgated as effects against poverty prevalence. The monetary results indicate that all income quartile households (i.e. lowest to highest) benefit from additional skills obtained through formal education. While those at the lowest income quartile in particular benefit the most from formal education, however it cannot sustainably prevent people with only primary education from falling into poverty. The results for non-monetary models show that education has a positive and significant influence on the tendency of the people to engage in health prevention activities and in acquiring good housing facilities.     

Is Private R & D Spending Sensitive to Its Price? Empirical Evidence on Panel Data for Italy

In this paper empirical evidence is presented on theelasticity of private R & D spending on its price. Acensored panel-data regression model with random effectsis applied to a balanced panel of 726 Italian firms overthe 1992–1997 period. Implied estimates point out thatItalian firms' response to policy measures (including taxcredits), aimed at reducing the user cost of R & D capital,is likely to be substantial (1.50–1.77). Furthermore, wealso find that the elasticity of R & D spending is higherin recession (2.01) than in expansion (0.87).     

Reconsidering the empirical evidence on the Grossman-Helpman model of endogenous protection

Abstract.  The emergence of the Grossman and Helpman (1994) model of endogenous protection as the preëminent model in the political economy of trade literature has been significantly advanced by the finding that its predictions about the cross-industry pattern of protection are broadly consistent with the data. However, in their empirical implementation of the Grossman-Helpman model, researchers have assumed the presence of multiple policy instruments and extraneous political factors. We argue that incorporating these assumptions into the theory significantly changes its predictions about the cross-industry pattern of protection. JEL classification: F1     

TYPES OF PUBLIC CAPITAL AND THEIR PRODUCTIVITY IN JAPANESE PREFECTURES*

Several researchers have studied the productivity of public capital in Japan but most have not paid attention to the types of public infrastructure or differences in production technology between prefectures. We estimate prefectural production functions with differently aggregated public capital. Through the model selection process, we examine the types of productive public capital. The empirical results show the production technologies used and how types of productive public capital differ between prefectures.