A Characterization of Robust Sunspot Equilibria

In nonconvex environments, a sunspot equilibrium can sometimes be destroyed by the introduction of new extrinsic information. We provide a simple test for determining whether or not a particular equilibrium survives, or is robust to, all possible refinements of the state space. We use this test to provide a characterization of the set of robust sunspot-equilibrium allocations of a given economy; it is equivalent to the set of equilibrium allocations of the associated lottery economy. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D51, D84, E32.     

A model to forecast airport-level General Aviation demand

General Aviation (GA) demand forecast plays an important role in aviation management, planning and policy making. The objective of this paper is to develop an airport-level GA demand forecast model. The GA demand at an airport is modeled as a function of social-economic and demographic factors, the availability of supply factors, the competition from the commercial aviation, the number of based aircraft, and the presence of a flight school. Our models suggest that the relative fuel price – fuel price compared with personal income – is a significant determinant of airport level GA demand. The elasticity of itinerant and local GA demand with respect to the relative fuel price is −0.43 and −0.52, respectively. Our results are compared with those reported in other studies. Furthermore, we made projections of GA demand for the airports in the Terminal Area Forecast (TAF) using three fuel price scenarios from the Energy Information Administration. Our projections under the “business-as-usual” fuel price scenario are close to those in the TAF. Our models could prove useful, for example, for the Federal Aviation Administration and airport planners to prepare airport-level GA demand forecast.     

Labor shares in the old and new EU member states - Sectoral effects and the role of relative prices

The paper studies the labor share among countries of the European Union, with a particular attention to the newer member states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEEU). We find that CEEU countries typically have lower labor shares than older EU member states, both in the aggregate and at the sectoral level. Structural change, while quite pronounced among the CEEU economies, plays only a minor role in the evolution of the labor share. The exception is agriculture, which for some countries has a sizable impact on the level and dynamics of the labor share - partly because of important measurement problems. We also find that a significant part of the difference in conventionally measured labor shares between the more developed EU countries and less developed CEEU countries can be attributed to differences in relative prices. This is consistent with a productivity-based explanation: we show that a simple, calibrated two-sector model with sectoral productivity differentials can explain 36–71% of cross-country variations in the non-agricultural labor share.     

How Robust Is Indonesia’s Poverty Profile? Adjusting for Differences in Needs

Poverty profiles showing how the magnitude of poverty differs across subgroups of a population are important tools in designing effective social protection programs. Using data from the March 2013 round of the National Socio-economic Survey (Susenas) and the fourth round of the Indonesia Family Life Survey (2007–8), I explore the sensitivity of Indonesia’s poverty profile to different assumptions about the relative costs of individuals, taking into account differences in age, gender, body weight, and physical activity levels. I adopt parameter estimates for my simulation exercises from various Indonesia-specific publications, as well as from a joint intergovernmental consultation on nutrition. I compare my estimates with the per capita scale used by Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the central statistics agency. My findings suggest that the age–poverty relationship in Indonesia is sensitive to assumptions about the relative costs of individuals, with all alternative scales showing substantially lower poverty incidence among young children than by BPS’s estimate. Overall, however, I find that Indonesia’s poverty profile is relatively robust.     

Relative price fluctuations in a two-sector model with imperfect competition

Counter-cyclical fluctuations in the price of investment in consumption units are often attributed to investment-specific technology shocks. This paper looks at an additional source for such fluctuations: sector-specific markup variations, the idea being that pro-cyclical competition and the higher variability of investment compared to consumption pushes down the relative price of investment during expansions. I find that such endogenous movements in sector-specific markups can account for up to about one quarter of the observed fluctuations in the price of investment.     

An empirical analysis of the influence of macroeconomic determinants on World tourism demand

This paper considers three econometric models to determine the relationship between macroeconomic variables and tourism demand. Tourism demand is measured by the inbound visitor's population and also by on-the-ground expenditures. The database is an unbalanced panel of 218 countries over the period 1995–2012. There is evidence that an increase in the World's GDP per capita, a depreciation of the national currency, and a decline of relative domestic prices do help boost tourism demand. The World's GDP per capita is more important when explaining arrivals, but relative prices become more important when we use expenditures as the proxy for tourism demand. We cannot reject the hypothesis of a relative prices unitary elasticity of expenditures. Additionally, we have partitioned our data by income level and by Continent. Results are robust in the first partition, but less robust in the second, although the main conclusions still hold. Finally, we draw policy implications from our findings.     

欧盟东扩对我国制造业影响的实证分析

欧盟东扩后产生了贸易创造和贸易转移效应,其中贸易转移效应将影响我国对欧盟出口。东扩的国家人均GDP显著低于西欧,但也显著高于我国,所以与中国相比对欧盟出口可能拥有不同比较优势,对我国不同技术含量的制造业商品出口欧盟会产生不同程度的影响,本文首先分析了中东欧主要国家和我国制造业的双边贸易以及中国和中东欧国家出口欧盟的制造业商品结构,然后基于制造业相对显示性指数实证分析得出：欧盟东扩后,制造业商品出口结构恶化,特别是中低技能技术的制造业产品在东盟东扩后受到的贸易转移效应影响尤为明显,而对我国劳动和资源密集型产品影响不大,还有最近几年的贸易摩擦使得高技能技术产品的出口欧盟受阻,进一步恶化了我国对欧盟制造业商品出口结构。     

企业相对核心能力:概念内涵与理论框架

核心能力理论以其强大的解释力得到了学界的广泛认可,并被普遍应用于企业竞争战略分析中。然而,核心能力理论存在的不足也使得其普适性和实际操作性都受到严重影响。那些在局部有竞争优势但在更广的范围内没有竞争优势的企业,是否有核心能力?那些现在没有竞争力的企业是否在未来会有竞争力?那些有核心能力的企业也有丧失能力的时候。基于此,本文创造性提出并界定了狭义的相对核心能力概念:在具体的竞争情境下,企业所拥有的有价值的、稀缺的、难模仿的和不可替代的累积性学识,即在具体竞争情境下满足核心能力的判定标准。进而,构建了一个具有较高理论价值和现实意义的一般分析框架,从商业模式、组织学习角度入手分析如何构建企业相对核心能力。     

会计稳健性影响因素实证研究

以2009年沪深两市的上市公司数据作为研究样本,在Basu模型的基础上,增加了新的变量,以影响因素的替代变量为解释变量,对影响会计稳健性的因素进行了实证研究。结果表明：会计信息对＂坏消息＂的敏感程度比对＂好消息＂敏感程度更强公司规模与会计稳健性存在负相关关系,市价账面比与会计稳健性存在正相关关系,财务杠杆与会计稳健性的关系与国外研究结果不一致。该研究结果与国外的研究结果基本一致。     

机构投资者参与治理决策的影响因素分析——基于上市公司的视角

为了改善我国上市公司治理,提高上市公司的绩效并促进股票市场的健康发展,政府监管部门出台了一系列促进机构投资者发展的政策和措施。机构投资者得到了巨大的发展。但是,机构投资者的发展对改善上市公司治理的作用受到质疑。本文分析了机构投资者参与公司治理的动机,并根据这一动机从上市公司的角度分析了影响机构投资者参与公司治理决策的因素。