The Hazard Rate of Foreign Direct Investment: A Structural Estimation of a Real‐option Model*

The hazard rate of investment is derived within a real‐option model, and its properties are analysed so as to directly study the relation between uncertainty and investment. Maximum likelihood estimates of the hazard are calculated using a sample of multinational enterprises (MNEs) that invested in Central and Eastern Europe over the period 1990–98. Employing a standard, non‐parametric specification of the hazard, our measure of uncertainty has a negative effect on investment, but the reduced‐form model is unable to control for nonlinearities in the relationship. The structural estimation of the option‐based hazard is instead able to account for the nonlinearities and exhibits a significant value of waiting, although the latter is independent of our measure of uncertainty. This finding supports the existence of alternative channels through which uncertainty can affect investment.     

Multilateral Comparison of Cost Structures in the Input–Output Tables of Japan,the US and West Germany

This paper presents a multilateral comparison of relative levels and structures of costs of production in Japan, the US and West Germany. The analysis is carried out by using harmonized input–output tables, which are converted at US prices by using adjusted sectoral purchasing power parities. A new accounting methodology is derived from recent developments of index number theory, whereas the chosen multilateral comparison procedure gives results that are invariant with respect to the order of the pairs of countries examined.     

TALKING LESS AND MOVING THE MARKET MORE: EVIDENCE FROM THE ECB AND THE FED

This paper examines and compares the communication strategies of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, and their effectiveness. First, we find that the surprise components of both monetary policy actions and statements have important but differing effects on asset prices, with unexpected communication having a much greater impact on longer‐term interest rates. Second, both the ECB and the Fed have proven to be equally successful in moving their domestic asset prices using either monetary policy or news shocks. However, the response of the American yield curve to the surprise component of Fed's statements is larger than the reaction of the European term structure to ECB's announcements. This result is intimately related to the amplitude of the policy rate cycle that is much larger in the US than in the euro area combined with the bounded support of the news shock. Third, we analyze the cross‐effects and show that the Fed has been more able to move the European interest rates of all maturities than the ECB to move American rates. This finding is tied to the predominance of dollar fixed income assets rather than to an attempt of the ECB to mimic the Fed.     

Sustainable tourism planning and climate change adaptation in the Alps: a case study of winter tourism in mountain communities in the Dolomites

A vast body of literature suggests that the European Alpine Region is extremely sensitive to climate change. Winter tourism is closely related to climate variations, especially in mountain regions where resorts are heavily dependent on snow. This paper explores how to effectively integrate a climate change adaptation perspective with local discourses about sustainability and tourism, an increasing priority for policy-makers in the region and elsewhere. It reports on the development and application of a participatory decision support process for the analysis of adaptation strategies for local development of an Alpine tourism destination, Auronzo di Cadore (Dolomites, Italy). This experience significantly contributed to the idea that an efficient combination of modelling capabilities, decision support tools, and participatory processes can substantially improve decision-making for sustainability. The authors show that, in this case study, such a combination of methods and tools allowed for managing the involvement of local actors, stimulating local debates on climate change adaptation and possible consequences on winter tourism, encouraging creativity and smoothing potential conflicts, and easing the integration of the qualitative knowledge and the preferences of the involved actors with quantitative information. This contributed to an integrated sustainability assessment of alternative strategies for sustainable tourism planning.     

The communication in the actual socio-economic environment

The communication, joined with all its problems, became the topic for interesting studies during the mid of 90s. This attention was due to the publication of＂Being Digital＂, wrote by Nicholas Negroponte, the first book that analyzed the communication environment in a comprehensive way. The novelty of this original book, which was immediately perceived by both the scientific and socio-economic environment, was twofold： The forecast of the revolutionary impact of digital technologies applied to the communication and the subsequent modified scenario. Nevertheless, the described scenario was contradicted or confirmed several times during last years.
The linkage between communication and socio-economic environment, after the publication of that book, represented a special focus for the scientific society since the beginning of the new millennium. The evolution of technologies involved several structural components in many different phases during last years and generated a lot of deep changes in a short time. These developing conditions made really difficult any forecasting attempt about the evolution of each technological component and, consequently, any reliable scenario for the communication environment.
The functional update of existing technologies leaded to the appearance of a new medium： Internet. This medium started with revolutionary peculiarities： low access and operating costs, multimediality, bidirectional way of usage and, above all, planetary target. The new communication tool seems to be a good candidate to substitute many of the former media or, at least, to reduce their usage in a meaningful way. Vice versa, the socio-economic effect of Internet was very weak： The new medium appears as simply added to the previous shape without meaningful influences on the diffusion of traditional media.
Nevertheless, the advantages offered by the technological innovation was not reserved only to Internet, but deeply changed all the media influencing particularly their way of supplying service. The most meaningful effects of these innovations involved both the diffusion systems and trading approach so generating a special attention also by politic environments.
The final objective of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the communication environment due to the innovation and to depict the actual communication offer. This approach will be useful to verify the conditions for reliable definition of scenarios.     

REPRODUCTION AND TEMPORARY DISEQUILIBRIUM: A CLASSICAL APPROACH

We build a bisector reproduction model with Classical features in which the capitalists aim at maximizing accumulation. At variance with gravitation models, it is assumed that they invest their profits in their own industry. Their plans are based on actual productions and expected prices. Effective prices and effective allocations of resources are determined by a market‐clearing mechanism. A law on the formation of expectations allows us to define the dynamics of disequilibria, which let appear endogenous self‐sustained fluctuations around a long‐run path. The long‐run rate of growth and the amplitude of the fluctuations depend on the initial conditions.