An Empirical Analysis of Short-run and Long-run Irish Export Functions: Does exchange rate volatility matter?

We analyse the long-run and short-run relationship between merchandise export volume and its determinants, foreign income, relative prices and exchange rate volatility, using the techniques of cointegration and error correction. The model was estimated for Irish exports and sectoral exports SITC 0-4 and SITC 5-8 to the EU using quarterly data for the period 1978-1998. The sectoral classification corresponds to the exports of mainly indigenous Irish firms and multinationals, respectively. We find that the exchange rate volatility has no effect on the volume of trade in the short-run but a significant positive effect in the long run. This is true in the aggregate and for our sectoral classifications. We can tentatively conclude that the decline in intra-EU exchange rate volatility associated with the single currency will lead to a long-run fall in Irish exports to the EU.     

Are the Best Small Companies the Best Investments?

Previous research finds that large companies previously judged to be excellent growth companies have subsequently been poor investments. We examine small companies selected by Business Week on the basis of multiple criteria used in annual articles featuring highly rated growth companies. We study the investment performance over the three years before eleven annual Business Week publications and the three years after publication. We find positive excess returns in the pre‐publication period, but negative excess returns in the post‐publication period. This reversal in investment performance appears to be due to a mean‐reversion tendency in operating performance, in which the earnings and the past rates of return on capital of such companies subsequently decrease significantly.     

Self-Employment and Job Satisfaction: Investigating the Role of Self-Efficacy, Depression, and Seniority

Are self‐employed workers more satisfied with their jobs compared to wage and salary workers? Using The National Survey of Families and Households: Wave I, 1987–1988, and Wave II 1992–1994 several expectations are evaluated in this article. First, self‐employed persons should enjoy higher job satisfaction than others. Second, a portion of the association between job satisfaction and self‐employment should be explained by higher levels of self‐efficacy and by lower levels of depression among the self‐employed compared to others. Third, self‐employment veterans are a select group and should be different systematically from self‐employment newcomers with respect to reported job satisfaction. Findings offer support for the first and second arguments above but not the third. Post‐hoc analysis suggests that among the newly self‐employed, the association between job satisfaction and self‐employment depends on both the quantity and quality of time invested in the business. Implications of these findings and directions for further research are discussed.     

Immigration and the Trade of Provinces

A link between immigration, imports, and exports has been found by a number of papers that have used the gravity equation to analyze bilateral trade patterns. We discuss what this research implies about the mechanisms through which immigrants expand trade and identify strengths and weakness of the various approaches. This paper also contributes to this literature by estimating immigrant effects for Canada using cross‐province variation in international trade and immigration patterns. We derive an alternative functional form capturing the relationship between immigration and trade based on the proposition that immigrants use their connections and superior 'market intelligence' to exploit trade opportunities that non‐immigrants do not access. We find that the average new immigrant expands exports to his/her native country by $312 and expands imports by $944.     

Misperceiving the value of information in predicting the performance of others

Economic models typically allow for “free disposal” or “reversibility” of information, which implies non-negative value. Building on previous research on the “curse of knowledge” we explore situations where this might not be so. In three experiments, we document situations in which participants place positive value on information in attempting to predict the performance of uninformed others, even when acquiring that information diminishes their earnings. In the first experiment, a majority of participants choose to hire informed—rather than uninformed—agents, leading to lower earnings. In the second experiment, a significant number of participants pay for information—the solution to a puzzle—that hurts their ability to predict how many others will solve the puzzle. In the third experiment, we find that the effect is reduced with experience and feedback on the actual performance to be predicted. We discuss implications of our results for the role of information and informed decision making in economic situations. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-006-9128-y. JEL Classification C91, D83     

The Information Revolution in the Asian-Pacific Region

In this paper, an attempt is made to survey literature dealing with these developments in the Asian-Pacific region. Section I explores the information sector. Section II focuses on telecommunications, the leading edge of the information infrastructure. Section III reviews writing about 'IT-led development', the view of information technology as a powerful tool for the promotion of socioeconomic development. Section IV looks at the role of the World Bank, the largest single hard-currency source of finance for telecommunications in developing countries. Section V reports on some aspects of IT trade and internationalisation. Section VI provides summary country case studies. Section VII raises some questions about the link between telecommunications and economic development.     

Distinction or dichotomy: Rethinking the line between thymology and praxeology

The aim of this paper is to critically reexamine Ludwig Mises’ attempt to separate the psychological aspects of understanding (thymology) from the “science of action” (praxeology). There are, we contend, legitimate distinctions between theory, on the one hand, and, on the other, psychology or history. But, there is no need to dichotomize them from one another in the way Mises sometimes did.