Do financial variables help predict the state of the business cycle in small open economies? Evidence from Switzerland

We analyze the forecasting ability of financial variables to predict the state of the Swiss business cycle up to eight quarters ahead. Overall, our results suggest that financial variables convey leading information for the prediction of business cycles, even when applied to a small open economy. However, we clearly find that model specifications need to be extended to include variables accounting for external shocks, such as exchange rates or international commodity prices. It also appears that the forecasting contribution of individual variables changes over time. Specifically, in the last two decades, stock market liquidity has replaced the term spread as the best single predictor.     

Growth without normal capacity utilization

Within the demand-led approach to growth, the long-period tendencies of quantities cannot be effectively studied through theoretical positions entailing normal utilization of capacity. Whether in the form of constant or of average normal utilization, this assumption contradicts the supposed autonomy of aggregate demand. Analysis of the operation of the adjustment of capacity to demand suggests that potentially offsetting forces make fully adjusted positions irrelevant. As quantities cannot be assumed to gravitate towards such positions, the relations between quantity variables determined on the normal utilization hypothesis provide a poor guide to the analysis of reality.     

Risk management within the cannabis industry: Building a framework for the cannabis industry

Thirty states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of cannabis for medicinal and/or recreational use by either formally or informally de‐criminalizing its use. However, cannabis remains a Schedule 1 drug under the Federal Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. Sections 801 through 812), leaving federal law in conflict with the laws of over half of the states. As a result, market participants in legal cannabis businesses face risks due to the industry's unique legal status within the United States. We examine the risks and challenges deemed by the cannabis industry as the top risks facing the industry's continued future growth and its sustainability. In addition to general risks inherent in a nascent industry, a legal cannabis business faces additional risks, such as risks in its banking and finance activity, placement of insurance, payment of taxes, and managing its supply chain. These legal businesses also face true legal risk from the possibility of being shut down by the federal government and seizure of assets and product under the CSA. This paper also examines whether the cannabis industry would benefit from a futures market to mitigate price risk.     

Grundzüge einer Theorie der Reflation

Ohne ZusammenfassungAus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Alexander Gerschenkron, Wien     

Quantile estimation of frontier production function

The purpose of the paper is to provide new information on the performance of frontier estimation methods, using data from Italian hotel industry. Quantile regression is also suggested as solution to frontier production function estimation. It is shown that, while the choice of estimation methods among conventional techniques significantly affects the economic analysis, quantile regression provides valuable new information by estimating the whole spectrum of production functions corresponding to different efficiency levels. In addition, the method makes available a coherent framework to analyze the performance of the conventional techiniques. Jel classification: C14, C16, D24We would like to thank the Co-Editor, the Associate Editor and an anonymous referee for comments and suggestions. The research was supported by the University Research Council and the National Research Council. The usual disclaimer applies.The estimates were computed using the Roger Koenker and StatLibS-Plus routine of quantile regression and the Tim Coelli and CEPA Web site FRONTIER 4.1 Program. The data set is provided by the Ho.Re.Ca. survey conducted by ISTAT in 1992.First version received: June 2001/Final version received: December 2002     

Cycles and Growth: A Source of Demand-Driven Endogenous Growth

This paper moves in a theoretical context in which the level of economic activity is dependent on aggregate demand in both the long and the short period. It shows that given two simple hypotheses, the economy will exhibit a tendency to grow independently of any increase in the average level of ongoing investment (or any other type of ‘autonomous’ demand) over time. The two hypotheses are (a) that investment oscillates over time and (b) that the community's marginal propensity to consume is lower when income contracts in slumps than when it increases in booms. This points to a source of growth that is as endogenous to the system, as trade cycles are.     

Early contributions to the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon

During the 1920s some American women economists developed theoretical, empirical and historical analyses that constituted a theory of consumption. The original formulations of this approach were based on the view, theorised by T. Veblen, that consuming certain goods makes it possible to identify with specific social groups. These analyses were explicitly alternative to the theories of consumption based on marginal utility. In the 1930s, however, the analyses of a second generation of women economists became exclusively empirical and the theoretical features that made the approach original and an alternative to marginalism were lost.     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne ZusammenfassungAus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Hans Fried, WienAus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Dr. Hans Fried, WienAus dem Russischen übersetzt von Alexander Gerschenkron, WienAus dem Russischen übersetzt von A. GerschenkronAus dem Russischen übersetzt von Dr. A. GerschenkronAus dem Russischen übersetzt von A. Gerschenkron, Wien     

Der „Federal Reserve Act“ und die amerikanische Währungspolitik

Ohne ZusammenfassungLaughlin, The Federal Reserve Act, New York, Macmillan, 1933, Doll. 3,50.Aus dem Italienischen übertragen von Dr. Hans Fried, Wien.