Restricted electricity use among poor urban households

For a variety of reasons, this article argues, electricity must be seen by policy‐makers in South Africa not as the sole provider of all future household energy needs, but rather as one component of an energy mix which includes such ‘transitional’ fuels as coal, gas and paraffin. The reasons for this are that electricity is expensive for poor households; it is subject to power failures and disconnections for non‐payment; the poor find it difficult to monitor and to control their consumption; appliances are expensive and several are required to make best use of electricity; people prefer other fuels because they are familiar and have strong personal and cultural associations, and because Eskom is not trusted owing to its past ties to illegitimate local authorities and misunderstanding of electricity and how its use is monitored and charged for. Further, it is mistaken to equate ‘development’ with total electrification: most developed countries have fuel mixes which include gas and coal, particularly for cooking and heating. Accepting an affordable fuel mix for the poor in particular would focus attention on the problems currently associated with paraffin, gas and coal, namely fires, poisoning and air pollution.     

Measuring Employment Security in Europe Using Surveys of Employers

Using results from surveys in which employers were questioned about their freedom to shed staff, we develop a measure of employment security in Europe. We seek to identify which institutional factors are correlated with the responses of employers and find that they appear to reflect the strength of legal restrictions and trade unions and the prevalence of atypical employment. Our results are used to compile an index of employment security that has both a temporal and a cross‐country dimension.     

Trading Costs in Early Securities Markets: The Case of the Berlin Stock Exchange 1880-1910

Based on daily prices (amtliche Kurse) we estimate effective spreads of securities traded at the Berlin Stock Exchange in 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910. Several extensions of the Roll measure are applied. We find surprisingly tight effective spreads for the historical data, comparable with similar measures of the MDAX and DAX at the end of the 20th century.     

Current account adjustment in industrial countries

This paper examines the dynamics of current account adjustment among industrial countries. The purpose is to evaluate whether there is a threshold level of a current account deficit at which it becomes unsustainable and whether it is possible to characterize episodes of adjustment. We identify 25 episodes in which there was a sustained improvement in the current account following a large deficit between 1980 and 1997. We find that a typical current account reversal begins when the current account deficit is about 5% of GDP. However, we also find considerable cross-country variation in the reversal threshold, consistent with a stock-adjustment model of current account sustainability. Reversals are associated with slowing income growth and a 10–20% real exchange rate depreciation. Real export growth, declining investment, and an eventual leveling off in the budget deficit–GDP ratio are also likely to be part of the adjustment. These results imply that current account reversals in industrialized countries are related to the business cycle.     

Substitution between leisure activities: a quasi-natural experiment using sports viewing and cinema attendance

The allocation of time between leisure activities and work has been extensively analysed in academic literature. However, leisure time is limited and there may not be sufficient time to enjoy all the leisure activities desired. Hence, this article considers the allocation of time between substitute leisure activities. International football tournaments provide an opportunity to consider consumers’ preferences for watching football and films in a quasi-natural experimental setting. A trade-off between these leisure activities is identified using a difference-in-difference methodology. Using an original, four-country data set, a large and robust negative effect of mega sports events on cinema admissions is identified.     

Decomposing growth in the gender wage gap in urban China: 1989–2011

This paper examines trends in the gender wage gap observed in urban China during the post‐reform era. Using China Health and Nutrition Survey data, changes to the gap between 1989 and 2011 are analyzed using the Wellington decomposition method. While women's gains in observed characteristics have narrowed the wage gap, they are more than offset by changes in the returns to these characteristics. Men's returns to potential labour market experience have grown particularly rapidly, relative to women's, and this represents the single largest contributing factor towards the widening of the gender wage gap. Further investigation explores gender wage patterns through the dimensions of occupation, ownership sector and birth cohort. Taken together, my results raise concerns that China's urban labour market may increasingly disincentivize women's long‐term labour force attachments.     

Saving–investment Correlations in Response to Monetary Policy Shocks: New Insights into the Feldstein–Horioka Puzzle?

In this paper, it is argued that the observed high positive correlation between national savings and investment which is found in the data can in part be explained by shocks to monetary policy. This hypothesis, which is established by reviewing some empirical findings, is tested in a two-country DSGE-model framework in the tradition of the New Open Economy Macroeconomics. The simulation results obtained support the idea that shocks to monetary policy might contribute to the explanation of the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle.