Changes in food provision in Russian households experiencing perestroika

The purpose of this article is to describe how households in Novgorod the Great, Russia, deal with food provision in everyday life. The study focuses on changes experienced in food provision and consumption in Russian society, in order to illustrate how households respond to the transformation towards a market economy. The study reflects women's perspective on food provision. Students from Novgorod the Great visited 105 households and asked the women in the household to answer a questionnaire. Results from the study show that in order to cope with changes in society related to economic reforms, Russian households had changed both their food consumption and food production patterns. There was no big difference between urban and rural households. Nearly all of the households were self‐sufficient in the provision of vegetables and potatoes. Many households had a ‘dacha’ (plot), where they produced most of what they needed. Among the changes experienced during recent years (i.e. during the end of the 1990s), a decade after perestroika was initiated, households mentioned the rise in food prices and the decrease of income. Households reported that they consumed less fruit and/or meat. Some households also mentioned that the quality of nourishment had decreased, thereby indicating lower general quality, lower nutrition value, or less healthy foodstuffs.     

The Impact of the 9/11 Events on the American and French Stock Markets

Markets reacted strongly to the World Trade Center attacks both in Europe and in the United States. The extent of this crisis was difficult to assess at the time, underlining the need for a specific tool to measure the magnitude of financial crises. A first measure was recently proposed and applied to the foreign exchange market by Zumbach et al. (2000a,b ). Their measure relies on an analogy with geophysics; the related index of market shocks (IMS) that we propose here is also the counterpart of the Richter scale used for earthquakes. We apply this measure on the French and the American stock markets to put large market events into perspective. The crisis triggered by the September attacks was actually the worst since 1987, and the ninth worst when compared to major historical ones.     

School Choice and the Distributional Effects of Ability Tracking: Does Separation Increase Inequality?

Tracking programs have been criticized on the grounds that they harm disadvantaged children. The bulk of empirical research supports this view, but existing studies compare outcomes across students placed in different tracks. Track placement is likely to be endogenous with respect to student outcomes. We use a new strategy for overcoming the endogeneity of track placement and find no evidence that tracking hurts low-ability children. Previous studies have also been based on the assumption that students' enrollment decisions are unrelated to whether or not the school tracks. When we account for the possibility that tracking programs affect school choice, we find evidence that they may help low-ability children.     

Predicting UK Business Cycle Regimes

This paper uses logistic regression to construct a one‐quarter ahead prediction model for classical business cycle regimes in the UK. The binary dependent variable is obtained by applying simple mechanical rules to date turning points in quarterly real GDP data from 1963 to 1999. Using a range of real and financial leading indicators, several parsimonious one‐quarter‐ahead models are developed for the GDP regimes, with model selection based on the SIC criterion. A real M4 variable is consistently found to have predictive content. One model that performs well combines this with nominal UK and German short‐term interest rates. The role of the latter emphasises the open nature of the UK economy.     

On the smoothness of optimal paths II: some local turnpike results

We study the local turnpike property for two classes of infinite-horizon discrete-time deterministic maximization problems which have common applications, e.g., optimal growth theory. We follow a functional-analytic approach and rely on an implicit function theorem for the space of the sequences which converge to zero. We shall assume the existence of an optimal path which is not necessarily a steady-state. Relying on material developped in Blot and Crettez (Decis Econo Finance 27:1–34, 2004), “On the smoothness of optimal paths” Decis Econ Finance, 21:1–34, 2004), we provide conditions under which a variation in the initial conditions (i.e., capital stock and discount rate) yields an optimal solution which converges toward a reference solution when time becomes infinite. We also provide new results on bounded solutions of difference equations. We gratefully thank the editor, Silvano Holzer, and two anonymous referees for remarks and advices on a previous version of this paper.     

Outsourcing, Imports and Labour Demand

This paper examines the effects of purchased services and imported intermediate materials on the labour demand for different skills in German manufacturing sectors. We derive and estimate a factor demand system based on the generalised Box–Cox cost function nesting both the normalised quadratic and the translog functional form. We find that the impacts of output and capital growth are more important in explaining the demand for heterogeneous labour than substitution effects between labour and non–labour inputs. Similarly, the increasing use of both imported materials and purchased services is a consequence of output growth rather than input substitution.
JEL classification : J 23; O 33     

Régulation School and environment: Theoretical proposals and avenues of research

The article explores the relevance of a particular approach of the institutionalist movement, régulation theory, to deal with the relationship between the economy and the environment. Régulation theory, which appeared in France at the end of the 1970s, is mainly interested in macroeconomic issues. In contrast, until now it has tended to neglect environmental questions. By taking several key concepts of this theory (accumulation regime, mode of régulation, institutional forms), we have sought to assess its significance vis-à-vis the environmental field. More precisely, from the perspective of establishing an environmental regulationist theory, we propose considering the economic relation to the environment as the articulation of three forms: a transhistorical form, a general capitalist form and a specific capitalist form, the latter being variable in capitalist time and space. We give several illustrations of the variability of the relation to the environment, depending on the different accumulation regimes and the different modes of régulation. Two principal avenues of research are proposed: historical analyses for given economic areas, and comparative analyses relating in particular to different capitalist areas.     

Selbstregulation, Regulationsfokus und Arbeitsmotivation

Zusammenfassung Die Bedeutung der Selbstregulation für die Arbeitsmotivation und -leistung ist unumstritten. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit Selbstregulation, mit dem Regulationsfokus auf Promotion oder Prävention und der Passung zwischen Regulationsfokus und Arbeitsauftrag und -anforderungen. Die Übereinstimmung zwischen der Art der Selbstregulation einer Person und der aktuellen Situation hat positive Konsequenzen auf die Arbeitsmotivation und Arbeitszufriedenheit. Auch die Effizienz von Feedback über Arbeitsschritte und -leistungen sowie der Erfolg von Programmen zur Förderung eines gesunden Lebensstils hängen vom Regulationsfokus des Empfängers der Botschaft ab. In der Mitarbeiterführung und Arbeitsgestaltung können die Berücksichtigung des Regulationsfokus einer Person, eine entsprechende Aufgabenformulierung und die adäquate Rückmeldung über die Arbeitsleistung positive Effekte auf Motivation und Leistung haben. JEL classifications M12, M54     

Credit Supply and Demand and Business Investment

Abstract
The article explores the lending behaviour of financial intermediaries over the business cycle in the light of theories emphasising agency costs. During a credit crunch loans from financial intermediaries are unobtainable at any price, and so credit may have a causal influence over economic activity. Tests of this do not find evidence of credit constraints following financial deregulation. However, since both loan supply and demand are driven by forward-looking variables, business credit is a useful leading indicator of nominal investment .