THE (IR)RELEVANCE OF THE NRU FOR POLICY MAKING: THE CASE OF DENMARK

We reconsider the central role of the natural rate of unemployment (NRU) in forming policy decisions. We show that the unemployment rate does not gravitate towards the NRU due to frictional growth, a phenomenon that encapsulates the interplay between lagged adjustment processes and growth in dynamic labour market systems. We choose Denmark as the focal point of our empirical analysis and find that the NRU explains only 33% of the unemployment variation, while frictional growth accounts for the remaining 67%. Therefore, our theoretical and empirical findings raise doubts as to whether the NRU should play such a key instrumental role in policy making.     

A profile of European accounting research: evidence from leading research journals

This paper attempts both to advance understanding about the research profile of accounting in Europe and to evaluate the role of The European Accounting Review in the dissemination of Europe-based accounting research. Empirical evidence supporting this investigation was gathered from all the papers published in thirteen top accounting journals during the period 1992 to 1997. Our results show that (i) a vast majority of European contributions to well-regarded journals are authored by scholars affiliated to British higher education organizations. Therefore, the overwhelming dominance of British accounting academics over Europe-based accounting research posits considerable doubts on the extent to which it is correct to form the notion of European accounting research. Our results suggest that such a notion is strongly shaped by one constituency of the European setting, that is, by researchers affiliated to British higher education institutions. (ii) The European Accounting Review has played a significant role in the diffusion of Europe-based accounting research. The journal constitutes the sole venue providing international visibility to scholars of eleven continental European countries. Moreover, The European Accounting Review has published a significant proportion of contributions from scholars of the other fifteen European countries. (iii) There exists limited mobility of non-English written accounting research across European countries. Lastly, the paper posits some suggestions for further work in this area.     

The entrepreneurial motivation in academia: a multidimensional construct

In this paper we propose a model to analyse the motivation of academic entrepreneurs that comprises six dimensions: personal, relating to the entrepreneurial opportunity, to scientific knowledge, to the availability of resources, to the incubator organization, and to the social environment. The model is tested based on information from a survey administered to 152 Spanish academic entrepreneurs. Our results show that entrepreneurial opportunity is not part of the entrepreneurial motivation, but is of the utmost importance to academic entrepreneurs. Also, we find the scientific knowledge is the main driver of entrepreneurial activity in the academia.     

Purification of Bayesian–Nash equilibria in large games with compact type and action spaces

We present a purification result for incomplete information games with a large but finite number of players that allows compact metric spaces for both actions and types. We then compare our framework and findings to the early purification theorems of Rashid (1983. Equilibrium points of non-atomic games: asymptotic results. Economics Letters 12, 7–10), Cartwright and Wooders (2002 On equilibrium in pure strategies in games with many players. University of Warwick Working Paper 686 (revised 2005)), Kalai (2004. Large robust games. Econometrica 72, 1631–1665) and Wooders, Cartwright and Selten (2006. Behavioral conformity in games with many players. Games and Economic Behavior 57, 347–360). Our proofs are elementary and rely on the Shapley–Folkman theorem.     

Modeling population dynamics and economic growth as competing species: An application to CO2 global emissions

Since the beginning of the last century the world is experiencing an important demographic transition, which will probably impact on economic growth. Many demographers and social scientists are trying to understand the key drivers of such transition as well as its profound implications. A correct understanding will help to predict other important trends of the world primary energy demand and the carbon emission to the atmosphere, which may be leading to an important climate change. This paper proposes a set of coupled differential equations to describe the changes of population, gross domestic product, primary energy consumption and carbon emissions, modeled as competing species as in Lotka-Volterra prey-predator relations. The predator-prey model is well known in the biological, ecological and environmental literature and has also been applied successfully in other fields. This model proposes a new and simple conceptual explanation of the interactions and feedbacks among the principal driving forces leading to the present transition. The estimated results for the temporal evolution of world population, gross domestic product, primary energy consumption and carbon emissions are calculated from year 1850 to year 2150. The calculated scenarios are in good agreement with common world data and projections for the next 100 years.