ALBERT

Description: This paper seeks to analyze the dynamical structure of the Indian stock market by considering two major Indian stock market indices, namely, BSE Sensex and CNX Nifty. The recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) is applied on the daily closing data of the two series during the period from January 2, 2002, to October 10, 2013. A Rolling Window of 100 and step size 21 are applied in order to see how both the series behave over time. The analysis based on three RQA measures, namely, % determinism (DET), laminarity (LAM), and trapping time (TT), provides conclusive evidence that the Indian equity market is chaotic in nature. Evidences for phase transition in the Indian equity market around the time of financial crisis are also found.

Description: New Journal Artcile Siew Ann Cheong, Robert Paulo Fornia, Gladys Hui Ting Lee, Jun Liang Kok, Woei Shyr Yim, Danny Yuan Xu, and Yiting Zhang The Japanese Economy in Crises: A Time Series Segmentation Study The authors performed a comprehensive time series segmentation study on the 36 Nikkei Japanese industry indices from 1 January 1996 to 11 June 2010. From the temporal distributions of the clustered segments, we found that the Japanese economy never fully recovered from the extended 1997–2003 crisis, and responded to the most recent global financial crisis in five stages. Of these, the second and main stage affecting 21 industries lasted only 27 days, in contrast to the two-and-a-half-years across-the-board recovery from the 1997–2003 financial crisis. We constructed the minimum spanning trees (MSTs) to visualize the Pearson cross correlations between Japanese industries over five macroeconomic periods: (i) 1997–1999 (Asian Financial Crisis), (ii) 2000–2002 (Technology Bubble Crisis), (iii) 2003–2006 (economic growth), (iv) 2007–2008 (Subprime Crisis), and (v) 2008–2010 (Lehman Brothers Crisis). In these MSTs, the Chemicals and Electric Machinery industries are consistently hubs. Finally, we present evidence from the segment-to-segment MSTs for flights to quality within the Japanese stock market. The Japanese Economy in Crises: A Time Series Segmentation Study — Economics E-Journal The authors performed a comprehensive time series segmentation study on the 36 Nikkei Japanese industry indices from 1 January 1996 to 11 June 2010. From the temporal distributions of the clustered se...

Description: Within existing literature, it is well known that people’s behavior in ultimatum game experiments cannot be explained by perfect rationality model. There is, however, evidence showing that people are boundedly rational. In this paper, we studied repeated ultimatum game experiments in which the pie size is only known to the proposer (player 1), but the transaction history is made known to both players. We found that subject’s behavior can be very well explained by the history-consistent-rationality model (HCR model) of Lee and Ferguson (2010), which suggests that people’s behavior is affected by what they observed in the past. The HCR model is able to yield point predictions whose errors are on average within 5% of the total pie size. The experimental results provide evidence that subjects' behavior is boundedly rational with respect to the transaction history.

Description: This study addresses the indirect impacts of state-mandated workers' compensation benefits on workers' wages. The benefit structure of workers' compensation causes a fundamental estimation problem. I develop a new strategy to limit the biases inherent in earlier models. I utilize individual-level census data (between 1940 and 1990) to exploit benefit variation that occurs both across states and within the fifty states over time. The results suggest that wage offsets are not constant across time and may be larger for workers at lower-wage levels.

Description: This study intends to estimate the demand for indigenous chicken meat in Kenya, including other available meat products for comparison purposes. Data used was collected from six counties. A total 930 rural and urban households were sampled. Linear Approximated Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS) model was used to obtain the demand elasticities and to examine the socioeconomic and demographic factors influencing the meat budget shares. The results ascertain that the socio-demographic factors such as household location, the proportion of household members and the family size are important factors in explaining perceived variations in the consumption of meat products. Indigenous chicken meat, beef and mutton, were identified as necessities. Indigenous chicken meat and beef were identified as substitutes while indigenous chicken, goat and exotic chicken meats were complements. In view of the high expenditure elasticities, therefore, considering a policy option that would enhance consumer income is desirable, since it will result in high consumption thereby providing more incentives for production of meat products. The information generated would be more beneficial to the interest groups in the livestock sector as a whole. This would be utilised in the formulation of effective policies in line with food security and poverty alleviation.

Description: Within existing literature, it is well known that people’s behavior in ultimatum game experiments cannot be explained by perfect rationality model. There is, however, evidence showing that people are boundedly rational. In this paper, we studied repeated ultimatum game experiments in which the pie size is only known to the proposer (player 1), but the transaction history is made known to both players. We found that subject’s behavior can be very well explained by the history-consistent-rationality model (HCR model) of Lee and Ferguson (2010), which suggests that people’s behavior is affected by what they observed in the past. The HCR model is able to yield point predictions whose errors are on average within 5% of the total pie size. The experimental results provide evidence that subjects' behavior is boundedly rational with respect to the transaction history.

Description: We analyze the mutual relations among firms’ capital structure, ownership structure, and valuation. Through the estimation of a system of simultaneous equations for a sample of 1,130 firms from 16 countries from both the common law and the civil law environments, our results confirm the differential effect of ownership structure on firms’ value in each setting. Whereas in civil law firms the higher ownership concentration results in an entrenchment and an alignment effect, in the common law firms higher ownership concentration increases the value of the firm. Second, we corroborate the endogeneity of ownership structure since we find that ownership structure is affected by the value of the firm and by the capital structure. Third, our results suggest that corporate finance decisions are taken simultaneously with other mechanisms of corporate governance and conditional on firms’ valuation.

Description: Conditional expected shortfalls calculated for European insurance companies and banks under stressed market conditions are shown to be of similar magnitudes. Measured at 95% and 99% stress levels, on data covering the period from 1995 to 2011, the equity-return tail losses of insurance undertakings and banks are indistinguishable. Granger causality analysis, on all pairs of banks and insurance companies included in the sample, shows that banks and insurance companies have equal propensity to cause each others price movements. Even though the business model of insurance undertakings is different from the business model typically applied by banks, and even though insurance companies are not depending to a similar degree on short term funding as banks, the empirical results indicate that the financial equity markets in Europe do not differentiate their trading of banks and insurance companies in periods of stress.

Description: Total Factor Productivity (TFP) measures the growth in output which is not accounted for by inputs. Data Envelopment Analysis which forms the basis for the computation of Malmquist TFP index is used in this paper to study the performance of different river basins in Andhra Pradesh state, India. The results indicated that average technical efficiency of all the basins is only 66%. In all the basins there was a decline in growth of agricultural output during the first two decades, viz., 1979-1980 to 1988-1989 and it had picked in the last decade (1999-2000). All the river basins have TFP change greater than 1 indicating progress in agricultural productivity. Out of the 40 river basins, 14 river basins have technical efficiency change less than 1 indicating decline in TFP growth whereas all the basins have technical changes greater than 1 implying that there is shift in production frontier over years. In general, within the TFP, technical change contributed more than technical efficiency change. Looking at the future options for increasing the agricultural output in the river basins, it is important to focus on improving the TFP growth compared to increasing the quantities of physical inputs.

Description: This paper investigates the changes in cigarette demand in response to the changes in cigarette prices; smokeless tobacco prices; adoption of clean indoor air laws (CIALs). We used an error-correction econometric method to estimate the cigarette sales adjustment path in response to changes in prices and CIAL coverage in the United States by utilizing scanner data from supermarkets. Finding from this study indicates that smokeless tobaccos are not perfect substitutes for cigarettes, but increases in the price of cigarettes are associated with an increase in smokeless tobacco sales. The error-correction econometric method suggest that the demand for cigarettes and smokeless tobacco is related to each other; a price increase in either product leads to an increase in demand for the other product. However, the adjustment paths are quite different; an increase in cigarette prices lowers cigarette sales in relatively faster rate than decreases in smokeless tobacco prices or adoption of smoke-free laws. Changes in cigarette demand in response to changes in cigarette prices occur relatively quickly; but the full effects of smokeless tobacco price change and the adoption of 100% smoke-free laws on cigarette demand take a longer time.

Description: This paper provides new insights into the calculation of trade potential between the EU and its Southern and Eastern Mediterranean partners (MPs). It is based on an econometric specification which takes into account some new explanatory variables which are not included simultaneously in the previous studies. These include trade costs (tariffs, NTBs, and logistics costs), factor movement (migration and FDI), as well as governance. In addition, specific estimators are implemented in order to account for zero trade flows, endogeneity and dynamics. The main conclusion of this study is that contrary to some results found in previous studies, MPs have reached their export potential with the EU. It is also shown that there is no specificity of the MP-EU trade potential in comparison with the other main PTAs (NAFTA, MERCOSUR, and ASEAN) which have also reached their trade potential. These results have strong policy implications.

Description: The purpose of this study is to investigate how earnings announcement event affects stock returns at Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE). For this purpose we use the KSE-100 Index as our sample. We use the CAR Analysis to analyze the impact of earnings announcement over the stock returns around announcement dates. Our results suggest that KSE experiences abnormal stock returns around earnings announcement dates for the overall market and for different categories which indicate that efficient market hypothesis does not hold in Pakistani market and point out the presence of informational dissemination inefficiencies in the market.

Description: In the past 50 years, a striking stylized fact has been the downward—or flat—trend of intra-African trade as a share of Africa’s total trade, while official development assistance (ODA) has experienced a noticeable expansion. During the same period, economic growth performances have not been consistent and robust enough to put a dent in the poverty level across the African continent in general and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in particular. Using a two-stage least square (TSLS) estimation technique, this paper finds out that intra-ECOWAS trade stimulates per capita income growth substantially more than foreign aid, which rather constitutes an impediment to that growth in most specifications. Additionally, comparable results are obtained when the scope of the study is expanded to include trade of ECOWAS members with the rest of the world. As a result, it becomes appropriate to suggest policy recommendations encouraging increased cooperation among member states in an attempt to (i) expand and build new cross-states infrastructures, aimed at boosting communications and telecommunications networks, (ii) accelerate the trade facilitation process by addressing administrative red tapes that balloon both transaction costs and delays in the flows of goods across borders, seaports, and airports, and (iii) develop and diversify the industrial base in member states.

Description: The main purpose of this paper is to consider the multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) framework to model the volatility of a multivariate process exhibiting long-term dependence in stock returns. More precisely, the long-term dependence is examined in the first conditional moment of US stock returns through multivariate ARFIMA process, and the time-varying feature of volatility is explained by MGARCH models. An empirical application to the returns series is carried out to illustrate the usefulness of our approach. The main results confirm the presence of long memory property in the conditional mean of all stock returns.

Description: This study examines the economic and welfare effects of raising the number of high-skilled immigrants in Canada. It uses a life-cycle applied general equilibrium model with endogenous time allocation decisions between work, education, and leisure. According to the simulation results, raising the number of high-skilled immigrants would boost productive capacity and labour productivity but could lower real GDP per capita. In addition, by raising the supply of high-skilled workers, more high-skilled immigrants would reduce the skill premium and the return to human capital. This in turn would lower incentives for young adults to invest in human capital and have a dampening effect on the domestic supply of skilled workers. Finally, it is found that more high-skilled immigrants would be welfare enhancing for medium- and low-skilled workers but welfare decreasing for high-skilled workers.

Description: This paper studies how boundedly rational default expectations affect the credit cycle. I propose a simple model of oligopolistic bank competition which serves to compare situations with just a portion of boundedly rational banks to situations where either all banks are rational or all banks are boundedly rational. When all banks are boundedly rational, the credit cycle is most amplified relative to the situation where all banks are rational. However, the amplifying effect of bounded rationality on the side of banks largely remains even when only a portion of banks are boundedly rational. Hence, the interest rate decisions of a minority of boundedly rational banks induce the more rational competitors to aggravate the credit cycle.

Description: In 2008 Scott Barrett wrote a paper on “The incredible economics of geoengineering” in which he argued that the potentially low cost of climate engineering (CE) measures together with the quick response of the earth’s temperature to such interventions will change the whole debate about the mitigation of climate change. Whereas Barrett was mostly focusing on the cost of running CE measures, we point out that several determinants of overall economic cost like price or external effects are not yet sufficiently accounted for and that the question of dynamic efficiency is still unresolved. Combining the existing theoretical investigations about the topic from the literature, we show that even though these new measures provide new options to deal with climate change, several of them might also reduce our scope of action. Consequently, we suggest that economic research should shift its focus to portfolios of CE measures and put more emphasis on those measures which control atmospheric carbon concentration and therefore allow extending our scope of action. Additionally, economic research should address the question of phase-in and phase-out scenarios for measures which directly influence the radiation balance.

Description: The policy view, which argues that foreign aid is effective only in a good policy environment, suggests that aid ought to be given to countries with good policies. This has generated a lot of interest and controversy. We argue that the key recommendation of the policy view runs contrary to other prescriptions, particularly those that arise under asymmetric information. Inefficiencies that derive from information problems often require that policy makers do not base the amount of foreign assistance on the recipient's policy effort. This suggests that donors should be cautious in applying the policy view. We also briefly discuss problems that are likely to emerge in estimating aid's productivity given policy in the light of potential information problems.

Description: This study contributes to the literature by estimating discount rate for health benefits and value of statistical life of workers in India. The discount rate is imputed from wage-risk trade-offs in which workers decide whether to accept a risky job with higher wages. The estimated real discount rate varies across regions ranging 2.4–5.1 percent, which is closer to the financial market rate for the study period. The estimated value of a statistical life is Rs. 20 (US $ 1.107) million. The results thus provide no empirical support for utilizing a separate rate of discount for health benefits of life-saving policies in developing countries like India.

Description: In the presence of a risk-free asset the investment opportunity set obtained via the Markowitz portfolio optimization procedure is usually characterized in terms of the vector of excess returns on individual risky assets and the variance-covariance matrix. We show that the investment opportunity set can alternatively be characterized in terms of the vector of Sharpe ratios of individual risky assets and the correlation matrix. This implies that the changes in the characteristics of individual risky assets that preserve the Sharpe ratios and the correlation matrix do not change the investment opportunity set. The alternative characterization makes it simple to perform a comparative static analysis that provides an answer to the question of what happens with the investment opportunity set when we change the risk-return characteristics of individual risky assets. We demonstrate the advantages of using the alternative characterization of the investment opportunity set in the investment practice. The Sharpe ratio thinking also motivates reconsidering the CAPM relationship and adjusting Jensen's alpha in order to properly measure abnormal portfolio performance.

Description: This paper highlights some recent components related to the endogenous growth literature; in particular, (i) research and development progress, direction, and diffusion; (ii) human-capital accumulation; (iii) wage inequality; (iv) nonscale economic growth, showing how each one has been treated by the existing seminal literature and the expected impact of bringing them together. The connection of the different components is mainly done by involving the leading literature on North-South technological-knowledge diffusion by imitation under trade, and the prevailing literature on intra- and intercountry wage inequality.

Description: This paper examines the impact of various determinants on gender gaps in human capital in developing countries. We find that female primary completion is dependent on per capita GDP growth, female employment in agriculture, in industry, and in services, and the interactions between per capita GDP growth and female employment in industry and in services. We are also able to show that the ratio of girls to boys’ enrollments in primary and secondary schools is a function of the poverty rate, the fraction of the population with access to an improved water source, and maternal mortality. In addition, we observe that girls’ mortality is dependent upon the fraction of the population having access to improved sanitation and water services, and ethnic fractionalization. Finally, we find that maternal mortality is a function of the fraction of the population with access to improved water services, the fraction of births attended by skilled staff, the fraction of women receiving prenatal care, and ethnic fractionalization. These statistical results can assist developing countries identify areas that need to be improved upon in order to reduce gender gaps in human capital—specifically those concerning female mortality and education.

Description: This paper explores the economic and labour market effects of implementing a tax reduction targeted at older workers. The analysis is conducted with a life-cycle computable general equilibrium model calibrated on Canadian data. The analysis shows that implementing a permanent income tax reduction for workers aged 60 and over has only small macroeconomic effects because the labour supply increase of older workers is partly offset by a reduction in the labour supply at core ages. This induced effect also discourages savings and generates crowding out through private investment but has a favourable impact on lifetime economic welfare. The macroeconomic impact is much larger when the income tax reduction is temporary because workers no longer reduce their hours at core ages and there is no reduction in savings. However, since only current middle-aged and older workers benefit from the tax cut, a temporary income tax cut reduces intergenerational equity.

Description: Pacific island countries (PICs), which attained political independence, are open economies with very small manufacturing base and narrow range of exports of copra and tuna. They are highly dependent on imports ranging from food and mineral fuels to intermediate and capital goods and transport machinery. Four of the 14 PICs, namely Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu, have independent currencies with usual paraphernalia of central banks under fixed exchange rate regimes. Their financial sectors are small and with undeveloped money and capital markets. The nominal exchange rate as an anchor has served the four PICs well by keeping inflation low. The objective of the paper is to investigate whether money has played any significant part in output growth as well as determination of prices in PICs. The findings are that broad money (M2) and exchange rate have a long run as well as short-run casual relationship with both output and prices in all PICs.

Description: The countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have gone through immense political and socioeconomic restructuring after the collapse of communism around 1990. Such transition has affected the lives of populations in these countries in many significant respects. A key aspect of life and wellbeing in any society is that of population health. This paper traces the transitions in population health—life expectancies and mortality rates for both males and females—in seven of the CEE countries during the two decades after the fall of communism. We estimate a series of panel data models to identify some of the common factors that would explain health transitions in these countries, while allowing for country-specific variability. Our findings indicate that the health transitions are strongly country specific. Moreover, income per capita and trade openness are statistically significant common contributors to health transitions.

Description: This paper aims to investigate the determinants of nonperforming loans in the Romanian banking sector by means of time series modelling. It is motivated by the hypothesis that macroeconomic-cyclical indicators, monetary aggregates, interest rates, financial markets, and bank-specific variables influence the nonperforming loans in the Romanian banking system. Using monthly series that span from December 2001 to November 2010, we cover both the booming period and the recent financial crisis. Given the significant presence of the Greek banks in Romania, the novelty of the paper lies in the introduction of variables that proxy the Greek crisis. Thus, we examine the existence of a potential transmission channel to the Romanian banking system by investigating the impact of the Greek crisis to the Romanian nonperforming loans. Our findings indicate that macroeconomic variables, specifically the construction and investment expenditure, the inflation and the unemployment rate, and the country's external debt to GDP and M2 jointly with Greek crisis-specific variables influence the credit risk of the Romanian banking system. The results have several implications for policymakers, regulators, and managers as the most recent published stress tests on the Romanian banking system are based on end 2008 data.

Description: We investigate the effect of different scales of addictive factors on the utilization of medical services in this paper using a two-part model. Data are from the 2005 National Health Interview Survey and the claims data in the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. The results show that personal addictive behavior is significantly associated with both outpatient and inpatient utilization. Moreover, our result implies that those who smoked at least 20 cigarettes per day might not visit a doctor until the illness was severe. It suggests that the government can accomplish these goals by promotion and education in order to increase public awareness of personal health.

Description: An analysis of Canadian farmland risk and its return on investment shows that a Farmland Real Estate Investment Trust (F-REIT) and gold would have significantly enhanced portfolio performance over the past 35 years. Investors who desire low-risk portfolios would not have benefited from an F-REIT or gold investment. However, investors in the medium-risk category could have improved the financial performance of their portfolios by including an F-REIT investment rather than gold. The financial gains from F-REIT result from a level of risk that is lower than gold, REITs, and stocks, an expected yield that is greater than for bonds, and a low correlation with other financial asset returns.

Description: The recession of 2007–2009 has led to renewed interest in forecasting discretionary consumer spending and whether marketing variables contain predictive content. Using the ACSI customer satisfaction index and both linear and nonlinear methods, this note suggests the index fails to enhance our understanding of the temporal evolution of discretionary spending.

Description: The paper demonstrates the efficacy of liquidity management through both the rate and quantum channels. Using the concepts of autonomous and discretionary liquidity, the paper derives the optimal policy mix of instruments which can be used for stabilizing the price of liquidity. For effective liquidity management, the sufficient condition highlighted in the paper has important implications for developing market-related monetary policy instruments, particularly in emerging market economies.

Description: We extend the literature on endogenous lifetime and economic growth by Chakraborty (2004) and Bunzel and Qiao (2005) to endogenous fertility. We show that development traps due to underinvestments in health cannot appear when fertility is an economic decision variable and the costs of children are represented by a constant fraction of the parents' income used for their upbringing.

Description: This paper examines the degree of polarization in African countries' per capita GDP distribution between 1966 to 2004. We first use a nonparametric analysis and find that the countries tend to cluster in two classes of per capita GDP. Secondly, by using the Wolfson's bipolarization measure, the results reveal that bipolarization has been accelerating during the two first decades and is still growing. We relate the evolution of polarization during the period to the business sectors. We find that the specialization of the countries is the main factor explaining its evolution, namely, in agriculture and industry sectors.

Description: Over the recent past, the global market of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) has grown exponentially, while the lifespan of these products has become increasingly shorter. More of these products are ending up in rubbish dumps and recycling centers, posing a new challenge to policy makers. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the e-Waste problem and to put forward an estimation technique to calculate the growth of e-Waste.

Description: The objective of this study was to examine whether the implementation of the helmet law had reduced the likelihood of head injury and the associated medical cost in Taiwan. Data were taken from the 1996 and 1998 population-based data. In total, 888,179 and 921,058 effective samples were used in the study from the two years. Two different types of regression model were adopted to evaluate the impact of the motorcycle helmet use law on incidences of head injury and associated medical cost and hospital length of stay. The results reveal that medical cost is down by 11.5 percent and hospital LOS has fallen by 18.58 percent. Thus, with the introduction of the motorcycle helmet use law having had a demonstrably positive influence on motorcycle head injuries and fatalities, significant savings are clearly being achieved, not only in terms of economic and social costs, but also with regard to medical cost.

Description: The aim of this study is to investigate whether there is any relationship between socioeconomic factors and mental depression, specifically in connection with family income and education. Our empirical model was estimated using the database of three National Household Sampling Surveys (1998, 2003, and 2008) and their special supplements on the health status of the Brazilian population. Analyses for men and women were conducted separately. Family income proved to be a protective factor against depression for both men and women. With regard to the effects of education, the estimates indicate that the maximum risk of depression occurs when women have approximately four years of schooling and men have about eight. Above these levels, the risk decreases as schooling years increase.

Description: Unilateral trade preferences are one of the most important instruments offered by developed countries to foster developing country exports. This paper analyzes the impact of unilateral trade preferences on developing countries by focusing on the experience of Mozambique. In this paper, we analyze whether unilateral preferences offered by the EU are “valuable” for Mozambican exporters based on the impact on preferential margins, utilization rates, and export prices. We use a detailed dataset with cif unit values at HS8-digits level covering the period 2000–2007. Our findings indicate that (i) for a large number of product lines, export margins are zero; (ii) utilization rates are generally high; however, (iii) this does not translate into a positive price margins captured by Mozambican exporters compared to MFN competitors. These findings cast doubts on the “value” of preferences and their potential impact on developing country exports.

Description: This paper tackles the problem of aggregate TFP measurement using stochastic frontier analysis. We estimate a world production frontier for a sample of 75 countries over a long period. The “Bauer-Kumbhakar” decomposition of TFP is applied to a smaller sample in order to evaluate the effects of changes in efficiency (technical and allocative), scale effects, and technical change. Estimated technical efficiency scores are compared to productivity indexes offered by nonfrontier studies. We conclude that differences in productivity are responsible for virtually all the differences of growth performance between developed and developing nations and that a large part of this is due to allocative efficiency.

Description: If an emission reduction agreement with participation of all players is not enforceable because politicians are too myopic or costs of reducing emissions are too high, strategic investments in research and development (R&D) of green technology, for example, sustainable drivetrains, can pave the way for a future treaty. Although no player will rationally reduce emissions on its own, investments in R&D by at least one player can change the strategic situation of negotiations to control emissions: emission abatement costs will decrease so that a treaty with full participation can be achieved in future periods through time consistent sustainable policies.

Description: The importance of the individual’s health behaviour for the health production process is beyond controversy. Health relevant behaviour can be viewed as a key variable in the health production process. Changes in the behaviour may influence individual’s assessment of health. Following this idea, we use German microdata to identify determinants of smoking, drinking, and obesity and their impact on health. Our empirical approach allows for the simultaneity of behaviours and self-reported health. In addition, we account for endogeneity of health behaviours and take aspects of reporting heterogeneity of self-reported health into account. We find that health behaviour is directly related to the socioeconomic status and observe gender-specific differences in the determinants of drinking, smoking, and heavy body weight in particular. The influence on health is also gender specific. While we do not find any impact of smoking, overweight is relevant only for males and no clear pattern for alcohol exists.

Description: Progressive reformers failed to gain support to implement compulsory health insurance in the US after WWI. Modeling results presented in this paper, using a lifecycle model with sickness risk and precautionary savings, support the conclusion that existing voluntary insurance plans were adequate and welfare-enhancing in the US, that compulsory health insurance as proposed would not be welfare-enhancing, and that Americans' preference to self-insure during most of their working lives was rational, utility-maximizing behaviour.

Description: Understanding the economic impacts of transportation projects is essential for decision makers, officials, and stakeholders as they determine the best course of action for their jurisdiction. Economic impacts can guide decisions of future projects and help explain past economic fluctuations. This study uses an evaluative (ex-post) analysis process to assess the generative economic impacts of transportation projects after completion that can be used to identify the economic impacts of transportation projects while quantifying their relationship. Both pre- and postconstruction data were collected and used to compare the trends of sales tax revenue and employment numbers adjacent to transportation projects in Utah over a 10-year period. Plots of the trends before, during, and after construction for each project in the analysis were generated. A formal process was created for completing the analysis for future study. Results indicate that there is a positive relationship between transportation improvement projects and sales tax revenues. This relationship amounts to approximately a 4.0 percent increase in trends compared to the state overall. Employment demonstrated a 4.5 percent increase compared to the state overall. Although the results are not considered statistically significant, they are considered practically significant and add to the literature on this topic.

Description: In an incomplete regulation framework, the regulator cannot replicate all the possible outcomes by himself since he has no influence over some firms in the market. Due to asymmetric information, it may be better for the regulator to allow the unregulated firms to extract a truthful report from the regulated firm through side-payments under collusion, and therefore the “collusion-proofness principle” may not hold. In fact, by introducing an exogenous number of unregulated firms, social welfare differences seem to favour a collusion-allowing equilibrium. However, such result will depend on the relative importance given by the regulator to the consumer surplus in the social welfare function.

Description: This paper investigates whether the relationship between income inequality and growth changes over time. Two time periods, covering 1970–1985 and 1985–1999, are analyzed and compared. A statistically significant relationship between inequality and growth in either time period fails to emerge. However, there are indications that effect of inequality on growth may be different in the nineties when compared to the seventies. In the literature, a consistent negative effect of inequality on growth is documented although the significance of the effect is open to debate. This paper also finds a negative effect of income inequality on growth in the seventies but, although statistically insignificant, a consistently positive effect in the nineties.

Description: This paper examines ethnic wage differentials for the entire population of workers who enrolled for the first time as students at Dutch universities (WO) and colleges (HBO) in 1996 using unique administrative panel data for the period 1996 to 2005 from the Dutch tertiary education system. The study breaks down wage differentials into two components: a component which can be explained by the observed characteristics and an unexplained component. The analysis provides new evidence for the magnitude and the origin of ethnic wage differentials by gender. In general, ethnic wage gap is larger for migrant women than migrant men and larger for Western and Caribbean migrants than for Mediterranean migrants. Ethnic minority workers appear to have larger wage surpluses which is almost entirely explained by their observed favourable characteristics. Most notably, Mediterranean female graduates have significantly positive wage discrimination, while Western female graduates seem to face a small wage penalty.

Description: A shareholder theory of firm and a stakeholder theory of firm may differ in their respective evaluation method of firm performance. Both theories however recognize the importance of value creation as the economic role of firms as institutions. The New Institutional Economics (NIE) emphasizes incentives alignment, while also viewing stakeholder engagements as methods to expand the boundaries of firms. The difference in performance evaluation between the two approaches can be reduced if stakeholders, while formulating incentive alignment, also evaluate the mechanisms of establishing a common currency value. The concomitant development of stakeholder engagement, incentive alignment, and value currency creation is argued to be an evolutionary process with the efficiency implications of the two theories tending to converge.

Description: US wheat varieties are examined for differential disease resistance between public and private varieties, an issue for critics of plant intellectual property. Analysis using disease resistance rankings of wheat varieties from Kansas and Texas indicate that private varieties are as or more resistant. This finding was further confirmed with two years of Texas data. Thus, the results from the study reject the criticism of private breeding activities that they are more susceptible to disease compared to public varieties. However, private varieties resistance is incorporated from public offerings so that productive private wheat breeding is partly derivative.

Description: Utilizing linear mixed oligopoly model, this paper explores the magnitude of the maximum-revenue tariff, optimum-welfare tariff, and revenue-constrained optimal tariff that is especially designed for the consideration of the bureaucratic inefficiency. In particular, the tariff ranking issue is examined under both cases of Cournot competition and domestic public leadership. We found that, under Cournot competition, the optimum-welfare tariff is the highest and it is followed by the revenue-constrained optimal tariff while the maximum-revenue tariff is the lowest. But, under Stackelberg public leadership, if the domestic private firms are fewer than the foreign firms, the maximum-revenue tariff becomes the highest and the optimum-welfare exceeds the revenue-constrained optimal tariff.

Description: The research community has developed three main concepts and indicator systems to measure sustainability: the capital concept, the ecological concept and the multidimensional concept. Whereas a lot of research has been dedicated to the pros and cons of the three/four-pillar sustainability concept, to the shaping of the pillars and their indicators, research on standardized methods to aggregate the indicators to one index is lacking. However, a useful model exists—the GDP—which summarizes the different economic activities of various social actors in one index. An overall sustainability index has the advantage that the sustainability of a system can be expressed in one index. This allows the sustainability status of a system to be better communicated both to the public and to politicians. Against this background, we developed the Index of Sustainable Development (ISD) to measure the sustainability of systems described by multidimensional sustainability concepts. We demonstrate that it is possible to aggregate sustainability indicators of the multidimensional sustainability concepts to one index. We have chosen exemplarily the German sustainability strategy and selected the energy indicators within it because of the importance of the energy sector and due to the good statistical database in this sector.

Description: New Discussion Paper Wolfgang Mayer and Sudesh Mujumdar Lobbying: Buying and Utilizing Access Abstract This paper introduces an alternative to the lobbying literature’s standard assumption that “money buys policies”. Our model – in which influence-seeking requires both money to “buy access” and managerial time to “utilize access” — offers three significant benefits. First, it counters criticism that the “money-buys-policies” assumption is at odds with reality. Second, its much stronger lobbying incentives weaken the free-rider problem and raise incentives for lobby formation. Third, the model yields testable hypotheses on: the determinants of lobbying incentives; the number of lobbying firms in an industry; and the impact on industry lobbying by the size distribution of firms, contribution limits on firms, world price changes, and the ability to adjust labor employment. Lobbying: Buying and Utilizing Access — Economics E-Journal This paper introduces an alternative to the lobbying literature’s standard assumption that “money buys policies”. Our model – in which influence-seeking requires both money to “buy access” and manager...

Description: New Journal Article Benedikt Heid and Mario Larch Migration, Trade and Unemployment A source of anxiety of policy makers and the public in general is the detrimental impact of trade and immigration on unemployment. The transitory restrictions for worker migration after the EU enlargements of 2004 and 2007 exemplify the supposed negative effect of immigration on labor markets. This paper aims to identify the effects of immigration alongside trade on unemployment controlling for the high correlation between immigration and goods flows in order to prevent an omitted variable bias. The authors use data from 24 OECD countries over the period from 1997 to 2007 and employ instrumental variables fixed effects and dynamic panel estimators in order to account for unobserved heterogeneity as well as the potential endogeneity of migration flows and the high persistence of unemployment. We find no significant effect of immigration on unemployment on average. Migration, Trade and Unemployment — Economics E-Journal A source of anxiety of policy makers and the public in general is the detrimental impact of trade and immigration on unemployment. The transitory restrictions for worker migration after the EU enlarge...

Description: New Discussion Paper Roberto Cellini and Giuseppe Rizzo Private and Public Incentive to Reduce Seasonality: A Theoretical Model Abstract This paper presents a theoretical model to investigate the incentive of private producer and policymaker to reduce seasonality in a given market, where consumers derive different utilities from the consumption of the good in different seasons. The (seasonal) product differentiation is modelled along the lines of the contributions of Gabszewicz and Thisse (Price Competition, Quality and Income Disparities, 1979) and Shaked and Sutton (Relaxing Price Competition through Product Differentiation, 1982). The authors take into consideration that investments are possible to reduce the degree of seasonality. They show that, for a wide set of parameter configuration, the policy maker finds it optimal to make more effort to reduce seasonality as compared to private producers. The theoretical conclusion is consistent with empirical and anecdotical evidence, especially in the field of tourism markets. Private and Public Incentive to Reduce Seasonality: A Theoretical Model — Economics E-Journal This paper presents a theoretical model to investigate the incentive of private producer and policymaker to reduce seasonality in a given market, where consumers derive different utilities from the co...

Description: The objective of this paper is to present the technical efficiency of individual companies and their respective groups of Bangladesh stock market (i.e., Dhaka Stock Exchange, DSE) by using two risk factors (co-skewness and co-kurtosis) as the additional input variables in the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). The co-skewness and co-kurtosis are derived from the Higher Moment Capital Asset Pricing Model (H-CAPM). To investigate the contribution of these two factors, two types of technical efficiency are derived: (1) technical efficiency with considering co-skewness and co-kurtosis (WSK) and (2) technical efficiency without considering co-skewness and co-kurtosis (WOSK). By comparing these two types of technical efficiency, it is noticed that the technical efficiency of WSK is higher than the technical efficiency of WOSK for the individual companies and their respective groups. As per available literature in the context Bangladesh stock market, no study has been conducted thus far to measure technical efficiency of companies and their respective groups by using the risk factors which are derived from the H-CAPM. In this research, the link between H-CAPM and SFA is established for measuring technical efficiency and it is believed that the findings of this study may be applied to other emerging stock markets.

Description: This paper introduces a new model describing the aggregate growth of job markets. We divide the job market in each city into two groups: native job market of size and an immigrant job market of size . A reversible migration of jobs exists in both groups. In addition, the interaction between these two groups creates both native and immigrant jobs. A loss of native jobs also takes place due to the interaction. Through studying initial conditions, job-creation rate, and job-loss rate we discover some meaningful results. The size change of native job market is closely related to that of the migration rate, native job-creation rate, and native job-loss rate. We assume that these rates are proportional to the sizes of two groups and find out that for certain initial conditions, immigrants influence native job markets positively. They create more jobs for both job markets. In addition, we can make conclusions about the future trend of the flow of jobs. People will move to places like big cities where there is a higher concentration of job opportunities.

Description: The inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) are important for a country's economic development, but the world market for FDI has become more competitive. This paper empirically analyses the exchange rate movements and foreign direct investment (FDI) relationship using annual data on ASEAN economies, that is, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. By employing ARDL bounds test approach, the empirical results show the existence of significant long-run cointegration between exchange rate and FDI for the case of Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines with all countries recording negative coefficient implying that the appreciation of Singapore dollar, Malaysian ringgit, and the Philippine peso has a positive impact on FDI inflows. Using the ECM based ARDL approach for causality test, both Singapore and the Philippines show long-run bidirectional causality between exchange rate and FDI whereas long-run unidirectional causality running from the exchange rate to FDI in Malaysia. Furthermore, this study also found that short-run unidirectional causality running from the exchange rate to FDI exists in Singapore.

Description: The fishery of the Bay of Bengal (BOB) is assumed to be suffering from the overexploitation. This paper aims to assess the sustainability of current level of fishing effort as well as possible changes driven by anthropogenic and climate driven factors. Therefore, the commercial marine fishery of BOB for the period of 1985/86 to 2007/08 is analyzed by applying Gordon-Schaefer Surplus Production Model on time series of total catch and standardized effort. Static reference points such as open-access equilibrium, maximum economic yield, and maximum sustainable yield are established. Assumptions about potential climatic and anthropogenic effects on r (intrinsic growth rate) and K (carrying capacity) of BOB fishery have been made under three different reference equilibriums. The results showed that the fishery is not biologically overexploited; however, it is predicted to be passing a critical situation, in terms of achieving reference points in the near future. But, on the other hand, economic overfishing started several years before. Higher fishing effort, and inadequate institutional and legal framework have been the major bottlenecks for the proper management of BOB fisheries and these may leads fishery more vulnerable against changing marine realm. Thus, the present study calls for policy intervention to rescue the stock from the existing high fishing pressure that would lead to depletion.

Description: New Discussion Paper Daniel Dufresne and Felisa Vázquez-Abad Cobweb Theorems with Production Lags and Price Forecasting The classical cobweb theorem is extended to include production lags and price forecasts. Price forecasting based on a longer period has a stabilizing effect on prices. Longer production lags do not necessarily lead to unstable prices; very long lags lead to cycles of constant amplitude. The classical cobweb requires elasticity of demand to be greater than that of supply; this is not necessarily the case in a more general setting, price forecasting has a stabilizing effect. Random shocks are also considered. Cobweb Theorems with Production Lags and Price Forecasting — Economics E-Journal The classical cobweb theorem is extended to include production lags and price forecasts. Price forecasting based on a longer period has a stabilizing effect on prices. Longer production lags do not ne...

Description: New Journal Article Satya P. Das International Trade and Polarization in the Labor Market The paper builds an argument that international trade can be an explanation behind polarization of employment in the labor market observed in developed countries such as U.K. and U.S. It considers a small open economy, having production sectors which use three types of labor: high-skill, middle-skill and low-skill. The economy faces an increase in the relative price of the high-skill intensive sector. Using decision rules for choosing high-skill, middle-skill and low-skill education, it is shown that such a terms-of- trade shock can lead to polarization: shrinkage of middle-skill jobs, combined with higher shares of high-skill as well as low-skill workers in the total workforce. The effects of off-shoring on wages and job composition are also studied. Off-shoring of low-skill and high-skill tasks, not middle-skill tasks, is shown to contribute towards polarization in job composition. International Trade and Polarization in the Labor Market — Economics E-Journal The paper builds an argument that international trade can be an explanation behind polarization of employment in the labor market observed in developed countries such as U.K. and U.S. It considers a s...

Description: New Discussion Paper Hans-Jörg Schmerer FDI, Skill-Specific Unemployment, and Institutional Spillover Effects Abstract This paper proposes a multi-industry trade model with integrated capital markets and Mortensen and Pissarides search frictions in the labor market. Institutional changes in the model trigger adjustments at the intensive and extensive margin of labor demand. At the extensive margin a shift of the specialization pattern amongst the integrated countries magnifies the effects at the intensive industry margin via trade and FDI. Moreover, the distinction between high- and low-skill workers facilitates the analysis of skill-specific institutional changes. A government can influence wages and unemployment of the low-skilled by manipulating labor market institutions concerning high-skill workers only. One-sided interventions affect all workers at home and abroad irrespective of their level of skill. Paper submitted to the special issue Responding to the Labour Market Challenges of Globalisation ( http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/special-areas/special-issues/responding-to-the-labour-market-challenges-of-globalisation ) FDI, Skill-Specific Unemployment, and Institutional Spillover Effects — Economics E-Journal This paper proposes a multi-industry trade model with integrated capital markets and Mortensen and Pissarides search frictions in the labor market. Institutional changes in the model trigger adjustmen...

Description: Hendrik Bunke originally shared this post: Paul Krugman on open science in economics Open Science And The Econoblogosphere The journals aren't what they were, and haven't been for a long time.

Description: New Journal Article John Beath, Joanna Poyago-Theotoky, and David Ulph University Funding Systems: Impact on Research and Teaching Abstract We address the following question: how does a higher education funding system influence the trade-off that universities make between research and teaching? We do so by constructing a model that allows universities to choose actively the quality of their teaching and research when faced with different funding systems characterised by the pivotal role of the university funding budget constraint. In particular, we derive the feasible sets that face universities under such systems and show how, as the parameters of the system (the research block grant element, the research quality premium and the incentives-triggering quality threshold) are varied, the nature of the university system itself changes. Different ‘cultures’ of the university system emerge such as the ‘research elite’ and the ‘binary divide’. University Funding Systems: Impact on Research and Teaching — Economics E-Journal

Description: New Discussion Paper Bianca Biagi, Maria Giovanna Brandano, and Claudio Detotto The Effect of Tourism on Crime in Italy: A Dynamic Panel Approach Abstract The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, all else being equal, for the case of Italy, tourist areas tend to have a greater amount of crime than non-tourist areas in the long run. Following the literature of the economics of crime à la Becker (1968) and Ehrlich (1973) and using a system GMM approach for the time span 1985–2003, the authors empirically test whether total crime in Italy is affected by tourist arrivals. Findings confirm the initial intuition of a positive relationship between tourism and crime in destinations. When controlling for the difference between tourists and residents in the propensity to be victimized, no relevant differences are found: the likelihood to be victimized is quite similar for the two groups. As a consequence, agglomeration and urbanisation effects seem to be the main explanation for the impact of tourism on crime. One can image that overcrowded cities provide more opportunities to criminals to commit illegal activities regardless of the number of visitors and residents in destinations. The Effect of Tourism on Crime in Italy: A Dynamic Panel Approach — Economics E-Journal The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, all else being equal, for the case of Italy, tourist areas tend to have a greater amount of crime than non-tourist areas in the long run. Following th...

Description: New Discussion Paper Harald Oberhofer, Matthias Stöckl, and Hannes Winner The Wage Premium of Globalization: Evidence from European Mergers and Acquisitions Abstract We provide evidence on the impact of globalization on labor market outcomes analyzing pay differences between foreign-acquired and domestically-owned firms. For this purpose, we use firm level data from 16 European countries over the time period 1999–2006. Applying propensity score matching techniques we estimate positive wage premia of cross-boarder merger and acquisitions (M&As), suggesting that foreign acquired firms exhibit higher short-run (post-acquisition) wages than their domestic counterparts. The observed wage disparities are most pronounced for low paying firms (with average wages below the median). Finally, we find systematic wage premia in Western European countries, but not so in Eastern Europe. Paper submitted to the special issue "Responding to the Labour Market Challenges of Globalisation" The Wage Premium of Globalization: Evidence from European Mergers and Acquisitions — Economics E-Journal We provide evidence on the impact of globalization on labor market outcomes analyzing pay differences between foreign-acquired and domestically-owned firms. For this purpose, we use firm level data fr...

Description: New Discussion Paper Carsten Schröder and Timm Bönke Country Inequality Rankings and Conversion Schemes Abstract Two conversion schemes are usually employed for assessing personal-income inequality from household equivalent incomes: to weight household units by size or by needs. Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study, the authors show the sensitivity of country inequality rankings to conversion schemes and explain the finding by means of inequality decomposition. A bootstrap approach is implemented to test for statistical significance of the results. Country Inequality Rankings and Conversion Schemes — Economics E-Journal

Description: Hendrik Bunke originally shared this post: I've already mentioned this a few weeks ago. Economics has been selected for coverage in the SSCI. Here's the official announcement. Economics has also a G+ Page: + Economics Press release: Economics, the Open Access Journal, Now Covered by the SSCI Press release: Economics, the Kiel Institute’s open access e-journal, has moved up into the champion’s league of economics journals. It is now being covered by the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)...

Description: Did you know that Economics has a Data Availability Policy ? All data sets a paper is based on are published openaccess as well as the paper itself! Have a look at our data repository at Dataverse: http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/economics Data Availability Policy — Economics E-Journal Economics – The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal has adopted the policy on data availability first introduced by the American Economic Review. This policy applies to all new submissions, effecti...

Description: New Discussion Paper Sebastian Braun and Christian Spielmann Wage Subsidies and International Trade: When Does Policy Coordination Pay? Abstract National labour market institutions interact across national boundaries when product markets are global. Labour market policies can thus entail spill-overs, which suggests that there are benefits from international policy coordination. This paper studies the effects of wage subsidies in an international duopoly model with unionised labour markets. The authors document both positive and negative spill-over effects and discuss the benefits and costs from international policy coordination both for the case of symmetric and asymmetric labour market institutions. The results suggest that insti¬tutional differences could sign responsible for the slow speed at which labour market policy coordination has progressed so far. JEL: F16 F42 H87 J38 Wage Subsidies and International Trade: When Does Policy Coordination Pay? — Economics E-Journal National labour market institutions interact across national boundaries when product markets are global. Labour market policies can thus entail spill-overs, which suggests that there are benefits from...

Description: New Discussion Paper Victor A. Beker A Case Study on Trade Liberalization: Argentina in the 1990s Abstract The link between trade and wages is embodied in the Stolper–Samuelson theorem and its generalizations. The Stolper–Samuelson logic is that trade affects relative factor rewards by changing relative prices. Since in Argentina non-skilled labor was neither as abundant a factor as land nor as scarce as capital it could not be expected to be the big winner in the opening-up process of the Argentine economy nor could it be expected to be a big loser. So, the huge amount of unemployment experienced by the Argentine economy in the 1990s as well as the widening wage gap between skilled and unskilled labor came as a complete surprise. This paper gives some reasons for this unexpected result. In Argentina, trade liberalization meant mainly import liberalization by lowering tariffs that protected labor-intensive industries like textiles. So, the short-run effect was massive destruction of jobs in non-skilled labor-intensive activities. The opening up of the economy significantly lowered the price of capital goods. This encouraged a drastic process of capital for labor substitution as well as promoting an increase in the demand for skilled labor. In those industries in which the import penetration increased the most, the wage inequality widened relatively more between unskilled and skilled workers. The reasons for the persistence of unemployment are discussed, the impact of the increasing unemploy¬ment and growing inequality in wage distribution on income distribution is analyzed, the alternatives of shock therapy vs. gradualism are discussed and finally some general conclusions are drawn from the analysis of the Argentine case. Paper submitted to the special issue Responding to the Labour Market Challenges of Globalisation A Case Study on Trade Liberalization: Argentina in the 1990s — Economics E-Journal The link between trade and wages is embodied in the Stolper–Samuelson theorem and its generalizations. The Stolper–Samuelson logic is that trade affects relative factor rewards by changing relative pr...

Description: New Discussion Paper Juan Gabriel Brida, Giacomo Del Chiappa, Marta Meleddu, and Manuela Pulina Cruise Tourism Externalities and Residents’ Support: A Generalized Ordered Logit Analysis Abstract This paper investigates residents’ preferences towards cruise tourism investment in their home port. The research uses data collected during the peak cruise season in 2011 at Messina, a port of call in Sicily, Italy. A generalized ordered logit analysis is run to analyse what factors influence the residents’ preferences towards investment in cruise tourism. Positive and negative externalities produced by this economic activity, as well as socio-demographic and economic determinants are taken into account. Overall, the resource investment choice of residents in Messina was dependent upon: their income dependency on the cruise activity, their own personal cruise experience, family size, the expected increase in welfare (i.e. increase in public and private investment), whether they are affected by urban and rural gentrification and the value placed on community life style and heritage conservation. Nevertheless, residents would tend to decrease investments in cruise activity if they are female, retired or perceive the environment to be deteriorating. Implications for policy makers are drawn from the empirical findings. Paper submitted to the special issue "Tourism Externalities" Cruise Tourism Externalities and Residents’ Support: A Generalized Ordered Logit Analysis — Economics E-Journal This paper investigates residents' preferences towards cruise tourism investment in their home port. The research uses data collected during the peak cruise season in 2011 at Messina, a port of ca...

Description: New Discussion Paper Sami Ben Mim and Mohamed Sami Ben Ali Through Which Channels Can Remittances Spur Economic Growth in MENA Countries? Abstract This paper studies the remittances’ effect on economic growth. Using panel data techniques, the authors estimate several specifications to provide support of such relationship for MENA countries over the period 1980–2009. The findings provide new robust evidence on how remittances are used in MENA countries and show the main channels which may interfere in this process. Estimation outcomes show that the most important part of remittances is consumed and that remittances stimulate growth only when they are invested. Moreover, empirical results suggest that remittances can enhance growth by encouraging human capital accumulation. Human capital is therefore an effective channel through which remittances stimulate growth in MENA countries. JEL: E21 F21 G22 J61 O16 Through Which Channels Can Remittances Spur Economic Growth in MENA Countries? — Economics E-Journal This paper studies the remittances' effect on economic growth. Using panel data techniques, the authors estimate several specifications to provide support of such relationship for MENA countries o...

Description: New Discussion Paper Maksym Ivanyna and Christian von Haldenwang A Comparative View on the Tax Performance of Developing Countries: Regional Patterns, Non-tax Revenue and Governance Abstract Some countries fail to ensure that their citizens and businesses make an appropriate contribution to the financing of public tasks. But not all countries with a low tax ratio automatically fall into this cat-egory. This paper presents an approach to bridge the gap between probabilistic statements based on statistical analyses, and country-specific information. Rather than defining general across-the-board criteria, the approach accounts for different development levels and other influencing factors, such as regional patterns, non-tax revenue and governance. Findings on individual countries or groups of countries should put governments, donors and international organisations in a better position to decide on tax reform programmes and aid modalities. JEL: H20 H27 H60

Description: News / Comments / A fistful of dollars: why corporate publishers have no place in scholarly communication - bjoern.brembs.blog The blog of neurobiologist Bjoern Brembs

Description: New Journal Article Brian P. Hanley Release of the Kraken: A Novel Money Multiplier Equation’s Debut in 21st Century Banking Abstract Historically, the banking multiplier has been in a range of 4 to 100, with 25% to 1% reserve ratios at most layers of the banking system encompassing the majority of its range in recent centuries. Here it is shown that multipliers over 1 000 can occur from a new mechanism in banking. This new multiplier uses a default insurance note to insure an outstanding loan in order to return the value of the insured amount into capital. The economic impact of this invention is calculably greater than the original invention of reserve banking. The consequence of this lending invention is to render the existing money multiplier equations of reserve banking obsolete where it occurs. The equations describing this new multiplier do not converge. Each set of parameters for reserve percentage, nesting depth, etc. creates a unique logarithmic curve rather than approaching a limit. Thus it is necessary to show the behavior of this new equation by numerical methods. Understanding this new multiplier and associated issues is necessary for economic analyses of the Global Financial Crisis. Release of the Kraken: A Novel Money Multiplier Equation’s Debut in 21st Century Banking — Economics E-Journal

Description: Did you know, that Economics is cooperating in conferences and workshops? Find the current list below. Cooperation in Conferences — Economics E-Journal The E-journal Economics cooperates in several conferences and workshop (see below), and is willing to invest further efforts to increase its cooperation in the future.

Description: New Discussion Paper Guido Candela, Massimiliano Castellani, and Maurizio Mussoni Clashes and Compromises: Investment Policies in Tourism Destinations The authors solve a linear problem where a potential conflict between two agents (Destination manager and Firm) arises in a tourism destination. Destination manager has to choose how to allocate limited resources (capital and land) between either second homes or hotels. This conflict stems from the assumption of agents who have different linear preferences with respect to the allocation of limited resources. As a solution to this policy problem the authors consider three different policies: no intervention (laissez faire), taxation and temporary de-taxation policy. Comparing these different policies, the authors show that a compromise solution (internal solution), which results from the de-taxation policy, may be preferred by both agents over the clash of interests outcomes (corner solutions). Thus, the authors show that in a framework of ‘conflict’ between agents a compromise solution may be preferable to both the absence of public intervention and the imposition of a tax by a public policy maker who has the discretionary ‘power to regulate’ conflicts. Clashes and Compromises: Investment Policies in Tourism Destinations — Economics E-Journal The authors solve a linear problem where a potential conflict between two agents (Destination manager and Firm) arises in a tourism destination. Destination manager has to choose how to allocate limit...

Description: The "Free Software Foundation Europe" has announced Februrary 14th (Valentine...) as 'ilovefreesoftwareday'. We would like to thank all developers of free software our E-Journal Economics is based on. Amongst many others we are heavily using the following software projects: Plone, Zope, Python, nginx, FreeBSD, Arch Linux, Vim, Mercurial. Economics would probably not exist without this software. #ilovefs I ♥ Free Software - Valentine's Day 2012 - FSFE Valentine's Day traditionally is a day to show and celebrate love. So why do not take this as a chance to show your love for Free Software this year? #ilovefs day 2012. As every year, Valentine&#3...

Description: New Discussion Paper Enrico Scalas and Mauro Politi A Parsimonious Model for Intraday European Option Pricing Abstract A stochastic model for pure-jump diffusion (the compound renewal process) can be used as a zero-order approximation and as a phenomenological description of tick-by-tick price fluctuations. This leads to an exact and explicit general formula for the martingale price of a European call option. A complete derivation of this result is presented by means of elementary probabilistic tools. A Parsimonious Model for Intraday European Option Pricing — Economics E-Journal A stochastic model for pure-jump diffusion (the compound renewal process) can be used as a zero-order approximation and as a phenomenological description of tick-by-tick price fluctuations. This leads...

Description: New Discussionpaper Ekkehart Schlicht A Case Where Barro Expectations Are Not Rational Abstract The paper generalizes Feldstein’s criticism (Perceived Wealth in Bonds and Social Security, 1976) of Barro’s analysis (Are Government Bonds Real Net Wealth?, 1974) for the case that the interest rate exceeds the growth rate. This is done by considering an economy in steady state where all agents hold 'Barro expectations': they believe that government debt must necessarily be repaid and therefore leave the present value of their income streams unchanged. In this scenario, a change in the mode of taxation affects the present value of disposable income in the private sector. This violates their Barro expectations. A Case Where Barro Expectations Are Not Rational — Economics E-Journal The paper generalizes Feldstein’s criticism (Perceived Wealth in Bonds and Social Security, 1976) of Barro’s analysis (Are Government Bonds Real Net Wealth?, 1974) for the case tha...

Description: The theory of compensating differentials asserts that night shift workers should receive compensating wage differentials due to undesirable work conditions. In weak local economies, workers may have difficulty finding jobs; thus, these workers might be more likely to accept night shift work and be less concerned with the size of the compensating differential for night shifts. Using CPS data from 2001, this paper employs maximum likelihood estimation of an endogenous switching regression model to analyze wages of day and night shift workers and shift choice. The findings indicate the presence of selection bias, thus emphasizing the importance of correcting for self-selection into night shifts. The average of the estimated wage differentials for night shift work is negative for the overall sample, with differentials varying by worker characteristics. The shift differential is found to be a statistically significant predictor of shift choice, indicating that shift premiums play an important role in motivating individuals to select night shift work. Using two measures of local economic conditions and a new method of analyzing interaction effects in the context of an endogenous switching regression model, this paper finds limited evidence that weak local economic conditions lessen the impact of compensating differentials on shift choice.

Description: This paper investigates the synchronization of fixed income markets within Eurozone countries using the new wavelet based methodology. Conventional wavelet methods that use multivariate set of variables to calculate pairwise correlation and cross correlation lead to spurious correlation due to possible relationships with other variables, amplification of type-1 errors, and results, in the form of large set of erroneous graphs. Given these disadvantages of conventional wavelet based pairwise correlation and cross-correlation method, we avoid these limitations by using wavelet multiple correlation and multiple cross correlations to analyze the relationships in Eurozone fixed income markets. Our results based on this methodology indicate that Eurozone fixed income markets are highly integrated and this integration grows with timescales, and hence there is almost no scope for independent monetary policy and bond diversification in these countries.

Description: This paper analyses farmers’ credit allocation behaviors and their effects on technical efficiency. Data were collected from 476 farmers using the multistage sampling procedure. The stochastic frontier truncated-normal with conditional mean model is used to assess allocation schemes effects on technical efficiency. Tobit model reveals the impact of farmers’ sociodemographic characteristics on efficiency scores. Results reveal that farm revenue (about 2,262,566 Fcfa on average) is positively correlated with land acreage, quantity of labour, and costs of fertilizers and insecticides. Farmers’ behaviors respond to six schemes which are categorized in two allocations contexts: out-farm and in-farm allocations. The model shows that only scheme (e) positively impacts technical efficiency. This scheme refers to the decision to invest credit to purchase better quality of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and so forth. The positive effect of the scheme (c) may be significant under conditions of farmers’ education level improvement. Then, scheme (e) is a better investment for all farmers, but effect of credit allocation to buy agricultural materials is positive only for educated farmers. Efficiency scores are reduced by household size and gender of the household head. Therefore a household with more than 10 members and a woman as head is likely to not be technically efficient.

Description: People’s demand for preventive medical care is one type of investment in health. The aim of this paper is to examine women’s demand for secondary prevention in Taiwan, focusing on the role a physician’s gender plays in women’s inclination to undergo Pap tests. Our estimation results show that regional ratio of female doctors has a positive and significant effect on utilization of Pap tests for the full sample and for women aged below 30. In addition, doctor’s gender matters only in utilization of Pap tests not in other types of preventive healthcare services in Taiwan. We suggest that the government may consider liberalizing medical laws to make it legal for trained female nurses or nurse practitioners to perform Pap tests in order to encourage the utilization of Pap tests, especially in rural and mountain areas. The government may also consider subsidizing the use of cervical cancer vaccines to help females prevent cervical cancer.

Description: This paper evaluates the current state of the literature concerning the effects of exchange rate movements on trade balance. Thus, this paper is a review article and provides a survey of the alternative theories that focus on the effect of exchange rate changes on the trade balance. It systemizes the literature into four distinct reviews and approaches following the chronological order. The paper presents the (a) Standard Theory of International Trade, (b) Elasticity Approach, (c) Keynesian Absorption Approach, and (d) Monetary Approach. The study shows that higher attention should be given for the most plausible dynamic theory in this field, known as the J-Curve.

Description: Foreign exchange (ForEx) rates are amongst the most important economic indices in the international monetary markets. ForEx rate represents the value of one currency in another and it fluctuates over time. It is related to indicators like inflation, interest rate, gross domestic product, and so forth. In a series of works, we investigated and confirmed the chaotic property of ForEx rates by finding positive largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE). As inflation influences ForEx, in this work we would like to address the specific question, Is inflation data also chaotic? We collected data for time period of 2000 to 2013 and tested for nonlinearity in data by surrogate method. Calculating LLE, we find existence of chaos in inflation data for some countries.

Description: This study assesses the effects of fiscal policy on economic growth in a sample of 96 countries from 1990 to 2010. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Extreme Bound Analysis are mainly estimated in order to investigate whether public investments, human capital, and political stability affect growth controlling for initial output and human capital levels. Furthermore, in this empirical research four subsets of independent variables were used: (a) demographic factors, (b) political determinants, (c) region variables, and (d) variables regarding macroeconomic policy. Empirical results suggest that there is an important difference in the impact of public and private sector investments on the growth of per capita income. Moreover, political indicators such as corruption control, rule of law, and government effectiveness have a high impact on economic growth. Demographic factors, including fertility rate and mortality growth, as well as several macroeconomic variables, like inflation rate index and government consumption, were estimated to be statistically significant factors of economic performance. Fiscal volatility may also be a new possible channel of macroeconomic instability that leads to lower growth. Policy implications of the findings are discussed in detail.

Description: This paper revisits the association between exchange rates and monetary fundamentals with the focus on both linear and nonlinear approaches. With the monthly data of Euro/US dollar and Japanese yen/US dollar, our linear analysis demonstrates the monetary model is a long-run description of exchange rate movements, and our nonlinear modelling suggests the error correction model describes the short-run adjustment of deviations of exchange rates, and monetary fundamentals are capable of explaining exchange rate dynamics under an unrestricted framework.

Description: The primary objective of this study is to examine the effect of farm size on economic efficiency among wheat producers and to suggest ways to improve wheat production in the country. Specifically, the study attempts to estimate the levels of technical, allocative, and economic efficiencies among the sampled 130 large and small scale wheat producers in Nakuru District. The social-economic factors that influence economic efficiency in wheat production have also been determined. Results indicate that the mean technical, allocative, and economic efficiency indices of small scale wheat farmers are 85%, 96%, and 84%, respectively. The corresponding figures for the large scale farmers are 91%, 94%, and 88%, respectively. The number of years of school a farmer has had in formal education, distance to extension advice, and the size of the farm have strong influence on the efficiency levels. The relatively high levels of technical efficiency among the small scale farmers defy the notion that wheat can only be efficiently produced by the large scale farmers.

Description: In this paper we construct a standard CGE model to explore the impact of scaling up infrastructure in six African countries. As the debate on the importance of scaling up infrastructure to stimulate growth and provide a push to African economies, some analysts raise concern on financing these infrastructures after construction and that external funding of these can create major distortion and have a negative impact on the trade balance of these countries. This study aims to provide insights into this debate. It draws from the infrastructure productivity literature to postulate positive productive externalities of new infrastructure and Fay and Yepes (2003) for operating cost associated with new infrastructure. We compare various infrastructure investments funded with different fiscal tools. These investments scenarios are compared to nonproductive investment that can be interpreted as a business as usual scenario. Our results show that foreign aid does produce Dutch disease effects but the negative impacts are strongly dependent on the type of investments performed. Moreover, growth effects contribute to attenuate the negative effects.

Description: New Journal Article Jonathan Pycroft, Lucia Vergano, Chris Hope, Daniele Paci, and Juan Carlos Ciscar A Tale of Tails: Uncertainty and the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide Abstract Recent thinking about the economics of climate change has concerned the uncertainty about the upper bound of both climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases and the damages that might occur at high temperatures. This argument suggests that the appropriate probability distributions for these factors may be fat-tailed. The matter of tail shape has important implications for the calculation of the social cost of carbon dioxide (SCCO2). In this paper a probabilistic integrated assessment model is adapted to allow for the possibility of a thin, intermediate or fat tail for both (i) the climate sensitivity parameter and (ii) the damage function exponent. Results show that depending on the tail shape of the climate sensitivity parameter the mean SCCO2 rises by 29–85%. Changes in the mean SCCO2 due to the adjustments to the damage function alone range from a reduction of 7% to a rise of 12%. The combination of both leads to rises of 33–15%. Greater rises occur for the upper percentiles of the SCCO2 estimates. Given the uncertainties in both the science and the economics of climate change different tail shapes deserve consideration due to their important implications for the range of possible values for the SCCO2. JEL: Q54 A Tale of Tails: Uncertainty and the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide — Economics E-Journal

Description: New Journal Article Jesper Jensen and David G. Tarr Deep Trade Policy Options for Armenia: The Importance of Trade Facilitation, Services and Standards Liberalization Abstract In this paper the authors develop an innovative 21 sector computable general equilibrium model of Armenia to assess the impact on Armenia of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU, as well as further regional or multilateral trade policy commitments. They find that a DCFTA with the EU will likely result in substantial gains to Armenia, but they show that the gains derive from the deep aspects of the agreement. In order of importance, the sources of the gains are: (i) trade facilitation and reduction in border costs; (ii) services liberalization; and (iii) standards harmonization. A shallow agreement with the EU that focuses only on preferential tariff liberalization in goods will likely lead to small losses to Armenia primarily due to a loss of productivity from lost varieties of technologies from the Rest of the World region in manufactured products. Additional gains can be expected in the long run from an improvement in the investment climate. The authors estimate only small gains from a services agreement with the CIS countries, but significant gains from expanding services liberalization multilaterally. JEL: C68 F12 F13 F14 F15 F17 L16 Deep Trade Policy Options for Armenia: The Importance of Trade Facilitation, Services and Standards Liberalization — Economics E-Journal

Description: Great news! Economics has been selected for coverage in Social Sciences Citation Index (*SSCI*) and Current Contents/Social and Behavioral Sciences (CC/S&BS). Official announcement follows next week (when everybody is back to work ;-)

Description: New Journal Article published Carolyn Kousky, Robert E. Kopp, and Roger M. Cooke Risk Premia and the Social Cost of Carbon: A Review (Published in Special Issue "The Social Cost of Carbon") Abstract : Reducing greenhouse gas emissions not only lowers expected damages from climate change but also reduces the risk of catastrophic impacts. However, estimates of the social cost of carbon, which measures the marginal value of carbon dioxide abatement, often do not capture this risk reduction benefit. Risk-averse individuals are willing to pay a risk premium, an additional amount beyond the difference in expected damages, to reduce risks. The authors review methods used and estimates obtained for calculating a risk premium to be included in the social cost of carbon. While more research is needed in this area, work to date suggests a positive, and potentially substantial, risk premium on the social cost of carbon is warranted. JEL: Q54 Risk Premia and the Social Cost of Carbon: A Review — Economics E-Journal

Description: New Journal Article published Shouji Fujimoto, Atushi Ishikawa, Takayuki Mizuno, and Tsutomu Watanabe: A New Method for Measuring Tail Exponents of Firm Size Distributions Abstract The authors propose a new method for estimating the power-law exponents of firm size variables. Their focus is on how to empirically identify a range in which a firm size variable follows a power-law distribution. On the one hand, as is well known a firm size variable follows a power-law distribution only beyond some threshold. On the other hand, in almost all empirical exercises, the right end part of a distribution deviates from a power-law due to finite size effects. The authors modify the method proposed by Malevergne et al. (2011). In this way they can identify both the lower and the upper thresholds and then estimate the power-law exponent using observations only in the range defined by the two thresholds. They apply this new method to various firm size variables, including annual sales, the number of workers, and tangible fixed assets for firms in more than thirty countries. (Published in Special Issue New Approaches in Quantitative Modeling of Financial Markets , http://www.economics-ejournal.org/special-areas/special-issues/quantitative-finance-and-economics ) A New Method for Measuring Tail Exponents of Firm Size Distributions — Economics E-Journal

Description: New discussion paper published Yuezhou Cai : Analyses on Efficiency of National Innovation System for BRICS and the Influencing Factors: A Comparative Study based on DEA and Panel Data Analysis Abstract : Efficiency scores of National Innovation System (NIS) for 22 countries, including the BRICS, G7, are calculated with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Relevant factors that may affect the innovation system efficiency are summarized based on NIS Approach and the New Growth Theory. Empirical study is further made with Panel Data Analysis (PDA) and Principal Component Analysis. The results of efficiency calculation and empirical test show that: (1) The BRICS differs greatly in the efficiency of NIS, with China, India and Russia ranking fairly high, and Brazil, South Africa among the few bottom; (2) The influencing factors involve a lot of elements, including ICT infrastructure, enterprise R&D, market environment, government governance, education system, economic scale, natural endowments, external dependence, which is conformed to the NIS approach and New Growth Theory; (3) Enterprises innovation activities are of key importance to the NIS. To improve the efficiency of innovation system, efforts should be made to improve the market circumstance, governance, and financial structure, and create a sound environment for innovation. (4) ICT infrastructure, economic scale and openness affect the diffusion of knowledge and technology, and in turn the NIS efficiency. (5) The BRICS have characters of low governance level and high natural resources dependency in common, which is determined by their developing stage and extensive growth pattern. To avoid the so called middle-income trap in the coming future, the BRICS should dedicate to transform the factor-driven pattern to an innovation-driven one. As for China, there are still much to be improved in fields of ICT infrastructure, government governance, education system. During the 12th Planning, more efforts should be put into these fields and make better external conditions for innovation activities. Analyses on Efficiency of National Innovation System for BRICS and the Influencing Factors: A Comparative Study based on DEA and Panel Data Analysis — Economics E-Journal

Description: New journal article published Eduard Gracia : Uncertainty and Capacity Constraints: Reconsidering the Aggregate Production Function Abstract : The Cobb–Douglas function is today one of the most widely adopted assumptions in economic modeling, yet both its theoretical and empirical bases have long been under question. This paper builds an alternative function on very different (albeit also neoclassical) microfoundations aimed at both addressing those theoretical drawbacks and providing a better empirical fit than the Cobb–Douglas formula. The new model, unlike the Cobb–Douglas function, does not portray installed capacity as aggregate capital but as a sunk cost generating economic rents. An analysis of 1949–2008 annual U.S. growth data suggest this alternative model explains nearly 85 percent of GDP fluctuations and is empirically more robust than the Cobb–Douglas, whilst both contemporary and lagged aggregate capital are statistically rejected as explanatory variables. This lends support to the old “Cambridge Critique”, according to which using value-weighted capital aggregates to explain production simply makes no sense. At face value, these results not only pose a question on any macroeconomic model assuming a Cobb–Douglas function but also point towards an alternative interpretation of phenomena such as the way monetary policy impacts productivity. Uncertainty and Capacity Constraints: Reconsidering the Aggregate Production Function — Economics E-Journal

Description: Here's the video message of Martin L. Weitzman to the attendees of the E.ON prize ceremony on Nov 23.

Description: On November 23, 2011 the E.ON prize was awarded to Martin L. Weitzman during a well attended event at the Institute for the World Economy in Kiel. About 70 participants from universities and economy watched his video message and followed the panel discussion on "How much climate change mitigation do we need?" Watch Martin Weitzman's message here: http://www.economics-ejournal.org/Martin_Weitzman.wmv/view You can find out more about the E.ON prize and the nominated articles here: http://www.economics-ejournal.org/eon-prize-2010 2011-12-02 (2 photos) Martin L. Weitzman image_thumb.jpg

Description: New Discussion Paper Michelle Grossi and Roberto Tamborini Stock Prices and Monetary Policy: Re-examining the Issue in a New Keynesian Model with Endogenous Investment Abstract In this paper, the authors present a New Keynesian quantitative model with endogenous investment and a stock-market sector to shed further light on two unsettled issues: whether central banks should include some financial indicator in their policy rules, and what indicator may be expected to generate better stabilization performance. For comparative purposes, the authors replicate the policy framework and assessment strategy of the well-known 'no-inclusion' model of Bernanke–Gertler (1999, 2000) and assess performance of five policy rules. Two of these are 'traditional' Taylor rules (i.e., do not incorporate financial indicators) that differ in the relative weight they put on output and inflation gaps. The other three are 'financial' Taylor rules. These involve the addition of one financial indicator in each case. Specifically, the deviation from trend of stock prices, of Tobin's q (the rate of change in stock prices relative to capital stock) and of investment. The authors obtain results that are at variance with Bernanke–Gertler, first, because the best performing rule of the traditional rules is output aggressive instead of inflation aggressive and, second, because the financial rule with Tobin's q outperforms the traditional inflation-aggressive one under all dimensions and cases. However, the authors cannot draw a univocal conclusion as regards the comparison between the financial rule with Tobin's q and the traditional but output aggressive rule._ JEL: E5 E52 Stock Prices and Monetary Policy: Re-examining the Issue in a New Keynesian Model with Endogenous Investment — Economics E-Journal

Description: New discussion paper published Yuqing He : Psychophysical Interpretation for Utility Measures Abstract : The paper explores utility measures by combining experiments with mathematical derivations in psychophysics paradigm. The analysis on ultimatum game experiment reveals an evidence for utility threshold and thus supports Bernoulli’s utility logarithmic law. Both experimental results and theoretical derivations show that the logarithmic law is suitable for the description of commodity choice and the power law for risk choice. The further mathematical demonstration indicates the logarithmic law for utility scaling to be a Klein–Rubin utility function, a utility function well defined in microeconomics. Based on this, the experimental utility measure is connected with the econometric model Linear Expenditure System, and presents an experimental procedure for testing the utility maximization hypothesis, which will remove a long unsettled perplexity in a fundamental stone of economics since Gossen proposed it in 1854. Download PDF: http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2011-50/count Psychophysical Interpretation for Utility Measures — Economics E-Journal

Description: New Discussion Paper published Nicholas Horsewood and Anca Monika Voicu Does Corruption Facilitate Trade for the New EU Members? Abstract The paper uses a gravity model to examine the role of corruption in the direction of trade in a data set comprising OECD economies, new EU members and developing nations. Contrary to a number of studies, the findings suggest that membership of the RTAs does not always increase bilateral trade whereas reducing a country’s corruption does tend to increase trade flows. The results suggest that EU membership, with the associated improvement in the perceived level of corruption, should have a positive impact on Romania and Bulgaria. Paper submitted to the special issue Trade Facilitation, Transport Costs and Logistics: A New Challenge for European Competitiveness ( http://www.economics-ejournal.org/special-areas/special-issues/trade-facilitation-transport-costs-and-logistics-a-new-challenge-for-european-competitiveness ) Does Corruption Facilitate Trade for the New EU Members? — Economics E-Journal

Description: New discussion paper published Muhammad Anees, Muhammad Sajjad, and Ishfaq Ahmed A Counterfactual Decomposition Analysis of Immigrants-natives Earnings in Malaysia Abstract Economics of discrimination has been the topic of interest of many in the last decade or two. Human capital theory describes wage determination as a function of labour human capital and should be determined based on marginal productivity theorem of labour economics. Islamic theology also dictates paying labour well in time and equal to their productivity not based on his colour, race, gender, nationality health status and other non-economic factors. The current study analyses the immigrants-natives wage gap to find the extent of potential discrimination against the immigrants. Using employees’ level data from the Enterprise Surveys by the World Bank in 2007, standard Oaxaca–Blinder technique and Machado–Mata counterfactual decomposition is applied. Findings indicate an existence of earning's differential in favour of natives or the Malaysian citizens and immigrants have a disadvantage. On the other hand, the differential increases until the middle of income distribution and the start declining. It suggests higher-income groups have a low level of discriminatory disadvantage. Labour market productivity could be increased if this differential is reduced, which motivates the employees. A Counterfactual Decomposition Analysis of Immigrants-natives Earnings in Malaysia — Economics E-Journal