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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Danny Leung; Oana Secrieru |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we provide a detailed social accounting matrix (SAM), which incorporates the income and financial flows into the standard input-output matrix, for the Canadian economy for 2004. Second, we use the SAM to assess the strength of the real-financial linkages by calculating and comparing real SAM multipliers and financial social accounting matrix (FSAM) multipliers. For FSAM multipliers, financial flows are endogenous, whereas for real SAM multipliers they are not. Our results show that taking into account financial flows increases the impact of a final demand shock on Canadian output. Financial flows also play an important role in determining the cumulative effect of an income shock or the availability of investment funds. Between 2008 and the first half of 2009, financial institutions shifted their investments towards government bonds, short-term paper, and foreign investments. This shift together with the fact that non-financial institutions were unwilling or unable to increase their financial liabilities, led to estimated declines in all GDP multipliers between 2008 and the first half of 2009 (2009H1). The main advantage of using the extended input-output impact analysis is that it provides a simple framework, with very few assumptions, which allows the assessment of the strength of real-financial linkages by means of multipliers. However, our methodology is subject to the Lucas critique, that as shocks shift prices, agents cannot adjust. Such a framework is, nevertheless, appropriate in short-term impact analysis such as ours. |
| Keywords: | Economic models; Financial markets; Sectoral balance sheet |
| JEL: | C67 D57 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:11-14&r=hme |
| By: | Robert M. Feinberg; Thomas A. Husted |
| Abstract: | Recent research has documented a substantial role in antitrust enforcement by U.S. states. While many of the cases litigated involve small local firms, a non-trivial portion encompass multiplestate issues. Some previous literature has investigated whether states engage in free-riding behavior in environmental regulation, and whether governments free ride on private decisions in provision of public goods. In this paper, we analyze a sample of antitrust cases involving crossstate impacts (from the Multi-State Antitrust Database, provided by the National Association of Attorneys General) and explain the determinants of free-riding (which we define as participatingin a case, but not as a lead plaintiff). JEL classification: |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amu:wpaper:2011-07&r=hme |
| By: | Hou, Xiaohui |
| Abstract: | When deciding who should receive welfare benefits with the aim to increase household well-being, it is necessary to understand the effects of the distribution of power within the households at which the aid is directed. Two primary household models have been used to study intra-household bargaining and decision making: the unitary model and the collective model. The unitary model seems to fit Pakistan's context because the prevailing traditional culture positions the male head as the household decision maker. However, using a set of direct measures of decision-making power from the Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey, this study finds that even in a country where men seem to have more power than women, the collective household bargaining model applies. This study also finds that, in Pakistan, when women have more decision-making power at home, households tend to spend more on women's preferred goods (such as clothing and education), family members eat more non-grain food items, and children, particularly girls, are more likely to be enrolled in school. |
| Keywords: | Anthropology,Primary Education,Gender and Law,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Gender and Health |
| Date: | 2011–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5830&r=hme |
| By: | Carlo Gianelle (Department of Economics, University Of Venice Cà Foscari) |
| Abstract: | This essay investigates the network structure of inter-firm worker mobility in Veneto, an industrial region of Northern Italy, using comprehensive employer-employee matched data. The empirical network reveals a small world pattern that hinges critically upon a few hub firms. Main hubs are found to be: (1) long-established manufacturing companies; (2) wholesale companies; and (3) companies supplying workforce to third parties. The methodology of investigation provides a toolkit for monitoring labour market evolution, and should enable industry policies supporting labour reallocation mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | regional labour markets, worker reallocation, complex networks, small world, hub dependence |
| JEL: | D85 J63 R12 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2011_13&r=hme |
| By: | Ajit Zacharias |
| Abstract: | Official poverty thresholds are based on the implicit assumption that the household with poverty-level income possesses sufficient time for household production to enable it to reproduce itself as a unit. Several authors have questioned the validity of the assumption and explored alternative methods to account for time deficits in the measurement of poverty. I critically review the alternative approaches within a unified framework to highlight the commonalities and relative merits of individual approaches. I also propose a two-dimensional, time-income poverty measure that accounts for intrahousehold disparities in the division of household labor and briefly discuss its uses in thinking about antipoverty policies. |
| Keywords: | Time Poverty; Household Production; Gender Disparities |
| JEL: | B54 I32 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_690&r=hme |
| By: | Thomas Klier; Joshua Linn |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the effect of fuel prices on new vehicle fuel economy in the eight largest European markets. The analysis spans the years 2002–2007 and uses detailed vehicle registration and specification data to control for policies, consumer preferences, and other potentially confounding factors. Fuel prices have a statistically significant effect on new vehicle fuel economy in Europe, but this estimated effect is much smaller than that for the United States. Within Europe, fuel economy responds more in the United Kingdom and France than in the other large markets. Overall, substantial changes in fuel prices would have relatively small effects on the average fuel economy of new vehicles sold in Europe. We find no evidence that diesel fuel prices have a large effect on the market share of diesel vehicles. |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mee:wpaper:1117&r=hme |
| By: | María Ángeles Sánchez Dominguez (Universidad de Granada. Department of Applied Economics); Fernando García Quero (Universidad de Granada. Department of Applied Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the economic crises in Spain, from the Great Depression to current recession. Institutional economics offers the theoretical framework for identifying and analyzing the institutions and the rules of the game that have triggered or aggravated the economic crises. This work identifies the institutional changes, caused by economic depressions, which have determined the path dependence of Spanish economy during the last century. In addition, this article analyzes in historical perspective three factors relevant for the institutional environment of the Spanish economy: the Stabilization Plan of 1959, the democratic Spanish transition and Spain joined the European Economic Community. They all have direct effects on policy-making of the country. |
| Keywords: | : crises, Spain, institutions. |
| JEL: | N24 P |
| Date: | 2011–08–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gra:fegper:02/11&r=hme |
| By: | Devitiis, Biagia De; Luca, Anna I. De; Maietta, Ornella Wanda |
| Abstract: | Objective of this paper is to analyse the presence of gender differences in the purchase motivations of Fair Trade (FT) food products sold in the Italian World Shops (WS). At this end, a questionnaire has been distributed to a sample of consumers in four Italian regions. A bivariate ordered probit analysis has been performed in order to identify the determinants of the two main ethical motivations in the purchase: worker guarantees and solidarity. The variables used as determinants are individual and municipal characteristics. Among individual characteristics, gender is significant; among the municipal characteristics, the rate of female job market participation is also significant. These results give evidence of a gender gap in the preferences for public goods. |
| Keywords: | ethical consumerism, gender preferences, fair trade, Consumer/Household Economics, Labor and Human Capital, D12, I31, L31, Z13, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaae11:114372&r=hme |
| By: | Nidhiya Menon (Department of Economics & IBS, MS 021, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454-9110); Yana van der Meulen Rodgers (Women’s and Gender Studies Department, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how Nepal’s 1996-2006 civil conflict affected women’s decisions to engage in employment. Using three waves of Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, we employ a difference-in-difference approach to identify the impact of war on women’s employment decisions. Results indicate that as a result of the Maoist-led insurgency, women’s employment probabilities were substantially higher in 2001 and 2006 relative to the outbreak of war in 1996. These employment results also hold for selfemployment decisions, and they hold for smaller sub-samples that condition on husband’s migration status and women’s status as widows or household heads. Numerous robustness checks of the difference-in-difference estimates based on alternative empirical methods provide compelling evidence that women’s likelihood of employment increased as a consequence of the conflict. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:104&r=hme |
| By: | Kimhi, Ayal |
| Abstract: | This article examines the importance of non-farm income in reducing per-capita income inequality among agricultural households in southern Ethiopia, with an emphasis on the gender dimension. Using a modified technique of inequality decomposition by income sources applied to household survey data, it was found that female non-farm labor income is the only income source that significantly reduces per-capita income inequality. More precisely, a uniform increase in female non-farm labor income, among households that already have income from this source, reduces inequality. Encouraging women to devote more time to non-farm income-generating activities, and creating market mechanisms that increase earnings in these activities, could potentially lift households out of poverty and at the same time reduce income inequality as a whole. The impact on inequality could be stronger if policies are directed at asset-poor households and less-educated households in particular. One of the policies that could be useful in this regard is female educational enhancements. This could open more opportunities for women in the hired labor market, improve women's position within the household, and promote overall income inequality as well as gender equality. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital, |
| Date: | 2011–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaae11:114756&r=hme |
| By: | Boniface Ngah Epo; Francis Menjo Baye; Nadine Teme Angele Manga |
| Abstract: | This study applies the regression-based inequality decomposition technique to explain poverty and inequality trends in Cameroon. We also identify gender related factors which explain income disparities and discrimination based on the 2001 and 2007 Cameroon household consumption surveys. The results show that education, health, employment in the formal sector, age cohorts, household size, gender, ownership of farmland and urban versus rural residence explain household economic wellbeing; disparities in income inequality between male- and female-headed households are largely explained by education, the share of active household members, employment in the formal sector, household size and health. The study concludes that public interventions which encourage education for all, employment and rural development in Cameroon have some prospects of addressing gender-based inequality in Cameroon. |
| Keywords: | Regression-based decomposition, Poverty, Inequality, Gender and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. |
| JEL: | I30 I32 D39 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2011-15&r=hme |
| By: | Mikko Myrskylä (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Francesco C. Billari (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Hans-Peter Kohler (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | A fundamental switch in the fertility—development relationship has occurred so that among highly developed countries, further socioeconomic development may reverse the declining fertility trend. Here we shed light on the mechanisms underlying this reversal by analyzing the links between development and age and cohort patterns of fertility, as well as the role of gender equality. Using data from 1975 to 2008 for over 100 countries, we show that the reversal exists both in a period and a cohort perspective and is mainly driven by increasing older reproductive-age fertility. We also show that the positive impact of development on fertility in high-development countries is conditional on gender equality: countries ranking high in development as measured by health, income, and education but low in gender equality continue to experience declining fertility. Our findings suggest that gender equality is crucial for countries wishing to reap the fertility dividend of high development. |
| Keywords: | World, developed areas, equal opportunity, fertility, gender, low fertility zones |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2011-017&r=hme |
| By: | James L. Butkiewicz (Department of Economics,University of Delaware) |
| Abstract: | While federal financial rescues have become a common response to crises, federal provision of finance was not one of the original powers of the federal government. One man, Eugene Meyer, is largely responsible for the origin of federal financial rescues, through both the War Finance Corporation and Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Meyer learned laissez faire economics from William Graham Sumner at Yale. However, German economist Adolph Wagner’s state-socialism philosophy heavily influenced Meyer’s thinking, and Meyer developed an interventionist philosophy. Serving in key government positions, Meyer put his beliefs into practice. These channels of influence and the resulting policies are examined. |
| Keywords: | Financial rescues; War Finance Corporation; Reconstruction Finance Corporation. |
| JEL: | B N |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:11-19.&r=hme |
| By: | Evers, Hans-Dieter |
| Abstract: | Regional science policy aims at the creation of productive knowledge clusters, which are central places within an epistemic landscape of knowledge production and dissemination, K-clusters are said to have the organisational capability to drive innovations and create new industries. The following paper will look at Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam and their path towards a Knowledge-based economy. All governments have used cluster formation as one of their development strategies. Some evidence on the current state of knowledge cluster formation is provided. If the formation of a knowledge cluster has been the government policy, what has been the result? Is there an epistemic landscape of knowledge clusters? Has the main knowledge cluster really materialised? Data collected from websites, directories, government publications and expert interviews have enabled us to construct the epistemic landscape of Peninsular Malaysia and the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Several knowledge clusters of a high density of knowledge producing institutions and their knowledge workers have been identified and described. An analysis of the knowledge output, measured in terms of scientific publications, patents and trademarks show that knowledge clusters have, indeed, been productive as predicted by cluster theory, though the internal working of clusters require further explanation. |
| Keywords: | Science policy; knowledge and development; knowledge-based economy; knowledge clusters; knowledge corridors; Malaysia; Vietnam |
| JEL: | J38 R58 O1 G38 D83 D8 D78 E61 O3 A14 |
| Date: | 2011–09–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33978&r=hme |
| By: | Franco Donzelli (University of Milano) |
| Abstract: | After many explorations in different directions during the early 1930s, in 1934 Hicks ends up by advocating an interpretation of Walrasian equilibrium and capital theory along stationary lines, but the suggested interpretation is at variance with the view endorsed by the last Walras and by Pareto at the turn of the century. In the second half of the 1930s, during the long gestation of Value and Capital (VC), Hicks’s ideas on equilibrium and capital progressively change and mature, to eventually culminate, with the publication of VC in 1939, in the rediscovery of a method of analysis and an equilibrium concept, Hicks’s temporary equilibrium, that are substantially similar to the method of analysis and equilibrium concept put forward by the last Walras and by Pareto about forty years before. Yet this direct link with the Walrasian tradition is not overtly recognised by Hicks in VC: in particular, the essentially Walrasian character of the equilibration process supporting Hicks’s temporary equilibrium concept is carefully disguised under Marshallian garments. This fact will not only delay Hicks’s own recognition of the limits of the VC approach, which will start to be questioned by him only in the mid-1950s, but will also concur to spreading unsubstantiated ideas about the origins and theoretical foundations of the neo-Walrasian research programme. The aim of this paper is to clarify the theoretical reasons behind the winding path followed by Hicks over the 1930s, especially as far as the Walrasian conception of equilibrium and equilibration is concerned, and to identify the roots of Hicks’s ambiguity about the theoretical ancestry of the VC model in his previous intellectual history. |
| Keywords: | Hicks, Walras, Marshall, equilibrium, equilibration, temporary equilibrium, |
| Date: | 2010–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bep:unimip:unimi-1107&r=hme |
| By: | Luis Carvalho (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); Aurora A.C. Teixeira (CEF.UP, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto; INESC Porto; OBEGEF) |
| Abstract: | Despite the fact that a very significant proportion of the human population is living with financial difficulties and other constraints typical of poverty, scientific studies in the areas of Economics and especially in International Economics that address the issue of poverty and of poor countries are very few. Using bibliometric techniques, we measured the attention paid by authors from the field of International Economics to poverty and poor countries. To this end, we sorted and analyzed all articles published in the most important journal in the field, the Journal of International Economics (JIE) over the last forty years. Evidence shows that the authors who have published articles in the JIE have mostly developed studies focused on ‘Meso (industry, region) and microeconomic policies and issues of ‘International Trade’ and ‘International Finances’, and are usually of the ‘Formal’ and ‘Formal and Empirical’ types, where the topic ‘Poverty’ is very marginal (only 13 articles published in the JIE, less than 1% of the total, address this matter in any of its dimensions). Furthermore, in the more empirical articles, no country among those included in the group ‘Less Developed Countries’ deserved particular attention. The neglect of poverty and of the poor contrasts (and is related to) with the significant weight of articles that make use of formalization (more than 80%). Despite the trend for a decrease in exclusively ‘Formal’ articles, without any applied/empirical component, the (still) excessive focus on ‘mathematical’ accuracy (i.e., formalization), and the concomitant limited capacity to deal with the (social) problems of the real world, is an effective challenge to authors in the field of international economics and, in particular, to those who publish in the JIE, which must be overcome if we do not want international economics to become a “cyborg” science. |
| Keywords: | International Economics; Poor Countries; Poverty; Bibliometrics |
| JEL: | I39 F00 C89 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:425&r=hme |
| By: | Meier, Toni; Christen, Olaf |
| Abstract: | Der Artikel stellt Ergebnisse einer attributiv-modularen Ãkobilanzierung des Nahrungsmittelverbrauchs in Deutschland auf Basis konsistenter Umwelt- und Ernährungsdaten vor. Vor dem Hintergrund einer zunehmenden Umweltrelevanz des Agrar- und Ernährungssektors wird mit den Ergebnissen einerseits ein Beitrag zur Quantifizierung der entsprechenden Umweltwirkungen geleistet, andererseits wird der gesellschaftlich heterogene Nahrungsmittelkonsum zum Gegenstand der ökobilanziellen Betrachtung gemacht. Referenzjahr der Untersuchung ist das Jahr 2006. Als Datengrundlage dienen neben repräsentativen Verbrauchs- und Verzehrsstatistiken Umweltdaten der Agrar- und Ernährungswirtschaft, die einen top-down-Ansatz im Rahmen der Untersuchung ermöglichen. Mittels der Methode einer attributiv-modularen Ãkobilanz (bzw. Lebenszyklusanalyse) nach ISO-Norm 14040/14044 wurden folgende Nahrungsmittel nach den soziodemographischen Parametern Geschlecht und Alter untersucht: Fleisch-, Milch-, Ei- sowie Fischprodukte. Analysiert wurden folgende Umweltindikatoren: Treibhausgas- und Ammoniakemissionen, Flächenbedarf. Die betrachtete Prozesskette erschlieÃt sich von der landwirtschaftlichen Produktion bis zum Verkauf der Produkte an den Endverbraucher (from cradle to store). Die Ergebnisse zeigen hinsichtlich der untersuchten Umweltwirkungskategorien eine starke Variation bezüglich des Geschlechts. Der altersgruppen- und geschlechtsspezifische Vergleich mit den offiziellen Empfehlungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Ernährung (DGE) zeigt groÃe Einsparpotentiale. Werden die qualitativ und quantitativ verschiedenen Verbrauchsmuster tierischer Produkte der Männer und Frauen rein quantitativ aneinander angepasst (nivelliert), so zieht das Verbrauchsprofil der Männer weiterhin höhere CO2e- (+14%) und Ammoniakemission (+12%) nach sich. Der Flächenbedarf ist um 13% erhöht. Dieser überproportionale Ãberschuss in den untersuchten Umwelteffekten der Ernährung der Männer ist maÃgeblich auf einen höheren Anteil umweltintensiverer Nahrungsmittel wie Fleisch- und Wurstprodukte sowie von Butter im Verbrauchsmuster zurückzuführen. Durch eine qualitative Anpassung des männlichen Verbrauchsprofils tierischer Produkte an das typische Verbrauchsprofil der Frauen lieÃen sich demnach bundesweit 7,5 Mt CO2e- und 26,8 kt Ammoniakemission jährlich einsparen. 7.672 km² landwirtschaftliche genutzte Fläche würde freigesetzt und stünde für andere Verwendungen zur Verfügung. Im Vergleich zu den offiziellen Ernährungsempfehlungen der DGE wären die zu erreichenden Einsparpotentiale noch gröÃer: unter MaÃgabe einer ausgewogenen Versorgung der Bevölkerung mit essentiellen Nährstoffen könnten durch die bundesweite Anpassung an die DGEEmpfehlungen Einsparungen in Höhe von 24,8 Mt CO2e- und 99,0 kt Ammoniakemissionen erzielt werden. An landwirtschaftlicher Fläche würden 26.776 km² freigesetzt, die für andere Zwecke zur Verfügung stünden. The article presents the results of an attributional LCA (life cycle assessment) of the consumption of animal-based foods in Germany based on consistent agro-environmental and nutritional data. Due to the increasing environmental relevance of the agri-food sector the project was launched (i) to quantify related impacts ´from cradle to store´ and (ii) to include the socio-demographic factors gender and age in the light of official nutrition recommendations in the assessment. Reference year of the study is the year 2006. The representative data sets in the study used (LEIP et al. 2010, vTI 2011, MRI 2008, Institute of applied Ecology 2010) allowed a top-down-approach within the analysis. The attributional LCA was conducted in line with the ISO standard 14040/14044. The following food groups have been analysed and their impacts have been compared among each other: meat-, milk-, egg- and fish-products. The analysed impact indicators were: greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) & ammonia emissions, land usage. The results show strong variation between the genders and significant saving potentials due to official nutrition recommendations. Even if the physiologically different consumption patterns of animal-based foods among men and women are leveled, men show are higher impact for all analysed impact indicators (GHG +14%, ammonia +12%, land usage +13%). This net CO2e, ammonia and land surplus is mainly derived by a higher share of meat products, meat and butter in the usual diet of men. If men would shift qualitatively to the usual diet of women with a lesser share of environmental intensive animal products 7,5 Mt CO2e, 26,8 kt ammonia emissions could be saved yearly and 7.672 km² agricultural land could be set free. Due to the official nutrition recommendations the savings are even higher: in accordance with a balanced supply of essential nutrients 24,8 Mt CO2e and 99,0 kt ammonia emissions could be saved yearly. 26.776 km² of agricultural land would be usable in another manner. |
| Keywords: | Input-Output-Analyse, attributional LCA, CAPRI, Nationale Verzehrsstudie II, dLUC/LU, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gewi11:114503&r=hme |
| By: | Kaditi, Eleni A. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether ownership and increased competitive pressure affect food retailersâ market power, analysing whether all actors involved in the food supply chain deviate from the pricing behaviour that exists under perfect competition. A method proposed by Roeger (1995) is used to estimate price-cost margins, relaxing the assumptions of perfect competition and constant returns to scale. The obtained results show that foreign investments and consolidation have a positive and significant impact on the market power of food processors and retailers. Food processors, agricultural producers and wholesalers have lower price-cost margins than retailers, which suggests that these actors price closer to marginal costs being more concerned with maximising social welfare or that the former have higher costs than retailers. The results are robust to various estimation techniques and specifications. |
| Keywords: | Price-cost mark-ups, multinational firms, retailing, Agribusiness, F23, L13, L81, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaae11:114452&r=hme |
| By: | Hazan, Moshe; Zoabi, Hosny |
| Abstract: | Conventional wisdom suggests that in developed countries income and fertility are negatively correlated. We present new evidence that between 2001 and 2009 the cross-sectional relationship between fertility and women's education in the U.S. is U-shaped. At the same time, average hours worked increase monotonically with women's education. This pattern is true for all women and mothers to newborns regardless of marital status. In this paper, we advance the marketization hypothesis for explaining the positive correlation between fertility and female labor supply along the educational gradient. In our model, raising children and home-making require parents' time, which could be substituted by services bought in the market such as baby-sitting and housekeeping. Highly educated women substitute a significant part of their own time for market services to raise children and run their households, which enables them to have more children and work longer hours. Finally, we use our model to shed light on differences between the U.S. and Western Europe in fertility and women's time allocated to labor supply and home production. We argue that higher inequality in the U.S. lowers the cost of baby-sitting and housekeeping services and enables U.S. women to have more children, spend less time on home production and work more than their European counterparts. |
| Keywords: | fertility; U.S. - Europe differences; Women's education |
| JEL: | E24 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8590&r=hme |
| By: | Klapper, Leora; Richmond, Christine |
| Abstract: | The authors study firm dynamics using a novel database of all formally registered firms in Cote d'Ivoire from 1977 to 1997, which account for about 60 percent of gross domestic product. First, they examine entry and exit patterns and the role of new and exiting firms versus incumbents in job creation and destruction. They find that while the rate of job creation at new firms is quiet high -- at 8 percent on average -- the number of jobs added by new firms is small in absolute terms. Next, they examine survival rates and find that the probability of survival increases monotonically with firm size, but manufacturing and foreign-owned firms face higher likelihoods of exit compared with service oriented and domestically owned firms. They find that higher growth of gross domestic product increases the probability of firm survival, but this is a broad impact with no firm size disproportionately affected. In robustness checks, they find that after 1987 size is no longer a significant determinant of firm survival for new entrants, suggesting that the operating environment for firms changed. Finally, they find that trade and fiscal reform episodes raised the probability of firm exit and attenuated the survival disadvantages faced by smaller firms, but exchange rate revaluation and pro-private sector reforms did not significantly lower the likelihood of exit. |
| Keywords: | Microfinance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Markets,Small Scale Enterprise,Economic Theory&Research |
| Date: | 2011–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5828&r=hme |
| By: | Bosbach, Moritz; Maietta, Ornella Wanda |
| Abstract: | Consumers in developed countries are increasingly interested in the consumption of food products incorporating ethical aspects, particularly fair trade products. These products are usually distributed in a network of World Shops and, more recently, in supermarkets and shopping centres. The fair trade product with the highest market share is coffee. This study aims to ascertain the implicit price paid by Italian consumers for the fair trade content of coffee and how this implicit price is influenced by the level of social capital of the territory where consumers live. The data utilised are scanner data, based on the purchase at supermarkets and shopping centres observed from 2005 to 2007, referred to a territorial unit that is the province. Since scanner data are used, the analysis can allow for the coffee attributes described by the labels: branded, organic, decaffeinated, fair trade, espresso, and so on. The approach followed is the application of an hedonic regression where the dependant variable is the coffee price while the regressors are coffee characteristics (fair trade content and coffee other attributes) and several indicators of provincial social capital, alternatively included. |
| Keywords: | hedonic price, coffee, fair trade, scaner data, Italian consumers, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, C50, D12, L66, Z13, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaae11:114371&r=hme |
| By: | Kayser, Maike; Bohm, Justus; Spiller, Achim |
| Abstract: | Die deutsche Land- und Ernährungswirtschaft ist zunehmend im Fokus der öffentlichen Diskussion. Dabei bewegt sie sich in einem Spannungsfeld von marktlichen Anforderungen und gesellschaftlichen Erwartungen. Um Rückschlüsse auf das generelle Meinungsklima zu gewinnen, wird in dieser Arbeit die Verbraucherwahrnehmung der deutschen Land- und Ernährungswirtschaft untersucht. Der Schwerpunkt der Untersuchung liegt auf der Frage, ob die Gesellschaft die moderne, auf Produktivität ausgerichtete Branche negativ bewertet und Trends hin zu einer ânatürlichenâ Lebensmittelherstellung als positiv beurteilt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass ein GroÃteil der Verbraucher der auf Effizienz ausgerichteten Lebensmittelproduktion nicht so kritisch gegenübersteht, wie es die Medienberichterstattung nahelegt. The German agri-food-industry is increasingly in the public discourse. Thereby, the industry is challenged to orient on social ethics whilst remaining within the limits of market needs. In order to analyse the general climate of opinion, the present paper examines the consumerâs perception of the German agri-food-industry. The main focus of the analysis is on the question, whether society is judging the modern productivity-driven industry negatively and trends towards more natural food production as a positive development. The results show that the majority of consumers arenât as critical towards an efficiency based food production as the media suggests. |
| Keywords: | Land- und Ernährungswirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Clusteranalyse, Deutschland, Agri-Food-Industry, Society, Framing, Cluster Analysis, Germany, Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gewi11:114491&r=hme |
| By: | Michael Hamp; Carolina Laureti |
| Abstract: | Product innovation in microfinance is aimed at responding to the variety of poor clients’ needs, i.e. to develop and sustain the offer of a range of client-led products. The paper describes innovative market-oriented products that combine flexibility features with financial discipline. Those are microsavings, microcredit and microinsurance products and come from microfinance institutions worldwide. This review shows that service providers are introducing various types of flexibility into financial contracts; and that flexibility combined with appropriate enforcement mechanisms may enhance clients’ discipline. We notice, however, that flexibility may require information-intensive lending technologies, raising the MFIs’ costs of screening and monitoring clients, and have a limited outreach. |
| Keywords: | product flexibility; discipline; commitments; microfinance |
| JEL: | D30 D82 G21 O12 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/98728&r=hme |
| By: | Pennerstorfer, Dieter; Weiss, Christoph R. |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of decentralised decision making on product quality. Comparing a cooperative (decentralized decision making) and a firm (centralized decision making) suggests that members of the cooperative have an incentive to produce too much and to free-ride on quality. Free-riding on quantity and quality are interrelated which implies that the final product of the cooperative can even be of higher quality than its entrepreneurial twin, despite free-riding on quality. Whether or not cooperatives deliver higher quality products depends on the way in which the quality of the final product is determined from the quality levels of the inputs delivered (quality aggregation) as well as the number of members of the cooperative. Empirical evidence on the Austrian wine market suggests that wines produced by cooperatives tend to be of significantly lower quality, ceteris paribus. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, |
| Date: | 2011–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaae11:115741&r=hme |
| By: | Klinedinst, Mark |
| Abstract: | The global financial meltdown brought to light a number of weaknesses in the U.S. financial system. Not all financial institution types will be taking large sums of taxpayer money to address their crippling decisions. Credit unions in the U.S. represent a type of financial cooperative that will probably not take any taxpayer money directly due to their structure and prudential oversight. Commercial banks, especially the megabanks, are likely to see even more bailouts in the future unless structural weaknesses are addressed in the clarifications as part of the enforcement of the Dodd-Frank Act. Using a unique panel data set on U.S. commercial banks, thrifts and credit unions from 1994 through 2010 (over 300,000 observations) performance metrics on a number of dimensions point to strengths and weaknesses of the various financial institutional forms. Credit unions also have had far fewer adjustable rate mortgages and mortgage backed securities as a percent of their portfolio. Robust estimators to correct for potential endogeneity are used to analyze the ROA differentials between different institutional forms and portfolios. When controlling for size, region and portfolios credit unions are estimated to have a better ROA. Institutions of under a billion dollars, 96 percent of the sample, show credit unions having higher efficiency in that they control 30 percent more assets per dollar spent on salaries than commercial banks. |
| Keywords: | credit unions; banks; cooperative; defaults; net charge-offs; return on assets |
| JEL: | G14 P0 P13 L21 G21 |
| Date: | 2011–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33962&r=hme |
| By: | David Kucera (International Labour Office, Policy Integration Department); Leanne Roncolato (American University); Erik von Uexkull (International Labour Office, Employment Sector) |
| Abstract: | The paper estimates the effects of the 2008-09 trade contraction on employment and incomes in India and South Africa, using social accounting matrices (SAMs) in a Leontief multiplier model. Employment results are presented at aggregate and industry levels and examine gender and skills biases. Income results examine inequality at the level of rural and urban household income quintiles. The most notable finding is that India and South Africa experienced substantial employment and income declines as a result of trade contraction with the EU and the US. A large share of these declines occurred in the non-tradeable sector and resulted from income-induced effects, illustrating how a shock originated in the tradeable goods sector had strong ripple effects throughout India and South Africa. |
| Keywords: | trade / employment / household income / income distribution / economic recession / India / South Africa |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:emwpap:2010-54&r=hme |
| By: | Orley C. Ashenfelter; Daniel S. Hosken; Matthew C. Weinberg |
| Abstract: | Many experts speculate that U.S. antitrust policy towards horizontal mergers has been too lenient. We estimate the price effects of Whirlpool’s acquisition of Maytag to provide new evidence on this debate. We compare price changes in appliance markets most affected by the merger to markets where concentration changed much less or not at all. We estimate price increases for dishwashers and relatively large price increases for clothes dryers, but no price effects for refrigerators or clothes washers. The combined firm’s market share fell across all four affected categories and the number of distinct appliance products fell. |
| JEL: | K2 K21 L11 L4 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17476&r=hme |
| By: | Christoph Ernst (International Labour Office, Employment Policy Department); Jorge Alarcon; P.D. Sharma |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the problems associated with measuring economy wide employment in developing countries. In doing so, it sets up the outline of a framework in which employment and its dimensions in developing countries ought to be conceived. The paper then goes on to propose a measure of employment that gives relatively acceptable returns to the worker. Based on this measure, the work explores how the incidence of good employment has been associated with economic growth and income inequality in the developing world. |
| Keywords: | employment / labour intensity / income distribution / measurement / developing countries |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:emwpap:2011-88&r=hme |
| By: | Tony Castleman (Institute for International Economic Policy, George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses data from a randomized controlled trial to study the impacts of food supplementation and medical treatment on the receipt of human recognition by malnourished, HIV-infected adults in Kenya. Questions specially designed to measure human recognition were included in the trial, demonstrating how data on human recognition can be collected and analyzed as part of research or programs. The data are used to examine the impacts of interventions on human recognition, the determinants of human recognition receipt, and the role that human recognition plays in nutritional status and subjective well-being. Food supplementation has a significant, independent, positive impact on recognition received at completion of 6 months of food supplementation, but this effect does not persist 6 months after completion of the supplementation. The location of the study sites appears to play a significant role in the changes in human recognition, with smaller improvements among subjects at clinics in urban slums of Nairobi than among subjects in district and provincial hospitals outside of Nairobi, controlling for demographic, socio-economic, and health characteristics. Women receive lower levels of human recognition than men and also have worse mental health; further study is needed to better understand the relationship among gender, mental health, and human recognition. There is some evidence of an association between nutritional status and human recognition, but findings about the role human recognition plays in nutritional status and subjective well-being are mixed and further study is needed in this area, possibly over a longer timeframe than 12 months. |
| Keywords: | human recognition, respect, dehumanization, HIV, AIDS, malnutrition, nutrition, food supplementation, well being, randomized trial, stigma, Kenya |
| JEL: | I12 I31 O15 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2011-11&r=hme |
| By: | P. Battilani; V. Zamagni |
| Abstract: | The Italian co-operative enterprises have prospered in the last thirty years in various sectors. In this essay we analyze the role played by managerilization in allowing Italian co-ops to compete nationally and internationally with capitalist enterprises. On the basis of a substantial set of company histories and managers interviews, we have built a three generations model of co-ops managers, which shows the changes that have allowed co-ops to become fully equipped with managerial skills. The strong leadership of umbrella organizations, the inner careers of most managers and legislation have been instrumental in avoiding demutualization, the killer of co-ops in many other countries. |
| JEL: | N80 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp789&r=hme |
| By: | alberto, botta |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we propose a simple post-Keynesian model on the linkages between the financial and real side of an economy. We show how, according to the Minskyan instability hypothesis, financial variables, credit availability and asset prices in particular, may feedback each other and affect economic activity, possibly giving rise to intrinsically unstable economic processes. Through these destabilizing mechanisms, we also explain why governments intervention in the aftermath of the 2007 financial meltdown has been largely useless to restore financial tranquility and economic growth, but transformed a private debt crisis into a sovereign debt one. The paper ends up by looking at the long-run and to the interaction between long-term growth potential and public debt sustainability. We explicitly consider the Euro-zone economic context and the difficulties several EU members currently face to simultaneously support economic recovery and consolidate fiscal imbalances. We stress that: (i) financial turbulences may trigger permanent reductions in long-term growth potential and unsustainable public debt dynamics; (ii) strong institutional discontinuity such as Eurobond issuances may prove to be the only way to restore growth and ensure long-run public debt sustainability. |
| Keywords: | post-Keynesian models; financial instability; debt sustainability; Eurobonds |
| JEL: | E12 E44 H63 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33860&r=hme |
| By: | Faggini, Marisa; Parziale, Anna |
| Abstract: | Economic models of Fiscal Federalism, according to different settings, are generally linear and static, offering unique and deterministic solutions starting with simplifying assumptions. This paper rises from the idea to investigate how the decision-makers, abandoning their traditional economic models and focusing, instead, the attention on innovative components of evolutionary economics, can achieve better performance results, to organize and to optimize an economic system based on Fiscal Federalism. For this purpose, Fiscal Federalism must be understood as a dense network of economic relationships between different complex adaptive and co-evolving systems, the jurisdictions, linked by strong interdependencies. A better understanding of the links between interdependence will be provided by the Kauffman’ NK-model. The relevance of the NK-model in the study of economic organizations has been detected several times in the literature. These studies, however, neglect the problem of co-evolution, which instead underpins this paper. |
| Keywords: | Evolutionary Economics; Fiscal Federalism; NK-model |
| JEL: | H77 B52 H11 |
| Date: | 2011–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33770&r=hme |
| By: | Mario Cimoli (CEPAL e Universidad de Venecia); Gabriel Porcile (CEPAL e Universidade Federal do Paraná) |
| Abstract: | The Latin American Structuralism (LAS) is a significant part of the heterodox tradition in the theory of long run growth, with a focus on the problems of developing economies which started their industrialization process when other regions had already accumulated substantial technological capabilities. The emergence of a centre-periphery system posed specific problems to growth and distribution in laggard economies which LAS discusses in a systematic way. In this paper we presented a simple model which, firstly, captures key insights of the LAS school, such as the persistency of technological asymmetries and structural heterogeneity; secondly, it can be used to analyze the impacts of shocks and policies based on how they affect supply-side and demand side parameters of the model; thirdly, it links more closely (Post-) Keynesian macroeconomics based on the BOP constraint with the evolutionary microeconomics concerned with the dynamics of learning; lastly, it can be used as a toolbox and a teachable model in the analysis of the interactions between structural change, technological catching up and long run growth. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fup:wpaper:0120&r=hme |
| By: | Magali Jaoul-Grammare (CNRS, BETA-Cereq, Université de Strasbourg) |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afc:wpaper:11-06&r=hme |
| By: | Imani Younoussa (GED, Université Montesquieu Bordeaux IV) |
| Abstract: | Il est admis que les envois de fonds jouent un rôle important dans les revenus des ménages des pays en développement. Des discussions existent sur les motifs qui expliquent les envois de fonds. Ils sont généralement de deux sortes : de l’altruisme et de l’intérêt personnel. Les études récentes rajoutent un troisième motif pour les envois de fonds. C’est la combinaison entre l’altruisme pur et l’intérêt personnel : « l’altruisme tempéré ». Sur le plan microéconomique, deux modèles ont servi pour tester l’altruisme et l’intérêt personnel : (i) un modèle de sélection, qu’on peut aussi appeler modèle de décision d’envoi de fonds, qui est estimé sur l’ensemble des ménages (ii) le deuxième modèle estime le montant des envois de fonds sur les seuls ménages bénéficiaires des envois de fonds. Ce modèle introduit les revenus des ménages comme variable d’intérêt. Sur le plan macro économique, l’altruisme pur sera mesuré par l’évolution du montant des envois de fonds en fonction de l’évolution du niveau de difficultés rencontré dans le pays. On va ainsi estimer un modèle qui met en relation les « envois de fonds » avec une variable qui reflète l’évolution des «difficultés économiques» dans le pays. Ici, assimilé au revenu agricole. Utilisant les deux approches, micro économiques et macro économiques, nous avons abouti à la même conclusion : d’autres motifs que l’altruisme pur expliquent les envois de fonds à destination des Comores. It is allowed that the remittances play an important part in the households income, in the developing countries. Discussions exist on the motivation which explain the remittances. They are generally of two kinds: altruism and self interest. The recent studies add a third motivation for remittances. It is the combination between the pure altruism and the self interest : the "moderate altruism". On the microeconomic level, two models were used to test the altruism and self interest: (i) a model of selection, called also model of remittances decision, which is estimated on the whole of the households (ii) the second model estimate the amount of remittances, on the only remittances benefits. This model introduce the households income as interest variable. On the macroeconomic level, the pure altruism will be measured by the evolution of the amount of the remittances according to the evolution of "hardship". One thus, a remittances model will estimate with an explanatory variable which proxy the evolution of the “hardship” in the country. Here, reflected by the agricultural income. Using the two methods : microeconomic and macroeconomic, we found the same conclusion: other motivations than only the pure altruism explain the remittances to the Comoros. (Full text in french) |
| JEL: | I31 I32 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mon:ceddtr:168&r=hme |
| By: | R. Bottazzi; T. Crossley; M. Wakefield |
| Abstract: | England has very volatile house prices. We use pseudo-panel data spanning multiple house-price cycles over nearly forty years, to assess the extent to which house prices affect access to homeownership by age thirty, and whether differences in ownership rates persist. We find that ownership rates at age thirty have varied substantially, with this variation significantly related to prices. Measurement error problems – attenuation bias and other biases - complicate an analysis of the persistence of these differences in ownership. We use two methods - including one that develops the ideas of Deaton (1985) - to deal with this and find robust evidence that cohorts with low ownership rates at thirty close about 80% of the ownership gap by age forty. |
| JEL: | R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp790&r=hme |