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on Heterodox Microeconomics |
| By: | Niklas Potrafke (Munich Graduate School of Economics, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Germany); Heinrich Ursprung (Department of Economics, University of Konstanz, Germany) |
| Abstract: | We empirically assess the influence of globalization on social institutions that govern female subjugation and gender equality in developing countries. Observing the progress of globalization for almost one hundred developing countries at ten year intervals starting in 1970, we find that economic and social globalization exert a decidedly positive influence on the social institutions that reduce female subjugation and promote gender equality. |
| Keywords: | Globalization, Gender equality, Social institutions, Female subjugationse of development |
| JEL: | O11 O57 |
| Date: | 2012–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:knz:dpteco:1207&r=hme |
| By: | Matsuoka, Takayasu |
| Abstract: | Using Japanese scanner data of transaction prices and sales for more than 1,600 commodity groups from 1988 to 2008, we find a statistically significant negative correlation between the frequency of price changes and the degree of market concentration. We also find that structural factors of a distribution channel are significantly correlated with rigidity in retail prices. Decomposing the frequency of price changes into the frequency of intraday, sale, and regular price changes, we find that both inter- and intra-brand competition positively affect the frequency of sales. Inter-brand competition among manufacturers has a significant and positive effect on the frequency of regular price changes, whereas intra-brand competition among retailers has no such significant effect. We also document that the term of contracts between manufacturers and retailers has a significant and positive effect on price stickiness. |
| Keywords: | Market structure, Distribution channels, Sticky prices |
| JEL: | L11 E31 C41 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:rcpdwp:4&r=hme |
| By: | Herr, Annika; Suppliet, Moritz |
| Abstract: | Many countries with national health care providers and health insurances regulate the market for pharmaceuticals to steer drug demand and to control expenses. For example, they introduce reference pricing or tiered co-payments to enhance drug substitution and competition. Since 2006, Germany follows an innovative approach by differentiating drug co-payments by the drug's price relative to its reference price. In this two-tier system, prescription drugs are completely exempted from co-payments if their prices undercut a certain price level relative to the reference price. We identify the effect of the policy on the prices of all affected prescription drugs and differentiate the analysis by firm types (innovative, generic, branded generic or importing firms). To identify a causal effect, we use a differences-in-differences approach and additionally exploit the fact that the exemption policy had been introduced successively in the different clusters. We use quarterly data from 2007 to 2010 and find empirical evidence for differentiated price setting strategies by firm types, ranging from price decreases of -13.1% (branded generics firms) to increases of +2.0% (innovators) following the introduction of potential reductions in co-payments. We refer to the latter result as the co-payment exemption paradox. Our competition proxy (no. of firms) suggests a significant but small negative correlation with prices. -- |
| Keywords: | pharmaceuticals,prices,co-payments,reference pricing,regulation,firm behavior |
| JEL: | D22 D40 I18 I11 L11 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:48&r=hme |
| By: | Sara Santos Cruz (CEF.UP, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); Aurora A.C. Teixeira (CEF.UP, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto; INESC Tec; OBEGEF) |
| Abstract: | Creative industries and creative occupations have increasingly been attracting attention in recent years, in both policy and academic fields. Not enough literature has yet been produced on the topic to overcome the fuzziness and all-embracing definitions of the creative class, the lack of objectivity in the criteria to select who is creative or not, the limitations of data used and problems of highly aggregated occupational categories which jeopardize an accurate analysis of these workers. This paper presents a survey and mapping of the main methods for measuring the creative class and industries and proposes a combined industry and occupation-based approach for estimating the scale of creative employment in Portugal. Using micro data from 2009 Quadros de Pessoal database, which encompasses over 3 million workers, we found that creative employment in Portugal amounts to 6.9% of total employment (i.e., 215525 workers), with the most important creative sectors being ‘advertising and marketing’ (1.7%), ‘software publishing/computer programming and consultancy’ (1.8%), and ‘research and development’ (0.9%). Additionally, we found that most creative employees (60%) work in non-core creative sectors, that is, Portuguese creative workers are highly dispersed across all the sectors of the economy, particularly those considered non-creative, such as the manufacturing and the services sectors. |
| Keywords: | Creative class; Occupations; Industries; Measurement; Portugal |
| JEL: | L80 C81 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:455&r=hme |
| By: | Jordi Jofre-Monseny (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB); Raquel Marín-López (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB); Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to analyze why firms in some industries locate in specialized economic environments (localization economies) while those in other industries prefer large city locations (urbanization economies). To this end, we examine the location decisions of new manufacturing firms in Spain at the city level and for narrowly defined industries (three-digit level). First, we estimate firm location models to obtain estimates that reflect the importance of localization and urbanization economies in each industry. In a second step, we regress these estimates on industry characteristics that are related to the potential importance of three agglomeration theories, namely, labor market pooling, input sharing and knowledge spillovers. Localization effects are low and urbanization effects are high in knowledge-intensive industries, suggesting that firms (partly) locate in large cities to reap the benefits of inter-industry knowledge spillovers. We also find that localization effects are high in industries that employ workers whose skills are more industry-specific, suggesting that industries (partly) locate in specialized economic environments to share a common pool of specialized workers. |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration economies, manufacturing industries, localization economies, urbanization economies, specialization |
| JEL: | L25 L60 R12 R30 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2012/4/doc2012-9&r=hme |
| By: | Thomas Mayer (Department of Economics, University of California Davis) |
| Abstract: | D. N. McCloskey and Stephen Ziliak have criticized economists and others for confounding statistical and substantive significance, and for committing the logical error of the transposed conditional. In doing so they sometimes misinterpret the function of significance tests. Nonetheless, economists sometimes make both of these errors – but not nearly as often as Ziliak and McCloskey claim. They also argue –incorrectly – that the existence of an effect, which is what significance tests are about, is not a scientific question. Their complaint that in testing significance economists often do not take the loss function into account is unfounded. But they are right in arguing that confidence intervals should be presented more frequently. |
| Keywords: | Significance tests, ts, confidence intervals, Zilliak, McCloskey, oomph |
| JEL: | C12 B4 |
| Date: | 2012–04–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cda:wpaper:12-6&r=hme |
| By: | Orley C. Ashenfelter |
| Abstract: | A real wage rate is a nominal wage rate divided by the price of a good and is a transparent measure of how much of the good an hour of work buys. It provides an important indicator of the living standards of workers, and also of the productivity of workers. In this paper I set out the conceptual basis for such measures, provide some historical examples, and then provide my own preliminary analysis of a decade long project designed to measure the wages of workers doing the same job in over 60 countries—workers at McDonald’s restaurants. The results demonstrate that the wage rates of workers using the same skills and doing the same jobs differ by as much as 10 to 1, and that these gaps declined over the period 2000-2007, but with much less progress since the Great Recession. |
| JEL: | J3 O40 O57 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18006&r=hme |
| By: | Numberger, Siegfried; Rennhak, Carsten |
| Abstract: | In order to forecast major paradigm shifts in any industry, one needs to understand the driving forces of change. This paper focuses on the retail industry and tries to identify decisive factors which shape this industry's future. Based on the findings of Numberger/Rennhak (2005) a set of variables is derived from roughly fifty semi-structured interviews with retailers and customers as well as academics and from literature. As Numberger (2004) proposed, interviewees were cross-functional and interdisciplinary. The survey included questions about the future medium of shopping, the influence on its development, and general trends and interests with regards to the future. Results were analysed such that variables are aggregated from the text without an a priori framework such as PEST and included if they correlate highly with the entire system and if specific events are highly likely. The challenge of the study is to aggregate the data to few meaningful variables in order to keep complexity low enough enabling a later check of consistency. -- |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esbwmm:200604&r=hme |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses a fundamental question on corporate governance, "What did corporate executives, outside directors and large shareholders really do ?" Although this question is essential, it has not been fully addressed in the literature, basically due to the constraint of relevant materials. This paper overcomes this problem by using a detailed diary written by Hachisaburo Hirao, who worked for many large companies, including Tokyo Marine and Fire Insurance Co. and Taisho Marine and Fire Insurance Co. in prewar Japan. In this diary he described in detail how corporate executives, outside directors and large shareholders thought and acted. Based on this diary and other related materials, it is revealed that in Tokyo Marine and Fire Insurance Co. and Taisho Marine and Fire Insurance Co., planning and implementation of managerial policies were basically entrusted to their corporate executives. This means that there existed agency relationships between shareholders and corporate executives. Meanwhile, the agency problem was resolved through a voice mechanism from outside directors representing large shareholders and large shareholders themselves to corporate executives. Outside directors and large shareholders indeed gave advice, pressure and ratification on managerial policies. These findings imply that these companies were governed by a typical Anglo-Saxon mode of corporate governance. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2011cj237&r=hme |
| By: | Bachmann, Ronald (RWI); Bauer, Thomas (RWI); Kroeger, Hanna (RWI) |
| Abstract: | This study analyses employers' support for the introduction of industry-specific minimum wages as a cost-raising strategy in order to deter market entry. Using a unique data set consisting of 800 firms in the German service sector, we find some evidence that high-productivity employers support minimum wages. We further show that minimum wage support is higher in industries and regions with low barriers to entry. This is particularly the case in East Germany, where the perceived threat of low-wage competition from Central and Eastern European Countries is relatively high. In addition, firms paying collectively agreed wages are more strongly in favour of minimum wages if union coverage is low and the mark-up of union wage rates is high. |
| Keywords: | minimum wage, product market competition, service sector |
| JEL: | J38 J50 L41 L80 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6484&r=hme |
| By: | Clarke, George R.G.; Cull, Robert; Kisunko, Gregory |
| Abstract: | Two data sets are used to study how country and firm characteristics affected firms'financial constraints and their likelihood of survival during the early phase of the recent global financial crisis in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, a region that was especially hard hit. The first data source provides information on the reported severity of financial constraints for 360 firms from 23 countries in 2002, 2005, and 2008. By following the same firms over time, the study summarizes both the gradual easing of financial constraints from 2002 to 2005 and their tightening during the crisis. Key findings are that financial constraints during the crisis were less severe in countries with well-established foreign banks (entered prior to year 2000), and that changes in the severity of financial constraints were more pronounced for large firms than others during the crisis (although large firms continued to have less severe constraints on average). The second data source provides information on whether firms remained in operation in 2009 in six countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Controlling for other relevant characteristics, firms were more likely to survive the crisis if they had access to external credit. |
| Keywords: | Banks&Banking Reform,Access to Finance,Debt Markets,Microfinance,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress |
| Date: | 2012–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6050&r=hme |