DOES THE VAT TAX EXPORTS?

While a VAT should in principle be neutral with respect to international trade, it may in practice function as a tax on exporters' input purchases if firms receive incomplete VAT refunds. Using data for over 100 countries that span the majority of historical VAT adoption episodes, this paper finds that—consistent with this hypothesis—the VAT reduces the exports of an industry with a 10 percentage point higher intermediate goods share of output by over 8% relative to an industry with a lower share. This effect is driven by developing countries and is absent for high-income countries. (JEL F13, F14, H25, H87, O11)     

RELIGIOSITY,PEERS, AND DELINQUENCY: DOES RELIGIOSITY REDUCE THE EFFECT OF PEERS ON DELINQUENCY?

Do peer influences have the same effect on religious and nonreligious youth, or does religiosity reduce the effect of peers on delinquency? Using data from the National Youth Survey, we examined the interaction of religiosity and peer influences on marijuana use, alcohol use, hitting, and property offenses. The results suggest that, for marijuana use and alcohol use, three measures of peer influence—peer attitudes, behaviors, and pressure—have weaker effects on religious adolescents. Thus, even when religious youth are exposed to peers who encourage substance use, religiosity may serve as a protective factor that reduces the effect of peers. In contrast, religiosity does not seem to condition the effect of peers on hitting and property offenses.     

RELIGIOSITY,MORAL BELIEFS,AND DELINQUENCY: DOES THE EFFECT OF RELIGIOSITY ON DELINQUENCY DEPEND ON MORAL BELIEFS?

Does the effect of religiosity on delinquent behavior depend on moral beliefs? For example, will religious adolescents refrain from using marijuana, even if they do not believe using marijuana is wrong? We addressed this question using data from the third and fourth waves of the National Youth Survey. The results indicated a significant interaction between religiosity and moral beliefs for marijuana use and getting drunk, but not for hitting or property offenses. Religiosity has a stronger effect on marijuana and alcohol use when adolescents also believe these behaviors are wrong. Conversely, when it is not accompanied by strong moral beliefs, religiosity has less of an effect on marijuana use and drinking.     

DOES THE LAUNCH OF THE EURO HINDER THE CURRENT ACCOUNT ADJUSTMENT OF THE EUROZONE?

This paper examines current account adjustments before and after the launch of the euro. Applying a dynamic panel model, we provide robust evidence to support that the adoption of the euro facilitates rather than hinders the adjustment of current accounts. This finding agrees with our results that the use of the euro assists real exchange rate and inflation rate adjustments. We also find that the independence of exchange rate regimes from current account, real exchange rate and inflation rate adjustments is observed when standard panel estimation methods are applied and when time‐varying smooth shifts in mean are not controlled. (JEL C33, F32, F41)     

DOES SOCIAL CAPITAL PROMOTE SAFETY ON THE ROADS?

I present evidence that social capital reduces traffic accidents and related death and injury, using data from a 10‐year panel of 48 U.S. states. The econometric challenge is to distinguish the causal effects of social capital from bias resulting from its correlation with unobservable characteristics by state that influence road risks. I accomplish this by employing snow depth as an instrument, and by restricting attention to summertime accidents. My results show that social capital has a statistically significant and sizable negative effect on crashes, traffic fatalities, serious traffic injuries, and pedestrian fatalities that holds up across a range of specifications. (JEL R41, I18, Z13)     

BOON OR BURDEN? THE EFFECT OF PRIVATE SECTOR DEBT ON THE RISK OF SOVEREIGN DEFAULT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

We explore how the share of the private sector in total external debt affects perceived creditworthiness and the likelihood of sovereign default in developing countries. While there are theoretical arguments both in favor and against a stabilizing role of private‐sector borrowing, the evidence supports the notion that a greater share of the private sector in total external debt is associated with a reduced likelihood of sovereign default. (JEL F34, O16)     

DOES THE GREAT RECESSION IMPLY THE END OF THE GREAT MODERATION? INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE

In this paper we examine whether or not the Great Recession had a temporary or permanent effect on output growth volatility after years of low macroeconomic volatility since the early eighties. Based on break detection methods applied to a set of advanced countries, our empirical results do not give evidence to the end of the Great Moderation period but rather that the Great Recession is characterized by a dramatic short‐lived effect on the output growth but not on its volatility. We show that neglecting the breaks both in mean and in variance can have large effects on output volatility modeling based on GARCH specifications. (JEL E32, C22, O40)     

DOES WHOM YOU KNOW MATTER? UNRAVELING THE INFLUENCE OF PEERS' NETWORK ATTRIBUTES ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

This paper examines how students' network size, distance, prestige, and connections to influential individuals impact academic performance. Larger and closer networks facilitate information exchange, but may also increase distractions that decrease productivity. We resolve this ambiguity using administrative data from a business school that features random assignment of students to multiple overlapping sets of peers, allowing us to calculate degree, closeness, eigenvector, and Katz‐Bonacich centrality for each node. We find that increasing closeness centrality within the network negatively affects student performance measured by grade point average, suggesting that synergy reduction and information processing costs outweigh benefits from greater information access. (JEL I23, L14, L23)     

DOES TELEVISION ENTRY DECREASE THE NUMBER OF MOVIE THEATERS?

This paper empirically examines the impact of competition in the television (TV) industry on the number of movie theaters, their attendance, and their box office revenues. Studies of firm entry usually focus on the impact of regulation on economic outcomes within an industry, thereby neglecting its impact on neighboring industries. Using changes in regulation in the Spanish local TV station industry, we estimate the impact of TV entry on the movie theater industry between 1993 and 2005. Our findings show that local TV entry decreased the number of theaters and screens in a province, as well as movie attendance and box office revenues. (JEL L11, L43, L82)     

“WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WAY I TALK?” THE EFFECT OF SOUND MOTION PICTURES ON ACTOR CAREERS

The development of sound motion pictures in the late 1920s provides one of history's most evocative examples of the effect of technological innovation on employment. I begin by exploring the transition to sound, which lasted several years. I then analyze transition's effect on actor employment, and find it to be associated with a substantial increase in career terminations, not only among major stars (which film scholars emphasize), but also among more minor actors. Furthermore, I find that sound raised hazard rates generally. Finally, I calculate that the number of actors employed in movies increased substantially in the sound era.     

THE EFFECT OF THE DESIGNATED HITTER RULE ON HIT BATSMEN: PITCHER'S MORAL HAZARD OR THE TEAM'S COST-BENEFIT CALCULATION? A COMMENT

Goff, Shughart and Tollison [1997] attribute the American League's higher hit-batsman rate since 1973 to moral hazard: pitchers who no longer bat no longer face retaliation. We argue that retaliation is more efficiently directed at sluggers than at weak-hitting pitchers, and show that American League Designated Hitters (DHs) are plunked more frequently than are National League pitchers. We also offer a new estimating equation and update GST's sample. We show that the DH's effect on hit batsmen is no longer statistically significant. However, the point estimates are close to our prediction, which does not rely on moral hazard. ( JEL D81, J28)     

DO HIGHER TOBACCO TAXES REDUCE ADULT SMOKING? NEW EVIDENCE OF THE EFFECT OF RECENT CIGARETTE TAX INCREASES ON ADULT SMOKING

There is a general consensus among policymakers that raising tobacco taxes reduces cigarette consumption. However, evidence that tobacco taxes reduce adult smoking is relatively sparse. In this paper, we extend the literature in two ways: using data from the Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements we focus on recent, large tax changes, which provide the best opportunity to empirically observe a response in cigarette consumption, and employ a novel paired difference‐in‐differences technique to estimate the association between tax increases and cigarette consumption. Estimates indicate that, for adults, the association between cigarette taxes and either smoking participation or smoking intensity is negative, small, and not usually statistically significant. Our evidence suggests that increases in cigarette taxes are associated with small decreases in cigarette consumption and that it will take sizable tax increases, on the order of 100%, to decrease smoking by as much as 5%. (JEL I18, I12)     

DOES THE NUMBER OF COUNTRIES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CYCLE MODELS MATTER?

Until the 1980s, standard models with two large open economies (i.e., the United States and Europe) provided plausible representations of the world economy. However, with the emergence of many developing countries since the 1990s, this approach no longer seems reasonable. In line with this change to the global economic environment, cross-country output correlations between the United States and other countries have risen. This paper extends the standard two-country model to many countries to show that doing so produces closer cross-country correlations to the data. In particular, based on analytical investigation with a simple model and quantitative analysis with a more general model, I show that the cross-country output correlation rises and the cross-country consumption correlation falls as the number of countries in the two models increases. (JEL F40, F41, F44)     

IS LOVE BLIND? THE EFFECTS OF EXPERIENCE AND INFATUATION ON THE PERCEPTION OF LOVE

We hypothesized that participants in love and more experienced in romantic love (e.g., schematics) would perceive love more accurately than those who were not in love and less experienced. Judges viewed and rated a series of 25 thin-slice video clips of couples for whom their love for another was known via Sternbergs (Psychological Review, 93, 119–135) love scale. Individual differences in love judgment accuracy were large. Not surprisingly, participants who were in love at the time of the study and who reported having had a lengthy romantic relationship were more confident in their love judgment accuracy but, in fact, were less accurate. Apparently the love schemas people develop subjectively may not adequately represent the way in which the construct manifests among the population in general. Although love judgments may come easier to those in love, their perceptions of the love around them may be biased and inaccurate.     

DOES PUBLIC ATTENTION REDUCE THE INFLUENCE OF MONEYED INTERESTS? POLICY POSITIONS ON SOPA/PIPA BEFORE AND AFTER THE INTERNET BLACKOUT

We investigate the role of public attention in determining the effect that campaign contributions by interest groups have on legislators' policy positions. We exploit the shock in public attention induced by the Internet service blackout of January 2012 that increased the salience of the Stop Online Piracy Act/Protect IP Act (SOPA/PIPA) bills aimed at stronger protection of property rights on the Internet. Using a new dataset of U.S. congressmen's public statements, we find a strong statistical relationship between campaign contributions funded by the affected industries and legislators' positions. However, this relationship evaporates once the two bills become primary policy issues. Our results are consistent with the notion that legislators choose positions on secondary policy issues in order to cater to organized interests, whereas positions on primary policy issues are driven by electoral support. (JEL D72, L82, L86)     

ON THE NATURE OF FUTURE WORLDS? - CONSIDERATIONS OF VIRTUALITY AND UTOPIAS

It has been a widespread belief that computers can create viable utopias, design the future and plan and co-ordinate things such that the world can be born anew. The exponential increase in computing power has allowed for interaction in imaginary places - utopian spaces - and the endless re-configuration of those places. There are then good reasons to make links between the realm of the virtual and the creation of utopian and future worlds. We explore some of these links in this article. Having offered a preliminary discussion of the nature of traditional utopian and future world thinking, we then draw a distinction between stable state and flexible utopias, the former characterized by structurally fixed blueprints, the latter by the possibilities of virtual technologies which allow us endlessly to re-configure virtual spaces. This distinction leads us on to a debate that is implicit in the writings of Sherry Turkle and Richard Coyne, namely the analysis of the virtual from a Husserlian, as opposed to the dominant Heideggerian view. We defend a Husserlian analysis which, it is shown, better satisfies the concept of 'flexible utopias'. The totalizing existential experience by a Heideggerian analysis corresponds well to 'immersion' technologies e.g. games and VR, utopias as ready-mades but, a Husserlian approach allows us to account for the creative process of making utopian or future worlds using software such as interior design when one changes items ad infinitum as part of the normal practices of being a designer. In the conclusion we will pull together the strands of the article and, end by noting how the contemporary theorist, Robert Nozick complements our arguments when he offers a version of utopia as a meta-utopia of flexible utopias or future worlds!     

SHOULD WE GET MARRIED? THE EFFECT OF PARENTS' MARRIAGE ON OUT‐OF‐WEDLOCK CHILDREN

Using a representative sample of children all born to unwed parents drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and a potential outcome approach to account for self-selection into marriage, we investigate whether marriage after childbearing has a causal effect on early child development. Comparing children with similar background characteristics and parental mate-selection patterns who differ only in terms of whether their parents marry after childbirth, we find that marriage after childbirth significantly increases a child's early cognitive performance but there is no evidence that it affects child asthma risk or behavioral outcomes.     

THE SITES OF THE FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN

The Beijing International Convention Center will be the conference hall for government delegations of the Fourth World Conference on Women. The Beijing International Convention Center was built in 1990. With advanced facilities, Chinese and Western-style cuisine, and comfortable surroundings, it is an ideal venue for     

PEER EFFECTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: DOES THE FIELD OF STUDY MATTER?

Does the peer effect vary with the field of study? Using data from a middle‐sized public university located in southern Italy and exploiting the random assignment of first‐year students to college accommodation, we find that roommate peer effects for freshmen enrolled in the hard sciences are positive and significantly larger than for freshmen enrolled in the humanities and social sciences. We present a simple theoretical model which suggests that the uncovered differences between fields in the size of the peer effect could plausibly be generated by between‐field variation in labor market returns, which affect optimal student effort. (JEL I21, Z13, J24)     

WILL THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY MAKE THE 1992 DEADLINE ON THE ABOLITION OF INTERNAL BORDER CONTROLS ?

The efforts by the 12 European countries to develop a single market are in jeopardy because of several factors including a failure to come to agreement on the Schengen Supplementary Agreement. If this agreement is not signed soon, the deadline of January 1, 1993 for the opening of the borders will pass. If this occurs, it will signify a failure of the 1st great test of European unity. The Schengen group includes the Benelux, FRG, and France, Italy (as of November 1991), and will probably include Spain and Portugal by June 1991. The primary reason for this trouble stems from the lack of parliamentary control during the negotiation process. Other problems stem from a failure to come to an agreement about the text of the agreement in regards to asylum seekers. The Agreement is not allowed to be modified by signatory States, they must either ratify it or not. There is a great deal of pressure to change this aspect of the Agreement, because it is felt by many that is abandons sovereignty about a crucial issue like frontier borders. Harmonizing rules of entry and granting of asylum are the 2 most powerful forces motivating people to fight against Community competency. Part of this problem is that the number of asylum seekers is growing rapidly and international rules of human rights are conflicting with the vested interests of the member states. Another source of discord was the Group of Coordinators's Palma Document which was approved by the European Council. In it, measures without consensus were called desirable, and those that could be approved were called essential. This way of doing things still created a democratic deficit and maintained the incoherent plan to lift internal borders. Decisive actions are required during the 2nd half of 1991 if the deadline is to be met because the rotating presidency goes to Portugal next. Portugal does not have the political power necessary to finalize the agreement. Denmark is then next after Portugal and is even less interested in coming to agreement than the UK. Therefore, if the agreement is to succeed it must be do so quickly or else suffer from political weakness.