Nuptiality, fertility, use of contraception, and family policies in Uzbekistan

With more than 22 million inhabitants, Uzbekistan is the most populous of the Central Asian republics of the former USSR. Using data from a retrospective survey conducted in 1992 among women of reproductive age, the paper examines fertility trends and determinants during the twentieth century. The analysis shows that the absence of a government-supported birth control programme and the strong pro-natalist policies of the Soviet authorities during most of the century did not affect either the onset, nor the progress of the fertility transition. The results indicate, however, that the social development programmes undertaken by the Soviet government did play a very active part in the transition as shown by the impact of education on reproductive behaviour, as well as on the very specific contraceptive mix adopted by the population after the mid-1970s.     

A Short-Cut Derivation for the Solution of Autoregressive Models from Sharp Algebraic Arguments

This article uses algebraic arguments to cast light on the solution of vector autoregressive models in the presence of unit roots. First, the linear case and then the multi-lag specification are investigated. Clear-cut representations of the model solutions are obtained, closed-form expressions of the coefficient matrices are provided, and integration features and cointegration mechanisms for stationarity recovery are elucidated.     

A Causality Analysis of Economic Growth and Union Density in European Countries

In this paper, we analyse the relationship between union density and economic growth using a Granger causality analysis and shocks analysis with vector autoregression model. We find that the Granger causality goes from the growth rate to the unionization rate in four of the 11 European countries under study. France bucks the trend: it is the only country in which union density influences economic growth, moreover in a positive way.