A Game–Theoretic View of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level

The goal of this paper is to probe the validity of the fiscal theory of the price level by modelling explicitly the market structure in which households and the government make their decisions. I describe the economy as a game, and I am thus able to state precisely the consequences of actions that are out of the equilibrium path. I show that there exist government strategies that lead to a version of the fiscal theory, in which the price level is determined by fiscal variables alone. These strategies are however more complex than the simple budgetary rules usually associated with the fiscal theory, and the government budget constraint cannot be merely viewed as an equilibrium condition.     

Multiple Referrals and Multidimensional Cheap Talk

In previous work on cheap talk, uncertainty has almost always been modeled using a single–dimensional state variable. In this paper we prove that the dimensionality of the uncertain variable has an important qualitative impact on results and yields interesting insights into the “mechanics” of information transmission. Contrary to the unidimensional case, if there is more than one sender, full revelation of information in all states of nature is generically possible, even when the conflict of interest is arbitrarily large. What really matters in transmission of information is the local behavior of senders’ indifference curves at the ideal point of the receiver, not the proximity of players’ ideal point.     

The Role of Social Capital in the Start-Up of Non-profit Organisations: The Case of Fondazione Welfare Ambrosiano

This article investigates how a start-up foundation can build its organisational social capital, meaning a network of strategic partnerships with other organisations based on trust relationships, in order to fulfil its mission. Based on a case study analysis of Fondazione Welfare Ambrosiano—an Italian foundation created in partnership with private organisations and local public institutions—we explored whether and how some characteristics of the social capital of the foundation’s members contributed to the organisational social capital. By applying Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s (Acad Manag Rev 23(2):242–266, 1998) social capital framework, we discovered that the social capital configuration of the founders and staff, linked to some characteristics of the foundation, had driven the development of the organisational social capital. Our paper contributes to an understanding of what constitutes the best configuration of social capital to allow a start-up foundation to take off.     

Nash Bargaining Theory,Nonconvex Problems and Social Welfare Orderings

In this paper we deal with the extension of Nash bargaining theory to nonconvex problems. By focussing on the Social Welfare Ordering associated with a bargaining solution, we characterize the symmetric Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS). Moreover, we obtain a unified method of proof of recent characterization results for the asymmetric single-valued NBS and the symmetric multivalued NBS, as well as their extensions to different domains.     

Adjusting for centre heterogeneity in multicentre clinical trials with a time‒to‒event outcome

Conducting a clinical trial at multiple study centres raises the issue of whether and how to adjust for centre heterogeneity in the statistical analysis. In this paper, we address this issue for multicentre clinical trials with a time?to?event outcome. Based on simulations, we show that the current practice of ignoring centre heterogeneity can be seriously misleading, and we illustrate the performances of the frailty modelling approach over competing methods. A special attention is paid to the problem of misspecification of the frailty distribution. The appendix provides sample codes in R and in SAS to perform the analyses in this paper. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The multisample Cucconi test

The multisample version of the Cucconi rank test for the two-sample location-scale problem is proposed. Even though little known, the Cucconi test is of interest for several reasons. The test is compared with some Lepage-type tests. It is shown that the multisample Cucconi test is slightly more powerful than the multisample Lepage test. Moreover, its test statistic can be computed analytically whereas several others cannot. A practical application example in experimental nutrition is presented. An R function to perform the multisample Cucconi test is given.     

Costs and Financing of Maritime Education and Training in Europe: Analysis and Policy Implications

The paper reports some findings of an extensive European research project carried out on costs and funds of MET (maritime education and training) systems. The need to improve the quality of the European MET systems is a relevant political and scientific issue which strongly impacts the competitiveness of the shipping sector in Europe. However, MET is quite an expensive ET system since it requires high investments and incurs in high running costs. The situation is also acerbated by the decreasing number of students at MET institutions. There is then the need of having a closer look at the financial aspects of MET so as to come up with some policy recommendations for improving the current situation in terms of optimal use of resources. In the paper a questionnaire-based methodology is employed aiming at identifying and analyzing different cost and funds structures of MET institutions in Europe (cost models). Then, by considering some policy-sensitive variables of the cost models, some policy recommendations are drawn up to improve the efficiency of current systems. They basically refer to the need to concentrate and integrate resources in order to exploit some degree of economies of scale, on top of achieving some economies of scope and pursuing quality in MET. Finally, further lines of research are indicated.     

Family Dynamics and Child Outcomes: An Overview of Research and Open Questions

Previous research has documented that children who do not live with both biological parents fare somewhat worse on a variety of outcomes than those who do. In this article, which is the introduction to the Special Issue on “Family dynamics and children’s well-being and life chances in Europe,” we refine this picture by identifying variation in this conclusion depending on the family transitions and subpopulations studied. We start by discussing the general evidence accumulated for parental separation and ask whether the same picture emerges from research on other family transitions and structures. Subsequently, we review studies that have aimed to deal with endogeneity and discuss whether issues of causality challenge the general picture of family transitions lowering child well-being. Finally, we discuss whether previous evidence finds effects of family transitions on child outcomes to differ between children from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, and across countries and time-periods studied. Each of the subsequent articles in this Special Issue contributes to these issues. Two articles provide evidence on how several less often studied family forms relate to child outcomes in the European context. Two other articles in this Special Issue contribute by resolving several key questions in research on variation in the consequences of parental separation by socioeconomic and immigrant background, two areas of research that have produced conflicting results so far.     

A strong paradox of multiple elections

We consider a stronger version of the paradox of multiple elections and show that it is possible that not only the winning combination of propositions, but also all the combinations sufficiently close to it, receive zero votes. Received: 8 April 1997/Accepted: 18 April 1997