TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION,TURBULENCE, AND THE DYNAMICS OF UNEMPLOYMENT

Starting in the late 1970s, European unemployment began to increase while US unemployment remained constant. At the same time, capital‐embodied technical change began to accelerate, and the United States adopted the new capital much faster than Europe. I argue that these two facts are related. The main idea is that if there is capital‐embodied technical change, then the unemployment rate depends critically on how obsolete the installed capital stock is compared to the frontier. In particular, European workers initially worked with relatively obsolete capital, and so they lacked the skills required to work with frontier capital. When they lost their jobs they therefore stayed unemployed for longer than their American counterparts. I find that this channel accounts for about 70% of the discrepancy between the behavior of unemployment rates in Europe and the United States.     

Towards a more integrated, symmetric and viable EMU

The capacity of the EMU system to successfully tackle an economic crisis has been questioned during the recent financial and economic turmoil. The basic economic structure and competitiveness in the eurozone has developed in an undesirable direction. The number of member countries of the EMU, as well as the basic construction of the EMU system, must again be the focus of the discussion. After a study of the current accounts of 12 EMU countries follows a discussion in terms of the Barro–Gordon model about the costs of the EMU, i.e., to bring together the preferences of the political authorities in different EMU countries and the optimal combination of inflation and employment in the eurozone to determine the sought equilibrium of the model. If economic structural differences are increasing, they must be compensated by increased integration. It is feasible, but only for the economically viable EMU countries.     

The relationship among CO2 emissions,electricity power consumption and GDP in OECD countries

This paper proposes a panel vector error correction model investigation of a quadratic relationship linking CO₂ emissions, GDP levels and electric power consumption. We find that two independent long-run relationships emerge from the data. Since the null of homogeneity across units with regard to long-run elasticities is strongly rejected, we proceed by clustering countries according to the signs of the estimated coefficients. The approach allows us to form three groups: in the first there is evidence of an optimistic scenario, where both CO₂ emissions and electric power consumption are bound to decrease in the long-run. An optimistic scenario for emissions reduction is also provided in the second cluster where, however, the long-run relationship between income and electric power consumption shows an U-shaped pattern, instead. Finally, the third cluster can be associated with a much worrying scenario where per capita CO₂ is expected to grow with income. A joint consideration of long-run parameters and causality links allows us to propose cluster-tailored policy suggestions.     

Does financial development affect income inequality in the U.S. States?

This paper examines the role of financial development on U.S. state-level income inequality in the 50 states from 1976 to 2011, using fixed-effect estimation. We find robust results whereby financial development linearly increases income inequality for the 50 states. When we divide 50 states into two separate groups of above-average and below-average inequality states than the cross-state average inequality, the effect of financial development on income inequality appears non-linear. When financial development improves, the effect increases at an increasing rate for above-average income-inequality states, whereas an inverted U-shaped relationship exists for below-average income-inequality states. To our knowledge, this paper is the first to examine the role of financial development on U.S. state-level inequality.     

Does research and development expenditure impact innovation? Evidence from the European Union countries

This study empirically investigates the relationship between innovation and Research & Development expenditure in European Union countries over the period 1995–2014. The findings of the empirical analysis show that there is a co-integration relationship between innovation and R&D. The results also reveal the existence of a positive and significant effect of business, public and higher education R&D on innovation. Business R&D is the sector with the highest positive effect on innovation. The results indicate that EU should strengthen the cooperation between business, public and higher education R&D through the encouragement of partnerships between the private sector, R&D and innovation system.     

An agency approach to debt maturity of unlisted and listed firms in the European setting

This study analyses the debt maturity of two groups of companies – unlisted and listed – throughout the period 2005–2013. The research takes an agency costs approach to explore the determinants of firms' debt maturity structure for a set of five countries, chosen for being representative of the European Union (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom). Agency costs, as well as institutional and macroeconomic factors, turn out to be decisive in explaining firms’ financial policies regarding debt maturity, during the economic crisis that started in 2007–2008. Our findings indicate that contracting costs had a greater impact on unlisted firms during the post-crisis subperiod than on their listed counterparts. Additionally, the economic effect of this has been estimated, corroborating the overall findings of the study.     

SEPARATING MORAL HAZARD FROM ADVERSE SELECTION AND LEARNING IN AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE: LONGITUDINAL EVIDENCE FROM FRANCE

The identification of information problems in different markets is a challenging issue in the economic literature. In this paper, we study the identification of moral hazard from adverse selection and learning about risk within the context of a multi‐period dynamic model. We extend the model of Abbring, Chiappori, and Pinquet (2003, Journal of the European Economic Association, 1, 767–820) to include learning about risk and insurance coverage choice over time. We derive testable empirical implications for panel data. We then perform tests using longitudinal data from France during the period 1995–1997. We find evidence of moral hazard among a sub‐group of policyholders with less driving experience (less than 15 years). Policyholders with fewer than five years of experience have a combination of learning about risk and moral hazard, whereas no residual information problem is found for policyholders with more than 15 years of experience.     

现代汉语结构助词“的”和老挝语结构助词thi︶33的对比研究

汉语结构助词"的"前后成分与老挝语结构助词thi^︶33相对应的后前成分有异同,尤其表现在老挝语里的thi^︶33字短语的使用范围比汉语里的"的"字短语小得多。在"的"和thi^︶33的隐现规律的异同中,又表现为特别老挝语里的结构助词和汉语的结构助词一样具有凸显偏项的功能,不同的是汉语内涵定语是否加"的"形成称谓性定语和非称谓性定语的对立,而老挝语里没有这种对立,老挝语里表称谓性的定语不加结构助词,而一些描写性的定语也同样可以不加结构助词。     

The impact of the EU sugar trade reform on poor households in developing countries: A general equilibrium analysis

We use a modified version of the applied general equilibrium model GTAP, called GTAP_MH, to evaluate the impact of a reduction in the EU's support price for sugar on income distribution of African households. For LDC countries, non-ACP but participant in the EBA initiative a +2% change is indicated in term of income generation across all ten social strata identified within GTAP_MH framework, with positive percentage changes in supply prices at household level of endowment commodities, and positive percentage changes in price indices for private household expenditures. The big losers will be those countries that would no longer be able to compete at an international level as a result of the lost preferences.     

Evaluating the effect of de facto pegs on currency crises

This paper empirically evaluates the treatment effect of de facto pegged regimes on the occurrence of currency crises. To estimate the treatment effect of pegged regimes properly, we must carefully control for the self-selection problem of regime adoption because a country's exchange rate regime choice is nonrandom. To address the self-selection problem, we thus employ a variety of matching methods. We find interesting and robust evidence that (1) pegged regimes significantly decrease the likelihood of currency crises compared with floating regimes, and (2) pegged regimes with capital account liberalization significantly lower the likelihood of currency crises compared with other regimes. From the standpoint of the macroeconomic policy trilemma, we can reasonably conclude that pegged regimes with capital account liberalization are substantially less prone to speculative attacks because they can enhance greater credibility in their currencies by maintaining strict discipline for monetary and macroeconomic policies.