Stochastic Forecasting of Labor Supply and Population: An Integrated Model

This paper presents a stochastic model to forecast the German population and labor supply until 2060. Within a cohort-component approach, our population forecast applies principal components analysis to birth, mortality, emigration, and immigration rates, which allows for the reduction of dimensionality and accounts for correlation of the rates. Labor force participation rates are estimated by means of an econometric time series approach. All time series are forecast by stochastic simulation using the bootstrap method. As our model also distinguishes between German and foreign nationals, different developments in fertility, migration, and labor participation could be predicted. The results show that even rising birth rates and high levels of immigration cannot break the basic demographic trend in the long run. An important finding from an endogenous modeling of emigration rates is that high net migration in the long run will be difficult to achieve. Our stochastic perspective suggests therefore a high probability of substantially decreasing the labor supply in Germany.     

Codependent VAR models and the pseudo-structural form

This paper investigates whether codependence restrictions can be uniquely imposed on VAR models via the so-called pseudo-structural form used in the literature. Codependence of order q is given if a linear combination of autocorrelated variables eliminates the serial correlation after q lags. Importantly, maximum likelihood estimation and likelihood ratio testing are only possible if the codependence restrictions can be uniquely imposed. Applying the pseudo-structural form, our study reveals that this is not generally the case, but that unique imposition is guaranteed in several important special cases.     

Gender-related Effect of Cultural Participation in Psychological Well-being: Indications from the Well-being Project in the Municipality of Milan

Gender differences have been observed in the way males and females process cognitive stimuli coming from exposure to works of art and participation in leisure activities. For this reason, we designed a project to assess this issue, with a cross-sectional study in Milan, on a sample of the population consisting in 1,000 inhabitants. Our objective was to assess how cultural participation affects subjective well-being, measured with the Psychological General Well-being Scale, which gives a global index of psychological well-being ranging from 0 (lowest level of well-being) to 110 (highest level of well-being). The survey was conducted with the assistance of Doxa, an Italian pollster company, through telephone interviews, according to the Computer Aided Telephone Interview system. A significant statistical difference in variable distribution between the two genders was found for civil status (more males resulted as being single and more women widowed), income (higher income in males), cultural participation (higher in males) and psychological well-being (higher in males). As expected, state of health has the maximum impact on the level of psychological well-being. The increase in the number of concomitant diseases is in fact linearly associated with a progressive increase in psychological distress with average scores of around 60 (very low level of well-being), in the presence of 5 or more concomitant diseases, in both males and females. The impact profile of nine major determinants on subjective well-being resulted to be clearly different in the two genders. Health status dominates in both, but its impact is higher in females than in males. The obtained results remained substantially unchanged also when the two gender groups were matched according to civil status and income level distribution. Leisure activities play an important role in females (second place after health status), while in males they result as being less important (fourth place after health status, civil status and occupation). Education is quite important for females (third place), while it is given the least importance in males. This different profile probably reflects different social and environmental influences on the two genders. The social and psychological implications of these findings are discussed.     

Do ownership and size affect the performance of water utilities? Evidence from Estonian municipalities

Concerns regarding rising water and sewerage prices have generated a renewed interest in measuring and assessing water utility performance. An efficiency analysis can serve as a basis for price setting decisions. This article examines the influence of ownership structure and corporate size on the efficiency of Estonian water companies, and assesses the empirical efficiency gaps through the lens of corporate governance and natural monopoly theories. To assess efficiency and the influence of ownership and corporate size on efficiency, we use a Data Envelopment Analysis and truncated regression with maximum likelihood estimation as well as an ANOVA test. The study sample consists of 43 water utilities, serving more than 68% of the Estonian population. One main finding of the study reveals that ownership structure does not affect the efficiency of Estonian water utilities, while efficiency does increase with corporate size: large water utilities outperform small utilities. An additional conclusion is that the Estonian water sector is too fragmented.     

Governance and Performance of a Mixed Public-Private Enterprise: An Assessment of a Company in the Estonian Water Sector

Local governments are increasingly entering into partnerships with the private sector in the “externalization” of public service delivery. While the financial and non-financial interests of the partners involved may appear to be in opposition and potentially un-reconcilable, this is not always the case, especially where governance arrangements exist to align and balance the requirements of financial and non-financial performance. Such arrangements are analysed here with reference to Estonia’s largest water company with mixed public-private ownership. It has a business-like management that facilitates a combination of good non-financial performance (quality and affordability) and considerable financial performance (profitability).     

Knowledge Spillovers from FDI: A Critical Review from the International Business Perspective

This paper reviews and organizes the theoretical and empirical research on foreign direct investment (FDI) knowledge spillovers from the international business perspective. In doing so, it develops a framework for the analysis of this phenomenon. The suggested FDI knowledge spillover framework integrates both the macro‐level (country, industry, institutions) and micro‐level (multinational firm, headquarters, subsidiary, local firms) antecedents of spillovers with their consequences, and proposes to analyse spillovers along three main attributes that characterize their occurrence, i.e. their magnitude, scope and speed.     

Religion as communication

From the perspective of social system theory, religion is a label by which it is possible to study the relation between the individual expressions of the sacred, on one hand, and the organized system of meanings to be referred to the sacred, on the other, developing a relatively free chain of communication. Therefore, coherently to this approach, the author suggests to assume the notion of religion as communication: a system of belief challenges the complexity of the world, trying to reduce that, transforming the external differentiation into a internal one. This theoretical approach supports three research strategies: (a) overcoming the disputing question secularization/de-secularization, focusing on the dynamics of the relation between a system of belief and the social change occurring in a social context; (b) going beyond the polarization between tradition and modernity, confuting the assumption that modernity means necessarily the decline of religion; (c) reconsidering religion in the light of the social theory.     

Does Immigration Raise Blue and White Collar Wages of Natives? The Case of Italy

This paper analyses both theoretically and empirically the effects of immigration on the wage rate of native workers. There is rare evidence in empirical literature that immigration generates a fall in the wages of manual workers. By hypothesizing an economic system where advanced firms buy an intermediate good from traditional firms, which employ manual workers in both clean and dirty tasks, the latter being more disliked by native workers, we present a theoretical model that justifies these results. We conclude that native skilled wages always increase whereas native unskilled wages can both increase or decrease with immigration. An empirical analysis of the Italian labour market follows, showing that native workers' wages always rise with immigration.