REGIONAL HOUSE PRICE DYNAMICS AND VOTING BEHAVIOR IN THE FOMC

This paper examines the impact of house price gaps in Federal Reserve districts on the voting behavior in the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) from 1978 to 2010. Applying a random effects ordered probit model, we find that a higher regional house price gap significantly increases (decreases) the probability that this district's representative in the FOMC casts interest rate votes in favor of tighter (easier) monetary policy. In addition, our results suggest that Bank presidents react more sensitively to regional house price developments than Board members do. (JEL E31, E58, R31)     

Application of load-oriented manufacturing control in industry

This paper deals with multi-stage lotsizing models for imperfect production processes. The effect of imperfect quality on lotsizing decisions and effect ofinspection errorsare taken into consideration in the proposed models. Numerical examples are presented for illustration purposes. The developed models are very helpful for justifying quality assurance and quality improvement efforts.     

From smiling to smirking? 3D printing,upgrading and the restructuring of global value chains

3D printing (3DP) has been heralded as a revolutionary technology that can alter the way production is organized across time and space – with important redistributive effects on geography and size of production activities. In this article, we examine the impacts that a widespread adoption of 3DP could have on restructuring, upgrading and distributing value added along manufacturing global value chains (GVC) – with brief examples from the aerospace and automotive industries. We highlight two possible scenarios for GVCs – a complementarity scenario of 3DP and traditional manufacturing overlapping, which would reproduce power relations in GVCs and the current distribution of value added in a ‘smiling curve’; and a substitution scenario of 3DP partly or fully superseding traditional manufacturing, which would have more transformational effects in terms of ‘rebundling’ activities, regionalizing or localizing GVCs, and flattening the smiling curve into a ‘smirk’.     

More nonconcavities in information processing functions

The productivity of (human) information processing as an economic activity is a question that is raising some interest. Using Marschak's evaluation framework, Radner and Stiglitz have shown that, under certain conditions, the production function of this activity has increasing marginal returns in its initial stage. This paper shows that, under slightly different conditions, this information processing function has repeated convexities with ongoing processing activity. Even for smooth changes in the signals' likelihoods, the function is only piecewise smooth with non-differentiable convexities at points of conditional changes of action. For linear likelihood functions the processing value proves to be piecewise linear with convexities at these levels. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Business and legal issues in enterprise collaborations: A German perspective

Virtual and Extended enterprises share a large amount of characteristics. Especially when it comes to the process of their foundation either one is well advised to base itself on a strong network of reliable partners. In this network each of the joining companies that form the Virtual enterprise can concentrate on their core competencies, giving the whole enterprise the chance to be extremely efficient. Bringing together the different partners and managing them is seen as being one of the biggest challenges of the Virtual enterprise. Therefore some partners will have to focus on those managing tasks. It might as well be their responsibility to ensure that no legal conflicts in regard to the foundation, dissolving, production and related topics emerge. This being especially difficult because the efficiency of a Virtual enterprise is strongly dependent on the looseness of its structure. What conflicts can appear in the described environment and how they might be solved is the focus of this article. It will be pointed out that the emergence of Virtual and Extended enterprises should be supported by general terms and conditions. This terms and conditions should be adjustable, offer the chance to establish a legal framework fitting just perfectly to the intended purpose to continuously create, adjust or dissolve Virtual enterprise. As a matter of fact a certain degree of commitment can positively expand the co-operation in a Virtual enterprise which is mainly based on trust.     

A common-features analysis of Amsterdam and London financial markets during the eighteenth century

We examine the financial linkage between the London and Amsterdam financial markets using stock prices recorded in each market over the period 1723-94 in conjunction with tests for common trends, cycles, and regime shifts. These tests reveal a surprising degree of integration between the markets as their prices move together in both the short and long run. Moreover, shocks to the assets translate quickly and accurately between markets. It also appears that Dutch investment did not destabilize London markets and stock prices in London were the primary determinant of prices in Amsterdam.     

Editorial statement: Stress and work compensation

Shift work has been reported to predict health problems, and a possible explanation is that shift work may lead to poorer health habits, thereby increasing a person's vulnerability to illness. This study examined the association between shift work and health habits, as indicated by smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity and by being overweight. A questionnaire was sent to all 2795 female nurses working in the 10 hospitals of two Finnish health care districts. From the 2299 respondents, we selected those 506 shift workers who reported having always done shift work and those 183 day workers who had never done shift work. Shift workers were found to smoke more and to be overweight more often than day workers. These differences gradually increased in each successive age group, being 1.94 pack-years in smoking and 0.9 kg m^-2 in body mass index among nurses over 45 years of age. Shift work was not associated with alcohol intake or sedentary lifestyle. This evidence is compatible with the possibility that shift work in nurses increases smoking and being overweight to a degree that contributes to health problems, including coronary heart disease.     

Assessing the Seriousness of Research Misconduct: Considerations for Sanction Assignment

Federal and institutional policies recommend the criterion of “seriousness” as a guide for sanction assignment in cases where researchers have been found to have committed research misconduct. Discrepancies in assessments of seriousness for similar acts of misconduct suggest the need to clarify what might be meant by the seriousness of research misconduct and how the criterion can be used to assign sanctions. This essay demonstrates how determinations of seriousness can differ depending on the set of ethical appeals employed and argues that an expanded lexicon for talking about the seriousness of research misconduct would help to promote fairness and consistency in sanction assignment. It concludes with some policy recommendations for those charged with research misconduct sanction assignment and for those who oversee research integrity at institutional levels.     

Size distribution stereology for quasiellipsoids in r

Weakly stationary fields of random quasiellipsoids (rigid or flat ellipsoids) in Rⁿ are intersected with a fixed hyperplane H. The stereological problem consists in determining the size and shape distribution of a “typoical” quasiellipsoid of the sample by selectional data. The size is assumed to be independent of shape and directins. In general the problem cannot be solved uniquely (s.[1]). In the present paper the question is answered for which shape–direction distributions the stereological formulas for all size distributions are the same as in the well–known spherical case