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This paper examines the Australian import behavior using cointegration analysis and the Phililips-Hansen [1990] fully modified OLS (FMOLS). In particular, the paper uses the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) [Dickey and Fuller, [...]

This paper examines the effect of trade policies on worker welfare. The main contribution of the paper lies in its short run results, which differ from those in earlier studies. [...]

The environmental history episode explored in this paper shows how the growth of a culture of bushwalking in New South Wales from the 1920s to the 1950s created a very particular relationship to land use and access. I suggest that the model of extended bushwalking in wild, remote places that was defined then has since become central to the culture of outdoor education in south-eastern Australia, but that practitioners are largely unaware of its origins and of its implications for their practice. The 1940s clash of visions about rights of access to large tracts of land between two prominent bushwalking leaders, Marie Byles and Myles Dunphy, split the organised bushwalking movement and delayed the planning of wilderness in Kosciusko State Park (as it was then) for a decade. It also still accounts for aspects of land use in the alpine area, and although few today are aware of their history, the issues raised then remain active in recreational land management. Dunphy's view has prevailed that protection of wild places was justified for the use of the fit and hardy few walkers whose tastes and skills could access them. But Byles' argument for voluntary or regulated withdrawal from 'wilderness' areas, for protection of places for nature alone, is perhaps becoming more necessary., In south-eastern Australia the journeying practice known as 'the bushwalk' depends on the experience of 'unspoiled' or 'wilderness' settings. An extended remote experience is a core feature of most outdoor [...]

Abstract This paper develops a theoretical framework which can be used to examine policy implications from the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. This work builds on previous theoretical literature by introducing a credit [...]

Abstract In this paper, we propose a new benchmarking procedure lying on cumulants for computing the factor loadings in financial models of returns. We apply this technique to the well-known [...]

This paper reports on a study conducted in 2006-07 exploring the perspectives that some Australian employers have of graduates from an outdoor education degree program. Similar studies have been conducted in the US and the UK; however no such study has been conducted in Australia. This study clarifies some of the tensions that exist in the Australian outdoor education field regarding how employers perceive prospective employees with academic degrees. The study assumed a threefold approach to building knowledge by exploring: 1) The characteristics outdoor education employers sought in prospective employees, 2) The qualities Australian employers in the outdoor profession expect in an OE graduate, and 3) The perceptions employers have of OE graduates currently working in the profession. Findings suggest that personal attributes and experience were the key characteristics that employers sought in outdoor education staff. A degree was considered to be beneficial when recruiting and selecting employees, but only in the context of a broader matrix of other skills. Some employers expressed concerns about inconsistencies between graduates, inaccurate perceptions of graduate's personal skill levels, and arrogance amongst some graduates., Introduction Currently in Australia there are a number of pathways that exist to provide entry into the outdoor profession, but it is not always clear which pathway will produce the [...]

Abstract This paper evaluates the quality of human resource management (HRM) in Croatia because excellent human resource (HR) policies, programs and activities enable enterprises to maximize their workforce productivity. The [...]

Abstract Using a two-regime model of the inflation-unemployment process for US data 1960:2 to 2000:2, this paper finds strong evidence to support the Eisner puzzle, which occurs when the short-run [...]

The objective of this paper is to suggest the use of a stochastic frontier model in which the inefficiency component is heteroscedastic in the measurement of technical efficiency in Human Capital Formation in the Italian University System. The heteroscedastic frontier model enables one to consider the effect of students' individual characteristics and the influences of the resources and organization of the specific faculty on efficiency. The suggested model is applied to the case of Florence University graduates. The results show that the model specification is strongly supported by the data. Moreover, the suggested specification explains variation in technical efficiency in terms of graduate-specific factors. The technical efficiency scores obtained are comparable across faculties. Keywords Heteroscedasticity * Stochastic frontier production model * Technical efficiency estimates * Human capital formation JEL C20 * D20 * I21, Introduction In the stochastic production frontier approach, the output of each production unit is bounded above by a frontier that is stochastic in the sense that its placement is allowed [...]

This paper uses a stochastic translog production frontier to estimate technical inefficiency indices whose conditional mean is specified as a function of FDI and its interaction with openness of the economy. The model is estimated using an annual panel of 46 countries for the years, 1981-2001. The results suggest that increased FDI increases potential output in both developed and developing countries with the effect being more profound in the former. It is also found that increased FDI reduces technical inefficiencies the more open is the economy but that this effect holds only for developed economies. Thus qualified support is found for the 'Bhagwati hypothesis' as the results reveal that the efficiency-enhancing effect of FDI depends not only on openness but also on the degree of development of the host country. Keywords Stochastic production frontier * FDI * Openness * Growth and development JEL C10 * 010, Introduction In the past 30 years, we have witnessed worldwide trade liberalization, globalization of commerce and integration of a diverse set of economies. Open economies interact with one another in [...]

Abstract This paper analyses the progressive unification of the domestic market during the eighteenth century by three means. First, the intensification of commercial trade, due to the increase of authorized [...]

Abstract. This paper shows how recently developed regression-based methods for the decomposition of health inequality can be extended to incorporate heterogeneity in the responses of health to the explanatory variables. [...]

Abstract The paper describes the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS), an international project launched in 2003 by the Luxembourg Income Study and by institutions from Canada, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, [...]

Abstract The purpose of the paper is to find out the borrowing cost premia for those individuals who are liquidity-constrained, or who are first-time buyers of real estate. The analysis [...]

Abstract. The paper discusses strategies for internationalisation in Norwegian research and higher educational institutions in terms of understanding them in relation to the organisations' relation to environments and/or in relation [...]

Abstract. This paper considers the technical aspects and the consequences, in terms of simulation results and policy assessment, of introducing imperfect competition in a CGE model. The modifications to the [...]

Abstract The objective of this paper is to provide a sound theoretical framework for the empirical analysis of consumer indebtedness, by integrating Portfolio theory with the Life-Cycle hypothesis (LCH) model [...]

Abstract. Robust control has been a very popular area of research in the last two decades. The goal of this paper is to investigate the assumptions implicit in the 'nonprobabilistic [...]

Abstract. In this paper we use recent advances in approximate dynamic programming to develop an approximate policy optimization procedure that uses Monte Carlo simulations for numerical solution of dynamic optimization [...]

Abstract. In this paper, we propose a rigorous dynamic supernetwork theory for the integration of social networks with financial networks with intermediation in the presence of electronic transactions. We consider [...]

Abstract. This paper estimates a model of interest rate dynamics containing multi-factor Wiener and single-factor Poisson jump volatility components. Data from the highly liquid but short term futures markets are [...]

Abstract. Our concern in this paper is that the capability of economics undergraduates is substantially underestimated in the design of the present college curriculum and that our students are insufficiently [...]

Abstract This paper analyzes the redistributive and labor supply effects of extending at national level the Minimum Insertion Income, introduced experimentally in 1999 in some Italian municipalities. We develop a [...]

Most Oecd Countries are experiencing a rapid population ageing. Italy adds to this picture a very low labour market participation of the elders, so that most projections of the impact of ageing on the labour market are rather pessimistic. However, there are other long run modifications currently underway that will presumably have a sizeable impact on the labour market, above all changes in the retirement legislation, in educational choices and participation behaviour. In this paper we present LABORsim, an agent based microsimulation model of labour supply, which offers newinsights on the likely evolution of the labour force in the next decades in Italy. LABORsim integrates the current demographic projections with simulation modules modelling retirement rules, retirement behaviours, migrations, education and participation choices, plus a consolle to implement various policy scenario analyses. When all these factors are taken into account, projections for next decades are not that pessimistic. In most scenarios, the overall participation rate is expected to increase steadily for the next two decades, while shortages in the labour force supply and an unfavourable dynamics for the economic dependency rate are expected to show up only after 2020, when the baby boom generations will arrive at their retirement ages. This is not enough, however, to allow Italy to meet the EU Stocknolm and Lisbon targets for male and female employment rates for many decades to come. The sharp increase in the participation rates for the elderly (aged 55-64), mainly driven by the recent changes in the retirement eligibility criteria, will make it possible to meet the Stockholm target of 50% employment rate in this age group by 2015, i.e. with only 5 years of delay. Key words: microsimulation, participation, employment, retirement, education, policy evaluation JEL Classifications: E24, H3, H55, I2, J1, J2, J6, N4, O52, C63, 1. Introduction In the next decades most Oecd Countries will experience a rapid population ageing, because of the increase in life expectancy occurred in the second half of last century, [...]

In this paper, we present an evolutionary model of industry dynamics yielding endogenous business cycles with 'Keynesian' features. The model describes an economy composed of firms and consumers/workers. Firms belong to two industries. The first one performs R&D and produces heterogeneous machine tools. Firms in the second industry invest in new machines and produce a homogenous consumption good. Consumers sell their labor and fully consume their income. In line with the empirical literature on investment patterns, we assume that the investment decisions by firms are lumpy and constrained by their financial structures. Moreover, drawing from behavioral theories of the firm, we assume boundedly rational expectation formation. Simulation results show that the model is able to deliver self-sustaining patterns of growth characterized by the presence of endogenous business cycles. The model can also replicate the most important stylized facts concerning micro- and macro-economic dynamics. Indeed, we find that investment is more volatile than GDP; consumption is less volatile than GDP; investment, consumption and change in stocks are procyclical and coincident variables; employment is procyclical; unemployment rate is anticyclical; firm size distributions are skewed but depart from log-normality; firm growth distributions are tent-shaped. Key words: evolutionary dynamics, agent-based computational economics, animal spirits, lumpy investment, output fluctuations, endogenous business cycles JEL Classifications: C15, C22, C49, E17, E22, E32., 1. Introduction The existence of widespread and persistent fluctuations which permanently affect the overall economic activity is an inherent feature of all modern economies. However, despite the huge number of [...]

Abstract. This paper describes the results of a research project that investigated the ways that academics understand sustainability within their own disciplines. It describes a range of ways in which [...]

Abstract This paper identifies the determinants affecting the adolescent populations' decision regarding whether or not to consume illegal drugs. The authors estimate a simultaneous Type II Tobit model for each [...]

Abstract. Using a large linked employer-employee data set, this paper aims at quantifying the trend in worker segregation at the establishment level and its impact on wages in Portugal over [...]

Abstract. This paper explores the effect of personal income taxes on redistribution when labour supply reactions are taken into consideration. The results indicate that the classical non-behavioural results on redistribution [...]

Abstract. The paper develops a method for solving heterogeneous agent models in which the distribution of characteristics across agents is a state variable and the distribution can be discontinuous at [...]

Abstract This paper analyzes the technical efficiency of the Lisbon police precincts in order to investigate its performance. A stochastic cost frontier model is used to generate efficiency scores, assuming [...]

Abstract This paper addresses the impact of smoking restrictions in workplaces and educational establishments, cigarette price measures and various psychosocial indicators on cigarette demand, controlling for demographic and socio-economic factors. [...]

Abstract This paper examines aggregate real-wage responses to nominal shocks in four Pacific-rim countries utilizing a vector autoregression (VAR) framework. In this study, positive real-wage responses are found in Japan [...]

Abstract. In this paper, we employ an agent-based industry simulation model to study the effects of the interplay between individual firms' market evaluation strategies on the extent of product innovations [...]

Abstract. Several previous works show that, in general, financial time series are characterized by periods of large volatility followed by periods of relative quitness. In this paper we consider the [...]

Abstract. This paper develops methods for decomposing changes in the income distribution using subgroup decompositions of the income density function. Overall changes are related to changes in subgroup shares and [...]

Abstract Using a novel data set on new product introductions in U.S. manufacturing, the paper studies the relationship between new product introductions and the intensity of market competition as it [...]

Abstract This paper devises an endogenous growth model with human capital in the Uzawa-Lucas framework in which the average human capital has a positive external effect on the goods sector. [...]

Abstract The issue of the Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH) is revisited in this paper by examining the relationship between U.S. consumption and income through new statistical techniques based on fractional [...]

Abstract This paper disaggregates unemployment into broadly defined sectors and occupations. It estimates the impact that a change in the Federal Funds rate (FFR) has on the magnitude and time [...]

Abstract This paper contributes to the discussion concerning the nature of the well-documented worsening of wage and employment inequality in western economies during the past three decades. It critically discusses [...]

Abstract This paper compares the stylized facts of the European growth cycle stemming from the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the European Monetary Union with an unobserved common factor derived [...]

Abstract. In this paper a new class of importance distributions that are based on normal and t-distributions are introduced. They are labeled variable integrating constant distributions or VIC distributions. The [...]