Resource Utilization and Economies of Size in Secondary Schools

This paper identifies the determinants of costs per pupil in English secondary schools. A distinction is made between the short run and the long run in order to estimate the separate effects on costs per pupil of short‐run variations in school output and school size. A school’s capacity utilization rate is used to indicate short‐run deviations in output from pupil capacity, and pupil capacity is used as an indicator of school size to capture scale effects on costs per pupil. The statistical analysis uses both published and unpublished data for secondary schools in England. Two separate analyses are undertaken, one for grant‐maintained schools alone and the other for all schools. A separate analysis is undertaken for grant‐maintained schools since cost data are available only for schools in this sector. Staff hours per pupil is used as a proxy for costs per pupil for schools as a whole. The main finding is that costs per pupil and staff hours per pupil are both highly significantly negatively related to both school size and the capacity utilization rate of schools. A range of other variables are also estimated to have a significant effect on costs per pupil in secondary schools. The main finding is that there is scope for reducing the costs of schooling in the secondary schools sector in England.     

The Second Welfare Theorem in Economies with Non‐Walrasian Markets

The standard version of the second welfare theorem assumes that market operations produce Walrasian outcomes. Therefore, if there are individuals who can manipulate prices, the conclusion of the second welfare theorem is questionable. In this paper, we address the decentralization of a Pareto‐optimal allocation, when markets are non‐Walrasian. Our objective in this paper is to develop a game which can implement Pareto‐optimal allocations as Nash equilibria of strategic exchange in markets. In this way, we develop a version of the second welfare theorem for economies where markets are strategic.     

2010年国际市场大宗商品价格以震荡为主

经济基本面、流动性、美元走势以及地缘政治是影响国际大宗商品价格走势的主要因素。2009年虽然经济基本面并不支持,但在经济回升预期、流动性充裕以及美元持续贬值等因素的共同作用下,全球大宗商品价格先于世界经济触底回升并强劲反弹。2010年,尽管流动性因素在各国政府刺激政策退出的预期下可能会有所改变,但全球经济逐步复苏的基本面因素以及美元长期走软趋势决定国际市场大宗商品价格的升势不会发生根本性逆转,但震荡将加剧。     

Total‐Factor Energy and Emission Efficiencies of ASEAN and Other Asian Economies

This research uses the slack‐based measure data envelopment analysis to compute the energy and emission efficiencies of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other Asian economies during the 2001–2017 period, employs the Malmquist productivity index to check for the main source of efficiency score changes due to technical changes, and then applies panel Tobit regressions to determine the factors explaining the efficiencies. Our empirical results show that the energy efficiency scores of ASEAN economies had been catching up to other Asian economies after the Global Financial Crisis, whereas the emission efficiency scores of various ASEAN economies had been falling behind other Asian economies over the same period. The main source of efficiency score changes over time is efficiency changes and not technical changes. Decreases in the fossil fuel ratio of net electricity generation and the secondary industry ratio within total industry improve both lead to improvements in energy and emission efficiencies.     

Liquidity Effects in Non‐Ricardian Economies

It has often been found difficult to generate a liquidity effect (i.e., a negative effect of monetary injections on the nominal interest rate) in the traditional “Ricardian” stochastic dynamic model with a single infinitely lived household. We show that moving to a non‐Ricardian environment where new agents enter the economy in each period allows such a liquidity effect to be generated.     

Comparing Parametric and Non‐parametric Early Warning Systems for Currency Crises in Emerging Market Economies

This paper compares in‐sample and out‐of‐sample performances of parametric and non‐parametric early warning systems (EWS) for currency crises in emerging economies. The parametric EWS achieves superior out‐of‐sample results compared with the non‐parametric EWS. The policymaker faces a trade‐off when using EWS: greater cautiousness allows the policymaker to correctly call more crisis episodes, but this comes at the cost of issuing more false alarms. The benefit of correctly calling more currency crises needs to be traded off against the cost of issuing more false alarms and of implementing corrective policies prematurely.     

Outsourcing,Importing and Innovation: Evidence from Firm‐level Data for Emerging Economies

This paper investigates two sourcing strategies of firms, outsourcing and importing, and links these to innovation activities. The authors examine this empirically using firm‐level data for 28 emerging market economies and find robust evidence that outsourcing increases the likelihood to spend on R&D and via this channel raises innovation output, whereas importing increases innovation output, but not R&D. The results hold when implementing an instrumental variables approach. It is found that results crucially depend on the institutional environment in the economy, e.g. property rights and intellectual property rights protection. The results suggest that better institutions magnify the gains from importing, but not from outsourcing. EU countries also reap additional positive innovation effects from importing compared with non‐EU countries.     

The GDP Value of Twentieth‐Century Health Improvements in Developed Economies: Initial Estimates for England

Economists are aware that conventional measures of national income do not capture everything that is important to individuals. In particular, the value of huge improvements in health over the twentieth century has gone uncalculated. Usher and Nordhaus have emphasized the virtues of including mortality improvements in some form of extended national income measure. This article therefore sets out a methodology that can be used to calculate the value of mortality and morbidity improvements. The results for England indicate that the value of health improvements in developed economies have added at least 0.3 percent per annum to twentieth‐century GDP growth rates. The results demonstrate that those interested in understanding improvements in economic welfare need to pay much more attention to improvements in health.     

Economies of Scale in Australian Banks 1978–1990

This paper examines economies of scale in Australian banks. A bank multi-product cost function is estimated using a translog functional form with data drawn from twelve banks spanning the period 1978 to 1990. Different formulations of the model are estimated. Results prove sensitive to estimation assumptions and data definitions however they support the presence of economies of scale for Australian banking in this period     

Non‐Neutrality of the Proposed Resource Super Profits Tax

I explain my disagreement with Professor Lund regarding the non‐neutrality of the proposed Resource Super Profits Tax. I find that, when assets are sold by a firm to another firm or when an exit decision is made between shutting down or selling the project, that distortions from the Resource Super Profits Tax occur. Previous analysis of cash flow taxes did not analyse the effects of assets sales under uncertainty.     

Exchange Market Pressure and Monetary Policy in Emerging Market Economies: New Evidence from Treatment‐effect Estimations

The way central banks react to exchange market pressure is likely to affect the subsequent economic development and the associated economic costs. In a situation of currency pressure the central bank can in principle decide to let the currency float freely, to maintain the peg or to implement a managed float policy, i.e. a mix of depreciation and intervention. As the central bank's choices are subject to self selection and endogeneity, we use propensity score matching to adequately cope with these methodical challenges. We find that monetary authorities have two options to keep down the economic costs in terms of output, namely stabilizing the exchange rate or letting the currency float freely. In contrast, a managed float under currency pressure is accompanied by the worst possible outcome with an average loss of gross domestic product (GDP) between 5% and 6%.     

Population Growth and Natural‐Resource Scarcity: Long‐Run Development under Seemingly Unfavorable Conditions

In this paper, I consider an economy that is constrained by the use of natural resources and driven by knowledge accumulation. Resources are essential inputs in all sectors. I show that population growth and poor input substitution are not detrimental but, on the contrary, are even necessary to obtain a sustainable consumption level. I find a general rule to define the conditions for a constant innovation rate. The rule does not apply to capital but to labor growth, which is the crucial input in research. Furthermore, the rule relates to the sectoral structure of the economy, and to demographic transition. The results continue to hold with a backstop technology, and are extended for the case of minimum resource constraints.     

Stable Provision vs. Cournot–Nash Equilibria in Pure Public Good Economies

Shitovitz and Spiegel (1998, Journal of Economic Theory 83 , pp. 1–18) demonstrated that in pure public good economies, for some consumers the Lindahl consumption bundles can be inferior (utility-wise) to their Cournot–Nash allocation. In this paper, we prove that in any finite pure public good economy there exists a core allocation that is unanimously preferred, utility-wise, by all consumers over their Cournot–Nash consumption bundles.     

Agglomeration Economies,Division of Labour and the Urban Land‐rent Escalation: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Urbanisation

A general equilibrium model with increasing return to labour specialisation and economies of transaction agglomeration is developed to address the residential land‐rent escalation associated with the urbanisation process, which is in turn endogenised as a result of the evolution of the division of labour. The interplay among the geographical pattern of transactions, trading efficiency and the network size of the division of labour plays a crucial role in our story of urbanisation. We show that: as transaction conditions are improved, the equilibrium level of division of labour and individuals specialisation levels increase; the urban land‐rent increases absolutely as well as relative to that in the rural area, the relative per capita lot size of residence in the urban and rural areas decreases; the diversity of occupations in the urban area and the population share of urban residents increase; and the productivity of all goods and per capital real income increase.     

Economies of scale in households' cash balances: A series of empirical tests

Here is tested on a sample of FRench chwque deposits in 1966 the hypothesis of economies of scale in the households cash balances. These economies of scale when compared to those expected from theoretical models (Allais, Baumol) turn out to be relatively small. It is suggested that this slight result is due to the fact that the value of the transactions of the studied accounts differ more because of the average value of the effective operations than because of the number of these operations.     

Life‐Cycle Patterns of Interest‐Rate Mark‐Ups in Small‐Firm Finance*

We derive empirical implications from a theoretical model of bank–borrower relationships. The interest‐rate mark‐ups of banks are predicted to follow a life‐cycle pattern over the age of the borrowing firms. Because of endogenous bank monitoring by competing banks, borrowing firms initially face a low mark‐up, and thereafter an increasing mark‐up as a result of informational lock‐in, until it falls for older firms when the lock‐in is resolved. By applying a large sample of predominantly small unlisted firms and a new measure of asymmetric information, we find that firms with significant asymmetric‐information problems have a more pronounced life‐cycle pattern of interest‐rate mark‐ups. Additionally, we examine the effects of concentrated banking markets on interest‐rate mark‐ups. The results indicate that the life cycle of mark‐ups is mainly driven by asymmetric‐information problems and not by concentration. However, we find evidence that bank market concentration matters for older firms ? 2 Correction added after online publication on 20^th February 2012; the original text read ‘However, we find evidence that bank market concentration for older firms’, omitting the word ‘matters’.
     

Tullock's Puzzle in Pay‐and‐Play Lobbying

We explain Tullock's puzzle of small payments from special interests to policy‐makers by the hold‐up problem between the two parties. We construct a simple lobbying environment where an uninformed policy‐maker is a price‐setter who sells access to two opposed and privately informed lobbyists. The key equilibrium property is “the curse of the ex ante favored lobbyist”; the lobbyist proposing a project with the higher expected public value ends up worse off than the lobbyist proposing a project with the lower expected public value. In the absence of contribution caps, the ex ante favored lobbyist strategically devalues her project, and the resulting competitive devaluations destroy private values, revenues, as well as correlated public values. Ex ante, the policy‐maker benefits from a binding contribution cap protects the ex ante favored lobbyist, eliminates competitive devaluations, and thus remedies the hold‐up problem.