Ricerche Economiche最新文献

Deaton's “excess smoothness” question can be reformulated by focusing attention on total income rather than labour income: the permanent income theory predicts that the relative volatility of consumption is equal to total income persistence, a fact that is contradicted by empirical evidence. This formulation is more general than the original one in that it is independent of the value of the interest rate, the univariate dynamics of labour income and the information set of the representative consumer. When properly formulated, the excess smoothness problem cannot be solved within Quah's superior information model; as a consequence, the interest of alternative solutions such as aggregation models is increased.

No abstract

This paper is concerned with econometric problems and methods involved when estimating duration models using data on uncompleted unemployment spells provided by standard labour force surveys. In particular, it considers how the model estimates are affected by the commonly applied assumption of stationary inflow rates when the true inflow rates are non-stationary and when different assumptions about unobserved heterogeneity are maintained.

The present paper analyses the question whether firms choose product varieties for which they enjoy a comparative advantage with respect to their rivals. In a limited set-up, that of a vertically differentiated duopoly, it is here found that firms may not choose in such an optimal way, but rather end up in “perverse” equilibria where the firm most efficient in producing a high quality variant of a product produces instead the low quality one, and leaves to the less efficient rival the high quality position.

According to Baumol's Cost Disease unit labour costs in the performing arts regularly increase because the wage rates rise more quickly than labour productivity, resulting in a secular threat to survival. In contrast, musical festivals have boomed. Festivals cater particularly well for tourists endowed with steadily increasing incomes. Festivals have prospered because they hire artists and other staff at low marginal cost and evade the restrictions imposed by government and unions. They therefore produce more efficiently and attract more sponsors. The “innnovation” of festivals overcomes Baumol's Disease while it remains virulent in the conventional venues.

Using U.S. data, Evans and Jovanovic find a strong effect of the level of assets on the probability of being self-employed. They interpret this result as evidence of liquidity constraints. In this paper, we follow up this line of research: first, by replicating Evans and Jovanovic's methodology on French data to show that the empirical evidence is similar. Second, we embed their static model into a dynamic framework with uncertainty. The main theoretical prediction that can be drawn is that if the liquidity constraint is strong enough a future increase in the “entrepreneurial ability” of an agent, although raising expected future incomes, may induce her to lower her current consumption and raise her savings.

In this note we make use of Trend Surface Analysis (TSA) to represent emerging locational patterns of super-markets in some Italian towns. The evidence obtained is interpreted as a preliminary step in a structural analysis of large food store location in Italy, where important explanatory facts are the different waves of entry of super- and hyper-markets and public policy. Moreover, we give some hints about an operational use of TSA. The main results are to be read in the light of an extension and a refinement of TSA in the analysis of retail location. We highlight some issues concerning the application of the technique and point out further steps to overcome the problems raised.

Three tests for the presence of cycles in univariate time series are proposed. The asymptotic distribution of the tests is derived using the properties of the integrated periodogram and the small sample properties are examined using a Monte Carlo experiment. The tests are applied to U.S. data to detect the existence of significant seasonal and of other types of periodic fluctuations.

The view put forward in this paper is that the index-linking of long-term public debt today represents a financial instrument thatfostersa low average rate of inflation. In particular, bonds that are fully linked to the prices of a representative basket of goods and services permit a reduction in the inflation risk premium, which weighs significantly on the nominal cost of the public debt and,ex post, gives rise to substantial real costs that distort the mechanisms of allocation and distribution and, ultimately, could lead to the debt becoming unsustainable. After re-examining the reasons for the “orthodox ” aversion to index-linking —notably on the part of the monetary authorities of the more stable countries and especially the Bundesbank —the case is put for the leading industrial countries, and notably Italy, to issue index-linked government bonds. By issuing such bonds, the Treasuries of the various countries would send a strong stabilizing signal to the markets because recourse to the inflation tax in the future would no longer be advantageous, reduce the real cost of government borrowing by eliminating the inflation risk premium that currently has to be paid on issues with fixed nominal interest rates, benefit from the positive correlation between the quality of revenue and expenditure, and obtain valuable information on forward inflation rates and the real interest rates implicit in the prices of the bonds. The long-term real interest rate offered by index-linked bonds would act as a sort of “lighthouse ” set up by the monetary authorities to illuminate the path of economic growth and enable operators and markets to co-ordinate their actions more effectively.

The paper develops a simulation approach capable of reproducing the high frequency characteristics of Italian stock market prices, without assuming any specific form for their stochastic process. The approach is then used to verify the capability of dynamic trading strategies to protect against downside risk in the long run. Because a fully funded capitalized retirement system will develop in Italy in the near future, dynamic trading strategies might become a widely used tool among Italian portfolio managers to hedge long-run equity risk, especially in view of the poor risk –return trade off that the stock market has historically provided. Both option replicating strategies and constant proportion strategies are simulated. The impact of transaction costs, non stationary return variances, alternative portfolio rebalancing schemes and various implementation constraints on the strategies cost are examined. For the option replicating strategies,ex posteffective costs turn out to be close toex antetheoretical expected cost. The crucial element in the strategy appears the decisions about the length of the option strategy and the rule to reset the floor at the end of it. Constant proportion strategies are cheaper and easier to implement, but their effectiveness depends too on the way in which the floor is adjusted as a function of the stock price movements. Broadly speaking, the simulations confirm that dynamic strategies are capable of delivering what they are supposed to achieve. All types of strategies are relatively straightforward and can be used with an acceptable margin of uncertainty.