http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/1745 Fri, 24 May 2013 02:53:18 GMT 2013-05-24T02:53:18Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/bitstream/id/34841/ http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/1745 http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203171 The Limits of Discrete Time Repeated Games:Some Notes and Comments Osório Costa, Antonio Miguel This paper studies the limits of discrete time repeated games with public monitoring. We solve and characterize the Abreu, Milgrom and Pearce (1991) problem. We found that for the "bad" ("good") news model the lower (higher) magnitude events suggest cooperation, i.e., zero punishment probability, while the highrt (lower) magnitude events suggest defection, i.e., punishment with probability one. Public correlation is used to connect these two sets of signals and to make the enforceability to bind. The dynamic and limit behavior of the punishment probabilities for variations in ... (the discount rate) and ... (the time interval) are characterized, as well as the limit payo¤s for all these scenarios (We also introduce uncertainty in the time domain). The obtained ... limits are to the best of my knowledge, new. The obtained ... limits coincide with Fudenberg and Levine (2007) and Fudenberg and Olszewski (2011), with the exception that we clearly state the precise informational conditions that cause the limit to converge from above, to converge from below or to degenerate. JEL: C73, D82, D86. KEYWORDS: Repeated Games, Frequent Monitoring, Random Pub- lic Monitoring, Moral Hazard, Stochastic Processes. Wed, 03 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203171 2012-10-03T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203170 Signalling and Productivity Effects of Overeducation: Is It Really a Waste of Resources? Kedir, Abbi; Kyrizi, Andri; Martínez Mora, Francisco, Overeducation raises concerns that governments may be overinvesting in education. To inform the debate, this paper studies the impact of overeducation on productivity. We advance the literature by considering that returns to overeducation may be due both to productivity and signalling effects. To disentangle both effects, we apply Wolpin’s (1977) methodology and compare the rates of return of screened (employed) and unscreened (selfemployed) workers. To overcome well-known endogeneity problems due to unobserved heterogeneity, we estimate a panel with individual and employment-status fixed effects. Our results show that signalling effects are relevant and that overeducation does not carry a productivity penalty. Keywords: Overeducation, signalling model, human capital model, unobserved heterogeneity. JEL classification: I20, J24, J31. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203170 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203169 Ecological Footprint Inequality across countries: the role of environment intensity, income and interaction effects Teixidó Figueras, Jordi; Duro Moreno, Juan Antonio Recently, White (2007) analysed the international inequalities in Ecological Footprints per capita (EF hereafter) based on a two-factor decomposition of an index from the Atkinson family (Atkinson (1970)). Specifically, this paper evaluated the separate role of environment intensity (EF/GDP) and average income as explanatory factors for these global inequalities. However, in addition to other comments on their appeal, this decomposition suffers from the serious limitation of the omission of the role exerted by probable factorial correlation (York et al. (2005)). This paper proposes, by way of an alternative, a decomposition of a conceptually similar index like Theil’s (Theil, 1967) which, in effect, permits clear decomposition in terms of the role of both factors plus an inter-factor correlation, in line with Duro and Padilla (2006). This decomposition might, in turn, be extended to group inequality components (Shorrocks, 1980), an analysis that cannot be conducted in the case of the Atkinson indices. The proposed methodology is implemented empirically with the aim of analysing the international inequalities in EF per capita for the 1980-2007 period and, amongst other results, we find that, indeed, the interactive component explains, to a significant extent, the apparent pattern of stability observed in overall international inequalities. Key words: ecological footprint; international environmental distribution; inequality decomposition Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203169 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203168 Ecological Footprint Inequality: A methodological review and some results Teixidó Figueras, Jordi; Duro Moreno, Juan Antonio Scarcities of environmental services are no longer merely a remote hypothesis. Consequently, analysis of their inequalities between nations becomes of paramount importance for the achievement of sustainability in terms either of international policy, or of Universalist ethical principles of equity. This paper aims, on the one hand, at revising methodological aspects of the inequality measurement of certain environmental data and, on the other, at extending the scarce empirical evidence relating to the international distribution of Ecological Footprint (EF), by using a longer EF time series. Most of the techniques currently important in the literature are revised and then tested on EF data with interesting results. We look in depth at Lorenz dominance analyses and consider the underlying properties of different inequality indices. Those indices which fit best with environmental inequality measurements are CV2 and GE(2) because of their neutrality property, however a trade-off may occur when subgroup decompositions are performed. A weighting factor decomposition method is proposed in order to isolate weighting factor changes in inequality growth rates. Finally, the only non-ambiguous way of decomposing inequality by source is the natural decomposition of CV2, which additionally allows the interpretation of marginal term contributions. Empirically, this paper contributes to the environmental inequality measurement of EF: this inequality has been quite stable and its change over time is due to per capita vector changes rather than population changes. Almost the entirety of the EF inequality is explainable by differences in the means between the countries of the World Bank group. This finding suggests that international environmental agreements should be attempted on a regional basis in an attempt to achieve greater consensus between the parties involved. Additionally, source decomposition warns of the dangers of confining CO2 emissions reduction to crop-based energies because of the implications for basic needs satisfaction. Keywords: ecological footprint; ecological inequality measurement, inequality decomposition. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203168 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203167 Modelling world investment markets using threshold conditional correlation models Aslanidis, Nektarios; Martínez Ibáñez, Óscar In this paper we propose a parsimonious regime-switching approach to model the correlations between assets, the threshold conditional correlation (TCC) model. This method allows the dynamics of the correlations to change from one state (or regime) to another as a function of observable transition variables. Our model is similar in spirit to Silvennoinen and Teräsvirta (2009) and Pelletier (2006) but with the appealing feature that it does not suffer from the course of dimensionality. In particular, estimation of the parameters of the TCC involves a simple grid search procedure. In addition, it is easy to guarantee a positive definite correlation matrix because the TCC estimator is given by the sample correlation matrix, which is positive definite by construction. The methodology is illustrated by evaluating the behaviour of international equities, govenrment bonds and major exchange rates, first separately and then jointly. We also test and allow for different parts in the correlation matrix to be governed by different transition variables. For this, we estimate a multi-threshold TCC specification. Further, we evaluate the economic performance of the TCC model against a constant conditional correlation (CCC) estimator using a Diebold-Mariano type test. We conclude that threshold correlation modelling gives rise to a significant reduction in portfolio´s variance. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203167 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203166 Economic and environmental effects of the CO2 taxation: an input-output analysis for Spain Gemechu, Eskinder D.; Butnar, Isabela; Llop Llop, Maria; Castells i Piqué, Francesc CO2 emissions induced by human activities are the major cause of climate change; hence, strong environmental policy that limits the growing dependence on fossil fuel is indispensable. Tradable permits and environmental taxes are the usual tools used in CO2 reduction strategies. Such economic tools provide incentives to polluting industries to reduce their emissions through market signals. The aim of this work is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of an environmental tax on Spanish products and services. We apply an environmentally extended input-output (EIO) model to identify CO2 emission intensities of products and services and, accordingly, we estimate the tax proportional to these intensities. The short-term price effects are analyzed using an input-output price model. The effect of tax introduction on consumption prices and its influence on consumers’ welfare are determined. We also quantify the environmental impacts of such taxation in terms of the reduction in CO2 emissions. The results, based on the Spanish economy for the year 2007, show that sectors with relatively poor environmental profile are subjected to high environmental tax rates. And consequently, applying a CO2 tax on these sectors, increases production prices and induces a slight increase in consumer price index and a decrease in private welfare. The revenue from the tax could be used to counter balance the negative effects on social welfare and also to stimulate the increase of renewable energy shares in the most impacting sectors. Finally, our analysis highlights that the environmental and economic goals cannot be met at the same time with the environmental taxation and this shows the necessity of finding other (complementary or alternative) measures to ensure both the economic and ecological efficiencies. Keywords: CO2 emissions; environmental tax; input-output model, effects of environmental taxation. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203166 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203165 Innovación, frontera tecnológica y capacidad absortiva: un estudio a nivel de países Gombau, Verònica; Segarra Blasco, Agustí, 1958- La principal aportación de este trabajo es poner de manifiesto que la capacidad absortiva de las economías cambia en función de si el país es el líder o es un seguidor. Aunque tampoco olvidamos otras variables como son la I+D interna, la I+D externa, el desarrollo del sistema financiero y las instituciones. Para ello, primero se prueba la presencia de una raíz unitaria y después se asegura una relación de cointegración entre las variables implicadas en el modelo para poder sacar conclusiones a largo plazo. Y por último, para estimar el modelo, se utilizará una técnica econométrica que combina el tratamiento tradicional de los datos de panel con las técnicas de cointegración: los Dynamics Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS). Esta técnica soluciona las limitaciones de los OLS, ya que su distribución no suele ser estándar por la presencia de un sesgo de muestras finitas (causado bien por la endogeneidad de las variables explicativas bien por la correlación serial de la perturbación). Utilizando un panel de datos que comprende 8 países de la OECD entre 1973-2004 y para el Business Sector, se encuentran diversos resultados, entre los que destacamos que la I+D interna, la I+D externa, la frontera tecnológica, la capacidad absortiva y el desarrollo de las instituciones tienen un impacto positivo sobre el nivel de la PTF. En cambio, el desarrollo del sistema financiero tiene un impacto negativo. Palabras claves: fuentes de la I+D, frontera tecnológica, capacidad absortiva, raíces unitarias, cointegración, DOLS. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203165 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203164 Estimación del impacto sobre precios de la fusión Acer- Gateway y de su anuncio en América del Norte Fuks Aguilar, Mariela R. Esta investigación representa una contribución a la literatura sobre el análisis retrospectivo de las fusiones. Su principal objetivo es la evaluación del impacto de la fusión entre Acer y Gateway, concretada a mediados de octubre de 2007 y que permitió a estas dos firmas convertirse en el tercer proveedor mundial de ordenadores personales. En particular, se examinan los efectos que durante el período previo e inmediatamente posterior a la fusión se produjeron sobre los precios de los productos. Para ello, se aplica el método de diferencias-endiferencias, utilizando como grupo de control el conjunto de mercados americanos con mayor volumen de ventas en los previamente las empresas fusionadas no competían. Los resultados obtenidos apuntan a la existencia de un comportamiento anticompetitivo que se habría manifestado en Norteamérica antes de que la fusión se completara. Palabras clave: fusión, ordenadores personales, canibalización, diferencias-endiferencias, análisis retrospectivo. JEL: L13, L41, L42, L81. Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203164 2012-07-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203163 La industria de los PCs en los mercados del continente americano: estimación de demanda y poder de mercado Fuks Aguilar, Mariela R. Esta investigación aporta una visión panorámica del escenario competitivo de la industria de los PCs en los mercados del continente americano con mayor volumen de ventas. En él se describen los cambios producidos por el proceso de migración hacia la portabilidad que caracterizó el período 2005 - 2007. A partir de la estimación de un modelo de elección discreta Logit con coeficientes aleatorios, se recuperan los costes marginales a nivel de producto. A su vez, se desarrolla un análisis regional del ejercicio de poder de mercado por grupos de marcas basado en el Índice de Lerner, que revela que los cambios observados fueron gobernados principalmente por variaciones en la elasticidad-precio de la demanda. En particular, la incorporación de consumidores con una mayor elasticidad en el fragmento de portátiles en Latinoamérica podría explicar bajos niveles de poder de mercado (márgenes) en un contexto de precios a la baja y aumento de la demanda. Palabras clave: productos diferenciados, demanda, oligopolio, poder de mercado, Índice de Lerner, Logit con coeficientes aleatorios, PC. JEL: D12, F23, L13, L63. Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203163 2012-07-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203162 Fair bounds based solidarity Jiménez Gómez, José M. (José Manuel); Peris, Josep E. How should scholarships be distributed among the (public) higher education students? We raise this situation as a redistribution problem. Following the approach developed in Fleurbaey (1994) and Bossert (1995), redistribution should be based on the notion of solidarity and it re-allocates resources taking into account only agents’ relevant characteristics. We also follow Luttens (2010a), who considers that compensation of relevant characteristics must be based on a lower bound on what every individual deserves. In doing so, we use the so-called fair bound (Moulin (2002)) to define an egalitarian redistribution mechanism and characterize it in terms of non-negativity, priority in lower bound and solidarity. Finally, we apply our approach to the scholarships redistribution problem. Keywords: Redistribution mechanism, Lower bounds, Scholarship, Solidarity. JEL classification: C71, D63, D71 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203162 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203160 A note on discrete claims problems Jiménez Gómez, José M. (José Manuel); Vilella Bach, Misericòrdia In this note, we consider claims problems with indivisible goods. Specifically, by applying recursively the P-rights lower bound (Jiménez-Gómez and Marco-Gil (2008)), we ensure the fulfillment of Weak Order Preservation, considered by many authors as a minimal requirement of fairness. Moreover, we retrieve the Discrete Constrained Equal Losses and the Discrete Constrained Equal Awards rules (Herrero and Martíınez (2008)). Finally, by the recursive double imposition of a lower and an upper bound, we obtain the average between them. Keywords: Claims problems, Indivisibilities, Order Preservation, Constrained Egalitarian rules, Midpoint. JEL classification: C71, D63, D71. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203160 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203159 Regional Determinants of Firm Entry in a Developing Country Calá, Carla Daniela; Arauzo Carod, Josep Maria; Manjón Antolín, Miguel C. Regional policies aiming to attract new firms are largely based on evidence that originates from Europe, the USA and Japan. This may raise doubts about the usefulness of such policies when applied to developing economies. This paper addresses this issue by providing estimates of the determinants of firm entry in the Argentinean provinces. We find that most of the determinants used in previous studies analysing developed countries are still relevant. However, there is a need for additional explanatory variables that reflect the specificities of developing economies. Key words: firm entry, regional economics, Argentina. JEL: R12; R30; C33 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203159 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203158 Agriculture, technological change and environmental sustainability: Looking for a win-win water policy strategy Llop Llop, Maria; Ponce Alifonso, Xavier, This paper analyses the effects that technological changes in agriculture would have on environmental, social and economic indicators. Specifically, our study is focused on two alternative technological improvements: the modernization of water transportation systems versus the increase in the total factor productivity of agriculture. Using a computable general equilibrium model for the Catalan economy, our results suggest that a water policy that leads to greater economic efficiency is not necessarily optimal if we consider social or environmental criteria. Moreover, improving environmental sustainability depends less on the type of technological change than on the institutional framework in which technological change occurs. Keywords: agricultural technological changes, computable general equilibrium model, economic impact, water policy Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203158 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203157 An axiomatic characterization of the strong constrained egalitarian solution Llerena Garrés, Francesc; Vilella Bach, Misericòrdia In this paper we axiomatize the strong constrained egalitarian solution (Dutta and Ray, 1991) over the class of weak superadditive games using constrained egalitarianism, order-consistency, and converse order-consistency. JEL classification: C71, C78. Keywords: Cooperative TU-game, strong constrained egalitarian solution, axiomatization. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203157 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203156 Do Fiscal and Political Decentralization Raise Students’ Performance? A Cross-Country Analysis Díaz Serrano, Lluís; Meix Llop, Enric The low quality of education is a persistent problem in many developed countries. Parallel to in the last decades exists a tendency towards decentralization in many developed and developing countries. Using micro data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) referred to 22 countries, we test whether there exists an impact of fiscal and political decentralization on student performance in the areas of mathematics, reading skills and science. We observe that fiscal decentralization exerts an unequivocal positive effect on students’ outcomes in all areas, while the effect of political decentralization is more ambiguous. On the one hand, the capacity of the subnational governments to rule on its region has a positive effect on students’ performance in mathematics. On the other hand, the capacity to influence the country as a whole has a negative impact on mathematics achievement. As a general result, we observe that students’ performance in Mathematics is more sensible to these exogenous variations than in Sciences and reading skills. Keywords: School outcomes, PISA, fiscal decentralization, political decentralization JEL codes: H11, H77, I21 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203156 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203155 Discrimination in Bankruptcy Situations Jiménez Gómez, José M. (José Manuel); Osório Costa, Antonio Miguel In a bankruptcy situation, not all claimants are affected in the same way. In particular, some depositors may enter into a situation of personal bankruptcy if they lose part of their investments. Events of this kind may lead to a social catastrophe. We propose discrimination among the claimants as a possible solution. A fact considered in the American bankruptcy law (among others) that establishes some discrimination on the claimants, or the Santander Bank that in the Madoff’s case reimbursed only the deposits to its particular customers. Moreover, the necessity of discriminating has already been mentioned in different contexts by Young (1988), Bossert (1995), Thomson (2003) and Pulido et al. (2002, 2007), for instance. In this paper, we take a bankruptcy solution as the reference point. Given this initial allocation, we make transfers from richer to poorer with the purpose of distributing not only the personal incurred losses as evenly as possible but also the transfers in a progressive way. The agents are divided into two groups depending on their personal monetary value (wealth, net-income, GDP or any other characteristic). Then, we impose a set of Axioms that bound the maximal transfer that each net-contributor can make and each net-receiver can obtain. Finally, we define a value discriminant solution, and we characterize it by means of the Lorenz criterion. Endogenous convex combinations between solutions are also considered. Keywords: Bankruptcy, Discrimination, Compensation, Rules JEL classification: C71, D63, D71. Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203155 2012-06-25T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203154 New stakeholders, spaces and instruments of analysis in the context of energy relationships: Case studies from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan Mañé Estrada, Aurèlia; Soldevila Lafon, Maria Victòria; Cámara Arilla, Carmen de la; Puig Gómez, Albert The disintegration of the USSR brought the emergence of a new geo-energy space in Central Asia. This space arose in the context of a global energy transition, which began in the late 1970s. Therefore, this new space in a changing energy world requires both new conceptual frameworks of analysis and the creation of new analytical tools. Taking into account this fact, our paper attempts to apply the theoretical framework of the Global Commodity Chain (GCC) to the case of natural resources in Central Asia. The aim of the paper is to check if there could be any Central Asia’s geo-energy space, assuming that this space would exist if natural resources were managed with regional criteria. The paper is divided into four sections. First an introduction that describes the new global energy context within natural resources of Central Asia would be integrated. Secondly, the paper justifies why the GCC methodology is suitable for the study of the value chains of energy products. Thirdly, we build up three cases studies (oil and uranium from Kazakhstan and gas from Turkmenistan) which reveal a high degree of uncertainty over the direction these chains will take. Finally, we present the conclusions of this study that state that the most plausible scenario would be the integration of energy resources of these countries in GCC where the core of the decision-making process will be far away from the region of Central Asia. Key words: Energy transition, geo-energy space, Global Commodity Chains, Central Asia Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/203154 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/196650 Land use regulation and productivity - Land matters: Evidence from a UK Supermarket chain Cheshire, Paul C.; Hilber, Christian; Kaplanis, Ioannis We use store-specific data for a major UK supermarket chain to estimate the impact of planning on store output. Using the quasi-natural experiment of the variation in policies between England and other UK countries, we isolate the impact of Town Centre First policies. We find that space contributes directly to store productivity; and planning policies in England directly reduce output both by reducing store sizes and forcing stores onto less productive sites. We estimate that since the late 1980s planning policies have imposed a loss of output of at least 18.3 to 24.9% - more than a “lost decade’s” growth. JEL codes: D2, L51, L81, R32. Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/196650 2012-05-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/196649 Neither Private nor Public: The Effects of Communal Provision of Water on Child Health in Peru Calzada, Joan; Iranzo Sancho, Susana The literature on local services has focused on the effects of privatization and, if anything, has compared the effects of private and mixed public-private systems versus public provision. However, alternative forms of provision such as cooperatives, which can be very prevalent in many developing countries, have been completely ignored. In this paper, we investigate the effects of communal water provison (Comités Vecinales and Juntas Administrativas de Servicios de Saneamiento) on child health in Peru. Using detailed survey data at the household- and child-level for the years 2006-2010, we exploit the cross-section variability to assess the differential impact of this form of provision. Despite controlling for a wide range of household and local characteristics, the municipalities served by communal organizations are more likely to have poorer health indicators, what would result in a downward bias on the absolute magnitude of the effect of cooperatives. We rely on an instrumental variable strategy to deal with this potential endogeneity problem, and use the personnel resources and the administrative urban/rural classi fication of the municipalities as instruments for the provision type. The results show a negative and signi cant effect of comunal water provision on diarrhea among under- five year old children. Keywords: water utilities, cooperatives, child health, regulation, Peru. JEL Classi fication Numbers: L33; L50; L95 Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/196649 2012-05-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/196109 Decomposing the Tourist’s Satisfaction Gap: The Role of Expectations and Cognitions Díaz Serrano, Lluís In this paper we present an empirical methodology that allows the tourist’s satisfaction gap between two destinations to be decomposed into two components. One explains the role of differences in observed characteristics of the tourists and the stay (endowments). The other captures the share of the gap due to differences in the utility that tourists derive from those characteristics (cognitive). To illustrate the use of this method, we employ data coming from a sample of tourists visiting two touristic enclaves in Tarragona (Spain). Our results indicate that the cognitive component explains most of the satisfaction gap. Keywords: Satisfaction, expectations, cognition, touristic destination Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/196109 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/184038 Accounting for Big City Growth in Low Paid Occupations: Immigration and/or Service Class Consumption Gordon, Ian; Kaplanis, Ioannis Growth of 'global cities' in the 1980s was supposed to have involved an occupational polarisation, including growth of low paid service jobs. Though held to be untrue for European cities, at the time, some such growth did emerge in London a decade later than first reported for New York. The question is whether there was simply a delay before London conformed to the global city model, or whether another distinct cause was at work in both cases. This paper proposes that the critical factor in both cases was actually an upsurge of immigration from poor countries providing an elastic supply of cheap labour. This hypothesis and its counterpart based on growth in elite jobs are tested econometrically for the British case with regional data spanning 1975-2008, finding some support for both effects, but with immigration from poor countries as the crucial influence in late 1990s London. Keywords: regional labour markets; wages; employment; international migration; consumer demand JEL Codes: J21, J23, F22, R12 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/184038 2012-03-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/184036 Lobbying as a Guard against Extremism Zudenkova, Galina This paper analyzes endogenous lobbying over a unidimensional policy issue. Individuals differ in policy preferences and decide either to join one of two opposite interest lobbies or not to take part in lobbying activities. Once formed, lobbies make contributions to the incumbent government in exchange for a policy favor as in a common-agency model. An equilibrium occurs only if no lobby member would prefer his lobby to cease to exist. I show the existence of an equilibrium with two organized lobbies. Individuals with more extreme preferences are more likely to join lobbying activities. Therefore, the lobbyists are rather extremists than moderates. However, the competition between those extreme lobbies results in a more moderate policy outcome relative to that initially preferred by the pro- or anti-policy government. Lobbies therefore guard against extremism, while acting as moderators of the government's preferences. JEL classification: D72. Keywords: common agency; endogenous lobbying; extremism. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/184036 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182721 Political Competition in Hard Times Zudenkova, Galina This paper analyzes a spatial model of political competition between two policy- motivated parties in hard times of crisis. Hard times are modeled in terms of policy- making costs carried by a newly elected party. The results predict policy divergence in equilibrium. If the ideological preferences of parties are quite diverse and extreme, there is a unique equilibrium in which the parties announce symmetric platforms and each party wins with probability one half. If one party is extreme while the other is more moderate, there is a unique equilibrium in which the parties announce asymmetric platforms. If the preferred policies of the parties are not very distinct, there are two equilibria with asymmetric platforms. An important property of equilibrium with asymmetric platforms is that a winning party necessarily announces its most preferred policy as a platform. JEL classification: D72. Keywords: Spatial model; Political competition; Two-party system; Policy-motivated parties; Hard times; Crisis. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182721 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182719 A New Approach for Bounding Awards in Bankruptcy Problems Jiménez Gómez, José Manuel; Marco Gil, M. Carmen The solution for the ‘Contested Garment Problem’, proposed in the Babylonic Talmud, suggests that each agent should receive at least some part of the resources whenever the demand overcomes the available amount. In this context, we propose a new method to define lower bounds on awards, an idea that has underlied the theoretical analysis of bankruptcy problems from its beginning (O’Neill, 1982) to present day (Dominguez and Thomson, 2006). Specifically, starting from the fact that a society establishes its own set of ‘Commonly Accepted Equity Principles’, our proposal ensures to each agent the smallest amount she gets according to all the admissible rules. As in general this new bound will not exhaust the estate, we analyze its recursive application for different sets of equity principles. Keywords: Bankruptcy problems, Bankruptcy rules, Lower bounds, Recursive process Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182719 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182646 Solidarity and uniform rules in bankruptcy problems Jiménez Gómez, José Manuel; Peris, Josep E. The idea of ensuring a guarantee (a minimum amount of the resources) to each agent has recently acquired great relevance, in both social and politi- cal terms. Furthermore, the notion of Solidarity has been treated frequently in redistribution problems to establish that any increment of the resources should be equally distributed taking into account some relevant characteris- tics. In this paper, we combine these two general concepts, guarantee and solidarity, to characterize the uniform rules in bankruptcy problems (Con- strained Equal Awards and Constrained Equal Losses rules). Keywords: Constrained Equal Awards, Constrained Equal Losses, Lower bounds, Bankruptcy problems, Solidarity. JEL classification: C71, D63, D71. Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182646 2012-03-23T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182645 A Proportional Approach to Bankruptcy Problems with a guaranteed minimum Jiménez Gómez, José Manuel; Peris, Josep E. In a distribution problem, and specfii cally in bankruptcy issues, the Proportional (P) and the Egalitarian (EA) divisions are two of the most popular ways to resolve the conflict. The Constrained Equal Awards rule (CEA) is introduced in bankruptcy literature to ensure that no agent receives more than her claim, a problem that can arise when using the egalitarian division. We propose an alternative modi cation, by using a convex combination of P and EA. The recursive application of this new rule finishes at the CEA rule. Our solution concept ensures a minimum amount to each agent, and distributes the remaining estate in a proportional way. Keywords: Bankruptcy problems, Proportional rule, Equal Awards, Convex combination of rules, Lorenz dominance. JEL classi fication: C71, D63, D71. Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182645 2012-03-21T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182644 Environmental Tax on Products and Services Based on Their Carbon Footprint: A Case Study of the Pulp and Paper Sector Gemechu, Eskinder D.; Butnar, Isabela; Llop Llop, Maria; Castells i Piqué, Francesc The main aim of this work is to define an environmental tax on products and services based on their carbon footprint. We examine the relevance of conventional life cycle analysis (LCA) and environmentally extended input-output analysis (EIO) as methodological tools to identify emission intensities of products and services on which the tax is based. The short-term price effects of the tax and the policy implications of considering non-GHG are also analyzed. The results from the specific case study on pulp production show that the environmental tax rate based on the LCA approach (1,8%) is higher than both EIO approaches (0,8% for product and 1,4% for industry approach), but they are comparable. Even though LCA is more product specific and provides detailed analysis, EIO would be the more relevant approach to apply economy wide environmental tax. When the environmental tax considers non-GHG emissions instead of only CO2, sectors such as agriculture, mining of coal and extraction of peat, and food exhibit higher environmental tax and price effects. Therefore, it is worthwhile for policy makers to pay attention on the implication of considering only CO2 tax or GHG emissions tax in order for such a policy measure to be effective and meaningful. Keywords: Environmental tax; Life cycle analysis; Environmental input-output analysis. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/182644 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/181404 Is real GDP stationary? Evidence from a panel unit root test with cross-sectional dependence and historical data Aslanidis, Nektarios; Fountas, Stilianos We use historical data that cover more than one century on real GDP for industrial countries and employ the Pesaran panel unit root test that allows for cross-sectional dependence to test for a unit root on real GDP. We find strong evidence against the unit root null. Our results are robust to the chosen group of countries and the sample period. Key words: real GDP stationarity, cross-sectional dependence, CIPS test. JEL Classification: C23, E32 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/181404 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/181403 Profitability, uncertainty and multi-product firm product proliferation: The Spanish car industry Varela-Irimia, Xosé-Luís This article studies how product introduction decisions relate to profitability and uncertainty in the context of multi-product firms and product differentiation. These two features, common to many modern industries, have not received much attention in the literature as compared to the classical problem of firm entry, even if the determinants of firm and product entry are quite different. The theoretical predictions about the sign of the impact of uncertainty on product entry are not conclusive. Therefore, an econometric model relating firms’ product introduction decisions with profitability and profit uncertainty is proposed. Firm’s estimated profits are obtained from a structural model of product demand and supply, and uncertainty is proxied by profits’ variance. The empirical analysis is carried out using data on the Spanish car industry for the period 1990-2000. The results show a positive relationship between product introduction and profitability, and a negative one with respect to profit variability. Interestingly, the degree of uncertainty appears to be a driving force of entry stronger than profitability, suggesting that the product proliferation process in the Spanish car market may have been mainly a consequence of lower uncertainty rather than the result of having a more profitable market. Keywords: Product introduction, entry, uncertainty, multiproduct firms, automobile JEL codes: L11, L13 Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/181403 2012-01-17T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/179671 Flexible employment and cross- regional adjustment Monastiriotis, Vassilis; Kaplanis, Ioannis Employment flexibility is commonly associated to greater labour mobility and thus faster cross-regional adjustments. The literature however offers very little hard evidence on this and quite limited theoretical guidance. This paper examines empirically the relationship between employment flexibility and cross-regional adjustment (migration) at the regional and local levels in the UK. Employment flexibility is associated to higher labour mobility (but only at a rather localised scale) and at the same time seems to reduce the responsiveness of migration to unemployment. This suggest that rising flexibility may be linked to higher persistence in spatial disparities, as intra-regional adjustments are strengthened while extraregional adjustments weakened. Keywords: Employment flexibility, regional migration, labour market adjustment JEL Codes: R11, R23, J08, J61 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/179671 2011-12-01T00:00:00Z