Portuguese Economic Journal, 2012, Volume 11, Nº 3
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
- On the effects of highway investment on the regional concentration of economic activity in the USAPublication . Pereira, Alfredo M.; Andraz, Jorge M.The empirical results in this note are based on state-level VAR esti- mates using private output, employment, and investment, as well as diff erent measures of highway investment to capture, for each state, both the direct effects of highway investment in the state itself and spillover effects of highway investment in other states. Empirical results suggest that the largest states tend to also be the biggest beneficiaries of highway investments which means that highway investment has not only contributed to regional concentration of economic activity but has done so in many of the largest states thereby contributing to regional asymmetries in the country.
- Facts and distortions in an endogenous growth model with physical capital, human capital and varietiesPublication . Sequeira, Tiago NevesThis article studies a model with physical and human capital accumulation and varieties. The model includes several distortions: duplication effects, spillovers, creative destruction, surplus appropriability, and an erosion effect. We show that the duplication effect in R&D is essential to make the model replicate several stylized facts linked with R&D. We evaluate the distance to the optimal solution, comparing the strength of each distortion.
- Treatment effect analysis of early reemployment bonus program : panel MLE and mode-based semiparametric estimator for interval truncationPublication . Hyun, Ah Kim; Yong-seong, Kim; Myoung-jae, LeeWe use Korean data to find the ef fects of Early Reemployment Bonus (ERB) on unemployment duration; ERB is a bonus that the eligible unemployed receive if they find a job before their unemployment insurance benefit expires. A naive approach would be comparing the ERB receiving group with the non-receiving group, but the ERB receipt is partly determined by the unemployment duration itself (thus, an endogeneity problem). Interestingly, there were many individuals who did not receive the ERB despite being fully eligible, and this is attributed to being unaware of the ERB scheme. Taking this as a ‘pseudo randomization’, we construct treatment and control groups using only the eligible. Our data set is an unbalanced panel with the response variable interval-truncated due to eligibility requirement of the ERB. We propose a panel random-effect MLE and a semiparametric ‘mode-based’ estimator for the interval-truncated response. Our empirical finding is that the effect varies much, depending on individual characteristics. As for the mean effects, whereas the MLE indicates large duration-shortening effects, the semiparametric estimator shows much weaker and mostly insignificant effects.
- Decentralization and regional government size in SpainPublication . Cantarero, David; Perez, PatricioThe aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of fiscal decen- tralization on the size of regional governments in Spain, by controlling for economies of scale, interregional heterogeneity and institutional framework. We study it over 1985 to 2004 using a panel dataset of seventeen spanish regions. The results can be easily summarized. Firstly, it supports the classic public goods theory of a trade-off-between the economic benefits of size and the costs of heterogeneity. Secondly, it doesn’t reject the “Leviathan” hypoth- esis and neither does the “common pool” hypothesis. Thirdly, by contrast, the paper partly rejects the “Wallis”’ hypothesis. It argues that government size is mediated by financial resources obtained through intergovernmental grants, consistent with welfare economics and positive economic policies. We conclude that later advances in the decentralisation process must be compatible with the goal of reducing fiscal imbalances that emanate from the vertical structure of fiscal power.