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Item Metadata only Grain Price Spikes and Beggar-Thy-Neighbor Policy Responses: A Global Economywide Analysis(World Bank Group, 2014) Jensen, H.G.; Anderson, K.When prices spike in international grain markets, national governments often reduce the extent to which that spike affects their domestic food markets. Those actions exacerbate the price spike and international welfare transfer associated with the terms of trade change. Several recent analyses have assessed the extent to which those policies contributed to the 2006–08 international price rise, but only by focusing on one commodity or using a back-of-the-envelope method. This paper provides a more comprehensive analysis that uses a global economywide model that is able to take account of the interactions between markets for farm products that are closely related in production or consumption. The model is able to estimate the impacts of those insulating policies on grain prices and on the grain trade and economic welfare of various countries. The results support the conclusion from earlier studies that there is a need for stronger World Trade Organization disciplines on export restrictions.Item Metadata only Grain Price Spikes and Beggar-Thy-Neighbor Policy Responses: A Global Economywide Analysis(Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), 2014) Anderson, K.; Jensen, H.G.When prices spike in international grain markets, national governments often reduce the extent to which that spike affects their domestic food markets. Those actions exacerbate the price spike and international welfare transfer associated with that terms of trade change. Several recent analyses have assessed the extent to which those policies contributed to the 2006-08 international price rise, but only by focusing on one commodity or using a back-of-the envelope (BOTE) method. This paper provides a more-comprehensive analysis using a global economy-wide model that is able to take account of the interactions between markets for farm products that are closely related in production and/or consumption, and able to estimate the impacts of those insulating policies on grain prices and on the grain trade and economic welfare of the world?s various countries. Our results support the conclusion from earlier studies that there is a need for stronger WTO disciplines on export restrictions.Item Metadata only On bootstrapping tests of equal forecast accuracy for nested models(Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Australian National University, 2020) Doko Tchatoka, F.; Haque, Q.The asymptotic distributions of the recursive out-of-sample forecast accuracy test statistics depend on stochastic integrals of Brownian motion when the models under comparison are nested. This often complicates their implementation in practice because the computation of their asymptotic critical values is costly. Hansen and Timmermann (2015, Econometrica) propose a Wald approximation of the commonly used recursive Fstatistic and provide a simple characterization of the exact density of its asymptotic distribution. However, this characterization holds only when the larger model has one extra predictor or the forecast errors are homoscedastic. No such closed-form characterization is readily available when the nesting involves more than one predictor and heteroskedasticity is present. We first show both the recursive F-test and its Wald approximation have poor finite-sample properties, especially when the forecast horizon is greater than one. We then propose a hybrid bootstrap method consisting of a block moving bootstrap (which is nonparametric) and a residual based bootstrap for both statistics, and establish its validity. Simulations show that our hybrid bootstrap has good finite-sample performance, even in multi-step ahead forecasts with heteroscedastic or autocorrelated errors, and more than one predictor. The bootstrap method is illustrated on forecasting core inflation and GDP growth.Item Metadata only Exploration vs Exploitation, impulse balance equilibrium and a specification test for the el farol bar problem(School of Economics, The University of Adelaide, 2018) Kirman, A.; Laisney, F.; Pezanis-Christou, P.The paper reports on market-entry experiments that manipulate both payoff structures and payoff levels to assess two stationary models of behaviour: Exploration vs Exploitation (EvE, which is equivalent to Quantal Response Equilibrium) and Impulse Balance Equilibrium (IBE). These models explain the data equally well in terms of goodness-of-fit whenever the observed probability of entry is less than the symmetric Nash equilibrium prediction; otherwise IBE marginally outperforms EvE. When assuming agents playing symmetric strategies, and estimating the models with session data, IBE yields more theory-consistent estimates than EvE, no matter the payoff structure or level. However, the opposite occurs when the symmetry assumption is relaxed. The conduct of a specification test rejects the validity of the restrictions on entry probabilities imposed by EvE for agents with symmetric strategies, in 50 to 75% of sessions and it always rejects it in the case of IBE, which indicates that the symmetric variant of these models have little empirical support.Item Metadata only Improving Job Search Skills: A Field Experiment on Online Employment Assistance(IZA Institute of Labor Economics, 2020) Briscese, G.; Zanella, G.; Quinn, V.Finding a job requires effective search skills to engage successfully with employers with vacancies. In a field experiment, we test a website that supplements such search skills by providing editable resume and cover letter templates as well as tips on how to look and apply for jobs. Exposure to the website was randomized among about 2,700 job seekers in Australia. The intervention increased job-finding rates, particularly among job seekers aged 35-50 (up to 8 percentage points), with larger effects for women within this age group (up to 10 percentage points). The quality of job matches improved too.Item Open Access Monetary policy and indeterminacy after the 2001 slump(School of Economics, University of Adelaide, 2016) Doko Tchatoka, F.I.R.M.I.N.; Groshenny, N.I.C.O.L.A.S.; Haque, Q.G.; Weder, M.A.R.K.This paper estimates a New Keynesian model of the U.S. economy over the period following the 2001 slump, a period for which the adequacy of monetary policy is intensely debated. We nd that only when measuring in ation with core PCE does monetary policy appear to have been reasonable and su¢ ciently active to rule out indeterminacy. We then relax the assumption that in ation in the model is measured by a single indicator and re-formulate the arti cial economy as a factor model where the theory s concept of in ation is the common factor to the empirical in ation series. CPI and PCE provide better indicators of the latent concept while core PCE is less informative. Finally, we estimate an economy that distinguishes between core and headline in ation rates. This model comfortably rules out indeterminacy.Item Metadata only The volatility of survey measures of culture and its consequences(IZA Institute of Labor Economics, 2019) Zanella, G.; Bellani, M.Common measures of cultural attitudes, such as those constructed from the World Values Survey, are characterized by substantial within-country volatility. This volatility is at odds with the notion of culture adopted in economics: a set of slow-moving traits that determine preferences and expectations transmitted from one generation to the next via family or social interactions. The insufficient persistence of survey proxies for such traits may compromise empirical studies of culture as a determinant of economic outcomes. We illustrate this point via a thorough replication, using the most recent WVS waves, of analyses carried out previously for regions in Europe.Item Metadata only Public, private or both? Analysing factors influencing the labour supply of medical specialists(Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne, 2013) Cheng, T.; Kalb, G.; Scott, A.This paper investigates the factors influencing the allocation of time between public and private sectors by medical specialists. A discrete choice structural labour supply model is estimated, where specialists choose from a set of job packages that are characterised by the number of working hours in the public and private sectors. The results show that medical specialists respond to changes in earnings by reallocating working hours to the sector with relatively higher earnings, while leaving total working hours unchanged. The magnitudes of the own-sector and cross-sector earnings elasticities fall in the range of 0.21-0.54, and are larger for male than for female specialists. The labour supply response varies by doctors' age and medical specialty. Family circumstances such as the presence of young dependent children influence the hours worked by female specialists but not male specialists. We illustrate the relevance of our findings by simulating the impact of recent trends in earnings growth in the public and private sectors.Item Metadata only Borders, market access and urban growth; the case of Saxon towns and the Zollverein(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2010) Ploeckl, F.The Zollverein, the, customs union between independent German states, removed all internal borders. This paper investigates its economic impact focussing on urban population growth in the state of Saxony. Implications from a economic geography model are tested with a data set on town populations and location characteristics as well as an improved distance measure created with GIS techniques to include geography and infrastructure. Saxony's Zollverein membership led to significantly higher growth for towns close to the liberalized border. The effect depended on a town's size, was reinforced through neighboring markets and worked through influencing migration and natural increase.Item Metadata only National rules, regional differences? Explaining the regional efficiency of a public monopolist: the case of the German Reichspost(Economic History Society, 2017) Ploeckl, F.Public monopolies operate with substantial regional differences in their effciency. This paper uses the Reichspost, the German Imperial Postal Service, to investigate what factors explain these differences. Additionally scale effects and the comparative effciency on input and output side are investigated.Item Metadata only Space, settlements, towns: the influence of geography and market access on settlement distribution and urbanization(Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, 2012) Ploeckl, F.The spatial distribution of economic activity is strongly linked to the structure of the urban system. The origin and development of the spatial pattern of this system is separated into two stages, the diffusion of settlements and their potential transition to urban status. The theoretical framework incorporates the influence of geographic characteristics and location interdependence as central mechanisms in both stages. Their relative importance for both is tested empirically with the historical settlement pattern in Saxony as a case study. After investigating with a spatial point process approach how geographic endowments and location interdependence shape the spatial distribution of all settlements within the state, I apply a spatial probit estimation to determine how these endowments and interdependence, which resembles a market access effect, influence the likelihood that a settlement transitioned to a town. The results indicate that geographic factors are the primary influence on the spatial distribution and urbanization of settlements, while the spatial relationship has a significant but small clustering impact. Furthermore the determinants of the spatial distribution of size based and institutional towns are compared, demonstrating that the influence of location interdependence is quite close, while there are some significant differences in the influence of physical geography.Item Metadata only The Zollverein and the formation of a customs union(Department of Economic, University of Oxford, 2017) Ploeckl, F.The Zollverein, the German customs union of, was the institutional centrepiece of Germany, s economic unification. A bargaining model is applied to analyze the structure of its negotiation process and accession sequence. The existence of negative coalition externalities, the effect of a coalition on non-participants, led Prussia to choose sequential over multilateral negotiations. The nature of these externalities within the areas of financial revenues, trade policy and domestic political economy also explains the observed accession sequence. The choice of a customs union as institutional structure allowed Prussia to extract higher concessions from other states due to stronger coalition externalities.Item Metadata only It's all in the mail: the economic geography of the German empire(School of Economics, University of Adelaide, 2015) Ploeckl, F.Information exchange is a necessary prerequisite for economic exchange over space. This relationship implies that information exchange data corresponds to the location of economic activity and therefore also of population. Building on this relationship we use postal data to analyse the spatial structure of the population distribution in the German Empire of 1871. In particular we utilize local volume data of a number of postal information transmission services and a New Economic Geography model to create two index measures, Information Intensity and Amenity. These variables respectively influence the two mechanisms behind the urban population distribution, namely agglomeration forces and location endowments. By testing the influence of actual location characteristics on these indices we identify which location factors mattered for the population distribution and show that a number of characteristics worked through both mechanisms. The model is then used to determine counterfactual population distributions, which demonstrate the relative importance of particular factors, most notably the railroad whose removal shows a 34% lower urban population. A data set of large locations for the years 1877 to 1895 shows that market access increases drove the magnitude of the increase in urban population, while endowment changes shaped their relative pattern.Item Open Access Monetary policy, target inflation and the great moderation: an empirical investigation(School of Economics, The University of Adelaide, 2017) Haque, Q.G.This paper compares the empirical fit of a Taylor rule featuring constant versus time-varying inflation target by estimating a Generalized New Keyne- sian model under positive trend inflation while allowing for indeterminacy. The estimation is conducted over two di¤erent periods covering the Great Inflation and the Great Moderation. We find that the rule embedding time variation in target inflation turns out to be empirically superior and determinacy prevails in both sample periods. Counterfactual simulations point toward both 'good policy' and 'good luck' as drivers of the Great Moderation. We find that bet- ter monetary policy, both in terms of a more active response to inflation gap and a more anchored inflation target, has resulted in the decline in inflation gap volatility and predictability. In contrast, the reduction in output growth variability is mainly explained by reduced volatility of technology shocks.Item Open Access Testing for stochastic dominance in social networks(University of Adelaide, School of Economics, 2017) Doko Tchatoka, F.; Garrard, R.; Masson, V.This paper illustrates how stochastic dominance criteria can be used to rank social networks in terms of efficiency, and develops statistical inference procedures for as- sessing these criteria. The tests proposed can be viewed as extensions of a Pearson goodness-of-fit test and a studentized maximum modulus test often used to partially rank income distributions and inequality measures. We establish uniform convergence of the empirical size of the tests to the nominal level, and show their consistency under the usual conditions that guarantee the validity of the approximation of a multinomial distribution to a Gaussian distribution. Furthermore, we propose a bootstrap method that enhances the finite-sample properties of the tests. The performance of the tests is illustrated via Monte Carlo experiments and an empirical application to risk sharing networks in rural IndiaItem Metadata only Indeterminacy and learning: An analysis of monetary policy in the Great Inflation(Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 2016) Lubik, T.A.; Matthes, C.The Great Inflation of the 1970s can be understood as the result of equilibrium indeterminacy in which loose monetary policy engendered excess volatility in macroeconomic aggregates and prices. The Federal Reserve inadvertently pursued policies that were not anti-inflationary enough because it did not fully understand the economic environment it was operating in. Specifically, it had imperfect knowledge about the structure of the economy and was subject to data misperceptions. The combination of learning about the economy and the use of mis-measured data resulted in policies, which the Federal Reserve believed to be optimal, but when implemented led to equilibrium indeterminacy.Item Metadata only Monetary policy and indeterminacy after the 2001 slump(Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, 2016) Doko Tchatoka, F.; Groshenny, N.; Haque, Q.G.; Weder, M.This paper estimates a New Keynesian model of the U.S. economy over the period following the 2001 slump, a period for which the adequacy of monetary policy is intensely debated. To relate to this debate, we consider three alternative empirical inflation series in the estimation. When using CPI or PCE, we find some support for the view that the Federal Reserve’s policy was extra easy and may have led to equilibrium indeterminacy. Instead, when measuring inflation with core PCE, monetary policy appears to have been reasonable and sufficiently active to rule out indeterminacy. We then relax the assumption that inflation in the model is measured by a single indicator. We re-formulate the artificial economy as a factor model where the theory’s concept of inflation is the common factor to the three empirical inflation series. We find that CPI and PCE provide better indicators of the latent concept while core PCE is less informative. Again, this procedure cannot dismiss indeterminacy.Item Metadata only Towards a relational economics: Methodological comments on intellectual property strategy, industrial organisation, and economics(School of Economics, University of Adelaide, 2005) Binenbaum, Eran; School of EconomicsItem Metadata only The power of the provisioning concept(School of Economics, University of Adelaide, 2005) Binenbaum, Eran; School of EconomicsItem Metadata only Knight versus Herskovits: A methodologically charged debate in the 1940s(School of Economics, University of Adelaide, 2005) Binenbaum, Eran; School of Economics