This study starts from the observation that today's Western trading nations are exposed to multiple risks of energy supplies, eg simultaneous shortage of oil and gas supplies. To cope with these risks, both oil and gas can be stockpiled. Adopting the viewpoint of a policy maker who aims at minimizing the expected cost of security of supply, optimal simultaneous adjustments of oil and gas stocks to exogenous changes such as an increase in the probability of supply disruption are derived. Against this benchmark, one-dimensional rules such as ‘oil reserves for 90 days’ turn out to be not only suboptimal but also to suggest adjustments exacerbating suboptimality.
The purpose of this contribution is to investigate why private insurance of the risk of long-term care (LTC) has known little market success in major industrialized countries, even among the relatively well-to-do. Using a principal-agent framework, it shows that the purchase of LTC insurance by the parent (the principal) is likely to diminish the amount of LTC provided by the major caregivers; namely children earning a comparatively low wage in the labor market. Anticipating this moral hazard effect, the parent is predicted to renounce the purchase of LTC coverage in many cases. This finding throws serious doubts on the welfare effects of recent moves to introduce compulsory social LTC insurance, as, for example, in Germany.
Garnishment of wage as a way for creditors to enforce payment by unwilling or insolvent debtors, while very common in Germany and Switzerland, is not very successful. Based on a dynamic model of debtor behaviour, this paper explores two alternatives of reform. One is to reduce the rate of garnishment, which at present amounts to 100 percent of the wage income exceeding a defined subsistence level, thus probably destroying incentives to work. According to model simulations, reducing the rate of garnishment is likely to result in an increase of labour supply but a decrease of garnishment revenue per period. Second, the introduction of a debt release as it exists in the United States would have an ambiguous effect on labour supply. While providing debtors with a fresh start, it would result a partial loss for creditors. A Pareto improvement thus does not seem to be possible. When taxpayers as an involved third party are taken into account, however, a potential Pareto improvement appears attainable through debt release.
This paper studies the relationship between health care expenditure (HCE) and age, using longitudinal rather than cross-sectional data. The econometric analysis of HCE in the last eight quarters of life of individuals who died during the period 1983-1992 indicates that HCE depends on remaining lifetime but not on calendar age, at least beyond 65+. The positive relationship between age and HCE observed in cross-sectional data may be caused by the simple fact that at age 80, for example, there are many more individuals living in their last 2 years than at age 65. The limited impact of age on HCE suggests that population ageing may contribute much less to future growth of the health care sector than claimed by most observers.
This paper discusses the specification and estimation of seemingly unrelated multivariate count data models. A new model with negative binomial marginals is proposed. In contrast to a previous model based on the multivariate Poisson distribution, the new model allows for over-dispersion, a phenomenon that is frequently encountered in economic count data. Semi-parametric estimation is possible if some of the assumption of the fully specified model are violated.
This paper examines two competing explanations for workers' absenteeism, the shirking hypothesis and the adjustment-to-equilibrium hypothesis. Data on German workers for 1985-88 from the German SocioEconomic Panel are used in order to estimate the determinants of workers' absenteeism. The results indicate that firm size matters after wage effects are controlled for. This evidence supports the shirking hypothesis.
This paper is concerned with the problems of posterior simulation and model choice for Poisson panel data models with multiple random effects. Efficient algorithms based on Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for sampling the posterior distribution are developed. A new parameterization of the random effects and fixed effects is proposed and compared with a parameterization in common use, and computation of marginal likelihoods and Bayes factors via Chib’s (1995) method is also considered. The methods are illustrated with two real data applications involving large samples and multiple random effects.
Michael Porter and others have recently argued that suitable environmental regulations are likely to induce cost-reducing innovations. We analyze under which conditions such arguments might be consistent with microeconomic analysis, and under which additional conditions the firms' benefits might exceed the costs. It turns out that this requires fairly specific conditions.
Recently, the 'new economic geography' literature has developed as a theory of the emergence of large agglomerations which relies on increasing returns to scale and transportation costs. This literature builds on diverse intellectual traditions. It combines the insights of traditional regional science with those of modern trade theory and thus attempts to provide an integrative approach to interregional and international trade. The paper surveys this literature and discusses its relation to earlier approaches to similar topics.
lunedì 20 marzo 2017 auditorio, campus di Lugano 16.15 17.30 Comunicazione e sport: quali sono le possibili professioni, quali i percorsi formativi e cosa contraddistingue il lavoro di chi ha fatto della comunicazione sportiva il proprio lavoro (diversi relatori, cfr. locandina allegata) 18:00 ...
