Quality of Human and Physical Capital and Technological Gaps across Italian Regions

This paper evaluates the relative contribution of factor accumulation and technology in explaining output per worker differences across Italian regions in the period 2000-2004. The contributions of physical and human capital are separately estimated through the variance decomposition of output per worker. Whereas from a basic analysis of development accounting with crude data TFP emerges as a fundamental determinant of output per worker, when more accurate data are used in the estimations of human and physical capital, results change radically, showing a higher importance of factor accumulation with respect to previous standard estimations. Several measures of quality of human and physical capital are introduced: a) individuals’ cognitive skills as measured in international test scores; b) region specific rates of return on human capital; c) public investments and public-subsidized investments are weighted differently from private investment in the determination of physical capital stock. We show that better measurement of factor inputs allows a reduction in the solowian “measure of our ignorance”.Growth; Technological Gaps; Human Capital; Physical Capital; Development Accounting; Quality of inputs

Analysing the impacts of closure of a military base using a dynamic CGE model

Military bases are commonplace in many countries and may have a significant impact in the communities where they are integrated. Impacts of military bases have been analysed through different perspectives. Our aim is to analyse their economic impact. The importance of military bases has become a topic of discussion particularly when base closures or base activity reductions are under consideration. In a previous paper the authors looked at the issue using a static CGE model applied to the analysis of the economic impact of a US base located in the island of Terceira in the Azores. In the current paper a dynamic model is used to study the same issue, using more recent data and disaggregating the impact among different household categories. A base closure scenario is created and the impacts traced through various economic indicators. It is concluded that GDP falls, relative to the base scenario for a number of years recovering after some time, assuming that worsened trade balances are compensated by other transfers. This fall is prompted by a fall in employment, personal income and consumption. The model also predicts that the impact hurts different household income groups with diverse intensity. Lower income households are hurt more in relative terms but generate a smaller absolute impact. With time, the negative impact tapers off for most income groups except for the lowest which keeps on loosing more until the end of the simulation period.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Real estate stock selection and attribute preferences

The majority of studies that explore property portfolio construction and management strategies utilise highly aggregated ex-post data, but stock selection is known to be a significant determinant of portfolio performance. Thus, here we look at stock selection, focusing on the choices faced by investors, necessitating the collection and analysis of primary data, carried out utilising conjoint analysis. This represents a new step in property research, with the data collection undertaken using a simulation exercise. This enables fund managers to make hypothetical purchase decisions, viewing properties comprising a realistic bundle of attributes and making complex contemporaneous trade-offs between attributes, subject to their stated market and economic forecasts and sector specialism. In total 51 fund managers were surveyed, producing 918 purchase decisions for analysis, with additional data collected regarding fund and personal characteristics. The results reveal that ‘fixed’ property characteristics (location and obsolescence) are dominant in the decision-making process, over and above ‘manageable’ tenant and lease characteristics which can be explicitly included within models of probabilities of income variation. This reveals investors are making ex-ante risk judgements and are considering post acquisition risk management strategies. The study also reveals that behavioural factors affect acquisition decisions

Canadian Farmers' Adaptation to Declining Commodity Prices

The five major agricultural producing provinces are compared in terms of farm labour and management incomes, return on investment to farm capital, total farm family income, and farm family net worth. In each province, comparisons are made with non-farm incomes, investment returns and net worth levels. The results show that farm family incomes in Canada are much better today than 30 years ago, returns on farmland investment are very comparable to average stock market returns, and average farm family net worth is significantly higher than the average for all families. The conclusion is that Canadian farmers have adapted well to declining commodity prices mainly by being adapters of and investors in new technologies, allowing them to increase farm size (increased cost efficiencies) and by diversifying their income sources to include more off-farm income.Farm Labour and Management Income, Return on Invested Farm Capital, Real Commodity Prices, Farm Family Income, Off-Farm Employment, Farm Family Net Worth, Farm Management, Labor and Human Capital,

Sheep CRC Renewal Proposal: Economic Evaluation of the Proposed Scientific Themes

The Australian sheep industry and its associated research and development agencies have developed a proposal for the CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation. “Top-down” and “bottomup” procedures were used to assess the expected economic benefits from this proposal. Formal “with-CRC” and “without-CRC” scenarios were defined for each product and each research theme. Relevant costs were similarly defined. The requested investment by the Commonwealth and the Australian sheep industry in the CRC is assessed relative to a scenario where an alternative, lower cost research program into this industry is implemented. These extra resources have a discounted value of about $34 million over the 25-year period of this evaluation. These resources are sufficient to allow some new research components to be added to the portfolio, some existing components to produce better outcomes, and a more targeted approach to development and extension that speeds up and increases the adoption of the new technologies that are generated by the research program. The benefit from this extra investment and consequent research effort is estimated to be worth about$518 million in present value terms, which is far in excess of the marginal investment. Thus every $1 of these extra resources brought into the Australian sheep industry through funding the proposed CRC is expected to return around$15.30 to the industry in present value terms.wool, sheep meat, research and development, economic, evaluation, Australia, Agribusiness, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Q160,

Constructing Indonesian Social Accounting Matrix for Distributional Analysis in the CGE Modelling Framework

The distributional impact of policies analyzed in the CGE modelling framework have been constrained in part by the absence of a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) with disaggregated households. Since Indonesian official SAM does not distinguish households by income or expenditure size, it has prevented accurate assesment for the distributional impact, such as calculation of inequality or poverty incidence. This paper describes how the Indonesian SAM for the year 2003, with 181 industries, 181 commodities, and 200 households (100 urban and 100 rural households grouped by expenditure per capita centiles) was constructed. The SAM (with the size of 768x768 accounts) constitutes the the most disaggregated SAM for Indonesia at both the sectoral and household level. SAM Construction is an essential part of CGE modeling, and this documentation provides greater transparency as well as replicability for further improvement.Social Accounting Matrix; Computable General Equilibrium; Indonesia

Constructing Indonesian Social Accounting Matrix for Distributional Analysis in the CGE Modelling Framework

The distributional impact of policies analyzed in the CGE modelling framework have been constrained in part by the absence of a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) with disaggregated households. Since Indonesian official SAM does not distinguish households by income or expenditure size, it has prevented accurate assesment for the distributional impact, such as calculation of inequality or poverty incidence. This paper describes how the Indonesian SAM for the year 2003, with 181 industries, 181 commodities, and 200 households (100 urban and 100 rural households grouped by expenditure per capita centiles) was constructed. The SAM (with the size of 768x768 accounts) constitutes the the most disaggregated SAM for Indonesia at both the sectoral and household level. SAM Construction is an essential part of CGE modeling, and this documentation provides greater transparency as well as replicability for further improvement.Social Accounting Matrix, Computable General Equilibrium, Indonesia

A Matter of Voice: The Case for Abolishing the 30 percent Rule for Pension Fund Investments

Pension fund managers have devised ways to effectively skirt the rule that limits them to acquiring no more than 30 percent of the shares eligible to vote for the directors of a corporation. It’s time for regulators to enforce the rule or eliminate it entirely, thereby giving pension funds a voice commensurate with their equity stake.Canadian pension security, Canadian pension funds

Ghana and the Ideal of the Citizen-Shareholder: A Corporate-Law Response to the Resource Curse

This Note assesses Ghana’s legal regime for managing revenues from its newfound petroleum reserves as a means of combatting the resource curse—the well-documented political and economic phenomenon wherein resource-rich countries experience greater levels of corruption and poor governance and weaker democracy and economic growth than resource-poor nations. The Ghanaian regime fails to provide systemic protections against the resource curse by (1) supplying insufficient economic development and poverty relief, (2) lacking incentives and mechanisms for overseeing and holding accountable the powers responsible for managing petroleum revenues, and (3) providing insufficient channels for spreading the economic benefits of extraction beyond the petroleum sector. This Note undertakes a comparative study of a representative group of petroleum revenue-management regimes—those of Alaska, Norway, Indonesia, and Trinidad and Tobago—in search of an effective regime that might be transplanted to Ghana. Finding that none of these regimes are adequately applicable to Ghana’s economic, social, or political context, this Note goes on to propose a novel regime for petroleum revenue management in Ghana, drawing on principles of U.S. corporate law