Business dynamics and employment growth: A cross-country analysis

This paper examines the relationship between business dynamics (entry and exit of firms) and employment growth at the country-industry level. We use a cross-country data set with harmonized data on numbers of entries and exits for a selection of fast growing and innovative industries in six developed economies. In our multiple regression analysis we allow for separate effects of both the extent of business dynamics (volatility of firms) and the composition of business dynamics (net-entry of firms). We also test for the existence of an 'optimal' level of business volatility, possibly indicating that entry and exit levels are too high in certain industries. We find positive employment effects of net-entry rates, both for manufacturing industries and for services industries. Regarding volatility, we find a positive effect for manufacturing but no effect for services. This implies that different government policies may be required to achieve growth in these sectors. We find no evidence for an 'optimal' level of business volatility.

An Evolutionary Agent-based simulation model for the industry life cycle

In contrast to the usual approach taken in the literature, in which an Industry Life Cycle (ILC) is reproduced by aggregate functions, the model of this paper generates a self-organizing ILC. A general evolutionary agent-based simulation model is developed that can be adapted for specific branches of industry. The results enable conclusions to be drawn for competition policy with regard to the workability of competition in the various phases of the ILC. --Industry Life Cycle,Agent-Based Simulation Model,Evolutionary Economics

An empirical analysis of business dynamics and growth

This paper examines the relationship between business dynamics (entry and exit of firms) and employment growth at the country-industry level. We use a cross-country data set with harmonized data on numbers of entries and exits for a selection of fastgrowing and innovative industries in six developed economies. In our regression analysis we allow for separate effects of both the extent of business dynamics (volatility of firms) and the composition of business dynamics (net-entry of firms). We also test for the existence of an 'optimal' level of business volatility, possibly indicating that entry and exit levels are too high in certain industries. We find positive employment effects of net-entry rates and volatility rates. These effects are found to be considerably stronger for manufacturing compared to services. We find no evidence for an 'optimal' level of business volatility. �

A Cross-cohort Description of Young People’s Housing Experience in Britain over 30 Years: An Application of Sequence Analysis

Methods. Sequence Analysis supported by Event History Analysis. Key Findings. Despite only 12 years separating both cohorts, the younger 1970 cohort exhibited very different patterns of housing including a slower progression out of the parental home and into stable tenure, and an increased reliance on privately rented housing. Returns to the parental home occurred across the twenties and into the thirties in both cohorts, although occurred more frequently and were more concentrated among certain groups in the 1970 cohort compared to the 1958 cohort. Although fewer cohort members in the 1970 cohort experienced social housing, and did so at a later age, social housing was also associated with greater tenure immobility in this younger cohort. Conclusions. The housing experiences of the younger cohort became associated with more unstable tenure (privately rented housing) for the majority. Leaving the parental home was observed to be a process, as opposed to a one-off event, and several returns to the parental home were documented, more so for the 1970 cohort. These findings are not unrelated, and in the current environment of rising house prices, collapses in the (youth) labour market and rising costs of higher education, are likely to increase in prevalence across subsequent cohorts

Bayesian Analysis of Hazard Regression Models under Order Restrictions on Covariate Effects and Ageing

We propose Bayesian inference in hazard regression models where the baseline hazard is unknown, covariate effects are possibly age-varying (non-proportional), and there is multiplicative frailty with arbitrary distribution. Our framework incorporates a wide variety of order restrictions on covariate dependence and duration dependence (ageing). We propose estimation and evaluation of age-varying covariate effects when covariate dependence is monotone rather than proportional. In particular, we consider situations where the lifetime conditional on a higher value of the covariate ages faster or slower than that conditional on a lower value; this kind of situation is common in applications. In addition, there may be restrictions on the nature of ageing. For example, relevant theory may suggest that the baseline hazard function decreases with age. The proposed framework enables evaluation of order restrictions in the nature of both covariate and duration dependence as well as estimation of hazard regression models under such restrictions. The usefulness of the proposed Bayesian model and inference methods are illustrated with an application to corporate bankruptcies in the UK

A New Approach To Estimate The Collision Probability For Automotive Applications

We revisit the computation of probability of collision in the context of automotive collision avoidance (the estimation of a potential collision is also referred to as conflict detection in other contexts). After reviewing existing approaches to the definition and computation of a collision probability we argue that the question "What is the probability of collision within the next three seconds?" can be answered on the basis of a collision probability rate. Using results on level crossings for vector stochastic processes we derive a general expression for the upper bound of the distribution of the collision probability rate. This expression is valid for arbitrary prediction models including process noise. We demonstrate in several examples that distributions obtained by large-scale Monte-Carlo simulations obey this bound and in many cases approximately saturate the bound. We derive an approximation for the distribution of the collision probability rate that can be computed on an embedded platform. In order to efficiently sample this probability rate distribution for determination of its characteristic shape an adaptive method to obtain the sampling points is proposed. An upper bound of the probability of collision is then obtained by one-dimensional numerical integration over the time period of interest. A straightforward application of this method applies to the collision of an extended object with a second point-like object. Using an abstraction of the second object by salient points of its boundary we propose an application of this method to two extended objects with arbitrary orientation. Finally, the distribution of the collision probability rate is identified as the distribution of the time-to-collision.Comment: Revised and restructured version, discussion of extended vehicles expanded, section on TTC expanded, references added, other minor changes, 17 pages, 18 figure

Re-making urban segregation: processes of income sorting and neighbourhood change

Segregation studies have mainly focused on urban structures as a whole or have discussed specific (gentrifying or renewing) neighbourhoods. The literature suggests that changes in segregation occur primarily through selective migration. In this paper, we follow up on recent work that has questioned these orthodoxies, suggesting that in situ social mobility, and entries to and exits from the city population should be taken into account as well, and that dynamics in all neighbourhoods should be considered. The paper traces the processes by which segregation changes for the cities of Amsterdam and The Hague for 1999–2006, using a longitudinal individual-level database covering the entire population. It extends previous work by looking at income rather than socio-economic status and by drilling down to the neighbourhood level. Applying an existing measure of segregation (Delta) in a novel way, the analysis focuses on changes in the spatial distribution of household income, measuring the relative contribution of a range of processes to changes in segregation. Results show that segregation rises in both cities but that different processes drive changes in each case. Furthermore, the aggregate change in segregation for each city masks a diversity of changes at the neighbourhood level, some of which tend to increase segregation while others tend to reduce it. Mapping these changes and the individual processes contributing to them shows that they have a distinct geography, which seems to be structured by historically specific trends in state and housing market context.

Structural change of European dairy farms - A cross-regional analysis

Previous analyses of dairy farm structural change focused on the variation over time in one or a small number of regions. Here we present an EU-15-wide analysis of the change of the number of farms in different size classes. The purpose is (1) to identify the differences in regional development patterns and (2) to measure the explanatory relevance and effect of key factors suggested in the literature. Apart from the unprecedented scope, the underlying Markov chain analysis also contributes by combining observed transitions in micro data with macro data on farm numbers. Results show widely significant impacts of most explanatory variables, but also reveal the complexity of the underlying processes.Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Dynamic and Transparent Analysis of Commodity Production Systems

We propose a framework that provides a programming interface to perform complex dynamic system-level analyses of deployed production systems. By leveraging hardware support for virtualization available nowadays on all commodity machines, our framework is completely transparent to the system under analysis and it guarantees isolation of the analysis tools running on its top. Thus, the internals of the kernel of the running system needs not to be modified and the whole platform runs unaware of the framework. Moreover, errors in the analysis tools do not affect the running system and the framework. This is accomplished by installing a minimalistic virtual machine monitor and migrating the system, as it runs, into a virtual machine. In order to demonstrate the potentials of our framework we developed an interactive kernel debugger, nicknamed HyperDbg. HyperDbg can be used to debug any critical kernel component, and even to single step the execution of exception and interrupt handlers.Comment: 10 pages, To appear in the 25th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, Antwerp, Belgium, 20-24 September 201

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