Minimum Wages and Employment: Reconsidering the Use of a Time-Series Approach as an Evaluation Tool

The time-series approach used in the minimum wage literature essentially aims to estimate a treatment effect of increasing the minimum wage. In this paper, we employ a novel approach based on aggregate time-series data that allows us to determine if minimum wage changes have significant effects on employment. This involves the use of tests for structural breaks as a device for identifying discontinuities in the data which potentially represent treatment effects. In an application based on Australian data, the tentative conclusion is that the introduction of minimum wage legislation in Australia in 1997 and subsequent minimum wage increases appear not to have had any significant negative employment effects for teenagers.structural break, teenage employment, minimum wage

Equity Return and Short-Term Interest Rate Volatility: Level Effects and Asymmetric Dynamics

Evidence suggests that short-term interest rate volatility peaks with the level of short rates, while equity volatility responds asymmetrically to positive and negative shocks. We present an LM based test that distinguishes between level effects and asymmetry in volatility which is robust to the presence of unidentified nuisance parameters under the null. There is strong evidence of a level effect and asymmetric response in the relationship between S&P 500 Index returns and 3-month US Treasury Bills. The conditional covariance depends on the level of the short rate which has implications for hedging equity returns against short term interest rate movements.

Testing for Rate-Dependence and Asymmetry in Inflation Uncertainty: Evidence from the G7 Economies

The Friedman-Ball hypothesis implies a link between the inflation rate and inflation uncertainty. In this paper we employ a new test for the joint null hypothesis of no dependence effects and no asymmetry in the G7 inflation volatility. The results show that higher inflation rates operate additively via the conditional variance of inflation to induce greater inflation uncertainty in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. In addition, positive inflationary shocks are found to generate greater inflation uncertainty than negative shocks of a similar magnitude in the U.K. and Canada.

Making Abundant Natural Resources Work for Developing Economies: The Role of Financial Institutions

Can financial development play a role in abating the natural resource curse? What are the channels via which financial development may negate the potential detrimental effects of natural resources on economic growth? To attempt to answer these questions, the paper employs panel unit root, cointegration and error correction models to fourteen natural resource abundant economies. The empirical results suggest a long run cointegrating relationship between finance, growth and ancillary variables. A fully modified OLS (FMOLS) is then used to estimate the long run relationship. A panel error correction model favors a unidirectional long run causal relationship from financial development to growth. The results do indeed imply that development of financial institutions may help in abating the natural resource curse.

Testing for Rate-Dependence and Asymmetry in Inflation Uncertainty:Evidence from the G7 Economies

The Friedman-Ball hypothesis implies a link between the inflation rate and inflation uncertainty. In this paper we employ a new test for the joint null hypothesis of no dependence effects and no asymmetry in the G7 inflation volatility. The results show that higher inflationrates operate additively via the conditional variance of inflation to induce greater inflation uncertainty in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. In addition, positive inflationary shocks are found to generate greater inflation uncertainty than negative shocks of a similar magnitude in the U.K. and Canada.Friedman-Ball hypothesis, Asymmetry, Davies’ Problem

Equity Return and Short-Term Interest Rate Volatility : Level Effects and Asymmetric Dynamics

Evidence suggests that short-term interest rate volatility peaks with the level of short rates, while equity volatility responds asymmetrically to positive and negative shocks. We present an LM based test that distinguishes between level effects and asymmetry in volatility which is robust to the presence of unidentified nuisance parameters under the null. There is strong evidence of a level effect and asymmetric response in the relationship between S&P 500 Index returns and 3-month US Treasury Bills. The conditional covariance depends on the level of the short rate which has implications for hedging equity returns against short term interest rate movements.Level Effects; Asymmetry; LM Tests; Davies Problem; Nonlinear Granger Causality

Predicting Short-Term Interest Rates: Does Bayesian Model Averaging Provide Forecast Improvement?

This paper examines the forecasting qualities of Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) over a set of single factor models of short-term interest rates. Using weekly and high frequency data for the one-month Eurodollar rate, BMA produces predictive likelihoods that are considerably better than the majority of the short-rate models, but marginally worse off than the best model in each dataset. We observe preference for models incorporating volatility clustering for weekly data and simpler short rate models for high frequency data. This is contrary to the popular belief that a diffusion process with volatility clustering best characterizes the short rate.Bayesian model averaging, out-of-sample forecasts

The Australian firearms buyback and its effect on gun deaths

The 1996-97 National Firearms Agreement (NFA) in Australia introduced strict gun laws, primarily as a reaction to the mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania in 1996, where 35 people were killed. Despite the fact that several researchers using the same data have examined the impact of the NFA on firearm deaths, a consensus does not appear to have been reached. In this paper, we re-analyze the same data on firearm deaths used in previous research, using tests for unknown structural breaks as a means to identifying impacts of the NFA. The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates

Minimum wages and employment: reconsidering the use of a time-series approach as an evaluation tool

This paper demonstrates that the introduction of minimum wage legislation in Australia in 1997 and subsequent minimum wage increases appear not to have had any significant negative employment effects for teenagers.The time-series approach used in the minimum wage literature essentially aims to estimate a treatment effect of increasing the minimum wage. In this paper, the authors employ a novel approach based on aggregate time-series data that allows them to determine if minimum wage changes have significant effects on employment. This involves the use of tests for structural breaks as a device for identifying discontinuities in the data which potentially represent treatment effects. In an application based on Australian data, the tentative conclusion is that the introduction of minimum wage legislation in Australia in 1997 and subsequent minimum wage increases appear not to have had any significant negative employment effects for teenagers

Peran Pos Bantuan Hukum Pada Masyarakat Kurang Mampu

The research objectives expected by the author are First, 1. To find out the role of the Legal Aid Post in the Poor in the Sidrap Religious Court; 2. To find out the existence of legal aid posts for underprivileged communities at the Sidrap Religious Court. This research is a normative research. The collection of data used in this study was a library research (literary study) and was supported by interviews (interviews) as supporting data. Qualitatively analyzed. The results of the research show that the Legal Aid Post at the Sidrap Religious Court was formed in May 2019, and has handled 504 cases, since the issuance of the Indonesian Supreme Court Regulation Number 1 of 2014 regarding the establishment of Legal Aid Posts in every court throughout Indonesia and has handled thousands of cases. Basically in its service, the Sidrap Religious Court does not differentiate between the poor and the rich, all of whom can request legal assistance from the Legal Aid Post by completing the requirements. Based on direct interviews conducted by researchers, the poor did not know about the Legal Aid Post because they had never been involved in legal problems in court, while those who knew about the Legal Aid Post were the poor who had been involved in legal problems in court