A test of collusive behavior based on incentives

This paper proposes a novel collusion test based on the analysis of incentives faced by each firm in a colluding coalition. In fact, once collusion is in effect, each colluding firm faces the incentive to secretly deviate from the agreement, since it thereby increases its profits, although the colluding firms’ joint profit decreases. Thus, in a colluding coalition each firm has marginal revenues, calculated with Nash conjectures, which are larger than its marginal costs. The collusion test is based on the rejection of the null hypothesis that the firm marginal revenues with Nash conjectures are equal to or less than its marginal costs.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluating a mobile telecommunications merger in Portugal

This paper evaluates the impact of the proposed Optimus-TMN mobile telecommunications merger in Portugal. The results suggest that, if the merger would have taken place, the average market profit margin would have increased by 11.6 percentage points and the average market price would have increased by 3.8%. As a consequence, the average marginal cost would have decreased by 14.9%, and welfare would have increased by €163.3mn per year, a gain entirely captured by the producers. Moreover, the merger would have resulted in a large transfer of surplus from consumers to producers, to the tune of €99.5mn per year. The conclusion is that, while the merger could have been authorized on efficiency grounds, such authorization should have been accompanied by strict retail price-cap merger remedies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Feature and Region Selection for Visual Learning

Visual learning problems such as object classification and action recognition are typically approached using extensions of the popular bag-of-words (BoW) model. Despite its great success, it is unclear what visual features the BoW model is learning: Which regions in the image or video are used to discriminate among classes? Which are the most discriminative visual words? Answering these questions is fundamental for understanding existing BoW models and inspiring better models for visual recognition. To answer these questions, this paper presents a method for feature selection and region selection in the visual BoW model. This allows for an intermediate visualization of the features and regions that are important for visual learning. The main idea is to assign latent weights to the features or regions, and jointly optimize these latent variables with the parameters of a classifier (e.g., support vector machine). There are four main benefits of our approach: (1) Our approach accommodates non-linear additive kernels such as the popular $\chi^2$ and intersection kernel; (2) our approach is able to handle both regions in images and spatio-temporal regions in videos in a unified way; (3) the feature selection problem is convex, and both problems can be solved using a scalable reduced gradient method; (4) we point out strong connections with multiple kernel learning and multiple instance learning approaches. Experimental results in the PASCAL VOC 2007, MSR Action Dataset II and YouTube illustrate the benefits of our approach

The euro at twenty : follies of youth?

This paper overviews the early history of the euro and argues that the euro was suboptimally designed, without monetary sovereignty of Eurozone (EZ) Member States, in order to comply with political goals set by wealthier Member States. Given this constraint, the euro architects designed a single currency in which its irreversibility is achieved through the EZ banking system, with recourse to the TARGET2 payment system. This allowed the banking systems of deficit Member States to fund large cumulative current account deficits in the first decade of the euro. The euro crisis led EZ policy makers to define new far more demanding fiscal rules and a new Banking Union to constrain the ability of EZ banking systems to fund sovereigns and current account deficits. Thus, the euro at twenty has become more fragile.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Dutch disease of the Euro Area peripheral member states

This paper analyzes explanations identified in the literature for the subpar economic performance of the so-called peripheral member states of the Euro Area since the mid-1990s. It argues that a key factor was a Dutch disease-like transmission mechanism, as the adoption of the euro led to a capital inflow shock. This resulted in a structural shift in the productive structure of the peripheral economies away from technologically advanced manufactured goods, which are characterized by higher productivity growth. As a consequence, the peripheral member states specialized in non-tradable sectors, and in low-technology and labor-intensive tradable goods sectors, which largely explains the peripherals’ low economic growth, low productivity growth, and growing macroeconomic imbalances.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Chris Freeman’s concept of evolution : A critique of the misuse of biological analogies in macroeconomics

On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Chris Freeman, this paper presents an overview and analyzes his concept of economic evolution and his other contributions to the field of economics. Chris Freeman was one of the leading economists in the field of evolutionary economics during the second half of the twentieth century. Together with Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter, as well as a number of other scholars, he contributed to establishing and developing a research program which extends from opening the black box of innovation through to the macroeconomic implications of long-term changes in the economy, technology and social organization. Additionally, Freeman suggested a new macroeconomic foundation for microeconomics – the unfinished legacy of our science. The chapter investigates how these foundations were developed as a critical view of inadequate metaphors from biology.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The euro at twenty: follies of youth?

This paper overviews the early history of the euro and argues that the euro was sub-optimally designed, without monetary sovereignty of Eurozone (EZ) Member States, in order to comply with political goals set by wealthier Member States. Given this constraint, the euro architects designed a single currency in which its irreversibility is achieved through the EZ banking system, with recourse to the TARGET2 payment system. This allowed the banking systems of deficit Member States to fund large cumulative current account deficits in the first decade of the euro. The euro crisis led EZ policy makers to define new far more demanding fiscal rules and a new Banking Union to constrain the ability of EZ banking systems to fund sovereigns and current account deficits. As a result, the euro at twenty has become more fragile.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Indicadores de localização, especialização e diversificação e análise shift-share - uma aplicação às NUT III da Região Norte no período 1986-1998

No presente artigo, é feita uma aplicação de alguns instrumentos de análise da economia regional às NUT III da Região do Norte com o objectivo de fazer uma reflexão sobre a dinâmica da estrutura produtiva daqueles territórios no período compreendido entre 1986 e 1998, recorrendo-se, fundamentalmente, à análise de indicadores de localização, especialização e diversificação, bem como ao método shift-share. A análise dos indicadores permitiu evidenciar uma relativa estabilidade do tecido produtivo dos territórios em estudo naquele período. Usando a variável emprego por conta de outrém para analisar a dinâmica de crescimento regional numa perspectiva comparada e tomando como padrão de referência o Continente, a aplicação do modelo shift-share permitiu concluír que apenas a NUT do Grande Porto apresenta valores negativos para os efeitos estrutural e regional, enquanto as NUT do Douro, Alto Trás-os-Montes e Minho-Lima revelam valores positivos para aquelas duas componentes. As restantes NUT da Região Norte apresentam efeitos regionais positivos e efeitos estruturais negativos.localização, especialização, diversificação, análise shift-share.