E-MONEY DEVELOPMENT WITHIN CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIES

Development is the upward directional movement of society from lesser togreater levels of energy, efficiency, quality, productivity, complexity, comprehension,creativity, enjoyment and accomplishment. These attributes are both the means for achievingdevelopment as well as its most characteristic expressions or results. Money has played a parallel role at the social level as a medium for urbanization,multiplying economic activities by several orders of magnitude. The forms money has takenon over centuries have always been closely connected with the technological developments inthe economy. As simple economies evolved into more complicated economies, money hasalways adapted to the different economic circumstances. With respect to the latest innovationsin the computer industry a new form of money has evolved: e-money.evolution, knowledge, e-money, development

An Evolutive Model of Knowledge-Based Organizational Populations

In this paper we develop an evolutionary agent-based simulation model derived from a knowledge-based theoretical framework and use it to explore the effect of knowledge management strategies on the evolution of a group of knowledge-intensive organizations located in a given geographical area. We then present the results of different runs of the simulation model.knowledge management strategies

A STUDY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OUTSOURCING

IT outsourcing is the practice of contracting out the running of a part of an organization computer department. It is not a new phenomenon, but the scale and scope of its occurrence has greatly increased over the last decade. Due to the fact that IT outsourcing has no obviously and quantifiable benefits, most of the business entities choose not to do outsource their IT. The paper is based on the idea of incapability of exact determination of IT services costs. The purpose of this research regards the layout of the current approaches to outsourcing, description of different types of IT outsourcing and their advantages and the analysis of some models which might be used in order to facilitate the IT decision making process.IT Outsourcing, IT Services, Outsourcing costs

On the equilibrium in a discrete-time Lucas Model

In this paper I study a discrete-time version of the Lucas model with the endogenous leisure but without physical capital. Under standard conditions I prove that the optimal human capital sequence is increasing. If the instantaneous utility function and the production function are Cobb-Douglas, I prove that the human capital sequence grow at a constant rate. I finish by studying the existence and the unicity of the equilibrium in the sense of Lucas or Romer.Lucas Model, human capital, externalities, optimal growth, equilibrium.

AN ADAPTATIVE EVOLUTIONARY MODEL OF FINANCIAL INVESTORS

The main purpose of the paper is to determine a general behavior of a multi-agent model capable of describing the process of deliberation of an investors group witch may repeatedly decide whether to buy or sell an asset. Each adaptive agent was modeled asProgramming Models, Genetic algorithms, Information efficiency

Structural versus Matching Estimation: Transmission Mechanisms in Armenia

Opting for structural or reduced form estimation is often hard to justify if one wants to both learn about the structure of the economy and obtain accurate predictions. In this paper, we show that using both structural and reduced form estimates simultaneously can lead to more accurate policy predictions. Our findings are based on using new information criteria whose econometric properties allow us to pick for both methods the impulse responses that are valid and relevant for prediction. We illustrate our findings in the context of analyzing the monetary transmission mechanism for Armenia. Based on picking valid and relevant information from both structural and reduced form matching estimation, our findings suggest that the interest rate targeting and the exchange rate channel are well specified and strongly reinforce each other in promoting the recent double-digit growth Armenia experienced before the crisis.Armenia;monetary policy;structural model;GMM and MDE estimation;information criteria;valid and relevant IRFs

Employment and Unemployment at Regional Level

This paper analyzes the effect of the restructuring process on the employment dynamics of urban and rural residents in the Romanian labor market, a study that focuses on every region of development in Romania. We study the structure of the population, the effects of the economic restructuring, the demographic trends that can have long-term effects, analyzing at the same time the ability of individuals to adjust to labor market transformations. To be noticed would be that long-term unemployment in Romania has grown in both absolute and relative terms in the last few years, leading to increased expenditures, both absolutely and in relation to unemployment benefits, for the support allowance and social assistance programs and for pensions to labor force drop-outs. We also focus on the fact that Romania's integration into the European Union is the major global determinant that creates the new frameworks for evolution in our society; and at this stage, compliance with the European standards in various domains raises some difficulties regarding implementation. Several fields (among which agriculture) face major problems during the post-accession period, the shortage of manpower being severely felt. We also underline the fact that employment and human capital management policies go beyond the framework of the labor market itself, because any strategy of employment is practically a component of the overall strategy of growth and development. And here exactly does the regional development take up its role, aiming at stimulating and diversifying the economic activity, stimulating private sector investment, helping to reduce unemployment and ultimately leading to the improvement of the living standards. In our empirical analysis we use data on Romania covering the time period 2000-2007.regional development, competitiveness, human resource, unemployment

Maximum Likelihood Estimation of the Multivariate Normal Mixture Model

The Hessian of the multivariate normal mixture model is derived, and estimators of the information matrix are obtained, thus enabling consistent estimation of all parameters and their precisions. The usefulness of the new theory is illustrated with two examples and some simulation experiments. The newly proposed estimators appear to be superior to the existing ones.Mixture model; Maximum likelihood; Information matrix

EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES ON COMPETITIVENESS AND RESEARCH IN A KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY. WHERE DOES ROMANIA STAND?

In order to cope with the challenges of globalization Europe will have tofocus on its creative and innovative capacity, creativity and innovation being crucial inmeeting global challenges, this being the more evident given the current economic crisis.Our paper analyzes the EU cohesion policy (as a tool for addressing challenges in thelong run) on regional development, as well as the regions’ role in the economicdevelopment with regard to research and innovation, in order to lead towards astrengthening of competitiveness. We also question to what extent is encouragingresearch-development-innovation a priority for Romania, given the European standpoint.Our study is mainly based on data provided by various communications from theEuropean Commission, EUROSTAT, and the Statistical Yearbook of Romania.economic development, regional policy, R&D, competitiveness, innovation

Change Point Estimation in Panel Data with Time-Varying Individual Effects

This paper proposes a method for estimating multiple change points in panel data models with unobserved individual effects via ordinary least-squares (OLS). Typically, in this setting, the OLS slope estimators are inconsistent due to the unobserved individual effects bias. As a consequence, existing methods remove the individual effects before change point estimation through data transformations such as first-differencing. We prove that under reasonable assumptions, the unobserved individual effects bias has no impact on the consistent estimation of change points. Our simulations show that since our method does not remove any variation in the dataset before change point estimation, it performs better in small samples compared to first-differencing methods. We focus on short panels because they are commonly used in practice, and allow for the unobserved individual effects to vary over time. Our method is illustrated via two applications: the environmental Kuznets curve and the U.S. house price expectations after the financial crisis.Comment: 26 page