the resilience of employment in wales through recession and into recovery sensier m and artis m the resilience of employment in wales through recession and into recovery regional studies the dimensions of resilience of the welsh employment cycle are assessed the welsh economy has undergone reorientation and renewal since the deep crisis of the 1980s and it was more resistant than the uk for the 1990s crisis and has recovered its pre recession peak for the most recent crisis to visualize the regional spread of the most recent recession in wales turning points in unitary authority unemployment claims are dated and a series of maps show when welsh authorities entered recession it is found that the housing sector and manufacturing survey data are the best predictors of the welsh employment cycle

the beveridge nelson decomposition of economic time series a quick computational method this note describes a much simpler computational method for carrying out the beveridge and nelson decomposition of economic time series into permanent and cyclical components

a simple multivariate test for asymmetry since many macroeconomic models are linear it is not desirable to use themwith an asymmetric dependent variable in this article we formulate aunivariate test for symmetry based on the third cen

detrending and turning points this paper examines the sensitivity of turning points classification to different detrending methods and the ability of each method to replicate nber dating we use two different turning point rules and a variety of detrending methods to compute the cyclical component of output we show that while differences are minor with the first rule the results are extremely sensitive to detrending with the second rule many detrending procedures generate false alarms and many miss several commonly classified turning points the output series detrended with the hodrick and prescott filter and with a frequency domain masking of the low frequency components of the series reproduce all nber turning points with at most two quarters lead or lag regardless of the dating rule used

a new approach to decomposition of economic time series into permanent and transitory components with particular attention to measurement of the business cycle abstract this paper introduces a general procedure for decomposition of non stationary time series into a permanent and transitory component allowing both components to be stochastic the permanent component is shown to be a random walk with drift and the transitory or cyclical component is a stationary process with mean zero the decomposition methodology which depends only on past data and therefore is computable in real time is applied to the problem of measuring and dating business cycles in the portwar u s economy we find that measured expansions and contractions are of roughly equivalent duration and that our dating of cyclical episodes tends to lead the traditional nber dating and to a lesser extent the growth cycle chronology of zarnowitz and boschan 1977

poverty and household size the widely held view that larger families tend to be poorer in developing countries has influenced research and policy the scope for size economies in consumption cautions against this view we find that the correlation between poverty and size vanishes in pakistan when the size elasticity of the cost of living is about 0 6 this turns out to be the elasticity implied by a modified version of the food share method of setting scales by contrast some measures of child nutritional status indicate an elasticity of unity consideration of the weight attached to child versus adult welfare may help resolve the non robustness of demographic profiles of poverty excerpt

impacts of regulating greenhouse gas emissions on livestock trade flows policies regulating greenhouse gas ghg emissions are expected to create a significant burden on emitting industries as well as final consumers which can lead to a strong influence on international trade flows of commodities this study examines whether the regulation of ghg emissions affects livestock trade flows a commodity specific gravity model approach is employed to estimate and test the impact of regulating ghg emissions on livestock trade flows the results show that regulation of ghg emissions has a negative effect on livestock trade flows from countries restricting ghg emissions to countries without ghg restriction from restricting countries to restricting countries and unrestricting countries to restricting countries

revisiting the effects of regional trade agreements on trade flows with proper specification of the gravity model this paper uses a gravity model to assess ex post regional trade agreements the model includes 130 countries and is estimated with panel data over the period 1962 1996 the introduction of the correct number of dummy variables allows for identification of vinerian trade creation and trade diversion effects while the estimation method takes into account the unobservable characteristics of each pairs of trade partner countries the endogeneity of some of the explanatory variables as well as a potential selection bias in contrast to previous estimates results show that regional agreements have generated a significant increase in trade between members often at the expense of the rest of the world

detrending stylized facts and the business cycle the stylized facts of macroeconomic time series can be presented by fitting structural time series models within this framework we analyse the consequences of the widely used detrending technique popularised by hodrick and prescott 1980 it is shown that mechanical detrending based on the hodrick prescott filter can lead investigators to report spurious cyclical behaviour and this point is illustrated with empirical examples structural time series models also allow investigators to deal explicitly with seasonal and irregular movements that may distort estimated cyclical components finally the structural framework provides a basis for exposing the limitations of arima methodology and models based on a deterministic trend with a single break

the poverty and heterogeneity among female headed households revisited the case of panama abstract investigating whether female headed households fhhs are particularly disadvantaged requires more systematic means of comparing poverty than are typically found in past studies in panama while fhhs as a whole appear to be better off on average such results are somewhat sensitive to assumptions about economies of scale in household consumption more disaggregated analysis reveals that particular segments of fhhs particularly self reported fhhs with common law partners living in urban areas are disadvantaged in both consumption and some nonconsumption dimensions thus less systematic analysis could fail to identify such pockets of poverty that might deserve special policy attention

dissecting the cycle a methodological investigation following burns and mitchell we define the cycle as a pattern in the level of aggregate economic activity an algorithm to locate turning points is developed as is a new measure of pro cyclicality a link between turning points and the moments of the series is established thereby providing the statistical foundation that burns and mitchell s work lacked using these tools we are able to dissect cycles in terms of the contributions made by trend growth volatility serial correlation and non linear effects we dissect several models and find little evidence that certain non linear effects are important to the nature of business cycles

measuring the chinese business cycle this article documents the business cycle characteristics of the chinese economy by adopting both nonparametric and parametric methodologies the two approaches are applied to relevant macroeconomics indicators gross domestic product gdp and industrial production ip indices aiming to investigate the growth cycle deviation cycle we provide a clear chronology of the chinese growth cycle one significant characteristic of the chinese growth cycle is the relatively direct influence of government policies however recently these policy effects have become less significant when compared to global economic influences our study provides an enhanced understanding of the properties of business cycle dating algorithms and as such contributes to future chinese business cycle research

economic integration among developed developing and centrally planned economies a comparative analysis we examine six integration schemes and decompose their ability to increase inter member trade into environmental policy and system effects environmental factors caused the greatest variation in trade creation with inter member distance the most important environmental variable the cacm and efta have followed more effective integration policies than the eec lafta and the andean pact although integration can thus benefit developed and developing countries alike for some such as those in latin america inter member distances severely limit its effectiveness while the combination of policy and system has kept the cmea fromrr achieving its full potential for increasing inter member trade its effectiveness does not differ from that of unions among market economies

gender headship and intrahousehold resource allocation abstract household head as reported in household surveys may not always identify the main economic provider and decision maker within the household research based on this definition of headship may lead to misleading conclusions on the link between gender and poverty treating female headed households as a homogenous group can also be inappropriate results from jamaica show that it is not female headedness per se that is associated with child welfare but the absence of a potential female decision maker within the household

international trade and environmental regulation time series evidence and cross section test this paper examines empiricallywhether more stringent domestic environmental policiesreduce the international competitiveness ofenvironmentally sensitive goods esgs our timeseries evidence indicates that there are no systematicchanges in trade patterns of esgs in the last threedecades despite the introduction of more stringentenvironmental regulations in most of the developedcountries in the 1970s and 1980s this observedphenomenon is then subjected to a multi countryeconometric test using an extended gravity equationframework the test suggests that overall morestringent environmental regulations do not reducetotal exports exports of esgs and exports ofnon resource based esgs neither was there anyevidence to support the hypothesis that new tradebarriers emerge to offset the effects of morestringent environmental regulations

intra household resource allocation an inferential approach if household income is pooled and then allocated to maximize welfare then income under the control of mothers and fathers should have the same impact on demand with survey data on family health and nutrition in brazil the equality of parental income effects is rejected unearned income in the hands of a mother has a bigger effect on her family s health than income under the control of a father for child survival probabilities the effect is almost twenty times bigger the common preference or neoclassical model of the household is rejected if unearned income is measured with error and income is pooled then the ratio of maternal to paternal income effects should be the same equality of the ratios cannot be rejected there is also evidence for gender preference mothers prefer to devote resources to improving the nutritional status of their daughters fathers to sons

sequential signals of recession and recovery this paper describes a sequential procedure for identifying the beginning and ending dates of business cycle recessions as promptly and accurately as practicable its origin lies in a study in progress for the economic development administration eda u s department of commerce which deals with the problem of designing and testing an efficient trigger formula for public works expenditures with the aid of a system of cyclical indicators however the proposed approach can be applied much more broadly to any temporary countercyclical policy program on the national level federal policy programs of job creation through public works or public service employment have been repeatedly called countercyclical without in fact being so most such programs came into effect much too late to counter the cyclical early and confirming signals of business cycle peaks and troughs are produced sequentially on a current basis by a system of monitoring smoothed rates of change in the composite indexes of leading and coincident indicators evidence is offered that the system would have identified each of the peaks and troughs of u s business cycles since 1949 without undue delays and false alarms countercyclical policies activated and deactivated by such signals would have desirable timing properties

surprise party estimating the consequences of unexpected presidential election results alesina s quarterly journal of economics 102 651 678 1987 influential model of presidential elections with ideologically motivated parties attributes higher growth and lower unemployment under democratic presidents to the surprise inflation a democratic victory entails in contrast to the published literature we test this hypothesis using calcula tions of presidential election surprises consistent with the assumption of rational economic actors we confront the econometric complications attending a time series approach tak ing into account economic growth dynamics we ultimately fail to confirm the hypothesis that the level of uncertainty associated with presidential election results has an effect on economic outcomes

does detrending matter for the determination of the reference cycle and the selection of turning points we examine the sensitivity of turning points classification to detrending and compare the implied cycles to those derived by nber or doc researchers two dating rules are considered turning point dates are broadly insensitive to detrending with one dating rule but not the other and many procedures generate false alarms and miss several common turning points with the latter one amplitude and duration properties are also sensitive detrending and dating rules the hodrick and prescott and a frequency domain filters are best in mimicing nber and doc cycles regardless of the dating rule used

a gravity model analysis of meat trade policies abstract the conventional gravity model is revised for a single commodity and applied to meat markets to determine factors affecting trade flows of meat this study demonstrates that the gravity model for a single agricultural commodity can be parameterized more effectively by using time series and cross section data rather than cross section data alone this study reveals that trade policies and subsidies used by exporting and importing countries livestock production capacity in countries and distances play an important role in determining trade flows of meat long term agreements achieve the highest performance toward enhancing international meat trade import quotas and the hoof and mouth disease on beef greatly impair meat trade