disentangling the college wage premium estimating a model with endogenous education choices this article proposes and empirically implements a structural model of education choices and wage determination to quantitatively evaluate the contributions of productivity enhancement and ability signaling in the college wage premium the model is estimated under various distributional parameterizations using 1990 u s census 5 public use micro sample under these parameterizations i find that college education enhances attendees productivity by about 40 and productivity enhancement accounts for close to two thirds of the college wage premium

does there exist a relation between inflation and relative price change variability the effect of the aggregation level abstract the actual magnitude of relative price change variability is dependent on the level of aggregation this note demonstrates the effect of this dependence when we try to estimate a relation between inflation and relative price change variability and when we perform a decomposition analysis of this variability

using employer hiring behavior to test the educational signaling hypothesis this paper presents a test of the educational signaling hypothesis if employers use education as a signal in the hiring process they will rely more on education when less is otherwise known about applicants we nd that employers are more likely to lower educational standards when an informal more informative recruitment channel is used so we conclude that education is used as a signal in the hiring process

further evidence on the variability of inflation and relative price variability abstract using a sample of monthly observations of both a 12 category group and a 203 category group of personal consumption expenditures we furnish evidence that relative price variability is positively related to both the inflation rate and inflation variability the relation is robust to oil price shocks

money and the dispersion of relative prices a price dispersion equation is tested with data from the german hyperinflation the equation is derived from a version of lucas s and barro s partial information localized market models in this extension different excess demand elasticities across commodities imply a testable dispersion equation in which the explanatory variable is the magnitude of the unperceived money growth in order to test this hypothesis a price dispersion series is constructed and a measure of the unperceived part of money growth is estimated the model receives support from the empirical analysis although it is evident that unincluded variables have important effects on price dispersion

inflation inflation uncertainty and relative price dispersion evidence from bivariate garch m models abstract one potential real effect of inflation is its influence on the dispersion of relative prices in the economy menu cost models generally imply that higher trend inflation will increase price dispersion in contrast signal extraction models predict that increased inflation uncertainty will raise relative price dispersion existing empirical studies do not distinguish between these separate hypotheses we constuct a bivariate garch m model of inflation and relative price dispersion to test these differing explanations in a single model and find that inflation uncertainty dominates trend inflation as a predictor of relative price dispersion

human capital versus sorting the effects of compulsory attendance laws under the educational sorting hypothesis a state compulsory school attendance law will increase the educational attainment of high ability workers who are not directly affected hy the law under the human capital hypothesis such laws affect only those individuals whose hehavior is directly constrained we find that compulsory attendance laws do increase enrollment rates in age groups they do not affect directly thus our results contradict the human capital hypothesis and are consistent with the sorting hypothesis i introduction the last decade has seen considerable debate between supporters of the human capital and sorting models of education the former assert that the effect of education on wages reflects increased productivity the latter maintain that it reflects at least in part correlation between education and unobserved ability workers use education to signal their ability while employers use education to screen workers despite the importance of the debate no fully convincing tests of the hypotheses have been developed in fact many members of the profession maintain at least privately that these hypotheses cannot be tested against each other and that the debate must therefore be relegated to the realm of ideology in this paper we show that the models can be tested against each other by examining the effects of state compulsory school attendance laws we show that under the human capital hypotheis such laws will affect the educational attainment only of those who in the absence of the law would have left school prior to the minimum school leaving age on the other hand under the sorting hypothesis the effects of the law will percolate through the system increasing educational attainment even among workers not directly constrained by the law our results are consistent with the predictions of the sorting model

human appropriation of natural capital a comparison of ecological footprint and water footprint analysis the water footprint concept introduced in 2002 is an analogue of the ecological footprint concept originating from the 1990s whereas the ecological footprint ef denotes the bioproductive area hectares needed to sustain a population the water footprint wf represents the freshwater volume cubic metres per year required in elaborating the wf concept into a well defined quantifiable indicator a number of methodological issues have been addressed with many similarities to the methodological concerns in ef analysis the methodology followed in wf studies is in most cases analogous to the methodology taken in ef studies but deviates at some points well reasoned it has been chosen for instance to specifically take into account the source and production circumstances of products and assess the actual water use involved thus not taking global averages as a result one can exactly localise the spatial distribution of a water footprint of a country with respect to the outcome of the footprint estimates one can see both similarities and striking differences food consumption for instance contributes significantly to both the ef and the wf but mobility and associated energy use is very important only for the ef from a sustainability perspective the wf of a country tells another story and thus at times will put particular development strategies in a different perspective the paper reviews and compares the methodologies in ef and wf studies compares nation s footprint estimates and suggests how the two concepts can be interpreted in relation to one another the key conclusion is that the two concepts are to be regarded as complementary in the sustainability debate

the relationship between relative prices and the general price level it is very nearly a truismi amaong neoclassical economists that the public is wont to confuse changes in the general price level with relative price changes correspondingl y one might speak of the independence between the two as one of the central postulates of the neoclassical tradition william stanley jevons was aml ong the first to identify this basic dichotomin economic life as well as to attempt to explain the ordinary citizen s seenming incapacity to understand it

a review of recent multi region input output models used for consumption based emission and resource accounting abstract the interest in consumption based emission and resource accounting has grown significantly many studies juxtapose consumer emissions carbon footprint and producer territorial emissions of greenhouse gases in order to demonstrate the effects of trade on the national emission budget to this end a respectable number of studies have been undertaken worldwide in order to estimate emissions embedded in international trade of numerous countries and world regions input output approaches and increasingly multi region input output mrio models are commonly chosen as they provide an appropriate methodological framework for complete carbon footprint estimates at the national and supra national level with increasing processing capabilities of computers and a wider availability of economic accounts environmental accounts and trade data such models are now being implemented on a wide scale after a brief overview of salient single region input output studies i provide an in depth review of the most recent multi region input output models used for the purpose of consumption based environmental accounting the main methodological features and important results are described for around twenty studies covering the years 2007 to 2009 this is followed by a detailed review of studies dealing with uncertainty in mrio analysis an area which has not received a lot of attention so far i conclude that further research is mainly needed in two areas a improvements in data availability and quality and b improvements in the accuracy of mrio modelling

water use in the spanish economy an input output approach against the background of the water limitations that often appear in spain the aim of this paper is to study the behaviour of the productive sectors of the spanish economy as direct and indirect consumers of water to that end we employ input output analysis with the particular methodology being based on the linkages analysis known as the hypothetical extraction method hem we have introduced three modifications to this method first the valuation is made in terms of water consumption secondly we obtain the components of the impacts of each block of activity into which the economy is divided with these components being described as the internal effect mixed linkage net or external backward linkage and net or external forward linkage thirdly this methodology is used to detect key sectors our results confirm the marked importance of the agriculture food and other services blocks as regards the direct and indirect consumption of water in general we also find that other services chemicals metals and electronics and agriculture blocks play an important role in explaining the consumption of drinking water moreover the hem analysis allows us to classify productive sectors according to their forward or backward linkage character in a way that is more precise than that permitted by earlier methods finally this methodology can be extended to other types of environmental pressures 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

a note on the variability of inflation and the dispersion of relative price changes abstract the relationship between the variance of inflation and the variability of relative price changes is analyzed empirically a strong positive association is found for 1948 1969 and 1948 1975 application of chow s test indicates structural instability and granger s test suggests a feedback effect between these variables

variability of price changes in oecd member countries abstract this paper considers differences in price changes for 12 countries within the decades 1960 1970 and 1970 1980 it shows that the higher inflation rates of the 1970s were not necessarily accompanied by larger relative price changes but almost invariably by larger year to year fluctuations

analysing andalusian virtual water trade in an input output framework dietzenbacher e and velazquez e 2007 analysing andalusian virtual water trade in an input output framework regional studies 41 1 12 andalusian agricultural sectors are relatively small but account for 90 of annual water consumption more than 50 of the agricultural final demands is exported to other spanish regions or abroad using the concept of virtual water within an input output framework it is found that a substantial part of andalusian water consumption is embodied in its exports considering the virtual water content of its trade andalusia is a net exporter of water examining regional policy aspects a reduction in the exports abroad of agricultural products yields considerable benefits in terms of water savings while the negative effects are only moderate dietzenbacher e et velazquez e 2007 une analyse des echanges andalous d eau virtuelle dans le contexte d un tableau d echanges interindustriels regional studies 41 1 12 les secteurs agricoles andalous sont relativement petit

robustness of the relationship between price variability and inflation for us manufacturing we study the relationship between relative price variability and inflation in two different ways we first look at product class census unit values for five time periods between 1958 and 1982 and find evidence of a positive relationship between variability and inflation then we directly update the vining and elwertowski 1976 study for the period 1974 91 using individual commodity series from the bureau of labor statistics we conclude by discussing differences across industries in price stickiness

embodied agricultural water use in china from 1997 to 2010 abstract water is an important element in agricultural production the recent population growth rapid urbanization and fast industrialization present increasing challenges for china s agricultural water use embodied water has been promoted as a substantial indicator for the assessment of water consumption induced by human activities however few studies have investigated the dynamic change in embodied agricultural water use by time series data the findings of such studies may facilitate the development of comprehensive sustainable water usage strategies thus this study quantifies the embodied agricultural water trade as well as production and consumption based agricultural water footprints in china by using an input output model during 1997 2010 according to the results china s average embodied agricultural water intensity shows a declining trend from 43 33 m3 thousand yuan in 1997 to 32 66 m3 thousand yuan in 2010 the average embodied agricultural water intensity of the primary industry is larger than those of the secondary and tertiary industries china has always been a net exporter of agricultural water at the industrial level the primary industry is a net importer because of the increasing food demand in china the secondary industry has consistently been a net exporter and the tertiary industry has maintained a trade balance the production and consumption based embodied agricultural water uses demonstrate similar changing trends both decrease from 1997 to 2007 and then significantly increase in 2010 the embodied agricultural water consumed by the primary industry shows a downward trend whereas those consumed by the secondary and tertiary industries demonstrate an opposite trend therefore in addition to the improvement of agricultural water efficiency adjustments in consumption and trade structure are highly instrumental to the conservation of local agricultural water resources

inflation and the distribution of price changes across markets a causal analysis recent advances in time series methodology are applied to the investigation of causal relationships between monthly changes in the consumer price index and changes in its dispersion across different consumption categories this dispersion is associated with the degree to which relative prices are changing past inflation rates seem useful in forecasting changes in relative prices but not vice versa there is also a significant contemporaneous correlation between these series hence it is concluded that fluctuations in the inflation rate help cause fluctuations in relative prices but not vice versa unless the entire effect occurs within a month the analysis also serves to illustrate a new way to implement the granger causality concept

conglomerate mergers as defense against the risk of relative price variability this paper studies the effects of the risk of relative price variability on the optimal structure of a firm s cash flows with an application of portfolio theory it is suggested that when relative price risk is greater it is optimal for the management to diversify at the margin and emphasize economies of scale or scope when the risk is smaller conglomerate mergers should therefore be positively associated with relative price risk given the variables affecting mergers as a whole empirical evidence is found to lend support to the theory the inflation rate explains conglomerate mergers even better which suggests that relative price risk may constitute another real resource cost of inflation

assessment of regional trade and virtual water flows in china the success of china s economic development has left deep marks on resource availability and quality some regions in china are relatively poor with regards to water resources this problem is exacerbated by economic growth flourishing trade activities on both domestic and international levels have resulted in significant amounts of water withdrawal and water pollution hence the goal of this paper is to evaluate the current inter regional trade structure and its effects on water consumption and pollution via virtual water flows virtual water is the water embedded in products and used in the whole production chain and that is traded between regions or exported to other countries for this assessment of trade flows and effects on water resources we have developed an extended regional input output model for eight hydro economic regions in china to account for virtual water flows between north and south china the findings show that the current trade structure in china is not very favorable with regards to water resource allocation and efficiency north china as a water scarce region virtually exports about 5 of its total available freshwater resources while accepting large amounts of wastewater for other regions consumption by contrast south china a region with abundant water resources is virtually importing water from other regions while their imports are creating waste water polluting other regions hydro ecosystems

inflation and relative prices a decomposition analysis abstract the variability of relative prices is decomposed into a component due to real effects technical change real income growth and so on and a component due to inflation using quarterly australian data inflation is shown to account for 24 percent of the total relative price variability

inflation variability and relative price change variability in the netherlands 1951 1981 abstract experience with dutch data suggests that the acceptance or rejection of a relationship between inflation variability and relative price change dispersion strongly depends on the statistical specification of the former concept using a new specification for the netherlands a strong positive relationship is found the evidence concerning the direction of causality is inconclusive

privatization and changes in welfare costs of inflation the case of entel argentina abstract in a country with permanent deficit driven inflation problems the proceeds from privatization may translate into potential reductions of the seigniorage needed to finance a given a level of government expenditure the changes in welfare costs of inflation brought about by divestiture are quantified in a monetary model in an argentine case study these changes were found to be small both in terms of gdp and as a percentage of seigniorage revenue within the model this is mainly explained by the low values encountered for the elasticities of money demand with respect to expected inflation and by the exclusion of considerations about unanticipated inflation

variability of inflation and the dispersion of relative prices evidence from the chinese hyperinflation of 1946 1949 abstract this paper uses data from the chinese hyperinflation of 1946 1949 to focus on the relationship between the variability in the general price level and the dispersion in relative prices the issue is important because it bears on the natural rate hypothesis which supports the postulate that these two monetary variables are independent our results reinforce the bulk of previous evidence which suggests a positive correlation between the variation in inflation rate and the dispersion in relative prices during inflationary episodes

input output analysis of co2 emissions embodied in trade the effects of sector aggregation abstract energy related co2 emissions embodied in international trade have been widely studied by researchers using the environmental input output analysis framework it is well known that both sector aggregation and spatial aggregation affect the results obtained in such studies with regard to the latter past studies are often conducted at the national level irrespective of country or economy size for a large economy with the needed data studies may be conducted at different levels of spatial aggregation we examine this problem analytically by extending the work of su et al su b huang h c ang b w zhou p 2010 input output analysis of co2 emissions embodied in trade the effects of sector aggregation energy economics 32 1 166 175 on sector aggregation we present a numerical example using the data of china and by dividing the country into eight regions it is found that the results are highly dependent on spatial aggregation our study shows that for a large country like china it is meaningful to look into the effect of spatial aggregation

inflation and relative price variability in yugoslavia abstract granger causality tests show that inflation granger causes relative price variability but the feedback relationship cannot be excluded

on inflation and real price variability this paper studies the consequences of costly price adjustments for the variability of real prices accompanying inflation for constant elasticity demand and cost of production it is shown that a higher demand a lower cost of production or a lower cost of price adjustment leads to less intertemporal variability of real prices if the marginal cost of production does not increase too fast then the average real price is less than the real price that would prevail in the absence of inflation additionally a higher demand a lower cost of production or a lower cost of price adjustment leads to a higher level of real prices

inflation and relative price variability effect of temporal aggregation abstract the effect of temporal aggregation on the relation between inflation and variability of relative price changes in the united states is studied by using monthly consumer price index cpi data as well as quarterly observations derived by averaging the monthly series estimates from monthly and quarterly data show major differences for the periods 1973 1986 and 1980 1986

relation between inflation and relative price variability in the united states evidence from data for the 1980s abstract monthly cpi data for 1967 1986 in respect of 10 major categories are utilized the most significant result is a strongly negative association between relative price variability and inflation as well as its expected and unexpected components during the 1980s variations in the estimated coefficients for the three subperiods studied also seem interesting

inflation and relative prices a system wide approach abstract the paper introduces a system wide model for the analysis of the effects of inflation on relative prices this enables the identification of those commodities whose relative prices are distorted by inflation the model provides measures of the natural rate of relative price variability which is associated with zero inflation and the inflation rate which minimizes relative price variability an illustrative application with australian data is provided

a procedure for testing the signalling hypothesis abstract this paper develops a procedure for testing the signalling hypothesis as advanced by spence et al the approach used is to examine directly the question of whether employers use education for purely informational purposes in their hiring decisions an application of the method to a recruitment by the swedish auto manufacturer volvo is presented

inflation and relative price variability in the open economy this paper explores the determination of relative price variability in a small open economy operating under a fixed exchange rate a central ingredient of the model presented is the distinction made between traded and non traded goods this distinction leads to a decomposition of total variability into three components the variabilities within each set of goods and between the two sets the analysis also emphasizes the effects of expected versus unexpected inflation on the variability of relative prices the model is tested using annual data for mexico covering the 1951 76 period

intercountry differences in the relationship between relative price variability and average prices this paper provides new evidence on the relationship between relative price variability and inflation the model uses a consistently defined data set for nine european countries it benefits from the inclusion and testing of the effects of macroeconomic variables and the incorporation into the measures of inflation and dispersion adjustments for timeliness appropriate formulas and proximity the general findings of an effect on relative price variability by the macroeconomic environment and negative coefficients on unexpected inflation are supported by their occurrence in models estimated by seemingly unrelated regression and a robust systems estimator

inflation and relative price variability the effect of commodity aggregation using quarterly us data for 1948 89 we study the effect of the level of commodity aggregation on the relation between inflation and relative price variability the effect is assessed for the full period and the subperiods 1948 73 and 1974 89 the relationship is investigated for actual inflation as well as its expected and unexpected components although the parameter estimates show sizeable differences across the two aggregation levels the qualitative picture is the same for both levels in all cases one of the by products of the exercise is the observation that unexpected inflation shows a much stronger positive covariation with relative price variability than the expected component

money and price dispersion in the united states this paper reports an empirical test of a price dispersion equation using data on the u s after world war ii the equation derived elsewhere from a version of the partial informationlocalized market models relates price dispersion to the magnitude of the aggregate shocks in order to test the model a price dispersion series is computed using annual wholesale price indexes and weights for the period 1948 76 the data on money shocks are the unanticipated money growth series estimated by barro the tests also include a measure of aggregate real disturbances from the theoretical point of view the results are negative they do not detect an effect of money shocks on price dispersion but support the predicted effect of real shocks

multi scale input output analysis of consumption based water resources method and application this work develops a method of multi scale input output analysis for the embodied water accounting of an economy this method can distinguish between the different virtual water contents of imported and local products and is therefore capable of accurately estimating the virtual water that is embodied in trade as a simplified model rather than a multi regional input output analysis this method substantially minimizes the data requirements with the support of averaged eora global embodied water intensity databases for the world and chinese economies a three scale embodied water input output analysis of the beijing economy in 2007 has been conducted dozens of virtual water flows that relate to the beijing economy have been identified and analyzed only 15 of the total water resources embodied in beijing s local final demand were from local water withdrawal 85 were from domestically and internationally imported products the virtual water import is revealed to play a more important role than physical water transfer in easing beijing s water shortage since the average water use efficiency of the beijing economy is much higher than that of the chinese economy but somewhat lower that of the rest of the world beijing is suggested to shifting its imports to foreign countries to optimize global water use the method developed can be useful for water saving strategies for multiple responsible entities holding different opinions and it can be easily applied to the embodied water accounting of a sub national or even smaller economic community