income inequality unemployment and suicide a panel data analysis of 15 european countries most panel data studies have employed overall suicide rates male and female to identify the determinants of suicide this research has also neglected the use of country specific linear time trends neglecting these factors may confound the empirical estimates of socio economic variables due to the impact of unobserved country specific determinants of suicide that are time varying empirical results from 15 european countries between 1970 and 1998 support this hypothesis specifically economic growth fertility rate and alcohol consumption seem to have a significant impact on male and female suicide rates after the inclusion of country specific linear trends contrary to prior studies suicide rates were not sensitive to income levels female labour participation rates and unemployment in addition the effect of divorce rate is specific to gender finally the results also illustrate the importance of employing age specific suicide rates compared to what has been traditionally used in trying to evalu

group lending repayment incentives and social collateral abstract in this paper we investigate the impact on repayment rates of lending to groups which are made jointly liable for repayment this type of scheme especially in the guise of the grameen bank in bangladesh has received increasing attention we set up and analyze the repayment game which group lending gives rise to our analysis suggests that such schemes have both positive and negative effects on repayment rates the positive effect is that successful group members may have an incentive to repay the loans of group members whose projects have yielded insufficient return to make repayment worthwhile the negative effect arises when the whole group defaults even when some members would have repaid under individual lending we also show how group lending may harness social collateral which serves to mitigate its negative effect

services deepening and the transmission of monetary policy the structural transformation from manufacturing to services comes with a process of services deepening the services share of intermediate inputs rises over time moreover inflation reacts less to monetary policy shocks in countries that are more intensive in services intermediates we rationalize these facts using a two sector new keynesian model where trends in sectoral productivities generate endogenous variations in the input output matrix services deepening reduces the contemporaneous response of inflation to monetary policy shocks through a marginal cost channel since services prices are stickier than manufacturing prices the rise of services intermediates raises the sluggishness of sectoral marginal costs and inflation rates

sectoral shocks and aggregate fluctuations abstract this paper presents a multisector dynamic general equilibrium model of business cycles with a distinctive feature aggregate fluctuations are driven by independent sectoral shocks the model hypothesizes that trade among sectors provides a strong synchronization mechanism for these shocks due to the limited but locally intense interaction that is characteristic of such input trade flows limited interaction characterized by a sparse intermediate input use matrix reduces substitution possibilities among intermediate inputs which strengthens comovement in sectoral value added and leads to a postponement of the law of large numbers in the variance of aggregate value added the chief virtue of this model is that reliance on implausible aggregate shocks is not necessary to capture the qualitative features of macroeconomic fluctuations building on horvath 1998 review of economic dynamics 1 781 808 which establishes the theoretical foundation for the relevance of limited interaction in the context of a stylized multisector model this paper specifies a more general multisector model calibrated to the us 2 digit standard industrial code economy simulations prove the model is able to match empirical reality as closely as standard one sector business cycle models without relying on aggregate shocks

the aftermath of financial crises a look on human and social wellbeing summary alongside its detrimental macroeconomics impacts financial crises can have substantial negative consequences on human and social wellbeing employing a cross country dataset on more than 100 banking and or currency crises during 1981 2007 this work examines the effects of financial crises on indicators of human and social wellbeing through employing an event study analysis the findings of this analysis suggest that the aftermaths of financial crises are characterized by increases in the growth rates of suicide rates crime rates and income inequality rates relative to their pre crisis trajectories additionally declines in the growth rates of health and educational expenditures government welfare expenditures and food quality and quantity intakes are common during periods immediately following financial crises such deteriorations are observed across different countries with income levels and also for crises that are and are not accompanied by recessions on average though human and social indicators are hit harder during financial crisis events accompanied by recessions this is especially true for crises in low and middle income economies in comparison to those in high income countries as a result not only are financial crises directly responsible for more rapid increases in income inequality within countries they may also be responsible for increasing inequalities of income security health nutrition and educational outcomes between richer and poorer countries needless to say deteriorations in many of these fronts are often associated with persistent or permanent losses in human and social wellbeing and cannot be assumed to be simply and immediately reversed with an economic recovery therefore the paper calls on the need for more concerted effort on the part of the policymakers to actively protect human and social outcomes during financial crises rather than trying to address such losses in the aftermath of crises because some of these losses are simply not recoverable

peer pressure and partnerships partnerships and profit sharing are often claimed to motivate workers by giving them a share of the pie but in organizations of any significant size the free rider effects would seem to choke off

adverse selection and moral hazard in insurance can dynamic data help to distinguish a standard problem of applied contracts theory is to empirically distinguish between adverse selection and moral hazard we show that dynamic insurance data allow to distinguish moral hazard from dynamic selection on unobservables in the presence of moral hazard experience rating implies negative occurrence dependence individual claim intensities decrease with the number of past claims we discuss econometric tests for the various types of data that are typically available finally we argue that dynamic data also allow to test for adverse selection even if it is based on asymmetric learning jel d82 g22 c41 c14

new keynesian models durable goods and collateral constraints abstract econometric evidence suggests that in response to monetary policy shocks durable and non durable spending co move positively and durable spending exhibits a much larger sensitivity to the shocks a standard two sector new keynesian model with perfect financial markets is at odds with these facts the introduction of a borrowing constraint where durables play the role of collateral assets helps in reconciling the model with the empirical evidence

monetary policy and the relative price of durable goods abstract in a structural vector autoregressive model of the us the response of the relative price of durables to a monetary policy contraction is either flat or mildly positive it significantly falls only if narrowly defined as the ratio between new house and nondurables prices these findings are rationalized via the estimation of two sector new keynesian nk models durables prices are estimated to be as sticky as those of nondurables leading to a flat relative price response to a monetary policy shock conversely house prices are estimated to be almost flexible such results survive several robustness checks and a three sector extension of the nk model these findings have implications for building nk models with durable and nondurable goods and for the conduct of monetary policy

bank ownership and performance does politics matter this paper uses a new dataset to reassess the relationship between bank ownership and bank performance providing separate estimations for developing and industrial countries it finds that state owned banks located in developing countries tend to have lower profitability and higher costs than their private counterparts and that the opposite is true for foreign owned banks the paper finds no strong correlation between ownership and performance for banks located in industrial countries next in order to test whether the differential in performance between public and private banks is driven by political considerations the paper checks whether this differential widens during election years it finds strong support for this hypothesis

rural financial markets in low income countries recent controversies and lessons abstract recently some researchers have criticized traditional agricultural credit policies in low income countries this article identifies the major points of controversy between traditional views and these new views and also summarizes the primary lessons learned from these controversies savings mobilization more flexible interest rate policies less loan targeting and greater emphasis on improving the quality of financial services in rural areas are new views that are emphasized

imperfect mobility of labor across sectors a reappraisal of the balassa samuelson effect this paper investigates the relative price and relative wage effects of a higher productivity in the traded sector compared with the non traded sector in a two sector open economy model with imperfect substitutability in hours worked across sectors the balassa samuelson 1964 model predicts that a rise in the sectoral productivity ratio by 1 raises the relative price of non tradables by 1 while leaving the non traded wage traded wage ratio unchanged applying cointegration methods to a panel of fourteen oecd countries over the period 1970 2007 our estimates show that the relative price rises by only 0 78 and the relative wage falls by 0 27 while our first set of empirical findings cast doubt on the quantitative predictions of the balassa samuelson model our second set of evidence highlights the role of imperfect labor mobility the relative price responds more to a productivity differential between tradables and non tradables while the reaction of the relative wage is more muted in countries with higher intersectoral reallocation of labor we show that the ability of the two sector model to account for our evidence quantitatively relies upon two ingredients i imperfect mobility of labor across sectors and ii physical capital accumulation finally our numerical results reveal that the model predicts the relative price response fairly well and to a lesser extent the relative wage response

credit markets in northern nigeria credit as insurance in a rural economy this article addresses the issues of imcomplete markets and imperfect information in the context of credit markets in rural northern nigeria in much recent theoretical literature the problems of moral hazard and adverse selection are assumed to be decisive for the organization of agrarian institutions in contrast it is found that in the four villages surveyed credit transactions take advantage of the free flow of information within rural communities information asymmetries between borrower and lender are unimportant and their institutional consequences the use of collateral and interlinked contracts are absent credit transactions play a direct role in pooling risk between households through the use of contracts in which the repayment owed by the borrower depends on the realization of random production shocks by both the borrower and the lender

nominal price rigidity money supply endogeneity and business cycles abstract this paper investigates the ability of nominal price rigidity to explain the co movement of inflation with the cyclical component of output observed in the post war u s data a dynamic general equilibrium model is constructed with the introduction of monopolistic competition and nominal price rigidity in a standard real business cycle model allowing for an endogenous money supply rule it is then demonstrated that sticky price models can explain the observed associations between movements in inflation and output much better than flexible price models this result depends little on whether money supply is assumed to be endogenous or not

optimal monetary policy with durable consumption goods abstract we document that the durable goods sector is much more interest sensitive than the nondurables sector and then investigate the implications of these sectoral differences for monetary policy we formulate a two sector general equilibrium model that is calibrated both to match the sectoral responses to a monetary shock derived from our empirical var and to imply an empirically realistic degree of sectoral output volatility and comovement while the social welfare function involves sector specific output gaps and inflation rates the performance of the optimal policy rule can be closely approximated by a simple rule that targets a weighted average of aggregate wage and price inflation in contrast a rule that stabilizes a more narrow measure of final goods price inflation performs poorly in terms of social welfare

sectoral price rigidity and aggregate dynamics abstract this paper studies the business cycle implications of sectoral heterogeneity in price rigidity using a highly disaggregated multi sector model the model is estimated by the simulated method of moments using a mix of aggregate and sectoral u s data the frequencies of price changes implied by our estimates are consistent with those reported in micro based studies we show that heterogeneity in price rigidity is the primary factor explaining the heterogeneity in the responses of sectoral output and inflation to a monetary policy shock we also find that ignoring sectoral heterogeneity in price rigidity leads to the mismeasurement of the relative importance of aggregate and sector specific shocks in aggregate and sectoral fluctuations

input output interactions and optimal monetary policy this paper deals with the implications of factor demand linkages for monetary policy design in a two sector dynamic general equilibrium model part of the output of each sector serves as a production input in both sectors in accordance with a realistic input output structure strategic complementarities induced by factor demand linkages significantly alter the transmission of shocks and amplify the loss of social welfare under optimal monetary policy compared to what is observed in standard two sector models the distinction between value added and gross output that naturally arises in this context is of key importance to explore the welfare properties of the model economy a flexible inflation targeting regime is close to optimal only if the central bank balances inflation and value added variability otherwise targeting gross output variability entails a substantial increase in the loss of welfare

a suicidal kuznets curve in 1955 simon kuznets hypothesized an inverted u shaped relationship between economic growth and income inequality environmental and obesity variants substitute pollution and body mass metrics for income inequality graphical depictions of both feature widely in economic literature in this study we investigate the existence or lack thereof of a suicidal kuznets curve controlling for several country specific socioeconomic suicide determinants among 73 countries over the period 1990 2010 we find evidence of an n shaped suicidal kuznets curve between per capita income and suicide rates of the male population of 25 34 34 54 and 55 74 age groups and the female population of the 55 74 age group the turning points of per capita income for the male population of 25 34 34 54 and 55 74 age groups are 7 727 and 46 306 5 266 and 22 726 and 3 459 and 53 260 respectively while for the female population of the 55 74 age groups are 4 022 and 43 351 on average and across both genders as per capita income increases suicide rates for those aged 25 34 and 35 54 follow an increasing trend and peak when per capita income reaches 7 304 and 6 498 respectively then follow a declining trend until 60 819 and 25 129 respectively and increase thereafter again these results remain robust to a battery of robustness checks

capital credit constraints and the comovement between consumer durables and nondurables evidence indicates that consumer durables are more flexibly priced than nondurable goods and services in otherwise standard two sector neoclassical sticky price models with flexible durable prices following monetary tightening nondurables decrease but consumer durables increase friction in lending between households can resolve the comovement problem if durable prices are sticky however if durable prices are flexible friction in lending fails to generate joint decline this paper resolves the co movement problem by adding capital into a model with flexible durable prices and friction in lending when capital is needed in production monetary tightening reduces the relative price of durables which induces investment and decreases firms real profits in the short run due to fewer profits remitted from firms savers have a lower disposable income and cannot increase expenditures on consumer durables as much as otherwise as a consequence aggregate consumer durables decrease and there is a joint decline of nondurables and consumer durables

the environmental kuznets curve and equilibrium indeterminacy abstract we illustrate that the existence of the environmental kuznets curve ekc could be the result of indeterminacy of equilibria in a simple neoclassical growth model with a single environmental externality in households utility function and with public abatement we characterize the condition on the parameters in preferences and in the pollution technology leading to local indeterminacy of equilibrium estimates of the crucial parameters of the model using data from economies that display the ekc satisfy the theoretical indeterminacy condition we find that the presence of abatement activities is not a necessary condition for indeterminacy equilibria and hence an ekc to arise on the other hand non separability of consumption and pollution in the utility function is crucial

moral hazard and nonmarket institutions dysfunctional crowding out or peer monitoring the authors examine a situation in which insurance is characterized by moral hazard when market insurance is provided supplementary mutual assistance between family and friends unobservable to market insurers will occur when nonmarket insurers have no better information than market insurers the mutual assistance not only crowds out market insurance but is also harmful and therefore dysfunctional alternatively when nonmarket insurers can observe each other s effort perfectly mutual assistance is beneficial these results point to the potential importance of peer monitoring mechanisms in mitigating moral hazard copyright 1991 by american economic association

the politics of related lending we analyze the protability of government owned banks lending to their owners we nd evidence that such lending has been used to transfer bank prots to the governments but only in localities where the incumbent politicians face signicant competition for reelection in localities where the incumbent party has a high probability of reelection there is no such evidence this result establishes a causal link behind extant evidence that banks lending to controlling parties owners and directors can result in looting of the banks we nd evidence that such looting occurs when controlling parties are at risk of losing control

asymmetric information in insurance general testable implications several recent articles on empirical contract theory and insurance have tested for a positive correlation between coverage and ex post risk as predicted by standard models of pure adverse selection or pure moral hazard we show here that the positive correlationproperty can be extended to general setups competitive insurance markets and cases where risk aversion is public we test our results on a french dataset our tests confirm that the estimated correlation is positive they also suggest the presence of market power

in search of capital crunch supply factors behind the credit slowdown in japan the seeming failure of loose monetary policy to reactivate japan s economy has led some observers to suggest that the usual credit channels through which monetary policy affects the real economy are blocked and this is because of a pervasive shortage of bank capital that has induced a leftward shift in the supply of bank credit this is the so called capital crunch hypothesis this paper finds support for the hypothesis in the bank data for 1997 a year during which the landscape of the japanese financial system underwent some fundamental changes

socio economic studies on suicide a survey abstract in this paper we review economic theories and empirical studies on the socio economic aspects of suicide through our survey we would like to emphasize the importance of studying suicide by employing a rational approach that complements the medical perspective on suicide we first introduce major economic theories of suicide and then present a summary of a variety of empirical studies from the socio economic perspective to shed light on the mixed empirical evidence we employ a meta regression method to investigate how the existing empirical results vary we have identified a publication bias not highlighted previously in the existing literature with respect to several commonly employed socio economic factors several characteristics of existing studies have been identified as influencing the qualitative outcome we then discuss the recent developments in economic studies on suicide on the basis of the authors ongoing project on suicide in the concluding section we point out some issues for further studies

a positive theory of fiscal deficits and government debt this paper considers an economy in which policymakers with different preferences alternate in office as a result of elections government debt is used strategically by each policymaker to influence the choices of his successors if different policymakers disagree about the desired composition of government spending between two public goods the economy exhibits a deficits bias that is debt accumulation is higher than it would be with a social planner the equilibrium level of debt is larger the larger is the degree of polarization between alternating governments and the less likely it is that the current government will be re elected

durable goods inter sectoral linkages and monetary policy barsky house and kimball 2007 show that introducing durable goods into a sticky price model leads to negative sectoral comovement of production following a monetary policy shock and under certain conditions to aggregate neutrality these results appear to undermine sticky price models in this paper we show that these results are not robust to two prominent and realistic features of the data namely input output interactions and limited mobility of productive inputs when extended to allow for both features the sticky price model with durable goods delivers implications in line with var evidence on the effects of monetary policy shocks

durable goods investment shocks and the comovement problem sticky price models suggest that capital investment shocks are an important driver of business cycle fluctuations despite quantitative importance in explaining business cycles a comovement problem emerges because the shocks generate intertemporal substitution effects away from consumption toward investment this paper resolves the problem by extending the standard sticky price model to a two sector model with consumer durable services when durable goods are used as investment in capital and consumer durables positive capital investment shocks also generate intratemporal substitution effects away from consumer durable services toward nondurable consumption that dominates intertemporal effects consequently consumption increases and the comovement problem is resolved

joint liability borrowing and suicide the case of japan abstract this paper develops a model for joint liability borrowings that facilitates credit market transactions ex ante but may induce the borrower s suicide ex post through the stigma associated with default a japanese suicide survey provides some supportive evidence

a new data set measuring income inequality this article presents a new data set on inequality in the distribution of income the authors explain the criteria they applied in selecting data on gini coefficients and on individual quintile groups income shares comparison of the new data set with existing compilations reveals that the data assembled here represent an improvement in quality and a significant expansion in coverage although differences in the definition of the underlying data might still affect inter temporal and international comparability based on this new data set the authors do not find a systematic link between growth and changes in aggregate inequality they do find a strong positive relationship between growth and reduction of poverty

imperfect mobility of labor across sectors and fiscal transmission abstract our paper investigates the sectoral effects of government spending shocks and highlights the role of labor mobility our var evidence for sixteen oecd countries reveals that a shock to government consumption by 1 of gdp increases non traded value added by 0 7 of gdp and generates a decline in traded value added the value added share of non tradables rises by 0 35 of gdp thus implying that the reallocation of resources accounts for 50 of the sectoral fiscal multiplier consistently our estimates show that the non traded sector is highly intensive in the government spending shock and experiences a labor inflow the shift of hours worked toward the non traded sector is however subject to mobility costs which vary across countries when we explore quantitatively the sectoral effects of a shock to government consumption that is highly intensive in non traded goods we find that the model can replicate the magnitude of the rise in the share of non tradables we document empirically once we allow for both labor mobility and capital installation costs financial openness also matters as it further biases the demand shock toward non tradables to account for the cross country dispersion in the responses of sectoral shares we estimate empirically we have to let the degree of labor mobility vary across countries

the transmission of monetary policy in a multisector economy this article constructs and estimates a sticky price dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous production sectors firms in different sectors vary in their price rigidity production technology and the combination of material and investment inputs in particular firms buy inputs from all sectors using the actual input output matrix and capital flow table of the u s economy by relaxing the standard assumption of symmetry this model allows idiosyncratic sectoral dynamics in response to monetary policy shocks the model is estimated by the generalized method of moments using sectoral and aggregate u s time series

why a stubborn conservative would run a deficit policy with time inconsistent preferences a conservative government in favor of a low level of public consumption knows that it will be replaced by a government in favor of a larger level of public consumption we show that the resulting level of public consumption is in between the levels the two governments would choose if each were in power both in the present and in the future in particular we show that if the conservative government is more stubborn in a particular sense than the succeeding government the conservative government will borrow more than it would had it remained in power in the future

do lenders favor politically connected firms rent provision in an emerging financial market corruption by the politically connected is often blamed for economic ills particularly in less developed economies using a loan level data set of more than 90 000 rms that represents the universe of corporate lending in pakistan between 1996 and 2002 we investigate rents to politically connected rms in banking classifying a rm as political if its director participates in an election we examine the extent nature and economic costs of political rent provision we nd that political rms borrow 45 percent more and have 50 percent higher default rates such preferential treatment occurs exclusively in government banks private banks provide no

the economics of rotating savings and credit associations supported by the center for energy policy studies m i t and the japanese corporate associates program at the kennedy school of government

sticky price models and durable goods the inclusion of a durable goods sector in sticky price models has strong and unexpected implications even if most prices are flexible a small durable goods sector with sticky prices may be sufficient to make aggregate output react to monetary policy as though most prices were sticky in contrast flexibly priced durables with sufficiently long service lives can undo the implications of standard sticky price models in a limiting case flexibly priced durables cause monetary policy to have no effect on aggregate output our analysis suggests that durable goods prices are the most relevant data for calibrating price rigidity jel e21 e23 e31 e52

inequality and mortality long run evidence from a panel of countries we investigate whether changes in economic inequality affect mortality in rich countries to answer this question we use a new source of data on income inequality tax data on the share of pretax income going to the richest 10 of the population in australia canada france germany ireland the netherlands new zealand spain sweden switzerland the uk and the us between 1903 and 2003 although this measure is not a good proxy for inequality within the bottom half of the income distribution it is a good proxy for changes in the top half of the distribution and for the gini coefficient in the absence of country and year fixed effects the income share of the top decile is negatively related to life expectancy and positively related to infant mortality however in our preferred fixed effects specification these relationships are weak statistically insignificant and likely to change their sign nor do our data suggest that changes in the income share of the richest 10 affect homicide or suicide rates

economic fluctuations and health outcome a panel analysis of asia pacific countries the purpose of this study is to assess the effects of economic fluctuations on health outcome by using data obtained from eight asia pacific countries over the period 1976 to 2003 and a fixed effects model to conduct the regression analysis the results of this study indicate that unemployment rate is negatively and significantly correlated with total mortality and mortality rates from cardiovascular diseases motor vehicle accidents and infant mortality these findings are consistent with the view that health may improve during economic downturns in addition suicide is found to move countercyclically with economic fluctuations socioeconomic factors such as age and gender also play important roles in affecting the mortality rates the results also show that unemployment has a stronger immediate and contemporaneous rather than a sustained effect on mortality rates finally this study concludes that the effects of economic fluctuations on health outcome tend to lead to erroneous conclusions if the fi

peer monitoring and credit markets a major problem for institutional lenders is ensuring that borrowers exercise prudence in the use of the funds so that the likelihood of repayment is enhanced one partial solution is peer monitoring having neighbors who are in a good position to monitor the borrower be required to pay a penalty if the borrower goes bankrupt peer monitoring is largely responsible for the successful financial performance of the grameen bank of bangladesh and of similar group lending programs elsewhere but peer monitoring has a cost it transfers risk from the bank which is in a better position to bear risk to the cosigner in a simple model of peer monitoring in a competitive credit market this article demonstrates that the transfer of risk leads to an improvement in borrowers welfare

sticky price models durable goods and real wage rigidities the standard two sector new keynesian model with durable goods is at odds with conventional wisdom and vector autoregression var evidence following a monetary shock the model generates i either negative or no comovement across sectoral outputs and ii aggregate neutrality of money when durable goods prices are flexible we reconcile theory with evidence by incorporating real wage rigidities into the standard model as long as durable goods prices are more flexible than nondurable goods prices we obtain positive sectoral comovement and thus aggregate nonneutrality of money

monetary policy with sectoral trade offs we formulate a two sector new keynesian economy that features sectoral heterogeneity along three main dimensions price stickiness consumption goods durability and the inter sectoral trade of input materials the combination of these factors deeply affects inter sectoral and intra sectoral stabilization in this context we examine the welfare properties of simple rules that adjust the policy rate in response to the output gap and alternative measures of final goods price inflation aggregating durable and non durable goods prices depending on the relative frequency of sectoral price setting may induce a severe bias due to factor demand linkages the cost of production in one sector is influenced by price setting in the other sector of the economy as a result measures of aggregate inflation that weigh sectoral price dynamics based on the relative degree of price rigidity do not allow the central bank to keep track of the effective speeds of sectoral price adjustment

socioeconomic factors and suicide rates at large unit aggregate levels a comment can socioeconomic factors seemingly explain variation in suicide rates at large unit aggregate levels only due to an ecological fallacy this is what kunce and anderson 2002 suggest based on fixe

economic reform and mortality in the former soviet union a study of the suicide epidemic in the 1990s abstract male suicide rates in russia belarus ukraine and the baltic countries increased substantially in the early 1990s and are now the highest in the world to what extent is this suicide epidemic explained by the macroeconomic instability experienced by these countries in that period fixed effects regressions across 22 transition economies indicate that male suicide rates are highly sensitive to the state of the macroeconomy suggesting that the steep and prolonged declines in gdp in the western countries of the former soviet union may have been partly to blame for the suicide epidemic evidence also indicates that the general adult male mortality crisis in the region had a feedback effect on suicide rates with the loss of a spouse or friend or declining life expectancy itself contributing to rising suicide rates female suicide rates in contrast are insensitive to the state of the macroeconomy and are more strongly related to alcohol consumption

economic upturns are good for your heart but watch out for accidents a study on swedish regional data 1976 2005 this article explores the relationship between the regional unemployment rate in total and cause specific mortality in sweden during 1976 2005 overall mortality is unrelated to changes in the unemployment rate while the biggest cause of death heart disease decreases when the unemployment rate decreases at the same time other accidents including job related accidents increases when the unemployment rate decreases swedish evidence provide no support for the us research findings that short term decreases in the unemployment rate are bad for your health in general

electoral manipulation via voter friendly spending theory and evidence abstract we present a model of the political budget cycle in which incumbents try to influence voters by changing the composition of government spending rather than overall spending or revenues rational voters may support an incumbent who targets them with spending before the election even though such spending may be due to opportunistic manipulation because it may also reflect sincere preference of the incumbent for types of spending voters favor classifying expenditures into those which are likely targeted to voters and those that are not we provide evidence supporting our model in data on local public finances for all colombian municipalities our findings indicate both a pre electoral increase in targeted expenditures combined with a contraction of other types of expenditure and a voter response to targeting

rural credit markets and institutions in developing countries lessons for policy analysis from practice and modern theory this article presents evidence of the failure of government intervention in rural credit markets of ldcs in the past three decades it then shows how lessons for policy analysis can be drawn from modern theory particularly those theories focussing on credit rationing in competitive markets and interlinking of credit contracts with labor and land contracts the article outlines the policy implications of these theories and finds them insufficient to account for the empirical evidence it contends that a more systematic and rigorous analysis of institutions and institutional environments is essential for understanding and implementing effective policy reforms of rural credit markets it presents suggestions for undertaking such an analysis

the life cycle of a microfinance institution the irish loan funds abstract ireland s loan funds were a long lived self sustaining large scale microfinance organization that made millions of loans without collateral to the poor during the first 100 years of their life cycle a period of growth ending in the 1840s they adapted constantly and obtained improvements to their legal structure because they were complementary to the banking system and seen as effective in relieving poverty in their 2nd century they became ossified in part because of competition with commercial banks the loan funds provide an example of sustainable microfinance under harsh economic conditions and illustrate how organizations change incrementally and when successful alter their institutional framework

screening by the company you keep joint liability lending and the peer selection effect we look at an economic environment where borrowers have some information about the nature of each other s projects that lenders do not we show that joint liability lending contracts similar to those used by credit cooperatives and group lending schemes will induce endogenous peer selection in the formation of groups in a way that the instrument of joint liability can be used as a screening device to exploit this local information this can improve welfare and repayment rates if standard screening instruments such as collateral are unavailable

politicians and banks political influences on government owned banks in emerging markets abstract government ownership of banks is very common in countries other than the united states this paper provides cross country bank level empirical evidence about political influences on these banks it shows that government owned banks increase their lending in election years relative to private banks this effect is robust to controlling for country specific macroeconomic and institutional factors as well as bank specific factors the increase in lending is about 11 of a government owned bank s total loan portfolio or about 0 5 of the median country s gdp per election per government owned bank