the role of technology in industrial change implications for regional policy rothwell r 1982 the role of technology in industrial change implications for regional policy reg studies 16 361 9 this paper discusses the factors underlying the current world economic crisis it presents data suggesting that since 1945 certain structural changes have taken place between manufacturing output and employment which correspond to the upswing prosperity and downswing periods of the 4th kondratiev long wave while a confluence of factors is required to trigger a kondratiev upswing the main enabling condition is seen to be new technology a currently emerging bunch of new techno economic capabilities will force the world economy into the 5th kondratiev upswing during this period a preferred vehicle for regional regeneration will be the technology based new small firms this implies the need for regional innovation policies and the establishment of a regional innovation infrastructure

policy uncertainty and household savings using german microdata and a quasi natural experiment we provide evidence on how households respond to an increase in uncertainty we find that household saving increases significantly following the increase in political uncertainty observed in the run up to the 1998 german general election we also find evidence of a labor supply response by workers who can use the margin offered by part time employment our results are suggestive of the economic effects of wars of attrition when political disagreement leads to delays in adopting a reform or the possibility that earlier reforms may be revoked the increased uncertainty could slow the economy

medical expenditure risk and household portfolio choice medical expenses are an increasingly important contributor to household financial risk we examine the effect of medical expenditure risk on the willingness of medicare beneficiaries to hold risky assets using a discrete factor maximum likelihood method to address the endogeneity of insurance choices we find that having a moderately protective medigap or employer supplemental policy increases risky asset holding by 7 1 percentage points relative to those without supplemental coverage while participation in a highly protective medicare hmo increases risky asset holding by 13 0 percentage points our results highlight an important link between the availability of health insurance and financial behavior

deregulation shock in product market and unemployment in a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous markups and labor market frictions we investigate the effects of increased product market competition unlike most macroeconomic models of search we endogenize the labor supply along the extensive margin we find numerically that a model with endogenous labor force participation decision produces a decline in the unemployment rate which is almost three times larger than that in a model with fixed labor force for a calibration capturing alternatively the european and the us labor markets a deregulation episode which lowers the markup by 3 percentage points results in a fall in the unemployment rate by 0 17 and 0 05 percentage point respectively while the labor share is almost unaffected in the long run the sensitivity analysis reveals that product market deregulation is more effective in countries where product and labor market regulations are high unemployment benefits are small and labor force is more responsive

endogenous markups and the effects of income taxation theory and evidence from oecd countries abstract existing studies on the effects of fiscal policy under imperfect competition typically treat each firm s price cost markup as fixed this paper examines the implications of endogenising the markup in a simple model of income taxation under monopolistic competition it is demonstrated that an increase in income tax reduces the number of firms lessens competition among surviving firms and raises the optimal markups in the new steady state through this channel the effects of income taxation on the key macroeconomic variables as well as on consumer welfare are unambiguously enlarged the simple model prediction is largely supported by cross section regressions with data from oecd countries

evaluation of the subjective probabilities of survival in the health and retirement study in the health and retirement study respondents were asked about the chances they would live to 75 or to 85 we analyze these responses to determine if they behave like probabilities of survival if their averages are close to average probabilities in the population and if they have correlations with other variables that are similar to correlations with actual mortality outcomes we find that generally they do behave like probabilities and that they do aggregate to population probabilities most remarkable however is that they covary with other variables in the same way actual outcomes vary with the variables for example respondents with higher socioeconomic status give higher probabilities of survival whereas respondents who smoke give lower probabilities we conclude that these measures of subjective probabilities have great potential use in models of intertemporal decision making under uncertainty

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

industrial decline and unemployment in the inner city areas of great britain a review of the evidence this article examines empirical studies which have investigated problems of decentralisation employment decline and the high levels of unemployment which prevail in the inner city areas of britain an attempt is made to synthesise these studies and to expose gaps in the current body of knowledge the article concludes by interpreting the findings in relation to present policies towards inner city employment

the role of manufacturing in regional growth harris r i d 1987 the role of manufacturing in regional growth reg studies 21 301 312 since a shift in regional policy away from manufacturing to aiding services is being advocated this paper re examines the role of manufacturing in regional growth from both an empirical and theoretical viewpoint first of all it discusses the importance of manufacturing s share of output concluding that in output terms and prior to 1979 manufacturing has not been displaced by services in shares of total output secondly the paper focuses on the theoretical importance of manufacturing to the growth of regional output showing that for most theories demand side growth pole cumulative causation manufacturing is the natural base for growth potential harris r i d 1987 le role des industries de fabrication dans la croissance regionale reg studies 21 301 312 vu que l on propose une reorientation de la politique regionale au depens des industries de fabrication et en faveur du tertiaire cet article

measuring uncertainty based on rounding new method and application to inflation expectations abstract the literature on cognition and communication documents that people use round numbers to convey uncertainty this paper introduces a method of quantifying the uncertainty associated with round responses in pre existing survey data i construct micro level and time series measures of inflation uncertainty since 1978 inflation uncertainty is countercyclical and correlated with inflation disagreement volatility and the economic policy uncertainty index inflation uncertainty is lowest among high income consumers college graduates males and stock market investors more uncertain consumers are more reluctant to spend on durables cars and homes round responses are common on many surveys suggesting numerous applications of this method

the cyclical behavior of the price cost markup countercyclical markups constitute the key transmission mechanism for monetary and other demand shocks in new keynesian models this paper tests the foundation of those models by studying the cyclical properties of the markup of price over marginal cost the first part of the paper studies markups in the aggregate economy and the manufacturing sector we use bils s 1987 insights for converting average cost to marginal cost but do so with richer data we find that all measures of markups are either procyclical or acyclical moreover we show that monetary shocks lead markups to fall with output the second part of the paper merges input output information on shipments to the government with detailed industry data to study the effect of demand changes on industry level markups industry level markups are found to be acyclical in response to demand changes

ten years of the urban programme 1981 91 the impact and implications of its assistance to small businesses this paper presents the findings of a comparative study of small business land and premises support schemes operating under the urban program me up in the london boroughs of wandsworth and haringey the results of this study are used to evaluate whether politics makes a difference to policy outcomes in local areas the article indicates that there are crucial differences in the policies of the two boroughs studied and that several key elements of the two boroughs different approaches to small business support were particularly successful such as low business rates and the targeting of niche market businesses however both boroughs failed to integrate effectively their up policies within a wider economic development strategy given that the type of small business support policies examined here continue to form an important part of contemporary local economic policy the author argues that these findings offer important lessons it is recommended that this issue of co ordination must be addressed by al

precautionary savings and the self employed this work focuses on the impact of uncertainty on savings under bequest form specifically we estimate whether and to what extent income variability does have an effect on post mortem savings we approximate the post mortem savings with the closest dedicated savings which is savings in term insurance a lump sum inherited at the death of the subscriber furthermore we test whether the intensity of the income variance or the riskiness of the job type such as self employment matters more in the choice our results show that self employment status is one of the most relevant variables affecting term insurance ownership

employment change in independent owner managed high technology firms in great britain there is a growing volume of literature that points to the potential for small technology based firms to achieve substantial employment growth as a direct consequence of such work this sector of any economy has attracted increasing attention from national and local governments concerned with finding ways of revitalising economically deprived localities and creating employment opportunities this paper provides up to date empirical evidence surrounding the ability of small high technology firms to create additional jobs in great britain in addition key founder and business characteristics are isolated which are significantly associated with employment change in growing high technology firms over the 1986 to 1992 period with respect to factors influencing these high levels of employment growth a high firm size in 1986 was found to act positively on employment growth as was a graduate level education for the key founder on the finance side firms which had access to and used a multiplicity of sources of start up finance tended to grow faster futher on the basis of our results we would suggest and recommend a government policy which at the firm level actively encourages high technology firm start ups who record higher rates of survival than firms in more conventional sectors as well as providing support for existing high technology firms who have already demonstrated the inclination and ability to grow in employment size

policy review section in this policy review section gerry stoker of the institute of local government studies presents a critical review of the role of urban development corporations udcs in comparing the experience of the udcs consideration is given to the varying nature of the land and property market in each udc area to the relationship with local authorities and other local bodies and the regeneration strategies pursued by the udcs this is followed by an assessment of the impact of the udcs in economic social and political terms in the second article john britton of the university of toronto examines the theoretical case for interventionist public policies to assist the innovation process in small and medium sized enterprises these arguments are supported by a review of the experience of various national support programmes introduced in the uk in particular the manufacturing advisory service introduced in 1978 and the design advisory service launched in 1982

the anatomy of job loss and job creation some speculations on the role of the producer service sector wood p a 1986 the anatomy of job loss and job creation some speculations on the role of the producer service sector reg studies 20 37 46 studies of recent employment trends in the united kingdom have highlighted job losses arising from restructuring by large manufacturing firms this paper examines the relationships between this and other shifts in labour demand emphasizing the complexity of change and especially the growing importance of producer services jobs are likely to continue to be transferred between increasingly interrelated manufacturing and service activities and the corporate and competitive segments of the economy the implications of these trends for sub regional economic change are examined and areas are identified which may be particularly favoured by producer service employment growth these include london industrial towns in the south east and freestanding cities and non industrial towns in the north

a typology of new manufacturing firm founders in wales performance measures and public policy implications abstract a typology of new manufacturing firm founders in wales is presented factors associated with the parental entrepreneurial background employment history and the characteristics of the founder s previous employer prior to start up are explored through the adoption of principal components analysis and cluster analysis a typology of new firm founders is detailed on the basis of 14 characteristics the six founder types are shown to have different abilities to generate new jobs create new wealth and export their manufactured products public policy should not solely be concerned with the number of new firms and the rate of new firm foundation different founder types have established new firms of variable quality in terms of potential for job generation wealth creation and ability to export on a competitive basis there is no shortage of potential new firm founders in wales and public policy should aim to discourage those individuals who are clearly unsuitable for entrepreneur ship if the objective of policy is geographical welfare there is the case for extra assistance to be directed to those regions associated with deep seated factors that make them less conducive to successful entrepreneurial formation and development assistance could vary according to local need in the cause of regional equity policy measures and schemes could be restricted to those areas with the lowest levels of entrepreneurial potential government in this way could minimize its financial commitment to new firms policy while maximizing its effectiveness finally it is suggested that public policy should be targeted to those founder types in problem areas who have the greatest potential for establishing successful new ventures

substantive issues in the definition of localities evidence from sub group local labour market areas in the west midlands coombes m g green a e and owen d w 1988 substantive issues in the definition of localities evidence from sub group local labour market areas in the west midlands reg studies 22 303 318 local labour market areas llmas are now widely accepted as the most appropriate areal units for analyses of spatial patterns of employment and unemployment the most commonly used set of llmas in britain are the travel to work areas ttwas of the department of employment these areas are increasingly being used for locality studies that encompass not only labour and demand trends but also their social and political implications however ttwas are defined on the basis of aggregate commuting patterns which generalize substantial differences in the journey to work behaviour of different sections of the workforce this paper compares the ttwas as revised in 1984 with llmas defined using the same methodology for four sub groups of the labour force with differing skill levels in the west midlands the numb

the changing geography of producer services employment in britain gillespie a e and green a e 1987 the changing geography of producer services employment in britain reg studies 21 397 411 this paper examines the changing geography of producer services employment in britain between 1971 and 1981 using data from the census of employment the study begins with a review of alternative views on the service sector and its relationship to economic growth and the place of producer services within the division of labour is described it is shown that there is a pronounced urban and regional differentiation in producer services employment factors operating to increase the concentration of such employment are indentified as are counteracting tendencies favouring deconcentration individual producer services industries are shown to display different locational logic and varying trends of concentration and deconcentration during 1971 81 overall the maintenance of the spatial concentration of producer services employment in southern britain coupled with relative decon

entrepreneurship and regional development some conceptual issues o farrell p n 1986 entrepreneurship and regional development some conceptual issues reg studies 20 565 574 this paper attempts to clarify and improve understanding of the concept of entrepreneurship in national and regional development the nature of entrepreneurship is discussed and it is shown that the entrepreneur and the capitalist are conceptually distinct that it is useful to differentiate between the entrepreneurial and managerial functions and that the essence of the concept is the initiation of entrepreneurial acts when the individual is behaving in an innovative way under uncertainty the distinction between entrepreneurship and arbitrage is briefly clarified and the relationship between entrepreneurship and large organizations is discussed our understanding of spatial variations in entrepreneurial behaviour is currently insufficient for the purpose of explanation and policy prescription

new firms and rural industrialization in east anglia gould a and keeble d 1984 new firms and rural industrialization in east anglia reg studies 18 189 201 the paper analyses key aspects of the formation of new independent manufacturing firms in east anglia between 1971 and 1981 special attention is paid to trends in formation rates over time to the spatial bias of new firm origins towards both rural areas and the cambridge region and to the location character and impact of high technology new firms original findings include the contention that spatial variations chiefly reflect variation in the occupational structure of the resident workforce together with industrial mix plant size and previous industrial immigration some implications for government policy to new firms are discussed

de industrialization and british regional policy chisholm m 1985 de industrialization and british regional policy reg studies 19 301 313 only if very restrictive assumptions are made can the use of export multiplier analysis lead to the conclusion that faster growth will be achieved by the limitation of imports a more realistic view is that both import and export volumes are influenced by the competitiveness of industries and that the ability to pay for imports is not solely dependent on the export of manufactures changes in competitiveness are examined at the sic industry level and the regional implications examined the discussion highlights supply side variables and leads to a consideration of regional policy as an instrument for faster national economic growth in addition to its traditional re distributive role

can imperfect competition explain the difference between primal and dual productivity measures estimates for u s manufacturing it is well known that under the assumptions of constant returns to scale perfect competition and the absence of factor hoarding primal and dual productivity measures should be highly correlated the apparent lack of correlation is usually attributed to fixed factors of production in this paper i propose an alternative explanation by relaxing the assumption of perfect competition by controlling for the presence of a markup component i demonstrate that both productivity measures are in fact highly correlated for u s manufacturing the analysis also provides an alternative method of estimating a markup of prices over marginal cost that avoids certain difficulties inherent in some existing methods of estimation

estimating the effects of earnings uncertainty on families saving and insurance decisions this paper investigates whether families save partially to self insure against uncertain future earnings and estimates the extent to which pooled insurance substitutes for saving as a precaution against earnings risk an econometric model is estimated using unique household survey data from the nineteenth century to examine families joint saving and insurance decisions the historical microdata are of interest because they predate widespread social insurance programs which may stunt self insurance through private saving among contemporary families the econometric results imply that two independent measures of idiosyncratic earnings risk matter for families saving decisions additionally families whose primary wage earners belong to labor unions significantly save less frequently than others all else being equal but this tendency is not apparent among members of private benevolent societies

commitment risk and consumption do birds of a feather have bigger nests abstract consumption commitments goods like housing for which adjustment is costly change the relationship between risk and consumption commitment provides a motive to reduce consumption when possible future losses are too small to warrant adjustment but not when losses are large enough that adjustment would be worthwhile this implies conditions under which mean preserving increases in risk can increase housing consumption our empirical evidence exploits the interaction of these conditions with a novel proxy for unemployment risk couples sharing an occupation consistent with our model same occupation couples consume more housing only when adjustment costs are high and potential losses are sufficiently large

expectations heterogeneous forecast errors and consumption micro evidence from the michigan consumer sentiment surveys the household data underlying the michigan index of consumer sentiment are used to test the rationality of consumer expectations and their usefulness in forecasting expenditure the results can be interpreted as characterizing the shocks that hit different types of households over time expectations are found to be biased and inefficient at least ex post people underestimated the disinflation of the early 1980s and the severity of recent business cycles people s forecast errors are also systematically correlated with their demographic characteristics in part because of time varying group level shocks further sentiment helps forecast consumption growth some of this rejection of the permanent income hypothesis is due to the systematic demographic components in forecast errors

does entry regulation hinder job creation evidence from the french retail industry are product market and entry regulation key sources of low employment growth in many european countries we investigate this question in the context of the french retail trade industry since 1974 approval by regional zoning boards has been required for the creation or extension of any large retain store in france we exploit a unique database that provides time and region specific variation in boards approval decisions we show that stronger deterrence of entry by the boards increased retailer concentration and slowed down employment growth in france

macroeconomic effects of regulation and deregulation in goods and labor markets product and labor market deregulation reduce and redistribute rents leading economic players to adjust to this new distribution it typically comes with distribution and dynamic effects to study these effects we build a macroeconomic model on two central assumptions monopolistic competition in the goods market which determines the size of rents and bargaining in the labor market which determines the distribution of rents product market regulation determines entry costs and the degree of competition labor market regulation determines the bargaining power of workers we show the effects of deregulation we then use our results to discuss the political economy of deregulation and recent macroeconomic evolutions in europe

knowledge of future job loss and implications for unemployment insurance this paper studies the implications of individuals knowledge of future job loss for the existence of an unemployment insurance ui market learning about job loss leads to consumption decreases and spousal labor supply increases this suggests existing willingness to pay estimates for ui understate its value but it yields new estimation methodologies that account for and exploit responses to learning about future job loss although the new willingness to pay estimates exceed previous estimates i estimate much larger frictions imposed by private information this suggests privately traded ui policies would be too adversely selected to be profitable at any price

patterns of work across the oecd market work per person of working age differs widely across the oecd countries and there have been some significant changes in the last forty years how to explain this pattern taxes are part of the story but much remains to be explained if we include all the elements of the social security systems like early retirement benefits sickness and disability benefits and unemployment benefits then we can capture some aspects of the overall pattern but still a lot remains unexplained the story favoured by alesina et al cepr dp 5140 2005 is that the nexus of strong unions generous welfare and social democracy implies both high taxes and pressure in favour of work sharing in response to adverse shocks this story however falls foul of the simple fact that most scandinavian countries now do much more work than the french and germans despite having stronger unions more generous welfare higher taxes and more social democracy ultimately we are forced into the position that there is no simple story some of the broad patterns can be explained but there remain country specific factors which are hard to identify but lead to substantial differences from one country to another

business services the regions and regional policy marshall j n 1985 business services the regions and regional policy reg studies 19 353 363 the decline of employment in manufacturing industry in the uk has encouraged a more favourable treatment of services in regional policy an analysis of the employment prospects for private services suggests further modest growth and justifies the inclusion of such services in a policy package however service employment creation in less prosperous regions has been relatively limited an analysis of business service industries attempts to account for the changing location of service activity and derives implications for regional policies in an increasingly competitive market for services organizational restructuring assisted in some services by computer based technology has encouraged the decentralization of employment from london predominantly to the greater south east regional policy is unlikely to operate in such a favourable economic context in the immediate future rationalization investment is

public sector restructuring and regional development the impact of compulsory competitive tendering in the uk pinch p l and patterson a 2000 public sector restructuring and regional development the impact of compulsory competitive tendering in the uk reg studies 34 265 275 this paper contributes to the analysis of contemporary public sector restructuring in the uk through an evaluation of the impact of the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering cct for the provision of local public services public services play an important stabilizing role in regional economic development but the introduction of cct has undermined that role public service workers have suffered deteriorating levels of pay and conditions of service and the capacity of local authorities to act to support local economic development has been reduced thus the introduction of cct has undermined the contribution of local public services to the maintenance of interregional economic stability and to regional development pinch p l et patterson a 2000 la restructuration du secteur public et l amenagement du territoire l imp

the importance of business owners in assessing the size of precautionary savings abstract not properly accounting for differences between business owners and nonbusiness owners in studies of household wealth can lead to erroneous conclusions about the significance of different saving motives using data from the panel study of income dynamics from the 1980s and 1990s we show that within samples of both business owners and non business owners the amount of precautionary savings with respect to labor income risk is modest and accounts for less than 10 of total household wealth previous large estimates of the size of precautionary balances resulted from pooling these two groups together such pooling is inappropriate given that business owners face higher labor risk and accumulate more wealth than non business owners for reasons unrelated to precautionary motives

risk management and wealth accumulation behavior in france abstract recent theoretical saving models have placed greater emphasis on studying prudent behavior in the face of an uncertain future and have shown the influences of background risks on precautionary savings a prudent household exposed to a high future income risk will increase its savings empirical tests on recent french data insee patrimoine 97 show the relevance of subjective earnings variance to explain wealth accumulation but its contribution is not very large around 5

vacancy posting job separation and unemployment fluctuations abstract what is the relative importance of hiring and separation in driving unemployment fluctuations this paper presents a framework to decompose the moments of unemployment and study the respective contributions of vacancy posting a measure of firms hiring efforts and separation separation accounts for about 40 of unemployment s variance compared to 60 for vacancy posting and contributes to about 60 of unemployment steepness asymmetry the fact that unemployment increases faster than it decreases further while vacancy posting is on average the most important contributor of unemployment fluctuations the opposite is true around business cycle turning points when separation is responsible for most of unemployment movements

competition and the capital labor conflict abstract this paper analyzes the distributional effects of changes in the intensity of product market competition the focus is on the interaction between imperfect competition in product markets and bargaining in the labor market the main result is that while a uniform intensification of product market competition increases employment it may cause real wages to fall in the short run as well as in the long run this is especially likely if labor market regulations are favorable to workers therefore product market and labor market regulations tend to reinforce each other politically and compensatory fiscal transfers may be needed in order to enact employment enhancing deregulation policies

poor little rich kids the role of nature versus nurture in wealth and other economic outcomes and behaviors wealth is highly correlated between parents and their children however little is known about the extent to which these relationships are genetic or determined by environmental factors we use administrative data on the net wealth of a large sample of swedish adoptees merged with similar information for their biological and adoptive parents comparing the relationship between the wealth of adopted and biological parents and that of the adopted child we find that even prior to any inheritance there is a substantial role for environment and a much smaller role for pre birth factors and we find little evidence that nature nurture interactions are important when bequests are taken into account the role of adoptive parental wealth becomes much stronger our findings suggest that wealth transmission is not primarily because children from wealthier families are inherently more talented or more able but that even in relatively egalitarian sweden wealth begets wealth we further build on the existing literature by providing a more comprehensive view of the role of nature and nurture on intergenerational mobility looking at a wide range of different outcomes using a common sample and method we find that environmental influences are relatively more important for wealth related variables such as savings and investment decisions than for human capital we conclude by studying consumption as an overall measure of welfare and find that like wealth it is more determined by environment than by biology

politics unemployment and local economic policies this paper develops and tests a model of variations in local economic policies the influence of unemployment financial resources and party politics on economic development expenditures is estimated empirically in the london boroughs the statistical evidence indicates that the model provides a satisfactory explanation of inter borough differences in economic policies and that the impact of party political and local tax base variables is particularly important the implications of the results for central policies towards local economic development and for analyses of local policy variation are discussed

stock market wealth and consumer spending martha starr mccluer this article investigates the effects of stock market wealth on consumer spending traditional macroeconometric models estimate that a dollar s increase in stock wealth boosts consumption by three to seven cents with the substantial 1990s rise in stock prices the nature and magnitude of this wealth effect have been much debated after describing the issues and previous research i present new evidence from a well known consumer survey the results are broadly consistent with life cycle saving and a modest wealth effect most stockholders reported no appreciable effect of stock prices on their saving or spending but many mentioned retirement saving in explaining their behavior jel e21 e30 d12 i introduction the relationship between stock market wealth and consumer spending has been a subject of long standing interest traditional macroeconometric models estimate that a dollar s increase in household wealth boosts consumer spending by three to seven cents per year such an effect is consistent with predictions from a simple life cycle model in which consumers spend more over their lifetimes in response to higher wealth however the stock market is known to play a role as a passive predictor of information thus it is also possible that stock prices simply lead aggregate economic activity without any short run change in spending induced by changes in wealth understanding the response of spending to changes in wealth is important for determining how stock market fluctuations affect the macroeconomy the question also bears directly on theories of saving behavior and on the issue of retirement preparedness by today s workers the experience of the past few years provides an interesting opportunity to revisit this issue stock prices increased substantially in the 1990s with the standard poor s 500 more than doubling from 1994 to 1997 and rising another 44 through 1999 at the same time stock ownership broadened considerably mostly through mutual funds and retirement accounts so that a large number of households likely experienced wealth gains the increase in wealth might be expected to boost consumer spending and lower the saving rate and indeed these trends occurred however it is hard to separate the influence of the wealth effect from other factors that also would have promoted spending such as strong income growth and favorable labor market conditions this article presents some new evidence on the response of spending to changes in wealth the data come from the michigan survey research center src survey of consumers an ongoing nationally representative survey of u s households in interviews conducted between july and september 1997 households owning stock were asked special questions about their spending and saving the questions covered a number of factors that may influence the effect of wealth on spending including the value and form of stockholdings stock price expectations concerns about retirement and perceptions of income uncertainty in brief the results are broadly consistent with life cycle saving and a modest wealth effect the vast majority of stockholders reported no appreciable effect of stock prices on their spending or saving but many mentioned retirement saving in explaining their behavior the next section reviews previous research on the relationship between stock market wealth and consumer spending the third section describes the data from the michigan survey and the fourth presents the results a final section summarizes and concludes ii background and previous research to frame the discussion it is useful to review how an unexpected increase in wealth would affect consumption in a simple lifecycle model this model though restrictive in its assumptions provides valuable intuition about the propensity to consume unexpected stock gains consequences of refinements to the model are discussed below

new firm formation and regional development the italian case garofoli g 1994 new firm formation and regional development the italian case reg studies 28 381 393 the italian case appears to have had a very high firm birth rate mainly in manufacturing in comparison with the experience of other economically advanced countries regional differentiation in new firm formation has been very high in italy in the analysed period 1987 1991 the paper deals with the hypotheses to be tested for the interpretation of the regional differentiation in firm birth and analyses the problem of the choice of socio economic variables which must be examined the results of the regression analysis prove that production structure and mainly local productive specialization firms size social structure and professional employment structure are the most important explanatory variables for new firm formation and for its regional differentiation the level of local demand does not seem to be a significant factor and increases in unemployment appear to reduce firm births all t

the potential bias in producer service employment estimates the case of the canadian space economy footloose information technology producer services are increasingly viewed as the new engines of regional growth and employment creation the claim is often that appropriate government policy can engineer comparative advantage in that direction by means of judicious subsidisation the evaluation of such claims relies on accurate statistical data we argue that attempts to distinguish in survey data or official statistics the subset of services commonly but unofficially known as producer services from consumer and government services may result in a potential bias with implications for public policy an input output model is developed for estimating this bias by decomposing service industry data into its producer and consumer services content this method can give a truer estimate of the actual employment in producer services at various spatial levels we find a systematic bias in official data and a non systematic bias in survey data the model is applicable to countries and regions for which input ou

endogenous markups intensity of competition and persistence of business cycles in order to study the propagation mechanism of business cycles in particular to investigate how the intensity of competition affects market structure and output persistence over business cycles this paper presents a real business cycle model with imperfect competition and increasing returns to scale this analysis considers the markups of price over cost to be endogenous with endogenous markups two standard forms of oligopolistic competition bertrand and cournot are considered results show that 1 the propagation mechanism in the sense of output persistence is greater under cournot 2 the propagation mechanism is unequivocally greater with imperfect competition regardless of whether markups are endogenous or not and 3 under imperfect competition the propagation mechanism is greater with endogenous markups than with exogenous markups overall these results suggest that more intense competition produces lower persistence in output growth and thus a weaker propagation mechanism in a calibration exercise these differences were also found to be quantitatively important

the chance to work in britain matching unemployed people to vacancies in good times and bad taulbut m and robinson m the chance to work in britain matching unemployed people to vacancies in good times and bad regional studies giving people the chance to work has been a key justification for welfare reform in britain over the last 15 years the approach is underpinned by the belief that there are sufficient vacancies available to absorb the unemployed into the labour market this paper tests this proposition by using the most comprehensive estimates of vacancies available from the employers skills surveys and two measures narrow and broad of unemployment by occupation geography and time period it also questions whether current approaches to worklessness in britain are adequate to the task given the scale of the challenge

a synoptic view of regional growth and unemployment i the neoclassical theory this paper is the first part of a consideration of the implications of the current controversies in macroeconomics for regional growth theory it is concerned with the neoclassical explanation of d

changing competitive advantage in a local economy the case of coventry 1971 90 this paper examines the application of porter s analysis of the competitive advantage of nations to understanding why one british local economy coventry changed from a position of relative competitive disadvantage during the 1970s and early 1980s to one of advantage during the remainder of the 1980s each of porter s four determinants of competitive advantage supply conditions demand conditions firms and clusters of activities was found to have had some influence on explaining the change in coventry s competitive advantage with the qualification that analyses focus on processes of change and account is taken of the alterations in emphasis needed by changing the scale of analysis from national to local economies porter s ideas deserve a wider application and critical examination than they have hitherto received in local and regional economic studies

job finding and separation rates in the oecd abstract we provide a set of comparable estimates of average monthly job finding and separation rates for over 20 oecd countries that can be used for the cross country analysis of labor markets

product market reforms labour market institutions and unemployment we analyze the impact of product market competition on unemployment and wages and how this depends on labour market institutions we use differential changes in regulations across oecd countries over the 1980s and 1990s to identify the effects of competition we find that increased product market competition reduces unemployment and that it does so more in countries with labour market institutions that increase worker bargaining power the theoretical intuition is that both firms with market power and unions with bargaining power are constrained in their behaviour by the elasticity of demand in the product market we also find that the effect of increased competition on real wages is beneficial to workers but less so when they have high bargaining power intuitively real wages increase through a drop in the general price level but workers with bargaining power lose out somewhat from a reduction in the rents that they had previously captured

preferences over wealth experimental evidence abstract preferences over wealth are a channel to explain why households in the aggregate are less responsive when real interest rates fall following such preferences they save more than would be optimal in a standard model however little is known about preferences over wealth empirically we run an intentionally simple lab experiment on intertemporal spending and saving decisions with 180 students under a positive discount factor zero interest and linear utility maximizing behaviour would imply spending any funds instantaneously while half of the participants behave optimally we find a robust pattern where participants on average form and maintain a stock of wealth consistent with wealth entering the utility function directly

business cycles and labor market search the quantitative implications of labor market search for economic fluctuations are evaluated in the context of a real business cycle model incorporating labor market search into the model is found to improve its empirical performance along several dimensions in particular hours now fluctuate substantially more than wages and the contemporaneous correlation between hours and productivity falls in addition the model replicates the observation that output growth displays positive autocorrelation at short horizons overall the empirical results suggest that the labor market search environment embodies a quantitatively important propagation mechanism copyright 1996 by american economic association

regional balance of payments problems an interpretation ho l s 1993 regional balance of payments problems an interpretation reg studies 27 457 466 this paper lays out a simple model and an accounting framework for analysing the relationship between different components of regional savings and investment between internal savings and external savings and between government sector savings and private sector savings in general stepping up investment to enhance regional growth must cause a deterioration of the regional trade balance in the short run even though the trade balance is likely to improve in the longer run analyses in recent years often ignore the effect of capital formation on trade as an example the german unification in requiring a rebuilding of capital stock suddenly rendered obsolete by a major change in relative factor prices requires a real appreciation of the dm and a deterioration of the german trade balance given nominal exchange rates this means higher german inflation than its trading partners on the other hand the pape

a synoptic view of regional growth and unemployment ii the post keynesian theory this paper discusses the post keynesian explanation of the causes of disparities in regional growth and unemployment rates it begins by examining the relationship between the real wage rate the level of demand and regional unemployment next it shows how regional growth is primarily determined by the rate of growth of exports a two region model is outlined which demonstrates how regional growth rates are interrelated through interregional trade flows and the regional balance of payments constraint the paper concludes with a discussion of the cumulative causation theory of regional growth

producer services trade and the social division of labour goe w r 1990 producer services trade and the social division of labour reg studies 24 327 342 several hypotheses have been advanced to explain the growth in employment and output of producer services industries in us metropolitan and regional economies one hypothesis contends that this growth is attributable to the increasing externalization of service activities by corporate managerial offices to independent producer services firms this has contributed to the growth of corporate complex agglomerations in urban regions manufacturing industries have traditionally been viewed as being the motivating force underlying this growth a second hypothesis contends that the growth of producer services industries is attributable to their evolution into basic industries and the growth of export trade this paper examines the validity of these hypotheses using data collected from a survey of business establishments in producer services industries located in the four metropolitan areas of the northeast regi

new technology based firms in innovation networks symplectic and generative impacts abstract the traditional body of research on new technology based firms reflects the linear sequential view of the technological innovation process the modern innovation theory views the innovation process as a complex interative process that is essentially systemic in character the systemic view of the technological innovation process largely remains to be implemented in research on new technology based firms the present study represents an attempt to bridge this gap by applying a systemic approach to research on new technology based firms the empirical part of the present study develops and empirically tests a model that classifies new technology based firms into science based firms and engineering based firms the two categories are defined in terms of the functional relationship between the new technology based firm and the articulation process of basic technologies in the model new technology based firms are analyzed in terms of the systemic knowledge conversion process to which they are attached the model receives support in three empirical databases compiled among new technology based firms in finland the united kingdom and silicon valley the analysis of the silicon valley database is the first ever systematic survey of the spin off firms of stanford university

saving response to unemployment of a sibling abstract standard theoretical models of household saving behavior do not typically assume that household perceptions of the world change in response to observed events in light of the potential importance of such perception changes e g after a financial crisis this paper considers the hypothesis that a household s saving rate rises through informal learning after a sibling direct or in law has been unemployed the empirical results in this paper are consistent with the learning hypothesis with coefficients estimated by the instrumental variable iv method implying that a household s saving rate increases by 2 3 percentage points if a sibling has been unemployed

shocks and asset dynamics in ethiopia abstractthis article uses household survey panel data of 416 rural households to study asset dynamics in the northern highlands of ethiopia and the response of assets to shocks the period under examination 1996 2003 was marked by severe environmental shocks including a series of droughts the article empirically studies the nature of household asset paths over time using as the point of departure the theory on precautionary savings behavior results indicate that the response of assets to weather shocks the differential effect of these shocks on liquid and less liquid forms of wealth holdings and the nature of asset dynamics are all consistent with the implications of a precautionary motive for holding wealth

the surprisingly low importance of income uncertainty for precaution abstract while it is common to use income uncertainty to explain household saving decisions there is much disagreement about the importance of precautionary saving this paper suggests that income uncertainty is not an important motive for saving although households do have other precautionary reasons to save using a question from the survey of consumer finances that asks how much households want for precautionary purposes this paper shows that expressed household preferences and liquid savings are much lower than predicted by standard modeling assumptions households rarely list unemployment as a reason to save perceived income uncertainty does not affect liquid savings or precautionary preferences neither does being in an occupation with higher income volatility instead households seem very concerned with expenditure shocks

precautionary saving and consumption fluctuations this paper uses the consumption euler equation to derive a decomposition of consumption growth into four sources these four sources are new information and three sources of predictable consumption growth intertemporal substitution changes in the preferences for consumption and incomplete markets for consumption insurance using household level data we implement this decomposition for the average growth rate of consumption expenditures on nondurable goods in the united states from 1982 to 1997 the economic importance of precautionary saving rivals that of the real interest rate but the relative importance of each source of movement in the volatility of consumption is not precisely measured

the price premium for green labelled housing evidence from china the chinese central government introduced the chinese green building label in 2008 which makes china one of the few developing countries with an official rating system of buildings performance in sustainability this paper investigates the existence and magnitude of the price premium associated with this official green label in the residential sector based on a unique data set of green labelled newly built housing projects and their non labelled counterparts from around the country in 2013 an empirical analysis suggests that the labelled housing projects attract a price premium of 6 9 compared with their non labelled counterparts further analysis suggests that this official green label is more effective as a reliable signal of buildings energy efficiency in the chinese context compared with developers self advertised greenness these results provide preliminary evidence that with this official rating system the investment in buildings energy efficiency could be potentially profitable for ho

entrepreneurship and rural industrialization comparing urban and rural patterns of locational choice in israel abstract the role of the local entrepreneur in the development of rural industrialization is often overlooked based on an empirical survey of entrepreneurs in both urban and rural areas in israel this paper shows that the rural setting scores less favorably than the urban for nearly all those locational attributes that would attract industrial development consequently the chances of attracting external initiatives to rural areas would seem slim instead it is argued that a strategy for rural industrial development needs to be based on the mobilization of indigenous entrepreneurial potential for which the rural setting provides a subjective relative advantage

atomistic and systemic approaches to research on new technology based firms a literature study the dominating view of new technology based firms is that these firms are driven by a heroic entrepreneur who pursues aggressive growth new technology based firms are expected to sooner or later develop tangible products with which new market niches are created and existing ones penetrated often the only perceived economic impact of new technology based firms is one delivered through rapid organic growth

the regional impact of national economic policies a multi regional simulation approach for the uk elias p 1982 the regional impact of national economic policies a multi regional simulation approach for the uk reg studies 16 335 43 the paper examines the thesis that uk regional policies aimed at influencing the spatial allocation of labour and capital can be pursued through the operation of broadly defined national policy instruments using a simple top down multi regional labour market model linked to a national macroeconomic model the regional impact of three medium term employment stimulating policy packages is derived the results suggest that efforts to stimulate employment by increasing public expenditure above planned levels will have the most significant impact in the relatively prosperous area surrounding greater london whereas a downward movement in the exchange rate or reductions in employment taxes coupled with a stimulus to investment have maximum effect in the west midlands and the north west

employment effects of product and labour market reforms are there synergies this article investigates the effect of product market liberalisation on employment allowing for interactions between policies and institutions in product and labour markets using panel data for oecd countries over the period 1980 2002 we present evidence that product market deregulation is more effective at the margin when labour market regulation is high the data also suggest that product market liberalisation may promote employment enhancing labour market reforms

higher order risk attitudes demographics and financial decisions we conduct an experiment to study the prevalence of the higher order risk attitudes of prudence and temperance in a large demographically representative sample as well as in a sample of undergraduate students participants make pairwise choices between lotteries of the form proposed by eeckhoudt and schlesinger 2006 the choices in these lotteries isolate prudent from imprudent and temperate from intemperate behavior we relate individuals risk aversion prudence and temperance levels to demographics and financial decisions we observe that the majority of individuals decisions are consistent with risk aversion prudence and temperance in both the student and the demographically representative sample an individual s level of prudence is predictive of his wealth saving and borrowing behavior outside of the experiment while temperance predicts the riskiness of portfolio choices our findings suggest that the coefficient of relative prudence for a representative individual is approximately equal to two

risk and savings a taxonomy abstract the effect of risk on savings depends not just on preferences but also on the type of risk this helps to explain why the empirical literature reports positive effects for developed countries but negative effects for developing countries

the industrial structure and labour market segmentation urban and regional implications danson m w 1982 the industrial structure and labour market segmentation urban and regional implications reg studies 16 255 65 we argue that dualism in the industrial structure as suggested by averitt 1968 and galbraith 1967 determines stratification and segmentation in the labour market as suggested by kerr 1954 piore 1973 and friedmann 1977 in recognizing this the urban and regional economist has greater understanding of the processes of change of the last fifty years in particular government and corporate policy by replacing the pre 1914 centre industries of steel shipbuilding and engineering with branch and other peripheral plants and firms has led to a deterioration in the relative position of the inner cities and regions

productive decentralization or indigenous growth small manufacturing enterprises and regional development in central portugal lewis j r and williams a m 1987 productive decentralization or indigenous growth small manufacturing enterprises and regional development in central portugal reg studies 21 343 361 small firms are crucial to the portuguese economy and have been important in the recent expansion of industrial activity away from core regions a survey of the formation and development of manufacturing enterprises in four contrasting rural locations within the central region tested the relevance of explanations based on north italian evidence of productive decentralization and spatial spread however analysis of employment characteristics inter firm linkages and conditions of firm formation reveals the dominance of independent and indigenous growth in the present wave of industrialization variations in firm characteristics between industrial sectors and economic environments indicate the need for more effective promotion policies not least to contain intra regional inequalities lewis j r et williams a m 1

a second great depression in the uk regions can anything be done moore b and rhodes j 1982 a second great depression in the uk regions can anything be done reg studies 16 323 33 this is a revised version of a paper given to the regional studies conference in glasgow in may 1981 the authors were asked to put forward the views of the cambridge economic policy group cepg on the economy as a whole and to draw out any implications for the uk regions a diagnosis of the uk economic problem and its regional manifestation is followed by a discussion of the macro economic strategy favoured by the group which aims to ensure that the economy can be expanded at a permanently faster rate without running into balance of payments problems only a strategy of this kind could make a significant impact on the very high rates of unemployment in the depressed regions

precautionary saving by young immigrants and young natives 1 introduction and literature review foreign born population accounted for approximately 9 of the total population residing in the united states by the mid 1990s and including their children they were responsible for approximately 51 of the u s population growth martin 1995 these dramatic changes in the u s population have prompted much economic research on the immigrant population but despite the great deal of attention that has been paid to the labor market progress of immigrants little is known about their saving and wealth accumulation patterns 1 many studies requiring information on the saving behavior of immigrants simply assume that immigrant savings parallel that of natives macurdy nechyba and bhattacharya 1998 however it may be the case that immigrants behave differently have different motives different opportunities and different needs with respect to saving and wealth accumulation vis a vis natives most of the limited literature on the saving behavior of immigrants is inspired by european and middle eastern guest worker migration and consequently is geared to the behavior of temporary migrants 2 three papers that focus on the saving behavior of immigrants in general are the papers by galor and stark 1990 carroll rhee and rhee 1994 and dustmann 1997 galor and stark note that immigrants and natives differ from one another in their migration probabilities because immigrants have ties to other countries it is more likely that they emigrate relative to the native born worker 3 using an overlapping generations model galor and stark show that the higher the probability of emigration the higher is the level of savings hence they predict immigrants save more than the native born dustmann models precautionary savings and assumes that immigrants maximize expected lifetime utility from consumption in the host and home country proportionally to the lifetime spent abroad and at home 4 under appropriate restrictions 5 dustmann shows that if labor markets in the home and host countries are uncorrelated immigrants will carry out more precautionary savings relative to a comparable native worker because immigrants will be subject to greater income risk in the host country 6 however it is also possible in dustmann s formulation to have immigrants engaging in less precautionary saving relative to native workers for example if economic conditions across the two countries are correlated immigrants could be subject to less lifelong income risk than natives given their ability to diversify away labor market risk by operating in two markets rather than just one as in the case of natives additionally if the risk preferences of natives and immigrants are different then the precautionary saving motive could be more or less pronounced in one group relative to the other all else equal carroll rhee and rhee 1994 use the canadian survey of family expenditures to compare saving behavior of immigrants to canada from different regions of the world they conclude that immigrant saving does not significantly differ by country of origin however they do find that recent immigrants save less than do canadian born and that immigrants saving behavior approaches the pattern of the canadian born over time overall the theoretical literature tends to favor the hypothesis that immigrants carry out more precautionary savings than natives which could result in immigrants accumulating more wealth than natives immigrants face greater uncertainty regarding their labor market participation labor market progress and health care coverage these factors along with geographic distance may make it more difficult to obtain financial support from family members in times of necessity requiring that immigrants maintain larger stocks of precautionary saving but dustmann s model in consonance with a widely held view also allows for immigrants to be more risk tolerant than natives since they are willing to undergo higher uncertainties and risks when they decide to migrate to a new country barsky et al

private business sales environments in the united kingdom abstract when an owner manager of a business firm decides to sell the company it is not a trivial decision whether it is a sale forced by circumstances outside company control or a positive strategic choice it is certainly significant moreover the method of exit the advice taken and the deal that is eventually struck will clearly affect the nature of the owner s eventual lifestyle in such circumstances there are four choices open to the owner 1 sale to a third party 2 sale to the management and or employees 3 public quotation on the stock exchange 4 liquidation this research first analyzes the magnitude of activity in the united kingdom in each of the above categories during the five year period 1983 1987 the results show very clearly that there is a strategic loosening taking place in the corporate marketplace more firms are being sold and more owner managers are choosing to exit from ownership of their firms moreover the most frequently used exit route by far is that of the private advertized sale the second part of this paper analyzes in detail the data for the private advertized sale by means of principal component analysis and cluster analysis seven ecological incubator environments were constructed at a county level significant differences were observed between the environments in respect to private advertized sales private advertized sales rates and industrial structure these results show clearly that the nature of the supply of owner managers wishing to realize their ownership is geographically biased and is in part a reflection of the existing industrial and commercial base

developing indicators to inform local economic development in england based on a conceptual framework of 11 factors that are widely perceived to be the major determinants of local economic development led 29 indicators were identified to measure these factors pri

breaking the iron rice bowl evidence of precautionary savings from the chinese state owned enterprises reform abstract china s large scale reform of state owned enterprises soe in the late 1990s provides a natural experiment for estimating precautionary savings before the reform soe workers enjoyed similar job security as government employees the reform caused massive soe layoffs but government employees kept their iron rice bowl the changes in the relative unemployment risks for soe workers provide a clean identification of income uncertainty with self selection biases mitigated by focusing on government assigned jobs precautionary savings account for about 40 percent of soe households wealth accumulation moreover demographic groups more vulnerable to the reform also accumulated more precautionary wealth

the role of the inner city in the development of manufacturing industry the first section of the paper surveys the evidence relating to the hypothesis that the inner city acts as a nursery for new manufacturing firms and shows that there is little direct confirmatory evidence the second and third sections report on two research studies of new firm foundation in london in the first study it is shown that few manufacturing firms have been set up in inner london in recent years the majority being in the inner city industries of printing clothing etc in the second the founders of new manufacturing firms not in the inner city industries were located and interviewed to find out the reasons for their choice of location the two studies together tend to refute the inner city nursery hypothesis