bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
PTPN22polymorphism and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies in combination strongly predicts future onset of rheumatoid arthritis and has a specificity of 100% for the disease
Authors: Johansson Martin , Ärlestig Lisbeth , Hallmans Göran , Rantapää-Dahlqvist Solbritt 
Published: December 2005

AbstractWe analysed relationships between the PTPN22 1858 polymorphism and antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP), rheumatoid factors (RFs) and the shared epitope (SE) gene (HLA-DRB1*0404 or 0401) and determined their combined predictive value for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in individuals who subsequently developed RA. This case-control study was nested within the Medical Biobank of Northern Sweden. Patients with RA (n = 92) were identified from amongst blood donors antedating onset of disease by a median of 2.4 (interquartile range 1.2 to 4.9) years. Matched controls were selected randomly from the same cohorts (n = 368). Anti-CCP antibodies and RFs were determined using enzyme-linked immunoassays. Genotyping was performed using an ABI PRISM 7900HT instrument and HLA-SE genes were identified using PCR sequence-specific primers. The 1858T allele and also carriage of T were associated with future onset of RA (odds ratio (OR) = 2.29, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.45–3.61 and OR = 2.64, 95% CI 1.56–4.47, respectively). The combination of the 1858T variant and anti-CCP antibodies gave 100% specificity for the disease. None of the 368 controls expressed this combination. The PTPN22 1858T variant and anti-CCP antibodies were clearly associated (OR = 3.80, 95% CI 1.51–9.57). A combination of the PTPN22 1858T variant and anti-CCP antibodies gave a much higher relative risk (>132.03) for developing RA than the combination of the T variant and HLA-SE (OR = 7.85). The PTPN22 1858T variant was associated with future development of RA. There was an association between the T variant and anti-CCP antibodies and their combination, found only among pre-patients, gives a very high relative risk for development of RA. The combination gave a specificity of 100% for diagnosing RA.
Early Breastfeeding Cessation in Rural Senegal: Causes, Modes, and Consequences
Authors: Mané N. Binta , Simondon Kirsten B. , Diallo Aldiouma , Marra Adama M. , Simondon François 
Published: December 2005

Objectives. We studied reasons for cessation of breastfeeding before the age of 15 months, replacement feeding modes, and child mortality in West Africa. Methods. Data were gathered for 12208 children born between 1987 and 1997 in a rural area of Senegal. Interviews were conducted with caregivers of early-weaned children, and child mortality risks were assessed. Results. Fewer than 1% of children had been weaned early. The main reasons for early weaning were maternal death and new pregnancy (in 41% and 27% of cases, respectively). Twenty percent of children had been relactated by a wet nurse, and 16% had received formula. Many early-weaned children died before the age of 2 years (26%), particularly those weaned early as a result of the mother’s death (hazard ratio = 5.1; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.74, 15.0). Girls had a lower hazard ratio than boys (0.16; 95% CI=0.05, 0.41). Conclusions. Our results showed that early cessation of breastfeeding was rare but that associated mortality was high, especially when the mother had died.
Genericity with Infinitely Many Parameters
Authors: Anderson Robert M. , Zame William R. 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
Genericity analysis is widely used to show that desirable properties that fail in certain "knife-edge" economic situations nonetheless obtain in "typical" situations. For finite-dimensional spaces of parameters, the usual notion of genericity is full Lebesgue measure. For infinite dimensional spaces of parameters (for instance, the space of preferences on a finite-dimensional commodity space, no analogue of Lebesgue measure is available; the lack of such an analogue has prompted the use of less compelling topological notions of genericity. Christensen (1974) and Hunt, Sauer and Yorke (1992) have proposed a measure-theoretic notion of genericity, which Hunt, Sauer and Yorke call prevalence, which coincides with full Lebesgue measure in Euclidean space and which extends to infinite-dimensional vector spaces. This notion is not directly applicable in most economic settings because the relevant parameter sets are small subsets of vector spaces -- especially cones or order intervals -- not vector spaces themselves. We adapt the notion to economically relevant environments by defining two notions of prevalence relative to a convex set in a topological vector space. The first notion is very easy to understand and apply, and has all of the properties one would desire except that it is not closed under countable unions; the second notion contains the first and has all the good properties of the first notion except simplicity; it is closed under countable unions. We provide four economic applications: 1) generic existence of equilibrium in financial models, 2) generic finiteness of the number of pure strategy Nash equilibria and Pareto inefficiency of "non-vertex" Nash equilibria for games with a continuum of actions and smooth payoffs, 3) generic regularity of exchange economies when some agents are constrained to have 0 endowment of some goods, 4) generic single-valuedness of the core of transferable utility games.
Faulty Communication: Some Variations on the Electronic Mail Game
Authors: Morris Stephen E 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
The electronic mail game of Rubinstein (1989) showed that a lack of common knowledge generated by faulty communication can make coordinated action impossible. This paper shows how this conclusion is robust to having a more realistic timing structure of messages, more than two players who meet publicly but not as a plenary group, and may be robust to strategic decisions about whether to communicate.
Joint Liability and Peer Monitoring under Group Lending
Authors: Che Yeon-Koo 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
This paper studies an incentive rationale for the use of group lending as a method of financing liquidity-constrained entrepreneurs. The joint liability feature associated with group lending lowers the liquidity risk of default but creates a free-riding problem. In the static setting, the free-riding problem dominates the liquidity risk effect under a plausible condition, thus making group lending unattractive. When the projects are repeated infinitely many times, however, the joint liability feature provides the group members with a credible means of exercising peer sanction, which can make the group lending attractive, relative to individual lending.
Regulating Endogenous Customer Switching Costs
Authors: Gans Joshua S , King Stephen Peter 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
Recent concern has arisen with regard to the potential for introducing competition in previously protected sectors as customer switching costs may make entry (and hence, aggressive price competition) difficult to achieve. An excellent example of this arises telecommunications deregulation with regard to the costs customers face in changing phone numbers. Interestingly, in such cases, switching costs can be ameliorated by incumbent action. For telecommunications, technologies exist that port existing phone numbers between networks. Regulators therefore, favour mandating such amelioration of switching costs but issues arise as to the allocation of the costs of implementing such solutions. This paper examines the issues associated with the regulation of customer switching costs. We compare regimes whereby customers as opposed to firms bear amelioration costs and find that while a customers-pay approach assists in facilitating an efficient choice regarding amelioration, incumbents have an incentive to distort those costs upwards under such a regime. Our central result is that a better approach would be to have incumbents bear amelioration costs but encourage the exercise of 'buy back’ options whereby the incumbent pays the switching customer to bear their original cost of switching rather than utilize amelioration technologies. In the case of number portability, this regulatory option is similar to vesting customers with property rights over their existing number that they can sell to their current network.
Private Strategies in Finitely Repeated Games with Imperfect Public Monitoring
Authors: Mailath George J. , Matthews Steven A. , Sekiguchi Tadashi 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
We present three examples of finitely repeated games with public monitoring that have sequential equilibria in private strategies, i.e., strategies that depend on own past actions as well as public signals. Such private sequential equilibria can have features quite unlike those of the more familiar perfect public equilibria: (i) making a public signal less informative can create Pareto superior equilibrium outcomes; (ii) the equilibrium final-period action profile need not be a stage game equilibrium; and (iii) even if the stage game has a unique correlated (and hence Nash) equilibrium, the first-period action profile need not be a stage game equilibrium.
Risk Averse Supervisors and the Efficiency of Collusion
Authors: Faure-Grimaud Antoine , Laffont Jean-Jacques , Martimort David 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
This paper studies the efficiency of collusion between supervisors and supervisees. Building on Tirole (1986)'s results that deterring collusion with infinitely risk averse supervisors is impossible, while it is costless to do so under risk neutrality, we develop here a theory of collusion based on a trade-off between the risk premia required by (less extreme) risk attitudes and incentives. This allows us to link the efficiency of collusion to the supervisor's risk aversion and to various parameters characterizing the economic environment in which collusion may take place. We are then able to derive implications for the design of organizations, like determining how the number of tasks/agents per supervisor or the level of competition may impact on the cost of collusion, studying the impact of vertical integration on those same costs, or characterizing the role of uncertainty on side-contracting.
Spontaneous Market Emergence
Authors: Fafchamps Marcel 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
Drawing insights from the literature and from the author's own survey work on contractual practices among manufacturers and traders in Africa, we study the transition from anonymous to personal to impersonal exchange. Using a dynamic game with heterogenous agents and information sharing, we derive precise conditions under which relational contracting spontaneously emerges and deters opportunistic breach even in the absence of formal market institutions. Exclusion of cheaters is not required for contracting to begin. As exchange develops, newcomers may be excluded from contracting when screening costs are high and agents long lived. Reputational equilibria in which cheaters are permanently excluded are not decentralizable unless contracting is already developed and breach of contract is interpreted as a sign of impending bankruptcy.
Testing for Stabilizing Monetary Policy Rules: How Robust to Alternative Specifications?
Authors: Carey Kevin 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
A common hypothesis of interest in estimated Taylor rules is whether the Federal Funds rate increases more than one-for-one with inflation; a rule with this characteristic is described as stabilizing. This paper discusses the interaction of this hypothesis with the widespread use of a partial adjustment model, in the context of sub-sample stability and robustness to the assumed exclusion of the long bond rate. Estimated rules display sharply different behavior in the 1980s versus the 1990s, and the degree of inertia -- on which the calculated policy response depends -- rises to implausibly high levels in the 1990s. The rising inertia sharpens the non-linearity of the model, imparting fragility to the stabilization inference. Long bond inclusion mitigates these problems, but alternatives to partial adjustment, with a more flexible approach to autocorrelation, also show promise.
Fiscal institutions and welfare in an open economy
Authors: Negrete Juan Carlos 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
This paper shows that, in a multi-country framework with government deficit spillovers, designing institutions that reduce the budget deficit is an optimal response from a country’s individual point of view. However, at an aggregate level this non-cooperative behavior is counterproductive. The case in which countries cooperate in the design of their fiscal institutions is also studied and compared with the former scenario. The study provides a new approach for analyzing mechanisms, such as the Stability Pact for Europe’s monetary union, recently implemented with the aim of reducing the budget deficit.
Income Taxation, Productive Government Expenditure and Stochastic Growth: On Conditions for an Optimal Policy and the Role of the Risk Premium
Authors: Clemens Christiane 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
This paper employs a stochastic endogenous growth model with productive government expenditure to analyze the macroeconomic effects of income taxation. We demonstrate that in the presence of capital and income risk the impact of taxation on consumption choice as well as on economic growth is ambiguous as it affects the mean as well as the variance of disposable income. It is possible to solve for welfare-maximizing policies, but contrary to the deterministic framework, welfare-, consumption- and growth-maximizing policies do not necessarily coincide. Multiple solutions for optimal tax rates can be found. The risk premium turns out to be a key factor in explaining the effects. In fact, growth-maximizing policies also maximize the risk premium. This may entail too much risk for risk-averse agents, thereby minimizing welfare and the propensity to consume.
Roads versus Schooling: Growth Effects of Government Choices
Authors: Rioja Felix K. 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
This paper studies the growth effects of productive public expenditures on education and public capital in an endogenous growth model of overlapping generations. The model is calibrated to Latin American data, and the effects of raising government expenditures on education and public capital are computed. Results show that increases in these public expenditures have moderate, positive effects on per capita growth and income under different scenarios. In addition, re-allocating expenditures from public capital to education while keeping the budget constant can raise growth up to a threshold.
Output Gap Uncertainty and Monetary Policy During the 1970s
Authors: Spencer David E. 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
The conduct of monetary policy during the 1970s was greatly complicated by systematic real-time misperceptions of the state of economic activity as measured by the output gap. Employing real-time data and using the Taylor rule as an analytical framework, I explore the implications of utilizing alternative observable proxies for the unobservable output gap. I compare the counterfactual paths for the federal funds rate generated under each proxy with the actual path of the federal funds rate and a benchmark ( "ideal" ) path implied by a full information Taylor rule. Results suggest that these real-time proxies would have resulted in better policy outcomes than actually occurred. Indeed, the federal funds rate path that comes closest to the ideal path occurs when the estimate of the output gap is taken to be zero (its steady-state value) at every point in time. This is equivalent to ignoring output gap information in monetary policy decisions.
Do Minimum Wages Raise the NAIRU?
Authors: Tulip Peter 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
Maybe a lot. The ratio of the minimum wage to the average wage enters a Phillips-curve equation with a coefficient that is highly significant, stable, and robust. One interpretation of these results is that the relative level of the minimum wage affects the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment or NAIRU. My estimates are consistent with the reduction in the relative level of the minimum wage since 1980 lowering the U.S. NAIRU about 1½ percentage points, while raising the NAIRU in continental Europe. However, other interpretations are also possible.
Labor Market Performance and Flexibility: Which Comes First?
Authors: Saltari Enrico , Tilli Riccardo 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
We use a matching framework to explore the hypothesis that firing costs are a decreasing function of labor market tightness. Conventional wisdom suggests that differences in employment protection legislation (EPL) cause differences in labor market performance. Our hypothesis suggests a reverse causality nexus: it is labor market tightness which causes labor market rigidities. The endogeneity of firing costs produces a positive externality. We show that if this externality offsets the standard search externality, the model generates multiple equilibria. which reflect a trade off between wage moderation and the strictness of EPL. We demonstrate that the equilibria are not Pareto ranked. The analysis of local stability shows that, when firing costs externality offsets the search cost externality, the equilibrium is a stable node; vice versa, the equilibrium is an unstable saddle point. Finally, we investigate the question of social efficiency, obtaining a generalization of the Hosios (1990) condition.
Job Insecurity, Reallocation and Technological Innovation in a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Authors: Vermeylen Koen 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
If workers anticipate a technological innovation, some workers may decide to quit their job and retrain themselves to acquire the skills which are needed by this new technology. However, this may facilitate the innovation and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. This self-fulfilling mechanism is reinforced if the anticipated innovation causes job insecurity for workers who do not retrain themselves and keep their current job, but realize that the innovation may make their job obsolete. If these workers engage in precautionary saving and cut their consumption expenditures, aggregate output contracts. This gives the other workers an extra incentive to quit their job and acquire new skills, and therefore facilitates even more the innovation which consumers were worried about. This paper formalizes this idea. It also provides an illustration of how a first-order Taylor-approximation of the Euler equation yields an effect of precautionary saving.
Unions and Workforce Adjustment Costs
Authors: Piccirilli Giulio 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
We present an economy composed of many sectors. In each sector, a simple dynamic stochastic game is played between a wage-setting union and many competitive firms that choose employment. Firms are subject to linear workforce adjustment costs whilst the union, along with employment and wages, is also concerned with limiting the number of insiders fired during business downturns.We show that the interaction between mandated firing costs and the protection of insiders operated by the union through the wage policy reduces the effect of the former on the job turnover rate. In particular, the negative relationship between turnover and firing costs may be so weak that it could easily escape empirical detection. Thus, the paper offers a potential explanation for the surprisingly similar patterns of aggregate job turnover exhibited by OECD countries despite large differences in the stringency of legislated employment protection.
Socio-Cultural Variables and Economic Success: Evidence from Italian Provinces 1951-1991
Authors: Peri Giovanni 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
Italy makes for an interesting case-study of the impact of socio-cultural variables on economic performance: under a common institutional framework differences in socio-cultural attitudes across Italian provinces correspond to large differences in their economic success. We analyze the effects of social variables on long-run provincial economic performance during Italy's era of economic take-off (1951-1991). Since socio-cultural traits in Italy are deeply rooted in local history and traditions, we argue that their persistence produces an (at least partly) exogenous determinant of economic prosperity. While we find rather weak evidence that civic involvement (Social Capital as defined in Putnam, 1993) fosters economic success, we do find strong evidence that the presence of organized crime (proxied by murder rates at the beginning of the period) is associated with low economic development, even after controlling for other economic and geographic factors.
Matching Up the Data on Education with Economic Growth Models
Authors: Papageorgiou Chris , Pérez-Sebastián Fidel 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
The growth literature has not yet fully established how data on educational attainment should be introduced in theories involving human capital. This paper examines alternative specifications of human capital within the Mincerian class that once incorporated in standard growth models may generate predictions that match up with the existing data on education. First, we analyze predictions in the Bils and Klenow (2000) model and show that although they behave correctly under some parameterizations, they are also subject to some shortcomings. Next, we present a standard neoclassical two-sector growth model that adopts a human capital specification in which the fraction of individual's time endowment in school is viewed as an investment rate. We show that the optimally chosen educational attainment predicted by the calibrated model does not correspond to the data as it is unrealistically high. Finally, we propose an alternative specification of human capital based on a law of motion of educational attainment that successfully matches up with the data.
Income and Wealth Distributions Along the Business Cycle: Implications from the Neoclassical Growth Model
Authors: Maliar Lilia , Maliar Serguei , Mora Juan 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
This paper studies the business cycle dynamics of income and wealth distributions in the context of the neoclassical growth model where agents are heterogeneous in initial wealth and non-acquired skills. Our economy admits a representative consumer which enables us to characterize distributive dynamics by the evolution of aggregate quantities. We show that inequality in both wealth and income follow a countercyclical pattern: the former is countercyclical because labor income is more sensitive to the business cycle than capital income, while the latter is countercyclical due to the wealth-distribution effect. We find that the predictions of the model about the income distribution dynamics accord well with the U.S. data.
The Monetary Policy Committee's Reaction Function: An Exercise in Estimation
Authors: Goodhart Charles A.E. 
Published: December 2005

Abstract
Owing to lags in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, central banks put much weight on forecasts of the future paths of output and inflation. So there has been considerable recent interest in forward-looking Taylor-type reaction functions. Using publicly available data on the Monetary Policy Committee’s forecasts for UK inflation and output growth, 1997-2003, we examine how the coefficients in such reaction functions changed as we switched between ex post forecasts – those published after, and incorporating, the preceding interest rate decision – and ex ante forecasts – those presented to the MPC before that decision – and also as we vary the (forecast) horizon, out to eight quarters ahead. In our data set, the coefficients vary sensitively as the horizon/forecast basis changes. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the MPC tried aggressively to eliminate any predicted, ex ante, deviation of inflation from target immediately it emerged, with no apparent indication of intended inertia, or gradualism, in response. Nevertheless the time path of official short term interest rates during these years shows the usual record of consecutive similarly-signed small steps.