This paper examines the relation between market volatility and investor trades by identifying who supplies and demands market liquidity on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Because the different trading ...patterns of various investor types such as individual investors, institutional investors, and foreign investors affect market liquidity differently, we find that market volatility fluctuates significantly depending on which investor types participate in trade. We show that market volatility increases by more than 50% from the average level when there are greater buy trades by momentum investors that demand liquidity and there are less sell trades by contrarian (or profit-taking) investors that supply liquidity. On the other hand, volatility dampens by more than 57% when there are greater sell trades by profit-taking investors, mostly by domestic investors, while there are less momentum buy trades.
Large distance and border effects on trade flows in some industries may result from the collusive division of geographic markets. In the Brazilian cement industry, traditional gravity equations fit ...the data well, yet limited regional flows are due to firms' strategic behaviour. Thanks to a unique institutional setting and an unusually rich data set, I directly control for trade costs, which - despite their importance - cannot account for the observed segmentation of local markets at current prices. The paper highlights how collusive behaviour can magnify the effects of distance, as firms use geography to coordinate on higher prices and less cross-hauling. /// Les effets de grande distance et de frontières sur les flux de commerce dans certaines industries peuvent être le résultat d'une division collusive des marchés géographiques. Dans l'industrie brésilienne du ciment, les équations de gravité s'ajustent bien aux données, mais les flux régionaux limités entre régions sont attribuables au comportement stratégique des firmes. Grâce à un contexte institutionnel unique et à une base de données inhabituelles, l'auteur a pu prendre en compte directement les coûts du commerce qui - malgré leur importance - ne peuvent pas expliquer la segmentation observée des marchés locaux aux prix courants. Le mémoire met en lumière comment le comportement de collusion peut magnifier les effets de distance à proportion que les firmes utilisent la géographie pour assurer une coordination fondée sur des prix plus élevés et moins de transport transfrontalier.
This paper analyzes the effects of labor market policy on several types of criminal offenses among nine European countries. The primary results are as follows. First, a higher benefit replacement ...rate reduces criminal activities. Second, with the exception of assault, active labor market policy has no significant effect on the criminal offenses considered. Third, an increase in the average educational level of the working age population reduces the propensity to commit crime; however, more often than not, the significance level is insufficient. The results suggest that the combination of a high replacement rate with short duration, which mitigates the effects of unemployment in the Nordic countries, is not contradictory to a crime reduction policy.
This pathbreaking study brings together international experts to consider security issues and the experience and potential for cooperation in the subregions of the former Soviet Union. Appendices to ...the volume provide maps, a guide to acronyms, profiles of existing subregional organizations, and a chronology of cooperative agreements signed in the region since 1991.
The purpose of this article is to measure the concentration of tertiary activities in Europe. Usually, these sectors are depicted as 'invisible goods' by international economics theories. However, ...the expansion of the tertiary sector in developed economies, liberalisation and an increasing number of studies argue that services have a serious influence upon the economy, most notably in the field of economic geography. This study measures the concentration of tertiary sector activities, breaking this field down into 21 distinct sectors. This research shows that Knowledge Intensive Business Services are highly concentrated, and are becoming even more so. This result points towards the desirability of explicitly including these activities in New Economic Geography models.
The CNN Effect examines the relationship between the state and its media, and considers the role played by the news reporting in a series of 'humanitarian' interventions in Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, ...Kosovo and Rwanda. Piers Robinson challenges traditional views of media subservience and argues that sympathetic news coverage at key moments in foreign crises can influence the response of Western governments.
'A carefully crafted and thorough presentation … clear and insightful …Robinson has offered a thorough and thoughtful analysis.' – Political Communication
During its transition towards a market economy, Vietnam embarked upon a path of disinflation through dollarization. In this paper, we develop a model to shed light on the determinants of inflation ...under dollarization and estimate it for Vietnam in the 1990s using a two-step procedure. During this period, inflation was induced by exchange rate variations and by an excess of broad money. The paper shows that management of exchange rate fluctuations combined with a restrictive monetary policy based on broadly defined money was essential for the Vietnamese authorities to succeed in fighting inflation. Illustrative simulations based on the sharp 25% exchange rate depreciation of 1997 to 1998 suggest that this depreciation led to an additional cumulated inflation of 13% over the period.
Journal of Comparative Economics
34 (3) (2006) 564–581.
This article decomposes the rise in the cross-sectional variance of male annual earnings in Sweden between 1991 and 1999 into its persistent and transitory components. The results show that the ...persistent component accounts for basically all of the increase in earnings dispersion. This implies that the answer to the 1990s trend reversal in Swedish earnings inequality is to be found in explanations that focus on persistent changes in the labour market, such as changes in the price of skills.
A detailed analysis of the response to the Yugoslav crisis by one of America's key allies in NATO. The author focuses on the question of how a Western bureaucracy faced up to the most complex foreign ...policy challenge of the 1990s. The Netherlands, as a 'pocket-sized medium power', is an interesting case study. While the margins for Dutch foreign policy are limited, fate had it that the Netherlands occupied the European presidency during the second half of 1991, when the recognition issue divided the West and the parameters for the subsequent international intervention in the Balkans were set. By July 1995, the involvement of the Netherlands had deepened to the extent that Dutch troops who found themselves trapped in the UN safe area of Srebrenica together with the local Muslim population were unable to prevent the worst massacre in Europe since the Second World War. This study is based on interviews with all the major players, including two former Defence Ministers and two former Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and on documents from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made available under the country's own 'freedom of information act'. This title is available in the OAPEN Library - http://www.oapen.org.
A detailed analysis of the response to the Yugoslav crisis by one of America's key allies in NATO. The author focuses on the question of how a Western bureaucracy faced up to the most complex foreign ...policy challenge of the 1990s. The Netherlands, as a 'pocket-sized medium power', is an interesting case study. While the margins for Dutch foreign policy are limited, fate had it that the Netherlands occupied the European presidency during the second half of 1991, when the recognition issue divided the West and the parameters for the subsequent international intervention in the Balkans were set. By July 1995, the involvement of the Netherlands had deepened to the extent that Dutch troops who found themselves trapped in the UN safe area of Srebrenica together with the local Muslim population were unable to prevent the worst massacre in Europe since the Second World War. This study is based on interviews with all the major players, including two former Defence Ministers and two former Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and on documents from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made available under the country's own 'freedom of information act'.
A detailed analysis of the response to the Yugoslav crisis by one of America's key allies in NATO. The author focuses on the question of how a Western bureaucracy faced up to the most complex foreign policy challenge of the 1990s. The Netherlands, as a 'pocket-sized medium power', is an interesting case study. While the margins for Dutch foreign policy are limited, fate had it that the Netherlands occupied the European presidency during the second half of 1991, when the recognition issue divided the West and the parameters for the subsequent international intervention in the Balkans were set. By July 1995, the involvement of the Netherlands had deepened to the extent that Dutch troops who found themselves trapped in the UN safe area of Srebrenica together with the local Muslim population were unable to prevent the worst massacre in Europe since the Second World War. This study is based on interviews with all the major players, including two former Defence Ministers and two former Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and on documents from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made available under the country's own 'freedom of information act'.
PDF
