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Crude Oil Market Power: A Shift in Recent Years?

We investigate the exertion of market power in the global crude oil market over the past years. Recognizing the difficulty of identifying market power in the crude oil market by empirical studies, we propose a numerical partial equilibrium model formulated as a mixed complementarity problem. Our approach allows for strategic behavior in a Nash-Cournot market, a Stackelberg leader-follower game, an ...

Maternal Employment and Gender Role Attitudes: Dissonance among British Men and Women in the Transition to Parenthood

This study examines how changes in gender role attitudes of couples after childbirth relate to women's paid work and the type of childcare used. Identifying attitude-practice dissonances matters because how they get resolved influences mothers' future employment. Previous research examined changes in women's attitudes and employment, or spouses' adaptations to each others' attitudes. This is extended ...

Optimación de las redes de trasmisión eléctrica en Norteamérica

A Cross-National Perspective on Unemployment and First Births

This article investigates the impact of unemployment on the likelihood of having a first child. Using micro-data from the European Community Household Panel, I apply event history methods to analyze first-birth decisions in France, West Germany, and the UK (1994-2001). The results highlight weak negative effects of unemployment onfamily formation among men, which can be attributed to the inability ...

The Role of the Log Transformation in Forecasting Economic Variables

For forecasting and economic analysis many variables are used in logarithms (logs). In time series analysis, this transformation is often considered to stabilize the variance of a series. We investigate under which conditions taking logs is beneficial for forecasting. Forecasts based on the original series are compared to forecasts based on logs. For a range of economic variables, substantial forecasting ...

Measuring Regional Inequality by Internet Car Price Advertisements: Evidence for Germany

We suggest to use car sale prices from internet advertisements for measuring economic inequality between and within German regions. Our estimates of regional income levels and Gini indices based on advertisements are highly positively correlated with the official figures.

The Impact of Home Production on Economic Inequality in Germany

Using representative income and time-use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate non-monetary income advantages arising from home production and analyze their impact on economic inequality. As an alternative to existing measures, we propose a predicted wage approach that relaxes some of the strong assumptions underlying both the standard opportunity cost approach and the housekeeper ...

Productivity and Financing of Regional Transport Infrastructure : Introduction

How Important Is Cultural Background for the Level of Intergenerational Mobility?

Based on brother correlations in permanent earnings for different groups of second generation immigrants, the findings in this paper indicate that cultural background is not a major determinant of the level of intergenerational economic mobility.

Sovereign Bond Yield Spreads: A Time-Varying Coefficient Approach

We study the determinants of sovereign bond yield spreads across 10 EMU countries between Q1/1999 and Q1/2010. We apply a semiparametric time-varying coefficient model to identify, to what extent an observed change in the yield spread is due to a shift in macroeconomic fundamentals or due to altering risk pricing. We find that at the beginning of EMU, the government debt level and the general investors' ...