Finding a suitable job: the effect of the institutional context on self-perceived over-education

The current research compares the perception of over-education in four different European countries, resorting to European Household Panel Data. The results confirm that the type of educational system accounts for some of the cross-national differences in self-perceived over-education. In qualificational spaces, like Denmark, where vocational training receives more importance, self-perceived over-education is not associated as much with educational attainment as in the so-called’ organisational spaces’, like Spain, France and Italy. Yet, the results confirm that, controlling for the system of education, the traits and regulation of the labour market also have an effect on over-education. Thus, in Spain, where temporary employment has soared in recent decades, this type of contract is clearly associated with the perception of over-education, to a much higher extent than in Italy or France. Temporary contracts in Spain may not work as a steppig stone for attaining a job suitable to the training received by the individual, as they may in the case of France or Italy. In sum, not only institutions offering skills and human capital, but labour market regulation as well, have a clear impact on the incidence of over-education.

Marcas blancas : nuevo concepto comercial del sector alimentario

Productos sin una marca comercial publicitada ni reconocida, de envase y diseño aparentemente simples, vendidos generalmente en cadenas de supermercados, de precio reducido y con el logotipo de la empresa o cadena que los suministra, son los prototipos pertenecientes a las llamadas marcas blancas o de distribuidor, expresadas en la mayoría de los casos con las siglas MDD.Los primeros indicios de estos productos los situamos en Alemania justo despúes de su derrota en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En un contexto de verdadera crisis los alemanes dejaron de prestar atención al valor de la marca propulsando así mercados dominados por precios bajos de productos sin marcas. La idea arreló con fuerza a las sociedades americanas y en 1869 en Gran Bretaña el supermercado Sainsbury lanzó al mercado su propia marca, ofreciendo una alta calidad juntamente con un excelente servicio a un precios claramente razonable. Estos productos también aparecieron en Francia en las manos de Coop. Más tarde, en la segunda parte de la década de los setenta, el fenómeno se translado a España con los productos Simago, donde empezó su denominación de marcas blancas, causa de sus sencillos envases, con frecuencia de color blanco, que indicaban sin más el producto contenido y el logotipo, en este caso de Simago. Pero si hay un hecho que marca el nacimiento de las marcas de distribuidor es cuando Carrefour lanzó en 1976 cinquenta productos libres o sin marcas del fabricante, con el fin de diferenciar el producto al incorporarle otra marca, la del distribuidor, ofreciendo precios competitivos sin disminuir la calidad. A partir de esta iniciativa las MDD adquierieron carta de naturaleza y como fénomeno consolidado fueron apareciendo en los distintos mercados de los paises más avanzados del mundo occidental.El intenso crecimiento de las marcas de distribuidor que se ha observado en estos últimos años en Europa, y consecuentemente también en España, a causa de la actual crisis económica, hizo despertar nuestro interés sobre estos nuevos y desconocidos conceptos de productos.¿Porqué la diferencia de precios es tan grande, cuando el producto es discretamente parecido?, ¿de dónde viene tanta polémica?, ¿qué hay detrás de la producción de las MDD?, ¿dónde nació éste concepto y cual puede ser su futuro?... Estas eran algunas de las preguntas cada vez que acudíamos a algún supermercado, veíamos algun anuncio o simplemente aparecían en los titulares de algún que otro periódico.Apasionadas de la actualidad y comprometidas por la economía, siempre nos ha gustado discutir nuestros puntos de vista distintos sobre estas cosas reales que nos distraen el día a día. Así, compartiendo nuestra incertidumbre, en un primer lugar nos decantamos por pensar que la calidad de estos porductos debería ser notablemente inferiror y que éste era el principal motivo de su precio reducido, pero hasta el momento todo se trataba de hipótesis no ontrastadas, y de pensamientos sin fundamento alguno.Nuestra duda continuaba y el hecho de pensar que eran de calidad inferior no obtuvo nuestra satisfacción. La sorpresa fue realmente grande cuando observamos que las pizzas Hacendado (productos del supermercado Mercadona) estaban producidas por la reconocida marca nacional de Casa Tarradellas, S.A. Aquí, nuestro interés para averiguar si realmente estos productos se distinguían, aumentó de manera considerable, hasta el punto que no consideramos desapropiado utilizar esta motivación para emprender un trabajo de búsqueda e investigación como éste. Además deseábamos un tema de actualidad e innovador, donde una investigación nos aportara más información que un libro de texto y que nos permitiese un trabajo diferente y a la vez motivador.Definitivamente ya lo teníamos: las marcas blancas o de distribuidor cumplían todos estos requisitos.Nuestra pasión por entender porqués nos llevó a concretar métodos de quizás demasiada envergadura. Una de las primeras alternativas que brilló fue centrarnos en una única comparativa llevada a cabo de manera exhaustiva entre dos productos de igual tipología, uno blanco y el otro nacional. Pero después de valorar listas de propuestas observarvamos que este método no nos daría unos resultados suficientemente fiables para poder cumplir con nuestros objetivos y sumándole la negativa de las empresas a dar la sufiente información para realizar el requerido análisis, decidimos en un primer lugar centrarnos en una parte puramente teórica, que consideramos que nos aportaría una buena base para empezar de manera estructural y no hacerlo desde cero.Esta primera parte del trabajo está encabezada por un estudio a nivel teórico del concepto general de marca y las estratégias de ésta que nos conduciran a profundizar en el concepto de marca blanca. à stas seran fuente de otro importante apartado teórico, las marcas de distribuidor, tema que lidera nuestro proyecto y que hemos considerado importante dar a conocer primero a nivel teórico el concepto de marca blanca así como los motivos de su nacimiento.Una vez realizada la parte teórica y lejos de anteriores proyectos infinitos, nuestros conocimientos sobre el tema estudiado se habían ampliado de manera considerable, las lecturas de diversas opiniones de consumidores en páginas de Internet o Blogs de aficionados a la economía, estudios muchos de ellos facilitados por la Agència Catalana de Consum (ACC), numerosos libros de marqueting y diferentes tesis y finalmente notícias de prensa nos dieron cuenta que a nivel teórico habíamos llegado a una comprensión completa de los conceptos que estábamos estudiando.Sabíamos quienes producian las marcas blancas, sabíamos quien las consumía con más frecuencia, teniamos listas infinitas de noticias de periódicos para hablar de actualidad, sabíamos los supermercados que habían decidico ofrecer estos productos, y quien producía todos estos productos. En fin, de saber, lo sabíamos. Pero nos encontramos que a pesar de saberlo casi todo sobre las ya familiares marcas blancas, no sabíamos como ordenar estas montañas de conocimientos que en pocas semanas habíamos adquirido.Fue este el momento crítico del trabajo, pero duró poco, no podía ser saber tanto y saber tan poco. Así que pensamos que la información que tanto habíamos leído y reeleído se podía clasificar en tres grandes grupos, o puntos de vista.El primero de ellos sería el punto de vista del fabricante, al fin y al cabo alguien debe producir, así que empezamos por donde se suele empezar, el principio.El segundo punto de vista sería el cliente de este fabricante, así que tendríamos a los distribuidores, que no son mas que grandes cadenas de supermercados o de grandes superfícies.Y finalmente, quien compraba a los grandes almacenes era ni más ni menos que el consumidor, así que el último punto de vista se trataba de estudiar el consumidor.Una vez comprendida y realizada la parte más práctica de las marcas de distribuidor, hemos incluido en el trabajo un apartado donde comentamos la actualidad y nos arriesgamos a hacer una pequeña hipótesis sobre cual puede ser el futuro de estas estratégias de marketing.Cabe mencionar que dada la gran envergadura actual de las MDD, preferimos centrarnos en la parte más primitiva de los productos blancos: los productos alimentarios de ámbito español. Esto permitió segmentar el complexo temario y no entrar en sectores téxtiles, de electrónica o en muchos otros ámbitos,donde hoy por hoy la marca blanca ha dejado también su huella, a la vez que concentrarnos en nuestro país, dado que las estratégias seguidas tienen distintos matices según cada país.Una vez estructurado y definido el trabajo, sólo nos faltaba ponernos manos a la obra y empezar a no parar, ahora sí todas nuestras dudas tendrían ya su respuesta.

The Persistence of Inflation in OECDCountries: a Fractionally Integrated Approach

The statistical properties of inflation and, in particular, its degree of persistence and stability over time is a subject of intense debate and no consensus has been achieved yet. The goal of this paper is to analyze this controversy using a general approach, with the aim of providing a plausible explanation for the existing contradictory results. We consider the inflation rates of 21 OECD countries which are modelled as fractionally integrated (FI) processes. First, we show analytically that FI can appear in inflation rates after aggregating individual prices from firms that face different costs of adjusting their prices. Then, we provide robust empirical evidence supporting the FI hypothesis using both classical and Bayesian techniques. Next, we estimate impulse response functions and other scalar measures of persistence, achieving an accurate picture of this property and its variation across countries. It is shown that the application of some popular tools for measuring persistence, such as the sum of the AR coefficients, could lead to erroneous conclusions if fractional integration is present. Finally, we explore the existence of changes in inflation inertia using a novel approach. We conclude that the persistence of inflation is very high (although non-permanent) in most post-industrial countries and that it has remained basically unchanged over the last four decades.

On a series of Goldbach and Euler

Theorem 1 of Euler s paper of 1737 'Variae Observationes Circa Series Infinitas', states the astonishing result that the series of all unit fractions whose denominators are perfect powers of integers minus unity has sum one. Euler attributes the Theorem to Goldbach. The proof is one of those examples of misuse of divergent series to obtain correct results so frequent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We examine this proof closelyand, with the help of some insight provided by a modern (and completely dierent) proof of the Goldbach-Euler Theorem, we present a rational reconstruction in terms which could be considered rigorous by modern Weierstrassian standards. At the same time, with a few ideas borrowed from nonstandard analysis we see how the same reconstruction can be also be considered rigorous by modern Robinsonian standards. This last approach, though, is completely in tune with Goldbach and Euler s proof. We hope to convince the reader then how, a few simple ideas from nonstandard analysis, vindicate Euler's work.

Credit lines: The other side of corporate liquidity

In this paper we offer the first large sample evidence on the availability and usage ofcredit lines in U.S. public corporations and use it to re-examine the existing findings oncorporate liquidity. We show that the availability of credit lines is widespread and thataverage undrawn credit is of the same order of magnitude as cash holdings. We test thetrade-off theory of liquidity according to which firms target an optimum level of liquidity,computed as the sum of cash and undrawn credit lines. We provide support for the existenceof a liquidity target, but also show that the reasons why firms hold cash and credit linesare very different. While the precautionary motive explains well cash holdings, the optimumlevel of credit lines appears to be driven by the restrictions imposed by the credit line itself,in terms of stated purpose and covenants. In support to these findings, credit line drawdownsare associated with capital expenditures, acquisitions, and working capital.

Productivity and the welfare of nations

We show that the welfare of a representative consumer can be related to observable aggregatedata. To a first order, the change in welfare is summarized by (the present value of) the Solowproductivity residual and by the growth rate of the capital stock per capita. We also show thatproductivity and the capital stock suffice to calculate differences in welfare across countries, withboth variables computed as log level deviations from a reference country. These results hold forarbitrary production technology, regardless of the degree of product market competition, and applyto open economies as well if TFP is constructed using absorption rather than GDP as the measureof output. They require that TFP be constructed using prices and quantities as perceived byconsumers. Thus, factor shares need to be calculated using after-tax wages and rental rates, andwill typically sum to less than one. We apply these results to calculate welfare gaps and growthrates in a sample of developed countries for which high-quality TFP and capital data are available.We find that under realistic scenarios the United Kingdom and Spain had the highest growth ratesof welfare over our sample period of 1985-2005, but the United States had the highest level ofwelfare.

Transfers, social safety nets and economic growth

The role of social safety nets in the form of redistributional transfersand wage subsidies is analyzed using a simple model of criminal behavior. Itis argued that public welfare programs act as a crime--preventing ordisruption--preventing devices because they tend to increase the opportunitycost of engaging in crime or disruptive activities. It is shown that, in thepresence of a leisure choice, wage subsidies may be better than pure transfers. Using a simple growth model, it is shown that it is not optimal for the governmentto try to fully eliminate crime. The optimal size of the public welfare programis found and it is argued that public welfare should be financed with income(not lump--sum) taxes, despite the fact that income taxes are distortionary.The intuition for this result is that income taxes act as a user fee oncongested public goods and transfers can be thought of as {\it productive}public goods {\it subject to congestion}. Finally, using a cross-section of 75 countries, the partial correlation betweentransfers and growth is shown to be significantly positive.

A general decomposition formula for derivative prices in stochastic volatility models

We see that the price of an european call option in a stochastic volatilityframework can be decomposed in the sum of four terms, which identifythe main features of the market that affect to option prices: the expectedfuture volatility, the correlation between the volatility and the noisedriving the stock prices, the market price of volatility risk and thedifference of the expected future volatility at different times. We alsostudy some applications of this decomposition.

The persistence of inflation in OECD countries: A fractionally integrated approach

The statistical properties of inflation and, in particular, its degree of persistence and stability over time is a subject of intense debate and no consensus has been achieved yet. The goal of this paper is to analyze this controversy using a general approach, with the aim of providing a plausible explanation for the existing contradictory results. We consider the inflation rates of 21 OECD countries which are modelled as fractionally integrated (FI) processes. First, we show analytically that FI can appear in inflation rates after aggregating individual prices from firms that face different costs of adjusting their prices. Then, we provide robust empirical evidence supporting the FI hypothesis using both classical and Bayesian techniques. Next, we estimate impulse response functions and other scalar measures of persistence, achieving an accurate picture of this property and its variation across countries. It is shown that the application of some popular tools for measuring persistence, such as the sum of the AR coefficients, could lead to erroneous conclusions if fractional integration is present. Finally, we explore the existence of changes in inflation inertia using a novel approach. We conclude that the persistence of inflation is very high (although non-permanent) in most post-industrial countries and that it has remained basically unchanged over the last four decades.

Research joint ventures and optimal R&D policy with asymmetric information

When to allow Research Joint Ventures (RJVs) or not is an importantinstrument in the development of an optimal R&D policy. Theregulator, however, is unlikely to know all the relevant informationto regulate R&D optimally. The extent to which there existappropriability problems between the firms is one such variable thatis private information to the firms in the industry. In a duopolysetting we analyze the characteristics of a second-best R&D policywhere the government can either allow RJVs or not and give lump-sumsubsidies to the parties involved. The second-best R&D policy withoutsubsidies will either block some welfare improving RJVs or allow somewelfare reducing ones. With lump-sum subsidies, the second-best policytrades off the expected subsidy cost with allowing welfare decreasingRJVs or blocking welfare increasing ones.

A decomposition formula for option prices in the Heston model and applications to option pricing approximation

By means of classical Itô's calculus we decompose option prices asthe sum of the classical Black-Scholes formula with volatility parameterequal to the root-mean-square future average volatility plus a term dueby correlation and a term due to the volatility of the volatility. Thisdecomposition allows us to develop first and second-order approximationformulas for option prices and implied volatilities in the Heston volatilityframework, as well as to study their accuracy. Numerical examples aregiven.

Adaptive model selection using empirical complexities

Given $n$ independent replicates of a jointly distributed pair $(X,Y)\in {\cal R}^d \times {\cal R}$, we wish to select from a fixed sequence of model classes ${\cal F}_1, {\cal F}_2, \ldots$ a deterministic prediction rule $f: {\cal R}^d \to {\cal R}$ whose risk is small. We investigate the possibility of empirically assessingthe {\em complexity} of each model class, that is, the actual difficulty of the estimation problem within each class. The estimated complexities are in turn used to define an adaptive model selection procedure, which is based on complexity penalized empirical risk.The available data are divided into two parts. The first is used to form an empirical cover of each model class, and the second is used to select a candidate rule from each cover based on empirical risk. The covering radii are determined empirically to optimize a tight upper bound on the estimation error. An estimate is chosen from the list of candidates in order to minimize the sum of class complexity and empirical risk. A distinguishing feature of the approach is that the complexity of each model class is assessed empirically, based on the size of its empirical cover.Finite sample performance bounds are established for the estimates, and these bounds are applied to several non-parametric estimation problems. The estimates are shown to achieve a favorable tradeoff between approximation and estimation error, and to perform as well as if the distribution-dependent complexities of the model classes were known beforehand. In addition, it is shown that the estimate can be consistent,and even possess near optimal rates of convergence, when each model class has an infinite VC or pseudo dimension.For regression estimation with squared loss we modify our estimate to achieve a faster rate of convergence.

Analysis of matched matrices

We consider the joint visualization of two matrices which have common rowsand columns, for example multivariate data observed at two time pointsor split accord-ing to a dichotomous variable. Methods of interest includeprincipal components analysis for interval-scaled data, or correspondenceanalysis for frequency data or ratio-scaled variables on commensuratescales. A simple result in matrix algebra shows that by setting up thematrices in a particular block format, matrix sum and difference componentscan be visualized. The case when we have more than two matrices is alsodiscussed and the methodology is applied to data from the InternationalSocial Survey Program.

Endogenous business cycles and stabilization policies

The paper reports results on the effects of stylized stabilization policies on endogenously created fluctuations. A simple monetary model with intertemporally optimizing agents is considered. Fluctuations in output may occur due to fluctuations in labor supply which are again caused by volatile expectations which are ``self fulfilling'', i.e. correct given the model. It turns out that stabilization policies that are sufficiently countercyclical in the sense that government spending (on transfers or demand) depends sufficiently strongly negatively on GNP-increases can stabilize the economy at a monetary steadystate for an arbitrarily low degree of distortion of that steady state. Such stabilization has unambiguously good welfare effects and can be achieved without features such as positive lump sum taxation or negative income taxation as part of the stabilization policy.

Minimum distance estimation of stationary and non-stationary ARFIMA processes

A new parametric minimum distance time-domain estimator for ARFIMA processes is introduced in this paper. The proposed estimator minimizes the sum of squared correlations of residuals obtained after filtering a series through ARFIMA parameters. The estimator iseasy to compute and is consistent and asymptotically normally distributed for fractionallyintegrated (FI) processes with an integration order d strictly greater than -0.75. Therefore, it can be applied to both stationary and non-stationary processes. Deterministic components are also allowed in the DGP. Furthermore, as a by-product, the estimation procedure provides an immediate check on the adequacy of the specified model. This is so because the criterion function, when evaluated at the estimated values, coincides with the Box-Pierce goodness of fit statistic. Empirical applications and Monte-Carlo simulations supporting the analytical results and showing the good performance of the estimator in finite samples are also provided.