Do institutional changes affect business cycles? Evidence from Europe

We study the effects that the Maastricht treaty, the creation of the ECB, andthe Euro changeover had on the dynamics of European business cycles using a panelVAR and data from ten European countries - seven from the Euro area and threeoutside of it. There are changes in the features of European business cycles and in thetransmission of shocks. They precede the three events of interest and are more linkedto a general process of European convergence and synchronization.

Iowa Values Fund and Business Assistance Programs 2007 Annual Report, 2007

Following is the 2007 Annual Report of the Iowa Values Fund (IVF 2005) and Business Assistance Programs covering activity during Fiscal Year 2007 (FY ‘07) and cumulative for the first four years of the Iowa Values Fund Programs. The IVF (2005) is the primary funding source for a menu of financial assistance programs the Iowa Department of Economic Development (IDED) offers as incentives to Iowa companies to expand here, to recruit new companies into Iowa and assist new entrepreneurial ventures. In addition to IDED the law appropriates IVF (2005) funds for economic development activities to the Board of Regents, the Departments of Cultural Affairs and Natural Resources and to Community Colleges for certain workforce training programs. In addition to the IVF (2005), IDED allocates a portion of Community Development Block Grant and Federal Emergency Stimulus funds and several tax credit programs, all of which are included in this report.

Review of targeted small business procurement activities for the year ended June 30, 2008

Review of targeted small business procurement activities for the year ended June 30, 2008

A aprendizagem como o processo de aquisição e construção do conhecimento. O Caso da utilização dos Simuladores no ISCEE Cabo Verde Business School

O objectivo desta comunicação é demonstrar a importância da relação entre modelos de aprendizagem dinâmicos e a criação do conhecimento como mecanismo de transferência e disseminação na sociedade em Cabo Verde, através de práticas pedagógicas utlizadas no ISCEE, como demonstra a utilização dos simuladores. Esta nova abordagem, com a utilização de simuladores em contexto de sala de aula, potencia a interacção entre os estudantes e permite uma rápida troca de informação entre as partes e ao mesmo tempo melhora o processo de tomada de decisão. O processo de aprendizagem através dos simuladores potencia a aquisição e construção do conhecimento e a dinâmica do grupo, em especial a memória transactiva e relacional. Este artigo, demonstra que as novas práticas pedagógicas, com base nas novas tecnologias da comunicação e informação, devem ter o foco no grupo e não no aluno como entidade isolada.

The Value of Private Information within Evolving Groups

This note offers an analytical framework aimed at explaining how individual agents purposefully act with the goal of managing the value of their information sets. Agents undertake a process of private accumulation of information, which takes into account the non-rival nature of this peculiar entity. Non rivalry introduces an externality that might trigger long-term endogenous fluctuations. The dynamics of interaction, namely the possibility of entering or exiting the group to which the individuals belong, wil l determine time trajectories for the information flows that are unique for the specific conditions of interaction that are being considered at a given momentEste artigo apresenta uma estrutura analítica que tem por objetivo explicar como é que os agentes individuais atuam, de modo intencional, com o propósito de gerir o valor da informação que detêm. Os agentes prosseguem um processo de acumulação privada de informação, o qual toma em consideração a natureza não rival desta entidade que detém características específicas. A não rivalidade introduz uma externalidade que pode despoletar flutuações endógenas de longo prazo. A dinâmica de interação, nomeadamente a possibilidade de entrar ou sair do grupo a que os indivíduos pertencem, vai determinar a formação de trajetórias no tempo para os fluxos de informação, as quais são únicas para as condições particulares de interação que estão a ser consideradas num determinado momento.

Pitfalls to avoid when measuring institutions: Is "Doing Business" damaging business?

Over recent years, both governments and international aid organizations have been devoting large amounts of resources to simplifying the procedures for setting up and formalizing firms. Many of these actions have focused on reducing the initial costs of setting up the firm, disregarding the more important role of business registers as a source of reliable information for judges, government departments and, above all, other firms. This reliable information is essential for reducing transaction costs in future dealings with all sorts of economic agents, both public and private. The priorities of reform policies should therefore be thoroughly reviewed, stressing the value of the legal institutions rather than trivializing them as is often the case.

Audit report on the Iowa State Center Business Office of Iowa State University of Science and Technology for the year ended June 30, 2008

Audit report on the Iowa State Center Business Office of Iowa State University of Science and Technology for the year ended June 30, 2008

Markups, gaps and the welfare costs of business fluctuations

In this paper we present a simple theory-based measure of the variations in aggregate economic efficiency: the gap between the marginal product of labor and the household s consumption/leisure tradeoff. We show that this indicator corresponds to the inverse of the markup of price over social marginal cost, and give some evidence in support of this interpretation. We then show that, with some auxilliary assumptions our gap variable may be used to measure the efficiency costs of business fluctuations. We find that the latter costs are modest on average. However, to the extent the flexible price equilibrium is distorted,the gross efficiency losses from recessions and gains from booms may be large. Indeed, we find that the major recessions involved large efficiency losses. These results hold for reasonable parameterizations of the Frisch elasticity of labor supply, the coefficient of relative risk aversion, and steady state distortions.

Apoio à Administração, Business Intelligence. O caso Unipiaget

A memória realizada no âmbito do regulamento dos Cursos de Graduação da Universidade Jean Piaget de Cabo Verde, apresenta um estudo exaustivo sobre Sistemas de Apoio à Decisão e Businees Intelligence, mais concretamente, o estudo da sua arquitectura, os benefícios que trazem a uma organização, bem como a sua integração às estratégias empresariais, com vista ao alcance dos objectivos traçados. Ainda, apresenta um estudo de caso sobre a Unipiaget, cujas conclusões indicam que essa Universidade, ainda tem muito o que fazer para que haja uma real partilha de conhecimento extraído do seu Sistema Informação, que ao contrário de muitas empresas em Cabo Verde, é apoiada por Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação bem actuais e capazes. A memória permitiu alcançar os objectivos preconizados no início da elaboração da mesma, sem que tenha havido sobressaltos, apesar da escassa bibliografia.

Processes and consequences in business ethical dilemmas: The oil industry and climate changes

This paper proposes a framework to examine business ethical dilemmas andbusiness attitudes towards such dilemmas. Business ethical dilemmas canbe understood as reflecting a contradiction between a socially detrimentalprocess and a self-interested profitable consequence. This representationallows us to distinguish two forms of behavior differing by whetherpriority is put on consequences or on processes. We argue that theseforms imply very different business attitudes towards society:controversial or competitive for the former and aligned or cooperativefor the latter. These attitudes are then analyzed at the discursive level in order to address the question of good faith in businessargumentation, i.e. to which extent are these attitudes consistent withactual business behaviors. We argue that consequential attitudes mostlyinvolve communication and lobbying actions aiming at eluding the dilemma.Therefore, the question of good faith for consequential attitudes liesin the consistency between beliefs and discourse. On the other hand,procedural attitudes acknowledge the dilemma and claim a change of theprocess of behavior. They thus raise the question of the consistencybetween discourses and actual behavior. We apply this processes/consequencesframework to the case of the oil industry s climate change ethical dilemmawhich comes forth as a dilemma between emitting greenhouse gases and making more profits . And we examine the different attitudes of two oilcorporations-BP Amoco and ExxonMobil-towards the dilemma.

Trends in hours, balanced growth and the role of technology in the business cycle

The present paper revisits a property embedded in most dynamic macroeconomic models: the stationarity of hours worked. First, I argue that, contrary to what is often believed, there are many reasons why hours could be nonstationary in those models, while preserving the property of balanced growth. Second, I show that the postwar evidence for most industrialized economies is clearly at odds with the assumption of stationary hours per capita. Third, I examine the implications of that evidence for the role of technology as a source of economic fluctuations in the G7 countries.

How "Doing Business" jeopardizes institutional reform

Simplifying business formalization and eliminating outdated formalities is often a good way of improving the institutional environment for firms. Unfortunately, the World Bank s "Doing Business" project is harming such policies by promoting a reform agenda that gives them priority even in countries lacking functional business registers, so that the reformed registers keep producing valueless information, but faster. Its methodology also promotes biased measurements that impede proper consideration of the essential tradeoffs in the design of formalization institutions. If "Doing Business" is to stop jeopardizing its true objectives and contribute positively to scientific progress, institutional reform and economic development, then its aims, governance and methodology need to change.

Gerontocracy, retirement, and social security

Why are the old politically successful? We build a simple interest group model in which political pressure is time-intensive, showing that in the political competitive equilibrium each group lobbies for government policies that lower their own value of time but the old do so to a greater extent and as a result are net gainers from the political process. What distinguishes the elderly from other political groups (and what makes them more succesful) is that they have lower labor productivity and/or that we are all likely to become elderly at some point, while we are relatively unlikely to change gender, race, sexual orientation, or even ocupation, The model has a variety of implications for the design of social security programs, which we test using data from the Social Security Administration. For example, the model predicts that social security programs with retirement incentives are larger and that the old are more "single-minded" in their politics, implications which we verify using cross-country government finance data and cross-country political participation surveys. Finally, we show that the forced savings programs intended to "reform" the social security system may increase the amount of intergenerational redistribution. As a model for evaluating policy reforms, ours has the attractive feature that reforms must be time time consistent from a political point of view rather than a public interest point of view.

The elusive costs and the immaterial gains of fiscal contraints

We study whether and how fiscal restrictions alter the business cycle features macrovariables for a sample of 48 US states. We also examine the 'typical' transmission properties of fiscal disturbances and the implied fiscal rules of states with different fiscal restrictions. Fiscal constraints are characterized with a number of indicators. There are similarities in second moments of macrovariables and in the transmission properties of fiscal shocks across states with different fiscal constraints. The cyclical response of expenditure differs in size and sometimes in sign, but heterogeneity within groups makes point estimates statistically insignificant. Creative budget accounting isresponsible for the pattern. Implications for the design of fiscal rules and thereform of the Stability and Growth Pact are discussed.