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The book describes formal models of reasoning that are aimed at capturing the way that economic agents and decision makers in general think about their environment and make predictions based on their past experience. The focus is on analogies (case-based reasoning) and general theories (rule-based reasoning), and on the interaction between them, as well as between them and Bayesian reasoning. A unified approach allows us to study the dynamics of inductive reasoning in terms of the mode of reasoning that is used to generate predictions.

This book provides a massive amount of new research on several popular and less-examined topics pertaining to the relationship between economics and aging. Among the many themes explored in this volume, considerable attention is given to new research on retirement savings, the cost and efficiency of medical resources, and the predictors of health events. The volume begins with a discussion of the risks and merits of 401(k) plans. Subsequent chapters present recent analysis of the growth of Medicare costs; the different aspects of disability; and the evolution of health, wealth, and living arrangements over the life course. Keeping with the global tradition of previous volumes, the book also includes comparative studies on savings behavior in Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States; an examination of household savings among different age groups in Germany; and a chapter devoted to population aging and the plight of widows in India.

The long-term impact of globalization, outsourcing, and technological change on workers is increasingly being studied by economists. At the nexus of labor economics, industry studies, and industrial organization, this book presents new findings about these impacts by examining the interaction between the internal workings of businesses and outside influences from the market using data from countries around the globe. The result is enhanced insight into the dynamic interrelationship between firms and workers. The book examines the relationships between human resource practices and productivity, changing ownership and production methods, and expanding trade patterns and firm competitiveness.

The game of tennis raises many questions that are of interest to a statistician. Is it true that beginning to serve in a set gives an advantage? Are new balls an advantage? Is the seventh game in a set particularly important? Are top players more stable than other players? Do real champions win the big points? These, and many other questions, are formulated as ‘hypotheses’ and tested statistically. The book also discusses how the outcome of a match can be predicted (also while the match is in progress), which points are important and which are not, how to choose an optimal service strategy, and whether ‘winning mood’ actually exists in tennis. Aimed at readers with some knowledge of mathematics and statistics, the book uses tennis (Wimbledon in particular) as a vehicle to illustrate the power and beauty of statistical reasoning.

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models have become one of the workhorses of modern macroeconomics and are extensively used for academic research as well as forecasting and policy analysis at central banks. This book introduces readers to state-of-the-art computational techniques used in the Bayesian analysis of DSGE models. The book covers Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques for linearized DSGE models, novel sequential Monte Carlo methods that can be used for parameter inference, and the estimation of nonlinear DSGE models based on particle filter approximations of the likelihood function. The theoretical foundations of the algorithms are discussed in depth, and detailed empirical applications and numerical illustrations are provided. The book also gives invaluable advice on how to tailor these algorithms to specific applications and assess the accuracy and reliability of the computations. The book is essential reading for graduate students, academic researchers, and practitioners at policy institutions.

This book contains an up-to-date coverage of the last twenty years of advances in Bayesian inference in econometrics, with an emphasis on dynamic models. It shows how to treat Bayesian inference in non-linear models, by integrating the useful developments of numerical integration techniques based on simulations (such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods), and the long available analytical results of Bayesian inference for linear regression models. It thus covers a broad range of rather recent models for economic time series, such as non-linear models, autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic regressions, and cointegrated vector autoregressive models. It contains also an extensive chapter on unit root inference from the Bayesian viewpoint. Several examples illustrate the methods.

The market for U.S. Treasury securities is a marvel of modern finance. In 2009 the Treasury auctioned $8.2 trillion of new securities, ranging from four-day bills to thirty-year bonds, in 283 offerings on 171 different days. By contrast, in the decade before World War I, there was only about $1 billion of interest-bearing Treasury debt outstanding, spread out over just six issues. New offerings were rare, and the debt was narrowly held, most of it owned by national banks. This book traces the development of the Treasury market from a financial backwater in the years before World War I to a multibillion dollar market on the eve of World War II. It focuses on Treasury debt management policies, describing the origins of several pillars of modern Treasury practice, including “regular and predictable” auction offerings and the integration of debt and cash management. The book recounts the actions of Secretaries of the Treasury, from William McAdoo in the Wilson administration to Henry Morgenthau in the Roosevelt administration, and their responses to economic conditions. His account covers the Treasury market in the two decades before World War I, how the Treasury financed the Great War, how it managed the postwar refinancing and paydowns, and how it financed the chronic deficits of the Great Depression. It concludes with an examination of aspects of modern Treasury debt management that grew out of developments from 1917 to 1939.

Developing local bond markets is high on the policy agenda of Latin America. Bond markets are an essential component of a well-functioning financial market. Facilitating the efforts of public and private borrowers to issue domestic-currency-denominated, long-term, fixed-rate bonds insulates them from the rollover and balance sheet risks that have been central elements in past financial crises. In addition, a robust bond market is a way for nonfinancial firms to retain their capacity to borrow when the banking system grows reluctant to lend. Latin American bond markets are growing, and may even approach a “big bang”-like surge, although significant challenges remain. This comprehensive examination of the importance of local bond market development in Latin America provides conceptual and comparative assessments, case studies of six countries, surveys of firms and investors, and a cross-country economic analysis of the determinants of bond market development. The book’s case studies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay, written by country experts, follow a common methodology, with each offering a history of that country’s bond market development, a comprehensive and unique data set on both private and public bond markets, surveys of firms and investors, and (in many chapters) firm-level analysis. A Web appendix makes available the unique data sets, including results of specially designed surveys of firms and investors participants, used in the book’s studies.

For decades the semiconductor industry has been a driver of global economic growth and social change. Semiconductors, particularly the microchips essential to most electronic devices, have transformed computing, communications, entertainment, and industry. This book traces the industry over more than twenty years through eight technical and competitive crises that forced it to adapt in order to continue its exponential rate of improved chip performance. The industry’s changes have in turn shifted the basis on which firms hold or gain global competitive advantage. These eight interrelated crises do not have tidy beginnings and ends. Most, in fact, are still ongoing, often in altered form. The US semiconductor industry’s fear that it would be overtaken by Japan in the 1980s, for example, foreshadows current concerns over the new global competitors China and India. The intersecting crises of rising costs for both design and manufacturing are compounded by consumer pressure for lower prices. Other crises discussed in the book include the industry’s steady march toward the limits of physics, the fierce competition that keeps its profits modest even as development costs soar, and the global search for engineering talent. Other high-tech industries face crises of their own, and the semiconductor industry has much to teach us about how industries are transformed in response to such powerful forces as technological change, shifting product markets, and globalization. The book also offers insights into how chip firms have developed, defended, and, in some cases, lost global competitive advantage.

This book considers the econometric analysis of both stationary and non‐stationary processes, which may be linked by equilibrium relationships. It provides a wide‐ranging account of the main tools, techniques, models, concepts, and distributions involved in the modelling of integrated processes (i.e. those that accumulate the effects of past shocks). Since the focus is on equilibrium concepts, including co‐integration and error‐correction, the analysis begins with a discussion of the application of these concepts to stationary empirical models. Later chapters show how integrated processes can be reduced to this case by suitable transformations that take advantage of co‐integrating (equilibrium) relationships. The concepts of co‐integration and error‐correction models are shown to be fundamental in this modelling strategy. Practical modelling advice and empirical illustrations are provided.

Knowledge of econometrics, statistics, and matrix algebra at the level of a final‐year undergraduate or first‐year graduate course in econometrics is sufficient for most of the book. Other mathematical tools are described as they arise.

One of the most important, and visible, things economists do is to forecast what will happen in the economy in the future. Each year, a number of different groups in the United States use their own econometric models to forecast what will happen to the economy in the coming year. Some economic forecasts are more accurate than others. This book consists of chapters comparing the different models now being used. It is organized topically rather than by model. The contributors include: Roger Brimmer, Ray Fair, Bert Hickman, F. Gerard Adams, and Albert Ando. The editor provides an introduction to the volume.

Corporate managers who face both strategic uncertainty and market uncertainty confront a classic trade-off between commitment and flexibility. They can stake a claim by making a large capital investment today, influencing their rivals’ behavior; or they can take a “wait and see” approach to avoid adverse market consequences tomorrow. This book describes an emerging paradigm that can quantify and balance commitment and flexibility—“option games” by which the decision-making approaches of real options and game theory can be combined. The book first discusses prerequisite concepts and tools from basic game theory, industrial organization, and real options analysis, bringing important materials and ideas together into a unified framework. It then presents the new approach in discrete time and later in continuous time, beginning with the building blocks of the basic ideas and tools and culminating in richer theoretical analyses.

The European Union began with efforts in the Cold War era to foster economic integration among a few Western European countries. Today’s EU constitutes an upper tier of government that affects almost every level of policymaking in each of its twenty-seven member states. The recent financial and economic crises have tested this still-evolving institutional framework, and this book surveys key economic challenges faced by the EU. European economists examine such topics as the stability of the financial markets and possible policy options to reduce future vulnerability to crises, including Glass–Steagull-style narrow banking; the effect of emerging economies such as China and India on Europe’s economic position; the protection of national interests in industrial policy; reforming and preserving the welfare state in the face of unemployment, population aging, and worker mobility within the EU; and improving the EU’s institutional framework by reassigning responsibilities among supranational, national, and local governments. Among the conclusions that emerge from these analyses are the necessity for banking regulation as well as budgetary discipline; the need to consider global as well as European integration; and the idea that an environment which fosters internal competition will increase Europe’s competitiveness internationally.

This book presents an economic analysis of decisions made by criminals and victims of crime before, during, and after a crime or victimization occurs. Its main purpose is to illustrate how the application of analytical tools from economics can help us to understand the causes and consequences of criminal and victim choices, aiding efforts to deter or reduce the consequences of crime. By examining these decisions along a logical timeline over which crimes take place, we can begin to think more clearly about how policy effects change when it is targeted at specific decisions within the body of a crime. This book differs from others by recognizing the timeline of a crime, paying particular attention to victim decisions, and examining each step in the crime cycle at the micro-level. It demonstrates that criminals plan their crimes in systematic, economically logical ways; that deterring the destruction of criminal evidence may deter crime in general; and that white-collar criminals exhibit recidivism patterns not unlike those of street criminals. It further shows that the degree of criminality in a society motivates a variety of self-protection behaviors by potential victims; that not all victim resistance makes matters worse (and some may help); and that victims who report their crimes do not receive high returns for going to the police, helping to explain why some crimes ultimately go unreported.

Currency boards, more so than other exchange rate regimes, have come in and out of fashion. Defined by a fixed exchange rate with full convertibility, central bank liabilities backed with foreign exchange reserves, and a high cost of exiting the regime, they were common in colonial times—until most were cast off as countries gained independence after World War II. In the 1990s, currency boards enjoyed a revival as the cornerstone of various macroeconomic stabilization programs—including many in central and eastern European transition economies—only to fall into disfavor again with the collapse of the Argentine regime in 2002. This book takes a balanced look at the effects of currency board regimes on inflation, output growth, and macroeconomic performance more generally. Drawing on historical experience, economic theory, cross-country empirical analysis, and case studies of currency boards in Argentina, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, it concludes that currency boards deliver significant reductions in inflation compared to other regimes and do not seem to result in slower growth or a markedly higher vulnerability to crisis.

Explicit deposit insurance (DI) is widely held to be a crucial element of modern financial safety nets. For this reason, establishing a DI system is frequently recommended by outside experts to countries undergoing reform. Predictably, DI systems have proliferated in the developing world. The number of countries offering explicit deposit guarantees rose from twenty in 1980 to eighty-seven by the end of 2003. This book challenges the wisdom of encouraging countries to adopt DI without first repairing observable weaknesses in their institutional environment. The evidence and analysis presented confirm that many countries would do well to delay the installation of a DI system. Analysis shows that many existing DI systems are not adequately designed to control possible DI-induced risk taking by financial institutions, and the book provides advice on principles of good design for those countries in the process of adopting or reforming their DI systems. Empirical evidence on the efficiency of real-world DI systems has been scarce, and analysis has focused on the experience of developed countries. The contributors to this book draw on an original cross-country dataset on DI systems and design features to examine the impact of DI on banking behavior and assess the policy complications that emerge in developing countries. Chapters covers decisions about DI adoption, design, and pricing, and review individual country experiences with DI—including issues raised by the EU’s DI directive, banking reform in Russia, and policy efforts to protect depositors in China.

No names are more closely associated with modern trade theory than Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin. The basic Heckscher–Ohlin proposition, according to which a country exports factors in abundant supply and imports factors in scarce supply, is a key component of modern trade theory. This book traces the development of the HO model, describing the historical twists and turns that have led to the basic modern theoretical model in use today. It not only presents a cohesive view of the model’s evolution but also reviews the results of empirical tests its various versions. The book surveys the development of the HO model and then assesses empirical tests of its predictions. Most discussions of empirical work on HO models confine themselves to the basic theorem, but the book devotes a chapter to empirical tests of three related propositions: the Stolper–Samuelson theorem; the Rybczynski theorem; and the factor price equalization theorem. It concludes that although the formulation and testing of these later models have improved economists’ understanding of the forces shaping international trade, many empirical trade economists (himself included) were so enamored of the elegant but highly unrealistic factor price equalization models developed from the insights of Heckscher and Ohlin that they have neglected investigation of other models without this relationship.

Competitiveness among nations is often approached as if it were a sports competition: Some countries win medals, others lose out. This view of countries fighting it out in the economic arena is especially popular in business circles and among politicians. Economists, however, take a very different approach to international economic relations, arguing that international trade leads not to winners and losers but to win–win situations in which all countries profit. This book takes on the sometimes-derided concept of competitiveness, demonstrating the value of systematic analysis in an area too often dominated by special interest groups who use (and abuse) the concept to advance hidden agendas. The chapters range from broad theoretical views to case studies, examining the multiple factors that drive competitiveness. Contributors consider the conceptual framework underlying the World Economic Forum’s approach to competitiveness; differences in per capita gross domestice product between the United States and the European Union; an integrated approach to measuring competitiveness and comparative advantage; divergent trends in price and cost competitiveness in the euro area; methodological issues in constructing competitiveness indicators; taxation and international competitiveness; and a case study of Mexico’s competitiveness in world markets in comparison to China’s.

The global financial crisis highlighted the impact on macroeconomic outcomes of recurrent events like business and financial cycles, highs and lows in volatility, and crashes and recessions. At the most basic level, such recurrent events can be summarized using binary indicators showing if the event will occur or not. These indicators are constructed either directly from data or indirectly through models. Because they are constructed, they have different properties than those arising in microeconometrics, and how one is to use them depends a lot on the method of construction. This book presents the econometric methods necessary for the successful modeling of recurrent events, providing valuable insights for policymakers, empirical researchers, and theorists. It explains why it is inherently difficult to forecast the onset of a recession in a way that provides useful guidance for active stabilization policy, with the consequence that policymakers should place more emphasis on making the economy robust to recessions. The book offers a range of econometric tools and techniques that researchers can use to measure recurrent events, summarize their properties, and evaluate how effectively economic and statistical models capture them. These methods also offer insights for developing models that are consistent with observed financial and real cycles.