The importance of country risk is underscored by the existence of several prominent country risk rating agencies. These agencies combine information regarding alternative measures of economic, financial and political risk into associated composite risk ratings. As the accuracy of such country risk measures is open to question, it is necessary to analyse the agency rating systems to enable an evaluation of the importance and relevance of agency risk ratings. The book focuses on the rating system of the international country risk guide. "Time" series data permit a comparative assessment of risk...

Description innovation is universally recognized as an important source of economic growth. Patents may be considered as a potential measure of innovation. As such, patents may alter isoquant maps, and measuring their elasticities is both intuitively and empirically appealing. This book investigates the impact of U.S.A. patent activity on technical change in 35 industries given in the KLEM (Jorgenson, 1996) data set for the period 1958-1996. Four patent variables, namely total patent applications, total patents granted, unsuccessful patent applications and foreign patents granted, are...

"Structural Models of Wage and Employment Dynamics" contains selected papers from a conference held in honour of Professor Dale T. Mortensen upon the occasion of his 65th birthday. The papers are on some of Professor Dale T. Mortensen's current research topics: the development of equilibrium dynamic models designed to account for wage dispersion and the time series behaviour of job and worker flows. The conference is the sixth in a series. From the beginning there has been a close interplay among economic theorists, econometricians, and applied economists. This book also has a section with...

This book represents an ongoing research agenda the aim of which is to contribute to the Keynesian paradigm in macroeconomics. A currently dominant research strategy in macroeconomics is based on the Dynamic General Equilibrium (DGE) model. Its essential features are the assumption of intertemporal optimizing behavior of economic agents, competitive markets and price mediated market clearing through flexible wages and prices. Contributions to Economic Analysis was established in 1952. The series purpose is to stimulate the international exchange of scientific information. The series includes...

Panel data econometrics has evolved rapidly over the last decade. Dynamic panel data estimation, non-linear panel data methods and the phenomenal growth in non-stationary panel data econometrics makes this an exciting area of research in econometrics. The 11th international conference on panel data held at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, June 2004, witnessed about 150 participants and 100 papers on panel data. This volume includes some of the papers presented at that conference and other solicited papers that made it through the refereeing process. "Contributions to Economic...

In this book, cognitive economics is understood either in a broad sense as the influence exerted by some achievements of cognitive science on economics, or in a more restricted sense as the study of mental and adaptation processes implemented by economic agents in their interactions. In response to some critics addressed to the rationality and equilibrium principles in classical economics, cognitive economics associates an epistemic program grounded on individual beliefs and reasoning and an evolutionist program concerned with learning processes in a social context. The book, which is the...

This volume is based on papers delivered at the second CESifo-Delphi Conferences (Munich, November 2003, and Delphi, June 2004), which are jointly organized by CESifo and the Department of International and European Economic Studies of the Athens University of Economics and Business. The CESifo-Delphi Conferences are organized every two years and involve a two-stage process. Following an initial call for abstracts, a number of authors were selected and invited to present their papers at a workshop meeting in Munich. After further refereeing, some of the authors were invited to present...

European Union and the Euro Revolution" is a challenging study of the progression of the historic movement towards one European family. This volume is the first, most comprehensive exposition of the treatise of supranational macroeconomics. The Keynesian Revolution taught us macroeconomics in the context of a sovereign nation state. In the post-WWII decades, the concept of supra-national macroeconomics became the core theme of the European Union. Indeed, the traditional concept of a sovereign nation state economy begs a thorough re-examination. One common economic unit with its well-specified...

Birth rates are dropping to ever-lower levels around the world. Populations are growing more slowly and, in some cases, beginning to decline. Rapid population aging has begun in the West and parts of Asia and is just over the horizon elsewhere. The demographic changes, their economic implications, and possible policy responses are the subject matter of this volume. What will be the effects on economic performance? How can couples be encouraged to marry and have children? Can educational reform lead to a more productive young labor force helping to offset their meager numbers? Can labor market...

Two fields of interest are combined in this volume: the history of science and the theory, or philosophy, of science (metascience). The result is a history of psychology with emphasis placed upon a metascientific analysis of the work of fourteen psychologists from various periods.

Each analysis is set in historical context; a period or school is discussed in each chapter, together with a metascientific analysis of some major works from the respective period or school. The author employs a metascientific descriptive system or systematology' developed during more than 30 years of work on...