construction. Naturally, we are open to suggestions from all readers of, and contributors to, the series regarding its approach and content. Finally, I would like to thank all those who have helped the launch of this series. The encouraging response received from authors who have contributed the forthcoming volumes and from the subscribers to the series has indicated the need for such a publication. Homa Motamen-Scobi London December 1987 Preface In 1990 both OPEC and the OECD will celebrate their thirtieth anntvers- aries. OPEC was founded - rather unnoticed - by oil-producing countries...

construction. Naturally, we are open to suggestions from all readers of, and contributors to, the series regarding its approach and content. Finally, I would like to thank all those who have helped the launch of this series. The encouraging response received from authors who have contributed the forthcoming volumes and from the subscribers to the series has indicated the need for such a publication. Homa Motamen-Scobi London December 1987 Preface In 1990 both OPEC and the OECD will celebrate their thirtieth anntvers aries. OPEC was founded - rather unnoticed - by oil-producing countries still...

Over the 1980s unions have lost about 5 million members in OECD countries. The proportion of unionized workers is increasing in the services, public sector and among women. Today, almost two out of five union members are employed in the public sector. Wide differences remain in the levels of unionization in diverse countries, while in the United States, France and Spain union members account now for little more than 10% of the labour force, in the Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland and Denmark) the corre'sponding figure is between 75 and 85%. In general, rates have been higher in Europe than...

RONALD C. DUNCAN During the 1980s, substantial advances were made in the global modelling of commodity markets in several areas, advances which were reflected in many of the papers delivered to the Applied Econometrics Association meeting held at the World Bank in Washington, DC, in October 1988. The several areas where I see advances being made, some of which the International Commodity Markets Division of the World Bank has taken part in, are the following: (a) in the theoretical specification of commodity price behaviour; (b) in the increased emphasis on modelling imperfect markets; (c) in...

H. KLEINPOPPEN AND J. F. WILLIAMS It has only very recently become possible to study angular correlations and coherence effects in different areas of atomic collision processes: These investigations have provided us with an analysis of experimental data in terms of scattering amplitudes and their phases, of target parameters such as orientation, alignment, and state multipoles, and also of coherence parameters (e. g., the degree of coherence of excita tion). In this way the analysis of electron-photon, ion-photon, atom-photon, or electron-ion coincidences from electron-atom, ion-atom, or...

Alberto Heimler and Daniele Meulders In the last decade the modelling of the interrelationship between public finance and the rest of the economy has seen substantial advances, reflected in many of the papers delivered to the Applied Econometrics Association Conference held at Confindustria, Rome, on 30 November and 1 December 1989. In particular, the development of the literature on applied general-equilibrium modelling has found most of its applications in the field of taxation, enlarging and completing the estimation of the welfare loss due to distortionary taxes. In this context an...

Continuous-time econometrics is no longer an esoteric subject although most still regard it as such, so much so that it is hardly mentioned in standard textbooks on econometrics. Thanks to the work done in the last 20 years, both the theoretical and the applied side are by now well developed. Methods of estimation have been theoretically elaborated and practically implemented through computer programs. Continuous-time macroeconometric models for different countries have been constructed, estimated and used. Being myself involved in these developments, it was with great pleasure that I...

The centrally planned economies (CPEs) of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have experienced severe imbalances in domestic and external markets over the past several decades. As a result, they have been chronically afflicted by problems such as excess demand, repressed inflation, deficits of commodities, queues, waiting lists, and forced savings. Economists have responded to these phenomena by developing appropriate theoretical and empirical models of CPEs. Of particular note have been the pioneering studies of Richard Portes on disequilibrium econometric models and Janos Kornai on the...

It is generally agreed that the operation of the labour market lies at the heart of macroeconomic activity. Following Keynes' attack on the postulates of the classics in The General Theory a number of labour market paradigms have been proposed including the Phillips curve, new classical and union bargaining models. These paradigms usually form the centrepiece of any good text on macroeconomic theory. Our purpose in this volume is not to restate these paradigms but to explore the extent to which they might be empirically modelled. To this end the volume includes a set of econometric models of...

among the 159 member countries of the United Nations Organization which are treated as country units, while smaller countries are grouped together in regions. The number of equations used is approximately 13 700, while the number of software steps for computation is approximately 100000. Computation, including tabulation, can nevertheless be performed very rapidly, and only about 20 minutes is required to make forecasts from the present up to the year 2000. The FUGI model is at present being used by the Projections and Perspectives Studies Branch, Department of International Economic and...