The paper aims at estimating the natural rate of unemployment in Greece. The methodology adopted follows that of Hamilton. It is assumed that the rate of unemployment follows a stochastic process with periodic shifts in the mean and variance. The natural rate is then estimated using a Markov...

Most analyses of wage discrimination have followed the traditional Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of wage differences into endowment and discrimination components. This approach has neglected the possibility of wage discrimination at point of entry to the labour market and also the issue of...

The observation by Barro that cross-country evidence is inconsistent with the hypothesis that poor countries tend to grow faster than rich countries is examined. The overall sample of countries employed in the Barro studies is adjusted by excluding those with small sample sizes (less than 15...

The rationality of the inflation expectation formation process is examined using the NBER-ASA survey's annual inflation forecasts. The non-stationarity of the relevant series, i.e. the actual (future spot) and the corresponding forecast inflation series allows for the application of...

Dynamic efficiency of firms involves both optimal investments over time and optimal operating costs in the short run. These two stages are separately but sequentially analysed to compare different firms in an industry using a Pareto optimality criterion.

Wansbeek and Bekker considered a new estimator for simple dynamic panel data models (where there are no exogenous variables) which involved a complex weighting matrix. An operational variant of this estimator is proposed which is applicable to the more realistic case where there are exogenous...

Many governments have a long-run target of lowering budget deficits in the future through current deficit spending, relying on economic growth to deliver their policy objective. This paper shows that this is unattainable under bond finance, since there exists no stable equilibrium. However, it...

Changes in poverty in Papua New Guinea during the 1990s adjustment programme are analysed. Data from urban household surveys in 1986 and 1996 are used to calculate the change in the incidence, depth and severity of poverty. The change in poverty rates is decomposed into distribution and growth...

Taking advantage of differences in inflation adjusted licence prices over time, the demand for hunting licences is estimated. This introduces a different type of validity test which compares willingness to pay derived from actual licence demand to estimates of hunting benefits derived by the...

The structure of Malysia's trade expansion over the high-growth period 1970-1994 and its implications for labour-market adjustment is examined. An econometric analysis of trade and employment data suggests that intra-industry trade is related with relatively large inter-industry payroll changes....