The Pricing of Portuguese Privatisation Second Initial Public Offerings

The paper studies the pricing of PSIPOs (privatization second initial public offerings) PIPOs of companies that had been public in the past. A dataset comprising all the Portuguese companies nationalized in 1975 and privatized in the late eighties and nineties is used. Findings on short- and long-run pricing of IPOs and PIPOs are summarized, and implications for the pricing of PSIPOs are discussed. Short- and long-run returns are computed, using three alternative methods (buy and hold abnormal returns, wealth relatives, and cumulative abnormal returns) in the long-run analysis. Short-run overpricing is identified, unlike the underpricing pattern revealed by most IPO research. This initial overpricing is essentially found to be corrected in the first trading month. In the long-run, no evidence of overpricing is found, again unlike the usual conclusion of the IPO literature, and more in line with empirical evidence on second IPOs. Results provide support to the conclusion that privatization IPOs tend to be less underpriced than standard IPOs and that firms coming back to the market for a second IPO tend to be less underpriced than pure IPOs and provide a good rating for the performance of the Portuguese Republic pricing stocks in the Portuguese privatization program.

Evolutionary Model of the City Size Distribution

An evolutionary model of the city size distribution is presented that explains the size of a city from the reproduction process and the migration of humans between cities. The model suggests that the city size distribution is a lognormal distribution with a power law tail in agreement with empirical results and computer simulations. The main idea of the model is that the competition between cities in the migration process is the origin of Gibrat's law. While growth rate fluctuations generate the lognormal branch of the size distribution, the power law tail for large cities is caused by a small mean growth rate.

Endogenous Technical Progress in the Theory of Economic Growth

It is shown that substitutive work, which can be defined as work of production equipment (capital stock) replacing the efforts of workers in production processes, can be considered as a measure of technical progress. The methods of estimation of substitutive work are discussed. The theoretical results are illustrated on the data for the US. economy.

Evolutionary Model of Moore’s Law

Moore suggested an exponential growth of the number of transistors in integrated electronic circuits. In this paper, Moore’s law is derived from a preferential growth model of successive production technology generations. The theory suggests that products manufactured with a new production technology generating lower costs per unit have a competitive advantage on the market. Therefore, previous technology generations are replaced according to a Fisher-Pry law. Discussed is the case that a production technology is governed by a cost relevant characteristic. If this characteristic is bounded by a technological or physical boundary, the presented evolutionary model predicts an asymptotic approach to this limit. The model discusses the wafer size evolution and the long term evolution of Moore’s law for the case of a physical boundary of the lithographic production technology. It predicts that the miniaturization process of electronic devices will slow down considerably in the next two decades.

Responding to a Forest Catastrophe: The Emergence of New Governance Arrangements in Southern California

The San Bernardino National Forest in southern California experienced an unprecedented bark beetle outbreak in the early 2000s. The outbreak, coupled with a looming threat of catastrophic wildfire, droughts, changing forest management priorities, and a legacy of poor forest management practices coalesced to create a challenge that existing institutions and management agencies could not address. In response, an interagency collaborative effort, the Mountain Area Taskforce (MAST), was initiated. Based on key informant interviews, this paper details how this new governance organization emerged and how it effectively addressed a landscape scale forest challenge. Forest governance analyses often focus attention on macroscales, overlooking the microlevel arrangements that set MAST apart from other responses to bark beetle outbreaks. Interagency collaboration has taken on greater importance in efforts to address forest management at landscape scales and this case study provides important insights into the challenges and opportunities of these new governance arrangements.

Technoeconomic and Policy Analysis for Corn Stover Biofuels

Conventional fossil fuels dominate the marketplace, and their prices are a direct competitor for drop-in biofuels. This paper examines the impact of fuel selling price uncertainty on investment risk in a fast pyrolysis derived biofuel production facility. Production cost specifications are gathered from previous research. Monte Carlo analysis is employed with uncertainty in fuel selling price, biomass cost, bio-oil yield, and hydrogen price parameters. Experiments reveal that fuel price has a large impact on investment risk. A reverse auction would shift risk from the private sector to the public sector and is shown to be more effective at encouraging private investment than capital subsidies for the same expected public cost.

How Persistent Is the Occupation-Education Mismatch in Canada?

This paper investigates the duration of overqualification in Canada, the time-varying probability of leaving overqualification, and the wage consequences associated with the transition. The paper also applies a survival analysis approach to examine the impact of key driving factors on the probability of transitioning from overqualification to a job match using a proportional hazard (Cox) model. The analysis shows that within a 5-year period, an overqualified worker has a 22 percent probability of transitioning to an occupation that matches the education level. The probability of transition also decreases quickly over time, thus lowering the chances of finding a job match after 12 months. Regression analyses also provide evidence that overqualified workers with short tenure are more likely to transition than workers with medium to long tenure. Finally, job-related training nearly doubles the chance of transitioning out of overqualification.

Exchange Rate Volatility and Aggregate Exports: Evidence from Two Small Countries

This paper examines the effect of exchange rate volatility for two small countries, Croatia and Cyprus, on aggregate exports during the period of first quarter of 1990 to first quarter of 2012. It is claimed by some researchers that exchange rate volatility causes a reduction on the overall level of trade. Empirical researchers often utilize the standard deviation of the moving average of the logarithm of the exchange rate as a measure of exchange rate fluctuation. In this study, we propose a new measure for volatility. Overall, our results suggest that there is a positive effect of volatility on exports of Croatia and Cyprus.

Education and Unemployment Patterns for Young Workers with Job Experience in Spain

This paper analyzes the education and unemployment patterns for young workers with some experience in Spain at the beginning of the current economic crisis, using the ad hoc module of the Spanish Labour Force Survey 2009. The results clearly show that educational level and field of study are crucial when explaining the instability of the first job and the difficulty in obtaining another one. Specifically, the lower is the educational level, the greater is the risk of unemployment, not only because it is less likely to keep the first job, but also because it is harder to find another one. Moreover, considering the field of study at a given educational level, it is detected that graduates from health and welfare are the best positioned in the labour market (especially university degree holders). For the rest of fields of study, and despite the differences in the risk of unemployment are small, it is observed that the lowest level of unemployment corresponds to sciences and technology, followed by social sciences and the rest of fields. The education and unemployment patterns detected in the paper may be useful to guide both policy and individual decisions.

Impact of Formal Financial Market Participation on Farm Size and Expenditure on Variable Farm Inputs: The Case of Maize Farmers in Ghana

The study examined maize farmers’ participation in the formal financial market and its impact on farm size and expenditure on variable farm inputs. A multistage sampling method was used in selecting 595 maize farmers from the seven districts in Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions of Ghana. A structured questionnaire and interview schedule were used to elicit information from the respondents. The impact of formal financial market participation on farm size and expenditure on variable inputs was estimated using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method. The results of the study showed that formal financial market participation has the potential to significantly increase expenditure on variable inputs by farmers and consequently use of improved technology. Therefore, formal financial market participation should be encouraged through education and promotional activities.