Economics - Research Publications

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    CAUSAL EFFECTS FROM PANEL DATA IN RANDOMIZED EXPERIMENTS WITH PARTIAL COMPLIANCE
    Chib, S ; Jacobi, L ; Chib, S ; Griffiths, W ; Koop, G ; Terrell, D (EMERALD GROUP PUBLISHING LIMITED, 2008)
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    Analysis of treatment response data from eligibility designs
    Chib, S ; Jacobi, L (ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA, 2008-06)
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    Regional Differences in the Severity of Recessions in the UK
    DIXON, R (Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne, 2007)
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    The Optimal Composition of Government Expenditure
    CREEDY, J ; MOSLEHI, SS (Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne, 2007)
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    The truncated core for games with limited aspirations
    VAN DEN NOUWELAND, C ; Carente, L ; Casas-Mendez, B ; Carcia-Jurado, I (Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne, 2007)
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    Inefficient policies and incumbency advantage
    HODLER, ROLAND ; LOERTSCHER, SIMON ; Rohner, Dominic ( 2007-06)
    We study incumbency advantage in a dynamic game with incomplete information between an incumbent and a voter. The incumbent knows the true state of the world, e.g., the severity of an economic recession or the level of criminal activities, and can choose the quality of his policy. This quality and the state of the world determine the policy outcome, i.e., the economic growth rate or the number of crimes committed. The voter only observes the policy outcome and then decides whether to reelect the incumbent or not. Her preferences are such that she would reelect the incumbent under full information if and only if the state of the world is above a given threshold level. In equilibrium, the incumbent is reelected in more states of the world than he would be under full information. In particular, he chooses inefficient policies and generates mediocre policy outcomes whenever the voter's induced belief distribution will be such that her expected utility of reelecting the incumbent exceeds her expected utility of electing the opposition candidate. Hence, there is an incumbency advantage through ine±cient policies. We provide empirical evidence consistent with the prediction that reelection concerns may induce incumbents to generate mediocre outcomes
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    False alarm? terror alerts and reelection
    HODLER, ROLAND ; LOERTSCHER, SIMON ; Rohner, Dominic ( 2007)
    We study a game with asymmetric information to analyze whether an incumbent can improve his reelection prospects using distorted terror alerts. The voters’ preferred candidate depends on the true terror threat level, and the voters are rational and therefore aware of the incumbent’s incentive to distort alerts. In equilibrium, a moderately “Machiavellian” incumbent reports low and high threat levels truthfully, but issues the same distorted alert for a range of intermediate threat levels. He thereby ensures his reelection for some threat levels at which he would not be reelected under full information.
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    An Analysis of the Questions on University Teaching Surveys and the Universities that Use Them: The Australian Experience
    Davies, Martin ; Hirschberg, Joe ; Lye, Jenny ; Johnston, Carol ( 2007-05)
    This paper is the first attempt to perform an analysis of the internal Quality of TeachingSurveys (QTS) used in all Australian Universities by investigating how they compareacross Universities. We categorize the questions on each university’s QTS into one of 18types and then define a proximity measure between the surveys. We then use anagglomerative cluster analysis to establish groupings of these institutions on the basis ofthe similarity of their QTSs as well as groupings of question types by their frequency ofuse. In addition, we also determine if the form of the survey is related to the responsesrecorded by the Course Evaluation Questionnaire (CEQ) that is administered to allgraduates of Australian Universities. This was done by the use of regression analysis toestablish if the form of the questionnaire is related to the overall good teaching scoresearned by the universities from the CEQ..
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    Cooperative R&D under uncertainty with free entry
    Erkal, N. ; Piccinin, D. ( 2007-08)
    In the last few decades, the effects of cooperative R&D arrangements on innovation andwelfare have played an important role in policy making. The goal of this paper is to analyzethe effects of cooperative R&D arrangements in a model with a stochastic R&D process andoutput spillovers. Our main innovation is to allow for free entry in both the R&D race andthe product market. To determine the desirability of cooperation in R&D environments,we compare three different ways of organizing R&D activities: R&D competition, R&Dcartels, and RJV cartels. In contrast with the literature, we assume that cooperative R&Darrangements do not have to include all of the firms in the industry. We show that sharingof research outcomes is a necessary condition for the profitability of cooperative R&Darrangements with free entry. The profitability of RJV cartels depends on their size. Theimpact of cooperative R&D arrangements on the aggregate level of innovation depends onwhether there are participants in the R&D race who are a part of the cooperative R&Darrangement. If some outsiders choose to participate in the R&D race, the aggregate rate ofinnovation remains unaffected by the formation of a cooperative R&D arrangement. Otherwise,it increases. R&D cartels may be welfare-improving in cases when they cause theaggregate rate of innovation to increase. In such cases, it may be desirable to subsidizethem. Since sharing of R&D outcomes affects the equilibrium number of firms in the productmarket after the R&D race, the consumer welfare effects of RJV cartels are sensitiveto the specification of consumer preferences. Subsidies may be desirable in cases of largerRJVs since they are the ones which are less likely to be profitable.