2 1 The innovative transport systems and the CityMobil project 10 1.1 The research questions 10 2 The state of art in the field of automatic transport systems 12 2.1 Case studies and demand studies for innovative transport systems 12 3 The design and implementation of surveys 14 3.1 Definition of experimental design 14 3.2 Questionnaire design and delivery 16 3.3 First analyses on the collected sample 18 4 Calibration of Logit Multionomial demand models 21 4.1 Methodology 21 4.2 Calibration of the “full” model. 22 4.3 Calibration of the “final” model 24 4.4 The demand analysis through the final Multinomial Logit model 25 5 The analysis of interaction between the demand and socioeconomic attributes 31 5.1 Methodology 31 5.2 Application of Mixed Logit models to the demand 31 5.3 Analysis of the interactions between demand and socioeconomic attributes through Mixed Logit models 32 5.4 Mixed Logit model and interaction between age and the demand for the CTS 38 5.5 Demand analysis with Mixed Logit model 39 6 Final analyses and conclusions 45 6.1 Comparison between the results of the analyses 45 6.2 Conclusions 48 6.3 Answers to the research questions and future developments 52

The European commission

Using a Bayesian likelihood approach, we estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for the US economy using seven macro-economic time series. The model incorporates many types of real and nominal frictions and seven types of structural shocks. We show that this model is able to compete with Bayesian Vector Autoregression models in out-of-sample prediction. We investigate the relative empirical importance of the various frictions. Finally, using the estimated model we address a number of key issues in business cycle analysis: What are the sources of business cycle fluctuations? Can the model explain the cross-correlation between output and inflation? What are the effects of productivity on hours worked? What are the sources of the "Great Moderation"?

/pdf/shocks-and-frictions-in-us-business-cycles-a-bayesian-dsge-d1f6ynd58q.pdf

Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach

/pdf/the-theory-of-industrial-organization-19bejph0ej.pdf

The Theory of Industrial Organization

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Many countries compete against one another in attracting foreign investors by offering ever more generous incentive packages and justifying their actions with the productivity gains that are expected to accrue to domestic producers from knowledge externalities generated by foreign affiliates. Despite this being hugely important to public policy choices, there is little conclusive evidence indicating that domestic firms benefit from foreign presence in their sector. It is possible, though, that researchers have been looking for foreign direct investment (FDI) spillovers in the wrong place. Multinationals have an incentive to prevent information leakage that would enhance the performance of their local competitors in the same industry but at the same time may want to transfer knowledge to their local suppliers in other sectors. Spillovers from FDI may be, therefore, more likely to take place through backward linkages-that is, contacts between domestic suppliers of intermediate inputs and their multinational clients-and thus would not have been captured by the earlier literature. This paper focuses on the understudied issue of FDI spillovers through backward linkages and goes beyond existing studies by shedding some light on factors driving this phenomenon. It also improves over existing literature by addressing several econometric problems that may have biased the results of earlier research. Based on a firm-level panel data set from Lithuania, the estimation results are consistent with the existence of productivity spillovers. They suggest that a 10 percent increase in the foreign presence in downstream sectors is associated with 0.38 percent rise in output of each domestic firm in the supplying industry. The data indicate that these spillovers are not restricted geographically, since local firms seem to benefit from the operation of downstream foreign affiliates on their own, as well as in other regions. The results further show that greater productivity benefits are associated with domestic-market, rather than export-oriented, foreign affiliates. But no difference is detected between the effects of fully-owned foreign firms and those with joint domestic and foreign ownership. The findings of a positive correlation between productivity growth of domestic firms and the increase in multinational presence in downstream sectors should not, however, be interpreted as a call for subsidizing FDI. These results are consistent with the existence of knowledge spillovers from foreign affiliates to their local suppliers, but they may also be a result of increased competition in upstream sectors. While the former case would call for offering FDI incentive packages, it would not be the optimal policy in the latter. Certainly more research is needed to disentangle these two effects.

/pdf/does-foreign-direct-investment-increase-the-productivity-of-189ezba492.pdf

Does Foreign Direct Investment Increase the Productivity of Domestic Firms? In Search of Spillovers Through Backward Linkages

This paper attempts to estimate comparable efficiency scores for European banks operating in the Single Market in the EU. Using a data set of more than 5000 large commercial banks from all major European banking markets over the period 1993–2004, the application of meta-frontiers enables us to assess the existence of a single and integrated European banking market. We find evidence in favor of a single European banking market characterized by cost and profit meta-frontiers. However, compared to the meta-frontier estimations, pooled frontier estimations tend to underestimate efficiency levels and correlate poorly with country-specific frontier efficiency ranks.

/pdf/is-there-a-single-frontier-in-a-single-european-banking-4misnwfq4i.pdf

Is there a single frontier in a single European banking market

In this paper we focus on the assumption of a common efficient frontier when performing an efficiency study for the banking sector. The fact that environmental factors that are not appropriately controlled may easily bias efficiency estimates. First, we estimate a common cost and profit frontier. In this first stage, as an innovation to the literature, we use exogenously computed input prices rather than the normally used endogenous input prices. Second, we regress the estimated inefficiencies on a set of a bank.s strategic choices, local banking market variables, and local (regional) macro variables. For the analysis, we use a unique dataset of 401 largely independent cooperative local banks in the Netherlands for the years 1998 and 1999. Our results show that the use of exogenous input prices rather than endogenous input prices is particularly important for the cost frontier as the spread in cost inefficiencies becomes larger and more plausible. Our second stage results suggest that most of the estimated inefficiency indeed is managerial (X-) inefficiency. Environmental factors do play a role, but only to a limited extent.

Bank Efficiency the Role of Bank Strategy and Local Market Conditions

Most bank merger studies do not control for hidden bailouts, which may lead to biased results. In this study we employ a unique data set of approximately 1000 mergers to analyze the determinants of bank mergers. We use undisclosed information on banks' regulatory intervention history to distinguish between distressed and non-distressed mergers. Among merging banks, we find that improving financial profiles lower the likelihood of distressed mergers more than the likelihood of nondistressed mergers. The likelihood to acquire a bank is also reduced but less than the probability to be acquired. Both distressed and non-distressed mergers have worse CAMEL profiles than non-merging banks. Hence, non-distressed mergers may be motivated by the desire to forestall serious future financial distress and prevent regulatory intervention.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=811525

Accounting for Distress in Bank Mergers

In this paper we focus on the assumption of a common efficient frontier when performing an efficiency study for the banking sector. The fact that environmental factors that are not appropriately controlled may easily bias efficiency estimates. First, we estimate a common cost and profit frontier. In this first stage, as an innovation to the literature, we use exogenously computed input prices rather than the normally used endogenous input prices. Second, we regress the estimated inefficiencies on a set of a bank’s strategic choices, local banking market variables, and local (regional) macro variables. For the analysis, we use a unique dataset of 401 largely independent cooperative local banks in the Netherlands for the years 1998 and 1999. Our results show that the use of exogenous input prices rather than endogenous input prices is particularly important for the cost frontier as the spread in cost inefficiencies becomes larger and more plausible. Our second stage results suggest that most of the estimated inefficiency indeed is managerial (X-) inefficiency. Environmental factors do play a role, but only to a limited extent.

Bank efficiency: The role of bank strategy and local market conditions

This paper brings to the forefront the assumptions that we make when focussingon a particular type of explanation for bank profitability. We evaluate a broad field of research by introducing a general framework for a profit maximizing bank and demonstrate how different types of models can be fitted into this framework. Next, we present an overview of the current major trends in European banking and relate them to each model's assumptions, thereby shedding light on the relevance, timeliness and shelf life of the different models. This way, we arrive at a set of recommendations for a future research agenda. We advocate a more prominent role for output prices, and suggest a modification of the intermediation approach. We also suggest ways to more clearly distinguish between market power and effciency, and explain why we need time-dependent models. Finally, we propose the application of existing models to different size classes and sub-markets. Throughout we emphasize the benefits from applying several, complementary models to overcome the identification problems that we observe in individual models.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/163467/1/suerf-study-2005-2.pdf

Jaap W.B. Bos

Papers

Is there a single frontier in a single European banking market

Bank Efficiency the Role of Bank Strategy and Local Market Conditions

Accounting for Distress in Bank Mergers

Bank efficiency: The role of bank strategy and local market conditions

"trends in competition and profitability in the banking industry: a basic framework"