Vol. 24, No. 1
Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr:
Economic Impacts of Immigration: A Survey (pp. 1–32)
Abstract
This paper surveys recent empirical studies on the economic impacts of immigration. The survey first examines the magnitude of immigration as an economic phenomenon in various host countries. The second part deals with the assimilation of immigrant workers into host-country labor markets and concomitant effects for natives. The paper then turns to immigration’s impact for the public finances of host countries. The final section considers emerging topics in the study of immigration. The survey particularly emphasizes the recent experiences of Northern Europe and Scandinavia and relevant lessons from traditional destination countries like the US.
(JEL: H53, J23, J31, J61, J68)
Marko Melolinna:
Using Financial Markets Information to Identify Oil Supply Shocks in a Restricted VAR (pp. 33–54)
Abstract
This paper introduces a methodology for identifying oil supply shocks in to a small open economy. Financial market information is used to construct an identification scheme that forces the response to an oil shock of the restricted VAR model to be the same as that implied by futures markets. Due to the identification scheme, the model is only partially identified, and confidence intervals for impulse responses are calculated by using a bootstrapping procedure. The methodology is applied in illustrative examples to Finland and Sweden in a simple 5-variable model that includes key domestic and international macroeconomic variables. While oil supply shocks have an effect on domestic inflation in these countries during the past decade or so, the effect on domestic GDP is ambiguous.
(JEL: C01, E32, E44)
Niko Suhonen:
Market Efficiency in Finnish Harness Horse Racing (pp. 55–63)
Abstract
This paper analyzes the efficiency of betting markets in harness horse racing during the transition from on-track betting to Internet gambling. In order to test the market efficiency hypotheses, an alternative testing approach to other grouping methods is introduced. The betting market efficiency is tested by using a database accumulated from the Finnish harness horse racing. The results imply that the markets are weakly efficient but characterised by the favourite-longshot bias. However, convincing evidence for other gambling market anomalies such as the end of the day effect or the gambler’s fallacy is not found.
Kazuhiro Ohnishi:
Two-Stage Quantity-Setting Games and Tacit Collusion, Supplement (pp. 64–77)
Abstract
This paper considers a two-stage quantity-setting duopoly model. The paper classifies demand functions into the following four cases in terms of the goods relevance and strategic relevance between both firms: ‘substitute goods and strategic substitutes’, ‘substitute goods and strategic complements’, ‘complementary goods and strategic complements’ and ‘complementary goods and strategic substitutes’. The paper correlates each case with two opposite strategic commitments. The paper examines the possibility of tacit collusion in each of four cases.
(JEL: C72, D21, L13)