We estimate the effect of initial episodes under fixed-term contracts (FTCs) on job duration in the further course of the employment spell, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) from 1985 to 2002. Using a statistical matching approach, we find that job exit rates are initially much higher if the employment spell began with an FTC. However, exit rates fall below those of compara...

Global multilateral trading arrangements offer the best prospect for reducing barriers to trade and achieving the greatest gains from trade liberalization. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) are a second-best means of achieving trade liberalization in a context where multilateral negotiations proceed slowly. There is considerable variation in the efforts undertaken by PTAs in different parts ...

The global estimated loss to counterfeiting is expected to exceed U.S.$1.5 trillion in 2009. Counterfeiting impacts all businesses in all markets, from Gucci handbags to computer chips to proprietary algorithms. The threats to companies’ intellectual property (IP) grow as the global supply chain becomes increasingly complex. Security and protection in the global supply chain is critical to main...

one of the unique characteristic of agricultural agreement is to order the countries to accept the commitments in three different areas such as domestic support, market access and export subsidy. although the main goal of this type of classification is the reduction of distortion interventions of trade, but indicates that the agricultural agreement has special attention to political tools again...

In a recent article in the American Economic Review, Kyle Bagwell and Robert W. Staiger (1999, hereafter B & S) have made a major contribution to answering the oft-posed puzzle (p. 215): What can governments gain from a trade agreement? Their answer is that:. .. a trade agreement is appealing provided that an inefficiency. .. exists under unilateral tariff setting.. .. Previous authors have est...

Following the approval of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd–Frank) in July of 2010, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Bart Chilton wrote, “Now that the U.S. has approved the largest financial regulatory reform ever undertaken, it’s time for other nations to join in to ensure more efficient, effective market systems. Here is what we k...

Counterfeiting of valuable goods in general and that of IP (embedded software) in particular leads to big revenue losses and is therefore a threat to the industry. In [31], Simpson and Schaumont proposed a fundamentally different approach to IP protection on FPGAs based on the use of Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs). Their work only assumes the existence of a PUF on the FPGAs without actual...

We estimate a model of labour demand that accounts for dynamics arising from the relative costs of hiring and "ring workers on either inde"nite-term contract (ITC) or "xed-term contract (FTC). We use a panel of 1000 French "rms, for which we can measure the number of entries and exits for each type of contract between 1988 and 1992. Our estimates suggest that (1) it is much more costly to lay o...