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Daily Archives: March 12, 2013

Working Paper – Do economies stall? The international evidence

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Do economies stall? The international evidence by Wai-Yip Alex Ho and James Yetman. Working Papers No 407, March 2013

  • A “stalling” economy has been defined as one that experiences a discrete deterioration in economic performance following a decline in its growth rate to below some threshold level. Previous efforts to identify stalls have focused primarily on the US economy, with the threshold level being chosen endogenously, and have suggested that the concept of a stall may be useful for macroeconomic forecasting. We examine the international evidence for stalling in a panel of 51 economies using two different definitions of a stall threshold (time-invariant and related to lagged average growth rates) and two complementary empirical approaches (insample statistical significance and out-of-sample forecast performance). We find that the evidence for stalling based on time-invariant thresholds is limited: only 12 of the 51 economies in our sample experience statistically significant stalls, and including a stall threshold generally results in only modest improvements to out-ofsample forecast performance. When we instead model the stall threshold as varying with average growth rates, the number of economies with statistically-significant stalls actually declines (to nine), but in 71% of the cases we examine, including a stall threshold results in an improvement in out-of-sample forecast performance.”
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    News release: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a list of U.S. metropolitan areas with the most Energy Star certified buildings in 2012, highlighting how owners and managers of commercial buildings across the country are taking action on climate change while delivering real financial savings to the bottom line…In 2012, more than 20,000 Energy… Continue Reading

    New on LLRX – A national digital library endowment

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    Via LLRX.com – A national digital library endowment: How America’s billionaires could be modern Carnegies for real – David H. Rothman discusses how e-books, collections of electrons, not atoms, come with special advantages. They eliminate physical-shelving costs and are especially useful for blind people and others with special needs. Digital technology can also help multiply… Continue Reading

    EPIC – States Fine Google for Street View Privacy Violations

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    2013 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index

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    CRS – U.S. Immigration Policy: Chart Book of Key Trends

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    U.S. Immigration Policy: Chart Book of Key Trends, Ruth Ellen Wasem, Specialist in Immigration Policy, March 7, 2013 “This report is a chart book of selected immigration trends that touch on the main elements of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). Most policymakers agree that the main issues in CIR include increased border security and immigration enforcement,… Continue Reading

    Federal Employees’ Retirement System: The Role of the Thrift Savings Plan

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    CRS – Federal Employees’ Retirement System: The Role of the Thrift Savings Plan, Katelin P. Isaacs, Analyst in Income Security. March 8, 2013 “Federal employees participate in one of two retirement systems. The Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) was established in 1920 and covers only employees hired before 1984. Participants in the CSRS do not… Continue Reading

    Commentary – Why We Miss the First Sale Doctrine in Digital Libraries

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    John Palfrey: “Publishers, ebook vendors, and libraries are engaged in a “tug of war” over the lending of electronic books, according to Library Journal’s recent ebook survey. This clash inhibits most libraries from fulfilling their important institutional missions to provide access to knowledge and preserve our cultural heritage. In the best case, this tug of… Continue Reading