Business Economics articles from January 2008

Business Economics archives from January 2008

From the editor.(Editorial)
January 1, 2008... In This Issue John Silvia, Sam Bullard, and Huiwen Lai investigate probit analysis as a tool for predicting recessions. A problem with this approach is that due to data constraints, relatively few of a large number of plausible predictors...

Forecasting U.S. recessions with probit stepwise regression models: the result is better forecasting performance.(Report)
January 1, 2008... Recent flatness and eventual inversion of the U.S. yield curve during 2006 led some economists to call for the possibility of a recession in the near term. Indeed, the last few recessions appear to have coincided with a certain degree of yield...

Forecasting real inventories and the anomaly of money illusion: combining regression with a neural network approach shows promising results.
January 1, 2008... Understanding and forecasting inventory fluctuations is a key element of coping with firms' macroeconomic and industry environments. In 2005, $14.4 trillion worth of annualized real inventories supported $11.3 trillion in total real sales....

Nigeria in the global economy: Nigeria's integration into the global economy is below its potential.
January 1, 2008... International media attention has focused in recent years on the globalization of the world economy with the integration of national economies through product, capital, and labor markets as well as the development and diffusion of information...

Is inequality growing as American workers fall behind? There is a wealth gap due to falling real interest rates not declining compensation.
January 1, 2008... A popular and highly politicized theme today is that U.S. workers are falling behind as their real wages fall and income gets redistributed to the rich. Senator Jim Webb (2006) has been a leader in espousing this view, and the Hamilton Project...

Economic research in a financial group in Mexico.(ECONOMICS AT WORK)(Personal account)
January 1, 2008... There is widespread agreement on the issues that define the role of an economic research department in a financial institution. At Banamex, we summarize it as "detecting risks and opportunities," a task that extends to all the functions and...

Regional economic data from federal government agencies: availability and access.(FOCUS ON STATISTICS)
January 1, 2008... Statistical programs of federal government agencies provide a wide variety of monthly, quarterly, and annual economic time series, most of which provide only national data. This is particularly true for quarterly and monthly data. Annually,...

The U.S wine industry.(FOCUS ON INDUSTRIES AND MARKETS)
January 1, 2008... A couple lifetimes ago I decided I would someday work in what I called a "lifestyle" industry: for me, that was food, wine, art, design--a business that produced a product that could really add to my own quality of life, that had intrinsic...

The Undercover Economist.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The Undercover Economist By Tim Harford, 2007. New York: NY Random House Trade Paperbacks, Pp. 288, $14.95, paperback. A major responsibility of most business economists is to explain economic concepts and analysis to laymen in easily...

Who Killed Health Care? America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem--And the Consumer-Driven Cure.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Who Killed Health Care? America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem--And the Consumer-Driven Cure By Regina Herzlinger, 2007. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Pp.304, $24.95 hardcover. There are two powerful, well-respected and highly accomplished...