Labor Market Indicator for Colombia

Although the unemployment rate is traditionally used to diagnose the current state of the labor market, this indicator does not reflect the existence of asymmetries, mobility costs, and rigidities which impede labor to freely flow over the business cycle. Thus, to get a better portrait of the momentum, we construct the Labor Market Indicator (LMI) focusing on the cyclical similarities of eighteen time series from the Colombian household, industrial, and opinion surveys between 2001 and 2019. Our indicator summarizes the growth cycle of the labor market and its evolution is closely related to the output and unemployment GAP. This indicator is useful for policy analysis as it is useful to forecast headline inflation, it also complements the diagnosis of the current momentum of the labor market, the general economic activity, and the characterization of economic phases and turning points.

The DUMA Drug Market Indicator Framework: methamphetamine

In this paper, we introduce the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) Drug Market Indicator Framework. We use the framework to examine Australian trends in methamphetamine supply, demand and related harms between 2013 and 2019 to provide a baseline for measuring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were consistent increases in the prevalence, frequency and quantity of methamphetamine use, and corresponding increases in dependence, overdose and methamphetamine-related criminal offending. A brief but substantial decrease in methamphetamine availability occurred during 2017. Despite this, the methamphetamine market quickly recovered and continued to strengthen into 2019. This paper highlights the importance of monitoring indicators relating to drug supply, demand and harm to understand the dynamics of illicit drug markets during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Labor Market Indicator for Colombia (LMI)

We construct the Labor Market Indicator (LMI) focusing on the cyclical similarities of eighteen time series from household, industrial, and opinion surveys between 2001 and 2019. The LMI summarizes the growth cycle of the labor market as defined by \cite{mintz} and is connected to the evolution of the traditional business cycle indicators as well as to that of the GDP and the Unemployment rate GAP. The evolution of the indicator provide useful information to policy makers, as it complements the characterization of expansions and turning points. Thus, improving the analysis of the current momentum of the labor market.

The Brazilian Stock Market Indicator: Determinants to Measure Variation and Direction

The volatility has a great influence on agents' decision-making, therefore, measuring the degree and effect of the determining factors of the stock market indicator is of paramount importance. The study, based on the premise that assets with greater weight in the portfolio, as well as the foreign currency (dollar) quotation, can serve as predictors to assess the volatility of the indicator. For this purpose, an error correction model - VEC was used, starting from four explanatory variables defined and theoretically supported. The results show the importance of the autoregressive method, which is manifested by means of significant statistics to explain the variation and direction of Ibovespa. Although the importance of oil, iron ore and the dollar are determining variables, other factors such as cooperation agreements and / or stimuli aimed at the recovery of the economy cannot be neglected.

Board ethnic diversity and goodwill impairment decisions: longitudinal analysis of energy firms in Malaysia

The present study investigates whether ethnic diversity among firms’ directors influences the decision to take goodwill write-offs, after considering the economic factors of impairment (measured in terms of the market capitalization indicator), reporting incentives, and firms’ internal governance. The analysis focuses on energy firms in Malaysia from 2006 to 2018. The regressions results based on binary logistics show that energy firms are less likely to take goodwill write-offs even when the market indicates the possibility for the write-offs. The results also show the absence of the direct relationship between goodwill impairment decisions and ethnic diversity of the board of directors. Nevertheless, the results reveal that board ethnicity moderates the relationship between firms’ goodwill impairment decisions and the market capitalization indicator, suggesting that as firms encounter increasing market indicator of impairment losses, the board with diverse ethnicity positively influences firms in taking goodwill write-offs. The results of the present study add to the literature on board diversity and firms’ decisions with regard to goodwill impairment by highlighting the beneficial roles of having ethnically diverse board of directors, in that they use the market indicator that goodwill may be impaired in their monitoring role on the goodwill impairment decisions. The results offer input to the policymakers by suggesting that to strengthen the monitoring roles of the board of directors, they need to be diverse and equipped with indicators that would assist them in their monitoring decisions. AcknowledgementThe author acknowledges’ the research funding (i.e., FRGS grant 13591 provided via Universiti Utara Malaysia) from the Ministry of Higher Education in Malaysia.

The Impact of Syrian Refugees on the Turkish Labor Market

The civil war in Syria has destabilized the whole Middle East along with neighboring regions. In this respect, the impact of Syrian refugees on Turkish labor market is one of the most important contemporary issues discussed in Turkey. This issue has both political and economic significance. Deriving from this point, the aim of this study is to research the empirical relationship between the Labor Market Indicator (LMI) and the growing number of Syrian Refugees in Turkey (RS) by using time series analysis. The data employs monthly data for the period from January 2012 to August 2017. Results of the ARDL bounds test suggest that the Labor Market Indicator and the number of Syrian Refugees are in a long-run relationship. The Gregory-Hansen cointegration test with a structural break confirms the robustness of the ARDL bounds test of cointegration. The Kalman filtering approach was designed to investigate the dynamic relationship between the Labor Market Indicators and the growing number of Syrian Refugees. The results show that the increase in the number of Syrian refugees negatively affects the Labor Market Indicator in Turkey, which implies that the inflow of Syrians has negative effects on labor market outcomes such as employment and unemployment in the country. These results also confirm the postulation of general labor migration theory, which holds that an influx of refugees negatively affects labor market outcomes in the harboring country.

Do local sex ratios approximate subjective partner markets? Evidence from the German Family Panel

A growing body of evidence suggests that imbalanced local sex ratios are correlated with social consequences, including the pattern and timing of union formation, fertility and relationship stability. Scholars have argued that these findings can be understood as a result of imbalances in the bargaining power the respective sex holds in male- or female-skewed regions, but they remain vague on the underlying mechanisms. Specifically, the literature implicitly considers individual partner market experiences to be a function of local sex ratios. However, empirical evidence on the correspondence between subjective partner availability and local sex ratios remains scarce. This study addresses this gap by linking individual-level German longitudinal survey data (pairfam) with local sex ratios from population data for different entities (states, counties, and municipalities). Using multilevel regression models, this paper analyses the correlations between a subjective partner market indicator and a variety of local sex ratio measures. Moreover, an event history analysis explored how either indicator relates transitions into relationships. Results revealed that none of the local sex ratio measures, including those for narrow age ranges and/or lower level administrative entities, significantly predicted whether individuals predominantly met individuals of their own sex. Event history models yielded significant correlations between this subjective partner market indicator and relationship formation for both genders, substantiating the validity of the subjective indicator. For local sex ratios, results revealed an additional association between local sex ratios and female relationship formation when the sex ratios were adjusted for age hypergamy. Male relationship formation was uncorrelated with any local sex ratio. Both evolutionary and social scientific reasoning on the consequences of sex ratio imbalances rest on assumptions of subjective partner availability that may not be adequately represented by local sex ratios. Future research should be careful not to equate local sex ratios and conscious partner market experiences.

Lean manufacturing as a tool for increasing labor productivity at the enterprise

Since the beginning of utilization of the lean production concept it has passed several stages of implementation. The first stage failed because manufacturers that introduced lean production methods were isolated from each other; whereas in the second stage, these companies learned from their experiences. Since then, the lean production concept has been used to organize production and reduce costs, despite the fact that markets are becoming more demanding due to individualization of demand and variability of conditions. Digitalization suggests methods for adapting the concept of lean production to such a market indicator as company performance. Thus, the utilization of the concept “Industry 4.0” can initiate the third stage of development of the practice of lean manufacturing in terms of analyzing the productivity from a multidimensional point of view.

Silent Market Indicator. Methodology to Avoid the Risk in No Significant Price Movements

Investing in capital markets is a common task today. An impressive number of traders and investors, companies, private or public funds are buying and selling every day on the free markets. The current high price volatility in the financial markets gives everyone a tremendous number of speculative opportunities to make a profit. Sometimes the price makes no significant movement, however. The majority of the trades initiated in those periods will conclude to losses or will need a very long time to become profitable. To avoid these cases, a mathematical algorithm was developed in this paper: The Silent Market Indicator. This article will present the general principles and the mathematics behind the indicator and how it can be applied in financial trading to improve capital investment efficiency. It was found that the model generates a very reliable filter to avoid entry into the silent markets intervals, when the price action conducts to small amplitude price movements and when the profit expectation is lower. In order to reveal the efficiency of the Silent Market Indicator usage, some comparable trading results will be presented in the last part of this article together with the functional parameters optimized for several known capital markets. As a conclusion, it will be proved that the presented methodology is an excellent method to stay away from the market risk. In addition, being exclusively a mathematical model, it can be applied in any algorithmic trading system, combined with any other trading strategy in order to improve capital efficiency