Volume 50, numéro 2, avril–juin 1974

EN :

In this study we are trying to measure the influence of health services supply (or better, the availability of health services) on the consumption. We first examine the regional disparity of available services and the impact of this difference on the production and (the) consumption of services. Then we do a projection of resources based on a standardized consumption.

At the regional level, we find:

1. a disparity of resources in numbers and structure;

2. the consumption increases with the availability of services;

3. the production decreases with the availability of services.

EN :

This study poses the question: "How long will the average new employee likely stay with his employer? This question has considerable relevance to the study of labour market activity, and to the obverse question: "How likely will a person, once employed, be unemployed again?" This paper explores the relevance of the tenure question on a number of fronts, and then develops a simple model for estimating the expected tenure of workers joining specific industries in Canada. Although the findings are based on somewhat dated statistics and lack a vector related to age, sex and other personal characteristics, they nonetheless confirm within reasonable degrees of confidence that the average new employee will remain with his employer a remarkably short time—less than two years in most industries and only a few months in some others. They suggest that employers are wise to defer costly training, pension and other non-wage expenditures until their new employees have built up some attachment to the firm. By the same token they affirm the usefulness of public income support programs to tide those who are laid off or quit through the transition to their next job, and for public retraining and mobility facilities to make the investments in human skills and allocation that employers will not.

EN :

A look at M. G. Dagenais' contributions (1969, 1973) on threshold regression models and at chapter 9 of S.M. Goldfeld and R.E. Quandt's book (1972) concerning switching regression models suggested to me that a new approach to estimating the threshold model by introducing slack variables might be possible. One of the main advantages of this new method is to simplify to a great extent the estimation of the likelihood function which is reduced partly to the problem of estimating a limited number of simple integrals for each iteration in the process of optimization.

In order to facilitate a better understanding of our approach, two main models will be reviewed in the next section: the twin linear probability model (which can be estimated either by OLS, by a combination of probit and OLS, or by the tobit approach) and the threshold model. A critical look at the empirical results obtained by Dagenais (1973) will also be made before closing this section.

Our new threshold model with slack variables is presented in section 3 and the main features of our new approach are summarized in the last section of this paper.

EN :

This article has a two-fold purpose: first, to offer as complete an inventory aspossible of the literature written on the economics of housing, classifying thisliterature according to subject matter (in this sense, the article takes on theappearance of an annotated bibliography); and second, to take a hard look at thepresent state of economic theory in this field.

The article is divided into the following six sections: 1) existing surveys;2) studies related to long-term cycles in residential construction; 3) theoriesexplaining short-term fluctuations; 4) verbal models; 5) econometric models;6) other studies.

Some emphasis has been given to the authors' two principal conclusions. In theiropinion, the "residual" vision and the countercyclical hypothesis have not beenadequately tested in the past. Furthermore, the authors bring to light evidence,both theoretical and factual, which contradicts this theory (see Section 3). Then,in Section 5, the authors attempt to show how econometric models, except in the mostrecent papers, fail to take into account, adequately, the relationships between thehousing and mortgage markets and the builders. In addition, it is contended thatthese models are not truly representational of the whole sector, in that they areoften nothing more than simple demand or supply equations, or, even worse, neitherone nor the other.

EN :

In this paper, we analyse the world model which represents the most ambitious attempt yet to bring together six great forecasts comprising population, resource depletion, food supply, capital investment, pollution and space. We wish to show on the one hand that the model has serious limitations and, on the other, that many different conclusions can be arrived at with this kind of study.

Firstly we attempt to demonstrate that the model structure is too rigid, containing too many constants; secondly we question the value of certain time series data; thirdly the two principal assumptions are discussed: the constant exponential trends of population and capital investment and the too long delays in the feedback processes that control the physical growth of the world system.

For example Dennis Meadow et al. believe that all technological innovations will increase crowding and pollution. In concentrating on physical limits, they neglect changes in values which can change many trends or rate of trends.

This is why we are saying "Malthus in, Malthus out". The model is the message and a great part of the results depends entirely on the quality of data, the rigidity of the model and on the limits of the assumptions.