Pensions reforms,workforce ageing and firm-provided welfare

This paper investigates the impact of an exogenous increase in the legal retirement age on the firms’ propensity to provide welfare services voluntarily to their employees. To this purpose we exploit a unique information derived from the Rilevazione su Imprese e Lavoro (RIL), a survey conducted in 2015 on a large and representative sample of Italian firms. Applying different regression models we show that firms which were forced to give up previously planned hirings because of the Law 201/2011 (the so-called ‘Fornero pension reform’), increased the probability of providing welfare services at workplace. By referring to the sociological, human resource management and economic literature we then argue that a sudden increase in the legal retirement age may motivate the employers to establish welfare schemes as a way to cope with an ageing workforce. Our findings also hold when propensity score matching methods are used in order to control for sample selection issues.     

The Real Equilibrium South African Rand/US Dollar Exchange Rate: A Comparison of Alternative Measures

This article indicates how different measures of the real exchange rate, i.e., the exchange rate adapted for cost inflation, price inflation and labour costs, influence the equilibrium view and misalignment of the South African rand/US dollar exchange rate. The approach followed is based on the behavioural equilibrium exchange rate approach by Clark and MacDonald (1998), where the exchange rate is influenced by a number of fundamental and transitory factors. The real equilibrium exchange is estimated by using a single equation regression and a number of key explanatory variables. To determine the long-run relationship a Vector Error Correction Mechanism is used.     

Forecasting the diffusion of photovoltaic systems in southern Europe : A learning curve approach

Most analysts disagree upon whether photovoltaic systems (PV) will be able to play an important role in the energy scenarios of the future. A few scholars also question the appropriateness of policies that envisage the use of public subsidies to stimulate the growth of this industry and to accelerate market penetration. This paper contributes to this debate by examining whether carefully designed policies may initiate a process of large-scale diffusion of grid-connected PV, even without the deployment of external subsidies. Building upon a disaggregated characterization of the electricity market, it takes endogenously into account the learning curve phenomenon and simulates the diffusion of PV building-integrated systems in five European countries. The analysis is restricted to crystalline silicon systems and is repeated under four different macroeconomic scenarios corresponding to four different energy policies. The results suggest that already today there are opportunities for PV diffusion in many islands of the Mediterranean region, which may trigger sufficient scale economies to render the technology competitive in larger markets. They also show that the diffusion process could be accelerated through the implementation of carbon-tax policies that support initial penetration. The environmental benefits (net avoided CO₂ emissions over the system life cycle) associated with the forecasted penetration are also evaluated.     

Land conservation and tenure security in Kenya: Boserup's hypothesis revisited

Land conservation technologies used by farmers are known to play an important role in improving farm incomes and household welfare in the long run. For this reason substantial investments have been made in research to improve agricultural technologies in various parts of the world, from the development of new crop varieties to new practices of land management. This paper explores the impact of land rights among other factors on adoption of soil and water conservation practices. The study further tests for Boserup's hypothesis (correlation between population density, land conservation and property rights) using panel survey data collected from farming households. The key findings of the paper are that property right regimes and population density affect both the decision to conserve land as well as the type of conservation practices used by farmers. The results further suggest a positive correlation between land tenure security and population density, thus supporting Boserup's hypothesis. The findings call for pursuit of both short-term and long-term policy measures that offer incentives for land conservation through government initiatives and participation of local communities.     

Evolution of trade patterns in the new EU member states

The paper analyses the evolution of the trade specialization pattern in the new EU member states. Relying on the empirical approach of the Markov transition matrices it analyses both the changes in the external shape of the distribution of comparative advantages and the intra‐distribution dynamics. The new members show a dynamic trade pattern: they gained comparative advantages relatively fast in sectors in which they were lagging behind at the beginning of the transition, notably in some ‘high tech’ products. In addition, many specialization improvements occurred in those items for which world demand expanded at the fastest rate over the nineties.     

Explaining momentum profits with an epidemic diffusion model

We show that information diffusion is a function of its dissemination and assimilation. Whereas dissemniation is a function of observable factors such as volume and price volatility, assimilation is dependent on unobservable factors such as the usefulness and reliability of information. We find that buying low volume (or low volatility) past losers and shortselling low volume (or low volatility) past winners generates a positive net return across the entire sample period and especially during bear markets. Second, buying high volatility past winners and shortselling high volatility past losers generates a positive net return, especially during bear markets.     

Forecasting UK house prices: A time varying coefficient approach

Previous studies of UK house prices, developed from the demand and supply ofhousing or from the asset market approach have been poor in terms of robustness and ex-post forecasting ability. The UK housing market has suffered a number of structural changes, particularly since the early 1980s with substantial house price increases, financial market deregulation and the removal of mortgage market constraints through competition. Consequently, models which assume that the underlying data-generating process is stable and apply constant parameter techniques tend to suffer in terms of parameter instability. This article uses the Time Varying Coefficient (TVC) methodology where the underlying data-generating process in the UK housing market is treated as unstable. The estimation results of the TVC regression of UK house prices is compared with those obtained from three alternative constant parameter regressions. Comparisons of forecasting performance suggest the TVC regression out-performs forecasts from an Error Correction Mechanism (ECM), Vector Autoregressive (VAR) and an Autoregressive Time Series regression.     

New development: Private finance over public good? Questioning the value of impact bonds

This article contrasts the proposed benefits of social impact bonds (SIBs) with the more mixed performance of initial projects, and reviews the early literature, revealing a similar divide between initial optimism and subsequent critique. Despite this, SIBs continue to receive high-level support, while expanding their reach through controversial new ‘development’ and ‘environmental’ impact bonds. This situation deserves more scrutiny in the accounting literature.