Las diferencias salariales entre países en la Unión Europea

Se investigan los determinantes de las brechas salariales entre países de la Unión Europea a lo largo de la distribución salarial según la propuesta metodológica de Firpo, Fortin y Lemieux (2009) y de Fortin, Lemieux y Firpo (2011). Los efectos de estructura salarial y de composición inciden en las diferencias salariales, aunque el primero de una manera más marcada. Este efecto se deriva de las diferencias entre factores desconocidos, mientras que el efecto de composición se explica principalmente por las diferencias en materia de educación, proporción de trabajadores con responsabilidades de supervisión, estructura ocupacional y, en menor medida, estructura de la actividad económica.     

Is the EU ETS a Just Climate Policy?

The European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is in dire straits. Prone to design problems and suffering from the effects of the economic crises the scheme is criticised for its poor achievements. In this paper we will analyse some of the features of this situation from an ethical perspective. The major part is dedicated to the complications within each phase of the EU ETS and to the recent developments it has undergone. We will briefly discuss the remedies suggested by prominent commentators. Furthermore, any policy tool to tackle climate change should be evaluated in view of the profound equity issues that are inherent to the climate problem. We will evaluate the EU ETS according to two justice-based criteria, related to effectiveness and the distribution of the duties involved in climate change, respectively. We will conclude that the EU ETS, in its current form, clearly lacks fairness on both criteria. However, the biggest problem is the unwillingness of EU leaders to mend, what could be, a commendable climate policy tool. To that extent, we argue, those leaders are acting unjustly.     

Cross‐border mergers and acquisitions: The role of private equity firms

Research summary: We show that private equity ownership (“PE backing”) of the acquirer is a signal of deal quality in cross‐border takeovers. As such, PE‐backed acquirers experience higher announcement returns in cross‐border takeovers, but only if targets are in poor information environments. We show that PE backing is a positive market signal because of PE firms' experience and networks that result from prior deals in target countries. We document that the market correctly anticipates that operating performance of PE‐backed acquirers increases as a result of cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Managerial summary: We study cross‐border acquisitions by acquirers that are partially owned by private equity firms (“PE backing”). Cross‐border acquisitions are challenging as acquirers often have little information about targets. We document that investors react positively to cross‐border deals of PE‐backed acquirers—their stock prices increase upon deal announcements. However, this is only the case if targets are in countries with poor information environments. This is because PE backing allows acquirers to access PE firms' deal experience and networks. This makes it easier to identify and evaluate good targets, making it more (less) likely that a deal eventually creates (destroys) value. Consistent with this, we find that earnings of PE‐backed acquirers increase after buying targets in poor information environments. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The moderating effects of economic development on innovation and shadow entrepreneurship: grey or pink?

There is currently a renewed surge of interest in informal entrepreneurship around the world. One of the motives stems from how such entrepreneurship shapes and influences a substantial part of the global workforce. However, we may also verify how a major proportion of the research in this field focuses on developing economies and thus justifying the application of such analytical approaches to countries with different levels of economic development as is the case with Europe. Our research objectives, on the one hand, involve analysing the impact of R&D investment on informal entrepreneurship and, on the other hand, the moderating effect of the level of economic development on their innovative capacities and informal entrepreneurship results. To this end, and in accordance with Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, we divide the countries of Europe into two stages of development and may report that the higher the level of economic development, the greater the innovative capacity and, furthermore, the lower informal entrepreneurship becomes. The same holds for R&D investment with its increase being inversely proportionate to informal entrepreneurship. We, therefore, seek to contribute toward a better understanding of the problematic framework of informal entrepreneurship, in particular in the European context.     

Knowledge spillovers and strategic entrepreneurship: what researches and approaches?

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Based on the need for companies to remain competitive and dynamic in a constantly changing environment, this systematic review on knowledge...     

Hysteresis and sluggishness in Portuguese unemployment, 1977–88

The phenomenon of unemployment persistence led to the development of alternative theories of unemployment. Among these the ‘hysteresis’ concept by Blanchard and Summers (1987) received a wide interest. Based on this notion we developed a generalized model that nests Blanchards and Summers' theory. Using this framework we conducted an empirical investigation for the Portuguese labour market (1977–88). The results obtained point towards the existence of labour demand sluggishness, wage inertia and unemployment hysteresis. The model also suggests the existence of a rather inelastic labour demand curve.     

总编圈点

一个国家名牌出口商品的多少,反映这个国家综合实力的大小,经济竞争力的强弱,以及科学技术发展水平的高低。美国、日本、欧洲一些国家之所以商品出口强势历久不衰,就是由于它们在科学技术的有力支持下,长期以来培育出一大批叫得响、过得硬、受消费者欢迎的名牌商品,并且缘于这些商品而造就出众多赫赫有名、腰缠万贯的大公司、大企业。我国是个发展中国家,虽然改革开放20多年来经济大踏步前进,有了飞跃发展,但与西方经济强国相比,还有相当大的差距。然而,凡事预则立,不预则废。尤其我国入世后,要按照世贸组织的游戏规则开展对外经贸活动,与贸易伙伴     

American options and callable bonds under stochastic interest rates and endogenous bankruptcy

A new characterization of the American-style option is proposed under a very general multifactor Markovian and diffusion framework. The efficiency of the proposed pricing solutions is shown to depend only on the use of a viable valuation method for the corresponding European-style option and for the transition density of the model’s state variables. Under a Gauss-Markov stochastic interest rates setup, these new American option pricing solutions are shown to offer a much better accuracy-efficiency trade-off than the approximations already available in the literature. This result is also used to price callable corporate bonds under an endogenous bankruptcy structural approach, by decomposing the option to call or default into a European put on the firm value plus two early exercise premium components.     

The Size of Terroir: A Theoretical Note on Economics and Politics of Geographical Indications

Geographical indications (GI) certify the geographical origins of a product and delineate the specific area in which the certified product must be produced. Despite a large literature on the economics of GIs, few papers have explored the question of the optimal size of GI regions. This note presents a flexible conceptual framework to explore the economics and politics of the delimitation of a GI. The general framework describes the efficiency and distributional effects of the size of a GI and shows how this affects interest groups’ incentives to influence government decision‐making.