Not Every Kind of Outward FDI Increases Parent Firm Performance: The Case of New EU Member States

Using a large firm-level dataset we investigate what kind of firms from new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs) tend to invest abroad (testing of self-selection hypothesis), and what is the impact of outward FDI on their productivity (testing of learning-by-investing hypothesis). We find that the best firms tend to self-select into outward FDI. There is also a positive effect of outward FDI on productivity growth of investing firms from CEECs, the strongest being in the case of Estonia, Romania, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The positive impact of becoming a first-time foreign investor is relatively long lasting, but comes into effect only in investments in Western European or other CEECs and in the case of manufacturing subsidiaries.     

The Role and Current Status of IFRS in the Completion of National Accounting Rules – Evidence from Norway

Abstract

Although not a EU member, Norway is required to implement the EU Accounting Directive through its obligations under the EEA agreement. An expert group has prepared a draft law that will be decided upon by the legislator, most likely during 2017. The draft law has a strong orientation towards IFRS, which is evidenced in particular by the choice of IFRS for SMEs as the basis for Norwegian accounting standards.     

欧盟碳期货风险量化——基于GED-GARCH模型和VaR模型

以欧盟碳期货合约为研究对象,针对其反映的市场风险特点,采用GED-GARCH模型进行参数估计。结果显示:到期日的因素使得欧盟碳期货合约收益率序列的条件方差与历史信息之间存在联系;碳期货合约的到期日越久,其条件方差越依赖于历史信息,表明欧盟碳期货市场为弱式有效市场;欧盟碳期货合约收益率序列的波动会逐渐衰减,表明最终合约价格能够起到价格预示作用。再利用GARCH模型的参数估计结果,计算出不同置信水平下收益率序列的在险值,夯实实证研究结果。针对欧盟碳期货合约风险的量化研究表明,欧盟碳期货与碳现货的关系呈现出新兴市场的分割局面特征,进一步导致欧盟碳金融市场逐渐走向虚拟化。因此,在中国碳市场的建设中,应做到碳期货与碳现货交易相协调,做好碳金融市场上风险的量化和控制。     

Wage Inequality and Wage Mobility in Europe

Using data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, this paper investigates wage inequality and wage mobility in Europe. Decomposing inequality into within‐ and between‐group inequality, we analyze to what extent wage inequality and mobility can be explained by observable characteristics. Furthermore, we investigate which individual and household characteristics determine transitions within the wage distribution. We find that overall, mobility reduces wage inequality. While a large part of wage inequality is due to unobservable characteristics, the equalizing effect of mobility mainly occurs within groups. Furthermore, both personal and household characteristics play an important role for wage transitions. Finally, our findings reveal large cross‐country differences across Europe.     

When Overlapping Organisations Play Two-Level Games: IMF–EU Interaction in Credit Lending to Latvia and Greece

In the literature, the cooperation of the IMF and the EU in credit lending has been discussed either from a state-centric, bureaucratic or institutionalist perspective. In this article, we examine the Troika as a set-up of multiple organisational overlap providing bureaucratic agents with constraints and opportunities for strategic action. Taking Latvia and Greece as cases in point, we analyse who prevails in a situation of conflict and why. How do these international organisations manage to overcome their differences and reach consensus? Drawing on the Two-Level game approach, we argue that negotiators are more likely to prevail over each other when their respective win-set decreases. We find that different strategies to manipulate win-sets are decisive to explain both cooperation and assertiveness. Changing costs of no agreement during a lending programme as well as the institutional procedures for programme ratification facilitate the use of these strategies.     

Housing and Health

Deprived housing is recognized as a source of poor health, but there is still little evidence of a causal relationship between housing and health. While existing literature identifies neighborhood effects and the individual dwelling as factors which affect health, it does not offer a joint examination of these factors. Moreover, endogeneity is a concern in analyses of both problems. Thus far, studies addressing endogeneity have done so through experimental design or instrumental variables. The first approach suffers from problems of external validity and the latter from the lack of reliable instruments. We therefore adopt an alternative strategy which considers both sources of endogeneity in order to identify the effects of housing on health by estimating fixed‐effect models. We reveal how housing problems affect health depending on living conditions and socioeconomic status. Our results therefore indicate that living in poor housing is an important short‐term socioeconomic determinant that directly affects health.     

Political Stock Markets and Unreliable Polls

A political stock market (PSM) clearly beat the polls in predicting the outcome of a Swedish referendum on whether or not Sweden should join the European Union. In fact, polls were unable to make such predictions since the number of undecided respondents always far exceeded the observed YES/NO margin. However, an obstacle to PSMs serving as a superior forecasting instrument is that they can be sensitive to price distortions - by interest groups that may wish to effectuate, and pay for, such distortions - or forecast competitions tied to PSM trade gains, the latter of which was tested here.     

Developments in Irish Tourism, 1980‐96

The Irish tourism industry has experienced unprecedented growth since the mid‐1980s through a benign combination of good luck, favourable external and internal conditions and supportive government policies aided by resource transfers from the European Union (EU) This paper reviews the policy developments in Irish tourism over this period, examines the EU contributions and discusses performance outcomes. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Non‐Reciprocal Trade Preferences and the Role of Compliance Costs in the Agricultural Sector: Exports to the EU

We investigate whether non‐reciprocal preferential regimes granted by the European Union have an impact on agricultural export flows from beneficiary countries while accounting for the costs of compliance that may prevent exporters from taking full advantage of potential benefits. Compliance costs are heterogeneous and difficult to measure. We proxy their influence and specify a model that allows for a different preferential margin impact according to the proxy costs. Adopting the gravity framework and using a sample of 554 lines of agricultural products for 131 developing countries in 2002, we find that the costs of compliance play a role in making the schemes work: the lower the costs, the greater the impact of the preferential margins. Moreover, the estimated margin effect differs between different regimes.