Energy‐milk price transmission at the product brand level

This article estimates the pass‐through rates between diesel fuel and retail milk prices at the product brand level. Using a random coefficient logit demand model and taking the direct and indirect impacts of energy prices, this research identifies changes in pass‐through rates before and after the great recession in 2008. Empirical results show that diesel prices significantly impacted the retail prices of milk products and are an important determinant of food price inflation. Pass‐through rates are estimated to range from 0.16 to approximately 0.60 through 2008 with an average of 0.22 for the whole period. Statistical tests indicate that pass‐through rates before June 2008 were significantly higher than after June 2008 when they dropped significantly to 0.04 to 0.17. Interestingly, private label brands have the lowest pass‐through rates, implying that compared to manufacturer brands, private label prices are more insulated from diesel price shocks.     

Chair-CEO generation gap and bank risk-taking

Poor bank governance has disastrous consequences for economies as the 2007–2009 financial crisis has shown. In the aftermath, board diversity is identified as an effective mechanism to enhance bank governance. Diversity, creating cognitive conflict between board members, is expected to enhance board's independence of thought to better perform monitoring and advising functions. Age is a key demographic measure and age dissimilarity between the chair and the CEO in non-financial firms leads to better economic outcomes (Goergen, Limbach, & Scholz, 2015). In this paper, we examine whether chair-CEO age dissimilarity can mitigate banks' excessive risk-taking behaviour. Using a unique sample of 100 listed banks in Europe between 2005 and 2014, we find that age difference between the chair and the CEO reduces bank risk-taking. A chair-CEO generational gap –defined as a minimum of 20 years' age difference– has a larger impact in reducing risk-taking.     

The tug-of-war in the laboratory

The tug-of-war is a multi-battle contest often used to describe extended interactions in economics, operations management, political science, and other disciplines. While there has been some theoretical work, to the best of our knowledge, this paper provides the first experimental study of the tug-of-war. The results show notable deviations of behavior from theory derived under standard assumptions. In the first battle of the tug-of-war, subjects often bid less, while in the follow-up battles, they bid more than predicted. Also, contrary to the prediction, bids tend to increase in the duration of the tug-of-war. Finally, extending the margin necessary to win the tug-of-war causes a greater reduction in bidding than either a decrease in the prize or greater impatience despite all three having the same predicted effect. These findings have implications both for theorists and practitioners.     

ECONOMIC POLICY UNCERTAINTY EFFECTS ON CREDIT AND STABILITY OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

We examine policy‐related economic uncertainty effects on the availability of credit, non‐performing loans and loan loss provisions using a panel of 18 countries. We provide significant evidence that uncertainty reduces the availability of credit while leading to increases in banks' non‐performing loans and loan loss provisions, distorting sectoral stability. Our findings are economically meaningful.     

一种机载三维音频技术的快速计算方法

针对机载三维音频应用的实时性需求，提出了一种基于单耳相对头相关传递函数和改进型混响模型的机载三维音频快速实现方法，在较传统实现方式性能无明显下降的情况下降低了80%的计算量。对提出的算法在F-16战斗机模拟强噪声环境下进行相关主观试听实验，同时在某型飞机音频系统中实验验证。实验结果表明,所提方法在实时处理3路三维音频时，三维音频方位分辨精度在5°以内，可满足实际机载平台使用需求。     

A critical review of the 2015 South Korean civil service pension reform

The Republic of Korea’s civil service pension (KCSP) was established in 1960 and has been changed several times to overcome the serious financial burdens it has placed on the country. Major problems related to the KCSP include its structure (low contribution and high benefit) and the country’s rapidly aging population. The authors examine the 2015 KCSP reform, reviewing the reasons for the reform, its process, and its fiscal and policy implications. Reforms in other countries are briefly compared. The paper provides important lessons for researchers and practitioners involved in public sector pension reforms.     

Interventions in Markets with Adverse Selection: Implications for Discount Window Stigma

I study the implications for central bank discount window stigma of a workhorse model of adverse selection in financial markets. In the model, firms (banks) need to borrow to finance a productive project. There is limited liability and firms have private information about their ability to repay their debts, which gives rise to the possibility of adverse selection. The central bank can ameliorate the impact of adverse selection by lending to firms. Discount window borrowing is observable and it may be taken as a signal of firms' credit worthiness. Under some conditions, firms borrowing from the discount window may pay higher interest rates to borrow in the market, a phenomenon often associated with the presence of stigma. I discuss these and other outcomes in detail and what they suggest about the relevance of stigma as an empirical phenomenon.     

Accounting practice,fiscal decentralization and corruption

In prior studies, accounting and decentralization corruption solutions have so far been analysed in isolation. In this article, we connect these two strands of literature on corruption. Understanding this connection is important because weak financial accounting and reporting systems can inhibit monitoring incentives and thus reduce decentralization benefits in countering corruption. We argue that the effectiveness of decentralization as an anti-corruption barrier is complemented by the quality of the accounting practice in a country. Using multiple sources of data, we find that decentralization has a positive and increasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with a high-quality accounting practice. In contrast, decentralization has a negative and decreasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with weak-quality accounting practices. These findings are robust to alternative measures of accounting, decentralization and corruption and to endogeneity tests. Our findings demonstrate the crucial information role of accounting in enhancing decentralization monitoring mechanisms and in thereby reducing corruption.     

Eco-labels and product longevity: The case of whitefish in UK grocery retailing

In recent years, eco-labeling has become an increasingly used tool to signal sustainable sourcing of (sea-) food. While the literature has focused on price premiums associated with the labels, it is noted in this paper that eco-labels can also contribute to profitability by reducing cost, e.g. through longer product lifespans. Hence, eco-labels can be beneficial in a supply chain even without a price premium. This study applies duration analysis to explore whether two eco-labels (the MSC label of the Marine Stewardship Council and a line-caught label) influence product longevity of whitefish products in eight different grocery retailers in the UK. The results show that MSC labeled products have a 64.7% lower risk of being withdrawn from the shelves compared to non-MSC products, while products with the line-caught label have a 32.8% lower risk of being withdrawn than products without this label. The results also indicate that the influence of the eco-labels on product longevity vary considerably between the retailers.     

Corruption in space: A closer look at the world's subnations

Corruption levels differ not only between but also within countries. In this paper we analyze spatial interdependencies in corruption levels for a large sample of 1232 subnational regions from 81 countries. Based on a spatial autoregressive model, which controls for country-fixed effects and corrects for spatial autocorrelation in the error term, we find that a subnational region's corruption level is positively correlated with neighboring subnational regions' corruption levels. Extending the core model and allowing for heterogeneous spatial effects, we find that most spillovers among subnational regions occur within national borders. Moreover, in particular high income subnational regions and subnational regions with relative low corruption levels tend to spill in space. This is due to their high degree of connectivity in terms of economic, sociocultural and political exchange with other subnational regions. Our estimation results underline the importance to consider not only a subnational region's own characteristics, but also spatial interdependencies when implementing efficient anti-corruption policies at the local level.