Terrorism and international economic policy

We add to the ongoing discussion regarding the policy consequences of terrorism by analyzing the effect of terrorism on international economic policy for a panel of 170 countries between 1970 and 2016. We find that countries resort to less liberal international economic policies when facing the threat of terrorism. This effect is especially relevant to smaller (less populated) countries. Our main finding is robust to an instrumental-variable approach. We argue that governments pursue less liberal international economic policies in response to terrorism to interrupt the organization and financing of terrorism, limit capital flight, stabilize public finances and signal political resolve.     

Incorporating active adjustment into a financing based model of capital structure

The conventional partial adjustment model, which focuses on leverage evolution, has difficulty identifying deliberate capital structure adjustments as it confounds financing decisions with the mechanical autocorrelation of leverage. We propose and estimate a financing-based partial adjustment model that separates the effects of financing decisions on leverage evolution from mechanical evolution. The speed of adjustment (SOA) is firm-specific and stochastic, and active targeting of capital structure has a multiplier effect that depends on the size of financial deficit. Overall, we find expected SOA from active rebalancing (30%) more than doubles what is expected from mechanical mean reversion alone (13%).     

An excellent approximation for the m out of n day provision

The m out of n day provision (MooN) of convertible bonds is difficult to handle. To approximating the MooN better, this paper proposes an approach named the conditional range probability (CRP). CRP is the simulated probability of the MooN being reached within a price range at a future time, conditional on today’s price of the underlying, and can be incorporated into any conventional derivatives pricing method. For a purposely designed exotic call option with a 20 out of 30 day provision, CRP under finite difference is found to outperform significantly several existing approaches and produce a mean pricing error of 1% over a wide range of initial underlying prices for the exotic call. The result implies that finite difference utilizing CRP will yield excellent approximating prices for convertible bonds.     

General or central government? Empirical evidence on political cycles in budget composition using new data for OECD countries

Previous studies used general government data to examine whether national governments’ electoral motives and ideology influenced budget composition in OECD countries. General government data includes, however, the state and local level. Using new data for general and central government over the period 1995–2016, I reexamine political cycles in budget composition. The results suggest that, both at the general and central government level, leftwing governments spent more on education and less on public services than rightwing governments. Defense expenditure was somewhat lower under leftwing than rightwing governments and in election years; especially in federal states. Effects of government ideology on the individual expenditure categories are larger at the central than general government level. Scholars need to re-examine results on ideology-induced effects that have been derived from general government data where central government data should have been used.     

Do fiscal rules cause better fiscal balances? A new instrumental variable strategy

This paper estimates the causal effect of fiscal rules on fiscal balances in a panel of 142 countries over the period 1985–2015. Our instrumental variable strategy exploits the geographical diffusion of fiscal rules across countries. The intuition is that reforms in neighboring countries may affect the adoption of domestic reforms through peer pressure and imitational effects. We find that the mere existence of fiscal rules correlates with lower deficits, but the positive link disappears when endogeneity is correctly addressed. However, when considering the strength of rules through a continuous index of fiscal rules’ design, we show that well-designed rules have a statistically significant impact on fiscal balances. We conduct several robustness tests and show that our results are generally robust and not affected by weak instrument problems.     

Macroeconomic implications of modeling the Internal Revenue Code in a heterogeneous-agent framework

Tax policy analysis in heterogeneous-agent models typically involves the use of smooth tax functions to approximate complex present tax law and proposed reforms. In this paper, we explore the extent to which the tax detail omitted under this conventional approach has macroeconomic implications relevant for policy analysis. To do this, we develop an alternative approach by embedding an internal tax calculator into a large-scale overlapping generations model that, while conditioning on idiosyncratic household characteristics, explicitly models key provisions in the Internal Revenue Code applied to labor income. We find that for a debt-constant steady state analysis of a given tax policy change, both approaches generate similar policy-induced patterns of macroeconomic activity despite variation in the underlying patterns of household tax-preferred consumption and labor supply behavior. However, this variation in underlying behavior is associated with significant quantitative and qualitative differences in macroeconomic aggregates along a debt-financed transition path immediately following a policy change. Consequentially, although the use of unconditional smooth tax functions may be a reasonable modeling simplification for steady state analysis of tax policy, caution should be taken for their use in transition path analysis within heterogeneous-agent models.     

How does reinsurance and derivatives usage affect financial performance? Evidence from the UK non-life insurance industry

A three-equation structural model is applied in this study to facilitate our examination of 1994–2011 regulatory returns data on UK non-life insurers, from which we find that those insurers using more reinsurance tended to have inferior financial performance, whilst those insurers with a predisposition towards risk management tended to have used both reinsurance and derivatives. We also find that those insurers with high loss ratios were found to have inferior financial performance. Our analysis sheds some light on the relationships between financial performance, reinsurance and derivative usage.     

Does corporate social responsibility reduce financial distress risk?

This paper examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects the level of financial distress risk (FDR). Using a sample of 1201 US-listed firms during 1991–2012, our results indicate that firms with higher CSR levels have lower FDR, suggesting that a better CSR performance makes firms more creditworthy and have better access to financing, which is rewarded with less financial defaults. This finding is robust to using alternative proxies of FDR, to controlling for potential endogeneity, and is mainly driven by the community, diversity, employee relations, and environmental dimensions of CSR. Moreover, this relationship is more prevalent in firms with strong governance mechanisms and high product market competition. It is also more exacerbated for less distressed firms and during non-crisis periods. Overall, our findings suggest that the adoption of CSR practices comes with less distress and default risks, likely leading to a more attractive corporate environment, better financial stability and more crisis-resilient economies.     

Threshold effect of economic openness on bank risk-taking: Evidence from emerging markets

This paper investigates the non-linear effects of two aspects of economic openness, namely, trade openness and financial openness, on banking system stability. We use a panel of 42 emerging markets from 2000 to 2014 to test whether bank risk-taking behaviour varies with the level of openness. We find that a higher degree of trade openness promotes bank stability linearly. Conversely, the non-linear effect of financial openness on bank risk-taking is evident. When the financial system is not sufficiently open, the impact of financial openness on bank stability is insignificant. However, as the domestic financial market becomes more open, financial openness can help discipline the behaviour of banks, making them more stable. We also find evidence that these effects are transmitted through the market discipline channel. Our findings highlight the importance of strengthening the domestic regulatory framework and transparency as the economy becomes more integrated.     

Does board gender diversity influence firm profitability? A control function approach

We investigate the relation between board gender diversity and firm profitability using the control function (CF) approach recently suggested by Wooldridge (2015). The CF method takes account of the problem of endogenous explanatory variables that have potential to bias the results. Using a sample of firms that made up the S&P 500 over the period 2004–2015, we find that the presence of women on corporate boards (measured either by the percentage of female directors on corporate boards or the Blau index of heterogeneity) has a positive and significant (at the 1% level) effect on firm profitability (measured by the return on assets). We compare our results to more traditional approaches (such as pooled OLS or the fixed-effects model). Through this study, we shed light on the effect of women on corporate boards on firm performance, as it is still a controversial issue (Post and Byron, 2015).