Development built on crony capitalism? The case of Dangote Cement

This paper critiques the emergence of Dangote Cement as the dominant player in cement manufacturing in Nigeria. It argues that the changed economic environment General Obasanjo met when he became president of Nigeria for a second time in 1999 made it difficult for him to continue the nationalisation policies and the expansion of government involvement in several spheres of economic activity that he helped to promote in the 1970s. The realisation that this strategy, which created numerous crony capitalists, was unsustainable resulted in Obasanjo allying with Dangote and promulgating the Backward Integration Programme (BIP) for the local cement industry. This made it possible for Dangote to risk aggressive investment in the capital-intensive cement production business. This strategy achieved public good by rapidly making Nigeria, an oil rent- and import-dependent economy with enormous limestone reserves, self-sufficient in cement production.     

China and international market integration: Evidence from the law of one price in the Middle East and Africa

We model market integration in the Middle East and Africa by analyzing price dispersion and testing the law of one price (LOP) on highly-comparable actual local retail prices of 135 goods and services across 23 countries in the region over the period of 1990–2016. Second-generation panel estimators are applied to four price benchmarks: Regional average, South Africa, China, and US prices. Cross-regional price dispersion diminishes considerably over time up to 2008, particularly for non-tradeables around China price. The test of LOP indicates the percentage of convergent prices is highest in China price benchmark, followed by US, South Africa, and regional average benchmarks. Direct estimation of the convergence speed confirms this order. Overall, the results show evidence of increasing market integration in Middle East and Africa but it appears to be driven by global forces and, especially, the rise of China as a new economic power. The results show that some emerging market economies, such as China, can step up and promote integration while traditional economic powerhouses, such as the USA and UK, disengage from international economic relations.     

货币政策、企业家信心与上市公司投资效率*

企业、企业家等微观主体对货币政策的反应，在较大程度上影响货币政策的效果。货币政策可通过对企业家信心的影响，进而对公司投资效率产生作用。基于中国2007—2016年40个季度A股上市公司样本的实证研究表明：企业家信心在货币政策传导过程中有不可忽视的作用。企业家信心增强或者货币政策宽松时会加剧过度投资，减轻投资不足；企业家信心减弱或者货币政策紧缩时可以有效抑制过度投资，但会加剧投资不足。其中，国有企业对企业家信心和货币政策松紧的敏感性更强。进一步，货币政策对企业投资效率的影响，也会通过货币政策和企业家信心的交互作用而发挥作用。这种作用在国有企业和非国有企业之间无显著差异。     

Political Economy of Regional Integration: The Northeast Asian Model Revisited

It is found that the intra-regional trade share or functional integration plays an important role in the institutionalization of regional integration not only in the European Union (EU) but also in Northeast Asia. The crisis factor, which is measured by the regional economic growth rates, is empirically significant in Northeast Asia but not in the EU. This situation confirms the crisis model for Northeast Asia that emphasizes the stimulating role of crisis for the institutionalization of regional integration. However, the political leadership factor is not empirically significant in Northeast Asia and in the EU, and this finding does not support the political leadership model that emphasizes the facilitating role of political leadership for the institutionalization of regional integration.     

Local tax interaction and endogenous spatial weights based on quality of life

This paper studied the role of municipal quality of life as a driver of strategic tax interactions among local governments. A number of studies point out the existence of strategic interactions using spatial econometric models in which the spatial weights are mostly based on non-economic criteria or basic economic variables such as per capita gross domestic product (GDP). We propose the more sophisticated well-being indicator of municipal quality of life as the driver for these interactions. To deal with the potential endogeneity, we rely on instrumental variable estimators. The empirical analysis focuses on the main local tax in Spain (property) and on municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, and it confirms the relevance of differentials in quality of life for the understanding of tax choices.     

纳税信用评级结果披露与研发投入

以纳税信用评级披露作为一个天然外生冲击,并基于2013—2016年1214家A股上市公司的微观数据构造准自然实验,使用双重差分法系统评估纳税信用评级结果披露对上市公司研发投入的影响。结果发现:纳税信用评级结果披露显著增加了上市公司的研发投入。基于PSM-DID方法的估计结果与上述结论无明显差异。稳健性检验也表明上述结论的正确性。机制检验表明,纳税信用评级结果披露通过降低企业的融资约束,进而促进企业增加研发投入。此外,分样本回归发现纳税信用评级结果披露只能对中小型企业和民营企业的研发投入产生促进作用。     

Fancy Bitcoin and conventional financial assets: Measuring market integration based on connectedness networks

We investigate the relationship between Bitcoin and conventional financial assets from a perspective on the connectedness of asset networks. We adopt the method of measuring connectedness proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012, and 2014) in a VAR system to study the dynamic interdependence between returns in Bitcoin, stocks, oil, and gold. We find that the connectedness between bitcoin and conventional assets is weak. The separation of positive and negative returns in the Bitcoin market shows the existence of an asymmetric pattern of the spillover effects between Bitcoin and conventional assets. A rolling window analysis finds that although Bitcoin prices experience a rising link to other financial assets, the magnitude is proven to be moderate. However, connectedness via negative returns is much stronger than via positive ones and exhibits a clearly increasing trend in recent periods. Our results in application are generally robust to other popular cryptocurrencies, such as ETH and Ripple. The findings presented in this paper have important implications for financial market participants, policymakers, and researchers in light of projected increases in the adoption of Bitcoin, as well as the rapid development of cryptocurrency.     

Organizational Design,Competition, and Financial Exchanges

We investigate the incentives for vertical and horizontal integration in the financial securities service industry. In a model with two exchanges and two central securities depositories (CSDs), we find that decentralized decisions might lead to privately and socially inferior industry equilibria with vertical integration of both CSDs with their respective exchanges. Allowing for horizontal integration of CSDs avoids privately inferior industry equilibria. However, we observe too little horizontal integration from the social perspective. We link our results to recent regulatory and institutional developments such as the emergence of multilateral trading facilities, over-the-counter regulation, and financial harmonization.     

Dynamic Tax Evasion with Habit Formation in Consumption*

We model the optimal intertemporal decision of an agent who chooses tax evasion and consumption, over an infinite lifetime horizon, where consumption is driven by habits. We find the following: (i) tax evaders reduce consumption in the early stages of habit accumulation and increase it over time; (ii) habit formation has a dampening effect on tax evasion; (iii) neglecting tax evasion can lead to habit overestimation; (iv) the effect of the tax rate on tax evasion is ambiguous; (v) heavy fines are more efficient than frequent controls in reducing tax evasion.