Foreign informational lobbying can enhance tourism: Evidence from the Caribbean

There exist legal channels for informational lobbying of US policymakers by foreign principals. Foreign governments and private sector principals frequently and intensively use this institutional channel to lobby on trade and tourism issues. This paper empirically studies whether such lobbying effectively achieves its goal of trade promotion in the context of Caribbean tourism, and suggests the potential for using foreign lobbying as a vehicle for development. Panel data are used to explore and quantify the association between foreign lobbying by Caribbean principals and US tourist arrivals to Caribbean destinations. A variety of sensitivity analyses support the finding of a strong association. The policy implications are obvious and potentially important for developing countries.     

Dynamic lobbying: Evidence from foreign lobbying in the U.S. Congress

How do interest groups decide which member of Congress to target when decisions are made collectively? Do lobbying strategies change as legislation advances? Answering these questions is challenging due to a lack of systematic observations of lobbying contacts. I answer these questions using a novel data set constructed from reports submitted by lobbyists on behalf of South Korea regarding its free trade agreement with the United States for 10 years. I show that a diverse set of politicians are contacted but the timing, intensity, and strategy of lobbying contacts vary by politicians' institutional positions as well as their predisposed preferences for free trade.     

Impact of foreign direct investments on economic growth in Africa: Evidence from three decades of panel data analyses

This paper examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in Africa and presents estimations based on panel data of 50 African countries during the period from 1980 to 2009, and the system generalized method of moment (SYS-GMM) estimators as proposed by Blundell and Bond (1998). It finds that FDI inflows had a significant impact on economic growth in the African region during the period of interest. It also finds that while the low level of human resources did not limit the impact of FDI, and that the impact of FDI on economic growth was negative during the period from 1980 to 1994 and positive during the period from 1995 to 2009.     

外汇风险对冲和公司价值:基于中国跨国公司的实证研究

2005年7月人民币汇改以来,人民币升值,特别是相对于美元大幅升值,其不利影响开始显现,我国不少跨国公司使用外汇衍生品来对冲人民币汇率升值带来的风险。然而,尽管不少国外学者对金融衍生品使用和公司价值的关系进行了深入研究,但以中国公司为样本的研究仍很少见。中信泰富等衍生品投机事件和2008年金融危机的发生使得我国学者对金融衍生工具的作用和性质争议不断,使用外汇衍生品对冲外汇风险是否增加公司价值仍是一个有待深入研究的问题。本文基于2007年至2009年968家中国跨国公司的数据,实证检验了外汇衍生品使用和公司价值的关系,发现外汇衍生品使用带来了约10%的价值溢价,这一重要发现和基于发达国家的不少研究相一致。该研究成果支持了外汇衍生品在汇率风险管理中的积极作用和加快发展我国外汇衍生品市场特别是交易所市场以掌握人民币汇率定价权的重要性和紧迫性。     

The effect of the Internet on economic growth: Evidence from cross-country panel data

Using cross-country panel data, we found evidence that the Internet plays a positive and significant role in economic growth after investment ratio, government consumption ratio, and inflation were used as control variables in the growth equation.     

是什么导致了“污染天堂”:贸易还是FDI?——来自中国省级面板数据的证据

本文利用1999-2008年中国省级面板数据,应用新近发展的面板向量自回归模型,研究FDI、贸易和环境规制之间的互动关系。结果发现,污染天堂假说在中国基本成立,而导致中国环境压力增大的最主要因素,并非是外商直接投资,而是自由贸易。这个结论有力地支持了西方污染中国的命题。进一步分析还发现,环境规制与对外贸易存在非对称的互动关系:环境规制对对外贸易存在显著负面影响,证实了污染天堂效应的存在;但反过来,对外贸易在一定程度上有利于环境治理努力的增强。最后本文选择多种环境规制指标和划分东、中、西部子样本的方法进行稳健性分析,证实了结论的可靠性。     

Financial development,political rights,civil liberties and economic growth: Evidence from South Asia

A number of existing studies have examined the theoretical link between financial development and economic growth. Kose et al. (2010), among others, have argued that financial development can affect the extent of the benefits from foreign direct investment. Other studies, such as Huang (2010) have suggested that the quality of political institutions can also affect the level of financial development. This implies that the extent of the benefits from financial development also depend on the quality of governance. However, few empirical studies have considered these issues. By making use of panel data over the period 1970 to 2009, this paper focuses on the impact of the interaction of (i) financial development and foreign direct investment and (ii) financial development and the quality of governance on economic growth in South Asia. Our empirical analysis, suggests that financial development has contributed to an increase in the benefits of FDI in South Asia. In addition, improvement in political rights and civil liberties has also enhanced the benefits of financial development in South Asia.     

Agglomeration Effects in Foreign Direct Investment and the Pollution Haven Hypothesis

Does environmental regulation impair international competitiveness of pollution-intensive industries to the extent that they relocate to countries with less stringent regulation, turning those countries into “pollution havens”? We test this hypothesis using panel data on outward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows of various industries in the German manufacturing sector and account for several econometric issues that have been ignored in previous studies. Most importantly, we demonstrate that externalities associated with FDI agglomeration can bias estimates away from finding a pollution haven effect if omitted from the analysis. We include the stock of inward FDI as a proxy for agglomeration and employ a GMM estimator to control for endogenous time-varying determinants of FDI flows. Furthermore, we propose a difference estimator based on the least polluting industry to break the possible correlation between environmental regulatory stringency and unobservable attributes of FDI recipients in the cross-section. When accounting for these issues we find robust evidence of a pollution haven effect for the chemical industry.     

Foreign aid,institutional quality and economic growth: Evidence from the developing world

This paper examines the effect of sectoral foreign aid and institutional quality on the economic growth of 74 developing countries from Africa, Asia and South America, and covers the period 1980–2016. We consider bilateral aid flows into three sectors, namely education, health and agriculture, and find that among the three types of aid, education aid is more effective for aid-receiving countries. The effect is conditional on the current level of institutional quality and varies substantially across regions. While education aid is more effective in South America, health aid is more effective in Asia and agricultural aid is more effective in Africa. As the level of institutional quality improves, the gap between the marginal effect of education, health and agricultural aids widen. Our findings have strong policy implication for donor countries and international aid organisations, which shows that it is more desirable to shift aid flows towards the education sector as the level of institutional quality improves.     

外资并购与目标企业效率研究:基于啤酒行业的实证分析

外资并购是外国直接投资进入中国市场的一种主要手段.随着加入WTO后,外资在中国啤酒行业掀起一波接一波的并购浪潮.以中国啤酒行业2002-2006年间28起并购为研究对象,选取124家啤酒企业的财务数据,采用DEA-Tobit两阶段回归模型,实证分析外资并购相对于国内并购对目标企业的效率的影响.结果显示:外资并购既没有提升目标企业的纯技术效率,也没有对目标企业的规模效率产生影响,而与之形成对照的是内资并购对目标企业的纯技术效率有显著的提升.     

The patterns and determinants of longevity in Russia's regions: Evidence from panel data

In this paper we examine whether regions of Russia have been converging or diverging in their longevity levels during the 1990s and evaluate the divergence effect of the 1998 financial crisis. We also estimate the impact of changes in poverty and public health spending on inter-temporal variations in longevity using regional-level panel data for 77 Russian regions from 1994 to 2000. Finally, we investigate the extent to which the gradual recovery in longevity observed after 1994 was derailed by the 1998 financial crisis and the public policy shifts required for regions to regain their Soviet-era levels of longevity. We find a significant negative effect of the 1998 crisis on longevity independently of the factors related directly to poverty and public health spending. In addition, a permanent negative shock to the incidence of poverty and the amount of publicly-provided health care in a region has enduring consequences on the population's health. Finally, the effect of increases in public health spending on longevity is related positively to the incidence of poverty. Journal of Comparative Economics 33 (4) (2005) 788–813.     

The Labor Market Effects of FDI: A Panel Data Evidence from Mexico

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the effects of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows on six labor market outcomes by using a panel data of the Mexican states from 2005 to 2015. By relying on the system Generalized Method of Moments estimator to address potential endogeneity of FDI in the labor market outcomes regressions, this study finds that the FDI inflows result in a reduction in the overall unemployment rate. Moreover, the FDI is associated with a decrease in the percentage of employed people with the need and availability to offer more working hours and an increase in the median hourly wage rate. The FDI is not likely to influence the critical employment, informal sector employment, and unemployment duration.     

Fiscal Multiplier in Microstates: Evidence from the Caribbean

The global financial crisis and the attendant Great Recession of 2007–2009 have spawned a full-scale re-examination on the effectiveness of fiscal policy throughout the world. While this has led to a plethora of analyses in developed countries, the same abundance of the work has not been evident for developing counties. This paper uses time-series analysis to examine the multiplier impact of fiscal policy on growth and other macroeconomic variables in the case of four Caribbean states. Although these countries have similar degrees of openness, they differ in debt burdens and economic structures, thus providing a natural laboratory for this investigation. We concluded that fiscal multipliers among the sample countries are quite low and that the contemporaneous fiscal stance appears to be pro-cyclical.     

外资研发与大中型企业技术创新能力——基于产业层面的面板协整检验

本文利用中国产业层面的面板数据,运用混合组间均值估计方法对外资研发与中国大中型企业技术创新之间的关系进行了面板协整检验(PanelDataCointegration)和估计。新的检验方法表明,无论是以新产品开发项目数,还是以专利申请数来衡量国内企业的技术创新产出,协整检验统计量都在1%的水平下显著,表明外资研发与国内企业专利申请之间存在长期的均衡关系。同时,误差修正模型表明短期内外资研发与国内企业技术创新的波动向长期均衡调整的幅度为52.8%,且短期内各个行业对长期均衡的反馈程度各不相同。     

Adoption and disadoption of electric cookstoves in urban Ethiopia: Evidence from panel data

Previous studies on improved cookstove adoption in developing countries use cross-sectional data, which make it difficult to control for unobserved heterogeneity and investigate what happens to adoption over time. We use robust non-linear panel data and hazard models on three rounds of panel data from urban Ethiopia to investigate the determinants of adoption and disadoption of electric cookstoves over time. We find that the prices of electricity and firewood and access to credit are major determinants of adoption and transition. Our findings have important implications for policies aiming at promotion of energy transition and reduction of the pressure on forest resources in developing countries.     

Foreign direct investment and its impact on real wages: evidence from Turkish micro-level data

This paper analyzes the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) on wages, using Turkish firm-level data from 2003 to 2010, a period which coincides with significant FDI inflows both in manufacturing and service sector firms in the region. We explore the possibility of increased foreign presence translating into shifts in either labor demand or supply curves thereby resulting in changing the total wage bill or wage per worker in the host country. To empirically test this relationship we employ a dynamic specification of the wage equation. After addressing endogeneity concerns, the results reveal that foreign presence measured in terms of intra- and inter-sectoral linkages is related to higher wage bills in the host economy, hence strengthening the argument for attracting greater foreign investment to enhance labor welfare.     

中国对外直接投资对进出口贸易的影响分析

笔者在分析对外直接投资对进出口贸易影响机制的基础上,使用1993年～2009年中国对105个国家(地区)直接投资和进出口贸易的面板数据,应用动态VAR模型和面板格兰杰因果检验方法对我国的情况进行实证研究。结果表明:我国对外直接投资与出口及进口之间均存在双向格兰杰因果关系,对外直接投资是贸易创造型的,但这种创造效应还较为有限。因此,应积极发展对外直接投资,并发挥其与贸易的良性互动关系。     

Evidence of Wagner's law from Indian states

In this paper, we test for Wagner's law for 15 Indian states. We consider nine panels of states based on geography and level of economic development. Using panel unit-root, panel-cointegration, and panel-Granger causality analysis, we unravel strong evidence of Wagner's law. However, we find that the Wagner's law relationship is consumption rather than capital expenditure driven. This is a fresh revelation and our results are robust to different model specifications.     

“母市场效应”:来自中国制造业对外贸易面板数据的证据

文章通过模型的建构证明了母市场效应的存在性。文章采用Bergstrand(1989)的引力模型,考察了中国制造业中出口额较大、出口国较多的HS码共28章产品。通过对各章产品面板数据的回归分析发现,除了陶瓷品外,其余27章产品均存在显著的母市场效应。其中钢铁、无机化学和车辆等产品呈现较强的母市场效应,而纺织品、精密仪器等产品则呈现较弱的母市场效应。28章产品中除了陶瓷外其余均为劳动密集型产品,而且绝大部分产品对伙伴国来说为奢侈品。距离、是否接壤和是否有共同语言等变量对中国制造业产品的出口影响并不太显著,对各章产品影响方向也不一致。自由贸易协定对中国制造业产品出口具有显著的促进作用。