Conjectural variations,risk aversion and price-cost margins

Summary We have shown that introduction of random conjectural variations and risk aversion into an oligopoly model leads to results in line with those derived earlier for competitive and monopolistic firms. In particular, a risk-averse firm has smaller output and higher expected price-cost margin than a risk-neutral firm. For a specific form of conjectural variations we have shown that under risk aversion the firm-level expected price-cost margins depend on the market structure, measured in terms of the Herfindahl index of the rest of the firms in the industry, as well as on the expected degree of correlation between the competitors' reactions.     

The structure of optimal tariff rates in a large country with market power

We theoretically analyze the optimal tariff problem that arises in a large country with market power. By using a model with more than two traded goods, we derive (1) the condition for optimal import tariff rates to be ranked, and (2) the condition under which the optimum import tariff becomes uniform. These conditions are established in a three-good model and in an N-good model. The results are evaluated on the basis of compensated excess demand elasticity, and hence do not require information on income effects. I would like to thank Tatsuo Hatta, Makoto Okamura, Katsuhiko Suzuki and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

Financial market development,global financial crisis and economic growth: evidence from developing nations

Emerging and frontier markets in Africa have witnessed various economic and financial reforms aimed at integrating the domestic markets into the global financial market to attract investment. Whether these reforms promote high economic growth remains inconclusive. The paper applies the pooled mean group estimation technique to empirically re-investigate the link between financial market development, global financial crisis, and economic growth in selected African economies. The results strongly support our hypotheses that stock market and banking sector development promotes economic growth in the selected countries. Moreover, financial crisis reduce the positive effects of both the stock market and banking sector developments on economic growth. The study suggests that both the banking sector and stock market are important to deliver the long-run economic growth that the African region desired. Moreover, effort should be made to enact policy measures that would ensure development of the stock market which has received inadequate attention.     

Financial market participation and the developing country business cycle

I explore the implications of limited participation in financial markets on a standard small open economy business cycle model. Despite its parsimony, the limited participation model developed in this paper improves over the standard model in terms of explaining two important features of business cycle facts of developing countries: high volatility of consumption, and high negative correlation between the trade balance and output. Limited participation model is then used to inspect the effects of financial development and integration on macroeconomic volatility. Under a standard calibration, limited participation model leads to the conclusion that financial development and integration are associated with higher investment and output volatility. Effect of more participation on consumption volatility is dependent on the specification of the risk premium function.     

Nonlinearities in the real exchange rates: new evidence from developed and developing countries

This paper investigates nonlinearities in the dynamics of real exchange rates. We use Monte Carlo simulations to establish the size properties of the Teräsvirta-Anderson test, when the dynamics of the real exchange rate is influenced by an exogenous process. In addition, we show that a modified nonlinearity test, which includes additional right-hand-side variables, performs much better than the original in both Monte Carlo exercises and in the actual data on 1431 bilateral real exchange rate series. Finally, we investigate the dynamics of the real exchange rate for both developed and developing countries using the modified test for the recent floating period. In general, the results find a greater incidence of nonlinear dynamics for developing country real exchange rates.     

Ownership structure,monitoring, and market value of companies: evidence from an unusual privatization mode

This study analyses the impact of ownership structure and market liquidity on company value. We investigate different aspects of ownership: the risk of political interference, private investors vs. the state acting as influential blockholders, and preferential political treatment of companies. Using a unique dataset of Polish partial privatizations initiated by shares transfers to entities under limited government influence, we find that government divestments can enhance company value, due to reduction in risk of political interference. A potential increase in the liquidity of trades in transferred companies’ shares also boosts their market value. On the other hand, an increased likelihood of the emergence of private blockholders able to expropriate minority shareholders reduces the firm’s market value. Our results support the political view of privatization: governments have objectives different to profit maximization, which leads to suboptimal investment from this point of view and lower market value of companies. We also develop a model to empirically distinguish between different aspects of ownership on company value.     

Capital structure and value of reported earnings: evidence from an emerging market

This article documents a nonlinear impact of capital structure on the value of reported earnings in India during the period between 2009 and 2015. Our results show that earnings reported by firms with moderate level of debt are more valuable than earnings reported by firms with low or high level of debt. Our results are robust across various proxies of capital structure and across various sub-samples. This article argues that moderate level of debt is associated with low-agency problems, while low and high level of debt is synonymous to high-agency problems. Differences in agency problems result in reported earnings that have very different levels of relevance.     

Industry profit margins and concentration: evidence from UK manufacturing

This paper examines the determination of UK manufacturing industry profit margins using a panel of data from 1980 to 1991. In particular, we test whether industry concentration is important in shaping margins. Our results indicate that for both pooled cross-section data and for fixed effects models there is a robust positive correlation between industry margins and market concentration. However, the formulation of the margin matters for establishing this association. For those margins where a net revenue measure is used in the denominator of the margin then we are able to isolate the predicted relationship. However, for those margins that use gross revenue in the denominator the matter is more complex. Without controlling for a measure of material costs in the estimating equations then a simple concentration effect cannot be isolated.     

Openness,country size,and government size: Additional evidence from a large cross-country panel

A body of influential research has suggested that there is a negative association between country size and government size and between country size and openness, and these may account for the positive association between openness and government size. Estimation of several models from 41-year panel data for over 150 countries indicates that while pooled OLS estimates support the foregoing scenario, when cross-country heterogeneity is taken into consideration through the fixed-effects format, there is little evidence of a negative association of country size with either government size or openness. Therefore, it does not seem likely that positive association between openness and government size arises due to the mediating role of country size.     

Efficient market hypothesis: evidence from a small open-economy

This article studies the efficient market hypothesis for the Istanbul Stock Exchange National 100 (ISEN 100) price index within the Lumsdaine and Papell two structural breaks unit root test framework. The main finding of the article shows that the ISEN 100 index is characterized by a unit root with two structural breaks, which is consistent with the efficient market hypothesis. In addition, the article applies the augmented Dickey–Fuller test, runs test and the variance-ratio test to test the weak-form efficiency of the ISEN 100. The analyses are repeated for three sub-periods delineated in view of the endogenously determined break points.     

Trade efficiency and economic development: evidence from a cross country comparison

Economic theory suggests that development is enhanced through income growth, which is driven through increased trade. However, the empirical evidence of such a relationship most of the times is proved to be weak. In this study we try to determine the factors influencing this relationship by measuring ‘trade efficiency’. Using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) window method for a sample of 16 OECD countries, we obtained the efficiency scores and the optimal output levels for the inefficient countries for a time period of 5 years under consideration. Results drawn from the broadly used ratio analysis were also compared to the results derived from the DEA model. Our empirical findings show that ‘trade efficient’ countries have clear characteristics like low-exchange rates for exports, low R&D intensity, high-value intra industry trade and positive impact of net trade on their gross domestic product.     

Corporate tax policy and heterogeneous firm innovation: Evidence from a developing country

This paper adds to the literature by identifying the causality of corporate tax policy on firm innovation in a developing country. We exploit the China’s 2006 corporate income tax base reform to integrate the tax system between foreign-invested and state/collective-controlled firms as a natural experiment. The difference-in-differences strategy documents a positive effect of corporate tax deduction on firm patenting. The effect is particularly significant if a firm is of larger size or locates in eastern provinces. We also examine possible channels behind the findings, including changes in R&D and capital investment, intangible assets, financial constraints, and new product sales.     

The impact of trading floor closure on market efficiency: evidence from the Toronto Stock Exchange

On 23 April 1997, the Toronto Stock Exchange closed its trading floor, making it at that time the second-largest stock exchange in North America to choose a purely electronic trading environment for its equities. Exploiting this natural experiment, we find that the move to electronic trading resulted in a higher cost of immediacy (bid–ask spreads), increased information asymmetry and an overall deterioration of short-horizon return predictability from past order flows, reducing the efficiency of price discovery. Our results suggest that the human element plays an important role in order execution and complements automated electronic trading by improving the efficiency of incorporating new information into prices.     

Deregulation, competition and consumer welfare in a banking market: evidence from Hong Kong

This paper examines competition among commercial banks following deregulation in a small open economy. I jointly estimate a system of differentiated product demand and pricing equations, and use conduct parameters to identify market structure. Overall, I find positive outcomes for the banking deregulation, which suggest that the benefits of deregulation understood in large industrialized economies indeed apply to a small open economy. Encouragingly, the industry becomes more competitive and the consumers are better-off after the deregulation. Empirical results also indicate that the banking sector is characterized by non-cooperative competitive behavior. Bank size is an important determinant of consumer’s bank choice.     

True protection and the real exchange rate in a capital-rich developing country: some evidence for Saudi Arabia

This paper investigates how alternative measures of the real exchange rate respond to trade policy and terms of trade changes. It employs a modelling framework which endogenises the price of non-tradeable goods, and applies the model to price and real exchange rate data for Saudi Arabia for the period 1982–92. The results show that the popular propositions about the response of the real exchange rate to terms of trade or trade policy changes do not necessary hold. This is a consequence of the measure of the real exchange rate utilized, rather than a product of Saudi Arabia's capital richness.     

Growth,unemployment and labour market institutions: evidence from a cross-section of EU regions

The responsiveness of unemployment to growth is an issue of ongoing political and academic interest. Economic growth is supposed to be the key to increase labour demand and reduce unemployment. Departing from Okun's law, most research on the unemployment intensity of growth has focused on national disparities and the role of labour market institutions. Empirical evidence at the regional level is scarce. We investigate differences in regional labour market responsiveness and their potential determinants for a cross section of European regions. The data set covers the NUTS 2 regions in the EU15 for the period 1980 to 2002. Following a spatial modelling approach interaction among neighbouring labour markets is taken into account. Our findings point to substantial differences in labour market effects of output growth among European countries and regions. Both national labour market institutions and regional characteristics, such as structural change explain a significant part of these disparities.     

Transaction tax and stock market behavior: evidence from an emerging market

This study examines the impact of a stamp tax rate increase on market behavior, using data from two stock exchanges in China. We find that when the tax rate increases from 0.3 to 0.5% (which implies that the transaction cost increases by about 1/3) trading volume decreases by 1/3. This implies an elasticity of turnover with respect to a stamp tax of −50% and an elasticity of turnover with respect to transaction cost of −100%. The markets’ volatility significantly increases after the increase in the tax rate. Furthermore, the change in the volatility structure indicates that the markets become less efficient in the sense that shocks are less quickly assimilated in the markets.

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Two-way relationship between innovation and market structure: evidence from Indian high and medium technology firms

ABSTRACT

This study analyses a two-way relationship between innovation and market structure in Indian high and medium technology firms. We perform an empirical analysis based on a simultaneous equation model on data for 991 high and medium technology firms during 2000–2015. Patent applications and patent grants capture innovation activity of the firms. We find that the market structure has an insignificant impact on innovation. A separate analysis of neck-and-neck firms also suggests that market structure has no impact on innovation. On the other hand, patenting has a positive and significant impact on market structure in both high and medium technology firms. The study concludes that in-house technology creation is a vital source of market dominance in Indian high and medium technology firms.     

Price competition and market transparency: evidence from a random response technique

Surveys can increase market transparency when information asymmetries are present—but this will only happen when respondents answer questions truthfully. Sometimes, however, it might not be in the respondents’ best interest to provide truthful information on their firm or market. This will be especially true when other firms can exploit any information they provide. Understanding when, and under what conditions, respondents answer questions truthfully is important to researchers studying these markets and to policymakers using firm surveys to identify ways of improving the business environment. Using data from two countries in South Asia, this paper uses a random response technique to identify respondents that do not answer truthfully. We label these respondents as ‘reticent’. We show that respondents become more reticent when their firms face intense price competition. We argue that this is because intense competition gives respondents a greater incentive to misreport information to reduce market transparency.     

Gender, piece rates and wages: evidence from matched employer-employee data

Why are women disproportionately on piece rates? We investigatethree possible explanations: (1) Women are more likely to beon piece rates, because they have a shorter expected tenurethan men. (2) A greater demand for flexibility between workand home attracts women to work place technologies suitablefor variable pay based on individual performance. (3) Womenprefer piece rates, because they are subject to less wage discriminationwhen objective performance measures are available. The weightof our empirical evidence supports the third hypothesis. Theunexplained gender wage gap is substantially smaller in thepiece-rate regime than in the time-wage regime.