CULTURE AND GROWTH: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Using Hofstede's cultural data set, this paper examines the impact of cultural characteristics on a nation's economic performance. Using a two‐step estimation procedure, we first estimate a panel growth regression and obtain estimates of each nation's fixed effects, which reflect idiosyncratic differences in growth performance. In the second step, we regress the fixed effects on invariant cultural and institutional variables. Our estimation results suggest that individuality and tolerance for uncertainty are the most important cultural factors in explaining nation‐specific growth performance. Furthermore, our findings suggest that political and property rights play a major role in determining idiosyncratic growth.     

INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT AND GROWTH: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

This paper explores empirically the relationship between infrastructure and economic growth by including the data of expenditure in infrastructure as a share of GDP in traditional growth cross-country regressions. Since results are inconclusive, the paper elaborates some new indicators of investment in infrastructure employing physical units of infrastructure. They are positively and significantly correlated with growth in two different samples of countries.     

政府大数据赋能城市创新：理论机制与经验证据*

中国城市创新存在着明显的发展不平衡、协同性差的问题。政府大数据作为公共信息资源的宝库,是赋能城市创新、实现协同发展的关键要素。本文基于政府传播视角,通过Netlogo仿真实验识别了影响政府大数据传播效果的关键因素,并将其纳入企业公共信息资本积累函数,以此拓展了企业横向创新内生增长模型并探究了政府大数据赋能城市创新的微观机制;此外,本文以2014年实施的“信息惠民国家试点”政策为准自然实验,采用双重差分法实证检验了政府大数据对城市创新的赋能作用。理论研究表明：激励政府提高传播意愿和优化大数据传播情景能通过改善政府传播效果促进企业公共信息资本积累提量增速,加速企业创新、赋能城市创新;实证研究发现：信息惠民国家试点政策对试点城市创新指数的平均提升作用约为29%。为此,有序推广政府大数据惠民试点工程、多措多举推动政府传播环境的优化与制度供给,是助力城市创新的可行思路。     

ARE ATHLETES DOPED? SOME THEORETICAL ARGUMENTS AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Sports fans all over the world have recently witnessed an increasing number of spectacular doping cases, leading to considerable annoyance in the public. However, our knowledge regarding the prevalence of doping is still quite limited, leading some people to speculate that (nearly) all professional athletes are doped and possibly even have to be doped to be good enough to compete successfully in highly selective tournaments. On the other hand, particularly representatives of the sports associations pretend that since the number of positively tested athletes remains small, there are only a few "black sheep," while in general, the world of sport is clean and fair. In the recent past, a number of theoretical models have been developed that can be empirically tested, which, in the end, may lead to the formulation of policy recommendations (ranging from higher sanctions to legalizing doping). We review the more important models and present anecdotal as well as some quantitative empirical evidence on the prevalence as well as the determinants of doping. ( JEL K42, L83, M52)     

SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE ON DEMAND SYSTEM* AND OPTIMAL COMMODITY TAXATION

We have two major tasks in this paper. The first is to obtain a reasonable estimate of the Japanese demand system, which includes leisure, income and commodity choices. The second is to compute and evaluate the optimal tax equilibrium. The estimation result, based on the Almost Ideal Demand System, is found to be consistent with the microeconomic theory. We evaluate the optimal commodity tax structure by calculating the equilibria under lump‐sum, optimal commodity and uniform commodity taxation schemes. The deadweight losses under uniform taxation are very small, and the optimal commodity tax rates are strikingly close to uniform.     

FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS AND TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR ITALIAN PRODUCERS' COOPERATIVES

ABSTRACT ** :  In this paper, we test the extent to which producers' cooperatives can experience an increase in technical efficiency following a tightening of financial constraints. This hypothesis is tested on a sample of Italian conventional and cooperative firms for the wine production and processing sector, using frontier analysis. The results support the hypothesis that increasing financial pressure can affect positively the cooperatives efficiency.     

THE IMPACT OF GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE ON GROWTH: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM A HETEROGENEOUS PANEL

This paper investigates the impact of government expenditure on growth, in a heterogeneous panel, for a sample of developing countries. Using generalized method of moments techniques, we show that countries with substantial government current expenditure have strong growth effects, which vary considerably across the nations.     

COSTS OF HOUSING CRISES: INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE

This paper analyses the costs of housing crises in terms of GDP growth and the economic conditions under which crises are particularly costly. Housing crises are often followed by recessions that are longer than other recessions. According to empirical estimates, a housing crisis reduces the GDP growth rate in the following year on average by two percentage points and has still a considerable negative impact in the second year. One important channel through which the effect of housing crises is passed on seems to be the banking sector. In addition, our results suggest that negative wealth effects possibly cause further reductions in GDP growth.     

THE MONEY DEMAND FUNCTION FOR THE EURO AREA: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

This paper sets out to re‐examine the money demand function for the euro area. Traditional specifications often yield unsatisfactory results: instability of short and long‐term coefficients; relatively large differences between estimated and actual value of variables; and significant changes in the number of long‐term relationships, etc. Using a standard Vector Error Correction Model, we find that the usual specification is indeed unstable. However, introducing a European equity price gives rise to a more stable system. Furthermore, recursive estimates confirm the relative stability of long‐term coefficients. Estimates of the real money gap, based on the money demand equation including equity prices, point to moderate, albeit persistent, excess liquidity in the euro area in recent years. The real money gap contains information about future inflation but this content may have diminished since 2001.     

JOB REALLOCATION,FINANCIAL CRISES,AND POLICY REFORMS: EVIDENCE FROM KOREA

This article investigates the dynamic process of job reallocation across Korean firms from 1985 to 2013 focusing on how the 1997 Korean financial crisis and the subsequent reforms altered job flows. I find evidence that while job reallocation was moderate and acyclical before the crisis, after the crisis it substantially intensified and exhibited procyclicality. Particularly, the reshuffling of employment across firms from different industries and of different sizes significantly occurred during the crisis period. Examining job reallocation from a geographical perspective, I find that the driving forces of regional job reallocation rates depend on the local heterogeneity of industries and geography. (JEL J63, E32, R10)     

政府投资、政府消费与世界经济周期:以中国为例

本文从世界经济周期理论模型出发,从理论上证明政府支出的变动将会影响本国或他国经济周期,并证明当参与主体“势均力敌”时,政府支出对世界经济周期的影响与当两国相差悬殊时政府支出对世界经济周期的影响不同。文章以美国为例,分析了不同类别的政府支出对世界经济周期的影响程度不同。同时,文章还以中国为例,证实了发展中国家的政府支出与世界经济周期的关系与发达国家之间的投资与世界经济周期的关系不同,也以计量经济模型分析了政府支出及其滞后值对世界经济周期的影响,并指出作为发展中国家的中国政府支出在应对世界经济危机时,具有稳定功能,也具有“投资”的性质。     

ZAKAT AND INEQUALITY: SOME EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTAN

Zakat is an important form of religiously-mandated charity under Islam. This paper examines its impact on income inequality in Pakistan. Data from 1987–88 are used to construct two income distributions-one that would have obtained if zakat had not been given, and one that did obtain when such giving took place. Atkinson-Kolm-Sen relative indices of income inequality are computed which show that zakat does reduce measured income inequality in Pakistan. Both intra-province and inter-province components of over-all inequality decline, though the amount of change is small.

So give to the kinsman his due, and to the needy, and to the wayfarer. That b best for those who seek Allah's countenance.

The Koran     

PRIVATE INTERHOUSEHOLD TRANSFERS OF MONEY AND TIME: NEW EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

There is a growing awareness that it is important to understand patterns of family assistance; however, there is still a great deal of information about private transfers that is not known. This study begins to fill this void by presenting results from a new survey and integrating these findings with evidence from recent studies that use other new data sets. It is found that: (i) a large share of households participate in private transfer networks, (ii) a greater amount of financial assistance is provided to lower income family members, (iii) altruism does not fully explain transfer behavior, and (iv) people in their 20s and 30s receive more assistance than people of other ages, even the very old.     

GLOBALIZATION AND REGIONAL INCOME INEQUALITY: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM WITHIN CHINA

China's recent accession to the WTO is expected to accelerate its integration into the world economy, which aggravates concerns over the impact of globalization on the already rising inter-region income inequality in China. This paper discusses China's globalization process and estimates an income generating function, incorporating trade and FDI variables. It then applies the newly developed Shapley value decomposition technique to quantify the contributions of globalization, along with other variables, to regional inequality. It is found that: (a) globalization constitutes a positive and substantial share of regional inequality and the share rises over time; (b) domestic capital, however, emerges as the largest contributor to regional inequality; (c) economic reform characterized by privatization exerts an increasingly significant impact on regional inequality; and (d) the relative contributions of education, location, urbanization and dependency ratio to regional inequality have been declining.     

DOES WORKSHARING WORK? SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM THE IAB‐ESTABLISHMENT PANEL

Recent policy debate in Europe suggests that a shorter workweek will lead to more jobs (worksharing). We derive and estimate a model where the firm employs two types of workers, some working overtime, the rest standard hours. Worksharing is not always a prediction of the theory. Using German establishment‐level panel data (the IAB‐ESTABLISHMENT panel), 1993–1999, we find no evidence of pro‐worksharing effects except in small plants in the East German non‐service sector. There is evidence that a cut in standard hours lowers the proportion of overtime workers in a plant, as predicted by the theory, and increases the proportion of standard‐time plants.     

ILLEGAL MUSIC DOWNLOADING AND ITS IMPACT ON LEGITIMATE SALES: AUSTRALIAN EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

This paper explores illegal music file‐sharing activity and its effect on Australian sales of singles in the physical and digital retail markets. Using fifteen weeks of Australian Recording Industry Association weekly chart rankings of physical and digital sales, combined with a proxy for download activity derived from the popular peer‐to‐peer (P2P) network Limewire, the evidence suggests no discernible impact of download activity on legitimate sales. Whilst significant negative correlation between chart rank and download activity is observed in the digital market, once download endogeneity is purged from the model and song heterogeneity is controlled for no significant relationship remains.