Making EMU Work: Some lessons from the 1990s

This paper investigates what lessons may be learned from Europe's convergence process of the 1990s. The paper challenges the conventional focus on labour market institutions and 'structural rigidities' as the root cause behind Europe's poor employment record. Instead, it is argued that macro demand management played the key role, particularly monetary policy. Concentrating on Germany, the analysis shows that fiscal consolidation was accompanied by monetary tightness of an extraordinary degree and duration. This finding is of interest regarding the past as well as the future. For the Maastricht regime much resembles the one that produced the unsound policy mix of the 1990s: a constrained fiscal authority paired with an independent monetary authority free to impose its will on the overall outcome. The analysis thus highlights a key asymmetry in the Maastricht regime that is likely to continue to inflict a deflationary bias on the system. It is argued that this policy bias may be overcome only if the ECB deliberately assumed its real role of generating domestic demand-led growth, thereby resolving Euroland's key structural problem: asymmetric monetary policy. As regards the conventional structuralist theme, the analysis debunks the 'Dutch myth' of supply-led growth through structural reform. Depicting a popular fallacy of composition, we stress that the peculiar Dutch strategy of demand-led growth does not present itself as an option for Euroland.     

Firm growth and R&D: Evidence from the Portuguese manufacturing industry

This work studies the effects of R&D activities and investment, both physical and R&D, on the growth of firms by considering a dynamic firm growth model with serial correlation. The main hypotheses maintain that firms with a strong commitment to R&D have a higher growth rate, and investment has a positive effect on firm growth. We investigate such relations with reference to an unbalanced panel data set of Portuguese manufacturing firms over the period of 1990 to 2001. We find that a systematic tendency for smaller firms to grow more quickly is the main reason why firm growth is not entirely stochastic.     

Firm Performance and Women on the Board: Evidence from Spanish Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

ABSTRACT

This study examines gender diversity on boards of directors in a sample of nonfinancial Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for 2003–8, finding that the probability of women on the board increases with firm performance, defined as return on assets, and family ownership, but diminishes with corporate ownership and firm risk. It also finds, when examining the full sample, a positive effect of the presence of women board members on firm performance. The study also obtains a similar positive effect in most subsamples, including in firms with corporate ownership, where family connections play less role in the election of board members, and in firms in the secondary and tertiary sectors, which are characterized by having greater proximity to final consumers than those in the primary sector.     

大学生就业问题研究——基于辽宁数据的理论分析与政策论证

本文针对日益严重的大学生就业形势,主要依据笔者对辽宁省2009年应届毕业生1%样本的问卷调查和80余家企业用人单位的问卷调查及对沈阳、大连人才市场的若干调查结果,试图从总量与结构相交织的新视角,就如何以可持续的政策措施来解决大学生就业问题做一新的探讨.     

汇率冲击对企业退出行为的影响——来自2005年人民币汇率制度改革的证据

本文运用匹配的中国工业企业数据库和中国海关总署企业进出口数据库来构建企业层面的汇率暴露指标,并利用2005年人民币汇率制度改革来识别汇率冲击对企业退出行为的影响。研究结果表明,2005年人民币汇率制度改革引致的汇率冲击通过影响企业面临的竞争环境,提高了企业退出的可能性,汇率冲击能够解释部分企业的退出行为。进一步的分析表明,汇率冲击对生产率低的企业的退出影响更大,起到了改善要素配置效率的作用,这表明汇率在促进产业结构调整和经济增长方式转型中发挥了作用。此外,企业面临的融资约束在汇率冲击对企业退出行为的影响中扮演了重要的角色,企业融资能够缓解汇率冲击带来的负面影响。     

A View from the South on: ‘The Australian Economy: A View from the North’*

This paper reviews the Brookings Study of the Australian economy reported in Richard E. Caves and Lawrence B. Krause (editors), The Australian Economy: A View from the North, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1984. After some general observations the paper considers each of the chapters in more detail.     

Extending an order on a Set to the power set: Some remarks on Kannai and Peleg's approach

Kannai and Peleg have shown that given an ordering over a set, it is impossible to induce an ordering over the power set satisfying certain plausible axioms. We prove an impossibility and also a possibility result in this context with closely related sets of axioms, and argue that the dividing line between impossibility and possibility here is rather thin. Also, we distinguish three possible intuitive interpretations for the formal framework of Kannai and Peleg, and argue that the acceptability of specific formal axioms may crucialy depend on the particular interpretation that one chooses to adopt.     

Evaluating the Impact of a Working Time Regulation on Capital Operating Time: The French 35‐hour Work Week Experience

In this article, we evaluate the impact of diminishing weekly working hours on capital operating time using the French 35‐hour working week experience. We merge the French survey on Capital Operating Time (COT, Banque de France, Central Bank of France; 1989–2004) and administrative Working Time Reduction agreements files (WTR, DARES, French Ministry of Labour; May 2003). We construct shift‐work‐based capital operating time indicators. Using differences‐in‐differences econometric models, we show that the implementation of the 35‐hour work week did not induce any reduction in COT. Hence, firms increased shift‐work to compensate for the decrease in working hours.     

Economic performance of state‐owned enterprises under the Chinese Communist Party's supervision: Some reflection on China's economic reform

This study examines the economic behaviour of state‐owned enterprises in China with special emphasis on the role of the state's sole party as either an agent (management) or supervisor in the enterprises. It is found that with the construction of an incentive‐compatible compensation design and the Chinese Communist Party orchestrating an appropriate objective guideline for its members to follow, state or socialist capitalism could still achieve efficient economic performance. If party members did not behave prudently or pursued their personal interests instead of the state's overall welfare, there could be grave consequences, including corruption, nepotism or even the breakdown of the system.     

Some cautions on the use of nonlinear panel unit root tests: Evidence from a modified series-specific non-linear panel unit-root test

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of applying nonlinear panel unit root test to examine the non-linear mean reversion behaviors of real exchange rates. We find that nonlinear panel unit root test may achieve lower power performance as compared to its alternative of linear panel unit test when the data generating process does not contain significant non-linear components. This finding post cautions to researchers in modeling and testing real exchanges behavior. We also develop a modified series-specific nonlinear panel unit root test and find evidence in favor of purchasing power parity hypothesis for China's four ASEAN trading partners in the period of February 1997 to August 2009.     

Market segmentation and information values of earnings announcements: Some empirical evidence from an event study on the Chinese stock market

This paper investigates the trading activities of two distinct classes of shareholders, namely, the Chinese domestic investors and the foreign investors in the segmented Chinese A- and B-share markets, respectively. We conduct an event study on the annual earnings announcements based on two different accounting standards: International accounting standards (IAS) and PRC generally accepted accounting principles (PRC GAAP). The earnings announcements based on IAS and PRC GAAP are value relevant. The investors in the B-share market react to both the IAS and PRC GAAP earnings announcements, while the investors in the A-share market pay more attention to the PRC GAAP earnings reports. In the B-share market, positive abnormal returns are associated with positive earnings surprise and negative abnormal returns go with negative earnings surprise. We find preevent abnormal trading volumes without significant price changes for the A shares, which may be due to existing information in the A-share market prior to earnings announcements. The postevent abnormal trading volumes last for a longer period in the A-share market than in the B-share market.     

The Effect of Attending a Small Class in the Early Grades on College-test Taking and Middle School Test Results: Evidence from Project Star

This paper provides a long-term follow-up analysis of students who participated in the Tennessee STAR experiment. In this experiment, students and their teachers were randomly assigned to small, regular-size, or regular-size classes with a teacher aide in the first four years of school. We analyse the effect of past attendance in small classes on student test scores and whether they took the ACT or SAT college entrance exam. Attending a small class in the early grades is associated with an increased likelihood of taking a college-entrance exam, especially among minority students, and somewhat higher test scores.     

Working under pressure: Evidence from the impacts of soccer fans on players’ performance

In this paper we study how pressure affects individual’s behavior. For this purpose we use sports data, where the attendance is a proxy for pressure, to investigate if the number of fans in the stadium affects the performance of the players. We overcome the reverse causality problem by proposing an instrument variable: a promotion in Brazil during which low cost tickets were assigned to random soccer matches. In contrast to previous literature, our results suggest that pressure does not significantly affect players’ behavior.     

Regime‐dependent effects of uncertainty on inflation and output growth: evidence from the United Kingdom and the United States

Employing a bivariate regime switching model, this paper attempts to examine the regime‐dependent effects of inflation uncertainty and output growth uncertainty on inflation and output growth. Using monthly data of the United Kingdom and the United States, we provide evidence that both nominal and real uncertainty exert regime‐dependent impacts on inflation. Furthermore, in case of both the countries, inflation uncertainty has adverse impact on output growth mainly during the period of economic contraction. Also, for these two countries, it can be argued that higher real uncertainty significantly reduces output growth only in their respective low output growth regimes.