Cost efficiency in Bangladesh banking: does financial reform matter?

This article estimates the cost efficiency of the commercial banks of Bangladesh in the context of financial reform. Employing the single-stage stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model, the study uses a unique balanced panel data set comprising bank-level annual data from the dominant commercial banks in Bangladesh for the period 1983–2012. The results show that bank cost has fallen due to financial deregulation. Our results from the data envelopment analysis do not vary significantly that we obtained from the SFA. In addition, the presence of politically linked directors on the bank board has an adverse effect on efficiency. These findings suggest that further reforms aiming at removing all sorts of political influence should continue to ensure competitive environment in order to achieve cost efficiency in the financial sector of the country.     

An empirical analysis of disinvestment policy in India: does ideology matter?

Using panel data estimation for limited dependent variables and sample selection models, we identify political, industry specific, firm specific and macroeconomic variables which influenced the decision to divest central public enterprises in India between 1991–2010. We find that higher partial privatization is driven by a more right-winged coalition, lower ideological spread in the coalition and lower ideological difference between the center and the state in which the public enterprise is located. We also find that after the government selects larger, more experienced and more profitable firms, it divests the relatively less experienced and less profitable firms to a larger extent.     

Getting into the energy efficiency scene: does corporate social responsibility matter for energy efficiency in SMEs?

A growing body of literature argues that improving energy efficiency is an essential step that firms must take to mitigate climate change issues. It is assumed that corporate social responsibility (CSR) in general plays a prominent role in firms’ policies, and this paper specifically investigates the effects of the individual CSR dimensions on SMEs’ energy efficiency improvement. Based on data from a sample of 146 thousand SMEs, and using logit model, and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, the study reveals that high activities in social, environmental and economic CSR dimensions are associated with high energy efficiency. Specifically, the environmental CSR dimension has the highest contribution to improving energy efficiency. Furthermore, this study indicates that energy efficiency improvement can be achieved by large SMEs provided they have developed simultaneously the environmental, social, and economic CSR dimensions. In doing so, this study answers to recent calls for more research on CSR-energy efficiency relationship and addresses with greater precision why it matters to relate the role of the CSR dimensions and energy efficiency. Furthermore, this study can be of value to policymakers who are called to promote CSR practices of SMEs in order to foster their energy efficiency.     

Foreign direct investment and air pollution in Asian countries: does institutional quality matter?

This paper empirically studies how foreign direct investment (FDI) affects air pollution, and how this effect depends on institutional quality. By using a panel data for 19 developing Asian countries over the period of 2002–2015, we find that FDI inflows initially increase air pollution in Asia, and the institutional quality improvement helps reduce this effect until the institutional quality achieves a threshold, then beyond this threshold, FDI reduces air pollution. The findings indicate that the pollution haven hypothesis and the pollution halo hypothesis are not contradictory when the institutional quality is taken into consideration.     

The assimilation of Australian immigrants: does occupation matter?

This paper utilises the occupational attainment approach to investigate immigrant labour market assimilation, complementing other assimilation approaches such as employability, earnings, skills-match and job satisfaction. Our results show that all immigrant groups suffer from initial occupational attainment disadvantage. Worryingly, no ‘catch-up’ over time is evident – even when disaggregated to reflect different cultures and backgrounds. Nor is there much evidence that the occupational status of younger arrivals matches those of Australian born residents, despite being immersed in local mores and institutions while undertaking schooling in Australia. Newer cohorts of immigrants (those who arrived between 2000 and 2014) are also more prone to suffering an occupational penalty. We recommend policymakers subsidise bridging courses to aid recognition of overseas-obtained qualifications and encourage immigrants to obtain local qualifications that can complement their overseas-obtained work experience. This will increase their ‘Australian-ready’ skill-set and occupational attainment in their new host country.     

Does bank efficiency matter? Market value relevance of bank efficiency in Australia

The stochastic frontier analysis is employed to investigate efficiency of publicly listed Australian banks over the period 1985 to 2008. The results suggest that technical, cost and profit efficiency of Australian banks have improved over time. Large banks have attained a higher level of cost efficiency but a lower level of technical efficiency compared to small banks. No substantial difference between the two groups is found in terms of profit efficiency. A panel regression of bank stock return on bank efficiency suggests that an improvement in technical, cost or profit efficiency contributes to the market value of a bank. Thus, the shareholder wealth maximization goal is aligned with the goal of maximizing bank efficiency in the Australian context.     

An evaluation of the relationship between minimum wage and unemployment: does the local cost-of-living matter?

This article examines the relationship between federal, state and municipal minimum wage laws, local cost-of-living (COL) and the unemployment rate. It finds a strong statistically significant positive relationship between minimum wages and unemployment once COL is taken into account. Our results suggest that federal minimum wage policy is likely to have more harmful effects in rural/low cost areas.     

The cost of registering property: does legal origin matter?

There is a large literature that finds that common law countries perform better than civil law countries in various aspects of the institutional environment. This article extends these findings to another dimension of institutional quality??the cost of registering property. In a sample of 121 countries, we find that the cost of registering property is lower by 26 percent of the world average in common law compared with civil law countries, a result largely driven by differences in non-notary costs of registering property. We provide plausible explanations for these findings.     

Intraday bidirectional volatility spillover across international stock markets: does the global financial crisis matter?

This article studies volatility spillover between the US and the three largest European stock markets (Frankfurt, London and Paris) around the time of the recent Subprime crisis. In order to investigate the impact of the latter, we break our sample down into two sub-periods: a pre-crisis period and a post-crisis period, using a structural break test that has the advantage of endogenously testing for further breaks in the data. Unlike previous studies that have frequently investigated this issue using low frequency data, our article makes use of intraday data. Accordingly, using Threshold generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model estimations, we find weak evidence of volatility transmission between the two regions before the Subprime crisis. However, during the post-crisis period, we record returns and volatility spillover from US to European markets and vice versa at different times of the trading day, indicating that the two regions became more dependent during the recent Subprime crisis, a finding that supports the contagion hypothesis between the US and European stock markets.     

Analysts herding: when does sentiment matter?

Herding among analysts emerges when analysts give priority to their peers’ opinions instead of their own beliefs or information. Some circumstances may enhance or restrain this type of behaviour. We postulate that market sentiment is one of them. This article analyses the effect that investor sentiment may have on analysts’ herding behaviour in the U.K. Our results suggest that ‘easy situations’ such as analysing easy-to-value securities and releasing optimistic information at times of high market sentiment clearly reduce herding practices, whereas herding clearly increases in difficult situations when analysts have to release negative information at moments of high investor sentiment.     

Pairs trading: does volatility timing matter?

Pairs trading is a dollar-neutral trading strategy. Using the components of two major stock indices, the S&P 500 and the Nikkei 225, this article deals with the performance of a pairs trading system based on various pairs selection methods (distance, stationarity, cointegration) over a 10-year period. On both markets, using a classical framework, cointegration appears superior and effective. On the U.S. market and also in Japan to a lower extent, pairs trading strategies exhibited an impressive performance during the 2008 financial crisis. Bearish periods are associated with a high level of the VIX index: the ‘investor fear gauge’. Using a modified trading system, this article examines the link between pairs trading performance and volatility/VIX timing. It is shown that for the best selection technique (cointegration), timing volatility has no economic value in a pairs trading context.     

Exploring the nexus between financial openness and informational efficiency – does the quality of institution matter?

This article examines the empirical link between financial openness and informational efficiency of stock markets in 27 emerging markets. Improving on earlier papers, this study has used World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) as the proxy of institutional development in dynamic panel data models estimated by generalized method of moments (GMM). Our results show, first, financial liberalization by itself has no impact on enhancing efficiency of stock market. Second, for countries with high level of institutional development, the interaction of trade openness and financial openness become significant. Third, for the same group of countries, interaction effect of financial liberalization and institutional development leads to more efficiency in stock market. Hence, our finding demonstrates the utmost importance of institutional development and its role on liberalization. Our results conclude that institutional development and trade openness are pre-requisites for a country to benefit from financial openness. Our study further provides empirical evidence to theoretical model proposed by Basu and Morey (2005) that governance is the missing link between stock market efficiency and financial liberalization. Our findings suggest that policy makers in developing economies should enhance the quality of their institution in order to optimize the benefits of financial liberalization.     

Confucius Institute’s effects on international travel to China: do cultural difference or institutional quality matter?

This article uses a panel data of China’s inbound tourist flows from 2005 to 2015 to investigate Confucius Institute (CI)’s influence on China’s tourism. We find that CI, as a comprehensive platform for China’s foreign cultural exchange, has a significant positive effect on China’s tourist flows. The effects of CI on China’s inbound tourism are transmitted through bridging cultural gaps and promoting Chinese language, which reduces psychic distance and transaction costs. CI also stimulates China’s inbound tourist flows via reducing information asymmetry caused by different levels of institutional quality. Interestingly, we find that the heterogeneous effects of CI on China’s inbound tourism depend on institutional quality, and the effects of CI to boost China’s tourists are more prominent in departure countries with larger cultural difference.     

Growth in Africa: does the source of investment financing matter?

This paper examines empirical evidence for 11 sub-Saharan African countries on the relationship between economic growth and three principal sources of investment funds: foreign aid, foreign direct investment, and domestic saving. In light of the shortcomings of traditional cross-section analyses, the time series approach is used instead. Modern time series methods are rigorously applied, beginning with unit root tests and followed by model specifications that reflect the revealed temporal behaviours of the variables in each of the 11 countries. Domestic saving seems to play a somewhat more important role in generating economic growth than foreign direct investment or foreign aid. However, the mixture of results across the 11 countries implies that, in general, it is not possible to rank one source of investment financing ahead of any other.     

New institutional economics: what does it have to offer?

This article discusses the empirical relevance of what is considered two prinicipal contributions to the new institutional economics–the contributions of A. Schotter and O. Williamson – and draw three general conclusions. First, it is argued, on the basis of a comparison of the above mentioned two contributions to new institutional economics, their empirical relevance cannot be discussed in general but must be based on separate analyses of the two contributions and will depend on the institutions which are analysed. Secondly, that it is especially within analyses of consequence and design of institutions that the Williamson-approach to new institutional economics presently has something to offer while there seems to be rather limited possibilities for application of the approach of Schotter. Thirdly, that in their future development, the two contributions can probably both mutually benefit each other and benefit from an integration of elements from other institutional theories.     

On the relationship among efficiency,capitalization and risk: does management matter in local banking market?

By employing a Granger causality methodology in a panel data framework, this article explores the relationship among efficiency, capitalization and credit risk within the local Italian banking system. Focusing the attention on cooperative banks, we specifically test whether managers take more risks in highly concentrated markets (i.e. monopoly) than in partially competitive markets (i.e. duopoly). The evidence shows that in more concentrated markets, management efficiency generates a decrease in risk-taking (rejecting the bad management hypothesis) with respect to the partially competitive markets. Results are consistent with the idea that banks with less local competition are able to increase their profits by indulging more freely in rent-seeking behaviour, minimizing their risk-taking and, consequently, improving the quality of their assets through additional screening processes. The financial crisis does not seem to affect the conduct of management in terms of bank investment decisions and risk-taking. A series of robustness tests generally confirms our findings.     

The productive effect of transport infrastructures: does road transport liberalization matter?

In this paper we analyze the impact of motorway networks on production for a panel of twenty one manufacturing and service sectors of eleven EU countries observed over the period 1980–2003. In particular, we analyze if the degree of regulation of the road transport sector affects the link between productivity and motorway infrastructures. Overall results suggest that output elasticity with respect to motorway is found to be lower for countries characterised by a high degree of entry barriers in the road transport sector. This result is found to be more evident for industries which rely more heavily on transport services.     

Estimating the effects of monetary policy shocks: does lag structure matter?

This paper examines the implications of lag structure for estimating the effects of monetary policy shocks in a VAR. A symmetric lag structure in which all variables have the same lag length and an asymmetric lag structure in which the lag length differs across variables but is the same for a particular variable in each equation of the model are examined. This is important in light of the fact that the true lag structure is generally not known. Four commonly used identification schemes are employed to identify monetary policy shocks. Monte Carlo simulations strongly indicate that the lag structure of a VAR model does matter when assessing the quantitative effects of monetary policy shocks. Given the inherent uncertainty about the true lag structure in practice, it is thus important that one compare the impulse response functions from both symmetric lag and asymmetric lag VARs in assessing the effects of monetary policy shocks.     

The assumption of equal marginal utility of income: how much does it matter?

In most applied cost–benefit analyses, individual willingness to pay (WTP) is aggregated without using explicit welfare weights. This can be justified by postulating a utilitarian social welfare function along with the assumption of equal marginal utility of income for all individuals. However, since marginal utility is a cardinal concept, there is no generally accepted way to verify the plausibility of this latter assumption, nor its empirical importance. In this paper, we use data from seven contingent valuation studies to illustrate that if one instead assumes equal marginal utility of the public good for all individuals, aggregate monetary benefit estimates change dramatically.