Understanding domestic savings: an empirical approach

ABSTRACT

There are two unusual and important features in the evolution of the savings rate in Chile. First, the economy increased the average savings rate by 11 percentage points in the period 1985–2013 compared to 1960–1984, mainly due to a large change in private savings rate (10 percentage points), and an additional 1 percentage point from the public sector. The second feature is related to the change in the composition of private savings. After several years of nearly no corporate savings, this component became an important part of total savings reaching an average of almost 10% of Gross National Disposable Income (GNDI) during the period 1986–2012. Our results show that the 1984 tax reform, the boost in the marginal productivity of capital and the deepening of the financial market were the main drivers that explain the dramatic increase in corporate savings. We also found that the reduction in personal income tax after the tax reform and the higher income per capita growth helped to explain the increase in household savings, while the structural balance rule helped to explain the increase in public savings.     

Pension funds' allocations to hedge funds: an empirical analysis of US and Canadian defined benefit plans

This article investigates the characteristics of US and Canadian pension funds that allocate assets to hedge funds. The typical pension fund that invests in hedge funds is a large sophisticated pension fund that diversifies its portfolio across numerous classes of investments, private equity in particular, uses a core-satellite organization and has access to low delegation costs for alternative assets. Moreover, we find that pension funds investing in hedge funds significantly obtained higher global returns.     

Late and multiple bidding in second price Internet auctions: Theory and evidence concerning different rules for ending an auction

In second price Internet auctions with a fixed end time, such as those on eBay, many bidders submit their bids in the closing minutes or seconds of an auction. We propose an internet auction model, in which very late bids have a positive probability of not being successfully submitted, and show that late bidding in a fixed deadline auction can occur at equilibrium in auctions both with private values and with uncertain, dependent values. Late bidding may also arise out of equilibrium, as a best reply to incremental bidding. However, the strategic advantages of late bidding are severely attenuated in auctions that apply an automatic extension rule such as auctions conducted on Amazon. Field data show that there is more late bidding on eBay than on Amazon, and this difference grows with experience. We also study the incidence of multiple bidding, and its relation to late bidding.     

The labour income share and the relative price of investment in the US: an empirical investigation

Several studies argue that the recent decline in the secular trend of the labour income share is mostly driven by capital-embodied technological progress which is typically identified with trend reductions in the relative price of investment. In this paper, I use data from the United States to assess the nature of the relationship between trends in the labour share and the relative price of investment. Results from co-integration tests reveal that the share and the relative price of investment are most likely not co-integrated. However, co-variation tests indicate that both time series share a common stochastic component, and additional tests of structural breaks point at the presence of a common change in the mean or trend of both series. These results suggest that capital-embodied or investment-specific technological progress may have played an important role in the decline of the secular trend of the labour share.     

Cross-border commuting and consuming: an empirical investigation

This article contributes to our understanding of cross-border activity in general and the determinants of cross-border trade in particular by focusing on the part of cross-border sales that arise due to work-related cross-border crossings of households. We analyse empirically how cross-border consumption expenditures vary across product and services categories as well as household characteristics using representative household survey data of cross-border commuters to Luxembourg. In total, these households spend an estimated 17% of their gross annual income across the border, contributing about 10% to the total household final consumption expenditure (HFCE) in Luxembourg. Cross-border expenditure is linked to individual- and household-related characteristics and to distance between home and work. Cross-border commuters systematically exploit arbitrage opportunities that arise because of existing price level (index) differences between the country of work and the country of residence.     

Crowdfunding and social influence: an empirical investigation

The literature so far provides no in-depth investigation of the determinants of decisions to contribute to crowdfunding platforms. The present article draws on work measuring the decisions and prosocial behaviours of individuals in relation to public goods, and uses survey data on crowdfunding behaviour. We surveyed an original sample of individuals in France to explore individual decisions and amounts of funding chosen to support a creative project. We show that in non-equity crowdfunding contributing money is associated with altruism. Our findings suggest that the ‘warm glow’ effect influences the level of the contribution; we show also those monetary incentives could ‘crowd out’ the decisions to contribute of crowdfunders. Our study has some implications for business strategy since understanding why people contribute adds to our knowledge about the incentives that might encourage them to increase their contributions, and allows predictions about how changes to how crowdfunding platforms are managed might affect individual incentives to give.     

A comparative analysis of independent director appointments on stock price behaviour: an empirical investigation based on the Markov regime-switching model

In 2002, the Taiwanese government regulated that new companies should appoint independent directors for good corporate governance. The purpose of this article is to compare appointing independent directors' motivation of structural changes in stock behaviour. The empirical results showed that the companies with mandatory or voluntary independent director appointments significantly reduced both stock returns and risks over 2000–2006.     

Taiwan's exports and trade imbalance against US and Japan: an empirical investigation based on error correction model

This study employs recent advances in time-series analysis, cointegration and error correction model, to examine the long-run and short-run determinants of the exports and trade imbalance between the USA, Japan, and Taiwan. The unit root tests reveal nonstationary in most of the variables. The cointegration tests affirm positive the long-run associations are between the exchange rate changes and the exports as well as the trade imbalance. Once these long-run effects are accounted for, it is found that there are evidences of short-run relationship between these variables.     

Trade protection and bureaucratic corruption: an empirical investigation

Abstract .  We examine whether protectionist trade policies lead to increased bureaucratic corruption. Using multiple measures of corruption and trade policies, we find strong evidence that corruption is significantly higher in countries with protectionist trade policies. These results are robust to endogeneity concerns. Next, a panel-data-based GMM methodology is used to estimate a dynamic model of corruption. This estimator controls for country-specific effects, potential endogeneity of trade policy, and existence of measurement errors afflicting the corruption data. The paper strengthens the case for trade liberalization and argues that trade reforms may lead to improvements in governance.     

Heterogeneous ideas production and endogenous growth: an empirical investigation

Abstract .  We examine the dynamics of ideas production and knowledge-productivity relationship in a panel of 19 OECD countries. A new data set of triadic patents is used. We rigorously address the issues of cross-country heterogeneity and endogeneity. Domestic and foreign ideas stocks exert positive but heterogeneous effects on ideas production. We find evidence of duplicate R&D but little support for endogenous growth. Countries with low domestic ideas bases could considerably improve productivity through ideas accumulation; however, this effect is modest for countries with sizeable ideas bases. An implication is that country-specific R&D policy appears potentially more effective than the one-size-fits-all approach.     

Immigration and domestic wage: an empirical study on competition among immigrants

While studies on the wage effects of immigration focus on native workers, there is significantly less information on the wage effects of immigration on domestic foreign-born workers. In addition to analysing the impact of immigration on wages of native workers, in this article, we estimate the internal competition among foreign-born workers in the United States. Firstly, using data from the Current Population Survey, we find no empirical evidence supporting the substitutability of native workers for immigrants. Secondly, there is no statistical difference between skilled and unskilled immigrants on the influence of the domestic labour market outcomes. Finally, there is no internal competition among immigrants. The income of non-citizen workers mainly depends on state and national levels of economic situations, not the number of non-citizen workers available in the labour market.     

Profitability and supply price in the US domestic oil industry: implications for the political economy of oil in the twenty-first century

In May 2001, the US Government's National Energy Policy DevelopmentGroup proposed to increase investment in domestic oil resourcesand to diversify further the sourcing of US oil imports by increasingproduction in new petroleum provinces. The paper argues thatboth strands of this policy are dependent upon a third, unstated,objective—to ensure that OPEC retains sufficient marketpower to prevent the sort of collapse in world oil prices thatoccurred in 1998–99. The consequences of that collapse,when the real price of US oil fell to its lowest level in 53years, are explored. Finally, it is argued that the outcomeof the crisis was a rapprochement between OPEC and the US. Itis suggested that the consensus between the US and OPEC as tothe desired range within which the world oil price should moveis likely to survive any temporary political disturbances.     

Expected returns and expected dividend growth: time to rethink an established empirical literature

This article examines various state-space and VAR model specifications to investigate the contributions of expected returns and expected dividend growth to movements in the price-dividend ratio. We show that both models involve serious inference problems that need to be dealt with carefully. We propose procedures that offer more reliable inference results, and the corrected inferences indicate that the aggregate data of dividends and returns alone do not provide strong enough evidence to support the notion that the expected returns dominate the stock price variation. However, we show that an alternative measure of cash flows termed the net payout by Larrain and Yogo (2008) appears to lend strong support to the notion that the expected cash flow explains a large fraction of the firm value variation. This finding remains robust in both state-space and VAR decompositions with the corrected inference.     

Semiparametric versus parametric hedonic wine price models: an empirical investigation

In this article, we conduct formal statistical tests to compare a semiparametric hedonic wine price model with its parametric counterpart using a Canadian data set. The relevant test results turn out to be overwhelmingly in favour of the semiparametric specification. The estimated semiparametric model also provides clear evidence of nonlinearity between wine prices and quality when other wine attributes are controlled for.     

Economies of scale in the US computer industry: An empirical investigation using data envelopment analysis

Up to recently, economists have had no good tools to measure the returns to scale of individual corporations in an industry. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a linear programming technique for determining the efficiency frontier (the envelope) to the inputs and outputs of a collection of individual corporations or other productive units. While DEA offers an avenue for calculating the returns to scale of individual corporations, the approach has been riddled by mathematical complications arising from the possibility of alternate optima. The present paper develops theory for calculating the entire range of these alternate optima. Furthermore, in a quite ambitions empirical application, DEA is employed to determine the time path of returns to scale of all publicly held U.S. computer companies over the time period 1980–1991. For the great majority of companies, a unique time path is obtained; only in less than 4 percent of the linear programming calculations is an entire range of alternate optima obtained. The results indicate that the computer industry was polarized into two camps: large aging corporations with decreasing returns to scale, and swarms of small upstart companies with advanced technology exhibiting increasing returns to scale.     

Relationships between oil price shocks and stock market: an empirical analysis from Greater China

Although a lot of empirical research has studied the relationship between changes in oil price and economic activity, it is surprising that little research has been conducted on the relationship between oil price shocks and the Greater China region (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan). Therefore, the main goal of this article is to apply detailed monthly data from 1997/7 to 2008/9 to fill this gap. Compared to the effect of US stock market returns described by Kilian (2009 Kilian, L. 2009. Not All oil price shocks are alike: Disentangling demand and supply shocks in the crude oil market. American Economic Review, 99: 1053–69. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Kilian and Park (2009 Kilian, L. and Park, C. 2009. The impact of oil price shocks on the US stock market. International Economic Review, 50: 1267–87. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), we found that the impact of oil price shocks on stock prices in Greater China has been mixed. First, the impact of oil price shocks on Taiwan's stock market is very similar to that on the US stock market. Additionally, all three shocks have had significantly positive impacts on Hong Kong's stocks, partially in contrast to the effects on the US stock market. However, in contrast to the effect in the US stock market, we found that only global oil supply shock has a significantly positive impact on China's stock returns, but global oil demand shock and the oil specific demand shock have no significant impacts. The reason for the lack of significant impacts is that the positive expectation effect of China's fast economic growth may be just offset by the negative effect of a precautionary demand-driven effect. This result is also consistent with the previous empirical findings that the segmented and integrated China stock market is mixed, and it implies that the China stock market is ‘partially integrated’ with the other stock markets and oil price shocks.     

Battleground states and voter participation in US presidential elections: an empirical test

The winner-take-all method of allocating Electoral College votes (in 48 of the 50 states) in US presidential elections has promoted interesting behaviours by politicians and states that are evident throughout US (economic) history. This analysis explores the impact that being a ‘battleground state’ in presidential elections has on future voter participation rates. After quantifying the degree to which each state is a battleground state, the empirical analysis proffers what it refers to as the ‘battleground voting hypothesis’, which argues that the greater the degree to which a given state is a battleground state, the greater the expected benefits from voting in that state and hence the greater the voter turnout in that state. The empirical results suggest that the top-to-bottom ‘battleground state effect’ generated an average of 7.8 additional percentage points in voter participation in presidential elections over the period 1964–2008 for those states at the top of the scale.     

Complementarities and spillovers in mergers: an empirical investigation using patent data

We investigate the merger behavior of firms in the plant biotechnology sector using firm-level patent data for public and private firms in the 1980s and 1990s. Conditional logit estimation is used to estimate the probability that the firms will match in mergers and spinoffs. We calculate several patent portfolio-based measures of complementarity and spillovers between firms, and find that both are important to defining a good match of acquirer and target. However, complementarities provide the more robust explanation. The mergers and spinoffs observed in plant biotechnology may have been designed to overcome the anti-commons problem of mutually blocking technology, an extreme form of complementarity. Our results highlight the need to integrate patent and competition policy.     

The nonlinear effects of firm size on innovation: an empirical investigation

ABSTRACT

In conventional studies, large firms tend to emphasize more on process innovation than product innovation. This paper explores factors that could indicate a distinct pattern of firms’ innovation-size relationship: threshold size that implies a positive effect of firm size on the probability of product innovation success; cannibalization effect that creates incentives for large firms to favor product innovations; and financial constraints that have differential effects given different firm sizes. A hypothesis about a non-monotonic relationship between the proportion of product innovation and firm size is tested with nonlinear and dynamic econometric models. For the large firms, empirical evidence shows product innovations result in an overall larger share of new products in total sales, relative to existing products in which process innovations are rooted.