The impact of unemployment on inequality and poverty in OECD countries

The purpose of this research is to examine the contribution of unemployment to income inequality and poverty in various OECD countries. These relationships have been explored using Luxembourg Income Study micro-data. Considerable differences across OECD countries are revealed through the use of within-household unemployment distributions. These differences help to explain most of the observed divergences in the relationship between unemployment and income distribution, in conjunction with the heterogeneous influence of social benefits on the economic position of the unemployed in these countries. A sub-group decomposition analysis corroborates the limited effect of unemployment on income distribution in most of the considered countries. However, it seems clear that the unemployed are among those with the highest risk of experiencing poverty.
JEL classification: D31, I32, J31.     

On the impact of innovation and inequality in economic growth

We present robust results on the empirical relationship among income inequality, innovation, and economic growth for a panel dataset of 74 countries over the period 1996–2014. We estimate pairwise causality tests to show that there is bidirectional causality between GDP per capita and R&D, while R&D causes the Gini index of income inequality, and it causes human capital. Allowing coefficients to be different across cross-sections of countries, we get in any case a pairwise bi-directionality. By dynamic panel data estimations, when regressing R&D on GDP per capita, we obtain a threshold value of 0.16% of R&D such that for values above it there is economic growth. While regressing R&D on the Gini index, we get a threshold of 0.10% of R&D above which, the income distribution begins to improve. Finally, we estimate a growth equation that depends on R&D, income inequality, and physical capital. We obtain two thresholds, one of 38.79 for the Gini (above which the economic growth decreases), and one of 0.06% for R&D such that above it, economic growth is rising.     

The impact of income,economic openness and interest rates on housing prices in China: evidence from dynamic panel quantile regression

The rapid growth of housing prices has attracted the attention of the whole of society in China. This article adopts the dynamic panel quantile regression to investigate the impact of income, economic openness and interest rates on housing prices in China, based on the panel data of 35 major cities from 2002 to 2012. Compared with previous studies, we can more precisely and reasonably discuss the impact of these variables on different levels of housing prices. The empirical results indicate that the impact of independent variables on housing prices is heterogeneous across quantiles. Specifically, the impact of income is positive and significant across quantiles, and the impact becomes greater at the 90th and 95th quantiles. Economic openness has a positive and significant effect at the 5th–80th quantiles, which support the Balassa–Samuelson effect, but it is insignificant at the 90th and 95th quantiles. The impact of interest rates is positive and significant at low quantiles, but the impact is negative and insignificant at high quantiles. Furthermore, we also find that the coefficients of interest rates at various quantiles are smaller. In addition, the population has a significant positive effect across quantiles. Finally, we provide important policy implications.     

The impact of corporate and personal income taxes on the location of firms and on employment: some panel evidence for the Swiss cantons

The impact of corporate income taxes on location decisions of firms is widely debated in the tax competition literature. Tax rate differences across jurisdictions may lead to distortions of firms’ investment decisions. Empirical evidence on tax-induced relocation and subsequent economic development in the US and Europe is still inconclusive. Much the same applies to Switzerland. While there is some evidence on personal income tax competition between Swiss cantons, evidence on the impact of intercantonal corporate income tax differences on the location of business within Switzerland is missing. In this paper, we present econometric evidence on the influence of corporate and personal income taxes on the regional distribution of firms in 1981 and 1991 and on cantonal employment using a panel data set of the 26 Swiss cantons from 1985 to 1997. The results show that corporate and personal income taxes deter firms to locate in a canton and subsequently reduce cantonal employment.     

The political economy triangle of government spending,interest-group influence,and income inequality: Evidence and implications from the US states

This paper introduces the political economy triangle (PET) concept of government spending, special interest groups (SIGs) influence, and income inequality, empirically confirming its existence and unveiling its nature while directly addressing key shortcomings of most prior research on the determinants of such inequality. Using static and dynamic panel techniques and data from the US states, it reports several new results: (i) the findings of previous studies regarding the roles of government spending and interest groups, including labor unions, in income distribution are confirmed, however, their estimated inequality effects grossly underestimate those obtained when endogeneity issues are accounted for explicitly; (ii) a dynamic tripartite relationship between the variables of the PET exists; (iii) government spending and SIGs' influence, including union strength, beyond their direct effects on inequality, have a separate positive impact through their interactions; (iv) the effectiveness of government spending in reducing inequality diminishes as the level of SIGs' influence and union strength increase in the short and long run, (v) the aggregate inequality-increasing effect of SIGs is strengthened and the inequality-reducing effects of unions weakened as the spending rises, in the short run and long run. Finally, the broad implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Impact of the German Child Benefit on Household Expenditures and Consumption

The German Child Benefit (‘Kindergeld’) is paid to legal guardians of children as a cash benefit. The benefit does not depend on household income or other household characteristics. I use exogenous variations in the amount of child benefit received by households in the German Socio‐Economic Panel to estimate the impact of a given change in the child benefit on food expenditures of households, the probability of owning a home, rent per square meter, measures of the size of the home, as well as parents’ smoking behavior and parents’ alcohol consumption. Households primarily increase per capita food expenditures in response to increases in child benefit, and they also improve housing conditions. The effect of child benefit on per capita food expenditures is larger for low‐income households compared to high‐income households. I do not find a significant effect of child benefit on parents’ smoking or drinking.     

Fiber in the backbone! The impact of broadband adoption on firm growth in network markets

This article examined the relationship between the adoption of technology, via the deployment of broadband, on revenue growth, which is an important measure of financial performance, of the deploying firms using panel data for all of the major local exchange carriers in the US telecommunications industry from 1988 to 2001. The sector is an important network market context where the implications of deployment have substantial salience. The results show a positive relationship between broadband deployment and carriers’ revenue growth. This result implies that encouraging the adoption and deployment of broadband technologies in addition to the benefits of the consumers and firms at the receiving end of the new technology create the potential for better financial performance for the deploying firms. These results also imply that steps that can be taken to provide incentives that will hasten the further deployment of broadband will result in gains in financial performance within the sector.     

The impact of private vs. public ownership on the level and structure of employment

We examine the effects of private vs. public ownership on the level and structure of employment using uncommonly rich data on the population of Portuguese firms from 1991 to 2009. We find that private ownership is associated with sizeable job losses. This occurs whether we consider privatizations or nationalizations, and the relationship tends to be stronger in the presence of foreign capital. We also find some evidence that private ownership is associated with higher skill utilization, particularly following privatizations and when foreign investment is present. The estimated job losses associated with private ownership are consistent with a theory in which the shift in ownership increases the degree of profit orientation and leads to lower job security.     

Bank liquidity risk and monetary policy. Empirical evidence on the impact of Basel III liquidity standards

We extend the literature on the bank lending channel in two aspects. First, rather than following the literature by analyzing the impact of banks’ liquidity (measured via their asset portfolio) on monetary policy transmission, we study the role of banks’ actual liquidity risk, as measured by the Basel III liquidity regulations. Second, we investigate the effect of complying with the Basel III liquidity standards on monetary policy transmission. We use highly detailed bank-level data from Luxembourg for the period 2003q1--2010q4. Our findings are that monetary policy transmission works its way through small banks that also have a large maturity mismatch, as measured by the Net Stable Funding Ratio. In contrast, large banks with a small maturity mismatch increase their lending following a monetary policy shock, which confirms existing results that Luxembourg’s banks are liquidity providers to the European market. Based upon in-sample predictions and upon simulated data from an optimization model that takes the banks’ business models into account, we conclude that the bank lending channel will no longer be effective once banks adhere to the new Basel III liquidity regulations.     

The impact of R&D programme success on the decision to capitalise development expenditures in European firms

The financial reporting treatment of R&D expenditures can have important implications for firms’ strategic investment in R&D. Yet, financial reporting issues have been largely neglected in the R&D management literature. In this study, we first hypothesise that firms’ capitalisation of development expenditures subsequent to the mandatory adoption of IAS 38 (International Accounting Standard 38: Intangible Assets) is positively and significantly impacted by a measure of R&D programme success. Our empirical findings – based on a pan-European sample of firms – reveal strong support for this prediction. Our findings also offer support for our second hypothesis which predicts that capitalisation of development expenditures in conjunction with an evaluation of R&D programme success has a positive and significant impact on growth in shareholder value. Consequently, our work suggests that an important challenge for R&D professionals within firms is to develop improved measures of R&D success and to communicate this information to senior executives.     

The impacts of bank-specific and macroeconomic variables on the capital adequacy ratio: evidence from Islamic banks

The study investigates the relationship between the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) and different bank-specific and macroeconomic variables for 28 Islamic banks. We document that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between the CAR and the bank-specific and macroeconomic variables. In particular, bank-specific variables such as ROA, ROE, leverage, credit risk and size show a strong association with the CAR, while on the macroeconomic side, inflation, market capitalization and exchange rate have an impact on the average Islamic bank in our sample study. Furthermore, we run another model (equity to assets ratio) as dependent, with similar control variables, and the results reveal that, except for inflation, all the variables that have a significant effect on the CAR also influence the equity to assets ratio.     

食品价格上涨对城镇家庭消费与福利影响研究——基于EASI模型

文章基于与2015年度诺贝尔经济学奖得主迪顿的接近理想需求系统 AIDS 来源相同的EASI需求系统 ,采用CHNS调查数据 ,运用 EASI需求系统实证分析了各类食品价格上涨对不同收入等级城镇家庭消费与福利的影响 ,并比较了收入补贴与价格补贴的经济效果.研究发现:(1)我国城镇居民动物性食品消费支出占食品总支出的比重最大 ,其次是粮食和蔬菜 ,城镇居民的食品消费结构为"动物性食品+粮食+蔬菜" ,这说明动物性食品价格上涨对我国城镇居民日常膳食消费的影响相对较大.(2)粮食价格对困难户和最低收入家庭的福利影响最大 ,动物性食品价格对较低收入家庭的福利影响最大.(3)对低收入家庭而言 ,当动物性食品价格上涨时 ,收入补贴政策的效果优于价格补贴政策 ;当粮食价格上涨时 ,价格补贴政策的效果优于收入补贴政策.文章最后从生产、补贴政策和分配制度的角度提出了政策建议.     

The impact of the informal economy on R&D,wage inequality and economic growth

We extend the existing research and development (R&D) growth literature by focusing on the short–medium–long run effects of the informal sector on R&D intensity, wage inequality and economic growth, and by considering 18 OECD countries between 1990 and 2008. We show that: the steady state is unique and stable; the share of informal economy (IE) in production affects negatively R&D intensity and wage equality; Nordic countries have the lowest share of IE in production, while Mediterranean countries have the highest share of IE, wage inequality and R&D intensity but R&D spillovers are lower.     

The impact of China’s WTO accession on trade and economic relations across the Taiwan Strait

This paper evaluates the impact of China’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) accession on trade and economic relations across the Taiwan Strait and its implications for the rest of the world by a recursive dynamic, 17‐region, 25‐sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model according to actual market access commitments that China and Taiwan have made to date. The simulation results show that both China and Taiwan will substantially benefit from their WTO memberships, and their economic interdependence and their dependence within the rest of the world will further deepen. The rest of the world may also benefit because of the expansion of world trade and improvement of their international terms of trade, but some developing countries with an endowment structure similar to China, like those in South America and Southeast Asia, may experience keener competition in labour‐intensive exports and lower prices for their products. JEL classification: F1, F02, C68, P52.     

The impact of large-scale asset purchases on the S&P 500 index,long-term interest rates and unemployment

After the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and the financial panic that ensued, the Federal Reserve moved rapidly to reduce the federal funds rate to .25%. It was quickly judged that additional measures were needed to stabilize the US economy. Beginning in December 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank initiated three rounds of unconventional monetary policies known as quantitative easing (QE). These policies were intended to reduce long-term interest rates when the short-term federal funds rates had reached the zero lower bound and could not become negative. It was argued that the lowering of longer-term interest rates would help the stock market and thus the wealth of consumers. This article carefully investigates three hypotheses: QE impacting long-term interest rates, QE impacting the stock market and QE impacting unemployment using a Markov regime switching methodology. We conclude that QE has contributed significantly to increases in the stock market but less significantly to long-term interest rate and unemployment.     

The impact of public goods and services and public R&D on the non-observed economy size,wages inequality and growth

We develop a general equilibrium endogenous growth model in which final goods can be produced either in the Non-Observed Economy (NOE) or in the Official Economy (OE). In particular, by solving transitional dynamics numerically towards the unique and stable steady state, we show that, by affecting the technological-knowledge bias in favour of the OE, productive public goods and services and public policies promoting R&D explain the simultaneous rise in the OE size, the wage premium in favour of OE workers and the economic growth rate. These results are mainly in line with empirical evidence for developed countries, since the 1990s.