Explaining Real Commercial Rents Using an Error Correction Model with Panel Data

This paper presents rent models for retail and office property in the United Kingdom. Panel data are used covering eleven regions for 29 years, enabling us to overcome the limitations of a relatively short time series. We use an error correction model (ECM) framework to estimate long-run equilibrium relationships and short-term dynamic corrections. The combination of panel data and an ECM is an innovative approach that is still being developed in economics. We construct new supply series that combine infrequent stock data with more frequent construction data. Separate regional models are estimated for retail and office properties. The regions are then combined into a number of panels on the basis of the income and price elasticities in the long-run and short-run models. Unlike previous studies, we find no evidence of a board north–south divide between low growth and high growth regions. Like these studies we do find a London effect: in London, demand elasticities for space with respect to both price (rent) and income are much lower in magnitude. We conclude that, while the economic drivers may vary, there is no evidence of differences in the operation of the regional property markets outside London. Elasticities for retail and office are similar. Our final models are parsimonious with single measures of economic activity and of supply and always support the use of an ECM.     

Regional Effects of Exchange Rate Fluctuations

We exploit differences across U.S. states' exposure to trade to study the effects of changes in the exchange rate on economic activity. Across states, trade-weighted exchange rate depreciations are associated with increased state exports, reduced state unemployment, and higher state hours worked. The effects are particularly strong during periods of economic slack. A multiregion model with interstate trade and labor flows, calibrated to match state-level trade data and migration flows, replicates the empirical relationship between exchange rates and unemployment. The high degree of interstate trade plays an important role in transmitting shocks across states in the first year, whereas interstate migration shapes cross-sectional patterns in later years. We use the model to study the regional effects of tariffs in the United States. The model suggests that a 25% Chinese import tariff on U.S. goods would be felt throughout the United States, even in states with small direct linkages to China, raising unemployment rates by 0.2 to 0.7 percentage points in the short run.     

Differential Impacts of Structural and Cyclical Unemployment on Mortgage Default and Prepayment

The Great Recession (the fourth quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of 2009) has been characterized by high rates of foreclosures and unemployment. Using a sample of community reinvestment loans, we examine the impact of structural unemployment and cyclical unemployment on mortgage terminations (default and prepayment). We find that mortgage default and prepayment are more sensitive to changes in the structural component of the local unemployment rate than in the cyclical component. In addition, depending on whether structural unemployment rates are high or low, borrowers and lenders react differently to the incentives to terminate a loan.     

Understanding European unemployment with matching and search-island models

To understand European and American unemployment during the last 60 years, we use a search-island model and four matching models with workers who have heterogeneous skills and entitlements to government benefits. When there is higher turbulence, in the sense of worse skill transition probabilities for workers who suffer involuntary layoffs, high government mandated unemployment insurance (UI) and employment protection (EP) in Europe increase unemployment rates and durations. But when there is lower turbulence, high European EP suppresses unemployment rates despite high European UI. Four matching models differ in how they assign unemployed workers to matching functions. That affects how strongly unemployment responds to increases in turbulence. Heterogeneity among unemployed workers highlights the central role of adverse labor market externalities in matching models and reveals that the cost of posting vacancies is the lynchpin of a matching model.     

政府失业目标调整与就业质量——来自微观企业层面的证据

本文探讨地方政府失业目标调整对企业就业质量的影响。以2870份市级政府工作报告中计划失业率测量政府失业目标,以企业冗员反向测量就业质量,研究发现:更宽松的失业目标调整会降低冗员,提升就业质量;这种调整影响存在非对称性,企业对失业目标的上调更为敏感,会显著降低企业冗员,但下调影响并不显著,这说明调整影响更多来自政府导向下的企业主动行为。本文也发现失业目标调整的影响在民企、补贴较少的公司和市场化程度高的地区更强。最后,本文发现更宽松的失业目标调整会提高企业全要素生产率和公司价值。本文结论表明,在失业目标管理中,除考虑就业率之外,还应关注就业质量,通过引导企业创造新的更合适的就业岗位来实现“更高质量和更充分就业”目标。     

Regional Financial Arrangements: A Survey of the Literature and Recent Developments

This article summarizes recent studies on regional financial arrangements (RFAs) and examines the role played by global multilaterals and RFAs in emerging crises. We also review the major RFAs with regard to their basic organizational structure, activities, legal framework, and lending facilities. Finally, we discuss the attributes needed for the sustainable development of RFAs and we look at how they can expand their role for economic cooperation in the associated regions.     

Interregional redistribution through tax surcharge

The paper considers a utilitarian federal government that levies a tax to finance a national public good or to effect a redistributive policy. Regions differ in their incomes and in their preferences for a local public good. First, we assume that the central government observes each region's public expenditures (and, hence, local tax revenues) but cannot perfectly observe revenues and preferences. We derive the (constrained) Pareto-efficient allocation and show how it can be implemented by a surcharge on local taxes. The level of redistribution that can be achieved is limited by the fact that it may be difficult, or even impossible, to distinguish low-income regions with a high preference for the public good from high-income regions with a low preference. Then we allow for the possibility that the central government can observe incomes through a costly audit. We examine the optimal audit policy and study the impact of audits on the optimal taxation scheme. Throughout the paper we focus on the properties of average and marginal tax rates and on the resulting under- or overprovision of regional public goods.     

金融集聚对我国经济增长的影响

当前我国经济发展已步入"新常态",在新一轮的经济增长过程中,金融集聚作为经济增长的新引擎,在推动实体经济的建设与发展中起到了举足轻重的作用.目前,我国东部地区的金融集聚水平较高,且对经济增长的促进作用亦较为明显;而中西部地区的金融集聚水平则相对不高,对经济增长的带动作用不强.此外,以技术创新作为门限变量可以发现,金融集...     

失业保险与公司财务杠杆

我国劳动力市场化程度日益加深导致劳动者职业转换愈加频繁,失业保险的作用日益突出。本文探究了失业保险金水平对企业财务杠杆的影响。运用2009—2019年上市公司数据进行实证分析,结果发现失业保险金上升会导致公司财务杠杆下降。渠道检验显示,提高失业保险金可以降低员工失业风险溢酬,公司劳动力成本下降,公司有更多自由现金流和盈利进行内源融资和偿还债务,公司财务杠杆下降。进一步分析发现,失业保险金的作用在失业率高的地区更加显著。主要结果在分别运用《社会保险法》和《关于调整失业保险金标准的指导意见》构造双重差分模型和工具变量解决内生性问题、更改模型设置、排除投资水平影响、删除特殊省份、更换样本期间后,依然成立。本文结果说明加大失业保险保障力度有助于降低企业财务风险。     

Is Monetary Cooperation Among the Four Regions Across the Taiwan Strait Feasible?

Drawing on the optimum currency area (OCA) and exchange rate theories, we use an extended OCA index approach to assess the feasibility of regional monetary cooperation in the four regions across the Taiwan Strait (FRTS). In addition to more common variables, such as differences in economic structure, inflation rates, and interest rates, we find that the asymmetric shock in money supply is an important factor affecting the comprehensive cost of regional monetary cooperation among the FRTS. We conclude that regional monetary cooperation among the FRTS is feasible according to empirical analysis of OCA indexes between the FRTS and a comparison of the OCA indexes between the FRTS and the European Union (EU).     

Regional Unemployment and the Restructuring of Distressed State-owned Enterprises: Evidence from China

Abstract:

Using Chinese listed companies as the sample, we investigate the effects and corresponding consequences of regional unemployment rates on the restructuring behavior of distressed state-owned enterprises (SOEs). We find that layoffs and asset downsizing of local SOEs will be limited greatly when the unemployment rates of the areas where SOEs are located are high, even though these firms are already in distress. Additional evidence shows that this kind of limitation causes these firms to show a long-term decline in performance. The CEOs of these firms, however, are not easily dismissed after the distress. These results provide empirical support for the “grabbing hand“ theory.     

Minimum Wage in Poland and Youth Employment in Regional Labor Markets

The aim of this article is to analyze the effect of a uniform minimum wage in Poland on youth employment in regional labor markets and to determine in which of the regions the effect is significant. The analyses are based on NUTS2 level in 1999–2012. The results point to a statistically insignificant parameter of minimum wage variable for the whole sample. However, after allowing the minimum wage parameter to vary across regions, we find that the relatively high ratio of minimum to average wages could be the factor limiting youth employment growth in less-developed regions in the southeast of Poland.     

Policy-induced internal migration: An empirical investigation of the Canadian case

We investigate the influence of public policy on interprovincial migration in Canada using new aggregated migration data for 1974–1996, the longest period studied so far. We consider the consequences of regional variation in a variety of policies, and also investigate the effects of certain extraordinary events in Quebec and in the Atlantic provinces. The results indicate that while the changing bias in the unemployment insurance system may have induced some people to move to the relatively high unemployment Atlantic region, the resulting flows are likely too small to have altered regional unemployment rates. In contrast, political events in Quebec in the 1970's and the closing of the cod fishery in 1992 appear to be associated with large changes in migration patterns. JEL Classification H0 · H7 · J41 · J65 · R23 · R58     

Regional Differences and Threshold Effects of Capital-Skill Complementarity in China

On the framework of Chris and Viera (2005), this article studies the capital-skill complementarity and its regional differences of China, firstly. It is shown that there exists evidence in favor of capital-skill complementarity on the full sample of China. When we test its regional differences, we find no evidence in favor of capital-skill complementarity in the central and western regions, but strong evidence in the eastern region. Further study finds that, the “capital-skill complementarity” exists in the threshold effect. Thus, we argue that the original differences of capital-skill complementarity are relative to the economic development. These results reveal that the low-income region (such as the central and western regions) tends to allocate their capital to complement their abundance of unskilled labor but not skilled labor, but the middle-income region (such as the eastern region) shows just the opposite trend. In short, this article provides some new evidences for the nonlinearity of capital-skill complementarity and supports the viewpoint on “transitory phenomenon” of capital-skill complementarity.     

Optimal retirement with unemployment risks

This paper investigates the optimal retirement of an individual in the presence of involuntary unemployment risks and borrowing constraints in a complete market with frictions. We use an intensity model and loading factors to illustrate the involuntary unemployment risks and frictions in unemployment insurance markets. Using reasonably calibrated parameters, we observe that high involuntary unemployment intensity and loading factors could be important explanations for the empirical findings emphasized in recent studies. We also find that an individual with high leisure demand after retirement reduces consumption during retirement and increases stockholdings as retirement time approaches.     

SEC scrutiny shopping

We examine whether firms exploit enforcement heterogeneity in response to a heightened risk of investigation by regional Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement offices. We find that firms facing high SEC scrutiny risks are more likely to relocate outside the jurisdiction of the SEC regional office. The likelihood of out-of-SEC relocation becomes at least two times higher after exogenous shocks to local SEC enforcement. High scrutiny-risk firms tend to migrate to regions with weaker SEC enforcement history and regions with more peers engaging in misbehavior. Scrutiny shopping is more salient for firms with lower costs of relocation.     

中国区域信贷配给现状及区域差异分析

在全球经济金融危机影响下,信贷成为推动我国经济发展的原动力,但目前我国区域信贷配给差异化现象相当严重,出现经济发达区域信贷配给弱化,经济落后区域信贷配给强化的空间差异状况,这在一定程度上影响和阻碍了区域经济发展。文章认为区域经济发展差异、宏观调控货币政策传导机制的区域差异、信贷政策的一刀切、存款准备金率的区域一致性和利率实质上的区域差异性、信贷管理体制的变革和信用环境差异等是造成信贷配给区域差异化的原因,正确认识上述原因,是有效消除信贷配给区域性和促进区域经济协调发展的根本前提和重要保证。     

我国不同区域中小上市公司成长性研究

在探讨企业成长与区域环境间关系的基础上,借鉴仿生学理论构建中小上市公司成长性评价指标体系,选取中小企业板、创业板及沪深主板28个省区433家中小上市公司为研究样本,运用因素方差分析和综合评价方法对东中西部中小上市公司成长性进行评价比较。研究结果显示中小上市公司成长性要素指数呈现东部地区整体最优,西部地区略高于中部地区的趋势,并提出构建适应区域特性的成长机制是提升中小上市公司成长性的有效途径。     

Do Interregional Transfers Improve the Economic Performance of Poor Regions? The Case of Spain

The 17 regional governments of Spain receive grants from both the central government and the European Union. The grants are generally redistributive and are intended to stimulate economic activity in the poorer regions. We evaluate the effectiveness of the grants by comparing the economic performance of the regions before and after the implementation of the grant programs using a differences-in-differences approach. We find that these policies have not been effective at stimulating private investment or improving the overall economies of the poorer regions.     

Labor Unemployment Concern and Corporate Discretionary Disclosure

We investigate how firms strategically vary their disclosure policies in response to labor unemployment concern. Using changes in state unemployment insurance laws as exogenous variations of labor unemployment concern, we show that firms provide more bad news forecasts when unemployment concern is low. This relation is stronger when firms are financially constrained, when CEOs and CFOs have higher equity incentives, and when workers are likely to be affected more by unemployment. Our findings are not driven by earnings management reversal or underlying performance changes, and are robust to a battery of identification tests. Finally, we find a similar effect of unemployment concern on disclosure using the tone of 10‐K and 10‐Q filings as an alternative proxy for corporate disclosure. Overall, our findings suggest that labor unemployment concern is an important consideration for corporate discretionary disclosure.