Offshoring and Outsourcing Potentials: Evidence from German Micro‐Level Data

This paper provides two indicators that measure: (i) offshoring potentials (cross‐country geographical relocation) and (ii) outsourcing potentials (organisational relocation) separately at the level of jobs, occupations, tasks and industries. We use four waves of the BIBB/BAuA Labour Force Survey in Germany and apply principal component analysis based on a large set of potential determinants of offshoring and outsourcing derived from the literature. Our results show significant variation across these levels in the determinants of both dimensions. We provide a comprehensive empirical classification of the determinants of how easily jobs can be offshored and outsourced. This can serve as a basis for further research to investigate the economic effects of job offshoreability.     

Foreign Direct Investment and Total Factor Productivity Growth: New Macro‐Evidence

Although the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in facilitating technology transfer is well known in the literature, empirical evidence regarding the effect of FDI on growth is mixed. The contradictory results in the literature may be due to the failure to account for endogeneity and for the abortive capacity of the hosting countries. Using panel data for 49 countries over the period 1974–2008 and the existence of Investment Promotion Agencies in the receiving countries as an instrument, our results show that increased FDI stock leads to higher productivity growth. We also find a significant positive effect on the interaction between FDI stock and distance to the technological frontier, suggesting that the ability of technologically backward countries in absorbing technologies developed at the frontiers increases as more FDI stock is accumulated.     

Exporters and Importers of Services: Firm‐Level Evidence on Italy

This work contributes to the growing literature on international trade in services at firm level. Our data set provides information on exports and imports of services (excluding transportation and travel) in 2008–09 for almost 3,000 Italian industrial and services firms, divided by partner country and type of service. We report a set of stylised facts on services trade and analyse the choice between export and foreign direct investment in services at the firm level. We find that the export and import of services are highly concentrated in just a few firms. Firm‐level variation in trade is positively correlated with firm size and productivity. Country‐level variation is to a large extent explained by the standard gravity variables: distance strongly reduces trade in services in spite of their intangibility. Smaller and less productive firms choose to export rather than sell through foreign affiliates, although there is some heterogeneity among service types.     

金融发展与家庭金融资产投资:基于中国数据的分析

文章使用中国2000-2011年的季度数据,运用动态最小二乘(DOLS)和误差修正模型(ECM),检验了金融发展与家庭金融资产投资之间的长期和短期动态关系.结果表明,在金融发展和资产收益率之间不存在明显的分工,金融发展无论是在短期和长期都会影响家庭投资组合的动态变化,其中,无论在短期和长期,股票市场发展在家庭存款和股票资产之间都产生了较强的替代效应.     

Offshoring and the Skill‐premium: Evidence from Individual Workers’ Data

During the 1980s the United States has experienced an increase in both international trade and the skill‐premium. The association between these two phenomena has proven elusive in the early empirical literature on the subject. Indeed, the consensus among labour economists seems to be that trade has not been the main cause of such increase in the skill‐premium. This view has been challenged by Feenstra and Hanson (1999, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114, 3, 907) who find that offshoring sizably affects the skill‐premium. I revisit this debate using individual workers’ data from the March Current Population Survey combined with industry‐level trade data. This strategy improves upon the work of Feenstra and Hanson who do not control for the demographic characteristics of the labour force. In my results, offshoring can explain between 9 and 30 per cent of the increase in the college wage premium, relative to high‐school workers. In addition, I find that offshoring can explain 21 per cent of the increase in the relative employment of skilled labour. These results suggest that offshoring may play an important role in the increase in the relative demand of skilled workers.     

Outward FDI and Productivity: Micro‐evidence from Slovenia

This paper uses a rich data set of Slovenian manufacturing firms active in the period 1994–2002 that contains information on outward FDI and exports to different markets in order to test three empirical hypotheses that relate the decision for outward FDI to total factor productivity. First, the evidence supports the hypothesis proposed by Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (2004) that more productive firms are more likely to invest in a foreign affiliate. Second, the hypothesis proposed by Head and Ries (2003 ) that less productive firms may be encouraged to invest in low‐income countries is rejected by the data. However, the main contribution of the paper is to confirm the third hypothesis that required firm's productivity increases with the number of markets that the firm serves, i.e. there is a positive relationship between the number of a firm's foreign affiliates and its total factor productivity.     

Regional Financial Developments and Research and Development Investment–Cash Flow Sensitivity: Evidence on Chinese Public High‐Tech Companies

In a sample of 485 Chinese public high‐tech companies, we show that the R&D investment is significantly dependent on internal cash flow. Based on the sizable discrepancies of stock market and financial intermediary developments in the East, Middle and West regions of China, empirical estimation provides strong evidence that the financial developments in both credit and equity markets have large effects on reducing financing constraints. The effects are most significant in the financially advanced East region of China.     

Declining Distance Effects in International Trade: Some Country‐Level Evidence

Technical progress can be expected to reduce transport costs over time, yet most studies of bilateral trade based on the gravity model find distance effects to be increasing rather than decreasing. We investigate countries' openness to international trade (the ratio of exports plus imports to GDP). We find that trade decreases with geographical remoteness, land area and lack of access to the sea, all of which are likely to be correlated with transport costs. In contrast to the results obtained with log‐linear models of bilateral trade, distance effects (remoteness and land area) have declined over time. Trade decreases with population density and increases with improvements in the terms of trade, investment and a more liberal trade policy.     

Money Following Trust: Evidence from China’s High‐Value Payment System

This study enriches the economic consequence of trust from the perspective of cash flow. It analyzes the impact of trust on interprovincial cash flow using matching data pertaining to Chinese provincial trust and the high‐value payment system in 2006–2010. It further investigates trust’s effect in different legal protection scenarios to explore the interactive role of formal and informal institutions. The results indicate that trust can significantly promote interprovincial cash flow and it persists after addressing endogeneity concerns and across different methods. However, this effect is only significant or much larger in provinces with less legal protection, indicating the alternative roles played by trust and formal institutions.     

Exploring the Relationship between Financial Education and Financial Knowledge and Efficacy: Evidence from the Canadian Financial Capability Survey

Researchers and policymakers in many countries are interested in better understanding the relationship between financial education participation and cognitive outcomes such as financial knowledge and self‐efficacy. We used two waves of the nationally representative Canadian Financial Capability Survey along with propensity score matching (PSM) to compare outcomes between persons who had taken a financial education course to those who had not. After matching and adjusting for demographic and economic factors, financial education participants exhibited significantly higher objective and subjective financial knowledge and financial self‐efficacy scores. Post‐estimation analysis showed that higher overall objective financial knowledge scores were at least partially driven by higher scores of men. Financial education participants had higher subjective knowledge and financial self‐efficacy scores for both genders and across age. Future research into financial education ought to consider cognitive dimensions in addition to behavioral and financial outcomes.     

金融发展与融资约束——来自中小企业板的证据

本文使用2005—2007年中小企业板数据,在考虑实际控制人性质和政治关系的背景下,研究金融发展是否可以缓解中小企业融资约束。研究发现:无政治关系的民营中小企业面临较强融资约束,金融发展可以显著缓解其融资约束,这种缓解作用来自信贷资金分配的市场化和金融市场引入外资;具有政治关系的民营中小企业不存在显著的融资约束,但金融业引入外资会显著增加其现金的现金流敏感度,可能导致这类中小企业融资状况或企业绩效弱化;国有中小企业现金的现金流敏感度最高,但其现金持有量与绩效负相关,金融发展对其不产生显著影响。     

RTAs' Proliferation and Trade‐diversion Effects: Evidence of the ‘Spaghetti Bowl’ Phenomenon

This paper investigates the trade‐diversion effects of regional trade agreements (RTAs), so‐called spaghetti bowl phenomenon (SBP), in multilateral trade. The SBP is due to the proliferation of RTAs. Thus, I investigate the relationship between the number of RTAs concluded by a country and the additional trade value attributed to a RTA. Using bilateral trade data in a sample of 119 countries, from 1995 to 2012, my main finding reveals a negative trade effect between them, confirming the existence of SBP in multilateral trade. However, results could not conclude the evidence of a negative effect of overlapping RTAs, involving the existence of SBP, within North–North, North–South or South–South trade. But, the additional trade value attributed to a RTA concluded with EU countries or US seems to confirm significantly a trade‐diversion effect because of the number of RTAs signed by these countries.     

High‐Growth Women’s Entrepreneurship: Fueling Social and Economic Development

High‐growth firms, often referred to as “gazelles,” are equated with entrepreneurial success and celebrated as the key to growing economies, and women’s entrepreneurship is a vehicle of economic and social development. This special issue publishes papers that address the general lack of research on high‐growth women’s entrepreneurship. In this introduction paper, we offer an adapted framework for the factors driving high growth across multiple levels: individual (entrepreneur and entrepreneurial team characteristics), venture (strategy, organizational structures, and systems), resources, location, and environment. We also introduce the papers in this special issue and present an overview of the contributions to this issue.     

Asymmetric Relationship between Investors' Sentiment and Stock Returns: Evidence from a Quantile Non‐causality Test

This study investigates the causal relationship between investor sentiment and stock returns in the USA by conducting a quantile Granger non‐causality test. Employing two proxies for investor sentiment – the sentiment index developed by Baker and Wurgler in 2007 and the University of Michigan Consumer Survey, a consumer confidence index – we find that the causal relationship between investor sentiment and stock returns strengthens when a tail quantile interval is considered. This finding implies that the investor sentiment could provide the incremental predictability for the stock returns under the extreme market situation, which cannot be found using a traditional Granger causality test. Interestingly, the findings can be explained by investors' loss aversion and herding behavior.     

Toward a Model of Understanding Strategic Decision‐Making in Micro‐Firms: Exploring the Australian Information Technology Sector

This study explores strategic decision‐making (SDM) in micro‐firms, an economically significant business subsector. As extant large‐ and small‐firm literature currently proffers an incomplete characterization of SDM in very small enterprises, a multiple‐case methodology was used to investigate how these firms make strategic decisions. Eleven Australian Information Technology service micro‐firms participated in the study. Using an information‐processing lens, the study uncovered patterns of SDM in micro‐firms and derived a theoretical micro‐firm SDM model. This research also identifies several implications for micro‐firm management and directions for future research, contributing to the understanding of micro‐firm SDM in both theory and practice.     

Macro‐Hysteresis Test for Brazilian Exports of Manufactured Products: A threshold Panel Approach

This study tests for macro‐hysteresis in Brazilian exports of manufactured products using a panel model with threshold parameters according to Hansen. To test hysteresis, the threshold variables are built based on studies by Parslei and Wei, and Penkova. There is evidence of asymmetrical responses, with more pronounced increases in the price elasticity of demand during periods of high depreciation of the exchange rate compared with periods of more pronounced currency appreciation. We also estimate the relative price intervals that correspond to the inaction band.     

政府审计功能协同与财政支出效率:理论与实证

本文在构建审计功能协同发展影响财政支出效率的理论模型基础上,采用动态空间面板模型考察了"免疫系统"观下审计功能协同发展对财政支出效率的影响效应.研究表明:中国省域财政支出效率呈现出明显的空间溢出效应和俱乐部集聚特征;财政支出效率在时间单维度、空间单维度分别表现为惯性效应和标尺效应.审计功能协同发展对财政支出效率的影响呈现先上升后下降的倒"U"型特征,充分发挥审计功能协同对财政支出效率的提升效应具有较大潜力.     

金融发展与经济增长的实证研究:以江苏为例

区域金融对区域经济的影响是近年来研究的热点课题.本文以江苏为例时金融发展与经济增长影响进行实证研究发现:金融效率化及保险市场发展程度与经济增长呈负相关关系;金融相关率及股票市场发展程度与经济增长呈正相关关系,该结论符合中国国情及江苏省情.最后,针对研究结论提出意见和建议.     

The Long‐run Relationship Between Trade and Population Health: Evidence from Five Decades

In recent years, the increase in international trade has sparked a debate about the impact of international trade on population health. To date, however, there has been very little econometric research on the relationship between these two variables. This paper examines the long‐run relationship between trade openness and population health for a sample of 74 countries over five decades, from 1960 to 2010. Using panel time‐series techniques, it is shown that international trade in general has a robust positive long‐run effect on health, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality. This effect tends to be greater in countries with lower development levels, higher taxes on income, profits, and capital gains, and less restrictive business and labour market regulations.     

金融中介发展与技术进步——来自中国省级面板数据的证据

根据内生经济增长理论中的新熊彼特增长模型,金融发展能够促进技术进步从而推动长期经济增长。本文利用中国大陆省级面板数据对金融中介发展与技术进步的关系进行了实证检验。基于对银行信贷决策自主性程度的考虑,私营企业及个体贷款占贷款总额的比重被用来度量金融中介发展水平。在控制了人力资本、外商直接投资、专利保护水平以及证券化水平之后,本文发现金融中介发展对技术进步具有非常显著的正向解释力。