On the Cultural Transmission of Corruption

We provide a cultural explanation to the phenomenon of corruption in the framework of an overlapping generations model with intergenerational transmission of values. We show that the economy has two steady states with different levels of corruption. The driving force in the equilibrium selection process is the education effort exerted by parents which depends on the distribution of ethics in the population and on expectations about future policies. We propose some policy interventions which via parents' efforts have long-lasting effects on corruption and show the success of intensive education campaigns. Educating the young is a key element in reducing corruption successfully. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D10, J13.     

The Determinants of Governance: A Cross-Country Analysis

Drawing on insights from economic, political, and cultural theories of governance, this article investigates the determinants of governance for a large sample of countries, both developed and developing. The results indicate that countries with a history of Western European influence and with British common law origins have better governance. In addition to these exogenous and historically predetermined variables, economic factors such as openness to trade, resource-intensity in exports, and levels of economic development have a significant impact on governance. (JEL D73 , H11 , K42 )     

Determinants of Household Savings: A Cross-Country Analysis

This paper analyses determinants of household savings in a model based on an extension of the disequilibrium savings theory. These extensions follow from the life-cycle and permanent-income theories. Based on panel data for 14 countries spanning the period 2000–2018, fixed-effect least squares and two-stage least squares estimation procedures were used. In line with previous studies, there is strong and robust evidence for the hypotheses of disequilibrium savings theory, specifically, positive effects of unanticipated income changes, unanticipated inflation and the lagged savings rate. There is also robust evidence for the income uncertainty hypothesis that uncertainty has a positive effect on savings. The analysis presents some evidence that social security suppresses savings, but finds no significant effects on the interest rate or old-age dependency ratio. Unexpectedly, the participation rate of the elderly has a significant positive effect in some specifications. These findings contribute to the debate on whether and how governments can influence saving behavior.

     

A Cross-Country Comparison of Okun's Coefficient

In this paper Okun's law is tested for the G7 countries in order to compare the responsiveness of unemployment to economic growth. Cyclical unemployment and output are extracted using Harvey's structural time series model. Okun's coefficient is estimated by OLS, rolling OLS, and SUR. The coefficient seems to be highest for North America and lowest for Japan, a result that can be explained in terms of differences in labor market rigidities. The rising absolute value of the coefficients over time indicated by the results of rolling OLS is explained in terms of labor market reform.J. Comp. Econom.,June 1997,24(3), pp. 335–356. La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia.     

Biodiversity Loss and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Analysis

This article empirically examines the relationship between biodiversity loss and economic growth in light of the current debate on the effects of economic growth on environmental quality. The basic premise is that biodiversity belongs to a special class of environmental degradation because it involves complex ecosystems, the loss of which cannot be recovered by technological advances. The main finding is that although economic growth has an expected adverse effect on biodiversity, the composition of economic output can also be significant, particularly in low-income countries. The study highlights the need to develop appropriate institutions and macroeconomic policies that allow biodiversity values to be internalized in decisionmaking processes.     

社会选择的实证之维——当代西方实证社会选择理论评述

当代行为经济学和实验经济学领域的研究越来越关注社会公平正义问题。实证社会选择理论从实证角度研究人们对于公平分配的观念,体现了当代规范经济学与实证经济学的有机结合。在长期大量的实证研究的基础上,实证社会选择理论检验了关于分配正义的很多基础理论,得到了一些重要发现。实证社会选择理论的研究,对于中国的经济学理论建设和改革实践,也具有重要的启发价值和参考意义。     

A Cross-Country Empirical Analysis of International Reserves

Using data from more than 100 economies for the period of 1975 to 2005, we conduct an extensive empirical analysis of the determinants of international reserve holdings. Four groups of determinants, namely, traditional macro variables, financial variables, institutional variables, and dummy variables that control for individual economies’ characteristics are considered. We find that the relationship between international reserves and their determinants is significantly different between developed and developing economies and is not stable over time. The estimation results indicate that, especially during the recent period, a developed economy tends to hold a lower level of international reserves than a developing one. Furthermore, there is only limited evidence that East Asian economies including China and Japan are accumulating an excessive amount of international reserves.     

腐败的困境:腐败本质的一项实验研究

腐败作为人类社会的一大毒瘤而普遍存在于各国的各个历史阶段,破坏社会正义且阻碍经济发展。然而,时至今日我们对腐败本质的认识仍然是滞后的,流行的委托代理的分析框架不足以为反腐败实践提供足够的指导。腐败本质上表现为一定群体的社会困境问题。在经典的贿赂博弈实验背景下,本研究使用实验方法考察了当群体面临"集体失败"风险的腐败决策。研究结果表明,由于个体理性与集体理性的冲突,实验中普遍的腐败行为导致群体陷入平均收益低于无腐败收益的"腐败的悲剧"。本文还对性别、风险态度、信任水平、腐败信念、亲社会性等个体特征在腐败行为的影响进行了考察。     

Wage Adjustments and Labour Market Systems: A Cross-Country Analysis*

Evidence is presented on how well alternative systems of wage determination facilitate disaggregate labour market adjustment. Tests of statistical causality are used to relate labour market pressure to relative wage changes. The conclusion is that rates of change of relative wages are determined independently of the microeconomic market balance. This result holds irrespective of the institutional form of the wage-fixing system.     

Investment, Pass-Through, and Exchange Rates: A Cross-Country Comparison

Using detailed data from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan, we examine the implications of exchange rates for time series of sectoral investment. Both theoretically and empirically, we show that investment responsiveness to exchange rates varies over time, positively in relation to sectoral reliance on export share and negatively with respect to the share of imported inputs in production. Important differences exist in investment endogeneity across high- and low-price-over-cost markup sectors, with investment in low-markup sectors often significantly more responsive to exchange rates. Cross-country differences in investment response are only partially explained by industrial organization arguments.     

银行效率的决定因素：跨国实证

本文基于1990—2009年间68个主要国家和经济体的面板数据,从管理效率、市场竞争性和盈利能力三个基本方面对影响一国银行业效率的相关因素进行了实证分析。实证结果表明：从宏观经济政策来看,保持宏观经济的持续稳定增长,稳步推进资本账户开放,将有助于提高一国银行业的整体效率;从银行产业发展来看,银行业效率的提高需要在保持适度资产规模和产业集中度的基础上,防止银行信贷的过度扩张和银行危机的发生;从制度文化发展来看,加强产权保护,促进社会信用文化水平的提升,将有助于一国银行业效率的整体提升。     

Going-Private Decisions and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002: A Cross-Country Analysis

This article investigates whether the passage and the implementationof the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) drove firms out of thepublic capital market. To control for other factors affectingexit decisions, we examine the post-SOX change in the propensityof American public targets to be bought by private acquirersrather than public ones with the corresponding change for foreignpublic targets, which were outside the purview of SOX. Our findingsare consistent with the hypothesis that SOX induced small firmsto exit the public capital market during the year followingits enactment. In contrast, SOX appears to have had little effecton the going-private propensities of larger firms. (JEL G30,G34, G38, K22)     

A Clustering Approach to Some Monetary Facts: A Long-Run Analysis of Cross-Country Data

Long-run dependencies among inflation, growth rates of money, real output and real output per capita are analysed. For a cross-section of 119 countries, clusters are obtained, and correlations among these variables within each cluster are calculated. Unlike the correlations obtained using data from the full sample, correlations of growth rates of real output and real output per capita with money growth and inflation are dissimilar across clusters. In particular, for some clusters of countries positive long-run relationships of money growth and inflation with growth rates of real output are observed.
JEL Classification Numbers: E5, F01, C69.     

School Attainment, Completion, and Economic Development: A Cross-Country Analysis

The primary aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between school attainment, school completion, and economic development. In doing so it also examines the effect of other macroeconomic variables on school attainment and completion. Estimation is conducted using a panel dataset of 138 countries. Our results show that income levels, government expenditure on education, and political instability all have significant effects on school completion and attainment. In addition these variables have different effects on male and female schooling. Our results have important policy implications and in particular allow policymakers to identify different instruments to target the problem of non‐completion of schooling.     

The Effect of Public Education Expenditure on Shadow Economy: A Cross-Country Analysis

This paper empirically examines whether devoting more resources to education can reduce the size of the shadow economy on a cross-section of countries. The findings show a negative relationship between public education expenditure and the size of the shadow economy, which is robust to the inclusion of different proxies for the control variables, a large set of policy variables, regional differences and endogeneity. The findings also emphasize the role of education, suggesting that public policies devoted to higher education level imply a decreasing effect on the shadow economy.     

Money Market Uncertainty and Retail Interest Rate Fluctuations: A Cross-Country Comparison

Abstract. This paper analyzes empirically the relationship between money market uncertainty and unexpected deviations in retail interest rates in a sample of ten OECD countries. We find that, with the exception of the United States, money market uncertainty has only a modest impact on the conditional volatility of retail interest rates. Even for the United States, we find that the effects of money market uncertainty are spread out over time. Our results also indicate that money market uncertainty tends to be passed on to retail rates to a lesser extent in countries where banking relationships play a substantial role.     

The World Trade Collapse and International Value Chains: A Cross-Country Perspective

This paper challenges the mainstream narrative that links the strength and speed of the world trade collapse in 2008–2009 to the international fragmentation of production, organized in international value chains. The paper points out often overlooked counteracting forces such as non-bank-intermediated credit, trust in long-term commercial affairs and intra-firm relationships. A cross-section of the strength and speed of the import decline in 42 countries shows that both the share of manufacturing trade and an indicator for the vertical specialization in trade are associated with less contraction and slower adjustment. Countries with large shares of manufactures in trade (a proxy for international value chain activity) and/or vertical specialization in trade did not reduce their trade more strongly. The empirical evidence points out that international value chains may very well have had a major dampening effect that reduced the extent to which world trade fell.