Spatial income and public capital: a case of a Spanish region

The objective of this paper is to analyse major determinants of disposable per capita income at a local municipality level for a territory of Spain: the Valencian region. A cross-sectional spatial study for an averaged period (2010–2013) will allow us to control for intraregional correlation, paying special attention to the role of real public investment and its possible effects on disposable personal income. A reference framework for economic and social policymakers will be provided by the specification of the model.     

Optimal fiscal policy in an endogenous growth model with public capital: a note

This note presents an investigation of the optimal tax rule in endogenous growth models with public capital. It is presumed that the government levies only an income tax in addition to financing public investment. Furthermore, a household’s saving is deducted from the income tax. We find the optimal tax rule whereby the social optimum is attainable. The manner by which a government imposes a tax on income and administers tax deductions is important for attaining a socially optimal situation.      

The impact of public capital on the US private economy: new evidence and analysis

This paper presents new evidence on the impact of public capital on the productivity of the US private sector. Using a production function approach, we estimate the impact of public investment on private capital productivity, specifically addressing the empirical critiques of earlier studies. We find evidence of a cointegrating relationship in a dynamic specification of an empirical model that includes public infrastructure as a factor of production, indicating the existence of a long‐run relationship between the US public capital stock and the productivity of the private capital stock. The results are used to explore how the decline in the growth rate of the public capital stock would have affected the performance of the private sector.     

Bond rating changes and stock returns: evidence from the Spanish stock market

This study analyzes the effect of corporate bond rating changes by international agencies on stock prices. This topic has not yet been analyzed for the Spanish stock market, despite the growing importance of ratings in Spanish financial markets. On an efficient market, rating changes will only have an effect if they contain some new information. The results from an event study indicate that rating actions cause significant negative abnormal returns in issuing firms around the date of the announcement. This evidence indicates an informational effect related to downgrades, which supports the hypothesis that credit rating agencies provide information that may reduce the asymmetric information problem between firms and investors. In the case of upgrades, our results are compatible with a redistribution of wealth between bondholders and owners or with the reputation hypothesis.      

Economic policy uncertainty and the Chinese stock market volatility: new evidence

This study investigates the impacts of the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indexes of China and the G7 countries on Chinese stock market volatility and further constructs a new diffusion index based on these indexes using principal component analysis (PCA) to achieve enhanced predictive ability. The in-sample results indicate that the EPU indexes of China and some of the G7 countries show a significantly negative impact on future volatility. Moreover, our constructed diffusion index also has a significantly negative impact. Furthermore, the out-of-sample results show that this diffusion index exhibits a significantly higher forecast accuracy than the EPU itself and combination forecasts. Finally, various robustness checks are consistent with our main conclusions. Overall, we construct a new and useful indicator that can substantially increase forecast accuracy with respect to the Chinese stock market.     

Global indeterminacy in an endogenous-growth model with public capital

This paper studies the patterns of growth in an endogenous-growth model where the labor supply is endogenous and sustained growth arises because the services derived from public capital increase the economic productivity. It is assumed that these services are congested by the number of households in the economy but they are not congested by the units of time that each household devotes to work. With this assumption, the dynamic equilibrium exhibits multiple balanced-growth paths, local and global indeterminacy, and limit cycles under some plausible fiscal policies. Our analysis points out that a large lump-sum tax is a necessary condition to obtain this complex equilibrium dynamic behavior.     

Wage differentials by sector and gender: a quantile analysis for the Spanish case

This paper analyses existing wage differentials between workers in the public and private sectors and by gender in Spain. This analysis is run throughout the entire earnings distribution and observed wage differentials are decomposed into a part explained by differences in productive characteristics and a part due to differences in returns to such characteristics. Our results show that public sector workers tend to earn higher wages than private employees, although most of this sector wage gap is due to better public workers’ productive characteristics. A wage premium in favour of men is also found in both the public and private sectors, with the gender wage gap greater at the top of the earnings distribution.     

Temporary employment and segmentation in the Spanish labour market: An empirical analysis through the study of wage differentials

We aim to add empirical evidence to the already studied field of wage differentials between temporary and permanent workers in Spain. Our goal is to find out which determinants of wage differentials are relevant when explaining such differences. Furthermore, the endogeneity of such feature (the type of contract) is controlled for. The same exercise is done with two data sets: the ECHP and the Structure of Earnings Survey. Results show that wage differentials between temporary and permanent workers are explained by the differences in the distribution of personal and job characteristics in both groups, but not by differences in the rewards for those characteristics. These results remain mostly unchanged during the second part of the 1990s, using information from five waves of the ECHP, and are robust to different changes in the econometric specification.JEL Classification: J31, J41The authors would like to thank the participants in the 3rd Summer School of Labour Economics (organised by IZA in Amersee, Munich), in a seminar in the University of Alcalá and in another seminar in the European University Institute in Florence and especially Alison Booth, Luis Toharia, Juan F. Jimeno, Juan José Dolado and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. Florentino Felgueroso kindly helped us with the handling of data. The usual disclaimer applies. The ECHP is being used on behalf of the contract reference ECHP/15/00 between the University of Alcalá and EUROSTAT.     

Local flexibility in wage setting: evidence from the Norwegian local public sector

The public sectors in the Scandinavian countries have been prominent examples of centralized wage-setting systems. In Norway, more room for local flexibility was implemented by a wage frame system introduced in 1990 in which the national wage scale system merely works like a minimum wage system. We analyze the effect of this reform using a unique database where we can track employees and their local government over time and explore the consequences of controlling for fixed individual effects and fixed employer effects. We find that the wage dispersion increased across local governments after 1990, and that wages to some extent became more responsive to local government income, monopsony power and other local government characteristics after the reform. However, the numerical effects of the reform are estimated to be quite small.     

The effects of haze pollution on stock performances: evidence from China

Haze pollution has become the most important environmental issue in China in recent years. Using the data of PM_2.5 concentration and stocks of listed companies located in Beijing between 2010 and 2014, this article investigates the effects of haze pollution on stock performances. Empirical results indicate that haze pollution has significant negative effects on stock returns and significant positive effects on stock volatilities, through the channel of investors’ mood. Furthermore, the effects of haze pollution on stock returns emerge gradually and the effects of haze pollution on stock volatilities weaken gradually over time during a trading day.     

Intellectual capital and firm performance: evidence from Indian banking sector

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the entire Indian banking industry was paralysed and their performance was shattered by the unfolding of enormous cases of Non-performing Assets (NPA). The study estimates the operating efficiency of 40 Indian banks for 5 years (2011–15) as a proxy of performance measure using the output-oriented DEA-BCC model. We find that nearly 62% of the state-owned banks and 47% of the private banks are inefficient indicating that the inefficient banks need to reduce their inputs or improve their output to become efficient. The study further investigates the relationship between intellectual capital (IC) and bank performance using a truncated regression model. The regression results show that out of the three components of intellectual capital, only human capital efficiency is positively and significantly associated with operational efficiency while structural capital and finance capital have a negative impact on the efficiency of banks. The study concludes that to achieve competitive edge banks should invest in their human capital. The results are robust in the case of financial variables taken as a proxy for performance.     

人力资本结构对经济增长贡献率的实证分析

建立人力资本结构对经济增长贡献率的计量模型,采用相关数据对该模型进行实证分析。结果表明：中等教育对我国经济增长的贡献率较高,高等教育相对较小。因此,建立模型分析不同受教育年限的人力资本对经济增长的贡献率就非常具有现实意义。     

An estimate of the capital stock for the Belgian industrial sector

The paper submitted for publication considers the conditions for and the construction of a capital stock series, consistent with all macroeconomic relations. A careful study of the literature has shown that most existing and widely used capital stock series do not meet that requirement. A generative method with a general model for the real sector is proposed. The choice of the parameters of this model was decided upon the general consistency with the main macroeconomic aggregates. The results are compared with existing series of capital stock. What was obtained was a capital stock series that gives non-diverging results for the macroeconomic series when using the capital stock in alternative specifications. The main conclusions on depreciation rate, capital stock, technological change, return on capital and share of capital are condensed in a set of tables and diagrams.     

The effects of the Paris climate agreement on stock markets: evidence from the German stock market

We investigate the effects of the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement on the German stock market by considering the impact of 20 announcements pertaining to the Agreement on 17 industries. The event study methodology is used for this purpose, together with several robustness tests, such as the nonparametric rank test and non-parametric conditional distribution approach. The change in systematic risk following the announcements is captured by using various risk models. In general, we find that the Paris Climate Agreement is achieving its objectives in the short run. Our results show that the announcements affected polluting industries in terms of risk and return. Furthermore, we observe two distinct diamond risk structures when (1) Conference of the Parties (COP) 21 took place, and (2) the Agreement came into force.     

Insurance market games: Scale effects and public policy

We propose a game-theoretic model to study various effects of scale in an insurance market. After reviewing a simple static model of insurer solvency (in which all customers have inelastic demand), we present a one-period game in which both the buyers and sellers of insurance make strategic bids to determine market price and quantity. For the case in which both buyers and sellers are characterized by constant absolute risk aversion, we show that a unique market equilibrium exists under certain conditions. For the special case of risk-neutral insurers, we then consider how both the price and quantity of insurance, as well as other quantities of interest to public-policy decision makers, are affected by the number of insurance firms, the number of customers, and the total amount of capital provided by investors.     

Estimates of optimal public capital stocks in Japan using a public investment discount rate framework

The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the optimality of the level of public capital in Japan. We use a methodological approach based on Burgess's (1988) procedure for calculating the public discount rate. This approach involves estimating a production function, but does not necessarily require utility function estimation. The results indicate that, although the Japanese economy experienced a public capital deficiency over the period 1960–1982, public capital moved toward optimal levels throughout the period. First version received: March 1997/final version received: June 1998     

我国货币政策与股票市场的实证分析

资本市场是现代金融市场最主要构成部分之一,对实际经济生活的影响日益增大。通过我国股票市场与经济增长的实证检验可知,货币政策与资本市场是一种互动关系。一方面,中央银行的货币政策会直接或间接地影响资本市场;另一方面,资本市场的发展对货币政策及其传导机制有深刻的影响。     

The labour market effects of offshoring of small and medium-sized firms: micro-level evidence for Germany

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the economic powerhouse of many OECD countries (perhaps most prominently so in Germany). Yet, the labour market dynamics caused by the internationalization of their production activities are largely unexplored. We use survey-based micro-level data for Germany to explore the employment effects of offshoring of SMEs, relying on propensity score matching and difference-in-difference analysis. We find evidence for a downsizing effect in the immediate aftermath of offshoring whereas, initially, job creation is not spurred. In the medium run, we find evidence for a slowing down of employment dynamics of offshoring firms (that tend to belong to the better performing SMEs in Germany) relative to non-offshoring firms. Even though our results do not point to a net employment loss in the medium run, our evidence suggests that offshoring may lead to less jobs being created. This conclusion cannot be confirmed for large companies.     

中国股票市场发展与经济增长的实证研究

本文运用Johansen协整检验、格兰杰因果检验等计量经济学方法,通过分析我国近年来宏观数据及股市规模、流动性和波动性的季度数据,对中国股票市场发展与经济增长的关系进行了计量学检验。得出的结论是：总体上,中国股票市场和经济增长之间存在长期的均衡关系,经济增长对股市的发展具有一定促进作用,但股票市场对经济增长的作用十分有限。