Public Preferences for Government Spending Priorities: Survey Evidence from Germany

Employing data from a representative survey conducted in Germany, this paper examines public preferences for the size and composition of government expenditure. We focus on public attitudes towards taxes, public debt incurrence and public spending in six different policy areas. Our findings suggest, first, that individual preferences for the use of additional tax money can be categorised as either capital‐oriented expenditure or public debt reduction. Second, we find that fiscal preferences differ along various dimensions. Specifically, personal economic well‐being, economic literacy, confidence in politicians, political ideology and time preference are significantly related to individual attitudes towards public spending, taxes and debt. The magnitude of the effects is particularly large for time preference, economic knowledge and party preference. Third, public preferences for public spending priorities are only marginally affected when considering a public budget constraint.     

Economic Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Panel Data

The notion that economic reform can reduce corruption remains prevalent in the policy agenda of international financial institutions, especially of the World Bank. Economic reforms have, therefore, been carried out throughout various parts of the world to improve the performance of the economies. Using data from 94 low‐ and middle‐income nations for the period 1996–2015, this study employs static and dynamic panel analysis to examine whether economic reform undertaken in accordance with the World Bank's reform programs negatively affects corruption. Our findings suggest that enhancing government effectiveness (i.e. independence of civil service from political pressure, provision of quality public services, effective policy formulation and the government's commitment to such policies) and improving public rights and civil liberties could be some of the most promising policies in terms of fighting corruption. The role of economic development and growth in real per capita income is also found to be significant in some of the specifications. However, the assertion that economic reform can reduce corruption is rejected in all the specifications. We rather find evidence that economic reforms negatively affect the ability of democracy to fight corruption, although on a slim margin. The central theme of the implications of our findings is that in combating corruption, social, institutional and legal means are far more important than economic means. The finding thus is compatible with the World Bank's effort in the later years to introduce governance and democracy as effective tool against corruption.     

Relative Income and Indebtedness: Evidence from Panel Data

We examine patterns of indebtedness in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, focusing on the period surrounding the housing bubble and its aftermath (i.e., 1999–2009). Leverage increased across households, but most quickly among lower income households during this period. We find additionally that leverage grew faster for households with lower relative income compared to other households in similar demographic groups or within a state controlling for own income. Together, these findings provide evidence for the thesis that the rising indebtedness of households in the U.S. is related to high levels of inequality, and that “Veblen effects,” whereby relative income matters for individual well‐being and decisions, may contribute to rising household indebtedness.     

Asymmetric Linkages between BRICS Stock Returns and Country Risk Ratings: Evidence from Dynamic Panel Threshold Models

This study investigates the asymmetric linkages between the five BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries’ stock markets and three country risk ratings (financial, economic and political risk) in the presence of major global economic and financial factors. Using the dynamic panel threshold models, we find evidence of asymmetry in most cases. However, the significance and the signs of the effects of these risk ratings on the BRICS market returns differ across the lower and upper regimes. Furthermore, improvements in the global stock, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and gold markets enhance the BRICS stock market performance. Increases in implied volatility indices lead to drops in the BRICS markets.     

Political Connectedness and Firm Performance: Evidence from Germany

Abstract. This paper investigates politically connected firms in Germany. With the introduction of a new transparency law in 2007, information on additional income sources for all members of the German parliament became publicly available. We find that members of the conservative party (CDU/CSU) and the liberal party (FDP) are more likely to work for firms than members of left‐wing parties (SPD and The Left) or the green party (Alliance 90/The Greens). Politically connected firms are larger, less risky and have lower market valuations than unconnected firms. They also have fewer growth opportunities, but slightly better accounting performance. On the stock market, connected firms significantly outperformed unconnected firms in 2006, i.e. before the publication of the data on political connections. Differences in stock market performance were much smaller in 2007.     

Politics and the stock market: Evidence from Germany

We analyze the interaction of stock market movements and politics in Germany. Evidence from popularity functions and VAR-based evidence suggests that stock market returns have affected the popularity of German governments. We only find weak evidence that the political process has had an impact on the stock market. In contrast to empirical evidence for the U.S., we do not find that German stock market returns tend to be higher during left-wing than during right-wing governments. Also in contrast to results for the U.S., we find no evidence for an election cycle in German stock market returns.     

Uncertainty and Investment: Evidence from Australian Firm Panel Data

This paper investigates the key drivers of fixed firm investment of listed non‐financial companies in Australia over the period from 1987 to 2009. A Tobin's q model of investment is augmented to account for the effect of economic uncertainty on the investment decision. The effects of Tobin's q, sales and cash flows on firm investment rate are also analysed and discussed. Consistent with existing literature, this research finds clear evidence of negative effects of both macroeconomic and firm idiosyncratic uncertainty on Australian firm investment. However, evidence also shows that firm‐specific uncertainty is more important in explaining firm investment than macroeconomic uncertainty.     

Economic Factors of Victimization: Evidence from Germany

Victimization is a poorly studied topic in economic research. This paper considers economic factors of victimization using individual data. It tests the rational‐choice‐based hypothesis that the more attractive and poorly guarded targets are facing a higher risk of victimization. The used dataset also covers own criminal activities such that individual offending behavior can be studied as endogenous driver of victimization. Econometric results confirm that a criminal background is one of the major reasons of own victimization. In line with rational choice behavior of offenders, victimization is also associated with being a job holder and more schooling. Moreover, large peer groups increase the risk of victimization, whereas married and healthy people have a significantly lower risk of becoming a crime victim.     

Entrepreneurship, windfall gains and financial constraints: Evidence from Germany

We investigate the link between the propensity to become an entrepreneur and the exogenous release from financial constraints in Germany. This is defined in terms of the movement from employment to self-employment on receipt of a financial windfall. A theoretical framework developing Evans and Jovanovic (1989) is set up and tested with panel data from German households. The results show that financial constraints do exist given that individuals are more likely to start a personal business after receiving a windfall gain. The value of windfall gains has a significant but non linear effect on the decision to become self employed. The data reveal that differences in ability and income affect the change in employment status. We also report that there is no evidence that becoming self-employed involves the anticipation of windfall gains.     

银行业结构与经济增长

本文运用中国28个省区在1985—2002年间的面板数据,考察银行业结构对经济增长的影响。文章对银行业结构的分析着眼于不同规模的银行在银行体系中的相对重要性,度量指标为中小金融机构的市场份额,即四大国有商业银行之外的其他金融机构的贷款余额占各地区全部金融机构贷款余额的比例。为了克服银行业结构可能存在的内生性问题,文章用1994年启动的国有银行商业化改革的政策因素来构造银行业结构的工具变量。运用双向固定效应模型的估计结果显示,在中国现阶段,中小金融机构市场份额的上升对经济增长具有显著的正向影响。     

Incentives and Female Entrepreneurial Activity: Evidence from Panel Firm Level Data

The goal of this paper is to investigate entrepreneurial activity and to analyze the incentives of female participation in the labor market. Female entrepreneurial activity is closely related to social and economic issues. They represent a driving force, active and effective members of economic, political, professional and managerial societies. On the other hand, they have families with serious maternal responsibilities and inelastic household obligations, roles which they are trying to balance effectively. To that reason, specific actions and carefully designed measures are essential in encouraging and promoting them to engage into entrepreneurial activity. To investigate the issue of entrepreneurial activity, personal characteristics and various motivation incentives are examined in order to determine the major factors that may influence female entrepreneurial spirit in Greece. Obtaining data from 1600 industrial firms located in the prefecture of Piraeus over the period 1999–2009, this study makes use of the panel methodology approach to provide evidence about the main determinants of female entrepreneurship. What is found is that a combination of pull and push motives and effective mentoring framework, in addition to a set of personal characteristics such as risk of failure, educational level, creativity, innovativeness, ambitiousness and marital status, seem important for the encouragement of women entrepreneurship in Greece to start up a new business. The implications seem very substantial for the formulation and implementation of effective support policies and measures for female entrepreneurs’ vital start up and early stage period.     

Deprivation and Subjective Well‐Being: Evidence from Panel Data

This paper uses data from the 2000–08 waves of the German Socio‐Economic Panel dataset (SOEP) to assess the impact of deprivation in various life domains upon individual well‐being. Unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for by means of a random effects model extended to include a Mundlak term and explicit controls for the respondents' personality traits. The paper shows that people care about social comparison information in a number of domains, not just income. Using an equivalent income approach, the estimates suggest that a one standard deviation deterioration of the individual position in the income distribution is as important as a 33.5 percent decrease in own income. This monetary equivalent amounts to an income variation of between 25 and 43 percent when it comes to other deprivation domains, including durables, accommodation, health, and social relations. These results recommend that in the fight against deprivation more emphasis should be directed to these non‐monetary relevant dimensions.     

融资结构与我国上市商业银行的流动性风险——基于面板数据的经验与证据

流动性是商业银行经营管理的重要组成部分,而融资结构调控对商业银行控制风险、提高竞争盈利能力具有重要作用.文章利用我国11家商业银行2001～2007年的面板数据,构建了我国商业银行融资结构与流动性风险间的变截距固定效应模型,对二者相关性的分析发现,融资结构对改善商业银行的流动性风险状况具有重要作用,核心资本、附属资本、资本充足率以及资产规模与以流动性比率度量的流动性风险之间存在着非线性关系.     

Environmental Kuznets curve: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

A well-known hypothesis providing support for a policy that emphasizes economic growth at the expense of environmental protection is the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. Although this relation has been mainly explored at the macro-economic level, there are few researches examining micro-economic level. This study looks for empirical evidence between air pollution and income using social data from the British Household Panel Survey during the period 1991–2009. The first approach refers to a fixed effects model, the second to dynamic panel data and Arellano–Bond GMM, while the third approach concerns a binary Logit model with fixed effects. The current study's fixed effects results show that there is no evidence of EKC hypothesis for the air pollutants examined. On the contrary, there is a strong evidence of EKC hypothesis for the air pollutants examined based on Arellano–Bond GMM and logit model's results with fixed effects and all the types of household income indicating that EKC hypothesis holds. Furthermore, regarding personal income, using the Arellano–Bond GMM methodology, the EKC hypothesis does not hold. This indicates that air pollution and income might be based on communitarian arrangements instead of on individualistic actions.     

The gender reservation wage gap: Evidence from British Panel data

Our findings suggest the existence of a gender reservation wage gap. The presence of children, particularly pre-school age children, plays an important role in determining the proportion of this gap that can be explained by individual characteristics.     

Pricing to Market of German Exporters: Evidence from Panel Data

This paper investigates pricediscrimination of German exporters across differentforeign markets. We examine the degree of pass-throughof exchange rate fluctuations in the pricing of 70export items. The model is estimated using panel dataon export unit values. Parameter estimation relies onGMM first difference, fixed effects, LAD, OLS firstdifference, and the random coefficients model. Themain results for 70 manufactured goods and 15destination countries between 1990–1994 are: Thedegree of pricing to market differs among destinationsand products. Highest pricing to market is observedfor U.S., Japan, Italy and Spain. Pricing to market ismore prevalent in exports of chemicals and fertilisersthan in machinery products.     

企业家精神的决定因素——来自中国省级面板数据的经验

企业家精神是就业、创新和经济增长的驱动力,经济学和管理学研究者一直探讨影响企业家精神决定因素。本文基于2001年～2005年省级层面的数据,应用面板数据模型实证研究了创新思想、人力资本、金融发展和法治水平等对区域企业家精神发展水平的影响。研究结果表明,创新思想和人力资本是企业家创业活动的基础,金融发展水平的提高有利于提高企业家创业的金融可得性,法治发展是企业家创业成功的基本保证。     

Expansionary Fiscal Contractions? Evidence from Panel Data

We examine the ability of the expansionary fiscal contraction (EFC) hypothesis to explain the performance of OECD economies during fiscal crises. We find some limited evidence in its favour: if public consumption is reduced in response to a fiscal crisis (as defined by a high level of debt), private consumption does seem to increase. However, the size of the effect is smaller than that typically found in other studies. Furthermore, the increase in private consumption is usually not sufficient to offset the direct effect of a reduction in public consumption on output—fiscal contractions are not literally expansionary.     

Law and social capital: Evidence from the Code Napoleon in Germany

I test whether legal institutions crowd-in social cooperation in the long-run, using the introduction of the Code Napoleon in parts of 19th century Germany as a historical experiment. I find that the application of the Code Napoleon is associated with higher levels of trust and cooperation today. This finding is robust to an identification strategy that uses only individuals located around a discontinuity in the number of years the Code Civil was used. Results from a falsification test that moves this discontinuity artificially, as well as the comparison of pre-treatment characteristics support the interpretation of a causal effect. In addition, regions around the discontinuity are similar in post-treatment economic development and inequality. On the contrary, the positive social consequences of the Code Civil manifest themselves in less political fraud in elections from 1871 to 1900, and in more “bridging” social capital in the 1920s.     

Trade Openness,Corruption and Factor Abundance: Evidence from a Dynamic Panel

Using the Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson–Vanek (HOSV) framework, this paper illustrates a relationship between corruption and the pattern of international trade that depends on the factor endowments of countries. The relationship between trade openness and corruption is empirically investigated by using a panel dataset on trade openness, corruption and capital–labor ratio, and applying estimation techniques developed for dynamic panels. The regression results provide strong support to the hypothesis that the effect of corruption on trade openness depends on relative factor abundance.