The affectionate society: does competition for partners promote friendliness?

We study household formation in a model where collective consumption decisions of a household depend on the strategic choices of its members. The surplus of households is determined by individual choices of levels of friendliness to each other. A strategic conflict arises from a coupling condition that ceteris paribus, a person’s friendlier attitude reduces the individual’s influence in the household’s collective decision on how to divide the ensuing surplus. While partners in an isolated household choose the minimum level of friendliness, competition for partners tends to promote friendliness. We find that affluence does not buy affection, but can lead to withholding of affection by an affluent partner who can afford to do so. In general, the equilibrium degree of friendliness proves sensitive to the socio-economic composition of the population. We would like to thank Clive Bell, Edward Glaeser, Roger Lagunoff, Eva Terberger and seminar audiences in Berlin, Birmingham, Blacksburg, Exeter, Heidelberg, Manchester and at IHS in Vienna for helpful comments. We greatly appreciate the thoughtful comments of a referee.     

War versus peace: does military officer quality adjust?

In this study, we demonstrate the quantity–quality trade-off between the size of the U.S. military force and the quality of its junior military leaders. We employ a difference-in-differences methodology and compare measures of job performance before and after to show that in periods of military force expansion, the average quality of U.S. Marine officers decline; the converse holds in times of relative peace. This has implications for both military effectiveness and understanding labour market dynamics.     

ACE versus CBIT: Which is Better for Investment and Welfare?

This article analyses the switch to an Allowance for CorporateEquity (ACE) or to a Comprehensive Business Income Tax (CBIT)type of tax system starting from the present German tax system.We show that in case an ACE type of reform is financed by anincrease in the VAT and not in the profit tax, it might be preferredto a CBIT even in the context of an open economy. Moreover,the required exogenous increase in the profit tax rate cannotensure revenue neutrality on its own due to the negative generalequilibrium effects it triggers on the whole economy. For aCBIT, the exogenous reduction in the tax rates on corporateand non-corporate profits leads to better results than whenwe allow for an endogenous change in the VAT. The best resultsarise when the CBIT is accompanied by a provision for immediatewrite-off and a lower profit tax or when the ACE with no additionalcapital gains taxation on household side is financed by an increasein the VAT. (JEL-Classification: C68, D58, D92, E62, H25.)     

The Welfare State versus the Common Labor Market: Which to Dismantle?

Migration by low-income workers limits the ability of a countryto redistribute income, since more generous income supplementsattract additional workers into the country, reducing wagesand raising the cost of the program. This article studies therole of immigration controls, which allow the government toraise the real incomes of existing immigrants without causingadditional immigration. Paradoxically, immigration controlsmay lead to higher equilibrium levels of immigration in a commonlabor market, and those low-income individuals left behind inthe source countries may be better off. Simply stated, a hostcountry benefits more from immigrants when they are not impoverished,and immigration controls enable the country to eliminate impoverishment.Thus, the country is willing to increase the number of immigrantsthat it allows within its borders. After obtaining this insightfrom the basic model, the article discusses some extensionsand qualifications.     

Regional versus global production networks: where does Latin America stand?

This article quantifies the effects of the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA) and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) on the trade of intermediate goods and also on the trade of final goods. It is the first article to investigate whether increasing imports of intermediate goods from different regions to Latin America have led to higher exports of final and intermediate goods. The article uses sectoral data for trade in goods between 11 LAIA members over the period 1991–2008. The main results indicate evidence of increasing regional production networks, which have strengthened in the 2000s. Moreover, the findings show evidence of the emergence of global production networks, especially with respect to intermediate imports from China.     

Competitive versus collective incentive pay: does workers’ mutual concern matter?

The paper shows that coworkers’ mutual concern may help explain the puzzling fact that wage premia based on ranked or relative performance are rare while group rewards are popular among employees. In the work environment studied, when workers are selfish the optimal effort-enhancing scheme is a labor contest with a single wage prize. It is shown that when workers care about coworkers’ material benefit a group reward scheme is optimal. Moreover, profit increases as workers’ mutual concern increases, so it is in the interest of the firm to foster mutual concern among its employees. I am indebted to Gianni De Fraja, Benedetto Gui, Antonio Nicolò , Lorenzo Rocco for insightful conversations. I also wish to thank Julio Rotemberg for advising me to carefully characterize the optimal incentive scheme. Finally, I am grateful to the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research for a grant, and to the IRC, University of Minnesota, for its hospitality and support.     

Dubious versus trustworthy faces: what difference does it make for tax compliance?

We find experimental evidence that the decision problem of tax compliance changes if subjects’ declarations are not randomly assessed, but is based on their appearance as captured by pictures of their faces, even if the aggregate audit probability does not change. Some subjects may fear that their picture looks rather dubious, whereas others may believe that their picture looks more trustworthy than average. Depending on these beliefs, they may adjust their compliance decisions. Our experimental design allows us to disentangle these potentially countervailing effects.     

Local versus International Crises and Bank Stability: does bank foreign expansion make a difference?

We investigate the impact of global and local crises on bank stability in the MENA region and examine the effect of owning bank subsidiaries in other countries. We consider banks that experienced both types of crises during our sample period. Our findings highlight a negative impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008 on bank stability but, on the whole, no negative impact of the local crisis. A deeper investigation shows that owning bank subsidiaries outside the home country is a source of increased fragility during normal times, yet a source of higher stability during the local crisis but not during the international crisis. Moreover, owning foreign subsidiaries in one or two world regions is insufficient to neutralize both types of crises, while being present in three or more regions is more stabilizing during a local crisis but also more destabilizing during an international crisis. Our findings contribute to the literature examining bank stability and have several policy implications.     

Sovereign default: Which shocks matter?

This paper analyses a small open economy that wants to borrow from abroad, cannot commit to repay debt but faces costs if it decides to default. The model generates analytical expressions for the impact of shocks on the incentive compatible level of debt. Debt reduction generated by severe output shocks is no more than a couple of percentage points. In contrast, shocks to world interest rates can substantially affect the incentive compatible level of debt.     

Does trust promote growth?

We examine the effect of generalized trust on long-term economic growth. Unlike in previous studies, we use Bayesian model averaging to deal rigorously with model uncertainty and attendant omitted variable bias. In addition, we address endogeneity and assess whether the effect of trust on growth is causal. Examining more than forty regressors for nearly fifty countries, we show that trust exerts a positive effect on long-term growth and, based on the posterior inclusion probabilities, suggest that trust is an important driver of long-term growth. Our results also show that trust is key for growth in countries with a weak rule of law.     

Does licensing promote innovation?

ABSTRACT

We analyse the impact of licensing on the equilibrium amount of cost-reducing innovation under several licensing mechanisms in the case of a duopoly model with heterogeneous firms. Under a wide class of licensing mechanisms, we find that as product substitutability increases, the possibility of higher innovation under licensing compared to no licensing decreases. Therefore, firms’ heterogeneity is crucial to assess whether licensing incentivizes or not R&D cost-reducing investments.     

Europeanisation versus Euroscepticism: Do Borders Matter?

ABSTRACT

Several overlapping crises which affected the EU during the past ten years have recently aggravated. Especially the progressing refugee crisis, the persisting financial crisis and geopolitical turmoil in the EU’s neighbourhood contributed to the rise of anti-EU movements and diverse articulations of Euroscepticism. Although public opinion and mainstream political analysis have easily identified right-wing populism as one of the most important drivers, it is still doubtful if it can be equated with Euroscepticism without further ado. To date it is by no means clear how and where Euroscepticism exactly originates.     

Does antitrust policy promote competition?

Using new measures of the scope and strength of antitrust policies, we find no evidence that more robust antitrust regimes correlate with more intense local competition or less corporate dominance. The results cast doubt on the common textbook assumption that antitrust policies improve levels of competition.     

Analysts herding: when does sentiment matter?

Herding among analysts emerges when analysts give priority to their peers’ opinions instead of their own beliefs or information. Some circumstances may enhance or restrain this type of behaviour. We postulate that market sentiment is one of them. This article analyses the effect that investor sentiment may have on analysts’ herding behaviour in the U.K. Our results suggest that ‘easy situations’ such as analysing easy-to-value securities and releasing optimistic information at times of high market sentiment clearly reduce herding practices, whereas herding clearly increases in difficult situations when analysts have to release negative information at moments of high investor sentiment.     

Fiscal forecast errors: Governments versus independent agencies?

We present evidence pointing to the fact that international agencies' fiscal forecasts were affected to some extent by the same type of problems that the literature widely acknowledges for governmental ones. Informational shortages may lead independent agencies' staff to internalize “political biases” in governmental forecasts when trying to grasp genuine “private information”. Our study is based on a real-time database of EC, OECD and national governments' public deficit forecasts for 15 European countries over the period 1999–2007 and four vintages of projections per forecasted year. Against this background, independent national fiscal institutions might be a natural option, to the extent that they may have better access to inside national information than international organizations. Our results also provide some support to policy positions that claim a closer monitoring of official budgetary projections, in particular as regards transparency requisites, accountability and the threat of sanctions.     

Do remittances promote financial development?

Workers' remittances to developing countries have become the second largest type of flows after foreign direct investment. This paper uses data on remittance flows to 109 developing countries during 1975-2007 to study the link between remittances and financial sector development. In particular, we examine the association between remittances and the aggregate level of deposits and credit intermediated by the local banking sector. This is an important question considering the extensive literature that has documented the growth-enhancing and poverty-reducing effects of financial development. We provide evidence of a positive, significant, and robust link between remittances and financial development in developing countries.     

Does labor diversity promote entrepreneurship?

We find evidence that workforce educational diversity promotes entrepreneurial behavior of employees as well as the formation of new firms, whereas diversity in demographics hinders transitions to self-employment. Ethnic diversity favors entrepreneurship in financial and business services.     

Pairs trading: does volatility timing matter?

Pairs trading is a dollar-neutral trading strategy. Using the components of two major stock indices, the S&P 500 and the Nikkei 225, this article deals with the performance of a pairs trading system based on various pairs selection methods (distance, stationarity, cointegration) over a 10-year period. On both markets, using a classical framework, cointegration appears superior and effective. On the U.S. market and also in Japan to a lower extent, pairs trading strategies exhibited an impressive performance during the 2008 financial crisis. Bearish periods are associated with a high level of the VIX index: the ‘investor fear gauge’. Using a modified trading system, this article examines the link between pairs trading performance and volatility/VIX timing. It is shown that for the best selection technique (cointegration), timing volatility has no economic value in a pairs trading context.