What drives the localization of Spanish multinationals in developing and transition countries?

In this paper, we investigate the location determinants of Spanish multinational firms in developing and transition economies. We pay particular attention to the role played by market potential and agglomeration economies as decisive factors in location. We also analyze whether, beyond the observed attributes, there are any significant differences across regions in terms of attracting foreign affiliates. With this aim, we estimate a mixed logit model, which allows us to endogenously consider the existence of complex substitution patterns among different destinations. Our results confirm that Spanish investment in developing and transition countries depends on market potential and agglomeration externalities. The intensity of these externalities, however, depends on the nationality of competitors, greater rivalry being observed among Spanish‐owned affiliates. Furthermore, our findings show that the location of multinational firms responds both to factors related to the local business environment, including the cost and quality of labor and infrastructures, and to the existence of specific regional effects.     

POLONIA dynamics during the years 2006–2012 and the effectiveness of the monetary Policy of the National Bank of Poland

In the study we investigate the effectiveness of the National Bank of Poland in counteracting the negative results of the financial crisis in the Polish interbank market. The situation was exceptional in a sense, that during the period of the financial crisis the Polish interbank market experienced liquidity surplus, and the main problem of the central bank was to regain confidence among commercial banks and stimulate interbank transactions. We concentrate on the spread between the rate of overnight interbank loans and the reference rate and based upon its dynamics we assess the monetary policy of the Polish central bank. Using econometric techniques we study how the central bank influenced the spread, when its control over it weakened and when was it strengthened. The study is supported by the results of the survey directed to the headquarters of commercial banks. We conclude that the ability of the central bank to control overnight rate was temporarily lost during the first phases of the financial crisis, but gradually regained after implementation of the confidence pact.     

Are the supporters of socialism the losers of capitalism? Conformism in East Germany and transition success

The empirical literature is inconclusive about whether a country’s democratization has a long-lasting impact on former supporters or opponents of the bygone regime. With newly available individual-level data of former residents of the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR), we analyze how supporters and opponents of the socialist system performed within the market-based democracy after reunification. Protesters, who helped to overthrow the socialist regime in the Peaceful Revolution, show higher life satisfaction and better labor market outcomes in the new politico-economic system. Former members of the ruling socialist party and employees in state-supervised sectors become substantially less satisfied. These results do not seem to be driven by differential reactions in the post-transition period, but rather by the removal of discriminatory practices in the GDR. Additional results indicate that conformism in the GDR also explains political preferences over the almost three decades after the reunification of Germany.     

Do long-term interest rates drive GDP and inflation in small open economies? Evidence from Poland

This article investigates the impact of long-term interest rates on macroeconomic variables in a small open economy. It shows that the time-varying term premium stabilizes GDP without affecting significantly inflation volatility in Poland – a typical open economy with flexible exchange rate. This conclusion is drawn from an estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which segmented asset markets and imperfect asset substitutability give rise to the time-varying term premium in the long-term interest rate. Furthermore, the impulse response analysis of the model reveals that the term premium stabilizes GDP when the small economy is hit by shocks that are absent in closed economy models (country risk premium and export preference) which points to the different impact of the term premium on relatively close (large) and open (small) economies.     

The Soviet Union after the failure of five years of economic reforms: Towards a new stage of transition?

Conclusion The measures taken by the Pavlov government, at the beginning of 1991, seem to initiate a new economic strategy where administrative power has regained its leading role.Regarding the whole approach of the government, there seem to be signals with very controversial meanings. First, there is the new stress on heavy industry, that could dangerously increase the already deep structural imbalance; the military industrial sector, in particular, could play a greater role since the better performing high technology industries (and services) belong to them. The loosening control over industrial management and discipline throughout the country, could justify the need for strong central control of the government: the heavy industry complex represents a powerful economic and political aggregation that could better defend the unified economic system.Secondly, the resistance to private ownership of enterprises is justified by the unrest engendered by the emergence of a sort of uncontrolled submerged privatisation. The fear of the State's capital assets being sold off cheaply, played an important part in the tightening of control over the process of destatalisation.Thirdly, the rejection of private ownership of land is also linked with the necessary alliance with the old economic structures of kolkhoz and sovkhoz, which represent the consolidated interests in the rural areas.From these different positions emerges the search for a very difficult compromise between the necessary political alliances around the Party, for the defence of central power, and the implementation of some economic reforms which, to become effective, need a substantial liberalisation of economic and political conditions. However, the fundamental limits to the implementation of this moderate programme has to be attributed to the disintegration of the economy by the republican claims. The confrontation on alternative economic programmes and the creation of different regional aggregations could become a very serious tendency towards the progressive disruption of the present Federation.     

Are we at the eve of a new long-term expansion induced by technological change?

Referring to the long-waves theory, the article shows that western economies now seem to be in the recovery phase of the long stagnation which started in 1974 and that, probably, a new long wave will begin in this decade. The main factor justifying this hypothesis is the technological revolution in computer and information technologies initiated in the 1970s, which reproduces the long-waves mechanism.

Two other elements corroborate the above assessment on the long-term prospects: 1) the recovery in profitability at the beginning of the 1980s, an evolution that usually characterizes the recovery phase of the long stagnation; 2) the unusual length of the prosperity phase of the business cycle in the 1980s. Of course, this aspect plays a subsidiary role with respect to the two others mentioned above. However, taken in conjunction with them, it reinforces the opinion that, underlying recent favourable performances, there is a change in the long-term trend.     

Accelerating the transition to employment at benefit exhaustion: still possible after four years of unemployment?

This paper provides evidence of how the long-term unemployed react to the threat of running out of unemployment insurance (UI) after receiving it for nearly 4 years. To identify the effect of UI exhaustion, we make use of a 1999 Danish legislative change that progressively reduced potential benefit duration from 5 to 4 years. We find that shortening UI duration hastens the transition to employment throughout the unemployment spell up to benefit exhaustion even if it occurs as long as 4 years later. However, although the proportional effect is large, it is small in absolute value.     

Does PPP hold in the transition economies? The case of poland Hungary

This paper uses non-stationarity and cointegration of time series to investigate the validity of long-run purchasing power parity for Poland and Hungary for the period 1981:1-1993:2. Long-run PPP is examined vis-à-vis three countries, the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. Although the nominal exchange rates and relative price ratios between Poland and Hungary and each of the three countries are non-stationaary, they are not cointegrated indicating a rejection of the hypothesis. This conclusion is supported by the real exchange rate, which follows a random walk.     

Career Paths,Unemployment, and the Efficiency of the Labor Market: Should Youth Employment Be Subsidized?

This paper studies the implications of learning‐by‐doing on youth unemployment and market efficiency when workers benefiting from this kind of training experience search (while on the job) for a higher skill job. Firms with low‐skill jobs suffer from a poaching behavior by firms with high‐skill jobs, causing a shortage of low‐skill jobs and excessive youth unemployment. An optimal policy, consisting of taxing the output of high‐skill jobs and subsidizing the output of low‐skill jobs, restores market efficiency and reduces youth unemployment.     

Do children of the first marriage deter divorce?

In terms of economics, individuals divorce if their expected gains from marriage fall short of their expected utility outside the current marriage, and children represent a marriage-specific type of investment, which generally increases the value of marriage for the spouses. However, children may also disrupt marital stability as they will induce dramatic changes into the household allocation of money and time. In particular, children conceived before or after first marriage may be valued differently by the spouses and this may lead to marital conflicts. It is difficult to assign a priori the direction of the effect of children on marriage stability, and causality may run either way, as couples who anticipate a separation are more likely to have fewer children than those who are happy together, while children born before first marriage may be associated with a lower marriage attachment of their parents. Here, we follow an empirical approach and take advantage of the richness of the data on pre-marital history from the 24 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth79, to estimate the effect of children conceived before or after first marriage on marital stability. We find a significant deterrent effect of young children conceived during first marriage to the likelihood of divorce, while children conceived before first marriage are found to have a disruptive effect on marital stability.     

Caught in the Web? Addictive behavior in cyberspace and the role of goal-orientation

New online 3-D virtual worlds are complex and differ significantly from each other. In this study we examine whether the type of virtual world is likely to make a difference on how addictive behavior develops and its subsequent outcomes. We examine the effect of goal-orientation on the degree to which cognitive absorption within the virtual world results in addiction and in the impact of addiction on continuance and purchasing intentions. Using surveys conducted in World of Warcraft (goal-oriented) and Second Life (experience-oriented) virtual worlds and analysis via ANOVA, we find that while cognitive absorption contributes to the development of addiction, which subsequently leads to increased continuance and spending intentions in goal-oriented virtual worlds, none of these relationships hold in the case of the experience-oriented world. Goal-oriented virtual worlds provide a problematic conduit for addictive behavior and marketing manipulation and the authors believe that they would benefit from further attention by policy-makers. Experience-oriented virtual worlds do not appear to provide the same dangers and would appear to be more healthy avenues for marketing-consumer engagement.     

Has the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath changed the impact of inflation on inflation uncertainty in member states of the european monetary union?

We study to what extent the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath have changed the impact of inflation on inflation uncertainty in the 12 original member states of the European Monetary Union (EMU). We adopt a time‐varying coefficient regression model with stochastic volatility effects, and extract two measures of inflation uncertainty from our data, namely, (1) The conditional volatility of inflation, (2) The conditional volatility of steady‐state inflation. (1)–(2) represent short‐run and steady‐state inflation uncertainty, respectively. The time‐varying impact of inflation on inflation uncertainty is analyzed using Markov‐switching regressions, where switching between the low and high inflation uncertainty regime is determined via an unobserved Markov process. Results suggest that the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath have changed the impact of inflation on (1) and (2) across the selected EMU member states. However, a uniform pattern cannot be detected. For some member states, we document a strong link, whereas for others, the impact of inflation on inflation uncertainty is relatively weaker.     

What are the consequences of ignoring attributes in choice experiments? Implications for ecosystem service valuation

This paper investigates the sensitivity of choice experiment values 3AL for ecosystem services to ‘attribute non-attendance’. We consider three cases of attendance, namely that people may always, sometimes, or never pay attention to a given attribute in making their choices. This allows a series of models to be estimated which addresses the following questions: To what extent do respondents ignore attributes in choice experiments? What is the impact of alternative strategies for dealing with attribute non-attendance? Can respondents reliably self-report non-attendance? Do respondents partially attend to attributes, and what are the implications of this? Our results show that allowing for the instance of ‘sometimes attending’ to attributes in making choices offers advantages over methods employed thus far in the literature.     

When are Forest Visits Valued the Most? An Analysis of the Seasonal Demand for Forest Recreation in Poland

While the demand for forest recreation has been a topic covered in many studies, little attention has been paid so far to seasonal demand. In a forest context, the seasonal analysis is particularly interesting because of inter-temporal change in forest attributes throughout the year which can influence trip-taking behavior. In this paper, the model of seasonal forest visitation is developed to provide a richer understanding of the role played by seasonal fluctuation on a distribution of forest social benefits. The analysis is based on an on-site survey conducted in four forests in Poland. Results show that the most valuable forest trips are those taken in fall and that seasonal trips are separable.     

What are the drivers of business demography and employment in the countries of the European Union?

ABSTRACT

The aim of this contribution is to establish a typology of European entrepreneurship countries with respect to variables related to entrepreneurial activity and economic development. Using a combination of multidimensional data analyses allows us to extend the concept of ‘entrepreneurial regimes’ and leads to the distinction of five such entrepreneurial regimes. Moreover, in order to better characterize these classes, a wide set of illustrative variables representative of national economic development, labour market functioning, and formal and informal institutional environments, as well as variables specific to the entrepreneurial population, are considered. Finally, discriminant analyses show that the five explanatory themes considered (Innovation, Employment, Formal Institutions, Entrepreneurship and Governance) differentiate the classes, and significantly explain the diversity of entrepreneurial regimes. These findings have important implications for the implementation of public policy, in order to promote entrepreneurial activity and reduce unemployment.     

Breaker of Barriers? Notes on the Geopolitics of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham

In the last two years, the so-called “Islamic State in Iraq and Sham” has transformed the Syrian Civil War, effecting serious confrontations in Iraq and Lebanon, dismantling security regimes along the Iraq-Syria border, and causing the mass exodus of ethno-religious communities across the region. These dramatic events are often interpreted through the official rhetoric of the group itself, which draws on discourses of the “Sykes-Picot” conspiracy and narratives of returning to Islamic principles. Tempting though it is to deconstruct such rhetoric on its own, efforts in this direction have over-emphasised its Islamic and territorial elements to the detriment of a deeper understanding of the locally varying, strategic nature of ISIS’s activities in the Middle East. Accordingly, this paper considers how local interests articulate with ISIS’s transnational movement, looking at their activities along the border region of Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. It begins with a discourse analysis of one important narrative in early analysis of ISIS’s “border-breaking” rhetoric, the narrative of Sykes-Picot, before laying out how geographers have engaged with the geopolitics of radical Islamist militant groups more generally. Then drawing on a combination of secondary sources and ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey and Jordan, it elaborates how the politics of place shapes ISIS’s political practice, using the example of the Syrian-Iraqi borderland (the Jazirah). In doing so, I hope to emphasise the relative importance of historical-geographic context over discourse and narrative for understanding the actions of ISIS.     

Does the transfer of farmland use rights increase farmers’ long-term intention to work in cities?

This study investigates how the transfer of rural land contract management rights in China has influenced the choice of rural workers to work in cities in the long run. Using data from the Rural Household Survey and Migrant Household Survey from the China Household Income Project in 2007, 2008 and 2013, we find that rural land transfers and the subsequent human capital effect are found to play important roles in farmers’ decision to give up agricultural work and relocate to work in urban areas. Our findings indicate that the Chinese government should accelerate the implementation of policies that promote the separation of ownership rights, contracting rights and management rights of contracted land and continuously improve the rural land property rights system.