The stock market and NO2 emissions effects of COVID-19 around the world

In this paper, we study the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in estimated panel vector autoregression models for 92 countries. The large cross-section of countries allows us to shed light on the heterogeneity of the responses of stock markets and nitrogen dioxide emissions as high-frequency measures of economic activity. We quantify the effect of the number of infections and four dimensions of policy measures: (1) containment and closure, (2) movement restrictions, (3) economic support, and (4) adjustments of health systems. Our main findings show that a surprise increase in the number of infections triggers a drop in our two measures of economic activity. Propping up economic support measures, in contrast, raises stock returns and emissions and, thus, contributes to the economic recovery. We also document vast differences in the responses across subsets of countries and between the first and the second wave of infections.     

Socio-economic and environmental factors in the global spread of COVID-19 outbreak

COVID-19 is a virus with a very fast spread rate in the world. Therefore, knowledge of factors that may explain such spread is paramount. The main objective of this research was to analyze the determinants of the virus spread worldwide. Unlike previous studies that were limited to traditional factors, this research extends the analysis to government measures (quarantine, containment, and response budget) against the spread of the virus. Thus, an econometric model relating the variable of interest to a number of variables was carried out using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and the Two Steps Least Squares (2SLS) methods on a sample of 163 countries. The main findings indicate that economic factors such as the level of development, the degree of trade openness and the response budget to the COVID-19 pandemic, have a positive effect on the spread of the virus. With regard to social factors, the population density and confinement are major causes of the spread of the virus. Finally, temperature contributes to reduce the spread of the virus. These findings are robust to the estimation technique and to the measurement of the spread of the virus considered. In the light to these findings, implications for economic policies have been drawn.     

Analyzing a panel of seasonal time series: Does seasonality in industrial production converge across Europe?

In this paper we consider deterministic seasonal variation in quarterly industrial production for several European countries, and we address the question whether this variation has become more similar across countries over time. Due to economic and institutional factors, one may expect convergence across business cycles. When these have similar characteristics as seasonal cycles, one may perhaps also find convergence in seasonality. To this aim, we propose a method that is based on treating the set of production series as a panel. By testing for the relevant parameter restrictions for moving window samples, we examine the hypothesis of convergence in deterministic seasonality while allowing for seasonal unit roots. Our main empirical finding is that there is no evidence for convergence in seasonality.     

Does international travel cause economic growth? Evidence from China's removal of travel restrictions on foreigners

International travel has been hypothesized to shape large cross-country differences in productivity and income. However, evidence supporting this hypothesis, especially from developing countries, remains scarce. This paper fills this gap by studying a novel historical natural experiment—China's removal of travel restrictions on foreigners to designated Open-to-Foreigners-Counties (OFCs). Utilizing the county-by-county rollout of the OFCs, we find that removing travel restrictions on foreigners led to a 7.4% increase in per capita industrial output for the OFCs in 1985–1991. The positive effects are larger in counties with more foreign equipment and greater industrial human capital. We highlight the role of person-based international knowledge diffusion in the economic catch-up of technology recipient countries.     

The Effects of Weather Shocks on Economic Activity: What are the Channels of Impact?

Global temperatures have increased at a historically unprecedented pace. This paper finds that the negative effect of temperature on output in countries with hot climates runs through reduced investment, depressed labor productivity, poorer human health, and lower agricultural and industrial output. We find that hot low-income countries suffer the largest costs. In a median low-income country, aggregate output is about 2 percent lower and investment is about 10 percent lower seven years after a 1 degree increase in average annual temperature. We also find that economic development, in general, helps to shield countries from temperature shocks, with hot regions in high-income countries on average sustaining less economic damage from rising temperatures than hot regions in low-income countries.     

International capital flows,liquidity risk,and monetary policy

In recent years, there has been a large amount of lending coming from the public sector of many developing countries. At the same time, the financial sectors in many advanced countries have issued a large share of portfolio debt to other countries. What are the implications of these events for the global financial system and overall economic activity? Do they have an impact on the transmission channels of monetary policy across countries at different stages of economic development? We investigate these important issues using a micro-founded model of money and banking so that the effects of monetary policy across countries can be meaningfully studied. Notably, the increase in capital outflows to the advanced economy renders monetary policy in developing countries to be less effective, while the effects of monetary policy in advanced economies are more pronounced. Yet, our results indicate that it can indeed be optimal for lower income countries to lend to the advanced world. Importantly, we find that the optimal amount of lending to advanced countries critically depends on the degree of liquidity risk — if it is sufficiently high, then public sector lending to advanced economies is not warranted. Consequently, our results indicate that governments in developing countries should carefully consider how much capital they send abroad to foreign countries.     

Differing factor adjustment costs across industries: Evidence from Japan

This study uses industry data from Japan to examine the joint behavior of investment and hiring. We estimate factor adjustment costs in industries and focus on the industrial differences in such costs. Our analysis reveals that heavy industries, such as steel and transportation equipment, require relatively large adjustment costs. Furthermore, comparing our results with studies that estimate these adjustment costs using US data, we find that the ratio of labor adjustment costs to total adjustment costs is higher in Japan than in the US. Our findings could be very useful in considering the implications of economic policies on factor adjustments.     

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions and the role of trade costs

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have increased dramatically over the last two decades. This paper analyses the role of trade costs in explaining the increase in the number of cross-border M&As. In particular, we distinguish horizontal and non-horizontal M&As and investigate whether trade costs affect these two types of mergers differently. We analyse this question using industry data for 23 OECD countries for the period 1990-2001. Our findings suggest that while in the aggregate trade costs affect cross-border merger activity negatively its impact differs importantly across horizontal and non-horizontal mergers. The impact of trade costs is less negative for horizontal mergers, which is consistent with the tariff-jumping argument.     

从美国信用卡危机看中国信用卡行业的发展（英文）

众所周知,在经济危机的影响下,美国信用卡出现了严重的危机。美国的次贷危机蔓延到了其他国家和地区,对中国本土的信用卡产业带来了巨大冲击。为了使中国信用卡产业更好地发展,远离经济危机的影响,介绍了美国信用卡的市场形势,有利于中国信用卡的发展和建设性措施的提出。对于中国银行改革和发展现代风险措施策略至关重要。     

A New Test of Price Dispersion

In recent years considerable attention has been devoted to differences across countries in the institutional environments in which corporations operate, and the consequences of these institutional differences for corporate performance. In this paper we test for the presence of differences in corporate performance across 38 countries, and in particular whether these differences are related to the types of legal systems existing in each country. To measure corporate performance we estimate returns on investment relative to company costs of capital in each country. We find significant differences in the investment performance of corporations across our sample of countries. Companies in countries with English-origin, common law legal systems perform significantly better on average than do those in civil law systems.     

Euro area sovereign yield spreads as determinants of private sector borrowing costs

We regress long-term private-sector borrowing rates on a money market rate, a term premium and credit risk. As a contribution to the current debate about European safe assets, our interest is in quantifying the impact of euro area sovereign bond spreads on private-sector lending by employing it as a proxy for private-sector credit risk. Panel estimates show significant, albeit rather small long-run effects. Another finding is large cross-country heterogeneity. Using linear country-specific estimates, we find the effect to be significant in only some countries, but the size of the maximum effect in these countries exceeds the average one more than three-fold. Furthermore, for one country, we find an asymmetrical effect with positive spread changes having greater impact on private-sector borrowing costs than negative ones. Substantial heterogeneity of the spillover effect between euro area countries indicates the presence of financial valuation effects based not only on economic fundamentals. This, in turn, implies that spillovers may entail contagion costs. Overall, our results suggest that these costs are considerable in the euro area and will remain so until an effective form of European safe assets is created.     

MEASURING THE PRICE OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OUTPUT

We construct a price index for the scientific R&D services industry, a significant producer of R&D in the United States. Unlike most previous R&D price indexes, our index is not based on input costs but rather on measures of R&D sales. Consequently, unlike input‐cost price indexes, our output‐based index is able to account for changes in productivity and markups in the scientific R&D services industry. We compute that scientific R&D services prices increased, on average, by 7.14 percent at an annual rate from 1987 to 2006. Using our index, we find that real revenues grew at an annual average rate of 2.85 percent. We then propose using our index, in combination with an input‐cost price index, to deflate total R&D nominal expenditures. We find that real total U.S. R&D expenditures grew at an average annual rate of 1.42 percent from 1987 to 2006.     

Democracy comes to Europe: Franchise extension and fiscal outcomes 1830-1938

This paper examines the relation between public spending and the spread of democracy in Western Europe during the period 1830-1938. Our data set includes measures of the size of the electorate, the election rule, and electoral participation, as well as measures of the size and composition of central government expenditures for 12 countries. We estimate panel regressions, and find that (1) the gradual lifting of socio-economic restrictions on the voting franchise contributed to growth in government spending mainly by increasing spending on infrastructure and internal security; (2) the female suffrage had a weak positive effect, through spending on health, education and welfare; (3) the change from majority to proportional rule, which took place in 10 of the countries, did not contribute to growth in government spending, and held back spending on health, education and welfare; (4) there exists (weak) complementarity between economic development and the spread of democracy.     

Asymmetric effects of fiscal policy in EU and OECD countries

In this article, we take account of an evaluation of the short- and medium-term effects of the transmission mechanism of fiscal policy in EU and OECD countries and their dependence on the state of the economy and fiscal behaviour. Our findings indicate that (i) across EU member states the impact of government spending on economic performance is larger in the accession than in core member states, (ii) since the onset of the economic/financial crisis the government spending multipliers have become larger in both core and accession EU member states, and (iii) a comparison with fiscal responses in the OECD countries shows robustness of our estimates. The conclusion implies that the austerity measures present a substantial drag for economic activity in accession EU countries. Thus, we may state that not considering the fiscal behaviour and state of the economy gives misleading fiscal multiplier effects, which in turn lead to the adoption of inappropriate fiscal measures that even worsen a country's economic situation.     

Analysis of interregional industry linkage and economic distance in China: evidence from the mining industry

The mining industry is an important sector of the national economy, which provides essential support for energy and other resources for economic development. Industrial linkage and economic distance are two different concepts in measuring the correlationship of different industries, in this article, we apply the model that combines both of them to analyse the industries significantly influence the mining industry. We find that electricity and heating industry, and the mining industry itself from forward linkages have greatly influenced the mining industry, and the industries from backward linkages affect mining industry are changing with industrial economic transformation. We also find resources can flow across several regions only after 2007, which means the role of geographical factors limiting long-range transportation of resources is weakening after 2007. And we explain how resources flow among various regions during 1997 ~ 2007. Based on the findings above, policy implications from the empirical results obtained are discussed.     

产业集聚与经济增长质量——基于全球82个国家和地区面板数据的实证分析

本文通过五个维度构建了国家层面的经济增长质量指标体系,采用熵值法测算了全球82个国家和地区的经济增长质量指数,并在此基础上实证研究了产业集聚与经济增长质量的关系。研究发现：制造业集聚与服务业集聚水平的提高有助于改善一国的经济增长质量,但两者对经济增长质量的影响渠道有所不同。服务业集聚对经济增长质量的影响在不同类型国家之间存在异质性,即服务业集聚程度的增加能够明显改善非OECD国家和地区的经济增长质量,但对OECD国家和地区的经济增长质量影响不显著。此外,FDI对制造业集聚与一国经济增长质量的关系以及对服务业集聚与一国经济增长质量的关系,分别具有正向调节效应和负向调节效应,而人力资本水平对制造业集聚和服务业集聚与一国经济增长质量的关系均具有正向调节效应。本文的研究结论对于如何制定相关产业政策以推动经济高质量发展具有重要的参考价值。     

INFLATION DYNAMICS IN LATIN AMERICA

This article studies the mean and the persistence of inflation in the 10 largest Latin American countries for the period 1980–2007. We find multiple shifts in the mean, with inflation in the region increasing throughout the eighties and decreasing in the nineties, thus documenting that the rise and fall of inflation in Latin America occurred a decade later than in industrial countries. Regarding the persistence, we find that it is high but that it decreases when the shifts in the mean are taken into account, as in developed countries, while it appears to have decreased recently in more than half of the countries in our sample. Finally, we find that only about a third of the total variation of inflation in Latin America can be explained by a common factor and, therefore, that most of the variation in the region has been related to idiosyncratic factors. We discuss the relation of our findings with economic policies implemented in the region . ( JEL E31, E42, C22)     

Economic integration and specialization in production in the EU27: does FDI influence countries’ specialization?

The objective of this article is twofold. Firstly, we proceed to an analysis of the evolution of specialization in production in the enlarged EU, taking into account all its 27 member countries. Given their decomposability properties, we use the entropy-based indices to measure countries’ relative specialization and then, given our rather short period of analysis, we use the bootstrap method to analyze the evolution of the specialization index. We first analyze all economic sectors and then, our analysis is more detailed focusing on manufacturing industries. Globally, we find that specialization is decreasing across all economic sectors, while it is increasing across manufacturing industries. Secondly, we study specialization determinants, with a special interest in the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI). For homogeneity reasons, we analyze two separate samples, one including old EU members plus Cyprus and Malta and the other, the CEECs. In order to take into account the endogeneity of most of our independent variables, we use the vector autoregression (VAR) technique and analyse the impulse response functions. Globally, FDIs seem to positively influence countries’ relative specialization, for our both samples and for both economic sectors and manufacturing industries. However, their impact appears weaker than most of the other independent variables, such as the market potential or the relative endowments.     

World steel production: A new monthly indicator of global real economic activity

This paper proposes world steel production as an indicator of global real economic activity. World steel production data is published with only a one-month delay, thereby providing timely information for world real GDP forecasters. We find that world steel production and Lutz Kilian's (2009) index of global real economic activity generate large gains in forecasting world real GDP, relative to an autoregressive benchmark. A forecast combination of world steel production, Kilian's (2009) index of global real economic activity and an index of the industrial production of OECD countries plus six non-OECD emerging economies produces significant gains in forecasting world real GDP, relative to an autoregressive benchmark     

Chinese firm and industry reactions to antidumping initiations and measures

China has been the subject of large numbers of both antidumping initiations and measures. This article explores the reactions of Chinese firms and industries to these actions by using dynamic system GMM estimator and industrial panel data on all Chinese firms in the industry, foreign firms operating within China and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) for aggregated firms group between 1997 and 2007. We find that antidumping actions by developed and developing countries negatively impact industrial profits and employee and firm numbers and also exports, but improve labour productivity. We also find that different kinds of firms show different responses. All firms together in an industry react to antidumping the most, and foreign and SOE firms show a much smaller response. Further, antidumping effects from different countries are different. Developed countries’ antidumping actions have more negative impact than developing countries’ actions; the effects of US actions are different from the European Union’s.