Technology and Economic Dependency: An Institutional Assessment

I compare and contrast Thorstein Veblen’s views on and criticisms of Marxian economics, with several of the “revisionist” Marxists writing early in the twentieth century, in the years preceding WWI. I explore the substantial overlap between Veblen and the revisionist authors, in particular, Eduard Bernstein. Although it is unlikely that Veblen’s name will be added to the list of revisionist authors, when the subject of revisionism is treated, I make the case that the views of the revisionist authors often can be instructive in understanding Veblen’s own position with respect to the theories of Karl Marx.     

Bank/sovereign risk spillovers in the European debt crisis

This paper investigates contagion between bank and sovereign default risk in Europe over the period 2007–2012. We define contagion as excess correlation, i.e. correlation between banks and sovereigns over and above what is explained by common factors, using CDS spreads at the bank and at the sovereign level. Moreover, we investigate the determinants of contagion by analyzing bank-specific as well as country-specific variables and their interaction. Using the EBA’s disclosure of sovereign exposures of banks, we provide empirical evidence that three contagion channels are at work: a guarantee channel, an asset holdings channel and a collateral channel. We find that banks with a weak capital buffer, a weak funding structure and less traditional banking activities are particularly vulnerable to risk spillovers. At the country level, the debt ratio is the most important driver of contagion. Furthermore, the impact of government interventions on contagion depends on the type of intervention, with outright capital injections being the most effective measure in reducing spillover intensity.     

Corporate governance quality: Trends and real effects

This paper constructs a composite index of corporate governance quality, documents its evolution during the 1994–2003 period in selected emerging and developed economies, and assesses its impact on growth and productivity of the economy and its corporate sector. Our investigation yields three main findings. First, corporate governance quality in most countries has overall improved, although in varying degrees and with a few notable exceptions. Second, the data exhibit cross-country convergence in corporate governance quality with countries that score poorly initially catching up with countries with high corporate governance scores. Third, the impact of improvements in corporate governance quality on traditional measures of real economic activity—GDP growth, productivity growth, and the ratio of investment to GDP—is positive, significant and quantitatively relevant, and the growth effect is particularly pronounced for industries that are most dependent on external finance.     

Human resource management–well‐being–performance research revisited: Past,present, and future

The authors provide an up‐to‐date theoretically based qualitative review of research dealing with the relationship between HRM, employee well‐being, and individual/organisational performance (HRM‐WB‐IOP research). The review is based on a systematic critical analysis of all HRM‐WB‐IOP studies (N = 46) published in 13 core HRM and management journals in the 2000 to 2018 period. The authors first identify different theoretical models of the HRM‐WB‐IOP relationship, which they then use to map research in the area. The results show that mutual gains conceptualisations play a dominant role in extant HRM‐WB‐IOP research, at the expense of alternative conflicting outcomes and mutual losses models, which are also shown to receive very limited empirical support across the 46 studies. As part of this mapping exercise, the authors identify important knowledge gaps in the area and conclude by setting out a number of key recommendations for future research to address these gaps.     

浅议《证券投资基金法》对证券市场的影响

2004年6月1日正式实施的《证券投资基金法》是继《证券法》之后规范我国证券市场的又一部重要法律,具有十分重大的现实意义和深远影响。本文就《证券投资基金法》对中国证券市场的影响、重大意义以及现实存在的问题进行初步探析。     

Economic development for an exploding population

The author outlines proposals for the organization and implementation of development policies in Zimbabwe. Suggestions are made for adjustments for policies and life styles to respond to threats of overpopulation, depletion of resources, pollution, and famine. Types and problems of development and fallacies of development planning are examined. Methods of research are briefly discussed     

Optimal fiscal policy in a model with inherited aspirations and habit formation

In this paper, we analyze optimal fiscal policies in an overlapping generations framework, where preferences exhibit aspirations in consumption and environmental quality as well as habit formation. We focus on the second best policies when the government needs to finance a given stream of public expenditures by using distortionary taxes. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which the competitive equilibrium is characterized by levels of capital and environmental quality that are too small and a level of labor supply that is too large. Our numerical simulations show that an optimal fiscal policy can be used as an effective stabilization device and that when consumption taxes are fixed, the planner implements maintenance investment and capital income subsidies while financing public spending through labor and fixed consumption taxes.     

An empirical analysis of excess interbank liquidity: a case study of Pakistan

We investigate the drivers of excess interbank liquidity in Pakistan, using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach on weekly data for December 2005 to July 2011. We find that the financing of the government budget deficit by the central bank and nonbanks leads to persistence in excess liquidity. Moreover, we identify a structural shift in the interbank market in June 2008. Before June 2008, low credit demand was driving the excess liquidity holdings by banks. After June 2008, banks’ precautionary investments in risk-free securities drive excess liquidity holdings. Monetary policy is less effective if banks hold excess liquidity for precautionary reasons.     

An exploratory study of divided pricing effects on financial service quality expectations

Financial services are often provided to consumers over an extended period of time. In pricing these services, financial services marketers have the ability to charge lump-sum amounts in advance, of the time period during which the service will be provided, or to divide their prices into a sequence of payments extended over the length of the service agreement. Consumer perceptions of the offer and their subsequent expectations regarding service quality may be affected by the marketer's choice of divided or lump-sum pricing. Service quality expectations may be further affected by the reputation of the financial services provider and the risk associated with the financial transaction. The goal of this article is to explore the perceptual effects of divided versus lump-sum pricing, and potential interactions that may exist with company reputation and financial service risk. Using an experimental design, the results indicate that divided pricing has varying effects on consumer expectations of service quality, depending on firm reputation and the underlying risk associated with the financial service. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings and implications for practitioners and researchers.     

Testable implications of general equilibrium models: An integer programming approach

Focusing on the testable revealed preference restrictions on the equilibrium manifold, we show that the rationalizability problem is NP-complete. Subsequently, we present a mixed integer programming (MIP) approach to characterize the testable implications of general equilibrium models. Attractively, this MIP approach naturally applies to settings with any number of observations and any number of agents. This is in contrast with existing approaches in the literature. We also demonstrate the versatility of our MIP approach in terms of dealing with alternative types of assignable information. Finally, we illustrate our methodology on a data set drawn from the US economy. In this application, an important focus is on the discriminatory power of the rationalizability tests under study.