Growth in regions

We use a newly assembled sample of 1,528 regions from 83 countries to compare the speed of per capita income convergence within and across countries. Regional growth is shaped by similar factors as national growth, such as geography and human capital. Regional convergence rate is about 2 % per year, comparable to that between countries. Regional convergence is faster in richer countries, and countries with better capital markets. A calibration of a neoclassical growth model suggests that significant barriers to factor mobility within countries are needed to account for the evidence.     

我国经济金融运行状况和相关政策解析

本文对我国经济金融运行现状进行了分析,阐述了货币政策适时适度调整,成功进行了宏观调控,促进了经济平稳较快发展。未来一段时期,我国金融业面临难得机遇和严峻挑战,需要注意把握政策的稳定性、针对性和灵活性,维护金融稳定,促进经济结构调整和发展方式转变。     

Relevance of corruption on the effect of public health expenditure and taxation on economic growth

We investigate whether corruption distorts the positive effect of public health expenditure and taxation on growth through panel data analysis of 75 developing countries for the period from 1995 to 2014. The findings indicate that, although both public health expenditure and taxation can increase economic growth, in countries with more corrupt governments this effect is reduced.     

管理层权力、内外部监督与企业风险承担*

本文以2005—2014年中国沪深A股上市公司为样本,采用主成分分析法构建管理层权力的衡量指标,实证检验管理层权力对企业风险承担的影响。研究结果表明,管理层权力越大,风险规避的倾向越明显,企业风险承担水平越低;良好的内外部监督机制能弱化管理层权力对企业风险承担的抑制作用;渠道测试表明,管理层权力通过削弱企业的融资水平规避风险,而对企业投资无显著影响。本文拓展了管理层权力的经济后果及企业风险承担影响因素领域的文献,对引导管理者积极承担风险、加强上市公司内外部治理体系建设、维护中小股东权益具有重要的现实意义。     

An investigation of the performance consequences of alignment and adaptability: contingency effects of decision autonomy and shared responsibility

This research investigates the moderating role of organizations’ structural context on the performance outcomes of the firm's alignment and adaptability pursuits. It focuses in particular on the role of decision autonomy and shared responsibility, and posits that these structural features exert opposing influences on the effect of alignment and adaptability on performance. Using a sample of more than 200 Canadian‐based firms, this study finds that at higher levels of decision autonomy, the positive relationship between alignment and performance becomes weaker, and the positive relationship between adaptability and performance becomes stronger. Furthermore, at higher levels of shared responsibility, the positive relationship between adaptability and performance strengthens. Thus, the study offers structure‐based explanations for the challenge that organizations face when they attempt to reap the benefits of alignment and adaptability simultaneously.     

Family networks and school enrolment: Evidence from a randomized social experiment

We present evidence on whether and how a household's behavior is influenced by the presence and characteristics of its extended family. Using data from the PROGRESA program in Mexico, we exploit information on the paternal and maternal surnames of heads and spouses in conjunction with the Spanish naming convention to identify the inter- and intra-generational family links of each household to others in the same village. We then exploit the randomized research design of the PROGRESA evaluation data to identify whether the treatment effects of PROGRESA transfers on secondary school enrolment vary according to the characteristics of extended family. We find PROGRESA only raises secondary enrolment among households that are embedded in a family network. Eligible but isolated households do not respond. The mechanism through which the extended family influences household schooling choices is the redistribution of resources within the family network from eligibles that receive de facto unconditional cash transfers from PROGRESA, towards eligibles on the margin of enrolling children into secondary school.     

International portfolio reallocation: Diversification benefits and European monetary union

We investigate the determinants of bilateral international equity and bond portfolio reallocation across a large cross-section of countries spanning over two sample periods: 1997-2001 and 1997-2005. We find that the strongest drivers are the marginal diversification benefits arising from the pure asset component and the initial degree of underweight. This evidence suggests that global portfolio reallocations over the asset boom and bust period were determined by optimal diversification considerations. We also find that due to economic and monetary union (EMU) the weight assigned by euro area investors to investment in euro area countries increased significantly in equity and fixed income portfolios, with a trade diverting effect against the British bond market.     

Analysing Systemic Risk in the Chinese Banking System

We examine systemic risk in the Chinese banking system by estimating the conditional value at risk (CoVaR), the marginal expected shortfall (MES), the systemic impact index (SII) and the vulnerability index (VI) for 16 listed banks in China for the 2007–2014 period. We find that these measures show different patterns, capturing different aspects of systemic risk of Chinese banks. However, rankings of banks based on these measures are significantly correlated. The time‐series results for the CoVaR and MES measures suggest that systemic risk in the Chinese banking system decreased after the global financial crisis but started rising in 2014.     

A signalling model of school grades under different evaluation systems

We examine the role of school grades as a signal of worker productivity under different examination systems in relation to errors that may affect student performance. Firms use school grades as a signal of workers’ effective skills, taking into account that these evaluations are effected by stochastic shocks. We show that more precise evaluation systems, being associated with a higher reactivity of wages to school grades, induce students to provide more effort. Low ability students tend to react less than high ability students. Moreover, individuals with low abilities may prefer less accurate evaluation systems. Nevertheless, when productivity increases, these systems become less convenient and the number of individuals preferring them diminishes. Our analysis highlights an important trade-off between centralised and decentralised evaluation systems. On the one hand, frequent evaluations, typical of decentralised systems, weaken the impact on grades of those errors which influence student performance and, so, reduce signal noise, while, on the other hand, different teachers generally adopt different performance assessment standards, leading to noisier evaluations.     

Do technology externalities justify restrictions on emission permit trading?

International emission trading is an important flexibility mechanism, but its use has been often restricted on the ground that access to international carbon credits can undermine the domestic abatement effort reducing the incentive to innovate and, eventually, lowering the pace of climate policy-induced technological change. This paper examines the economics that is behind these concerns by studying how a cap to the trade of carbon offsets influences innovation, technological change, and welfare. By using a standard game of abatement and R&D, we investigate the main mechanisms that shape these relationships. We also use a numerical integrated assessment model that features environmental and technology externalities to quantify how limits to the volume, the timing, and the regional allocation of carbon offsets affect climate policy costs and the incentive to invest in innovation and low-carbon technologies.Results indicate that, for moderate caps on the amount tradable emissions permits and sufficiently high technology spillovers, global innovation and technical change would increase and that this additional innovative effort could lead to economic efficiency gains. The numerical analysis confirms that when constraints are close to 15% of domestic abatement, efficiency losses are small because they are partly compensated by more technological spillovers and lower energy prices. Under a broad range of parameters, restrictions are costly for the constrained countries, but always beneficial for unconstrained ones.