Regional differences in the production processes of financial and social outputs of microfinance institutions

This study uses panel data of microfinance institutions across the world to compare production processes across regions, assess the relevance of unobserved heterogeneity and estimate economies of scale. Comparing a financial production process to a multidimensional production process that accounts for the presence of outreach in the objective function suggests that financial and social output reflect complements in South Asia but not in other regions. Furthermore, we find substantial economies of scale for a pure financial production process. However, accounting for outreach lowers estimated economies of scale, suggesting that producing outreach creates high transaction costs and requires exploitation of local knowledge.     

Productivity and efficiency of Vietnamese banking system: new evidence using Färe-Primont index analysis

This article aims to provide a clearer view on the recent evolutions of the Vietnamese banking system that can be useful to public authority when taking restructuring decisions. This article focuses on the evolution of productivity of Vietnamese banks over the period 2008 to 2012, and on the evolution of the different components of this productivity: technical change, pure technical efficiency and mix and scale efficiency. The methodology draws from very recent developments in index theory in the design of multiplicative-complete economically ideal indexes, using Färe-Primont productivity indexes to measure productivity. This methodology is applied to a balanced panel of Vietnamese banks. The results complement observations usually made on the recent development of the Vietnamese banking system. They show that the State Bank of Vietnam’s restructuring policy cannot focus only on either the insufficient size of banks or a better management of these banks in terms of the mix of outputs. Both must be considered simultaneously, not only through bank mergers but also in setting management criteria in line with criteria defined internationally.     

Productivity spillovers from foreign multinationals and trade protection: firm‐level analysis of Vietnamese manufacturing

This paper examines how the presence of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) affects productivity in domestic private firms in Vietnamese manufacturing in 2005–10. The paper also examines how import protection has affected these productivity spillovers and how spillovers from wholly foreign MNEs and joint ventures differ. The most consistent result suggests wholly foreign MNEs impart negative spillovers while joint ventures tend to generate positive spillovers. Theory and random effects estimates also indicate that import protection reduces local firm productivity and weakens the effect of spillovers from all MNEs; but this result is not obtained when a fixed effects estimator is used. Results are similar in samples of labour‐intensive industries, which include close to three fourths of all sample firms, but differ markedly for more capital‐intensive groups.     

‘So,what is it? And do I like it?’ New product categorisation and the formation of consumer implicit attitude

Prior literature on knowledge transfer learning suggests that cognitive effort is required to categorise new products and to develop attitudes toward them. This study investigates whether a single exposure to category-related cues of a new product can trigger successful categorisation and lead to attitude formation. A total of 250 respondents were confronted with a fictitious new product, in condition of either high- or low-attention devoted to the new product. We found that a single exposure to category-related cues of a new product not only led to the participants’ categorisation of the new product into the targeted category independently of the attention level, but also shaped their implicit and explicit attitudes toward the new product. However, a minimum level of attention was required to observe the formation of implicit attitudes while explicit attitudes were not fully developed.     

ETHNIC AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY: A STUDY OF 26-YEAR-OLDS IN THE USA

This paper uses the traditional income framework and a non‐monetary framework to estimate intergenerational mobility in economic status for a sample of 26‐year‐old whites, blacks and Hispanics in the USA using data from the first and fifth sweeps of the National Educational Longitudinal Study (1988 and 2000). Intergenerational income mobility is found to be greater for males than for females, although there are differences between whites, blacks and Hispanics. Transition probabilities indicate that Hispanics are the most upwardly mobile in terms of educational attainment and occupational status. Ordered logits are used to estimate the impact of parental education and occupation on educational and occupational outcomes.     

Trade Diversion as Firm Adjustment to Trade Policy: Evidence from EU Anti‐dumping Duties on Vietnamese Footwear

This paper evaluates the impact of the 2006 European Union anti‐dumping (AD) action on Vietnamese footwear in three markets: imports to the EU, footwear producers in Vietnam, and the trade diversionary adjustment of Vietnamese firms in the US market. We find that the AD action reduced Vietnamese imports to the EU by as much as 65 per cent. Given that the EU makes up almost two‐thirds of Vietnam's footwear exports and footwear is among the top four export industries for Vietnam, this reduction is economically significant. Consistent with predictions of our model, we find evidence of trade diversion by Vietnamese producers from the EU to the US market. Our difference‐in‐difference estimates of the AD actions on the value of Vietnamese footwear imports to the United States ranged from 69 to 71 per cent over the period 2004–07 and 69 to 72 per cent in terms of quantity. These results highlight the spillover effects of trade policy in third markets when firms adjust to trade barriers. Our results are robust to triple‐difference specifications where we adjust for trend differences and a series of placebo specifications.     

Glass ceiling and double disadvantage effects: women in the US labour market

Gender pay issues in the US labour market are examined using 1990 and 2000 US Census data for three groups: the native born, immigrants from English-speaking countries and immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. Quantile regression estimates reveal different patterns of wage effects across the wage distribution. Females have lower rates of pay across the entire wage scale. There is minimal evidence of glass ceiling effects. Immigrant women from non-English-speaking countries are argued to experience a double disadvantage effect.     

Trade liberalization and markups: Micro evidence from China

This paper presents evidence from highly disaggregated Chinese firm-product data that, given productivity, input tariff reductions induce an incumbent importer/exporter to increase product markups. We further investigate empirically the mechanisms underlying this trade liberalization effect, and find that input tariff reductions decrease marginal costs, and their effects on markup adjustments are more profound among firms with higher import dependence. Moreover, we exploit unique features of Chinese data by comparing results for two trade regimes: ordinary trade (wherein firms pay import tariffs to import) and processing trade (wherein firms are not subject to import tariffs). While the aforementioned trade liberalization effects and mechanisms only apply to ordinary trade, processing trade samples are used in a placebo test. The paper also shows that more productive firms charge higher markups for products. All these findings are robust to alternative markup measures including one estimate using physical-quantity output data, different production function specifications, a subsample consisting only of pure exporters, and estimations based on our theoretical derivations.