Bond market integration of emerging economies and bilateral linkages

Although there are numerous studies that have looked at the spillover effects in equity markets, little attention has been paid to explore the integration of bond markets of developed and emerging economies. Our paper is an attempt to fill this void by quantifying the spillovers from developed countries on the bond markets of 25 emerging economies. We apply volatility and return spillover models to quantify the extent of the spillovers from developed markets (i.e. the United States, UK and Japan) into emerging bond markets. We find that the extent of the return spillovers and volatility spillovers has not been symmetric across emerging markets. We explain these differences using bilateral factors such as trade volume, portfolio investment, cultural and geographical factors. The bilateral trade volume turns out to be the leading explanation for the extent of spillovers between our set of countries.     

How Yoga-Based Practices Build Altruistic Behavior? Examining the Role of Subjective Vitality,Self-transcendence,and Psychological Capital

Journal of Business Ethics - Broader outlook, ethics, and social responsibility have been long-standing concerns in business practices and management. In this regard, an effective management...     

Economic Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Panel Data

The notion that economic reform can reduce corruption remains prevalent in the policy agenda of international financial institutions, especially of the World Bank. Economic reforms have, therefore, been carried out throughout various parts of the world to improve the performance of the economies. Using data from 94 low‐ and middle‐income nations for the period 1996–2015, this study employs static and dynamic panel analysis to examine whether economic reform undertaken in accordance with the World Bank's reform programs negatively affects corruption. Our findings suggest that enhancing government effectiveness (i.e. independence of civil service from political pressure, provision of quality public services, effective policy formulation and the government's commitment to such policies) and improving public rights and civil liberties could be some of the most promising policies in terms of fighting corruption. The role of economic development and growth in real per capita income is also found to be significant in some of the specifications. However, the assertion that economic reform can reduce corruption is rejected in all the specifications. We rather find evidence that economic reforms negatively affect the ability of democracy to fight corruption, although on a slim margin. The central theme of the implications of our findings is that in combating corruption, social, institutional and legal means are far more important than economic means. The finding thus is compatible with the World Bank's effort in the later years to introduce governance and democracy as effective tool against corruption.     

An empirical analysis of organized crime,corruption and economic growth

In a companion study, Blackburn et al. (Econ Theory Bull, 2017), we have developed a theoretical framework for studying interactions between organized crime and corruption, with the view of examining the combined effects of these phenomena on economic growth. The analysis therein illustrates that organized crime has a negative effect on growth, but that the magnitude of the effect may be either enhanced or mitigated in the presence of corruption. In this paper we tackle the ambiguity produced by the coexistence of the two illicit activities with an empirical investigation using a panel of Italian regions for the period 1983–2009. We find that organized crime distorts growth less when it coexists with corruption and show our results to be robust to different specifications, measures of organized crime, and estimation techniques.     

Buyer–supplier relationships from the perspective of working environment and organisational performance: review and research agenda

Management Review Quarterly - The internationalisation phenomenon driving MNEs to go for globalisation of production has made the working environment (WE) and its relation to organisational...     

Do Asian Countries Upgrade in Global Value Chains? A Novel Approach and Empirical Evidence

This paper examines the move into upstream and downstream global value chain (GVC) activities by 11 Asian countries. We use international input–output tables in combination with employment data and measure the number of workers in each country involved in manufactures GVC. Jobs are classified by business function based on occupational information, such as R&D, fabrication, logistics, sales and marketing. In most Asian countries, we find a faster employment increase in R&D and other support services relative to fabrication activities between 2000 and 2011. However, the participation in GVC and the pace of upgrading appears to differ substantially across Asian countries. We use a structural decomposition method to explore the role of trade, consumption and technological change in accounting for changes in countries' involvement in GVC.     

Electoral system,corporate political donation,and carbon emission intensity: Cross-country evidence

We examine the association between a country's electoral system and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity of firms and explore whether this association is influenced by corporate political donation. The study draws on the neo-pluralist theory of power in society to examine how possible corporate influence in the electoral systems relates to corporate environmental performance. Using a cross-country panel dataset, we find that companies operating in countries using majoritarian electoral systems (MAJ), where corporations have a relatively low influence on election outcomes, are associated with lower GHG emission intensity than those in proportional electoral systems, after controlling for macro-economic factors and variations in firm characteristics. Further, our findings show that corporate political donation positively moderates the association between MAJ and GHG emission intensity. Our results suggest that corporations are likely to utilise political donations as a component of business strategy to ease the regulatory actions of the state on companies. The results are robust to alternative variable measurements and tests of sensitivity.     

Does unionization lead to corporate changes in productivity practices?–insights from Singapore

This paper explores the role of trade unions in influencing corporate change towards productivity improvement for a newly industrialized country– Singapore.Empirical analysis of a sample of firms found unionization to be positively associated with certain productivity practices.The more significant and stronger correlations being the sharing of productivity gains, role Specialization (productivity manager) and productivity as part of corporate policy. Implications of these findings are discussed.

A Sunday Times commentary 2 suggested that, drawing from the Singapore industrial relations experience, trade unions could play a positive role in generating economic growth. If that is seen to be occurring from the macrolevel, it will naturally be interesting to inquire further what effects unionization can have on internal organizational practices, such as in productivity improvement. There may also be practical benefits from having insights into the dynamic forces that are at work when trade unionism is present.

A perspective on the direction (whether positive or negative) and scale of change in the emphasis on productivity improvement practices could help multinational enterprises formulate more effective employee relations policies when operating in Singapore –where tripartite co–operation is the key industrial relations philosophy. Corporations that are in the process of

being unionized may be able to appreciate that resulting change to their operating environments as a consequence of unionization need nor always be unfavourable.Management operating in unionized contexts could rethink their industrial relations strategies in light of the findings here –that it is quite possible to work with trade unions to enhance corporate productivity.

Most significantly, such findings could foster a greater determination by both the management and unions in engendering a co-operative industrial relations climate.This is particularly relevant for corporations operating in countries such as Britain, where industrial relations are traditionally less harmonious.To survive in the increasingly global competition of the 1990s and beyond, Western businesses will need co-operative industrial relations that help to foster productivity improvement efforts. This theme isfurther explored in the last section of the paper.