Die Macht der Meinungsmacher: Ratingagenturen und staatliche Verschuldungsdynamiken

Die Finanzm?rkte reagieren in der gegenw?rtigen Staatsschuldenkrise offensichtlich auf Meinungs?u?erungen der marktbeherrschenden Ratingagenturen — selbst wenn diese in scheinbarem Widerspruch zur vorherigen Bewertung ?konomischer Fundamentaldaten stehen. Das führt dazu, dass private Interessen staatliche Verschuldungsdynamiken beeinfl ussen k?nnen und für sie damit politischer Handlungsspielraum entsteht.     

Examining the differential use of global integration mechanisms across HRM practices: Evidence from China

This paper examines how multinational corporations use different mechanisms to integrate four HRM practices in their foreign subsidiaries: financial compensation, performance appraisal, training and development, and recruitment and selection. Our analysis of 76 European-owned subsidiaries located in China reveal systematic differences in the use of integration mechanisms across the four HRM practices. The findings suggest that the usage of global integration mechanisms is contingent on the purposes of integration – headquarters control, and inter-unit coordination – as well as on the degree to which the mechanism is capable of responding to needs for local adaptation of the individual HRM practice in question.     

Economic growth and child poverty reduction in Bangladesh and China

This paper analyzes child poverty in Bangladesh and China during periods of rapid economic growth. It compares the extent as well as profile of child poverty in both countries. Comparisons on the extent of child poverty over time and across countries are made using a decomposition framework attributing child poverty differences to differences in three components: mean child income, demographic circumstances and the distribution of child income. Child poverty is found to be more extensive in Bangladesh than in China, and is very much a problem for rural children in both countries. The results show that economic growth can reduce child poverty but does not always do so. For understanding changes over time and across countries in the extent of child poverty, it can be necessary to also consider changes/differences in the distribution of child income as well as in the demographic composition.     

Forecasting variance using stochastic volatility and GARCH

This paper estimates the conditional variance of daily Swedish OMX-index returns with stochastic volatility (SV) models and GARCH models and evaluates the in-sample performance as well as the out-of-sample forecasting ability of the models. Asymmetric as well as weekend/holiday effects are allowed for in the variance, and the assumption that errors are Gaussian is released. Evidence is found of a leverage effect and of higher variance during weekends. In both in-sample and out-of-sample comparisons SV models outperform GARCH models. However, while asymmetry, weekend/holiday effects and non-Gaussian errors are important for the in-sample fit, it is found that these factors do not contribute to enhancing the forecasting ability of the SV models.