Transmission of the financial and sovereign debt crises to the EMU: Stock prices,CDS spreads and exchange rates

This paper tests for the transmission of the 2007–2010 financial and sovereign debt crises to fifteen EMU countries. We use daily data from 2003 to 2010 on country financial and non-financial stock market indexes to analyze the stock market returns for three country groups within EMU: North, South and Small. The following results hold for both the North and South European countries, while the smallest countries seem to be relatively isolated from international events. First, we find strong evidence of crisis transmission to European non-financials from US non-financials, but not for financials. Second, in order to test how the sovereign debt crisis affects stock market developments we split the crisis in pre- and post-Lehman sub periods. Results show that financials become significantly more dependent on changes in the difference between the Greek and German CDS spreads after Lehman’s collapse, compared to the pre-Lehman sub period. However, this increase is much smaller for non-financials. Third, before the crisis euro appreciations coincide with European stock market decreases, whereas this relationship reverses during the crisis. Finally, this reversal seems to be triggered by Lehman’s collapse.     

Between Morals and Markets? An Interdisciplinary Conceptual Framework for Studying Working Conditions at Catholic Social Service Providers in Belgium and Germany

Journal of Business Ethics - The development of commercial revenue streams allows traditional nonprofit organizations to increase financial certainty in response to the reduction of traditional...     

Niche Management and its Contribution to Regime Change: The Case of Innovation in Sanitation

Strategic niche management (SNM) implies that new technologies are applied in so-called niches, in which they are protected against mainstream market selection. A major question currently subject to debate is through which processes niches can bring about any wider changes at the level of socio-technical regimes. This paper examines this question, using present-day developments in innovation in sanitation in Western Europe as an example. It is concluded that although SNM theorists emphasize the importance of (first- and second-order) learning, such learning processes are often hampered in practice. This may be due to the fact that existing niche-based approaches put too much emphasis on technological experimentation rather than on experimentation with forms of social organization. Therefore, attention should be redirected to sustainability concepts and guiding principles rather than technologies. As an addition to existing approaches, the authors suggest and elaborate on a new form of niche management called conceptual niche management.     

The Impact of an Increase in the Legal Retirement Age on the Effective Retirement Age

We analyze the impact of an increase in the legal retirement age on the effective retirement age in the Netherlands. We do this by means of a dynamic programming model for the retirement behavior of singles. The model is applied to new administrative data that contain very accurate and detailed information on individual incomes and occupational pension entitlements. Our model is able to capture the main patterns observed in the data. We observe that as individuals get older their labor supply declines considerably and this varies by age and gender. We simulate the current pension reform which aims at gradually increasing the legal retirement age from 65 to 67 and a hypothetical reform that immediately increases the retirement age to 67. The simulation results show a small impact on the effective retirement age for the first reform and a bigger impact for the second reform. Respectively, individuals postpone their retirement by \(<\) 1 month and 7 months on average; while differences across individuals mainly depend on their gender and health status.     

Global Taxation Governance after the 2002 UN Monterrey Conference

Using longitudinal data from 2354 smallholder households in 103 villages in eight African countries, three processes of agrarian transformation are analysed for the period 2002 to 2008: intensification of grain production, commercial diversification from staple crops and income diversification out of agriculture. Methodologically, three multi-level, binary logistic models are used. The trends observed provide grounds for some optimism: despite an overall picture of stagnation, intensification in grains (yield per hectare) seems to be increasing. Farmers have, however, raised productivity through the more intense use of labour resources rather than through technological change, while political commitments to agriculture have not improved the production environment. Rather, economic growth and commercialization emerge as strong drivers of intensification, both at country and household levels. Tendencies towards distress-driven income diversification out of agriculture appear to have abated somewhat in the face of more dynamism in the grain sector, with households moving between the farm and non-farm sectors in response to shifts in producer incentives and non-farm opportunities. Diversification processes within agriculture, meanwhile, point to both push- and pull-driven diversification occurring simultaneously. Grain markets, crop diversification and non-farm opportunities complement one another over time. There is little evidence of even incipient processes of structural transformation among the smallholders surveyed.     

Niche Management and its Contribution to Regime Change: The Case of Innovation in Sanitation

Strategic niche management (SNM) implies that new technologies are applied in so-called niches, in which they are protected against mainstream market selection. A major question currently subject to debate is through which processes niches can bring about any wider changes at the level of socio-technical regimes. This paper examines this question, using present-day developments in innovation in sanitation in Western Europe as an example. It is concluded that although SNM theorists emphasize the importance of (first- and second-order) learning, such learning processes are often hampered in practice. This may be due to the fact that existing niche-based approaches put too much emphasis on technological experimentation rather than on experimentation with forms of social organization. Therefore, attention should be redirected to sustainability concepts and guiding principles rather than technologies. As an addition to existing approaches, the authors suggest and elaborate on a new form of niche management called conceptual niche management.     

The impact of interfirm relationships on investment: Evidence from the Polish dairy sector

Financial constraints and credit market imperfections are a major constraint on investment, growth and poverty reduction in transition and developing countries. This paper analyses the impact on investments of financial assistance programs as part of interfirm relationships. Our empirical evidence is based on a two-stage survey methodology. Qualitative evidence on dairy companies’ assistance programs was gathered in the first stage through in-depth interviews at the level of the dairy companies. Quantitative data on 290 milk producing rural households in Poland was collected through a random survey in the second stage. The empirical analysis shows that dairy companies have played an important role in financial assistance, in particular for dairy-specific investments. In addition, they had an important indirect impact on farm activities and investments through feed supply and loan guarantee programs.     

International investment positions revisited: Investor heterogeneity and individual security characteristics

This paper contributes to the literature by empirically documenting the importance of investor heterogeneity and security level characteristics for international investment positions. We estimate a standard gravity model to explain holdings in individual bonds and stocks for euro area investors covering 2013Q4–2018Q4. First, our results confirm the importance of market size and distance, but there are significant differences between banks, insurance companies and pension funds, investment funds, households and other investors. Second, we show the statistical significance and economic relevance of security characteristics such as currency, bond maturity and dividend yield. Third, the results are robust to including domestic holdings.