The political economy of financial reform: How robust are huang's findings?

Using new data on financial liberalization taken from Abiad et al. (2008, IMF Working Papers, No. 08/266) for 62 countries over the period 1975–2005, we show that some of the main findings of Huang's (2009, Journal of Applied Econometrics 24 : 1207–1213) replication study on the drivers of financial liberalization are not robust. Major changes concern the effect of democracy on financial reform and the supposed relationship between the desired level of financial liberalization and a country's per capita income. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Costs and benefits of Danish active labour market programmes

Since 1994, unemployed workers in the Danish labour market have participated in active labour market programmes on a large scale. This paper contributes with an assessment of costs and benefits of these programmes. Long-term treatment effects are estimated on a very detailed administrative dataset by propensity score matching. For the years 1995 – 2005 it is found that private job training programmes have substantial positive employment and earnings effects, but also public job training ends up with positive earnings effects. Classroom training does not significantly improve employment or earnings prospects in the long run. When the cost side is taken into account, private and public job training still come out with surplusses, while classroom training leads to a deficit.     

Technology spillover through trade and TFP convergence: 135 years of evidence for the OECD countries

Using a new dataset on imports of technology and total factor productivity (TFP) over 135 years for the OECD countries, this paper tests whether knowledge has been transmitted internationally through the channel of trade. The empirical estimates show that there is a robust relationship between TFP and imports of knowledge and that 93% of the increase in TFP over the past century has been solely due to imports of knowledge. Furthermore, it is shown that knowledge spillovers have been an important contributing factor behind the TFP convergence among the OECD countries over the period 1870 to 2004.     

COMMUNICATION ABOUT FUTURE POLICY RATES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: A SURVEY

We discuss the theoretical rationale for central bank communication about future policy rates, either as part of inflation targeting or in the form of forward guidance. We also summarize both actual central bank communication about future policy rates and empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these types of communication. We argue that there is a disconnect between the theory and practice of forward guidance, as theory assumes commitment on the part of the central bank, while in practice central banks generally do not commit. Future theoretical research on forward guidance should therefore take the absence of commitment by central banks into account.     

Does output have a unit root? New international evidence

In this paper unit-root tests for per capita output of 12 OECD countries are performed. Using traditional unit-root tests, it follows that the unit-root hypothesis cannot be rejected except for the US. However, following the approach of Perron (1989), which takes shifts in mean and/or trend into account, the null hypothesis of a unit-root can be rejected in most countries in our sample. In contrast to Perron, a method suggested by Christiano (1992)is used to determine the break date endogenously.     

Mortgage lending,monetary policy,and prudential measures in small euro‐area economies: Evidence from Ireland and the Netherlands

This paper examines whether the increased use of macroprudential policies since the global financial crisis has affected the impact of (euro‐area and foreign) monetary policy on mortgage lending in Ireland and the Netherlands, which are both small open economies in the euro area. Using quarterly bank‐level data on domestic lending in both countries for 2003–2018, we find that restrictive euro‐area monetary policy shocks reduce the growth of mortgage lending. We find evidence that stricter domestic prudential regulation mitigates this effect in Ireland, but not so in the Netherlands. There is some weak evidence for an international bank lending channel that can be mitigated by stricter lender‐based domestic prudential regulation.     

International project finance: review and implications for international finance and international business

This literature review analyzes the global phenomenon of international project finance (PF) as both a management and finance instrument, allowing practitioners to realize large scale infrastructure projects in high risk contexts. After describing the characteristics of PF, its historical origins and its unique benefits for empirical inquiry, I summarize the findings of academic research from an interdisciplinary perspective. Based on this integration of Finance, Management and International Business research, I discuss the theoretical implications for each field that emanate from PF. Finally, I identify possibilities for future research and propose a more balanced, interdisciplinary academic treatment of PF.     

CENTRAL BANK POLICIES AND INCOME AND WEALTH INEQUALITY: A SURVEY

This paper reviews recent research on the relationship between central bank policies and inequality. A new paradigm which integrates sticky‐prices, incomplete markets, and heterogeneity among households is emerging, which allows for the joint study of how inequality shapes macroeconomic aggregates and how macroeconomic shocks and policies affect inequality. The new paradigm features multiple distributional channels of monetary policy. Most empirical studies, however, analyze each potential channel of redistribution in isolation. Our review suggests that empirical research on the effects of conventional monetary policy on income and wealth inequality yields mixed findings, although there seems to be a consensus that higher inflation, at least above some threshold, increases inequality. In contrast to common wisdom, conclusions concerning the impact of unconventional monetary policies on inequality are also not clear cut. To better understand policy effects on inequality, future research should focus on the estimation of General Equilibrium models with heterogeneous agents.     

Personality in context: effective traits for expatriate managers at different levels

The purpose of this article is to assess how management level as a contextual factor interacts with personal characteristics in predicting expatriate performance. In particular, we focused on proactive personality (the individual’s disposition to change the organizational environment) and self-control (the individual’s disposition to change oneself to fit the organizational environment). Surveying 307 business expatriate managers in China, we hypothesized that in relation to work outcomes, the effect of proactive personality would be stronger for CEOs while the effect of self-control would be stronger for non-CEOs. We found both proactive personality and self-control to have favorable effects on our performance indicators: job performance, effectiveness, and time to proficiency. In line with our prediction, we also found the effect of proactive personality on job performance to be stronger for CEO expatriates while the effect of self-control on performance was stronger for non-CEO expatriate managers.