Varieties of CSR: Institutions and Socially Responsible Behaviour

A central concern within contemporary socio-economics has been on the relationship between national institutional configurations and societal outcomes. In this paper, we assess the relationship between legal origin and a range of correlated indicators of social responsibility, focusing on socially responsible investing and voluntary charitable giving. We found that in Common Law contexts, lower levels of social responsibility than in Civil Law contexts, other than in the area of charitable giving, where the converse was the case. We explore the reasons for this distinction, and for the different patterns encountered in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. Based on the findings, we identify directions for future research.     

Fire‐sale FDI? The Impact of Financial Crises on Foreign Direct Investment

We analyze the evolution of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to developing and emerging countries around financial crises. We empirically examine the Fire‐Sale FDI hypothesis and describe the pattern of FDI inflows surrounding financial crises. We also add a more granular detail about the types of financial crises and their potentially differential effects on FDI. We distinguish between mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and greenfield investment, as well as between horizontal (tariff jumping) and vertical (integrating production stages) FDI. We find that financial crises have a strong negative effect on inward FDI in our sample. Crises are also shown to reduce the value of horizontal and vertical FDI. We do not find empirical evidence of fire‐sale FDI; on the contrary, financial crises are shown to affect FDI flows and M&A activity negatively.     

Gender differences in the quality of the school-to-work transition in Spain

This article analyses to what extent gender affects the quality of the school-to-work transition in Spain, paying special attention to workers’ educational attainment. We estimate a four-equation system that explains the main obstacles young people face in their insertion process: part-time work, overeducation, fixed-term contracts and long unemployment spells; the model also considers the impact of the latter variable on the other three. Moreover, a synthetic indicator of transition quality based on the estimation of this model is developed. We conclude that men experience a better insertion process than women at every level of education (except for higher vocational training), although the gender gap is greater for long-cycle university programmes. Furthermore, when field of study is considered, men from most specializations enjoy a smoother transition than their female counterparts; nevertheless, women have the advantage in some female-dominated fields. A further analysis of gender differences reveals that they are due to the fact of being male or female to a great extent. The results also highlight that school-leavers from work-oriented programmes and those specialized in fields that provide them with more specific skills are more likely to succeed in the transition.