Government financial statistics and accounting in Europe: is ESA 2010 improving convergence?

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of ESA 2010 on EU member states, looking at countries both individually and as a whole and analysing the global impact of the adjustments and the partial impacts of each category. Changing the system of national accounts has introduced conceptual and methodological changes, but there has not been any significant variation in the convergence/divergence between government financial statistics and budgetary accounting in reporting deficits. The effect on the deficits reported by individual member states was quite marked however.     

How bank capital buffers vary across countries: The influence of cost of deposits,market power and bank regulation

This paper analyzes the bank and country determinants of capital buffers using a panel data of 1337 banks in 70 countries between 1992 and 2002. After controlling for adjustment costs and the endogeneity of explanatory variables, the results show that capital buffers are positively related to the cost of deposits and bank market power, although the relations vary across countries depending on regulation, supervision, and institutions. Their impact is the result of two generally opposing effects: restrictions on bank activities and official supervision reduce the incentives to hold capital buffers by weakening market discipline, but at the same time they promote higher capital buffers by increasing market power. Institutional quality has the two opposite effects. Better accounting disclosure and less generous deposit insurance, however, have a clear positive effect on capital buffers by both strengthening market discipline and making charter value better able to reduce risk-taking incentives.     

Legal Framework of Decentralized Energy Business Models in Germany: Challenges and Opportunities for Municipal Utilities

Feasible and profitable business models to better integrate and harness decentrally generated renewable energy are expected to constitute a key element for the energy transition in Germany. Until now, generated electricity of decentralized systems is to the largest extent only used by the property owner directly or fed into the public grid. To make better use of the generated electricity, it is necessary to find business models that provide an opportunity for different market actors, such as municipal utilities and residential prosumers. Due to the importance, yet low-anticipated monetary potential of such solutions, the legislator encourages their implementation by exemption of statutory fees, levies and taxes as well as by offering public remunerations, premiums and compensations in some cases. Capitalizing on these benefits, however, is only feasible under compliance with the legal requirements. In the light of the considerations above, this work states and analyzes the legal and regulatory framework of different business models within the German energy landscape. The major aim is to identify opportunities and challenges for the implementation of the business models self consumption, direct consumption, direct marketing, demand response, community electricity storage and net metering at the municipal level. The findings show that the profitability of various decentralized on-site business models depends primarily on the current statutory cost exemptions and compensations. At the same time, the regulation is characterized by unsystematic specific exemptions which leads to uncertainty regarding long-term planning. Additionally, although not directly privileged by the existing legal framework, municipal utilities are better suited to handle the legal burdens due to their experience and their administrative infrastructure.     

Assessing collaborative, pre-competitive R&D projects: the case of the UK LINK scheme

The paper addresses the evaluation of outcomes of collaborative, pre-competitive R&D projects. It draws on some empirical analysis carried out on data and information gathered under the UK 'LINK' scheme, a programme supporting R&D collaborative projects and assessing collaboration outcomes. A new indicator of performance, based on the outputs of LINK projects, has been constructed. It provides a relative and quite consistent measure of performance for making comparisons among different LINK projects. However it does not correlate with the more subjective grade applied by LINK's own management. For further improving evaluating mechanisms, more attention should be paid to the benefits that universities and companies as well as governments are drawing from R&D collaborations.     

Can Fundamentals Explain Cross-Country Correlations of Asset Returns?

Previous studies show that existing correlations between national returns are higher than correlations between the national growth rates of fundamental variables. This paper examines the ability of intertemporal asset pricing models to explain cross-country correlations of national returns. We find that when capital markets are assumed to be fully integrated, a simple intertemporal general equilibrium model is able to explain the observed co-variability of domestic asset returns but generates too little variability in those returns. Results improve considerably if a less restrictive version is employed. In that setting, both domestic variability and cross-country co-variability of returns are consistent with capital market integration. JEL no. G12, G15, E44     

The Role of Local Agglomeration Economies and Regional Characteristics in Attracting FDI: Italian Evidence

The objective of this paper is to test for the importance of local agglomeration externalities in determining inward foreign direct investment (FDI) intensity, viewed as a measure of regional attractiveness to FDI. The links between the degree of FDI inflow penetration into Italy and its determinants at the regional level are examined using alternative fixed effects panel data model specifications, also extended to include spatial effects. It is found that sectoral and regional specificities are relevant in attracting inward FDI into Italy and the different effects of intra‐sector and inter‐sector spillovers can be distinguished. There is also evidence that the importance of agglomeration spillovers connected to the geographical distance varies across regions, indicating both substitution and complementarity effects from FDI inflows into neighboring regions.     

Are there pecuniary compensations for working conditions?

In this paper we assess the relative contribution of working conditions to wage determination with an emphasis on differences along the earnings distribution. A survey of British employees in 2001 rich in questions regarding the job post enables us to separate the contribution of working conditions, job attributes and individual characteristics to the process of wage determination. Standard wage equations reveal that covariates such as having “repetitive job” and using generic skills such as “literacy” or “customer handling skills” are associated with significant premiums and penalties. Quantile regressions confirm the presence of penalties to poor working conditions, such as “working to tight deadlines”, that are significant in the middle section of the earnings distribution and robust to the inclusion of a wide range of controls for person, firm and other job characteristics. Counterfactual decompositions at quantiles show that, despite the apparent penalty, there are pecuniary compensations to poor working conditions around the first quartile and the median of the earnings distribution.     

Forecasting via the Box-Jenkins method

In numerous marketing studies, there is a need for adequate and appropriate forecasting methods. The Box-Jenkins model-building technique for discrete, correlated data points is described for both univariate and multivariate input-output models, yielding minimum mean square error forecasts. The procedure is applicable where at least fifty observations occurring at equally spaced time intervals are available.     

Citizen involvement in promoting sustainable mobility

This article proposes a methodology for promoting public involvement in the planning process for the promotion of sustainable mobility. The concept of the focus group (FG) is widened and a method based on holding larger groups defined as mega focus groups (MFG) is proposed. These MFG allow all sections of society to be represented in the participation process, thereby involving the population at a strategic level in subjects of general interest to society and later, holding smaller FGs on more specific subject matters (tactical level).The advantage of the larger MFG over the smaller FG is that they can obtain more information (between 40 and 60 people take part) from easily run meetings (similar to the FG). The MFG also provide a territorial representation of peoples’ opinions and serve as a mechanism for selecting the participants in the smaller focus groups. The information extracted from both the MFG and FG about people’s perceptions of sustainable mobility provides the background to the design of pilot surveys on urban mobility. For a better understanding of the development of this method and its possible applications in any town or city the article includes its practical application in the medium sized city of Santander (Northern Spain).