The financing of small entrepreneurs in Italy

This paper focuses on the financing of very small entrepreneurs in Italy by using data in the Survey of Household Income and Wealth. In the period 1989–2006 only a little more than one fourth of these micro-firms used bank loans for business purposes. Supply factors may have played a role in explaining this low usage of bank loans. In this paper I look at what happens after the deregulation and innovation that started in the Italian credit market during the 1990s. Financial constraints appear to have partly lessened in the current decade. Specifically, the North/South divide is fading a little: the negative direct effect on the probability of having a bank loan for a firm located in a Southern region is less strong. However, business location still plays an important role in the process of credit allocation, though indirectly through a greater sensitivity to proxies of internal finance for small entrepreneurs located in regions that are less financially developed.     

Financial markets’ behavior around episodes of large changes in the fiscal stance

Using a panel of OECD countries from 1960 to 2002, this paper shows that interest rates, particularly those of long-term government bonds, decrease when countries’ fiscal position improves and increase around periods of budget deteriorations. Stock market prices surge around times of substantial fiscal tightening and plunge in periods of very loose fiscal policy. In addition, the paper shows that results depend on countries’ initial fiscal conditions and on the type of fiscal consolidations: Fiscal adjustments that occur in country-years with high levels of government deficit, that are implemented by cutting government spending, and that generate a permanent and substantial decrease in government debt are associated with larger reductions in interest rates and increases in stock market prices.     

Liechtenstein – Finanzmarkt und mehr

Das Fürstentum Liechtenstein ist bekannt als Steueroase und attraktiver Finanzplatz. Welche Wirtschaftskraft ist damit verbunden? Wieviel tr?gt der Finanzdienstleistungssektor dazu bei? Wie hat sich die in- und ausl?ndische Besch?ftigung in Liechtenstein entwickelt? Prof. Dr. Silvia Simon, 36, ist Professorin für Volkswirtschaftslehre an der Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft HTW Chur.     

Globalisation and Obesity

The WHO has recently announced the global obesity epidemic. An economic model is developed in which globalisation factors generate health externalities and contribute to global obesity growth. The unbalanced panel data set contains the information for 79 countries over the period 1986–2008. Fixed‐effects panel data estimation and quantile regression analysis were used to analyse the data. The fixed‐effects panel model results indicate that the impact of trade openness and the globalisation social index (GSI) on global obesity rates is positive and significant, which is consistent with prior expectations, while surprisingly the foreign direct investments (FDI) has no impact on global obesity. While these results are interesting, they are hiding the effect of globalisation processes across the conditional distribution of the obesity variable. The use of quantile regression uncovered that the impact of the FDI and the GSI on low and average quantiles (low and average obesity rates in our sample) is positive and significant, while high quantiles are not affected. Since low and average quantiles (low and average obesity rates) are representative of the less‐ and medium‐developed countries, this result implies that social globalisation and FDI adversely impact obesity in less‐to‐medium developed countries. Trade openness generally has no impact on changes in obesity rates across quantiles.     

Links between entrepreneurial culture,innovation, and performance: The moderating role of family firms

The relationships between corporate entrepreneurship, innovation and performance have been previously addressed by the literature. However, they have yielded mixed and often inconclusive results. The purpose of this paper is hence to empirically test a model that links entrepreneurial culture, innovation outcomes and business performance. In this model, the family nature of firms is subsequently included as a moderator variable. The empirical investigation is based on a sample of 145 family firms from the automotive components manufacturing sector in Spain. This study uses Partial Least Squares (PLS) path-modeling to test our research model and hypotheses. Our results reveal the increasing importance of fostering an entrepreneurial culture within family firms in order to yield innovation processes and performance.     

The migration of professionals within the EU: Any barriers left?

As shown by the intense legislative effort at the European Union level, the mutual recognition of professional qualifications represents an important step towards the completion of the single EU labor market. In this paper we provide the first empirical evidence on the link between intra‐EU mobility and mutual recognition of professional qualifications. Our results show that bilateral EU migration is positively affected by the destination country's rate of recognition of professional qualifications obtained in another EU member state.