Parental Leave Policy and Gender Equality in Europe

This article uses data from 2008–10 to analyze parental leave policies in twenty-one European countries and their influence on men's behavior. It examines entitlement characteristics, such as nontransferability, duration, payment, compulsory period, and other policies to assess their effect on the proportion of leave men use out of the total parental leave in each country. The findings, which suggest that a large majority of men take nontransferable and highly paid leave, and a small minority take other types, provide the basis for developing the Parental Leave Equality Index (PLEI). PLEI ranks countries by the degree to which parental leave policies reinforce or diminish the gendered division of labor. Results indicate that although Iceland's parental leave policies do the most to advance gender equity, no country has equal, nontransferable, and well-paid leave for each parent. This policy arrangement would be a precondition to men's and women's equal participation in childcare.     

新兴市场的隐藏债务负担

目前新兴经济体所面临的资本流方向逆转趋势的程度可能比普遍认为的更严重,有可能严重到触发危机目前,全球新兴世界呈现出各种经济脆弱性增加的症候。没有两次金融危机是一样的,但所有金融危机都有一些相似的症状：经济增长和出口大幅放缓,资产价格繁荣退烧,经常项目和财政赤字增加,杠杆升高,资本流入趋势彻底反转,等等。如今,各新兴经济体以不同的程度呈现出所有这些症状。     

Sudden Stops and Current Account Reversals: Potential Macroeconomic Consequences for South Africa

South Africa is one of the emerging market countries that have received a relatively large amount of foreign capital since the mid‐2000s. In South Africa's case, these inflows were partly used to build the country's foreign exchange reserves, but more particularly to finance continued large current account deficits. During the course of the past two years, however, adverse domestic political developments, combined with the potential negative impacts of the unwinding of quantitative easing policies and the normalising of monetary policy in the United States on emerging markets in general, has raised the spectre of a sharp slowdown in foreign capital flows to South Africa and an associated reversal of the current deficit. This paper explores the potential impact of such a development on macroeconomic conditions in South Africa. The analysis consists of macroeconometric model‐based alternative scenarios backed up by both the international evidence on the impact of such events and South Africa's own history.     

Trade policymaking in Uruguay: Recent trends and challenges ahead

This paper reviews the main recent trends in trade and trade policy in Uruguay. At first sight, between 2012 and 2018 no major changes are noticed in trade and trade policy in the country. Trade lost importance as share of national GDP, exports concentrated in primary sectors, and tariffs remained unchanged. However, some advances are noted. Trade in services increased substantially, export markets diversified, and the country participated actively in multilateral negotiations. As part of MERCOSUR, the country has just signed two potentially liberalising agreements, and the bloc’s internal agenda is also being modernized. At the national level, the country has undergone a series of reforms to modernise its customs procedures and facilitate trade. Some challenges lie ahead. MERCOSUR needs to consolidate the recent liberalising trend, and needs to work on its internal agenda, to liberalise interregional trade, remove non-tariff barriers and harmonise special regimes for imports. Uruguay, for its part, needs to continue with its domestic reforms to consolidate trade facilitation, to reduce duties and charges to trade, and to attract foreign investment.     

Social Alliance for Fundraising: How Spanish Nonprofits Are Hedging the Risks

Social pressure on companies is leading to a growing concern about the corporate relationship with the community. On the other hand, the progressive reduction on governments' grants leads nonprofits to diversify their sources of revenue and to turn to companies for funds. However, there has been a change in this relationship. Their margin for cooperation is now broader, and the level of involvement is deeper. This results in the formation of alliances between them. Based on the literature and the results of a series of interviews with marketing managers at nonprofits and companies, this paper analyses the opportunities and risks associated to this type of partnerships, with a special emphasis in the nonprofits' needs and mission. Secondly, we describe how Spanish nonprofits are hedging the risks. Finally, guidelines and information sources are provided in order to reduce the uncertainty contingent to this type of alliances.     

Gendered Paths to Asset Accumulation? Markets,Savings, and Credit in Developing Countries

An extensive literature shows how property inheritance is biased against women in many developing countries, yet relatively little attention has been given to gender bias in other means of acquiring physical assets, such as the market. Using individual-level data from Ecuador, Ghana, and Karnataka, India, this study analyzes modes of acquisition and financing of housing, agricultural land, other real estate, and businesses. The findings show that women acquire fewer of their assets through the market than men, and that in asset markets, both men and women are more likely to use their own savings than to use credit. The study also analyzes current loans for asset acquisition and finds that, in general, women tend to be somewhat disadvantaged in securing formal bank loans. The results suggest that financial inclusion to promote more gender equal access to accumulation of assets should focus on both savings and credit, with priority to savings.     

The Use of a Retail Store Database for Brand Choice Analysis

This paper examines relationships between perceptions and behaviours of channel members in an industry embroiled in conflict. We scrutinize these relationships from the perspective of the retailers. We utilize realistic perceptual and behavioural constructs which are meaningful to retailers. Our results suggest that the relationships between perceptions and behaviours may be bi-directional. We review the pertinent literature on conflict and suggest directions for future research.     

A Global Assessment of the Economic Effects of Export Taxes

This paper uses a new detailed global data set on export taxes at the HS6 level and the MIRAGE global Computable General Equilibrium model to assess the impact of export taxes on the world economy. We find that removing export taxes would have worldwide effects: the average export tax on global merchandise trade was 0.48 per cent in 2007, with the bulk of these taxes imposed on energy products. The removal of these taxes would increase global welfare by 0.23 per cent, a larger figure than expected gains from the Doha Round. Both developed and emerging economies, such as China and India, would gain from such policies even if they currently impose export taxes. Medium and small food‐importing countries without market power (such as the least‐developed countries) would also benefit from the elimination of export restrictions – especially during food crisis situations. Both the energy sector and the export taxes implemented by the Commonwealth of Independent States countries appear to play a critical role in the overall economic impact of such a policy change. However, the fact that some countries, such as Argentina, would experience income losses due to such a policy change is a major challenge to overall positive reform in this area.     

Price‐cost Margins and Economic Integration: How Important is the Pro‐competitive Effect?

In this paper, we examine whether the so‐called pro‐competitive effect holds when two countries integrate by forming a common market. We propose a general framework of reference, where the price‐cost margin of domestic firms depends on a set of variables in addition to trade costs with the partner country, which might eventually offset the conventional result.