Measuring the Carbon Intensity of the South African Economy

We estimate the carbon intensity of industries, products and households in South Africa using data from a high resolution supply‐use table. Direct and indirect carbon usage is measured using multiplier methods that capture inter‐industry linkages and multi‐product supply chains. Carbon intensity is found to be high for exports but low for major employing sectors. Middle‐income households are the most carbon‐intensive consumers. These results suggest that carbon pricing policies (without border tax adjustments) would adversely affect export earnings, but should not disproportionately hurt workers or poorer households. Seven percent of emissions arise through marketing margins, implying that carbon pricing should be accompanied by supporting public policies and investments.     

Mackinder and the Heartland Theory in Post-Soviet Geopolitical Discourse

This paper considers the ways in which Halford Mackinder's ideas are represented and mobilized in geopolitical discourses in post-Soviet Russia. Mackinder is broadly recognized as the most important proponent of ‘classical’ geopolitics, and his teachings about the Pivot of History and Heartland are referred to in virtually all geopolitical texts. Not all of this attention however is positive. We examine the very different ways in which Mackinder is deployed in this literature, and how he is re-signified to make his ideas relevant for contemporary Russia     

On the determinants of SME capital structure in Central and Eastern Europe: A dynamic panel analysis

The purpose of this paper is to test how firm characteristics affect SMEs’ capital structure using a unique dataset of micro, small, and medium-sized firms (SMEs) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We carry out a panel data analysis of 3175 SMEs from seven CEE countries during the period 2001–2005, modeling the leverage ratio as a function of firm specific characteristics hypothesized by capital structure theory. By using the cash flow as an explanatory variable, we test some of the predictions of the pecking order theory. According to this theory, firms with more available internal funds should use less external funding. We do find strong evidence in favor of the pecking order theory, given that there is a negative and significant correlation between profitability and leverage. When we control for other firm specific characteristics such as future growth opportunities, liquidity, sales growth, size and assets structure, the cash flow is found to be a strong determinant of firm leverage. We also argue that the determinants of firm leverage may be considerably different depending on firms’ size and age. The empirical results show that cash flow coefficient remains negative and statistically significant only for medium-sized firms, thus suggesting that larger firms with sufficient internal funds use less external funding than comparable smaller firms. We obtain similar results when we estimate the model by firm age; older firms demonstrate similar behavior as larger firms.     

The Virtual IELab – an exercise in replicating part of the EXIOBASE V.2 production pipeline in a virtual laboratory

ABSTRACT

We explore options to replicate the EXIOBASE2 multi-region input–output (MRIO) database in the Virtual IELab cloud-computing laboratory environment. Whereas EXIOBASE2 is constructed using a multi-process reconciliation procedure, we present an alternative compilation technique that uses EXIOBASE2's pre-processed data and final tables in reconciling the IELab MRIO with conflicting raw data information. This approach skips the labour-intensive step of detailing and harmonising country tables. Adherence metrics reveal the EXIOBASE2-based IELab table to be considerably less balanced than the original but with stronger adherence to other constraints data. However, these metrics are not comparable to the original EXIOBASE2 statistics due to the distinctive implementation of constraint sets in the two platforms. IELab's main value-added is its flexibility in tailoring EXIOBASE2-based MRIOs beyond the original recipe. Finally, IELab's global carbon, water and material footprints are shown to be comparable with previously reported resource footprints. In contrast, deviations in land footprints warrant further investigation.     

Think national,forecast local: a case study of 71 German urban housing markets

In this article, we examine whether the local indicators are able to predict the city-level housing prices and rents better than national indicators. For this purpose, we assess the forecasting ability of 126 indicators and 21 types of forecast combinations using a sample of 71 large German cities. There are several predictors that are especially useful, namely price-to-rent ratios, national-level business confidence, and consumer surveys. We also find that combinations of individual forecasts are among the top forecasting models. On average, the forecast improvements attain about 20%, measured by a reduction in root mean square error, compared to the naive models.     

Rufbereitschaft: Wie oft erlaubt?

In unserer Funktionsabteilung Kardiologie verfügen wir über einen Herzkathetermessplatz und stellen eine 24-Stunden- Rufbereitschaft. Zurzeit macht jeder Mitarbeiter 15 Rufbereitschaften pro Monat. In der Urlaubszeit k?nnen es bis zu 25 sein. Gibt es eine H?chstgrenze für die Zahl der Rufbereitschaften?     

Performance Effects of Technological Dynamism: Private vs. State Enterprises in Russia

How has the privatization-led economic transition transformed Russian firms? Prior to recent economic recession caused by Western sanctions, Russia’s economic performance has been impressive, yet little is known about its micro-level sources. Particularly, while macro-level data suggests a positive effect of privatization, such effect is seldom substantiated at firm-level in Russia. To take a step towards opening the black box, we investigated the performance effect of technology dynamism in Russian firms and the extent to which ownership mattered with regards to the technology dynamism-performance link. Our survey data shows that performance is driven by IT adoption, entrepreneurial orientation, and technological turbulence in Russian firms and that the positive effects of technological turbulence are stronger for private than for state-owned Russian firms. According to our results, Russian private enterprises appear more capable of buffering and gaining from technological turmoil, suggesting that the most significant outcome of organizational transformation in Russia is the firms enhanced capability in managing external environmental dynamism.     

The interaction between macroprudential policy and monetary policy: Overview

This paper presents the main findings of an International Banking Research Network initiative examining the interaction between monetary policy and macroprudential policy in determining international bank lending. We give an overview on the data, empirical specifications and results of the seven papers from the initiative. The papers are from a range of core and smaller advanced economies, and emerging markets . The main findings are as follows. First, there is evidence that macroprudential policy in recipient countries can partly offset the spillover effects of monetary policy conducted in core countries. Meanwhile, domestic macroprudential policy in core countries can also affect the cross‐border transmission of domestic monetary policy via lending abroad, by limiting the increase in lending by less strongly capitalized banks. Second, the findings highlight that studying heterogeneities across banks provides complementary insights to studies using more aggregate data and focusing on average effects. In particular, we find that individual bank characteristics such as bank size or GSIB status play a first‐order role in the transmission of these policies. Finally, the impacts differ considerably across prudential policy instruments, which also suggests the importance of more granular analysis.