Exchange Rates,Employment and Labour Market Rigidity

In this paper, we study the effect of labour market rigidity on the impact of exchange rate shocks on employment. We use a panel dataset comprising 22 manufacturing sectors across 23 OECD countries. In our econometric model, the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on sectoral employment is mediated by the degree of openness and by a measure of labour market rigidity: the OECD's employment protection legislation (EPL) index. Our results suggest that greater labour market rigidity reduces the impact of exchange rate shocks on employment. This effect is statistically significant for low‐technology sectors.     

EU‐China Collaboration in the Reform of the International Monetary System: Much Ado About Nothing?

The global financial crisis has shown that the current international monetary system (IMS) suffers from an inherent flaw: it depends on US current account deficits for the provision of global liquidity. Under this arrangement, peripheral countries have to accept periodically the debasement of the US dollar. Thus, there are some mutual incentives for the EU and China to reform the current IMS through cooperation. Both are in favour of stable exchange rates, and both are keen to constrain US macroeconomic profligacy. There have been some efforts towards these objectives in the past, especially during the French presidency of the G20 in 2011. However, there has been no significant progress. On the European side, there is not a united and independent Europe which could act as the primary agent of reform. On the Chinese side, Beijing does not see Europe as a reliable partner because the latter is deemed to have a major vested interest in the current regime. As a result, the French government failed to focus the world's attention on the reform of the IMS during G20 Cannes Summit, and the Chinese government has chosen a more unilateral way to internationalise its own currency.     

Regional output growth and the impact of macroeconomic shocks in Mexico

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between national and regional output growth in Mexico, and the impact of domestic and international shocks on national, regional and state output movements. Our results suggest that there are similarities, but also significant differences, in real output dynamics across the regions and states of Mexico and that it would be wrong to regard the Mexican economy as a homogeneous entity. The results show that real output growth in Mexico and the United States are linked, but there is no common output trend for the two countries. At the regional level, it appears that North and Central Mexico share similar features, but the path of output growth is more distinctive in South Mexico. Overall, our results suggest that assessments of macroeconomic performance, and related discussions of policy, should pay greater attention to the potential diversity in regional performance.     

Determinants of Capital Structure: United Kingdom Versus Continental European Countries

In this paper, we analyze how country‐specific differences influence capital structure indirectly through firm‐specific variables. We apply a system Generalized Method of Moments technique to a panel data sample of companies from five countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) during the period 1998–2008. As the different financial systems of European economies (bank‐oriented or market‐oriented) may influence capital structure differently through firm‐specific variables, we first examine the determinants of capital structure for each country separately and we then analyze whether the observed differences between the United Kingdom and the continental European countries are relevant. The results show that there are substantial differences in the capital structure choices of firms across five major European countries. These differences are motivated by the type of financial systems of the countries (bank‐oriented and market‐oriented) and influence the capital structure indirectly through the firm‐specific variables. Overall, our results support the relevance of the differences in the capital structure choices of firms across five major European countries, and in particular, the singularity of the United Kingdom (a market‐oriented economy) as opposed to continental European countries (bank‐oriented economies).     

The Lee-Carter quantile mortality model

The Lee-Carter (LC) stochastic mortality model has been widely used for making future projections of mortality rates. In the framework of the LC model, the response function is non-linear in parameters. Here, we adapt this LC framework to compute conditional quantiles. The LC quantile model can be defined as quantile non-linear regression conditioned to age and the calendar year. Two strategies for estimating coefficients based on interior-point methods are described. We show that the LC quantile model provides additional information to that furnished by the traditional LC conditional mean. An application to Spanish mortality data is reported.     

Toward an understanding of online information processing in e-tourism: does national culture matter?

Tourism is undoubtedly among the industries that better reflect the effects of globalization, technological advances (i.e. the Internet) being one of the most relevant drivers. Given the current market saturation of this sector, a better understanding of how tourists from different cultures process online information and forge their attitudes and behavioral intentions is called for. Nevertheless, national culture may have a major influence on the effectiveness of online tourist marketing activities. This study contributes to the extant body of knowledge via the analysis of the influence of perceived risk on how tourists process the information while browsing a tourist destination website, form their attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the destination. The effect of national culture on such antecedents is examined via a cross-cultural research to compare Spanish and British cultures. A theoretical model is proposed to integrate the effect of perceived risk and variables regarding technology acceptance on tourist responses.     

The Erasmus Corner: place-making of a sanitised nightlife spot in the Bairro Alto (Lisbon,Portugal)

Nightlife economic activity has emerged as a key strategy in the regeneration of historical quarters. The case of the Bairro Alto district (Lisbon) exhibits a more gradual and distinct development caused by the marginal and transgressive practices of nightlife visitors, who have resisted its gentrification for decades. Some areas in the Bairro Alto (specially the upper side) have maintained their dangerous character and marginalisation for several years, even after the 2008 urban reform programme. It is only recently, with the growing presence of Erasmus students in Bairro Alto, that the upper side has finally become safe and sanitised through leisure activities. In this article, the interplay of several social actors (foreign students, municipal authorities, night-time entrepreneurs and Erasmus organisers) explains the process of place-making regarding the new Erasmus Corner. The spatial colonisation of this spot has accelerated social cleansing of the upper side of the neighbourhood, concluding the district’s night-time pacification.     

The Institutionalization of Genocidal Leadership: Pol Pot and a Cambodian Dystopia

Misleadership is defined as leadership process involving a complex interplay of leader, follower, and situational elements, inscribing a vicious circle of intensifying dysfunctional action. It is tempting to see misleadership as the result of the madness of one leader. It is also misleading. Leadership research has been insufficiently attentive to misleadership and, in particular, to the misleadership factors intervening in genocidal processes. Discussed in the current article are the antecedents and the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s as an extreme case of misleadership. Lessons from the Polpotist dystopia are derived and reflections on possible contra‐strategies are presented. In particular, it is suggested that it is necessary to distinguish measures for social change that are admissible and positive, from negative utopian visions that are negative, inadmissible, and facilitative of evil leadership.     

Expropriation risk and housing prices: Evidence from an emerging market

This paper examines the microeconomic determinants of residential real estate prices in Caracas, Venezuela, using a private database containing 17,526 transactions from 2008 to 2009. The particular institutional characteristics of many countries in Latin America, and Venezuela in particular, where land invasions and expropriations (with only partial compensation) have been common threats to property owners, provide us with an opportunity to test the effects of these risks on housing prices using a unique database. The effect of these risks on property prices is negative and significant. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to quantify these impacts in the Hedonic pricing literature applied to real estate. Size, the number of parking spaces, the age of the property, the incidence of crime, and the average income in the neighborhood are significant determinants of prices. Finally, this paper analyzes the microeconomic determinants of housing prices at the municipal level.