Shipping cost and development of the landlocked developing countries: Panel evidence from the common correlated effects approach

We estimate the impact of shipping cost on development for landlocked developing countries (LLDCs). Since container trade is important to them, we construct a country-specific measure of shipping cost, called HarpexCost, which combines the global cost of container shipping with information on how exposed to container shipping each LLDC is. We employ the common correlated effects (CCE) estimator of Pesaran (Econometrica, 2006; 55: 967) to first estimate the impact of HarpexCost on the LLDCs’ development, and then recover the actual impact of shipping cost from these estimates. Overall, we observe that shipping cost has large negative effects on the LLDCs. Building upon these results, we provide new estimates on the cost of landlockedness and how trade benefits their development.     

Host-site institutions,regional production linkages and technological upgrading: a study of automotive firms in vietnam

Using technological capabilities as embodied in machinery, organization, processes and products, this study examines the links with host-site institutions and regional production linkages. The statistical results show no relationship between these variables. In-depth interviews complement the quantitative findings. Overall, the result shows that the government’s localization efforts failed because too many joint-venture assemblers were approved in the 1990s when the domestic market was small. The lack of economies of scale also affected the growth of national suppliers. Hence, national producers are confined to low value added segments and lack the quality to compete in export markets.     

USE OF ERRORS OF PREDICTION IN IMPROVING FORECAST ACCURACY: AN APPLICATION TO WOOL IN AUSTRALIA

Over the past 20 years, the RAE has produced commodity forecasts in BAE Trends in Australian Agricultural Commodities, Farm Costs and Farm Incomes and other commodity outlook publications. There have been several studies on the accuracy of the forecasts, either comparing RAE forecasts with naive forecasts or making simple calculations of biases and standard deviations. Such approaches are not sufficiently informative in that they do not give any indication of what has caused the inaccuracies, nor of the timing of significant changes in prediction accuracy. In this analysis, an attempt is made to improve upon this situation using some tools of time series analysis.     

THE ESTIMATED EFFECT OF CATHOLIC SCHOOLING ON EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES USING PROPENSITY SCORE MATCHING

This paper examines the effect of attending a Catholic high school on educational outcomes. The statistical analysis is based on data obtained from the US National Educational Longitudinal Study. Using propensity score matching methods to control for selection bias, we find that Catholic schooling improves maths test scores, with stronger effects for males than for females, but appears to have little effect (if any) on reading scores. Catholic schooling also raises high school graduation rates and substantially increases the likelihood of enrolment in a 4‐year college. Use of the difference‐in‐difference method suggests that the effect of Catholic schooling on changes in maths scores is more muted, though still statistically significant.     

Foreign versus local investors: Who knows more? Who makes more?

This paper examines the nature of information asymmetry between foreign and local investors on the Helsinki stock exchange (HEX) for the period 1999–2004. We take into account the differences in informational characteristics by partitioning stocks into single-listed, cross-listed and internationally well-known stock categories, after which we compare foreign and local investors’ performance and trading advantages. Local investors have trading advantages in the short term in all stock categories. However, such local advantages diminish for Nokia, the only internationally well-known stock on HEX.     

Developmental Rent Management Analysis: Learning,Upgrading, and Innovation

In this article, I construct an original analytical framework, called the developmental rent management analysis (DRMA), for the analysis of rents and rent management. This framework is based on the premise that successful rent management depends on political and institutional arrangements to produce incentives and pressures for technical upgrading and innovation. This is because, while rents are created for a variety of purposes, rent outcomes — whether growth-enhancing or growth-reducing — depend on a set of political, institutional, and market conditions that take place formally and informally. Therefore, the key objective of the DRMA framework is to understand how a country’s politics, institutions, and industries are configured to incentivize and compel industrial upgrading. Thus, DRMA enables a broader and more complex understanding of the various factors at play in the process of development. I provide an illustrative application of the DRMA framework using the Vietnamese experience of adopting third-generation technology in the telecommunications industry.     

Incentives and teacher effort

Few would contest that teachers are a very important determinant of how much students learn in school, and how to improve teacher performance has been the focus of lively policy debate in both rich and poor countries. This paper examines how teacher incentives, both pecuniary and non‐pecuniary, correlate with teacher effort. Using school survey data from Lao PDR, we estimate measures of teacher effort, including the number of hours that teachers spend preparing for classes and teacher provision of private tutoring outside of class hours, which are not the typical measures used in previous research. Estimation results fit well under the standard labour supply framework and indicate that greater teacher effort is associated with non‐pecuniary incentives such as more teacher autonomy over teaching materials and monitoring as measured by the existence of an active parent – teacher association and the ability of school principals to dismiss teachers. Methodologically, this paper provides a detailed derivation of a simultaneous OLS‐probit model with school random effects that can jointly estimate teacher work hours and tutoring provision.     

Effects of investor tax heterogeneity on stock prices and trading behaviour around the ex-dividend day: the case of Australia

Using a sample of Australian stocks during the 1996–2014 period, this study examines how tax heterogeneity between domestic and foreign investors affects trading behaviour and stock prices around the ex-dividend day. Domestic investors prefer dividends and tend to buy stocks cum-dividend and sell them ex-dividend whereas foreign investors tend to trade in the opposite direction. Abnormal trading turnover increases with tax heterogeneity. Moreover, stocks with a larger domestic investor base are associated with a higher price drop-off ratio on the ex-dividend day and higher market value of franking credits. Overall, our findings support the dynamic dividend clientele hypothesis.     

Asymmetric capital structure adjustments: New evidence from dynamic panel threshold models

We develop a dynamic panel threshold model of capital structure to test the dynamic trade-off theory, allowing for asymmetries in firms' adjustments toward target leverage. Our novel estimation approach is able to consistently estimate heterogeneous speeds of adjustment in different regimes as well as to properly test for the threshold effect. We consider several proxies for adjustment costs that affect the asymmetries in capital structure adjustments and find evidence that firms with large financing imbalance (or a deficit), large investment or low earnings volatility adjust faster than those with the opposite characteristics. Firms not only adjust at different rates but also seem to adjust toward heterogeneous leverage targets. Moreover, we document a consistent pattern that firms undertaking quick adjustment are over-levered with a financing deficit and rely heavily on equity issues to make such adjustment.