The demand for selected nutrients by Greek households: an empirical analysis with quantile regressions

The article uses information from the 1993–1994 Household Consumption Survey and the semiparametric quantile regression approach to analyze the demand for three macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) and three micronutrients (minerals, vitamins, and cholesterol) in Greece. According to the empirical results the age of the household head, the degree of urbanization, the percentage of food expenditure devoted to food away‐from‐home, and the per capita consumption expenditure affect the intakes of nutrients across all the five quantiles considered. The impact, however, of the household head's gender and the impact of his (her) educational achievement are located only at the lower and the higher quantiles, respectively. The expenditure elasticities are substantially lower than unity, suggesting inelastic responses of nutrient intakes to per capita consumption expenditure.     

Loan Loss Provisions, Earnings Management and Capital Management under IFRS: The Case of EU Commercial Banks

Prior research has shown that loan loss provisions are primarily used as a tool for earnings management and capital management by listed banks. Effective 2005 all listed companies in the European Union (EU) are required to comply with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Adherence to IFRS, it is claimed, should enhance transparency of reporting practices relative to local General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The overall objective of this paper is to examine the impact of the implementation of IFRS on the use of loan loss provisions (LLPs) to manage earnings and capital. We use a sample of 91 EU listed commercial banks covering a period of 10 years (before and after implementation of IFRS). Since early adopters may have different incentives and motivations relative to those who adopt mandatorily, we dichotomize our sample into early and late adopters. Overall, we find that earnings management (using loan loss provisions) for both early and late adopters while significant over the estimation window is significantly reduced after implementation of IFRS. We also find that, for risky banks, earnings management behavior is more pronounced when compared to the less risky banks, but is significantly reduced in the post IFRS period. Capital management behavior by bank managers is not significant in both pre and post IFRS regimes. Overall, we conclude that the implementation of IFRS in the EU appears to have improved earnings quality by mitigating the tendency of bank managers of listed commercial banks to engage in earnings management using loan loss provisions.     

Corporate Political Activities and the SEC's Oversight Role in the IPO Process

We study how a regulator (Securities and Exchanges Commission; SEC) responds to IPOs that have a higher political profile. We find that IPOs with issuers (intermediaries) that actively pursue political strategies receive more (less) SEC comment letters than IPOs without such actors. Cross-sectional analysis reveals that the IPO's political environment moderates the relationship between social pressure for more corporate transparency and SEC scrutiny. Additional tests indicate that the political activities of issuers (intermediaries) contribute to a less (more) efficient IPO process. Overall, our findings suggest that politically active intermediaries have stronger incentives to accurately portray the IPO financial reporting environment than politically active issuers because they have greater reputational and political capital at stake; quite simply, the former have more to lose. We draw out the implications for theory, in terms of agency and reputation.     

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE SPATIAL CONTEXT: EVIDENCE ON THE LOCATION OF FIRM BIRTHS IN GREECE

This paper analyses the effect of the spatial context upon entrepreneurship in Greek regions. Cross‐sectional data referring to 4151 births at NUTS III level (prefecture) are used for firm births in four industries, namely manufacturing, commerce, services, and tourism. The formulated hypotheses are in regard to the effect of agglomeration economies, defined here as urbanization and localization economies, and other factors that typically affect the location of start‐ups. Results indicate that strong localization economies exist (both of the Marshallian and the Jacobian type) while, in addition, the spatial context of entrepreneurship affects different industries in different ways.     

Learning by exporting: Lessons from high-technology SMEs

We investigate the learning by exporting hypothesis by examining the effect of exporting on the subsequent innovation performance of a sample of high-technology SMEs based in the UK. We find evidence of learning by exporting, but the pattern of this effect is complex. Exporting helps high-tech SMEs innovate subsequently, but does not make them more innovation intensive. There is evidence that consistent exposure to export markets helps firms overcome the innovation hurdle, but that there is a positive scale effect of exposure to export markets which allows innovative firms to sell more of their new-to-market products on entering export markets. Service sector firms are able to reap the benefits of exposure to export markets at an earlier (entry) stage of the internationalization process than are manufacturing firms. Innovation-intensive firms exhibit a different pattern of entry to and exit from export markets from low-intensity innovators, and this is reflected in different effects of exporting.     

THE 1930s AND THE PRESENT DAY – CRISES COMPARED

Many analysts are comparing the deep crisis of our times with the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed in the 1930s. They generally argue that Barack Obama is driving the world to recovery along Roosevelt's ‘state superiority’ line. Alas, today's crisis rings alarm bells for the manner in which we must manage the future of democracy, the state and markets. Markets cannot be ‘ordered about’ and when in the face of sound logic and practice an attempt is made to do just this, markets become refractory, or – even worse – they may collapse.     

Size and Power of the Error Correction Model Cointegration Test. A Bootstrap Approach

The size and power of the ECM cointegration test are investigated by using the 'bootstrap critical values'. The purpose of this paper is to show the ability of the bootstrap technique to produce critical values which are much more accurate than the asymptotic ones. The properties of the test have been studied, using Monte Carlo methods, for three different data generating processes. As regards the size of the test, we find that the ECM cointegration test together with the bootstrap critical values perform better than the ECM cointegration test based on the asymptotic critical values. While as regards the power of the tests, the results prove to be similar for the different versions.     

Household food consumption in Turkey: a comment

We comment on a recent important article by Akbay et al. anddiscuss some methodological and estimation issues arising fromtheir paper. We then suggest alternative procedures that mayhelp improve their estimates and thereby enhance their usefulnessas a basis for food policy and marketing decisions.     

ON CONSUMERS' VALUATION OF NUTRITION INFORMATION

The European Union (EU) is contemplating regulations requiring mandatory provision of nutritional information on food products. This study analyses consumers' valuation of nutritional information using data collected from a field survey. The results generally suggest that consumers value and are willing to pay about 5.9 percent of the original price for nutritional information on the food product we studied. Individuals who are non-price-sensitive, nutritionally knowledgeable and with longer time horizon are willing to pay more for nutritional information than others. Considering consumers' willingness to pay for nutritional information on food products and an EU impact assessment study, the costs of provision of this information are not prohibitive to firms. We estimate that the least conservative cost of labelling to the firm for a specific food product can be as much as €29,431, whereas the average economic value of nutrition information is estimated at €17,064. The firm can therefore recoup the associated costs in less than two months.     

Uncertainty in the public debt market and stochastic long-run growth

In a continuous time model, a representative household has to allocate its investment and consumption in an optimal manner under conditions of uncertainty. In the present study it is hypothesized that there are two types of assets: a risk-free and a risky asset. The risk-free asset is assumed to be the physical capital, while at the same time uncertainty is allowed to result from the exogenous random variations in the public debt market, rendering in this way government bonds to act as the risky asset. In the endogenous growth framework with productive public investment, the expected long-run growth rate, the dynamic path of consumption as well as the optimal allocation of investment between a risky and a riskless asset, are analytically derived. This kind of treatment allows us to create a locus for the long-run growth over the various levels of uncertainty. The outcome of the analysis is that a rise in uncertainty impacts negatively upon the long-run growth rate. In order to empirically assess the relationship between growth and uncertainty, we lay our emphasis on the US economy for the period 1957:1 to 2008:4. Within the framework of a bivariate BEKK–GARCH(1,1)-M model a significant negative relationship between uncertainty and economic growth has been established.