SCALE‐INDEPENDENT TECHNOLOGICAL‐KNOWLEDGE BIAS,HUMAN‐CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND GENDER INEQUALITY

We present a dynamic, non‐scale general‐equilibrium model with female and male human capital where Schumpeterian R&D and human‐capital accumulation are the engines of growth and gender wage inequality. Gender wage inequality is encouraged by changes in relative supply and relative demand of both human‐capital types. Relative supply restricts the levels of employed human capital. Relative demand is affected by the technological‐knowledge bias, which is driven by the price channel and is affected by human‐capital accumulation. In particular, the female‐premium per unit of human capital and per worker increases when the observed discrimination against women decreases or is removed.     

Impact of IFRS adoption on accounting quality in European firms

In this paper it is examined whether firms following International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS） exhibit higher accounting quality. While IFRS are supposed to improve international comparisons by harmonisation and definition of strong principles, Ball （2006） and Nobes （2006） were concerned about differences in the application of IFRS cross-countries and firms. Barth, Landsman ＆ Lang （2008） stated that the flexibility of principles- based International Accounting Standards （IAS） could create incentives for firms to manage earnings. This paper contributes to analyse the impact of IFRS on accounting quality for European firms. The findings show that for firms in the European Union （EU） IFRS produce a negative effect on accounting quality that continues after 2005, when IFRS becomes mandatory. By contrast, for European firms which are not EU members the IFRS adoption increases accounting quality. These results support the concerns about IFRS application and flexibility and indicate that accounting quality does not improve just because the adoption of IFRS is mandatory.     

Re-examining International Technological-Knowledge Diffusion

In the standard models of North-South technological-knowledge diffusion, the larger the initial technological-knowledge gap between countries, the greater the Southern catching up. However, this result does not adjust well to Southern reality as a whole. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the disparity between the theoretical outcome and the empirical findings can be reduced by considering that: (i) the South can only imitate Northern technological knowledge when it is sufficiently close to the Northern frontier; (ii) the advantage of the South's moderate backwardness, together with its imitation capacity, is a mechanism of catching up with the North; and (iii) the Southern catching-up specification can be country specific. In particular, we show that the behavior of the South's relative level of employed human capital affects Southern imitation capacity and depends on the catching-up specifications.     

Fiscal Consolidations in the Central and Eastern European Countries

We study fiscal consolidations in the Central and Eastern European countries and what determines the probability of their success. We define consolidation events as substantive improvements in fiscal balances adjusting for the impact of cyclical effects. We use logit models for the period 1991–2003 to assess the determinants of the success of a fiscal adjustment. The results seem to suggest that for these countries expenditure based consolidations have tended to be more successful. By contrast, revenue-based consolidations have a tendency to be less successful. JEL no. C25, E62, H62     

Education public financing and economic growth: an endogenous growth model versus evidence

Using an Endogenous Growth Model with physical and human capital and unemployment (Mauro and Carmeci in J Macroecon 25:123–137, 2003), we study the effects of subsidies to education in economic growth. According to the model, we conclude that government subsidies to education only enhance economic growth conditional on unemployment and that this relationship is negatively influenced by unemployment. We provide evidence from a broad panel data of countries that confirms the importance of unemployment in the relationship between subsidies to education and economic growth but dismiss its importance as a direct determinant of economic growth.      

Religiosity,Spirituality and Work: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Directions

Journal of Business Ethics - This article presents the results of a systematic literature review (SLR) on religiosity and spirituality, particularly in the work context. We aimed to verify the...     

Costly investment, complementarities and the skill premium

We propose a new framework to analyse the relationship between the relative high-skilled labour endowment, the skill premium and economic growth. Building on Acemoglu and Zilibotti (2001), we introduce physical capital; internal costly investment in both capital and R&D; and complementarities between intermediate goods. We only find a positive relationship between the relative labour endowment and both the skill premium and economic growth within determined intervals of relative labour endowment values, which vary with the absolute productive advantage of high over low-skilled labour. The model thus accommodates theoretically mixed empirical results on the relative labour endowment-skill premium relationship. We further find that the impact on both the relative labour endowment and the skill premium of a rise in investment costs or in the complementarities degree depends on: (i) the absolute productivity advantage of high over low-skilled labour; and (ii) the relative labour endowment.