中国与拉丁美洲贸易回顾与展望

中国与拉丁美洲经贸关系的发展可分为中国入世前和入世后两个阶段。中国入世前,双边关系发展较为平缓,而入世后,经贸发展急剧增加,贸易的产品比较多样化,产业间贸易特点明显,即中国主要出口技术含量低的工业品,而进口初级产品和资源性产品,中国与南美洲多处于逆差状态,原因在于互补贸易的特点较为明确,而与墨西哥及加勒比海地区由于出口产品相似性,相互竞争拉美市场和第三国市场。展望未来,双边贸易发展仍将扩大,拉美国家由于中国进口的增加,贸易环境将改善;同时,在制成品领域,贸易壁垒愈显突出;双边投资将扩大。     

Investing for the Long-run in European Real Estate

We calculate optimal portfolio choices for a long-horizon, risk-averse investor who diversifies among European stocks, bonds, real estate, and cash, when excess asset returns are predictable. Simulations are performed for scenarios involving different risk aversion levels, horizons, and statistical models capturing predictability in risk premia. Importantly, under one of the scenarios, the investor takes into account the parameter uncertainty implied by the use of estimated coefficients to characterize predictability. We find that real estate ought to play a significant role in optimal portfolio choices, with weights between 12 and 44%. Under plausible assumptions, the welfare costs of either ignoring predictability or restricting portfolio choices to traditional financial assets only are found to be in the order of 150–300 basis points per year. These results are robust to changes in the benchmarks and in the statistical framework.      

Cross-country income mobility comparisons under panel attrition: the relevance of weighting schemes

This article aims to present an assessment of the effects of panel attrition on income mobility comparisons for some EU countries by using the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). There are different possibilities of correcting the attrition problem by means of alternative longitudinal weighting schemes. The sensitivity of mobility estimates to these attrition correction procedures is tested in this article. Our results show that ECHP attrition is characterized by a certain degree of selectivity but only affecting some variables and countries. Different probability models corroborate the existence of a certain nonrandom attrition. The model chosen to construct the longitudinal weights to correct attrition offers up rather different results than those obtained when Eurostat's longitudinal weights are used. Although attrition does not seem to have a great effect on aggregated mobility indicators, it does have a decisive effect on decomposition exercises. Our tests reveal certain sensitivity of income mobility measures to the weighting system used.     

What are the distributional implications of halving poverty in South Africa when growth alone is not enough?

The country risk indicator, as measured by the JP Morgan's EMBI or grades of rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's (S&P's) or Moody's, does not seem to truly reflect the fundamentals of an economy. Countries that pursue sound economic policies are frequently placed on the same level as countries with a populist orientation or with a recent history of default or debt restructuring. Such circumstance generates a feeling of unease with regard to these ratings. The objective of this article is to investigate whether these indicators truly reflect market fundamentals or whether some sort of prejudice, or intolerance towards certain countries, can be identified. We use the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition to analyse the differences in country risk, measured as by EMBI+, for a group of emerging markets. This decomposition allows us to separate the ‘justified’ (differences in fundamentals) from the ‘unjustified’ differences (same fundamental differently evaluated).     

Análisis de la histéresis del desempleo en México ante shocks macroeconómicos

This research presents the behavior of the Mexican unemployment rate and shows the dependence with own history and macro variables. The concept of hysteresis or persistence tries to separate this inertia in the unemployment rate and some macroeconomic and endogenous factors. The results show a high inertia in the Mexican labor market, justified by the monetary levels and the dependence of the investment levels, considering the shocks of exports that affect the unemployment in the long term.     

Growing like mushrooms? Sectoral evidence from four large European economies

This paper follows a stream of literature on the empirics of sectoral growth rates, originated by Castaldi and Dosi (Income levels and income growth. Some new cross-country evidence and some interpretative puzzles. LEM Working Paper 2004-18, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy, 2004) on two-digit international manufacturing and service sectors, and by Sapio and Thoma’s (The growth of industrial sectors: theoretical insights and empirical evidence from U.S. manufacturing. LEM Working Paper 2006-09, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy, 2006) study on four-digit U.S. manufacturing industries. Our aim is to discuss the statistical properties of growth rates in light of a ’mushroom vision’ of growth. In our analysis, we focus on the growth of value added in NACE five-digit sectors in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom between 1995 and 2003. We find that the volatility of sectoral growth rates is negatively correlated with sectoral size, according to a power law, but with steeper slopes than for firms and U.S. sectors. Rescaled sectoral growth rates are well-described by a Laplace distribution in most years. The outcomes of this statistical analysis provide a further empirical foundation to a view of sectoral growth, wherein inter-firm correlations, market concentration, and inter-sectoral feedbacks play a major role.     

Media visibility and corporate social responsibility investment evidence in Spain

Despite the extensive research in both the determinants and the results of corporate social responsibility (CSR), relatively few studies have considered extra-legal institutions as potential determinants of CSR. Our work fills this gap by looking at how media attention affects CSR over a long-term period in a continental European setting. Our results show that media coverage positively affects CSR. Additional scrutiny triggered by media coverage encourages dominant owners to signal their commitment to limiting self-dealing transactions and their orientation toward stakeholders' needs through CSR investments. Additionally, our results reveal that this signaling device offers greater benefits and lower costs in firms where controlling owners show a voting-cash flow wedge. Our results are relevant to different actors such as investors, auditors, and policy makers as they provide solid evidence that media coverage is an important driver of CSR orientation in a continental European setting.     

Home gardens,household nutrition and income in rural farm households in Odisha,India

Home gardens have been an integral part of the recent food-based interventions aimed at stimulating changes in dietary patterns and improving nutrition. However, evidence of their effects on food security, dietary quality, child anthropometry and incomes is limited, particularly among vulnerable populations groups. Using panel data from a sample of approximately 1900 households from vulnerable population groups in Odisha, India, difference-in-differences and other econometric techniques, we analyse the effects of home gardens on food security, dietary quality, child anthropometry and income. On average, home gardens contribute to better household food security, higher dietary quality of men and women but do not contribute to higher children's dietary quality and anthropometry. Also, home gardens increase monthly per adult equivalent incomes by 37% and reduce the prevalence of poverty by 11.7 percentage points. Quantile regression results suggest that home gardens enhance food security and incomes in all quantiles, but richer farmers benefit more than poorer farmers. Overall, home gardens can enhance household food security, dietary quality of men and women, and income gains among vulnerable farming population groups, but they may not suffice to improve child dietary quality and anthropometry.