Uncertainty across volatility regimes

We propose a nonrecursive identification scheme for uncertainty shocks that exploits breaks in the volatility of macroeconomic variables and is novel in the literature on uncertainty. This approach allows us to simultaneously address two major questions in the empirical literature: Is uncertainty a cause or effect of decline in economic activity? Does the relationship between uncertainty and economic activity change across macroeconomic regimes? Results based on a small‐scale vector autoregression with US monthly data suggest that (i) uncertainty is an exogenous source of decline of economic activity, and (ii) the effects of uncertainty shocks amplify in periods of economic and financial turmoil.     

Endogenous debt maturity and rollover risk

We empirically study the nature of rollover risk and show how banks manage it. Having to roll over debt does not lead to higher default risk per se. Only banks that lose significant access to new funding while having to roll over debt display higher default risk. We identify a factor that determines this buildup of risk: specifically, debt maturity shortening (forcing debt to be more frequently rolled over) and reduced access to new funding are both driven by market pessimism about banks’ future performance. We also provide evidence consistent with dynamic coordination risk.     

Climate change management: a resilience strategy for flood risk using Blockchain tools

Decisions in Economics and Finance - This work aims to offer a contribution in the analysis and management, from an economic and financial point of view, of the flood risk, and extended to the...     

Effectiveness of employee welfare schemes: differences of specific professional profiles

Corporate social responsibility studies prove that an employee is increasingly a key stakeholder for companies. Firms are starting to think about their workforce as a real opportunity to manage and improve their human and economic capital. Employee welfare and benefit schemes are particularly important in this perspective and top companies are investing significantly in this direction. On the basis of an empirical cross-analysis, conducted on a questionnaire addressed to its own employees, by one of the world's biggest multinational groups, and in which the level of satisfaction of benefits and welfare schemes is investigated, significant results emerged: the utility of benefits is marginally higher in women than in men; an evident direct linear relationship exists between job standing and benefit satisfaction, with the exception of factory workers; seniority and age variance of employees do not imply different marginal utility in benefits. Furthermore, the implementation of some limited cost benefits would generate higher marginal utility in employees than of other, more expensive and exclusive, benefits.     

Testing the purchasing power parity through I(2) cointegration techniques

This paper contributes to the empirical literature on the purchasing power parity (PPP) over the post‐Bretton Woods period by providing a time‐series based interpretation of the controversial evidence characterizing the dynamics of real exchange rates. It is shown that the persistence of deviations from the PPP between a set of European countries and the United States may be empirically attributed to the presence of I(2) stochastic trends in prices using Consumer Price Indices. Interestingly, the slow adjustment towards the equilibrium can be modelled through ‘integral‐proportional’ equilibrium correction models and this evidence can be partly reconciled with theories where the inflation rate reduces the markup of profit‐maximizing firms acting on imperfectly competitive markets. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A generalized approach to optimal hedging with option contracts

In this paper, we develop a theoretical model in which a firm hedges a spot position using options in the presence of both quantity (production) and basis risks. Our optimal hedge ratio is fairly general, in that the dependence structure is modeled through a copula function representing the quantiles of the hedged position, and hence any quantile risk measure can be employed. We study the sensitivity of the exercise price which minimizes the risk of the hedged portfolio to the relevant parameters, and we find that the subjective risk aversion of the firm does not play any role. The only trade-off is between the effectiveness and cost of the hedging strategy.     

What’s up after brain drain? Sometimes, somewhere, someone comes back: a general model of return migration

Individual preferences and wage differentials are generally interpreted as determinants of agents?? migration decisions in search of job opportunities. Literature about migration flows usually describes both theoretical and empirical evidence for either temporary or permanent movements of workers, but brain drain migration has its own peculiar characteristics. This paper aims to obtain two results: the first is to present the law of determination that leads to the moment of the return decision, and the second is to analyse how the difference between the utility from domestic and foreign consumption evolves in time. The presented model explains how the return decision is determined, even in cases when the agent does not leave or does not return at all.