The effect of monetary and fiscal credibility on public debt: empirical evidence from the Brazilian economy

This study relates to the literature regarding credibility effect on public debt for developing economies under inflation targeting. The novelty is the investigation of effects of both monetary and fiscal credibility on public debt and its management. The main idea is that high credibility might improve public debt management. With this purpose, this paper addresses empirical evidence based on the Brazilian experience. The findings denote that credibility is an important instrument to improve the public debt management under inflation targeting.     

Does preschool education attendance matter? Evidence from a natural experiment in Spain

The non-compulsory and non-free of charge character of preschool education level before 3 years old in Spain raises some doubts about the exogenous nature of this variable. This article provides new evidence about the impact of preschool years on educational outcomes by exploiting a peculiar Spanish database that supplies information on two classrooms at fourth grade in primary schools where students were randomly allocated into each group. Using an identification strategy that reproduces a natural experiment, we find that belonging to the group with more average years of preschool education significantly and positively impacts on fourth-grade students’ average outcomes. Particularly, an increase of one standard deviation in the difference in years of preschool attendance results in an increase of 0.16 (0.13) standard deviations in the group achievement for mathematics (reading). In view of the importance of preschool education and considering that preschool attendance before 3 years old is related with socio-economic variables, we conclude that extending free preschool education to the 2-year-old age group in Spain should be considered especially for students in families with less favourable backgrounds.     

Pair-copulas modeling in finance

This paper concerns itself with applications of pair-copulas in finance, and bridges the gap between theory and application. We provide a broad view of the problem of modeling multivariate financial log-returns using pair-copulas, gathering together for this purpose theoretical and computational results from the literature on canonical vines. From the practitioner’s viewpoint, the paper shows the advantages of modeling through pair-copulas and makes clear that it is possible to implement this methodology on a daily basis. All the necessary steps (model selection, estimation, validation, simulations, and applications) are discussed at a level easily understood by all data analysts.     

The Use of the R2 as a Measure of Firm-Specific Information: A Cross-Country Critique

Abstract:  Recent research uses the degree of stock returns co-movement as a measure of the quality of a country's information environment. It has been argued that stronger property rights, better corporate governance regimes and more efficient enforcement mechanisms lead to prices incorporating more firm-specific information and, therefore, co-moving less with the market. In this paper, we use a much more comprehensive international data set than in prior research, encompassing forty countries over twenty years, to evaluate the reliability of this approach in a cross-country setting and to analyse the behaviour of the measure used. Our results demonstrate severe limitations in the use of co-movement as a measure of information quality. We highlight the instability of the measure and show that it can produce results that are often difficult to reconcile with such an informational explanation.     

The reform of the EU budget: Finding new own resources

The following paper addresses the ongoing debate on the questions of the composition and fi nancing of the European Union’s common budget. The authors argue in favour of a significant enlargement of the budget, together with a profound reform of its composition and financing.     

Education for sustainable development: current discourses and practices and their relevance to technology education

Technology education is a well-established field of knowledge whose applications have many ramifications. For example, technology education may be used as a tool in meeting the challenges of sustainable development. However, the usefulness of technology education to the sustainability debate as a whole and to education for sustainable development in particular, has largely been overlooked in the past. Indeed, there is a paucity of academic studies which examine the contribution technology education may provide to education for sustainable development. On the basis of the need to address this knowledge gap, this paper reviews the state of affairs in relation to education for sustainable development and considers its links and appropriateness to technology education. A further objective of this paper is to present examples of initiatives and existing practices around the world, drawing partly from the results of the 1st European Conference on Education for Sustainable Development held in Greece in October 2007, as well as from other initiatives undertaken in Europe and North America. Finally, some measures that may be adopted in order to enhance the contribution of technology education to education for sustainable development are outlined.     

Declaraciones institucionales y percepciones individuales sobre la sustentabilidad en escuelas de negocios mexicanas

The objective of this paper is to analyze how business schools of Mexican universities deal with the concept of sustainability as part of their educational task. In order to achieve a comprehensive vision, this study considers the environmental, the social, and the economic components of sustainability. After discussing the conceptual dimensions of education for sustainability, the empirical part of the paper consists of two sections: a content analysis of how official university documents handle the concept of sustainability and a survey of professors’ and students’ perceptions of sustainability. The analysis shows that both professors and students in the Management and Accounting disciplines need to extend their understanding about the economic and environmental aspects of sustainability. The results of this study provide information that can guide the efforts made by institutions of higher learning for training their professors and offering a comprehensive education for their students in all three components of sustainability.     

A computable general equilibrium analysis of Brexit: Barriers to trade and immigration restrictions

This paper estimates the economic effects of different types of restrictions on trade and immigration in the United Kingdom after Brexit. Regarding trade restrictions, we focus on UK–EU increases in tariffs and non-tariff barriers. We also analyse the removal of all tariffs in the UK to all its trading partners. Concerning immigration, we run a 5-year cumulative annual reduction in net migrants by 87,000 workers following OECD estimations, which looks realistic even if there is a hard Brexit. The study is conducted using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which allows us to estimate the impact on GDP, welfare, wages and capital remuneration, together with the evolution of aggregate and sectoral output, exports and imports. We obtain a more sizeable negative impact on the UK than other previous influential studies. Trade restrictions would generate welfare reductions between −0.38% and −1.94% for the UK, while they would be between −0.03% and −0.14% in the EU. This is because the EU is a crucial trade partner for the UK, which cannot be easily substituted through trade with other regions in the world. We simulate the impact of both reductions in net inflows and in the stock of EU migrants, accumulated through 5 years. Migration is compatible with wage increases but puts downward pressure on GDPpc. However, migration restrictions would not compensate the overall GDPpc contractions arising from a hard Brexit.