Working conditions and factory survival: Evidence from better factories Cambodia

A large and growing literature has identified several conditions, including exporting, that contribute to plant survival. A prevailing sentiment suggests that anti‐sweatshop activity against plants in developing countries adds to the risk of closure, making survival more difficult by imposing external constraints that may interfere with optimizing behavior. Using a relatively new plant‐level panel data set from Cambodia, this paper applies survival analysis to estimate the relationship between changes in working conditions and plant closure. The results find little, if any, evidence that improving working conditions increases the probability of closure. In fact, some evidence suggests that improvements in standards relating to compensation are positively correlated with the probability of plant survival.     

REASSESSING THE IMPACT OF BARRIERS TO CAPITAL ACCUMULATION ON INTERNATIONAL INCOME DIFFERENCES*

Can barriers to capital accumulation account for large differences in GDP per capita? We reconsider the claim that these barriers have an amplified effect on income levels in a model where both modern and traditional sector technologies are active. We show that this claim is not correct. We do find, however, that the removal of barriers to capital accumulation can cause large changes in the employment shares of labor. Thus the model can account for an important stylized fact of the development process, with labor moving from the traditional to the modern sector as income levels rise.     

STATIC FUND SEPARATION OF LONG‐TERM INVESTMENTS

This paper proves a class of static fund separation theorems, valid for investors with a long horizon and constant relative risk aversion, and with stochastic investment opportunities. An optimal portfolio decomposes as a constant mix of a few preference‐free funds, which are common to all investors. The weight in each fund is a constant that may depend on an investor's risk aversion, but not on the state variable, which changes over time. Vice versa, the composition of each fund may depend on the state, but not on the risk aversion, since a fund appears in the portfolios of different investors. We prove these results for two classes of models with a single state variable, and several assets with constant correlations with the state. In the linear class, the state is an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process, risk premia are affine in the state, while volatilities and the interest rate are constant. In the square root class, the state follows a square root diffusion, expected returns and the interest rate are affine in the state, while volatilities are linear in the square root of the state.     

Value,Values, and Valuation: The Marketization of Charitable Foundation Impact Investing

Journal of Business Ethics - Based on an abductive analytic study, we examine financial and social value incorporation in the multi-valued market of impact investing. This paper draws on interviews...