Have R&D Spillovers Declined in the 21st Century?

Slow growth over the last decade has prompted policy attention towards increasing R&D spending, often via the tax system. We examine the impact of R&D on firm performance, both by the firm's own investments and through positive (and negative) spillovers from other firms. We analyse panel data on US firms over the last three decades, and allow for time‐varying spillovers in both technology space (knowledge spillover) and product market space (product market rivalry). We show that the magnitude of R&D spillovers remains as large in the second decade of the 21^st century as it was in the mid 1980s. Since the ratio of the social return to the private return to R&D is about four to one, this implies that there remains a strong case for public support of R&D. Positive spillovers appeared to temporarily increase in the 1995–2004 digital technology boom. We also show how these micro estimates relate to estimates from the endogenous growth literature and give some suggestions for future work.     

Expected shortfall estimation for apparently infinite-mean models of operational risk

Statistical analyses on actual data depict operational risk as an extremely heavy-tailed phenomenon, able to generate losses so extreme as to suggest the use of infinite-mean models. But no loss can actually destroy more than the entire value of a bank or of a company, and this upper bound should be considered when dealing with tail-risk assessment. Introducing what we call the dual distribution, we show how to deal with heavy-tailed phenomena with a remote yet finite upper bound. We provide methods to compute relevant tail quantities such as the Expected Shortfall, which is not available under infinite-mean models, allowing adequate provisioning and capital allocation. This also permits a measurement of fragility. The main difference between our approach and a simple truncation is in the smoothness of the transformation between the original and the dual distribution. Our methodology is useful with apparently infinite-mean phenomena, as in the case of operational risk, but it can be applied in all those situations involving extreme fat tails and bounded support.     

(Unusual) weather and stock returns—I am not in the mood for mood: further evidence from international markets

This paper investigates the explanatory power of weather variables deviations in two leading international financial trading centres (New York and London) on 58 global stock indices over the period September 2000 to December 2013. The empirical results find that unusual deviations of weather variables from their monthly averages have a statistically significant effect on stock returns across global returns. The paper also attempts to explain these effects through the sales and energy prices mechanisms. The results provide strong support to both mechanisms.     

Job/work environment factors influencing training transfer within a human service agency: some indicative support for Baldwin and Ford’s transfer climate construct

Despite significant progress in the field of training transfer research over the past two decades very little empirical research in the area has been conducted within human service organisations. As a result, our knowledge of the extent to which those factors posited within the training literature to influence the transfer of training are necessarily those found in these particular work settings very much remains in its infancy. This article presents findings from qualitative research that was undertaken as part of a wider training evaluation strategy to investigate (1) those factors which influenced the transfer of training within a UK social services department; and (2) how these factors compared or differed from those suggested within the literature as influencing training transfer. The findings suggest a range of specific factors as they pertain to both the nature of the jobs and the workplace within such work settings as mediating training transfer. However, a number of these were closely associated with the dimensions of social support and opportunity to use as posited within Baldwin and Ford’s (1988) transfer of training model, suggesting that the model is potentially generalisable to human service agencies.     

The pricing of accruals for profit and loss firms

This paper investigates whether the accrual anomaly reported in prior studies exists across both profit and loss firms. We posit that the extent of accrual mispricing is less severe for loss firms than for profit firms because earnings for loss firms are less value relevant and, therefore, less subject to accrual mispricing. As expected, we find that the accrual overpricing anomaly is restricted to profit-making firms and, thus, is dampened by the inclusion of loss firms in the sample. Furthermore, we report that accrual overpricing for profit firms but not for loss firms is primarily attributable to the overpricing of positive accruals of profit firms compared with those of loss firms. Finally, we find that the phenomenon of accrual overpricing for profit but not for loss firms may persist into the new regulatory environment following the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002.     

Ownership Dynamics with Multiple Insiders: The Case of REITs

We study ownership dynamics of multiple strategic risk-averse insiders facing a moral hazard problem. We show that, when insiders cannot commit,  ex ante , to an ownership policy, the aggregate insider stake gradually declines toward the competitive market allocation. Both the speed of adjustment and the long-term equilibrium aggregate insider ownership level are greater for companies with a larger number of insiders,  ceteris paribus . Using data from U.S. real estate investment trusts, we then test the model and find that the predictions of the model are verified empirically.     

Interest Rate Liberalization and Economic Growth in Zambia: A Dynamic Linkage

Abstract: This paper examines the dynamic impact of interest rate reforms on economic growth in Zambia—using two models in a stepwise fashion. In the first model, the efficacy of interest rate liberalization is examined by regressing the interest rate on the level of financial deepening. In the second model, the causal relationship between financial depth and economic growth is examined by incorporating savings as an intermittent variable in the bivariate setting, thereby creating a simple trivariate model. Using the cointegration‐based error correction model, the study finds strong support for the positive impact of interest rate liberalization on financial deepening. In addition, the study finds that financial deepening, which results from interest rate liberalization, Granger causes economic growth. The results apply irrespective of whether the causality is estimated in the short run or in the long run. Other results show that: (1) lagged financial depth leads to further financial deepening; (2) savings and economic growth Granger cause each other; and (3) financial development Granger causes savings in the long run.     

Learning and stability of the Bayesian–Walrasian equilibrium

Under the Bayesian–Walrasian Equilibrium (BWE) (see Balder and Yannelis, 2009), agents form price estimates based on their own private information, and in terms of those prices they can formulate estimated budget sets. Then, based on his/her own private information, each agent maximizes interim expected utility subject to his/her own estimated budget set. From the imprecision due to the price estimation it follows that the resulting equilibrium allocation may not clear the markets for every state of nature, i.e., exact feasibility of allocations may not occur. This paper shows that if the economy is repeated from period to period and agents refine their private information by observing the past BWE, then in the limit all agents will obtain the same information and market clearing will be reached. The converse is also true. The analysis provides a new way of looking at the asymmetric equilibrium which has a statistical foundation.     

Globalisation,economic growth and energy consumption in the BRICS region: The importance of asymmetries

This paper examines the asymmetric impact of globalisation and economic growth on energy consumption in BRICS countries, applying the NARDL bounds approach to explore the presence of asymmetric cointegration across variables. The empirical results reveal that energy consumption is positively and negatively affected by the positive and negative globalisation shocks, respectively. A positive shock in economic growth promotes energy consumption, while a negative shock reduces energy consumption.     

Financial Development and Economic Growth Nexus: A Revisionist Approach

In this piece, we highlight some of the salient issues and controversies surrounding the relationship between financial development and economic growth, from both the theoretical and the empirical fronts. We first discuss the controversies on the role of financial development in economic growth; and we then proceed to review the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth. We conclude that the relationship between financial development and economic growth is highly complex, and is dependent on a number of factors. Hence, the argument that financial development always leads to economic growth should be taken with extreme caution.