Integrated reporting: an international overview

This article analyses the determinants associated with the use of the Integrated Report (IR) as a corporate reporting model for sustainability information. IRs provide information regarding the use and interdependence of different company resources. The previous literature has identified determinants behind the presentation of IRs at the country level (legal system, investor protection, economic development, cultural characteristics) as well as at the company level (size, industry, verification of the sustainability report). Our work contributes to the literature by using a novel statistical approach that addresses the likelihood of the non‐independence of data: companies in the same country are more similar to one another than are companies from different countries. Our results confirm significant inter‐country variance, which may be partially explained by the existence of specific regulations and the individualism vs. collectivism dimension. Although we confirm the effect of company‐level determinants, our results do not support the role of specific variables tested as determinants.     

Erratum to: Corporate Socially Responsible Initiatives and Their Effects on Consumption of Green Products

This study extends previous literature on the association between Confucianism and corporate decisions by examining Confucianism’s influence on board gender diversity. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms during the period of 2001–2011 and geographic-proximity-based Confucianism variables, I provide strong and consistent evidence to show that Confucianism is significantly negatively associated with board gender diversity, suggesting that the proportion of women directors in the boardroom is significantly lower for firms surrounded by strong Confucianism atmosphere than for firms located in regions with weak Confucianism atmosphere. This finding also implies that Confucian philosophical system has important impacts on business ethics and women’s status in corporate governance. Moreover, GDP per capita, the proxy for economic development level in a province in which a firm is located, attenuates the negative association between Confucianism and board gender diversity. Above results are robust to different measures of Confucianism and board gender diversity and are still valid after controlling for the potential endogeneity between Confucianism and board gender diversity.     

An Ordered Probit Approach to Predicting the Probability of Inflation/Deflation

This paper provides an ordered probit approach that estimates the probability six months in the future of three distinct scenarios for prices: inflation, deflation, or price stability. The traditional way of forecasting inflation is to predict a single level and/or growth rate of the PCE deflator. However, this approach is not useful for identifying options or risks facing decision-makers, especially in financial markets. Also, point estimates of inflation convey a sense of overconfidence. Our approach is more practical for decision-makers who must hedge their portfolios, but it is also useful for policymakers, investors, and consumers who must attach a probability with each possible scenario of future price trends. Our results indicate that since June 2011 the probability of deflation has been persistently higher than of the other two scenarios. Thus, the recent years’ higher deflation probabilities may offer a justification for the persistence of the Federal Reserve’s highly accommodative monetary policy during 2012–14.     

Globalisation and Obesity

The WHO has recently announced the global obesity epidemic. An economic model is developed in which globalisation factors generate health externalities and contribute to global obesity growth. The unbalanced panel data set contains the information for 79 countries over the period 1986–2008. Fixed‐effects panel data estimation and quantile regression analysis were used to analyse the data. The fixed‐effects panel model results indicate that the impact of trade openness and the globalisation social index (GSI) on global obesity rates is positive and significant, which is consistent with prior expectations, while surprisingly the foreign direct investments (FDI) has no impact on global obesity. While these results are interesting, they are hiding the effect of globalisation processes across the conditional distribution of the obesity variable. The use of quantile regression uncovered that the impact of the FDI and the GSI on low and average quantiles (low and average obesity rates in our sample) is positive and significant, while high quantiles are not affected. Since low and average quantiles (low and average obesity rates) are representative of the less‐ and medium‐developed countries, this result implies that social globalisation and FDI adversely impact obesity in less‐to‐medium developed countries. Trade openness generally has no impact on changes in obesity rates across quantiles.     

Three Simple Techniques to Analyze a Complex Economic Phenomenon: The Case of Profits

This paper seeks to characterize the behavior of profits over the business cycle as a model for analyzing any economic series by a practicing business economist. It addresses three fundamental questions about profits that are common and critical to identifying the behavior of any macroeconomic series—mean-reversion, volatility, and trend. First, does profit growth over time exhibit mean-reverting behavior? Second, how volatile are profits, and does this volatility obscure the message of average profit growth? Third, how can we estimate a long-run trend growth component for profits and thereby separate profit cycles from its long-run trend growth component?     

Die neue Schuldenregel in Deutschland und die Schuldenbremse der Schweiz Wege zu nachhaltigen öffentlichen Finanzen?

Zusammenfassung  Im Februar 2009 haben sich Bund und L?nder im Rahmen der F?deralismuskommission II auf eine neue Schuldenregel geeinigt. Diese stimmt in den Grundzügen mit der 2001 in der Schweiz eingeführten Schuldenbremse überein. Wie sind diese Regelungen ausgestaltet? Was wird an ihnen kritisiert? Prof. Dr. Karl Heinz Hausner, 39, lehrt Volkswirtschaftslehre an der Fachhochschule des Bundes für ?ffentliche Verwaltung in Mannheim; Prof. Dr. Silvia Simon, 38, lehrt Volkswirtschaftslehre an der Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft in Chur, Schweiz.     

Capital Cities in the New EU States—Economic Status Quo and Current Trends

In the course of the economic catching-up process of the new EU states, the capital cities of the countries in central and eastern Europe were the economically most successful regions in their countries. How distinct are economic disparities between the capitals and the rest of the countries today? What were the determinants of the related economic developments? And do current economic trends support the leading position of the capital cities in the new member states?      

Read my lips: The role of information transmission in multilateral reform design

Context-specific knowledge is crucial to crafting multilateral reform programs. Nonetheless local knowledge often consists of unverifiable information, thus the quality of countries' reports depends on the conflict of interests faced by the recipient and the multilateral. We compare the performance of a “delegation-scheme” against a “centralization-scheme.” We find that recipients' discretion in the choice of reforms (delegation) should only be increased when the countries' local knowledge is strictly more important than the multilateral's information. Conversely, a reduction in the conflict of interests may lead the multilateral in to allowing the recipient less freedom in designing reforms (centralization). Our empirical results support these theoretical predictions.     

Deutsche am Schweizer Arbeitsmarkt

Immer mehr hochqualifi zierte deutsche Staatsbürger arbeiten im Ausland. Dabei hat die Schweiz die USA als Hauptzielland abgel?st. Da der Bedarf an gut ausgebildeten Arbeitskr?ften in der deutschen Wirtschaft steigt, erh?lt die Abwanderung Hochqualifi zierter zunehmende Aufmerksamkeit in der Politik. Dieser Beitrag quantifi ziert die Wanderungsbewegungen in die Schweiz und zeigt, in welchen Bereichen und mit welchen Qualifi kationsniveaus die Deutschen dort besch?ftigt sind.