Income convergence clubs for Brazilian Municipalities: a non-parametric analysis

This article analyses the evolution of relative per capita income distribution of Brazilian municipalities over the period 1970–1996. Analyses are based on non-parametric methodologies and do not assume probability distributions or functional forms for the data. Two convergence tests have been carried out – a test for sigma convergence based on the bootstrap principle and a beta convergence test using smoothing splines for the growth regressions. The results obtained demonstrate the need to model the dynamics of income for Brazilian municipalities as a process of convergence clubs, using the methodology of transition matrices and stochastic kernels. The results show the formation of two convergence clubs, a low income club formed by the municipalities of the North and Northeast regions, and another high income club formed by the municipalities of the Center-West, Southeast and South regions. The formation of convergence clubs is confirmed by a bootstrap test for multimodality.     

How efficient is the banking system of Asia’s next economic dragon? Evidence from rolling DEA windows

Vietnam is now widely regarded as a rising economic star and the next economic dragon of Asia. Its banking system has played a key role in this stellar economic performance. Since 1990, Vietnam’s banking system has undergone significant changes which saw its composition transformed from being state banks only to now being both state as well as private banks, and has performed generally well in terms of growth, profitability and stability. But is it efficient? We conduct a dynamic analysis of the level and trend of the cost and profit efficiency of the Vietnamese banking sector over the period 1995 to 2011 taking into account the Asian and Global Financial crises. We use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Windows Analysis approach and adjust for bank size in calculating the average efficiency score of the banking system. Our empirical findings show that the cost and profit efficiency of the Vietnamese banking system averaged around 0.90 and 0.75, respectively, with the state banks being more efficient than the private banks and with efficiency experiencing an upward trend over the analysis period. Moreover, we find that the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) did not significantly affect the efficiency of the whole Vietnamese banking system.     

Crypto-currency bubbles: an application of the Phillips–Shi–Yu (2013) methodology on Mt. Gox bitcoin prices

The creation of bitcoin heralded the arrival of digital or crypto-currency and has been regarded as a phenomenon. Since its introduction, it has experienced a meteoric rise in price and rapid growth accompanied by huge volatility swings, and also attracted plenty of controversies which even involved law enforcement agencies. Hence, claims abound that bitcoin has been characterized by bubbles ready to burst any time (e.g. the recent collapse of bitcoin’s biggest exchange, Mt Gox). This has earned plenty of coverage in the media but surprisingly not in the academic literature. We therefore fill this knowledge gap. We conduct an econometric investigation of the existence of bubbles in the bitcoin market based on a recently developed technique that is robust in detecting bubbles – that of Phillips et al. (2013a). Over the period 2010–2014, we detected a number of short-lived bubbles; most importantly, we found three huge bubbles in the latter part of the period 2011–2013 lasting from 66 to 106 days, with the last and biggest one being the one that ‘broke the camel’s back’ – the demise of the Mt Gox exchange.     

Replacement cycles,income distribution and dynamic price discrimination

This article analyses how income distribution, Intellectual Property Rights and other regulatory policies such as minimum quality standards determine pricing strategies in a dynamic context where a monopolist periodically introduces new generations or upgrades of a durable good. Discrimination through quality and screening in this article takes place in a context where consumers buy several versions of the durable good during their lifetime, instead of a single version as in Inderst’s (2008) or Koh’s (2006). It also differs from Glass (2001) in that an equilibrium may emerge in which different consumer types replace their durable generations with different frequencies. Our modelling is motivated by stylized facts from the last Brazilian POF (household budget survey).     

On factors explaining the 2008 financial crisis

Using a statistical methodology guided by a genetic algorithm, we select the best econometric model for explaining the severity of the 2008 crisis, with the main determinant being the percentage of bank claims on private sector over deposits in the year 2006.     

Are workplaces with many women in management run differently?

Are workplaces with a high percentage of women in management run differently? This paper uses data from the British 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98) to analyze empirically the relationship between the percentage of female workplace managers and people-management practices. The results show that workplace management teams with a higher proportion of women monitor employee feedback and development more intensely. Such teams also tend to promote more interpersonal channels of communication and more employee participation in decision-making, although the evidence is weaker for these last two practices. Overall, the findings suggest that the concept of good workplace management practices converges on female leadership styles when the percentage of female managers increases.     

Classifying exchange rate regimes: Deeds vs. words

Most of the empirical literature on exchange rate regimes uses the IMF de jure classification based on the regime announced by the governments, despite the recognized inconsistencies between reported and actual policies in many cases. To address this problem, we construct a de facto classification based on data on exchange rates and international reserves from all IMF-reporting countries over the period 1974-2000, which we believe provides a meaningful alternative for future empirical work on the topic. The classification sheds new light on several stylized facts previously reported in the literature. In particular, we find that the de facto pegs have remained stable throughout the last decade, although an increasing number of them shy away from an explicit commitment to a fixed regime (“hidden pegs”). We confirm the hollowing out hypothesis but show that it does not apply to countries with limited access to capital markets. We also find that pure floats are associated with only relatively minor nominal exchange rate volatility and that the recent increase in the number of de jure floats goes hand in hand with an increase in the number of de facto dirty floats (“fear of floating”).