Export Credit Guarantees and Export Performance: Evidence from Austrian Firm‐level Data

This paper provides an economic assessment of export credit guarantee commitments by the Austrian export credit agency, using firm‐level data on a cross‐section of Austrian exporting firms for the year 2008. In a first step, we explore various determinants of export guarantee usage. Results suggest that firm size, being part of a multinational enterprise, exposure to revenue risk and R&D intensity are important factors. In a second step, we investigate the effects of export guarantees on export performance. Identification is achieved using as instruments the exogenous determinants of export guarantee usage identified in the first step. We find that there are economically and statistically significant effects of export credit guarantee usage on firm‐specific export performance ranging from some 80 to 100 per cent compared with the control group of non‐users.     

Privatisation policy in Russia

Since Russia’s process of privatisation got under way in 1992 a large proportion of the country’s state-owned enterprises have been turned into private legal entities and have been transferred into private property. However, the desired economic success has so far largely remained elusive. What deficiencies in the privatisation policy have caused this? What can be done to solve the problems?     

The WTO Compatibility of the Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and the ACP Countries

The economic partnership agreements (EPAs) to be negotiated between the European Union and six different ACP regions under the Cotonou Agreement are intended to be in conformity with WTO rules, i.e. satisfy GATT Article XXIV and GATS Article V. To what extent is this realistic? What would be the effects on the ACP countries?

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This article summarises the following study: A. Borrmann, H. Gro?mann, and G. Koopmann: The WTO Compatibility of the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and the ACP States, Study on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, Eschborn 2005, http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/enwto-epa-acp-2005.pdf.     

Customer Tuchpoins marken- und kundenpezifisch mangen

Marken hinterlassen an allen Kontaktpunkten mit Kunden Spuren und Fingerabdrücke. Dessen sind sich Manager und Mitarbeiter oft nicht bewusst. Das Management sowie die marken- und kundenspezifische Abstimmung aller Kontaktpunkte bieten somit gro?es Potenzial für Unternehmen zur wirksameren Vermarktung ihrer Marken. Unternehmen, die Kunden ganzheitlich positive und zufriedenstellende Markenerlebnisse an allen Kontaktpunkten vermitteln, sind erfolgreicher im Wettbewerb.     

Monopsonistic discrimination, worker turnover, and the gender wage gap

Motivated by models of worker flows, we argue in this paper that monopsonistic discrimination may be a substantial factor behind the overall gender wage gap. Using matched employer–employee data from Norway, we estimate establishment-specific wage premiums separately for men and women, conditioning on fixed individual effects. Regressions of worker turnover on the wage premium identify less wage elastic labour supply facing each establishment of women than that of men. Workforce gender composition is strongly related to employers' wage policies. The results suggest that 70–90% of the gender wage gap for low-educated workers may be attributed to differences in labour market frictions between men and women, while the similar figures for high-educated workers ranges from 20 to 70%.     

Learning by Doing and Spillovers: Further Evidence for the Semiconductor Industry

Learning spillovers in the production of EPROMs areinvestigated. It turns out that spillovers aresignificant, even though internal learning is thepredominant source of learning. Concerning externallearning, it does not appear to particularly matterwhether this comes from domestic rivals or foreigncompanies. There is some indication that Japanesecompanies have a steeper learning curve and with somegenerations are better able to appropriate externallearning from foreigners. Intergenerational learningis pervasive, which seems to provide competitiveadvantages to first movers. It could explain thepersistence of leadership of Intel in this industryacross a series of generations. Moreover, it coulddeliver scope for policy intervention.     

Convergence of interest rate pass-through in a wider euro zone?

This study investigates interest rate pass-through convergence for the eight Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) that joined the European Union. Based on a unifying empirical pass-through model that allows for thresholds, asymmetric adjustment, and structural changes, we find that the pass-through in many CEECs has become faster over time and is generally more complete than in the euro zone. We find evidence for convergence across CEECs with market concentration, bank health, foreign bank participation and monetary policy regime as conditioning factors. No convergence of the CEEC pass-through is found vis-à-vis the heterogeneous euro zone.     

Do Vietnamese upland farmers benefit from high world market prices for maize?

For rural households in the north of Vietnam, maize cropping is the main source of income. In the face of the world market price increases of the recent past, we analyze the regional marketing chain of this commodity qualitatively and econometrically investigating to what extent smallholder farmers in developing countries are affected by international price movements. Vietnamese maize markets are found to be well integrated. Recent price hikes have fully transmitted along the regional supply chain so that farmers profited. Nevertheless, adverse factors such as increasing input prices have neutralized these benefits resulting in a decline in real income of smallholders.