Child Growth, Shocks, and Food Aid in Rural Ethiopia

Child stunting in Ethiopia has persisted at alarming rates, despite enormous amounts of food aid, often procured in response to shocks. Using nationally representative data, the study finds that while harvest failure leads to child growth faltering, food aid affected child growth positively and offset the negative effects of shocks in communities that received food aid. However, many communities that experienced shocks did not receive food aid. In sum, while food aid has helped reduce child malnutrition, inflexible food aid targeting, together with endemic poverty and limited maternal education, has left the prevalence of child stunting at alarming levels.     

The transmission of emerging market shocks to global equity markets

The paper analyzes whether, and to what extent, emerging market economies (EMEs) have systemic importance for global financial markets, above and beyond their influence during crises episodes. Using a novel database of exogenous economic and political shocks for 14 systematically relevant EMEs, we find that EME shocks not only have a statistically but also economically significant impact on global equity markets. The economic significance of EME shocks is in particular underlined by their remarkably persistent effects over time. Importantly, EMEs are found to influence global equity markets about just as much in “good” times as in “bad” times, though they tend to be stronger during crises or periods of financial turbulence. Finally, we detect a large degree of heterogeneity in the transmission of EME shocks to individual countries' equity markets, stressing the different degrees of financial exposure, which is relatively higher for European equity markets.     

Inter-industry and intra-industry specialization in manufactured goods

Zusammenfassung Interindustrielle und intraindustrielle Spezialisierung bei gewerblichen Gütern. -In diesem Aufsatz werden in einem Mehrl?nder-Modell mit mehreren Industrien die Bestimmungsgründe der Au?enhandelsstr?me zwischen jeweils zwei L?ndern für einzelne Industriezweige analysiert. W?hrend die Nettoexporte von den komparativen Vorteilen beeinflu?t werden, wirkt sich auf die unsaldierten Handelsstr?me auch das Ausma? der intraindustriellen Spezialisierung aus, die sowohl Ausfuhren als auch Einfuhren im bilateralen Handel erh?ht. Die Untersuchung testet mit Erfolg Hypothesen hinsichtlich des inter-und des intraindustriellen Handels und au?erdem die Wirkungen von den aus der Gravitationstheorie her bekannten Determinanten. In den Ergebnissen zeigt sich der komplement?re Charakter von inter-und intraindustrieller Spezialisierung. Die geographische Disaggregation der Sch?tzungen best?tigt die Robustheit der Ergebnisse.

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Résumé Spécialisation inter-industrielle et intra-industrielle en biens manufacturiers. -Dans cet article les auteurs appliquent un modèle multi-pays et multi-industrie pour analyser les déterminants du commerce extérieur des industries individuelles entre des paires de pays. Pendant que les exportations nettes sont influencées par l’avantage comparatif, le commerce brut est aussi déterminé par la spécialisation intra-industrielle qui augmente les exportations aussi bien que les importations en commerce bilatéral. Les auteurs ont testé avec succès des hypothèses concernant le commerce inter-industriel et intra-industriel aussi bien que les effets des facteurs gravitationnels. Les résultats confirment le caractère complémentaire de la spécialisation inter-industrielle et intra-industrielle. En plus, la désagrégation géographique des estimations souligne la vigueur des résultats.

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Resumen Especialización intersectorial e intrasectorial en bienes manufacturados. -En este trabajo se utiliza un modelo multinacional y multisectorial para analizar las déterminantes del comercio (bruto) entre los sectores industriales de dos países. Mientras que el comercio neto es afectado por las ventajas comparativas, el comercio bruto también es influenciado por el grado de especialización intrasectorial, que aumenta las exportaciones e importaciones en el comercio bilateral. Se someten a un test empfrico hipótesis relativas al comercio intersectorial e intrasectorial como también a los efectos de factures gravitacionales. Los resultados demuestran el carácter complementario de la especialización intersectorial e intrasectorial. La desagregación geográfica de las estimaciones confirma la estabilidad de los resultados.

     

Firm size and inventive activity: The evidence reconsidered

This paper analyses the relationship between firm size and inventive activity in the United States for the late seventies. It is argued that the inventive activity measure used, R&D expenditure, is a more ‘neutral’ measure in relation to firm size, than both R&D employment and the number of patents. Contrary to most empirical research in this field, the analyses carried out in the present paper indicate that inventive activity seems to increase more than proportionately with firm size.     

The flight home effect: Evidence from the syndicated loan market during financial crises

This paper shows that the collapse of the global market for syndicated loans during financial crises can in part be explained by a flight home effect whereby lenders rebalance their loan portfolios in favor of domestic borrowers. The home bias of lenders' loan origination increases by approximately 20% if the bank's home country experiences a banking crisis. This flight home effect is distinct from flight to quality because borrowers of different quality are equally affected. The results indicate that the home bias in capital allocation tends to increase when adverse economic shocks reduce the wealth of international investors.     

Patterns in payout policy and payout channel choice

We study the decision to distribute funds as well as the choice of the payout channel (i.e. dividends, repurchases, or both). Our analysis of the payout policy of UK firms demonstrates that the importance of share repurchases is increasing, but dividends still constitute a vast proportion of the total payout. We document that there is a relation between the presence of blockholders and the choice of the payout channel. We find that payout decisions are influenced by directors’ liquidity needs but are not consistent with the agency theory of payout. We also reject the tax-clientele explanation for payout choices.     

Age‐related differences in the relations between individualised HRM and organisational performance: a large‐scale employer survey

The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between individualised HRM practices and several measures of organisational performance, including the moderating role of employee age in these relationships. A large‐scale representative study among 4,591 organisations in the Netherlands showed support for the relationships between individualised HR practices with organisational performance. Employee age moderated the relationships between the use of individualised practices and sickness absence and turnover, such that organisations with a high percentage of older workers benefited from work schedule practices, and organisations with high percentage of younger workers benefited from development practices.     

Strong HRM processes and line managers' effective HRM implementation: a balanced view

Exploring a unitarist and pluralist Human Resource Management (HRM) perspective, we propose a more nuanced view on Bowen and Ostroff's (2004) concept of strong HRM processes. More specifically, we investigate whether strong HRM processes contribute positively or negatively to line managers' effective HRM implementation. The results of a multi‐level model with data from 125 line managers and 899 employees of five organisations show a complex picture. In line with unitarist thinking, we find a positive indirect effect of strong HRM processes on HRM implementation effectiveness via line managers' ability. In accordance with pluralist thinking, we find a negative direct relationship between strong HRM processes and HRM implementation effectiveness. We discuss the tensions in HRM that might explain these ambiguous findings.     

The Contribution of Structural Break Models to Forecasting Macroeconomic Series

This paper compares the forecasting performance of models that have been proposed for forecasting in the presence of structural breaks. They differ in their treatment of the break process, the model applied in each regime and the out‐of‐sample probability of a break. In an extensive empirical evaluation, we demonstrate the presence of breaks and their importance for forecasting. We find no single model that consistently works best in the presence of breaks. In many cases, the formal modeling of the break process is important in achieving a good forecast performance. However, there are also many cases where rolling window forecasts perform well. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: Description of a Survey in Russian Industry

The survey described in this article collects data on enterprise restructuring, ownership, competition, budget constraints and, particularly, institutions in Russian industry, covering the period between the start of 1992 and September 1999. On their own, the survey answers show a devastating restructuring crisis, massive privatisation, rather weak competition, unexpectedly hard budget constraints, an overwhelmingly negative and relatively positive assessment of formal and informal institutions respectively, and largely the same ruling networks as before the start of market reforms. Ironically, tentative results based on this survey indicate that important determinants of enterprise restructuring in Russian industry are exactly those on which least reform has been accomplished: stronger competition and better institutions go with more restructuring, while privatisation and harder budget constraints do not. The substitution, to some extent, of informal for formal institutions may have prevented even worse restructuring figures, but better formal institutions in general would have led to further improvements.