Consumption-investment problem with transaction costs for Lévy-driven price processes

We consider an optimal control problem for a linear stochastic integro-differential equation with conic constraints on the phase variable and with the control of singular–regular type. Our setting includes consumption-investment problems for models of financial markets in the presence of proportional transaction costs, where the prices of the assets are given by a geometric Lévy process, and the investor is allowed to take short positions. We prove that the Bellman function of the problem is a viscosity solution of an HJB equation. A uniqueness theorem for the solution of the latter is established. Special attention is paid to the dynamic programming principle.     

IMF’s assistance: Devil’s kiss or guardian angel?

This paper contributes to the debate on the efficacy of IMF’s catalytic finance in preventing financial crises. Extending Morris and Shin (J Int Econ 70: 161–177, 2006), we consider that the IMF’s intervention policy usually exerts a signaling effect on private creditors and that several interventions in sequence may be necessary to avert an impending crisis. Without the IMF’s signaling ability, our results state that repeated intervention is required to bail out a country, whereby additional assistance may induce moral hazard on the debtor side. Contrarily, if the IMF exerts a strong signaling effect, one single intervention suffices to avoid liquidity crises.      

Millennials,Social Media,Prosocial Emotions,and Charitable Causes: The Paradox of Gender Differences

This research investigated gender differences of Millennials’ online and offline prosocial intentions to support charitable events for the causes of breast cancer and homeless youth after exposure to Facebook appeals to self-benefit and others-benefit, as well as with respect to their empathy identification with the cause and their social-oriented moral identity. In general, the results agree with the literature indicating that women tend to be more altruistic, empathetic, and moral than men. Paradoxically, the findings indicate that, within a social media context, emotions related to altruism, empathy toward the cause, and socially oriented moral identity are factors more closely predictive of males’ inclinations to engage in activities to support charitable events. Whereas women are already more predisposed to helping others, nonprofit marketers must emotionally prod men to help others through specific emotional hooks for prosocial behaviors.     

Shrinking cities: urban challenges of globalization

Urban shrinkage is not a new phenomenon. It has been documented in a large literature analyzing the social and economic issues that have led to population flight, resulting, in the worse cases, in the eventual abandonment of blocks of housing and neighbourhoods. Analysis of urban shrinkage should take into account the new realization that this phenomenon is now global and multidimensional — but also little understood in all its manifestations. Thus, as the world's population increasingly becomes urban, orthodox views of urban decline need redefinition. The symposium includes articles from 10 urban analysts working on 30 cities around the globe. These analysts belong to the Shrinking Cities International Research Network (SCIRN), whose collaborative work aims to understand different types of city shrinkage and the role that different approaches, policies and strategies have played in the regeneration of these cities. In this way the symposium will inform both a rich diversity of analytical perspectives and country-based studies of the challenges faced by shrinking cities. It will also disseminate SCIRN's research results from the last 3 years.     

Firm Productivity,Innovation, and Financial Development

How do firm‐specific actions—in particular, innovation—affect firm productivity? What is the role of the financial sector in facilitating higher productivity? Using a rich firm‐level data set, we find that innovation is crucial for firm performance as it directly and measurably increases productivity. The impact of innovation on productivity is larger in less‐developed countries. Evidence of financial sector development influencing the innovation‐productivity link is weak, but the effect is difficult to identify due to correlation between indicators of a country's financial and nonfinancial development. Furthermore, we find evidence that the innovation effect on productivity is more significant for high‐tech firms than for low‐tech firms.     

Innovation in Labour Organisation and Social Conditionality: Implications for Farm Advisory Services

There is growing concern about the evolution of working conditions for employees on European farms. In the new Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), financial support to farmers will soon be subject to a social conditionality clause. As a result of this change in CAP regulations, in this paper we ask if the need for specific advice can already be foreseen? Examining recent investigations that focused on new forms of labour organisations on farms can help to answer this question. Investigations were conducted across France, combining qualitative field studies with a comprehensive analysis of statistical and administrative data. The results show a growing complexity of farm labour organisation that generates needs for new types of advice. In particular, an increasing proportion of the people working on farms are employed by another organisation (foreign and domestic service providers, employers’ alliances, etc.). The administrative data provides strong evidence of the scale of this trend which has little visibility in the agricultural census data. We should therefore be cautious about oversimplified representations of labour patterns at farm level. They can distort policy design, implementation and assessment by overlooking a part of the worker population and needs for new types of advice, including those that will be required to meet social conditionality requirements.     

Licensing standard-essential patents with costly enforcement

We study the interaction between the holder of a standard-essential patent (SEP) and two downstream firms using the patented technology to design standard-compliant products. The SEP holder approaches the downstream firms simultaneously in the shadow of patent litigation and is subject to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing requirements. We show that the patent holder faces a litigation credibility constraint and a license acceptability constraint when setting its licensing terms. For patents of intermediate strength, there is no royalty that allows the patent holder to reconcile these constraints. Consequently, it cannot license its technology and must go to court against infringers. We show that the availability of an injunction improves the patent holder's ability to license its technology, but it tends to inflate the royalty rate for implementers.     

Microstructure and asset pricing: An insight on African frontier stock markets

This article investigates the impact of microstructure factors on asset pricing in some African stock markets. We use data on stocks listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the “Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières,” and the Nigeria Stock Exchange, and we consider international portfolio management from 2000 to 2014. Generalized least square and fixed effect are estimation methods used to highlight the effect of microstructure variables on expected return. At the same time, panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) modeling is considered to identify the thresholds in this effect. The results show that liquidity and to a lesser extent the number of trading days are the most common significant microstructure variables for all the studied markets. However, other variables’ effects on the return are specific to the considered stock markets. Furthermore, the PSTR estimator reveals that the impact of indicated factors on asset pricing is not linear because it produces a double threshold between return and microstructure.     

Can Income Inequality be Affected by the Interaction Between ICTs and Human Capital?: The Evidence from Developing Countries

Income inequality in developing countries remains a major concern. It has been established that higher inequality makes a greater proportion of the population vulnerable to poverty. This paper aimed to analyse the effect of the interaction between ICTs and human capital on income inequality in developing countries. Covering 89 developing countries for the period 2000 to 2015 and based on panel fixed effects instrumental variables technique, this study finds that the interaction between ICTs and human capital reduces overall income inequality on the one hand, and on the other, leads to an increase in the income shares of the poorest, and in particular relative to the richest in developing countries. Furthermore, the interaction between ICTs and human capital reinforces the impact of ICTs on income inequality in developing countries. These results suggest that prioritizing the acquisition of human capital by the poorest, as well as promoting access to and use of ICTs for the benefit of the poorest would significantly contribute to reduce overall income inequality and increase income shares of the poorest in developing countries.

     

Taxing capital and labor when both factors are imperfectly mobile internationally

International Tax and Public Finance - We revisit the standard theoretical model of tax competition to consider imperfect mobility of both capital and labor. We show that the mobility of one factor...