How Country and Safety-Net Characteristics Affect Bank Risk-Shifting

Risk-shifting occurs when creditors or guarantors are exposed to loss without receiving adequate compensation. This paper seeks to measure and compare how well authorities in 56 countries controlled bank risk shifting during the 1990s. Although significant risk-shifting occurs on average, substantial variation exists in the effectiveness of risk control across countries. We find that the tendency for explicit deposit insurance to exacerbate risk shifting is tempered by incorporating loss-control features such as risk-sensitive premiums, coverage limits, and coinsurance. Introducing explicit deposit insurance has had adverse effects in environments that are low in political and economic freedom and high in corruption.     

Just about money? CEO satisfaction and firm performance in small family firms

This paper examines how family ownership and family ties influence the relative importance of economic and non-economic goals on the CEO’s satisfaction with the firm. Using a sample of small high-tech family and non-family firms, we show that the influence of past firm economic performance on CEO satisfaction is weaker in the case of CEOs leading a family firm. Our results also suggest that this influence becomes weaker as the family firm transitions into subsequent generations. However, contrary to our expectations, we were not able to find a differential effect of firm performance on CEO satisfaction between CEOs who belong to the controlling family and those who do not.     

Dividend policy of German firms: A panel data analysis of partial adjustment models

German firms pay out a lower proportion of their cash flows, but a higher proportion of their published profits than UK and US firms. We estimate partial adjustment models and report two major findings. First, German firms base their dividend decisions on cash flows rather than published earnings as (i) published earnings do not correctly reflect performance because German firms retain parts of their earnings to build up legal reserves, (ii) German accounting is conservative, (iii) published earnings are subject to more smoothing than cash flows. Second, to the opposite of UK and US firms, German firms have more flexible dividend policies as they are willing to cut the dividend when profitability is only temporarily down.     

Non-dictatorial extensive social choice

Summary. Different social planners may have different opinions on the well-being of individuals under different social options (Roberts, 1980). If utilities are translation- or ratio-scale measurable, or if the social ranking might be incomplete, or if interplanner comparability is allowed; then there exist non-dictatorial aggregation rules. We propose extensions, intersections, and mixtures of the Pareto, utilitarian, leximin, Kolm-Pollak, and iso-elastic rules.Received: 16 May 2001, Revised: 18 November 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: D63, D71. Correspondence to: Erwin OogheErwin Ooghe, Luc Lauwers: We are extremely grateful to the referee who was willing to review this paper many times. Her/his extensive and in-depth comments had a strong impact. Further thanks are due to Bart Capéau, Marc Fleurbaey, Maurice Salles, Erik Schokkaert, and Alain Trannoy. The first author gratefully acknowledges the financial support by the TMR network Living Standards, Inequality and Taxation (ERBFMRXCT 980248) of the European Communities.     

Statistical analysis of under- and overinvoicing of imports

This paper uses trading partners' data comparisons at three different levels of refinement to verify whether the elimination of an over-valued exchange rate, which itself has been claimed to lead to over-valuation of imports, affects the valuation practice of importers. The advantages of correcting the import and export data of trading partners for eventual discrepancies in the volume of these trade flows is highlighted. Data for Turkey, Pakistan and The Netherlands are used. Turkey devalued in 1970, while Pakistan devalued in 1972. Data availability and the large discrepancy between reported exports to and imports from The Netherlands suggested the analysis of the data for this country.     

Growth empirics with institutional measures for transition countries

This paper investigates the importance of institutions as a determinant of growth and foreign direct investment (FDI) in 25 transition countries for 1990–1998. It introduces some novel institutional measures, performs extensive sensitivity tests, and checks for reverse causation. Estimation results suggest that state institutions in particular are quite robustly important for growth and FDI. The relationship between institutions and growth is likely to be a causation, that between institutions and FDI less so. The significance of macroeconomic stabilization and liberalization is also confirmed, but multicollinearity problems make it impossible to properly judge their importance relative to that of institutions.     

The current global financial crisis: Do Asian stock markets show contagion or interdependence effects?

In the framework of the current global economic crisis, a pertinent question is whether the world economies are suffering from contagion or interdependence effects. With its origins in the US sub-prime mortgage market crisis starting at the end of 2007, when a loss of confidence by investors in the value of securitized mortgages resulted in a liquidity crisis, hard-hitting the banking system and rapidly spreading into the financial markets, the effects of the crisis were automatically reflected in the rest of the world economies. These effects become more severe as the rest of the world is facing economic and financial instability. Therefore, the American shock can be seen as the trigger that revealed the other economies’ own financial problems. The main finding of this paper shows that the US stock markets are not generating contagious effects into the Asian stock markets. However, strong evidence of volatility transmission derived from these economies’ interlinkages has been detected.