Cross-country differences in the contribution of future migration to old-age financing

As life expectancy increases and fertility declines, population aging puts pressure on the financing of welfare states in Europe and other developed countries. Given that immigrant workers are younger than the domestic population, a continuous flow of immigrants reduces the old-age dependency ratio and improves financing. Existing general equilibrium estimates of the public finance contribution of migration, performed with different models, are not comparable across countries and sometimes differ even in sign. We use the same overlapping-generations model with a detailed representation of institutions and labor market activity to provide comparable estimates of the impact of immigration on public finance in four European countries. We find that future projected immigration flows are equivalent to 14.3 % points labor income taxes in Austria, 7.3 points in Germany, 6.2 points in the UK and 1.7 points in Poland in 2060. These differences are due to the projected volume of immigration and institutional setups, among other factors. For comparable volumes of immigration, future flows have largest impact in Germany and smallest in the UK.     

Unequal inequalities: Do progressive taxes reduce income inequality?

This paper analyzes the effect of changes in the structural progressivity of national income tax systems on observed and actual income inequality. Using several unique measures of progressivity over the 1981–2005 period for a large panel of countries, we find that progressivity reduces inequality in observed income, but has a significantly smaller impact on actual inequality, approximated by consumption-based Ginis. An empirical comparative analysis shows that the differential effect on observed versus actual inequality is much larger in countries with weaker legal institutions. We also find that structural progressivity has a greater equalizing effect in environments that support pro-poor redistribution. Substantial differences in inequality response to changes in top versus bottom rates are also uncovered.     

The analysis of corporate governance policy and corporate financial performance

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the quality of corporate governance policy and the firm financial performance and. Data were collected from Corporate Library. A sample of 3,068 firms from the database of 2010 Corporate Library was analyzed. Logistic regression models were employed and SPSS statistical package was utilized to perform the analysis. Our results show that when firms have better corporate governance policies, they are more likely to perform better. Specifically, when firms have a better board rating, compensation policy, takeover defense strategy, accounting practice, and a formal governance policy, they are more likely to perform better than their counterparts without such quality corporate governance policies.     

The profitability of interest arbitrage when the base currency is pegged to a basket

When the interest rate on a currency that is pegged to a basket differs from the interest rate on the basket (as a weighted average), it is possible to make profit from interest arbitrage by going short on the basket and long on the pegged currency, or vice versa. This proposition is illustrated by using data on the Kuwaiti dinar and its basket currencies over the period 1998–2002 when the currency was pegged to a basket. Monte Carlo simulations show that the probability of making arbitrage profit from any single operation is about 95%.     

The Substitution Effect of Mobile Games on Console Games: An Empirical Analysis of the Japanese Video Game Industry

In this paper, we discuss the substitution effects between mobile games and console games. We estimate such effects by a fixed-effect regression with instrumental variables using panel data of about 100,000 observations. The results showed that the substitution effects of playing smart devices on 3DS, Wii, and PSP were recognizable, but did not have significant effects on PS3, and the substitution effects on PSP were very small. Therefore, mobile games had a substitution effect on casual console games, or on console games in which the play situation resembled mobile games. In addition, the substitution effects were at most about 0.1. The substitution effects were small. Our results indicate that mobile games represent the pioneers in the new market of gaming at least during our observation period. But new games and traditional games will coexist for a while.     

Cognition of disaster risk in a tourism community: an agricultural heritage system perspective

Cognition of risk is the first step in reducing disaster damage and losses. In this study, risk cognition in the Hani Rice Terraces, the core tourism attraction in Yuanyang County, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan, China, is analyzed based on field survey and participatory geographic information system (GIS). The results show that tourism communities have cognition of risk; are more sensitive to hazards (especially drought); have more severe potential damage and losses from hazards; and also have more enthusiasm to adapt to disaster risk, when compared with a non-tourism community. On disaster vulnerability maps, the tourism communities identified the unique “Forest – Village – Terrace - River” landscape while the non-tourism community only recognized the terrace and the village as the main elements affected by hazard. Also, the tourism communities had deeper understandings of drought, flash floods and landslide disaster risks. A conceptual model based on “Pressure – State – Response” relationships is put forward to explore the situation in which, in the tourism community, terraces have a greater variety of functions and enhanced values resulting in the spatial expansion of hazard effects.