Cross-border spillover effects of unconventional monetary policies on Swiss asset prices

Unconventional monetary policies (UMPs) announced by the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan exert important spillover effects on asset prices in Switzerland. Using a broad UMP event set and a long-term bond-futures based measure of market anticipation, we show that surprisingly expansionary UMPs lower Swiss government and corporate bond yields, induce the Swiss franc to appreciate, and dampen Swiss equity prices. Four extensions provide further insights. First, the estimated effects are strongest for announcements by the ECB. Second, the impact on government bonds is largest for bonds with residual maturities of 7–10 years. Third, the impact of foreign UMP shocks on exchange rates and Swiss bond yields is less pronounced after the introduction of the minimum rate of 1.20 Swiss franc per Euro by the Swiss National Bank on September 6, 2011, indicating that domestic monetary policy action partially affects the impact of external monetary shocks on domestic financial markets. Fourth, the sign of spillover effects differs for positive and negative UMP surprises, but their strength does not.     

Do constraints created by economic growth targets benefit sustainable development? Evidence from China

An economic growth target is a declaration by policy authorities of commitment to that target and the corresponding allocation of resources. The constraints created by economic growth target are an important economic management method in China, which has helped China's economy to achieve remarkable achievements. However, it has also brought about serious environmental problems, threatening China's sustainable development. Using the data about economic growth targets in the work reports of 30 Chinese provincial governments from 2006 to 2017, this paper constructs several spatial measurement methods, such as the spatial Durbin model, to examine the constraints created by economic growth target's impacts on air pollution. The main conclusions are as follows. First, a significant “U-shaped” relationship exists between the constraints created by economic growth targets and air pollution. Second, the spatial Durbin model analysis revealed that PM_2.5 across China's provinces display significant positive spatial spillover effects and spatial agglomeration characteristics. Third, the direct, indirect, and total effects of constraints created by economic growth targets on air pollution are all statistically significant and depict a “U shape.” Finally, the constraints created by economic growth targets have an apparent threshold effect on air pollution, and the inhibiting effects increase with human capital and industrial restructuring. However, with the increase in foreign direct investments, constraints created by economic growth targets may increase air pollution. The conclusions of this paper are of great significance for improving the management of local government economic growth targets and sustainable development.     

Food scandals,media attention and habit persistence among desensitised meat consumers

Consumer reactions to food scandals and their resulting economic implication are well documented. However, studies have typically neglected the roles that consumption habits and media usage behaviours may play in explaining household’s response to food safety incidences. In this study we develop a model of heterogeneous media usage intensity, information impacts and decay over time to estimate household’s behavioural responses to the 2011 German Dioxin scandal. We are specifically interested in determining the degree of heterogeneity in household’s short-term adjustments demand patterns versus persisting long-term consumption habits of meat products (chicken and pork) directly affected by the incident. The empirical analysis employs detailed household-level retail scanner and media usage data collected by the GfK Consumer Scan panel for a total of 16,023 households over a period of 104 calendar weeks. Results of dynamic correlated random effect Tobit models indicate an important role of unobserved heterogeneity in explaining household responses during the food scandal. We find strong empirical evidence supporting our hypothesis that short-term marginal adjustments in demand and propensity to buy affected products triggered by the negative impact of household media exposure were over-compensated by habit persistence. The question of how consumption patterns evolve over time in the presence of food scandals is expected to be of interest for both policy makers and the food industry. The potential biases in the projection of economic impacts resulting from simplifying assumptions of household’s response patterns to a proliferating numbers of food safety incidences has implications for risk management and public policy.     

Strong Nash equilibrium in games with common and complementary local utilities

A rather general class of strategic games is described where the coalitional improvements are acyclic and hence strong Nash equilibria exist: The players derive their utilities from the use of certain facilities; all players using a facility extract the same amount of local utility therefrom, which amount depends both on the set of users and on their actions, and is decreasing in the set of users; the ultimate utility of each player is the minimum of the local utilities at all relevant facilities. Two important subclasses are “games with structured utilities,” basic properties of which were discovered in 1970s and 1980s, and “bottleneck congestion games,” which attracted researchers’ attention quite recently. The former games are representative in the sense that every game from the whole class is isomorphic to one of them. The necessity of the minimum aggregation for the existence of strong Nash equilibria, actually, just Pareto optimal Nash equilibria, in all games of this type is established.     

Agricultural productivity growth in Latin America and the Caribbean: an analysis of climatic effects,catch‐up and convergence*

This paper investigates whether climatic adjusted total factor productivity (CATFP) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is converging, converging to different steady states or exhibit absolute convergence, that is the process does not require (government) interventions to reach its equilibrium path. We use data from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and from the Food and Agriculture Organization for 28 LAC countries over a 54‐year period (1961–2014) to estimate random parameters stochastic production frontier models to calculate CATFP and then use cross‐sectional regressions and an error correction model to analyse CATFP convergence across countries in the region. The results show that technological progress is the main driver of CATFP growth in the region and there is no absolute convergence, that is CATFP gaps across countries will not decrease over time and least performing countries will not grow faster than better performing ones without targeted policies. However, CATFP across LAC exhibits conditional convergence towards different steady states. Technological progress plays a critical role in raising the steady state level of CATFP with an overall average of 2.22 per cent per annum.     

"特朗普税改政策"的溢出效应及中国的应对策略

特朗普税改使美国成为税收洼地,各国为争夺国际资本竞相效仿降税,加剧了全球税收竞争,为世界经济复苏增加了更多的不确定性.因此,有必要通过构建利润转移视角的税收竞争模型,揭示特朗普税改对全球经济产生溢出效应的作用机制及赤字约束问题,并运用一般均衡模型(CGE)模拟特朗普税改对世界经济溢出效应的长短期影响.特朗普税改是以邻为壑的经济政策,但长期内对中国等世界主要经济体的负面影响不断减弱,并会对出口产生一定的正面影响.因此,我国应构建国际税务交互管理体制,强化企业税收激励的法制保障,完善税改冲击的应急运行机制.     

基于结构方程模型的集聚农户共生认知及影响因素分析:以重庆市为例

研究目的:探讨对集聚农户共生、集聚区土地利用率提高的影响因素,为提升农户共生的认知水平、优化农户共生关系及促进资源的节约集约利用提供有效路径及理论指导。研究方法:参与式农户调查,结构方程模型。研究结果:(1)户主自身特征、农户家庭特征、集聚共生效益特征及外部环境与政策特征这4类外源潜变量对农户共生认知产生重要影响且影响程度大小不同,其中,集聚共生效益特征的影响最为显著,外部环境与政策特征、户主自身特征和农户家庭特征的影响依次减弱;(2)是否为干部、对原集聚模式的满意度、是否促进农户生产生活条件和政府对集聚区的补贴力度分别对这4类外源潜变量具有较好的解释能力。研究结论:显化农户共生效益、增强"精英"农户及村干部的正向引导、提升农户成员受教育水平、培养农户"共生共荣"理念等是深化农户共生关系,促进和谐乡村人居环境建设的重要路径。     

Urban-rural imbalance and Tourism-Led Growth in China

This study investigates the structural effect of tourism on alleviating the urban-rural dichotomy and the moderating effect of a dual urban-rural economic structure on Tourism-Led Growth (TLG). A theoretical framework followed by an empirical analysis based on relevant data from 31 Chinese provinces for the years 1998–2013 is presented. The main conclusions of the econometric analysis are that tourism growth can help reduce the urban-rural gap in China, but that the larger the gap between urban and rural economies, the less substantial is the influence of tourism on economic growth in China. Tourism may play an important role in Central-Western and Inland China, but their relatively greater urban-rural economic gap may threaten the positive effect of tourism.     

Differences in managerial discretion across countries: how nation‐level institutions affect the degree to which ceos matter

The concept of managerial discretion provides a theoretical fulcrum for resolving the debate about whether chief executive officers (CEOs) have much influence over company outcomes. In this paper, we operationalize and further develop the construct of managerial discretion at the national level. In an empirical examination of 15 countries, we find that certain informal and formal national institutions—individualism, tolerance of uncertainty, cultural looseness, dispersed firm ownership, a common‐law legal origin, and employer flexibility—are associated with the degree of managerial discretion available to CEOs of public firms in a country. In turn, we show that country‐level managerial discretion is associated with how much impact CEOs have on the performance of their firms. We also find that discretion mediates the relationship between national institutions and CEO effects on firm performance. Finally, we discuss two inductively derived institutional themes: autonomy orientation and risk orientation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.