Política de la legislación laboral en el sur de China. Las cámaras de comercio y otros organismos extranjeros ante las leyes sobre negociación colectiva

En 2010, tras la huelga en Honda, hubo protestas laborales en toda China. Los gobiernos de Shenzhen y Guangdong reaccionaron desempolvando los proyectos de Decreto sobre consulta colectiva y de Normativa sobre gestión democrática de las empresas, retirados con anterioridad. Pero tras la oposición frontal de cámaras de comercio y organismos gubernamentales extranjeros, hongkoneses y taiwaneses, volvieron a retirarse. Mediante entrevistas, los autores revelan los medios de influencia en la legislación laboral china de estos actores, cuyas actitudes dependen de la posición de las empresas representadas en las cadenas mundiales de producción y del modelo de relaciones laborales de su país o territorio de origen.     

基于灰色系统理论的江苏省入境旅游研究

入境旅游是旅游业的重要组成部分,本文运用灰色系统理论中的灰色关联度分析方法对江苏省旅游外汇收入与主要客源国入境旅游人次数之间的关联性进行分析,并建立了GM(1,1)灰色预测模型对江苏省典型创汇国未来的入境旅游客流规模进行预测,为江苏省入境旅游提供决策依据和方法参考。     

Human capital and economic development

This paper develops a general equilibrium model of fertility and human capital investment with young adult mortality. Because young adult mortality is negatively related to average young adult human capital, human capital accumulation lowers mortality, inducing demographic transition and industrial revolution. Data confirm that young adult mortality is related negatively to schooling, and the rate of return to schooling, and positively to fertility. The data indicate a negative relationship between TFP growth and schooling accumulation. The model fits the data on country populations, per capita incomes, human capital, total fertility rates, infant mortality, life expectancy and conditional life expectancy.     

The general dynamic factor model: One-sided representation results

Recent dynamic factor models have been almost exclusively developed under the assumption that the common components span a finite-dimensional vector space. However, this finite-dimension assumption rules out very simple factor-loading patterns and is therefore severely restrictive. The general case has been studied, using a frequency domain approach, in Forni et al. (2000). That paper produces an estimator of the common components that is consistent but is based on filters that are two-sided and therefore unsuitable for prediction. The present paper, assuming a rational spectral density for the common components, obtains a one-sided estimator without the finite-dimension assumption.     

Construction of D-optimal s 1 × s 2 × s 3 factorial designs using graph theory

In this paper, the maximum determinant of the associated 0-1 matrix in D-Optimal saturated main effect plans for 3× s_2 × s_3 factorials, is derived by the use of Graph theory and Combinatorics. The present work is related to a problem suggested by Chatterjee and Narasimhan (2002). Using the theoretical results, we also give the designs for s₃≥s₂ + 1. This research was supported by the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece.     

Can we reject linearity in an HAR-RV model for the S&P 500? Insights from a nonparametric HAR-RV

This article tests the linearity assumption underlying the popular heterogeneous autoregressive model for realized volatility (HAR-RV). We implement a consistent model specification test that is robust to both distributional and model misspecification. We find that, using a nonparametric HAR-RV (NPHAR-RV), we are unable to reject the null of linearity.     

Does board gender diversity influence firm profitability? A control function approach

We investigate the relation between board gender diversity and firm profitability using the control function (CF) approach recently suggested by Wooldridge (2015). The CF method takes account of the problem of endogenous explanatory variables that have potential to bias the results. Using a sample of firms that made up the S&P 500 over the period 2004–2015, we find that the presence of women on corporate boards (measured either by the percentage of female directors on corporate boards or the Blau index of heterogeneity) has a positive and significant (at the 1% level) effect on firm profitability (measured by the return on assets). We compare our results to more traditional approaches (such as pooled OLS or the fixed-effects model). Through this study, we shed light on the effect of women on corporate boards on firm performance, as it is still a controversial issue (Post and Byron, 2015).     

Fire sales by euro area banks and funds: What is their asset price impact?

The assets under management of investment funds have soared in recent years, triggering a debate on their possible implications for financial stability. We contribute to this debate assessing the asset price impact of fire sales in a novel partial equilibrium model of euro area funds and banks calibrated over the period between 2008 and 2017. An initial shock to yields causes funds to sell assets to address investor redemptions, while both banks and funds sell assets to keep their leverage constant. These fire sales generate second-round price effects. We find that the potential losses due to the price impact of fire sales have decreased over time for the system. The contribution of funds to this impact is lower than that of banks. However, funds’ relative contribution has risen due to their increased assets under management and banks’ lower leverage and rebalancing towards loans. Should this trend continue, funds will become an increasingly important source of systemic risk.     

Overcapacities in banking: Measurement,trends and determinants

Global banks face profitability challenges since the global financial crisis. Besides cyclical factors, structural features such as overcapacities have been identified as root causes. While policymakers agree on the need for bank consolidation, there is less consensus on the definition and measurement of overcapacities in banking. This paper contributes by conceptualising and formalising the different dimensions of overcapacities in banking and by constructing a novel measure thereof. In addition, it empirically tests the main determinants of overcapacities in banking from 2006 to 2017 and assesses their relative importance. The results indicate that non-bank competition, the interest rate environment and bank business models are the most important driving factors of banking sector overcapacities. This is because shadow banks, benefitting from regulatory arbitrage, have altered banks’ capacity needs, low rates compressed margins and increased pressure to improve cost efficiencies, and retail-oriented business models have operated extensive branch networks entailing heavy fixed costs.     

Local elections and consumption insurance

During our sample period from 1987 to 2002, Chinese villages completed the transition from government‐appointed village leaders to elected ones. This article examines if and how much democratic elections of the village leaders affected consumption insurance by Chinese village residents. Exploring a panel dataset of 1,400 households from this period, we find that consumption insurance is around 20 percent more complete with elected village leaders. Furthermore, local elections improve consumption insurance only for the poor and middle‐income farmers, but not for the rich. The results are robust when we allow for pretrending, potential endogeneity of elections, and higher measurement errors for rich residents. We also find that the effects on consumption insurance are stronger when closer to the upcoming election year and when the village committees consist largely of non‐Communist Party members. These findings suggest that the election effects on consumption insurance partly come from increasing accountability to local constituents.