Intensive Coaching of New Immigrants: An Evaluation Based on Random Program Assignment*

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether intensive counseling and coaching by Public Employment Service (PES) caseworkers improves the employment opportunities of new immigrants in Sweden. This is tested within the framework of introduction programs for new immigrants. A trial introduction program was implemented from October 2006 to June 2008. Within participating municipalities, new immigrants were randomly assigned into treatment (intensive coaching) or control (regular introduction programs). The results indicate that there are significant treatment effects on employment probabilities as well as on participation in intermediate PES training programs.     

Using Cash to Monitor Liquidity: Implications for Payments,Currency Demand,and Withdrawal Behavior

This paper provides one explanation why cash is still used for transactions despite a broad diffusion of noncash payment instruments. In particular, we argue that a distinctive feature of cash—a glance into one's pocket gives a signal of the remaining budget and past expenses—provides utility to some consumers. Using payment survey data, we show that consumers who need to keep control over their remaining liquidity and who have elevated costs of information processing conduct a larger percentage of payments using cash, withdraw less often, and hold larger cash balances than other consumers.     

The Financial Resource Curse*

In this paper, we present a model of the financial resource curse (i.e., episodes of abundant access to foreign capital coupled with weak productivity growth). We study a two‐sector (i.e., tradable and non‐tradable) small open economy. The tradable sector is the engine of growth, and productivity growth is increasing with the amount of labor employed by firms in the tradable sector. A period of large capital inflows, triggered by a fall in the interest rate, is associated with a consumption boom. While the increase in tradable consumption is financed through foreign borrowing, the increase in non‐tradable consumption requires a shift of productive resources toward the non‐tradable sector at the expenses of the tradable sector. The result is stagnant productivity growth. We show that capital controls can be welfare‐enhancing and can be used as a second‐best policy tool to mitigate the misallocation of resources during an episode of financial resource curse.     

Bribe payments under regulatory decentralization: Evidence from rights offering regulations in China

This paper investigates why and how firms’ bribe payments vary as a result of the interaction between firms and local public officials under the decentralized regulatory system for rights offerings implemented prior to 2001 in China. Using the gap between the estimated and reported total direct costs of rights offerings as a measure of firms’ bribes payments in the process of rights offering applications under this system, we find that bribe payments are positively related to local governments’ control rights, firms’ opportunity costs of refusing to pay bribes, and the severity of firms’ Jensen agency problems. We further show that after termination of the regulatory system, firms’ bribe payments are substantially reduced, and local governments’ control rights as well as the severity of firms’ Jensen agency problems can no longer explain the variation in bribe payments.     

Monetary shocks,exchange rates,and the extensive margin of exports

This paper develops a two-country Dynamic General Equilibrium model to assess the relationship between the real exchange rate and the extensive margin of exports. Exchange rate pass-through to consumer prices governs the relative strength of a demand channel onto the exporting decision of a firm. With incomplete pass-through, a favorable movement in the real exchange rate generates increased export participation and an expansion in the extensive margin of exports. This result is consistent with firm-level studies, and contributes to an ongoing empirical debate as to the importance of changes in export participation over the business cycle.     

Structural replacement or structural inducement: government ties of Chinese business executives

We suggest that the structural replacement thesis, which proposes that managers in Chinese nonstate-owned enterprises (NSOEs) possess more government ties than managers in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), is theoretically incomplete because it considers only the motivation of managers of NSOEs. The extensiveness of social ties is influenced also by the capability and opportunity for social actors to cultivate these social ties. We introduce the structural inducement thesis, which holds that SOE managers have more government ties than do NSOE managers, as an alternative to the structural replacement thesis. Our analysis of 250 Chinese managers' ties supports this structural inducement thesis. The theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2009 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An investigation of customer order flow in the foreign exchange market

This paper examines the effect that heterogeneous customer orders flows have on exchange rates by using a new, and the largest, proprietary dataset of weekly net order flow segmented by customer type across nine of the most liquid currency pairs. We make several contributions. Firstly, we investigate the extent to which customer order flow can help to explain exchange rate movements over and above the influence of macro-economic variables. Secondly, we address the issue of whether order flows contain (private) information which explain exchange rates changes. Thirdly, we look at the usefulness of order flow in forecasting exchange rate movements at longer horizons than those generally considered in the micro-structure literature. Finally we address the question of whether the out-of-sample exchange rate forecasts generated by order flows can be employed profitably in the foreign exchange markets.     

Network Production,Efficiency And Technological Options: Toward A New Dynamic Theory Of Telecommunications ‡

In this work we propose a new model for the analysis of telecommunications (Tlc) networks production. This represents an extension of the fund-flow model by Georgescou-Roegen originally applied to the manufacture and agriculture sectors. The adopted framework enables us to describe the functioning of a Tlc network - and the technique underlying the different types of Tlc traffic - by means of a system of multi-production where the production time profile has been clearly defined. One of the most innovative elements of our analysis is the ability to analytically represent the qualitative features of technological options. It also signals new productive options connected to new Tlc services and the introduction of new network facilities. In this way we hope to both further a theoretical understanding of the technological dynamics of the Tlc sector, and provide guidance as to the strategic choices of the economic actors involved.     

Export entry and exit by German firms

Export Entry and Exit by German Firms. — While exports have played an important role in German business cycles, little is known about the export supply response of German firms. This paper presents a dynamic model of the export decision by a profit-maximizing firm. Using a panel of German manufacturing plants, we test for the role of plant characteristics and sunk costs in the entry decision. We find evidence for substantial sunk costs: exporting today by a plant increases the probability by 50 percent that the plant will export tomorrow. This advantage depreciates quickly, falling by two-thirds in a year. The authors also find evidence that plant success, as measured by size and productivity, increases the likelihood of exporting.     

Defence and firm financial structure in France

European defence firms are progressively being privatized and the recourse to private finance in the defence sector is increasing. We use data on French firms to examine at the firm level the impact of defence dependence on firms' financial structure at the end of a period characterised by a decline of defence purchasing. In terms of leverage and financial ratios, we find many significant differences between defence and non-defence firms but also between different categories of defence firms. The results provide some support for the hypothesis of a relationship between defence dependence and financial structure.