The wages of motherhood: better or worse?

Data from two British cohort studies show that women with childrenhave lower wages than childless women. We develop an innovativedecomposition of this 'family gap'. The crude pay gap betweenmothers and childless women in their thirties was similar in1978 and 1991, but low pay in part-time work became more importantin explaining this gap, and human capital less so. We find that,among full-time employees, women who broke their employmentat childbirth were subsequently paid less than childless women.In contrast, mothers who maintained employment continuity wereas well paid as childless women, but neither were as well remuneratedas men.     

Toward sustainable corporate behavior: The effect of the critical mass of female directors on environmental,social, and governance disclosure

Boards of directors have recently become more attentive to their stakeholders' concerns, providing more transparent information and adopting more sustainable business strategies. This study investigates the influence of a critical mass of women on boards on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure score and its three components separately. Using a sample of the FTSE-MIB listed companies in the 2005–2017 period, we show that reaching a critical mass of female board members—going from one or two women to at least three—enhances the level of ESG disclosure. The results also show that the critical mass of female board members has a positive influence on every component of the ESG score, with the highest contribution of women reaching the governance score. These findings provide insights to shareholders and policymakers and suggest that a critical mass of female board members is particularly effective in improving transparency, and it can be seen as a mechanism to transit to stakeholder governance, fostering more sustainable behavior in firms.     

Unions, Safety Committees and Workplace Injuries

This paper exploits the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey from 1990 (WIRS3) to examine the determinants of workplace injuries for a sample of manufacturing establishments in the UK. A key focus of this paper is an assessment of the role played by union-appointed safety representatives and joint health and safety consultative committees in reducing the frequency of workplace accidents. We find that joint consultative committees, with all employee representatives appointed by unions, significantly reduce workplace injuries relative to those establishments where the management alone determine health and safety arrangements. However, an important role is also found for those joint consultative commitees where no employee representatives are appointed by unions.     

The Concurrent Impact of Cultural,Political, and Spatial Distances on International Mergers and Acquisitions

This paper explores the concurrent effects of cultural, political, and spatial distances on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) flows occurring between any two countries belonging to the whole European Union (27 States) or to the European Neighbours group (16 States) over the period 2000–11. In the econometric analysis, based on zero‐inflated models, we simultaneously estimate the probability of engaging in a cross‐border M&A and the intensity of the deals. This allows us to adequately model the two different mechanisms which may result in the absence of deals in the cross‐border bilateral M&A transactions. The absence of deals may be due to either the lack of any transactions or unsuccessful negotiations. Taking into account the effect of population, gross domestic product, technological capital, financial conditions and quality of the institutions, we find robust evidence that the multi‐dimensional distance between two countries negatively affects both the probability and the intensity of M&A deals.     

More similar and less equal: Economic growth in the European regions

More Similar and Less Equal: Economic Growth in the European Regions. — This paper examines the growth process of 109 European regions using a new data base. Applying various statistical tools, it concentrates on per capita income and labor productivity. The main results are the following: There has been a clear process of aggregate productivity convergence across the European regions over the 1980s. At the sectoral level, there has not been convergence in agriculture, while the industrial and services sectors show ß-convergence. Most crucially, the regional dispersion in per capita income has remained almost constant so that the differences in wealth conditions of the European citizens are still extremely high.     

They arrive with new information. Tourism flows and production efficiency in the European regions

Firms productivity is crucially influenced by knowledge spillovers generated either by other firms located nearby or by direct contacts with consumers or by foreign demand in the case of traded products. In this paper we propose a new channel of efficiency-enhancing knowledge diffusion, which can be exploited by local firms to extract relevant information on consumer preferences: direct contacts with tourism flows. Tourists have the peculiar feature of being external consumers, who directly arrive to the destination region and this represents a remarkable advantage for the local enterprises, as the latter can exploit the new information and increase the overall efficiency level of the local economy. More specifically, we examine, within a spatial estimation framework, tourism flows as determinants of regional total factor productivity, controlling also for other intangible factors (such as human, social and technological capital) and for the degree of accessibility. We apply the analysis to a sample of 199 European regions belonging to the EU15 member countries, plus Switzerland and Norway. The empirical results show that tourism flows enhance regional efficiency and that a positive role is also played by intangible assets, infrastructures and spatial spillovers.