The effects of EU agricultural policy changes on farmers' risk attitudes

This analysis utilises a model of production under risk estimatedon Finnish farm-level data to measure farmers' risk attitudesin a changing policy environment. We find evidence of heterogeneousrisk preferences among farmers, as well as notable changes overtime in farmers' degree of risk aversion. This result is dueto the increase in the non-random part of farm income generatedby the policy change after Finland's European Union accession.The analysis confirms the assertion that agricultural policiesthat are decoupled from production do affect input use and cropmix through their effect on farmers' risk attitudes.     

Swine flu and hype: a systematic review of media dramatization of the H1N1 influenza pandemic

Highly disconcerting at the time, in retrospective, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic looks like much ado about nothing. As a consequence, many accused the media of having created an artificial hype or hysteria around the new virus, thus contributing to unwarranted public fear. The current paper set out to examine the validity of such accusations. We integrated empirical findings on whether the media dramatized H1N1 on a global scale through systematically reviewing prior content-analytic studies. We developed a coding scheme specifying three indicators of dramatized media coverage that – together – inform about how mass media coverage about H1N1 may amplify risk perceptions in the public: (a) the volume of media coverage, (b) the media content presented, particularly an overemphasis of threat while neglecting measures of self-protection and (c) the tone of coverage. Results show that media attention was immense, that news content stressed threat over precautionary measures, while the pattern of coverage tonality remained nebulous due to conflicting findings. The present review also revealed a critical gap in existing knowledge about the tone of media coverage on H1N1, and discusses implications for future research on dramatization of public health risks by the media.     

Reducing agency conflicts through bank dividend payout decisions: the role of opacity and ownership structure

We empirically examine whether banks’ dividend decisions are influenced by their degree of opacity and ownership structure. We find that banks with concentrated ownership structure pay lower dividends when they have high degrees of opacity, in line with the hypothesis that majority shareholders pay lower dividends to extract higher levels of private benefits. We do not observe such expropriation behaviour from managers in widely held banks. Further analysis shows that higher levels of shareholder protection and stronger supervisory regimes help to constrain opportunistic behaviour of majority shareholders. Our findings have critical policy implications for the Basel 3 implementation of restrictions on dividend payouts.     

Corporate social responsibility before CSR: Practices at Aluminium du Cameroun (Alucam) from the 1950s to the 1980s

Abstract

Aluminium du Cameroun (Alucam) was set up in 1957 as a subsidiary of the French aluminium group Pechiney. Since its creation, the Alucam plant has systematically applied policies that simultaneously integrate economic, social and environmental aspects. The originality of our contribution is that we describe a case where the three elements that make up corporate social responsibility (economic, social and environmental) are intertwined. Although this combination of elements had not formally materialised at the time, the case examined shows early awareness – comparatively ahead of its time and relatively well combined between the 1950s and the 1980s – of the three dimensions of corporate social responsibility.     

Financial sector development and access to finance. Does size say it all?

This paper analyzes what features of financial systems can strengthen the linkages between banks and economic development. We investigate whether a set of banking and capital market characteristics can improve the ability of banks to provide increased credit flows to the private sector, while simultaneously improving financial inclusion for the poor. We analyze the determinants of both macro-level lending conditions and micro-level access to finance using a set of Panel Vector Error Correction Models and GMM estimations in a panel of 138 countries for the 2002–2009 time periods. Results converge to suggest that rather than focusing solely on banking sector size, financial policy should seek to foster inter banks competition, develop appropriate macro-prudential safeguards, promote capital market development. In addition, improved access to finance requires adequate civil rights and support to entrepreneurship.     

The Vulnerability of ASEAN+3 Countries to International Financial Crises

This article focuses on the reaction of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies to international financial shocks. The crises in emerging markets at the end of the last century underlined the significant vulnerability of the emerging ASEAN economies to international financial fluctuations and a lack of sustainability in their exchange rate regime. A structural VAR model is used to analyze the efficiency of the measures adopted by these countries after this episode of crisis in order to protect their economies against speculative attacks. The results reveal that the impact of the recent subprime crisis on emerging ASEAN countries is less significant than that observed in industrialized ones.     

Has Distance Died? Evidence from a Panel Gravity Model

The estimated coefficient of distance on the volume of tradeis generally found to increase rather than decrease throughtime using the traditional gravity model of trade. This distancepuzzle proved robust to several ad hoc versions of the modelusing data for 1962–96 for a large sample of 130 countries.The introduction of an "augmented" barrier to trade functionremoves the paradox, yielding a decline in the estimate of theelasticity of trade to distance of about 11 percent over the35-year period for the whole sample. However, the "death ofdistance" is shown to be largely confined to bilateral tradebetween rich countries, with poor countries becoming marginalized.     

What Drives European Football Clubs’ Stock Returns and Volatility?

The article studies the main determinants of European football clubs’ stock returns and volatility. A panel-data analysis of a sample of 24 European football clubs was conducted to test the influence of several variables, based on a matrix of internal/external and real/financial dimensions, on both stock returns and their volatility. The results show that clubs’ stock returns are influenced by the real and financial context and by a set of internal variables such as profit considered as a reflection of accounting discipline, capitalization as an indicator of size and stadium attendance as a proxy indicator of reputation. The volatility of stock returns seems particularly vulnerable to the overall instability on stock markets and dependent on clubs’ profit and net players’ transfers and, to a lesser extent, on sporting outcomes.