|
on European Economics |
|
Issue of 2007‒05‒26
twenty-one papers chosen by Giuseppe Marotta University of Modena and Reggio Emilia |
| By: | Kankarash, Milosh (Tilburg University, CEPS/INSTEAD); Moors, Guy (Tilburg University) |
| Abstract: | Comparing solidarity attitudes of European citizen is highly relevant in the context of European integration and unification. Such comparisons, however, are only valid if responses to attitude questions reflect true differences in solidarity and, hence, the measurement of latent solidarity attitudes is comparable. Often comparability is assumed, rarely is it tested. We argue that establishing equivalence in measurement across cultures is as important as testing the reliability and validity of the measurement since lack of comparability may result in biased or misleading conclusions. This research presents a multiple-group latent-class factor analysis of a set of questions concerning solidarity towards different social groups, taken from the 1999/2000 wave of European Value Study. This multiple-group comparison revealed that homogeneity in attitude measurement is not established. Countries can only be compared if particular direct effects of country on items are estimated. Country ranking on solidarity factors substantially changed when this source of construct inequivalence was taken into account. |
| Keywords: | Attitudes; Survey research ; measurement equivalence ; multigroup comparison ; solidarity |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:iriswp:2007-06&r=eec |
| By: | Marta Gomez-Puig (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona.) |
| Abstract: | Yield spreads over 10-year German government securities of the EU-15 countries converged dramatically in the seven years after the beginning of Monetary Integration. In this paper, we investigate the relative influence of systemic and idiosyncratic risk factors on their behaviour. Our conclusions suggest that in EMU-countries the relative importance of domestic risk factors (both credit and liquidity risk factors) is higher than that of international factors, which appear to play a secondary but significant role in non-EMU countries. |
| Keywords: | Monetary integration, sovereign securities markets, systemic, idiosyncratic risk. |
| JEL: | E44 F36 G15 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:200711&r=eec |
| By: | R. BRACKE; T. VERBEKE; V. DEJONCKHEERE |
| Abstract: | Empirical research on the characteristics of environmentally responsive companies has focussed on US and Japanese firms. For Europe, which is commonly considered as the greenest of the three major markets, similar research is lacking. This paper seeks to fill this gap by empirically investigating business and financial characteristics, stakeholder pressures and public policies to distinguish companies that have implemented the European Eco-Management and Audit System (EMAS) from a unique firm-level dataset of European publicly quoted companies. We find that the EMAS participation decision is positively influenced by the solvency ratio, the share of non-current liabilities, the average labour cost and the absolute company size as well as the relative size of a company compared to its sector average. The profit margin exerts a negative influence. We further find that companies whose headquarters is located in a country that actively encourages EMAS have a higher probability of participation. |
| Keywords: | EMAS participation, business and financial characteristics, stakeholder pressures, logistic regression |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:07/459&r=eec |
| By: | GUILLAIN, Rachel (LEG - CNRS UMR 5118 - Université de Bourgogne); DALL'ERBA, Sandy (LEG - CNRS UMR 5118 - Université de Bourgogne); LE GALLO, Julie |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the impact of structural funds on the manufacturing sector of 145 European regions in the context of a Verdoorn’s law for the period 1989-2004. Three main innovations are included. First, we pay attention to the nature of the cohesion objective under study. Second, the geographical linkages between regions are explicitly taken into account by using spatial econometric techniques. Third, potential endogeneity of explanatory variables is systematically checked. The results are in favour of increasing returns and of a significant but small and negative impact of funds. |
| Keywords: | growth, regional policy, increasing returns, Europe, spatial econometrics |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lat:legeco:2007-02&r=eec |
| By: | Fecht, Falko; Grüner, Hans Peter; Hartmann, Philipp |
| Abstract: | This paper compares four forms of inter-regional financial risk sharing: (i) segmentation, (ii) integration trough the secured interbank market, (ii) integration trough the unsecured interbank market, (iv) integration of retail markets. The secured interbank market is an optimal risk-sharing device when banks report liquidity needs truthfully. It allows diversification without the risk of cross-regional financial contagion. However, free-riding on the liquidity provision in this market restrains the achievable risk-sharing as the number of integrated regions increases. In too large an area this moral hazard problem becomes so severe that either unsecured interbank lending or, ultimately, the penetration of retail markets is preferable. Even though this deeper financial integration entails the risk of contagion it may be beneficial for large economic areas, because it can implement an efficient sharing of idiosyncratic regional shocks. Therefore, the enlargement of a monetary union, for example, extending the common interbank market might increase the benefits of also integrating retail banking markets through cross-border transactions or bank mergers. We discuss these results in the context of the ongoing debate on European financial integration and the removal of bank branching restrictions in the United States during the 1990s, and we derive implications for the relationship between financial integration and financial stability. Last we illustrate the scope for cross-regional risk sharing with data on non-performing loans for the European Union, Switzerland and the United States. |
| Keywords: | cross border lending; financial contagion; financial integration; interbank market |
| JEL: | F36 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6311&r=eec |
| By: | Sabel, Charles F.; Zeitlin, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that current widespread characterizations of EU governance as multi-level and networked overlook the emergent architecture of the Union’s public rule making. In this architecture, framework goals (such as full employment, social inclusion, “good water status”, a unified energy grid) and measures for gauging their achievement are established by joint action of the member states and EU institutions. Lower-level units (such as national ministries or regulatory authorities and the actors with whom they collaborate) are given the freedom to advance these ends as they see fit. But in return for this autonomy, they must report regularly on their performance and participate in a peer review in which their results are compared with those pursuing other means to the same general ends. Finally, the framework goals, performance measures, and decision-making procedures themselves are periodically revised by the actors, including new participants whose views come to be seen as indispensable to full and fair deliberation. Though this architecture cannot be read off from neither Treaty provisions nor textbook accounts of the formal competences of EU institutions, the paper traces its emergence and diffusion across a wide range of policy domains, including telecommunications, energy, drug authorization, occupational health and safety, employment promotion, social inclusion, pensions, health care, environmental protection, food safety, maritime safety, financial services, competition policy, state aid, anti-discrimination policy and fundamental rights. |
| Keywords: | governance; regulation; democracy; rule of law; diversity/homogeneity; networks; open coordination; transparency; accountability; agency theory |
| Date: | 2007–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erp:eurogo:p0014&r=eec |
| By: | Ashoka Mody; Deniz Igan; Stefania Fabrizio |
| Abstract: | Despite the appreciation of the exchange rate, the eight Central and Eastern European countries (the CEE-8) that entered the European Union in May 2004 have achieved a decade of impressive export growth, expanding significantly their shares of world markets. Does this mean that the real exchange rate is irrelevant? If not, what other factors compensated for the appreciation to explain the apparently strong competitiveness of these economies? And will these favorable factors continue to power export growth? This paper places in international context the achievements of the CEE-8 and helps more broadly to identify the determinants of international competitiveness. Building from data at the six-digit level of disaggregation, it shows that the CEE-8 made an impressive shift in product quality and in the technological intensity of exports, and that these shifts associated with the structural transformation were also associated with increased market share. The analysis strongly suggests that, when trading in international markets, countries benefit from higher product quality. However, while the structural transformation achieved was valuable in raising market shares, the easy gains from this process may be over. |
| Date: | 2007–04–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:07/97&r=eec |
| By: | Marianna Brunetti |
| Abstract: | Population ageing is a recognised phenomenon affecting many countries in the world including most EU ones, Japan and US. The financial implications of this phenomenon can be manifold and some recent literature has focused in particular on the possible consequences of ageing on household portfolios and on main financial asset returns ones. Overall, the extant literature on household portfolios reports a significant effect of age on asset allocation, thereby providing evidence in favour of the standard life-cycle hypothesis. On the other hand, empirical results on the link between demographics and financial asset prices/returns are less uniform. The aim of this paper is to systematize the extant literature on these issues and to provide an overview of the main results reported so far, trying to evaluate whether the different conclusions reached depend on the approach taken in the empirical exercises rather than on the actual differences, in terms of demographic dynamics, public pension systems and financial markets, of the realities considered. |
| Keywords: | population ageing; household portfolios; financial asset returns |
| JEL: | D14 D91 G11 J1 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:wcefin:07051&r=eec |
| By: | Jan Zápal (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; Economics Department, London School of Economics, University of London) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on dynamics of government spending over the business cycle. The literature on this topic has yet mainly focused on the issue of anti- or pro- cyclicality of fiscal policy. Only recently some researchers brought up a notion that response of fiscal policy might display great deal of asymmetry with respect to economic upturns and downturns. This is known as cyclical bias which arises when government expenditure increases more in cyclical downturns than it decreases in cyclical upturns, or vice versa. Empirical estimates of the sign and degree of cyclical bias show strong evidence in favour of the hypothesis that fiscal authorities do react with a great deal of asymmetry. Among other things, the presence of cyclical bias in government spending has been proposed as an explanation or mechanism which lies behind its unprecedented increase in most OECD countries over the last several decades. The aim of this paper is to show that a similar asymmetry of government spending dynamics can also be found in fiscal data of new EU member countries. We estimate the sign and degree of cyclical bias and compare it to estimates from other countries. Finally, we tackle the question of whether there is any statistically significant influence of political economy variables on the estimated degree of asymmetry. |
| Keywords: | Cyclical Bias; New EU member states; Fiscal policy |
| JEL: | E32 E62 H30 H50 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2007_15&r=eec |
| By: | Monojit Chatterji (University of Dundee); Karen Mumford (University of York and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Relative employment conditions have changed across the public and private sectors in Britain over the last decade with the former becoming a more attractive earnings option. Using new linked employee-employer data for Britain in 2004, this paper shows that, on average, full-time male public sector employees earn 11.7 log wage points more than their private sector counterparts. Decomposition analysis reveals that the majority of this pay premium is associated with public sector employees having individual characteristics associated with higher pay and to their working in higher paid occupations. Whilst there is some evidence of workplace segregation in the private sector, there is little indication that rates of return vary across the earnings distribution for either public or private sector employees. It no longer appears to be the case that the public sector provides a refuge for the low skilled at the expense of the highly educated. Furthermore, working conditions appear more uniform in the public sector and, unlike the private sector, there is no significant penalty associated with ethnic background. |
| Keywords: | public sector earnings, male, earnings-gap, interquantile, segregation |
| JEL: | J3 J7 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2781&r=eec |
| By: | Jim Malley; Apostolis Philippopoulos; Ulrich Woitek |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to examine the quantitative macroeconomic implications of countercyclical fiscal policy for France, Germany and the UK. The model incorporates real wage rigidity which is the particular market failure justifying policy intervention. We subject the model to productivity shocks and use either government consumption or investment to react to the output gap or the public debt-to-output ratio. If the object of fiscal policy is purely to stabilize output or debt volatility, then our results suggest substantial reductions can be obtained, especially with respect to output. In stark contrast, however, a formal general equilibrium welfare assessment of the volatility implications of these alternative instrument/target combinations reveals the welfare gains from active policy, measured as a share of consumption, to be very modest. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gla:glaewp:2007_02&r=eec |
| By: | Bas Jacobs (Universiteit van Amsterdam, Tilburg University, CentER, Netspar, and CESifo); Ruud A. de Mooij (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Netspar, and CESifo); Kees Folmer (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis) |
| Abstract: | A flat tax rate on income has gained popularity in European countries. This paper assesses the attractiveness of such a flat tax in achieving redistributive objectives with the least cost to labour market performance. We do so by using a detailed applied general equilibrium model for the Netherlands. The model is empirically grounded in the data and encompasses decisions on hours worked, labour force participation, skill formation, wage bargaining between unions and firms, matching frictions, and a wide variety of institutional details. The simulations suggest that the replacement of the current tax system in the Netherlands by a flat rate will harm labour market performance if aggregate income inequality is contained. This finding bolsters the notion that a linear tax is less efficient than a non-linear tax to obtain redistributive goals. |
| Keywords: | Flat tax; Labour market; General equilibrium; Equity; Optimal taxation |
| JEL: | D3 D5 H2 |
| Date: | 2007–03–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20070029&r=eec |
| By: | Gabriella Berloffa; Paola Villa |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine the evolution of household equivalent income for "cohorts of households" defined by the age of the household's head, using Italian data from the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), for the period between 1989 and 2004. The descriptive and econometric analysis reveals a deterioration of the economic conditions and prospects of young cohorts of households in comparison with older cohorts. This phenomenon is due to the joint occurrence of various events, like the institutional changes of the labour market, the poor economic performance of the economy and its adverse effects on white and blue collars, the new rules introduced for the pension system, and an exceptional increase in house prices and rents. Decreasing returns to education, the reduction in household size and the increase in the number of income recipients - due to both rising female participation and children living longer with their parents - are also found to have significant effects on the differences between cohorts at the same age. |
| Keywords: | Household Income, Inequality, Cohort Analysis. |
| JEL: | D12 D30 J01 J10 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpde:0711&r=eec |
| By: | Murat G. Kirdar (Department of Economics, METU) |
| Abstract: | In this paper I test the capital accumulation conjecture that is used to rationalize return migration decisions in the context of immigrants in Germany and examine how labor market outcomes influence return migration decisions, with particular attention to selection in these outcomes in return migration. I characterize the level and timing of return migration as well as the selection in it and derive a number of implications of these on the impact of immigrants on the host as well as source countries. Using a rich longitudinal dataset that has an over-sampled group of immigrants (German Socioeconomic Panel), I conduct a Cox proportional hazard analysis with alternative waiting-time concepts. That the sample contains immigrants from four different source countries allows me to utilize the variation in the source country characteristics as well as the time variation in them to identify the parameters of interest. I find evidence for the savings accumulation conjecture, in which return is motivated by higher purchasing power of accumulated savings in the home country. On the other hand, human capital accumulation conjecture is rejected. In the framework of savings accumulation, I examine the impact of an increase in German earnings whose theoretical impact on the return migration decision is ambiguous. In terms of labor market outcomes, both retirement and unemployment emerge as important determinants of return migration choices. Unemployment spell length determines the direction of selection with respect to unemployment in return migration. The data also reveal that the level of return migration is high and varies considerably across the source countries. The hazard function of Turkish immigrants displays a hump-shaped profile that peaks between the ages of 45 and 54 whereas EU immigrants are more likely to return at earlier ages and after retirement. |
| Keywords: | International Migration; Capital Accumulation; Unemployment; Duration Analysis |
| JEL: | C41 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:met:wpaper:0703&r=eec |
| By: | Francesco Pastore (Seconda Università di Napoli and IZA); Alina Verashchagina (Università di Siena) |
| Abstract: | This paper suggests an analytical framework to analyse the joint evolution of female participation and wages across countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU), of which Belarus is a particular case. In CEE, female participation has reduced relatively more than wages, due to greater wage rigidity; in the FSU, wages have reduced more than participation, due to labour hoarding practices. In Belarus, only wages adjust, since (mainly state owned) firms tend to largely maintain their entire workforce. Underneath slow transition and remarkably stable female participation rates (at over 80%), the unconditional gender gap in log hourly wages has increased by a half, while that in log of net and total monthly wages has more than doubled over almost a decade (1996-2004). The Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1991) decomposition suggests that the deterioration of women wages is caused by negative changes in observed characteristics (due to horizontal segregation) and in the remuneration for those characteristics. Instead, very bland changes in the residual wage distribution tended to reduce (not to increase) the gender wage gap: in fact, women have benefited both of changes in the degree of wage inequality and of gains in the mean female rank in the male residual distribution. |
| Keywords: | evolution of the gender wage gap, decomposition analysis, wage inequality, economic transition, Belarus |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J31 P20 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2796&r=eec |
| By: | Deborah Schöller |
| Abstract: | Besides material offshoring, economists have started to analyze the impact of service offshoring on domestic employment. Services are of particular interest since their significance has grown in terms of both quantity and quality. One decade ago, most services were considered non-tradable, but the emergence of new information and communication technologies has contributed to overcoming geographical distance. The move towards the liberalization of international service trade has further accelerated this process. The empirical part of this paper first calculates German service offshoring intensities on a sectoral basis using input-output data. This measurement represents the proportion of imported service inputs used in home production. Germany’s average service offshoring intensity more than doubled from 1991 to 2003. In a next step, the impact of service offshoring on the demand for heterogeneous labor in Germany is estimated at a sectoral level including 28 manufacturing sectors. The partial static equilibrium model is based on a variable unit cost function in the general translog form allowing for quasi-fixed input factors. Two different skill-levels are taken into account. The estimation results indicate that service offshoring reduced the relative demand for less-skilled labor in the German manufacturing sectors by on average -0.06 to -0.16% per year between 1991 and 2000. |
| Keywords: | service offshoring; labor demand; less-skilled labor; globalization; technological change |
| JEL: | F1 F2 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hoh:hohdip:287&r=eec |
| By: | Anders Böhlmark (SOFI, Stockholm University); Mikael Lindahl (SOFI, Stockholm University and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates school choice at the compulsory-school level by assessing a reform implemented in Sweden in 1992, which opened up for publicly funded but privately operated schools. In many local school markets, this reform led to a significant increase in the quantity of such schools as well as in the share of pupils attending them. We estimate the impact of this increase in private enrolment on the average achievement of all pupils using withinmunicipality variation over time, and controlling for differential pre-reform municipality trends. We find that an increase in the private-school share by 10 percentage points increases average pupil achievement by almost 1 percentile rank point. We show that this total effect can be interpreted as the sum of a private-school attendance effect and a competition effect. The former effect, which is identified using variation in school choice among siblings, is found to be only a small part of the total effect. This suggests that the main part of the achievement effect is due to more competition in the school sector, forcing schools to improve their quality. We use grade point average as outcome variable. A comparison with test data suggests that our results are not driven by differential grade-setting standards in private and public schools. We further find that more competition from private schools increases school costs. There is also some evidence of sorting of pupils along socioeconomic and ethnic lines. |
| Keywords: | school-choice reform, private-school competition, pupil achievement, segregation |
| JEL: | I22 I28 H40 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2786&r=eec |
| By: | Daniel Münich (CERGE-EI, Prague); Jan Svejnar (University of Michigan, CEPR, CERGE-EI and IZA) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use 1991-2005 panel data on the unemployed, vacancies, inflow into unemployment, and outflow from unemployment in five former communist economies and in the western part of Germany (a benchmark western economy) to examine the evolution of unemployment together with that of inflows into unemployment and vacancies. The comparison of the transition economies with an otherwise similar and spatially close market economy is useful because it enables us to identify the main differences and similarities in the evolution of the key variables, and thus draw conclusions as to whether different or similar factors cause high unemployment. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, communism, transition, labor |
| JEL: | P2 J4 J6 C33 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2798&r=eec |
| By: | Estelle Dhont-Peltrault; Etienne Pfister |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a survey of French firms active in R&D to identify the determinants of R&D outsourcing and of the ensuing trade-off between R&D subcontracting and R&D cooperation. Internal R&D expenditures increase both the probability of outsourcing and the number of R&D partners. Investment in fundamental R&D, group belonging, and the sector’s high R&D intensity positively influences the probability of R&D outsourcing but have less impact on the number of partners. R&D subcontracting is more likely than R&D cooperation when the relationship deals with generic, standardized R&D processes, as reflected in the influence of several qualitative proxies. |
| Keywords: | R&D cooperation, R&D subcontracting, organizational choices. |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2007-17&r=eec |
| By: | Norberg-Schönfeldt, Magdalena (Department of Economics, Umeå University) |
| Abstract: | This thesis consists of three papers on the economics and structure of Swedish families. Paper [I] examines the determinants of children’s educational achievement in Sweden. Special attention is given to the labour market work by mothers and fathers in terms of its influence on the educational outcome of their children, measured as grade point average (GPA) in compulsory as well as upper sec-ondary school. The results show that there is a positive relationship between parental income and GPA. Regarding the number of hours worked in the la-bour market, the results differ between mothers and fathers. Having a mother that works less than full time has positive effects on the child’s grades throughout the schooling of the child, whereas significant effects of the hours of work that the father puts in are found during upper secondary school only. Paper [II] explores the role of financial surprises and match quality in the dis-solution of relationships. The analysis is carried out both for surprises in the short term earnings and surprises in the long-run earnings capacity. It is found that positive surprises in short term earnings have a destabilizing effect for a relationship. Generally, a negative surprise in long-run earnings capacity for males has a destabilizing effect. However, if it is combined with a female positive surprise, the effect is stabilizing. Commitments become more stable the older the spouses are at the start, and if young children are present. Paper [III] studies the role of unemployment in the dissolu¬tion of relationships by applying a two-step estimation method to an extensive data set, which con-tains information about young Swedish males and females. Unemployment is recognized as endogenous in the separation decision, and the results show that the effect of unemploy¬ment on separation is biased when unemployment is assumed to be exo¬genous in the separation equation. The probability of sepa-ration is found to be increasing with male unemployment, while female un-employment decreases the probability of dissolution. |
| Keywords: | Time allocation; labour-force participation; educational achievements; match quality; financial surprises; unemployment; divorce; family structure |
| JEL: | D10 I20 J12 J22 |
| Date: | 2007–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:0708&r=eec |
| By: | Lechner, Michael; Wunsch, Conny |
| Abstract: | We provide new evidence on the effectiveness of West German labour market programmes by evaluating training and employment programmes that have been conducted 2000-2002 after the first large reform of German labour market policy in 1998. We employ exceptionally rich administrative data that allow us to use microeconometric matching methods and to estimate interesting effects for different types of programmes and participants at a rather disaggregated level. We find that, on average, all programmes fail to improve their participants' chances of finding regular, unsubsidised employment. Rather, participants accumulate 2-13 more months of unemployment than nonparticipants over the 2.5 years following programme start, which, in addition to direct programme costs, induces net costs in terms of benefit payments and wage subsidies amounting to, on average, 1500-7000 EUR per participant. However, we show that there is some scope for improvements in mean employment rates as well as potential for considerable cost savings by a reallocation of participants and nonparticipants to the different programmes. |
| Keywords: | causal effects; Matching estimation; panel data; programme evaluation |
| JEL: | J68 |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6306&r=eec |