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on Transition Economics |
| By: | Bougias, Alexandros; Episcopos, Athanasios; Leledakis, George N. |
| Abstract: | We infer the asset value dynamics of European firms during the Russia-Ukraine war via the structural model of Merton (1974). Using high-frequency stock price data, we find that the war led to lower corporate security prices and higher asset volatility, eventually shifting asset values closer to the default region. On average, the balance sheet of European firms is expected to shrink by 2.05% and their 1-year default probability to increase from 0.32% to 2.12%. Regression analysis on asset and equity returns as well as default probability changes suggests that these effects are stronger for firms with large revenue exposure to Russia. |
| Keywords: | European firms; Merton model; Russia-Ukraine war; Asset returns; Default risk |
| JEL: | G12 G14 G32 |
| Date: | 2022–07–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:113791&r= |
| By: | Broadberry, Stephen (Nuffield College, Oxford); Korchmina, Elena (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides decadal estimates of GDP per capita for the Russian Empire from the 1690s to the 1880s. GDP per capita in the 1880s was barely 3 per cent higher than in the 1690s, but this was not the result of continuous stagnation. Rather, positive growth during the first half of the eighteenth century was followed by negative growth between the 1760s and 1800s and stagnation from the 1800s to the 1880s. The main driver of this variation in GDP per capita was the relationship between population and land, with land per capita increasing to the 1760s, then declining to the 1800s and staying stable during the nineteenth century. This suggests that serfdom may not have been as strong a barrier to eighteenth century growth as has often been suggested, nor its abolition in 1861 as significant for subsequent growth. Although large-scale industry grew more rapidly than the rest of the economy, particularly after Peter the Great’s reforms in the early eighteenth century, this had only a minor effect on the economy as a whole, as it was starting from a very low base and still only accounted for 10 per cent of GDP by the 1880s. Russian economic growth before the 1760s resulted in catching-up on northwest Europe, but this was followed by a period of relative decline, leaving mid-nineteenth century Russia further behind than at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Key words: Great Divergence ; China ; regional variation ; GDP per head |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:626&r= |
| By: | Peihua Deng; Ronnie Schöb |
| Abstract: | Using survey data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2010 to 2018, this paper analyzes the relationship between income inequality, group-specific income redistribution, and subjective well-being among China’s urban, rural, and migrant populations. Using narrowly defined reference groups, our findings suggest that within-group inequality does not significantly impact Chinese people. By contrast, a larger income gap between urban and rural residents is positively correlated with the rural residents’ subjective well-being, which we interpret as a tunnel effect, i.e. a positive signal concerning their own future income. Compared to migrants, however, our results hint at a negative status effect for the rural residents. More importantly, the group-specific redistribution inherent in the Hukou system that widens the income gap between urban and rural residents makes rural residents worse off. The existing Hukou system thus fails to lend support to the ‘harmonious society’ development strategy of the Chinese government. |
| Keywords: | income inequality, income redistribution, subjective well-being |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I31 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9847&r= |
| By: | Xilu Chen; Guangyu Pei; Zheng Michael Song; Fabrizio Zilibotti |
| Abstract: | We document a process of rapid tertiarization of the Chinese economy since 2005. The employment and value-added shares of the service sector have increased significantly. Moreover, total factor productivity growth has increased faster in the service sector than in the manufacturing sector. Measures of dynamism at the firm level confirm the growing importance of tertiarization. The boom is not limited to services that are used as inputs to industrial production. Consumer services have also grown significantly in terms of both value-added share and productivity. The results are robust to different growth accounting methodologies, including the recent method proposed by Fan, Peters, and Zilibotti (2022) that gets around potentially problematic official price indexes. |
| JEL: | O11 O14 O47 O53 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30272&r= |
| By: | Iwasaki, Ichiro |
| Abstract: | Russia is one of the few countries in the world that has opted for almost no policy measures involving the strong suppression of economic activity in the face of the epidemic disaster brought about by the new coronavirus (COVID-19). This makes Russia a valuable subject of social experiments through which the association between economic activity and the spread of the virus can be explored. This paper presents a dynamic panel data analysis to examine the extent to which different types of economic activity contribute to the spread of COVID-19 infection using monthly and quarterly panel data of Russian regions between March 2020 and April 2021. The results strongly supported our expectation that economic activities have a greater impact on the levels of COVID-19 transmission when they involve a larger number of inhabitants or stimulate greater consumption or social activities among citizens. It was also revealed that Russian regions vary greatly in terms of the routes that link economic activity to the spread of COVID-19. These results have important policy implications for current and future epidemic control. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19 pandemic, economic activity, dynamic panel data analysis, Russia |
| JEL: | C33 E32 I15 I18 R11 |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:rrcwps:99&r= |
| By: | Jane (Xue); Tan; Yong Tan |
| Abstract: | Extrinsic incentives such as a conditional thank-you gift have shown both positive and negative impacts on charitable fundraising. Leveraging the crypto donations to a Ukrainian fundraising plea that accepts Ether (i.e., the currency of the Ethereum blockchain) and Bitcoin (i.e., the currency of the Bitcoin blockchain) over a seven-day period, we analyze the impact of crypto rewards that lasted for more than 24 hours. Crypto rewards are newly minted tokens that are usually valueless initially and grow in value if the corresponding cause is well received. Separately, we find that crypto rewards have a positive impact on the donation count but a negative impact on the average donation size for donations from both blockchains. Comparatively, we further find that the crypto rewards lead to an 812.48% stronger donation count increase for Ethereum than Bitcoin, given that the crypto rewards are more likely to be issued on the Ethereum blockchain, which has higher programmability to support smart contracts. We also find a 30.1% stronger decrease in average donation amount from Ethereum for small donations ( $250). Our study is the first work to look into crypto rewards as incentives for fundraising. Our findings indicate that the positive effect of crypto rewards is more likely to manifest in donation count, and the negative effect of crypto rewards is more likely to manifest in donation size. |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2207.07490&r= |
| By: | Darija Barak; Edoardo Gallo; Ke Rong; Ke Tang; Wei Du |
| Abstract: | On 11th Jan 2020, the first COVID-19 related death was confirmed in Wuhan, Hubei. The Chinese government responded to the outbreak with a lockdown that impacted most residents of Hubei province and lasted for almost three months. At the time, the lockdown was the strictest both within China and worldwide. Using an interactive web-based experiment conducted half a year after the lockdown with participants from 11 Chinese provinces, we investigate the behavioral effects of this `shock' event experienced by the population of Hubei. We find that both one's place of residence and the strictness of lockdown measures in their province are robust predictors of individual social distancing behavior. Further, we observe that informational messages are effective at increasing compliance with social distancing throughout China, whereas fines for noncompliance work better within Hubei province relative to the rest of the country. We also report that residents of Hubei increase their propensity to social distance when exposed to social environments characterized by the presence of a superspreader, while the effect is not present outside of the province. Our results appear to be specific to the context of COVID-19, and are not explained by general differences in risk attitudes and social preferences. |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2208.04117&r= |
| By: | Erwan Gautier (Banque de France); Cristina Conflitti (Banca d’Italia); Riemer P. Faber (National Bank of Belgium); Brian Fabo (National Bank of Slovakia); Ludmila Fadejeva (Latvijas Banka); Valentin Jouvanceau (Lietuvos Bankas); Jan-Oliver Menz (Deutsche Bundesbank); Teresa Messner, (Oesterreichische Nationalbank); Pavlos Petroulas (Bank of Greece); Pau Roldan-Blanco (Banco de España); Fabio Rumler (Oesterreichische Nationalbank); Sergio Santoro (European Central Bank); Elisabeth Wieland (Deutsche Bundesbank); Hélène Zimmer (National Bank of Belgium) |
| Abstract: | Using CPI micro data for 11 euro area countries covering about 60% of the euro area consumption basket over the period 2010-2019, we document new findings on consumer price rigidity in the euro area: (i) each month on average 12.3% of prices change, which compares with 19.3% in the United States; when we exclude price changes due to sales, however, the proportion of prices adjusted each month is 8.5% in the euro area versus 10% in the United States; (ii) differences in price rigidity are rather limited across euro area countries but much larger across sectors; (iii) the median price increase (resp. decrease) is 9.6% (13%) when including sales and 6.7% (8.7%) when excluding sales; cross-country heterogeneity is more pronounced for the size than for the frequency of price changes; (iv) the distribution of price changes is highly dispersed: 14% of price changes in absolute values are lower than 2% whereas 10% are above 20%; (v) the overall frequency of price changes does not change much with inflation and does not react much to aggregate shocks; (vi) changes in inflation are mostly driven by movements in the overall size; when decomposing the overall size, changes in the share of price increases among all changes matter more than movements in the size of price increases or the size of price decreases. These findings are consistent with the predictions of a menu cost model in a low inflation environment where idiosyncratic shocks are a more relevant driver of price adjustment than aggregate shocks. |
| Keywords: | : price rigidity, inflation, consumer prices, micro data. |
| JEL: | D40 E31 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbb:reswpp:202206-408&r= |