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The chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions from the pulp and paper industry in China have declined continuously since the tighter COD discharge standards were implemented in 2008. Using firm-level data from 2003 to 2013, we investigate how China's pulp and paper firms would respond to the tighter COD discharge standards with a difference-in-differences design. We find that the tighter COD discharge standards have significant causal effects to induce the pulp and paper firms to reduce their COD emissions primarily through adopting cleaner production. However, the effectiveness of the tighter COD discharge standards depends on monitoring and enforcement activities as well as other regulations accompanying with the tighter COD discharge standards, all of which have become strengthened since China's 11th Five-Year-Plan (FYP, 2006–2010). While strengthened environmental regulations since the 11th FYP are from the top leadership of the Chinese government in order to deal with the increasing environmental degradation, the underlying driving force of the strengthened environmental regulations is from the household demand for better environmental quality as income increases. This study enriches literature not only on firms' responses to environmental regulations in developing countries but also on environmental regulations and technology adoption as well as environmental enforcement and compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female under-representation in high-profile career positions has relevant impacts on firms' outcomes, research topics, and public policies. In the academic profession, women's participation decreases as they evolve in their careers. To understand the lack of women in economics in Brazilian academia, we investigate the decision to submit papers to the largest conference in the country (Brazilian Meeting of Economics, or ANPEC Meetings), an important achievement in the profession. We explore a novel panel dataset of researchers and match them with web-scraped data of their résumés to test gender differences in the probability of submitting an article one year after having a paper (same or new) rejected in the previous year. Our findings suggest that women desist 2.9% points more than men when facing rejection. We also find evidence that younger women give up more and that the quality of the undergraduate program relates to the gender gap in the likelihood of desisting. Finally, we argue that more competitive women may self-select into higher-quality institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US paper and paperboard industry has experienced significant structural changes over the past 25 years, including reductions in the number of mills, lower rates of capacity growth, employment cutbacks and a loss of market share to foreign competitors. These structural shifts portray an industry that increasingly has difficulty adapting to a more competitive global environment. Based on aggregate data from 1965 to 1996, this article estimates a short-run translog (TL) cost function for the industry. The estimated model fits the data well and all sample points satisfy monotonicity and concavity conditions at all points. Among the findings, the industry operates at slightly increasing returns to capital utilization and labour and energy are Allen-Uzawa complements but Morishima substitutes in production. Technological progress generated 0.02% reduction in annual operating costs and consistent with an ailing US industry, estimated marginal costs approximated average operating costs until 1982 after which marginal costs significantly diverged from average operating costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trading market of carbon emission permits is not only an effective tool for tackling climate change, but it also reinforces the connection between carbon and energy markets by risk transmission. This paper investigates the volatility spillover effects and dynamic correlation between fossil energy, clean energy and the European Union carbon markets by applying the asymmetric BEKK- and DCC-GARCH models in a time-frequency framework and designs the portfolio strategies. Empirical results display that fossil energy market has a significantly positive impact on the clean energy market at most scales, but the feedback transmission is relatively weak. Two indirect volatility spillover effects exist between the three markets, which are 'fossil energy→carbon→clean energy' and 'clean energy→carbon→fossil energy', suggesting that the carbon market plays a vital role in bridging the clean and fossil energy markets. Significant time-varying asymmetric effects are identified between the three markets, and the carbon market is confirmed to offer the least expensive hedge to an investment in oil. Our findings can provide meaningful implications for policymakers to design market mechanism and investors to adjust hedging strategies and diversify their portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cost minimization theory suggests national demand equations for paper and paperboard in which demand is a negative function of the price of paper and paperboard, and a positive function of gross national product. A dynamic version of this model was estimated with data from European Union countries, for newsprint, printing and writing paper, and other paper and paperboard. Country-by-country equations proved unstable. Pooling the data across countries, with dummy variables to account for fixed country effects, led to well defined short-term and long-term elasticities with respect to price and gross national product. The hypothesis that income and price elasticities were the same across the European Union countries could not be rejected at the 1% significance level, for the three product groups. From 1969 to 1995, most of the growth in demand had been due to the growth in national product, while price increases had only a small negative effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the causal relations between exports and domestic production in the pulp and paper industries. The issue is whether exports are the engine of growth, or whether exports follow growth. The data were time-series of the 15 main exporting countries between 1961 and 1995. The method was Granger-causality analysis with error correction, based on models estimated in three ways: ordinary least squares by country, least squares with dummy variables (LSDV), and seemingly unrelated regression. Regardless of method, the strongest relation was an instantaneous (within a year) feedback between exports and production. The LSDV results implied average multipliers across countries of 1.2 to 1.4 from exports to production, and 0.20 to 0.25 from production to exports, in both industries. Experiments with monthly data on the pulp industries of Canada and the USA showed that temporal aggregation could affect the Granger-causality test results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information content of academic citations is a subject to debate. This article views premature death as a tragic ‘natural experiment’, outlining a methodology identifying the ‘citation death tax’ – the impact of the death of productive economists on the patterns of their citations. We rely on a sample of 428 papers written by 16 well-known economists who died well before retirement, during the period 1975 to 1997. The news is mixed: for half of the sample, we identify a large and significant ‘citation death tax’ for the average paper written by these scholars. For these authors, the estimated average missing citations per paper attributed to premature death ranges from 40% to 140% (the overall average is about 90%), and the annual costs of lost citations per paper are in the range 3–14%. Hence, a paper written 10 years before the author's death avoids a citation cost that varies between 30% and 140%. For the other half of the sample, there is no citation death tax; and for two Nobel Prize-calibre scholars in this second group, Black and Tversky, citations took off over time, reflecting the growing recognitions of their seminal works. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this study was to develop a model of investment behavior in manufacturing industries to discriminate between the effect of demand and that of the cost of capital. Starting from the neoclassical framework this model relaxed the assumption of constant cost of capital and improved the description of the effect of taxes. It also replaced the traditional partial adjustment process by an improved model of expectations. The model was tested on the paper industry. It explained well investment, capacity, and prices from 1964-83, and less well the financing of investments. Simulations using the model showed that demand shifts were the most important determinants of investment in the paper industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with theoretical and empirical aspects of firm behaviour under imperfect competition and uncertainty. It contains an analysis of the behaviour of a firm facing a stochastic demand curve for its output in the ordinary (home market), but in addition with access to a backstop (international) market. The theory is thus a variation of the theory of dumping. Since the expected volume in general differs from the volume at the expected price, a price-setting mode is not equal to a quantity mode. Cyclical dumping, in the sense of a negative correlation between domestic and foreign sales, would occur if the firm adhered to a pricing mode in the ordinary market, and was able to learn about the demand conditions in the ordinary market before it decided how much to sell in the international market. The empirical part of the paper is an illustration of how to test for different behavioural modes and cyclical dumping by applying the model to the Canadian pulp and paper industry. In the empirical exercise the domestic markets are the North American market for pulp and newsprint, while the backstop market are the corresponding European markets. One of the main results of this exercise is that the Canadian industry seems to operate under pricing behaviour for both pulp and newsprint, while cyclical dumping on the European market applies only for pulp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonparametric tests of consistency of data with variable cost minimization, returns to scale, and homotheticity are described and applied to data from the US paper industry. Results indicate that data from the US paper industry are consistent with the minimization of variable costs, increased productivity due to technological improvements or increasing returns to scale, and a homothetic production function. A method derived from nonparametric estimation for screening hypothesized data sets prior to predictive use with an estimated production function is described.
The nonparametric method of industrial analysis is a method which allows the researcher to test for consistency of the data with economic properties of a particular industry without making assumptions about the form of the production function. It also improves the predictions made about the industry by assuring that hypothesized data are consistent with assumptions made about a production function. In this paper we examine the methodology as it applies to the minimization of variable costs and then apply it to the United States paper industry. The paper has four sections. In the first section we examine cost minimization and describe two nonparametric tests for consistency with cost minimization. Both tests are applied using data from the United States paper industry. In the second section we describe two tests for particular properties of the production function and apply those tests to US paper industry data. The third provides an example of how one can use nonparametric methods to determine rational data sets for use in economic prediction. The final section is a summary of the results.
In this paper we refer to the parametric method in order to contrast it with the nonparametric method. This is not because we believe that the nonparametric method is 'better', but because the parametric method is widely used in economic research. Both methods have advantages and, as we hope to show, ... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We suggest corrections to the paper by Kanabar and Simmons and provide analyses for deriving the internal rate of return arising from a UK state pension deferral decision and for an actuarially fair deferral scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model that links profits to green goodwill. Assuming that abatement investments generate green goodwill, and using data from the Swedish pulp industry, we are able to test the effects of green goodwill on firm level output price and profits. The results suggests that Swedish pulp plant output prices and profits may be positively related to changes in green goodwill. Furthermore, no evidence is found to support the existence of adjustment costs due to abatement investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws its title from a paper written over 35 years ago by Geoffrey H. Moore (1967). Why the need for a reprise? First, there would appear currently to be somewhat diverging views as to what properly constitutes a recession. Second, largely as a result of this, in many countries other than the US, there does not exist a single, widely accepted business cycle chronology for the country in question. This paper will argue that, in addition to output, there are other important aspects to aggregate economic activity that need to be taken into account in determining the business cycle, viz., income, sales and employment. As such, our perspective would seem to be at odds with the apparent position taken by some other recent commentators on this issue who argue that GDP is all that is needed to represent a country's business cycle. We will also argue against using the currently popular 'two negative quarterly growth rate' rule in dating the onset of a recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green technology innovation (GTI) is an important driver for national green development and a strong fulcrum for the clean production of companies. This paper focuses on the impact of top management team's (TMT's) inherent characteristics on GTI from the perspectives of TMT heterogeneity and text tone in management discussion and analysis (MD&A), as well as the moderating role of executive compensation incentives and financial constraints. The results reveal that: a) the TMT heterogeneity has different effects on companies' GTI; b) the tone in MD&A can significantly promote the companies' GTI; c) both executive compensation incentives and financial constraints significantly adjust the relationship between the TMT heterogeneity or the tone in MD&A on GTI but in different directions. Moreover, the basic conclusions suitable for non-state-owned companies yet differ in state-owned companies considering the property heterogeneity. Thus, this paper constructs a new integrated framework of TMT heterogeneity, tone in MD&A, executive compensation incentives and financial constraints to stimulate the enthusiasm and initiative of companies to develop GTI, which has an important practical significance on accelerating the sustainable development of green production in developing countries. Finally, this paper offers corresponding policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses novel data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) to identify the impact of countercyclical fiscal policy on non-profit wages, employment, and entry in the non-profit sector. The paper extends an existing empirical literature that uses the 'Great Recession' (2007–2009) as a shock to identify the responsiveness of non-profit labour markets to aggressive fiscal policy. The paper adopts an identification strategy which exploits variation in the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) reimbursement rates across states in the context of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. An instrument is applied in the place of ARRA expenditures to avoid estimation bias. I find that non-profit employment and wages are less responsive to fiscal stimulus, relative to previous point estimates for all United States firms. Point estimates indicate estimated cost of $104,000 per non-profit job saved. However, there is wide variation across non-profit sub-sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents long-run exchange rate elasticities of Finnish newsprint and pulp export prices in the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany over the period 1980-94. The elasticities were estimated for a markup pricing model using Johansen's cointegration method. The magnitudes of the elasticity estimates obtained by imposing price homogeneity indicate that pass-through of exchange rate changes to export prices has been incomplete in both markets. For newsprint, the pass-through elasticity was 0.60 in the UK and 0.46 in Germany, which means that about one half of the changes in the exchange rates is reflected in prices as expressed in the destination countries' currencies and about a half in prices measured in Finnish markka. Instead, in pulp exports the pass-through elasticities differed from each other between the two destination countries more clearly than in newsprint exports, indicating a different pricing behaviour of Finnish pulp exporters in the UK and Germany when exchange rate changes. Pass-through was small in the UK pulp market (0.07) as compared to Germany (0.68). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the impact of environmental regulation (ER) in host countries on Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) decision-making. It tests the pollution haven hypothesis using data on national (ER) standards and Japanese inward FDI in five dirty industries (iron and steel industry, nonferrous metals industry, chemicals industry, paper and pulp industry, nonmetallic products industry). The results do not support the pollution hypothesis. On the contrary, inward Japanese FDI appears to be attracted to countries which have committed themselves to a transparent and stable environment regulatory environment, suggesting that the quality of the regulatory framework in terms of its certainty and transparency has a greater influence on foreign investors' choice of location than the level of environmental regulatory measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is found that alphabetized coauthored papers with two authors are more highly cited than non-alphabetized coauthored papers in both economics and agricultural economics. Alphabetized coauthored papers with more than two authors are not cited more, suggesting an optimal team size of two, ceteris paribus. We speculate that the preponderance of non-alphabetized papers in agricultural economics, as compared to economics, is due in some part to the differential importance of nonmarket-based criteria to evaluate research in this area as opposed to economics departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the steady increase in co-authored papers in economics journals, this paper reports a study of the patterns of co-authorship between US universities and colleges. A majority of institutions produce more co-authored than single-authored papers. Contacts with researchers from the same institution are still an important source of co-authored papers, even though slightly decreasing in frequency. The determinants of co-authorship outside the own institution are tested in a gravity model and it is found that distance and other geographical variables do not matter. However, the quality of co-authors' institutions, measured by rankings of institutions, has a significant impact on the number of co-authored papers in top economics journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 25 years, trade flows have nearly quadrupled, and a renewed concern is whether trade openness is responsible for rising domestic inflation. This paper first provides a rigorous review and evidence of trade openness on domestic inflation by using a meta-analysis utilizing 31 years of empirical studies. The measurements of inflation, country and data characteristics, some macroeconomic variables (e.g. GDP, monetary supply, exchange rate) and econometric techniques are identified as the main contributions to the heterogeneity of previous findings. After checking for the presence of publication bias, the paper shows that the average effect of trade openness on domestic inflation is very small and barely significant, and the effect heterogeneity across the results is mainly explained by the studies' sample countries and their efforts to address the concern that trade openness might be endogenous. For studies in which endogeneity is well addressed, we find that trade openness could lead to inflation only in non-OECD countries but has no statistically significant effect in OECD countries. Therefore, the study suggests that the governments of these non-OECD countries should be aware of the side effects of trade openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the influence of geopolitical risk (GPR) on national food availability and distinguished the differentiated effects caused by geopolitical shocks at domestic and international food suppliers. We proposed an external geopolitical risk index (EGPR) to identify a country's vulnerability to geopolitical turmoil in its food suppliers. Our findings show that country-specific GPR adversely affects domestic production, and EGPR reduces food imports. Furthermore, the food availability of countries with low GDP is more easily susceptible to geopolitical unrest. Overall, this paper offers helpful hints for policymakers worldwide regarding the prevention of food security risks triggered by geopolitical tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the role of medical preparedness in the incentive of policymakers to protect their constituents against public health risks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mitigation measures such as stay-at-home orders reduce health risks but result in economic losses. The goal is to examine moral hazard in determining the stringency of mitigation measures theoretically and empirically. Theoretical analysis shows that measures tend to be more lenient in better medically-prepared jurisdictions with higher hospital capacity, implying moral hazard in public health policies. The paper then empirically tests the theoretical prediction based on data on statewide stay-at-home orders across 50 states during the COVID-19 pandemic, and empirical evidence shows that one additional hospital bed per 10,000 population decreases the duration of the order by 1.8 days, lending support to the theoretical prediction. To avoid moral hazard, independent health experts should be part of the policy-making body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most literatures have studied the role of the Internet in promoting the country's foreign trade. However, when the difference in Internet level between the two countries becomes the focus, will it hinder bilateral trade? This paper attempts to investigate the hinder impact of the Internet gap between the two countries on bilateral export in the framework of gravity model. The goods export data during the period of 2005–2019 from the WTO and the method of Poisson Pseudo-Maximum-Likelihood (PPML) and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) were used. It is found that the Internet gap between the two countries will hinder bilateral export by increasing the information trade costs. Lower Internet countries are more sensitive to the Internet gap in bilateral export. This paper also analyzes the impact mechanism, which provides the fresh evidence for related study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper selects H-share companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong from 2008 to 2018 as research samples and designs an OLS regression model to empirically test the impact of the quality of the audit committee measured by the four aspects of the characteristics of the audit committee on the earnings management level of the company based on the Jones model. It concludes that when the overall quality of the company's audit committee is higher, the company's earnings management level is lower. This conclusion strongly proves that the establishment and effective operation of an audit committee plays an important role in improving corporate governance and restraining earnings manipulation by the management team and the governance role. This paper provides empirical evidence to help corporation leaders and stakeholders make better decisions on management and investment on H-share listed companies. The innovation and contributions and to audit and earnings management literature and implications and innovation for regulators and investors are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few papers have studied the impact of informal institutions on the fulfilment of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2011 to 2018, this paper investigates the impact of informal institutions, proxied as the Confucian culture, on CSR. The results show that the Confucian culture is beneficial to promoting the fulfilment of CSR, and this positive impact is unchanged after robust tests. Confucian culture will affect CSR through corporate reputation and industry peer effects. Through a series of heterogeneity tests, we found the following results: (1) The promoting effect of Confucian culture mainly exists in non-state-owned enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises. (2) In areas with imperfect formal institutions and underdeveloped economies, the informal institutions represented by Confucian culture can play a complementary role to formal institutions, assisting in promoting CSR. (3) The impact of foreign culture will weaken the positive role of Confucian culture in fulfilling CSR. Based on the introduction of Confucian culture, our findings clarify and highlight the role of informal institutions on CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the theory of information imperfections to examine the relationship between income inequality and financial development in a dual financial system comprising traditional finance and microfinance. It uses panel data for 97 developing countries over a period characterized by declining income inequality from 2000 to 2017. Traditional finance is measured through domestic credit relative to GDP and the IMF Financial Development Index. Microfinance is measured through the size of microfinance gross loan portfolio relative to GDP and the number of active microfinance borrowers to the total population. Controlling for various measures of macroeconomic and socioeconomic variables and using different econometric specifications including a random-effects linear regression model with endogenous sample selection, the results show that microfinance consistently predicts a lower income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient, while traditional finance shows no impact. The findings of this paper draw clear policy implications regarding the role of microfinance as a tool for income equality in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiplier analysis has been used to calculate the sub-national impact of a variety of injections, such as public-sector spending on urban renewal , airport expansion, a university or polytechnic, and private spending on tourism and commercial enterprises such as a paper and pulp mill. Quantification of short-run income-generation effects requires the use of truncated multipliers, which measure the change in incomes resulting from an incomplete multiplier process. The truncated multipliers which are of most direct interest to policy makers are based on time periods, permitting an estimate of the time path of the change in local incomes. Rounds-based truncated multipliers can also be useful since they reveal the relative importance of the different rounds of the multiplier process. The time path of the change in local income resulting from changes in expenditure on activities as diverse as a nuclear power station and a paper and pulp mill can be calculated using a model for estimating truncated multipliers.

An explanation was sought of the different growth of the paper and paperboard industries in regions, of the United States. To that end, a theory of regional demand and supply was formulated. Elasticities of regional production with respect to important supply and demand factors were then calculated by econometric methods, with data for the period 1950-78. These elasticities were used, together with the observed average annual percentage changes of the corresponding variables, to determine the contribution each had on the growth of production. The results indicated that demand was the major factor causing the differences in growth rates. The rapid growth of paper and paperboard production in the regions of the South and West was spurred mostly by high economic and demographic growth in their market area. Supply (cost) factors, and the price of paper substitutes, were found to have played a minor role in comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The view that the investment function is characterized by a stable relationship is subjected to an objective statistical test. The test utilizes a statistic which equals the ratio of the sum of squared residuals of one-period prediction from the k + 1 period to the Tth period to the sum of squared residuals of one period prediction from the k + 1 to the Tth period, where k is the number of estimated coefficients in the model and T is the sample size. The results for the period 1950 to 1976 suggest that the investment function at the macro level and for the pulp and paper products industry, became unstable (at the 10% level) around 1973 while the investment function for the chemicals and allied products industry destabilized about 1966. For the textile mill products industry, the rubber industry and miscellaneous plastics products industry, the results indicate no appreciable (statistically significant) change in the relative importance of the underlying investment determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether China's aid is able to promote the value added exports of the recipient countries based on the fact that the gross export under the traditional accounting system can no longer reflect the current real trade gains of a country. The research results indicate that China's aid can indeed effectively promote the value added exports of the recipient countries. Moreover, this paper used the interaction term between China's foreign exchange reserve and the frequency of U.S. historical foreign aid as the instrumental variable to deal with the endogenous problem. In addition, the heterogeneity test shows that the geographical environment and development level of recipient countries will affect the relationship between China's aid and the value added export of recipient countries. Finally, the mechanism test shows that improving the infrastructure conditions of recipient countries is an important channel for China's aid to promote the value added export of recipient countries. These findings of our research provide both theoretical and empirical evidence for improving the efficiency of foreign aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two widely cited but unpublished working papers, Simar and Wilson (1998) and Zofío and Lovell (1998) proposed an alternative decomposition of the Malmquist Productivity Index, which retained what seemed to be the strongholds of previous proposals with regard to the contribution of technological and efficiency change to productivity change. Namely, a technical change term with regard to the best practice variable returns to scale (VRS) technology, which is to be found in Ray and Desli (1997) and a scale efficiency change term that illustrates a firm's situation with regard to optimal scale (benchmark technology), Färe et al. (1994). Attaining this objective required the introduction of an additional term in the Malmquist Productivity Index decomposition, which would reflect the scale bias of technical change. It is our objective to provide economic rationale for this term within a theory of production context, the existing decompositions and recent articles that further elaborate on this issue. The ideas are illustrated using productivity trends in 17 OECD countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the accelerated development of the digital economy and the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, does digital transformation inevitably improve corporate resilience? Based on measuring the moderation of corporate digital transformation, this paper examines the dynamic relationship between digital transformation and corporate resilience using the theory of new structural economics and double machine learning methods. The results show that the more moderate the digital transformation, the higher the level of corporate resilience. Agency costs, financing constraints, and irrational decision-making bias constitute important influencing mechanisms. Further analysis reveals that the resilience-enhancing effect of moderate digital transformation is more pronounced among corporations with high levels of corporate governance, low levels of information asymmetry, more diverse executive backgrounds and in manufacturing corporates. The relevant findings of this paper provide guidance and decision-making references for promoting the high-quality development of corporates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a panel of European countries, we analyse paper products, sawnwood and wood panels consumption data. With this object, we use a classical demand model where national consumption depends on real GDP and real prices. In contrast to previous panel estimations in the literature, we highlight non-stationarity time series which can lead to spurious regressions. We explicitly take into account the issue by using recent panel cointegration techniques. Cointegration is present for printing paper and fibreboard, though less clear cut for other products. Then we estimate demand elasticities and find that GDP elasticities are significantly lower than estimates from the literature. Finally, we simulate the implications of modified demand elasticities by using a partial equilibrium model of the forest sector. For most products, changes in elasticities would lead to lower projected demand and lower prices over a 20-year time horizon. Lower demand for solid wood and wood fibre would lead to less tensions with fuel wood- and wood-based chemical markets. In a context of rising interest for renewable bio-based products, updated long-term demand models contribute to the analysis of the forest sector’s sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the knowledge spillover effect through industrial correlation in the process of interregional textile industry transfer and its effects on the TFP of China's textile industry. The paper calculates the industrial similarity coefficients of subdivided industries with the textile industry and identifies the related industries of China's textile industry by using the data of China's input-output table and extension tables from 2002 to 2017. Then, the paper defines the industrial correlation spillover as the weighted sum of the indirect R&D investment of one industry from its related industries and constructs a quantitative method to qualify the industrial correlation spillover. Furthermore, the paper makes two empirical analyses on the existence of industrial correlation spillover in the interregional industrial transfer and its effects on productivity using the panel data of two-digit subdivided industries in 30 provinces. The results show that the correlation spillover effect does exist and promotes the interregional textile industry transfer from the eastern coastal region to the central and the northern-coastal regions; the correlation spillover from the related tertiary industries in industrial transfer promotes the TFP of China's textile industry, but the correlation spillover from the related secondary industries impedes the TFP of the textile industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of the COVID-19 pandemic on the herding behaviour across market participants in the Croatian market. The analysis uses daily prices of the Croatian stock index, spanning the period January 2016 to December 2022. The hypothesis of the herding behaviour is tested through the quantile regression approach. The findings document no evidence of herding prior to the pandemic crisis. In contrast, herding is discovered during the COVID-19 period. The paper provides policymakers and investors with valuable information to draw significant measures in their investment portfolio management during crises and pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer geographical proximity is a factor influencing supplier firms' trade-offs when granting customers trade credits. However, the extant literature offers scant empirical evidence on the effect of customer location on supplier firm's trade credit. This paper investigates the impact of major customers' geographical proximity on a supplier firm's trade credit. Using a sample of 5,587 observations of publicly listed Chinese firms between 2007 and 2017, we document a positive relationship between major customers' geographical distance and the supplier firm's trade credit. Moreover, the main results remain robust when changing samples and considering endogeneity problems. This paper also tests two potential channels and identifies the exploring market channel that exists in our sample. Furthermore, the main relation is more pronounced in supplier firms with low financial risk, operating in areas of high marketization, high product development, strong legal environments, and low economic policy uncertainty. This paper extends the existing literature on the economic consequences of customer characteristics on supplier firms to include customer geographic proximity. In addition, this paper sheds light on supply chain risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies a structural decomposition of the input-output tables to investigate the sources of changes in the GDP of China, paying special attention to the import substitution of intermediate inputs. It is argued that the specific way GDP is decomposed in this paper sheds more light on the origin of growth than does the conventional decomposition of GDP by its final demand components. The results of the decomposition show that import substitution of intermediate products, which is an act of de-globalization of trade and a model of industrialization some Asian newly industrializing economies followed decades earlier, also became important in China, but only belatedly: in 2011–2012 and 2013–2014. The phenomenon is found to be significant in the manufacture of (i) computer, electronic and optical products, (ii) chemicals and chemical products, (iii) coke and refined petroleum products, and (iv) basic metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low efficiency of environmental policy implementation is an important issue in China's environmental governance. The Environmental Protection Interview (EPI) policy is an administrative means for the central environmental protection department to urge local governments to earnestly fulfill their environmental protection responsibilities. This paper takes China's EPI policy as a quasi-natural experiment. We use panel data of 261 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2018 as research sample and use spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model to investigate the effect and mechanism of EPI policy on air pollution. The results show that EPI policy can effectively improve air quality, EPI policy has obvious spatial spillover effects. Namely, the EPI policy can not only reduce the local air pollution, but also reduce the air pollution in neighbouring cities. The EPI policy reduces the air pollution in the neighbouring cities within a spatial attenuation boundary of 400 km.The results of mechanism test show that the EPI policy can improve air quality by promoting industrial structure upgrading and technical advancement. Moreover, the pollution reduction effect of EPI is more significant in resource-based cities. The research results of this paper provide important reference for China and other developing countries to improve air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates Lieberman's claim that Chow's money demand data supports the transactions over the asset motive for holding money. The results indicate that permanent income and the long-term interest rate perform best in the long-run specification, whereas current income and the commercial paper rate perform better in the short-run specification. These results appear to conflict, however, if lagged money captures the effects on money demand up to the last period so that other variables measure their effect on money at the margin, then it is not necessarily the case. For example, the results are consistent with the butter stock analysis of Cart and Darby and with a general expectations interpretation of the term structure of interest rates. Thus, the results presented here suggested that Chow's original conclusion emerges unrefuted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing interest in analysing determinants of health status and subjective well-being, existing research has been mainly confined to developed countries' adult population. This paper estimates the effect of physical exercise on the health and happiness of Chinese adolescent. Using a comprehensive database from the China Education Panel Survey (number of observations: 5975), different methodologies, including instrumental variable and propensity score matching approaches, are applied. We find that physical exercise has a significantly positive effect on health. Our results also suggest some evidence of a positive impact of exercise on well-being. This effect is robust to different econometric approaches, exercise participation measurements, and characteristics of students and schools and families. However, exercise benefits become evident even when it is practised with low frequency, i.e. one day per week. Moreover, physical exercise exerts a higher impact on students with poorer health and higher levels of unhappiness. Our results highlight the beneficial impact of political decisions aiming to incentivize physical exercise to improve adolescents' health status in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the effects of federalism on primary-income (before taxes and transfers) inequality. A jurisdiction in a federal system chooses an economic policy for the interests of the jurisdiction, but the policy is determined uniformly at the national level in a unitary system. A jurisdiction with more resources can choose a higher level of public inputs such as productivity-enhancing investment and hence attract more businesses in a federal system, but a jurisdiction in a unitary system cannot. More business activities result in higher incomes, and income inequality is higher in a federal system than in a unitary system. The paper also provides an empirical analysis, and available evidence suggests that primary-income inequality is higher in a federal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates competing approaches to assess the effectiveness of transmission channels for the U.S. monetary policy from 1°Q 1995 to 3°Q 2019. While evaluating the competing approaches, the paper follows wavelet coherence approach providing results in time and frequency domain. The results show how money and credit channels work quite well during low volatile periods generally, whereas they suggest that these channels are less effective during periods of financial turmoil and very low interest rate. However, investment-based channels and the bank-lending channel revisited version show some effects also during periods of instability. In more detail, investment-based channels and the bank-lending channel revisited appear to be the most effective monetary policy transmission mechanisms, while the traditional banking-lending channel seems effective only in low volatile periods. Finally, the results for consumption-based channels and international trade-based channels show the least effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years it has been argued that amortization funds set aside by firms are likely, in the macro context. to make a significant contribution to net investment. In this article the author investigates the sensitivity of the proportion of net investment which can be financed with unwanted amortization funds to changes in the linear amortization assumption. The author considers three models. A model with equal contributions per operation period but with positive interest earnings, a model with growing contributions as well as positive interest earnings and a model with growing contributions, interest earnings and inflation. It has been pointed out in the article that if firms are cautious and on average plan their amortization funds to mature before the death of the relevant machine, the proportion of investment which may be financed with unwanted amortization funds will rise. It has been shown in this paper that there has been a tendency to grossly exaggerate the possible role of unwanted amortization funds in financing net investment.

In this paper, we explore the roles of gender social norms in explaining the gender gap in maths test scores across the entire distribution. Applying generalized quantile regression models, we show that gender-equal cultural norms eliminate the gender gap in maths scores at the top of the distribution. Moreover, this effect is concentrated among students in the higher grade level. An investigation of the underlying mechanisms shows that girls from more gender-equal regions are less likely to hold maths-specific stereotypes and are likely to receive more attention from maths teachers. Additionally, girls from more gender-equal regions tend to perceive that parents have higher educational aspirations for them and are more confident about their future. Our paper provides compelling evidence that policy initiatives aiming at fostering egalitarian gender norms could serve as powerful tools to alleviate the gender gap in maths at the top of the distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present work is to focus on the increased number of criminal crimes from the perspective of the rising housing price in China. Based on the theory of crime economics, the article analyzed the direct and indirect influence channel through which the housing prices may have impacts on criminal crimes. The paper collected the panel data of 27 province-level regions in China from 2004 to 2017 and verified the hypotheses by using fixed effect model, mediating effect model and spatial Dubin model. Our study offered the following conclusions: 1. The rise in housing price is a generative impetus for the frequent occurrence of the criminal offenses. 2. Consumption gap serves as the mediating variable between housing price and criminal crime. 3. There is a spatial correlation between housing price and criminal crime in China. Finally, the paper proposed relevant suggestions based on the above conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the transmission mechanism between wages and prices in the euro area. While labour costs account for notable parts of companies' costs and should, hence, be of relevance for the developments in inflation, the empirical literature suggests only a loose link between the variables. From a theoretical perspective there are at least two broad categories of channels of how labour costs and prices can be linked, namely the supply-side channel of cost push inflation and the demand-side channel of demand pull inflation. This paper develops a BVAR model for the wage-price pass-through in the euro area and analyses how supply and demand shocks that trigger these two types of inflation are transmitted between wages and prices along the cost side of the economy. The main results can be summarized as follows: First, the wage-price pass-through in the euro area is shock-dependent. Second, the pass-through of wages to prices appears to have undergone some changes over time. Third, the pass-through appears to differ across HICP components. Finally, historical decompositions show that the identified shocks are of relevance for the movements of wages and prices in the euro area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies short-term sensitivity between exchange market pressure and various domestic and external factors in primary commodity-exporting emerging markets. The paper focuses on the top country-commodity groups in sugar, cereal, fuels, ores and coffee during the pre-peak and post-peak commodity price periods across floating and pegged exchange rate regimes, using the price of crude oil as a general benchmark. Employing a panel model and panel VAR analysis, the paper finds the heterogeneity of response patterns unique to country-commodity groups and exchange rate regimes. According to the results, in flexible regimes, volatility occurs via the foreign exchange market, interest rates, and domestic credit cycles, feeding into the social costs for structurally weaker economies. Hard exchange-rate pegs often result in a drain on international reserves as the terms of trade deteriorate following post-price peaks, leading to unpopular depreciation. These results accentuate concerns over uneven international trade patterns, an open economy's short-term foreign exchange policy, and speculative capital flows. Such sensitivity has broad implications for macroeconomic balance and the sustainability of implied exchange rate targets in the presence of a foreign exchange constraint across emerging markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the role of good governance in fostering pro-poor and inclusive growth. Using a sample of 112 countries over 1975-2012, it shows that growth is generally pro-poor. However, growth has not been inclusive, as illustrated by a decline in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution. While all features of good governance support income growth and reduce poverty, only government effectiveness and the rule of law are found to enhance inclusive growth. The investigation of the determinants of pro-poor and inclusive growth highlights that education, infrastructure improvement, and financial development are the key factors in poverty reduction and inclusive growth. Relying on the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model, the paper identifies a nonlinear relationship between governance and pro-poor growth, while the impact of governance on inclusive growth appears to be linear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper embeds the analysis of fiscal redistribution (FR) within the standard social welfare framework (SWF), which lends itself to a transparent and practical evaluation of the determinants of FR. Differences in FR are decomposed into differences in fiscal effort (the magnitude of redistributive transfers) and in fiscal progressivity (the distribution of net transfers across different income groups). Progressivity is further decomposed into targeting performance (the share of net transfers accruing to lower-income groups) and targeting returns (the social returns to targeting due to differences in the initial income inequality). This highlights the possibility that countries with the exact same redistributive effort (fiscal effort and targeting performance) can have very different levels of FR simply because they have very different levels of initial income inequality. High levels of FR in a country may therefore reflect that it has 'more to do' (high initial inequality) as opposed to it 'doing more'. To illustrate, the paper decomposes differences in FR across 28 EU countries to isolate the importance of initial income inequality in explaining these differences. It also shows how the SWF can be straightforwardly used to test for the existence of the Paradox of Redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the role of gender of the household decision maker in the housing decisions of married-couple families. Using data across urban China from the China Labour-force Dynamic Survey during 2012–2016, the paper shows that married-couple families with female decision makers have higher rates of homeownership. We infer that housing provides more psychological and financial security for women than men. In addition, female decision makers tend to buy smaller houses and have higher returns on housing assets, which could be caused by the fact that female decision makers are more concerned about the members of their nuclear family, especially their kids. The main results are robust to control for the effects of the socioeconomic status of household members. These findings aid in understanding the role of gender in the housing market and offer guidance for better policies to boost a more efficient housing supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]