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Questions surrounding the labour wedge and the tax wedge in the United States are complicated by the fact that, historically, there is a lack of coherent relationship between the series of hours worked (based on standard measurements) and that of the tax wedge. This has been cited as grounds for discounting the tax wedge as a viable explanation for the behaviour of the labour wedge. In this paper, I explore an alternative measurement of labour hours in the United States in a bid to clear up some of the morass surrounding the tax wedge and hours worked. In the process, I show that, the labour wedge is rather more aligned with available labour hours over the business cycle than it does actual hours worked. Moreover, cyclical properties of the available hours series, however puzzling, are explained by the presence of a government transfer scheme which I introduce in the household side of the market. Also, the presence of the transfer scheme alters the marginal rate of substitution (MRS) between consumption and leisure, and by doing so, reverses the cyclical properties of the tax wedge. This puts the tax wedge in alignment with the labour wedge over the business cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an accessible discussion of graphical causal models and how such a framework can be used to help identify causal relations. A graphical causal model represents a researcher's qualitative assumptions. As a result of the credibility revolution, there is growing interest to properly estimate cause-and-effect relationships. Using several examples, we illustrate how graphical models can and cannot be used to identify causation from observational data. Further, we offer a replication of a previous study that explored college enrolment by high school seniors who were eligible for student aid. From the original study, we use a graphical causal model to motivate the quantitative and qualitative modelling assumptions. Using a similar difference-in-difference approach based on propensity score matching, we estimate a smaller average treatment effect than the original study. The smaller estimated effect arguably stems from the graphical causal model's delineation of the original model specification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the association of managerial ability (MA) with efficiency in working-capital management (WCM) of firms. Using a large sample of 1,14,173 firm-year observations between 1988 and 2018 in the US, we show a negative contemporaneous relationship between MA and efficiency of WCM, indicating that more able managers manifest higher WCM efficiency and thereby affect firm performance positively through a mediating channel of WCM. Further, we show that this association is non-linear in nature with managers focusing more on long-term value-enhancing projects for the firm beyond a threshold MA level, having already attained the optimal efficiency in WCM. The results remain robust after a series of robustness tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different views of corruption are discussed in the literature, ranging from theories highlighting a positive role of corruption (to 'grease the wheels' of an economy) to negative (acting as 'sand in the wheels') or even destructive effects of corruption on economic outcomes. The empirical evidence in this context is mixed, with alternative theories being supported by different studies, typically relying on different data sources, time periods, and measures of corruption. In this paper, we assess several alternative views of corruption simultaneously in a single empirical framework. Specifically, we test six prominent hypotheses regarding the role of corruption for government revenues using a comprehensive country-level panel dataset covering 194 countries in the period 1996–2019. Our results help to shed light on the factors that are empirically important in explaining the link between corruption and government revenues, including the role of governance, autocracy, fragile states, and natural resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour productivity growth in the construction sector has been very weak in recent decades in most OECD countries. This paper addresses this issue based on a panel of 23 countries over the period 1995–2015. First, we use the Ackerberg, Caves, and Frazer (2015) method to propose a multifactor explanation for this lack of productivity growth: (i) average TFP growth is close to zero and even negative for most countries; (ii) average contributions to growth of capital and intermediate inputs are positive but weak, respectively of 0.05% and 0.90% per year, and much smaller than in the manufacturing sector over the same period (respectively of 0.40% and 3.10% per year). Then, we investigate whether reforms of regulations specific to the construction sector might boost productivity there. Using regulation indicators from the 'Doing Business Report', we find a negative impact of these regulations on TFP, but not on the intensities of capital and intermediate inputs. Our results suggest that reducing the construction sector regulations might bolster productivity: a switch to the lightest regulations would lead to a long-term TFP increase of 6% on average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small businesses often face a high risk of bankruptcy and harsh financing conditions, which can hamper them from engaging in innovation. This paper investigates whether a bankruptcy system that guarantees a good recovery rate for creditors in case of firms' liquidation stimulates small businesses' innovation investments through lower interest rates and therefore easier access to credit. With the help of a borrower-lender model, we derive insights about the interactions between bankruptcy recovery rate, borrowing interest rates and firms' investments in innovation. The model gives theoretical underpinnings for a subsequent empirical analysis. By using a cross-country sample of micro (1–9 employees)-, small (10–49 employees)-, and medium (50–249 employees)-sized enterprises (MSMEs), our study provides three main results. It shows that an increase in the bankruptcy recovery rate a) is positively associated to MSMEs' investments in innovation (investment effect); b) reduces the share of MSMEs that are credit constrained because the cost of borrowing is too high (constraint effect); c) reduces the interest rates dispersion for highly profitable MSMEs (dispersion effect). Overall, our findings suggest that improving creditors recovery rate can help promote the innovative behaviour of small businesses through easier financing conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact on polluting emissions as a result of manufacturing industries in China offering services as well as products. We merge detailed firm-level statistics covering 2000 to 2011, and use two-way linear fixed effects regression to control for firm and year heterogeneities and a host of control variables. The empirical results show that manufacturing servitization significantly reduces the emission intensity of firms. This effect is achieved by improving the total factor productivity of firms, optimizing the efficiency of energy use, and increasing the share of the highly-skilled labour force. Moreover, the emission reduction effect of manufacturing servitization is more profound in the eastern and central regions, pollution-intensive industries, non-state-owned firms, and processing trade firms. In addition, our extended analysis shows that the emission reduction effects of manufacturing servitization can be strengthened through trade liberalization and cohort study. The major policy implication is that governments should undertake industrial policies that reinforce the positive effects of manufacturing servitization in order to achieve win-win outcomes in manufacturing upgrading and environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the heterogeneous influence of economic networks on urban economic resilience capacity from different network characteristics, providing an innovative research perspective and theoretical framework for the economic resilience capacity of urban clusters. The urban economic elasticity is measured by multiple indicators and constructed economic network using night light data, the complex network approach was combined with spatial econometrics to analyse the contribution of economic network linkages and economic network locations to regional economic resilience capacity. The results show that: urban economic network linkage has a significant positive impact on urban economic resilience capacity, and the polycentric pattern of urban clusters has a driving effect on this impact; in contrast, the influence of urban network location on economic resilience capacity has an inverted u-shaped curve. Compared with non-smart cities, regions in smart cities are better able to promote urban economic resilience capacity through economic networks, and the impact of economic networks on regional economic resilience capacity has network external spillover effects beyond geographical distance, The results of the study infer that cities in urban agglomeration should rationalize network locations, and build a coordinated urban agglomeration network structure to enhance economic resilience capacity of the regional economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revealing regional differences and evolutionary patterns is a crucial component of studying digital trade development. This paper constructs an evaluation index system for digital trade development and assesses the level of digital trade development in mainland China of 30 provinces from 2013 to 2020. Using methods such as Dagum Gini coefficient, this study investigates the differences in regional development and the spatial dynamic evolution of digital trade development. The findings indicate that (1) while the overall level of digital trade in China is increasing, it manifests unbalanced growth. Additionally, inter-regional difference, as opposed to intra-regional difference, account for the primary source of digital trade development difference, contributing an annual average of 71.699%. (2) The kernel density distribution of digital trade is gradually narrowing. The absolute difference in the level of digital trade development between China and the four regions (east, central, west, and northeast) is progressively diminishing over time. (3) The Moran's I index is positive, indicating a strong spatial correlation among digital trade development. In the eastern and western regions, there are 'high-high' and 'low-low' clusters between adjacent provinces; the dynamic transfer of digital trade levels occurs between provinces of adjacent levels, demonstrating the positive effect of proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between three determinants – environmental patents, environmental taxation and trade globalization – and the environmental-economic efficiency of 29 OECD countries between 2005 and 2020. Using the Global Malmquist-Luenberger index, this research computes the environmental productivity growth and its main drivers – the catch-up and the frontier shift terms. Besides, dynamic panel linear models are applied to investigate how the three institutional variables affect the dynamics of the computed efficiency indices. Results are as follows: firstly, eco-innovation is the most relevant factor in boosting the environmental productivity growth, pushing forward the technological frontier, and spurring the catch-up term. Secondly, environmental taxation is an ineffective policy instrument in promoting the sustainable growth and technological frontier advancements, having positive impacts only on the catch-up term. Thirdly, trade globalization reveals to hinder the sustainable growth and its two main drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the interaction between corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and corporate financial performance (CFP). Moreover, the moderating effect of environmental regulation and internal control on this relationship is also examined. Based on the panel data of 790 China's A-shares listed companies of heavily polluting industries from 2006 to 2019, the results show that while CFP has a significant positive impact on CER, the positive impact of CER on CFP is not significant. Further analysis reveals that environmental regulation plays a positive moderating role in the impact of CFP on CER, and the positive impact of CER on CFP become significant in higher internal control quality firms. The results indicate that good environmental performance is a consequence of earlier good financial performance, and the costs of implementing sustainable and responsible projects are not always offset by revenues sufficient to generate increases in profit. Our findings suggest that firms should improve the quality of internal control and government should increase environmental supervision to achieve a virtuous circle connecting CER and CFP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is nearly 40 years since an earlier survey on the use of distributional weights in Cost-Benefitcost–benefit analysis was first published. Since then, a number of significant contributions have been made in the literature. It is therefore timely to revisit the issue by focusing on the key reasons why distributional weights are so necessary. We present a new justification for using unequal income distributional weights in CBA, and and reaffirm a completely neglected reason for adopting distribution weights. We derive the weights from a formulation of the SWF. We specify the minimum value judgmentsjudgements for the SWF that everyone can agree on who accepts the fundamentals of welfare economics. As many CBA practitioners have ignored using distribution weights, inadequate attention has been given to how they can be estimated. The final objective of this paper is to highlight the main methods for estimating these weights, and and to present applications of these methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The winner's curse describes the behavioural phenomenon that the winner of a bidding contest pays a price that is too high. This paper shows that experiential learning cannot prevent a winner's curse on the market of corporate control as acquiring firms with acquisition experience still pay a higher price for the target in a bidding contest. Acquisition experience, however, is related to a superior post-acquisition performance of the winning firm after acquisitions associated with a bidding contest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the causal effect of regional market integration on firm productivity through the use of 2001–2008 firm-level microdata in China. The research design relies on a regression discontinuity design based on China's Pan-Pearl River Delta (PPRD) regional cooperation policy. The results indicate that the PPRD regional cooperation policy increases the total factor productivity (TFP) of firms by 6% on average. The positive impact of the PPRD regional cooperation policy on TFP is greater for private firms, large firms, and labour-intensive firms. Exploring the mechanism through which regional cooperation increases firm TFP, we find that the PPRD regional cooperation policy improves firms' productivity primarily by expanding the scale of firms, promoting technological innovation, and optimizing the allocation of factors. The study findings deepen our understanding of productivity improvement from the perspective of the market environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a global soybean trade network (GSTN) is constructed based on the international trade data from 1987 to 2020. The results are as follow: (1) From 1987 to 2020, the scale of the network continued to expand, the number of trading countries continued to increase, and the trade links between countries gradually deepened. (2) The power function curve of the node degree distribution shows that the GSTN satisfies the power law distribution, which fits to be a scale-free network. (3) The global soybean export market is highly concentrated. The United States, Brazil and Argentina account for more than 80% of global soybean exports. China is the world's largest soybean importer. (4) The control ability of core countries in the GSTN has gradually declined, which is shown from that the importance of nodes has gradually weakened, while the trade between peripheral countries is gradually increasing, showing the phenomenon of trade multilateralism. (5) South America has become the global soybean export centre, and Asia has become the global soybean import centre. The trade status of North America has declined, and the overall strength of Africa and Oceania is the weakest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to address debate in previous studies on whether AI has a positive or negative effect on carbon emission reduction. We used quantile regression and PSTR models to study the diverse impacts of AI on carbon emissions in 66 countries from 1993–2019. There were three main findings in this paper. First, the impact of AI on carbon emissions varies across countries, and its effect on carbon reduction is mainly found in high-carbon emission and high-income countries. Second, the industrial structure environment of different countries affects the role of AI in carbon reduction, with its marginal effect in limiting emissions decreasing with the rise of secondary industrial structures. Third, the impact of AI varies in countries based on their different demographic structures. The marginal effect of AI on carbon emission reduction increases in places with older populations. This study offers unique insight into the heterogeneous impact of AI on CO2 emissions. Our analysis confirms the importance of industrial and demographic structures in promoting carbon emission reduction. We provide effective policy recommendations for economic development and environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of smartphone trading on investor attention allocation. We find a positive connection between smartphone trading ratio and return comovement. Smartphone traders relatively pay less attention to firm-specific information and more to information at the market level than computer-based traders. The impact of smartphone trading is positively correlated to the Internet searching level but negatively correlated to social media discussion intensity and analyst following. We also show that market boom and crush would increase the effect of smartphone trading on attention allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore whether the adaptive markets hypothesis (AMH) describes the efficiency of the Finnish stock market better than the efficient markets hypothesis (EMH) does. Building on this, we also test how small market size and market liberalization impact the efficiency of the Finnish stock market and examine the relationship between market volatility and return in this market. We conduct this study by applying the subsample analysis and the rolling window analysis to the daily returns of the OMXH25 index and by measuring the efficiency through three linear and two nonlinear predictability tests. The results of our study strongly support the AMH. They also suggest that small market size alone does not make a market less efficient; opening a market to foreign investors improves its efficiency after a delay; and the correlation between market volatility and return varies over time in the Finnish stock market, being usually negative. These findings mostly contradict the traditional investment paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how financial inclusion affects credit risk in the MENA region. It also checks whether board characteristics can moderate this relationship. We use a sample of MENA banks from 2004 to 2017 and perform the system generalized method of moment approach. Through the usage and access dimensions, we find that financial inclusion reduces the level of non-performing loans. These results are robust using an index of financial inclusion. For board characteristics, findings indicate that only board size, duality, and independent directors significantly affect the level of NPLs. Our findings prove that MENA banks benefit from an interaction between greater financial inclusion and board characteristics. These insights are consistent with theorists and scholars who are working on each dimension separately. As an extension of their work, we find that the interaction significantly affects the NPLs ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an empirical investigation on the determinants of workplace accidents across Europe and focuses on the extent to which production-system characteristics (employment sectoral risk, size of firms, temporary contracts), business cycle and socio-economic factors (GDP, level of investments, unemployment, education) and other territorial controls (crime index) might account for cross-country heterogeneity. We use Eurostat data, and our panel is composed of 27 European countries over the period 2010–2018. Implementing different functional forms and estimation methodologies (pooled OLS, panel fixed and random effects models, system-GMM and semiparametric fixed effects model), we find robust evidence that productive-system structural characteristics, business cycle controls and the other territorial variables are effective in explaining European cross-country heterogeneity. Moreover, we find evidence of a nonlinear relationship between GDP and occupational accidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local bias and home bias are conventional phenomena in the financial market. This paper examines whether local bias and home bias exist in virtual loan transactions on the debt-based crowdfunding marketplace. Using loan-level and lender-level transaction data from a large crowdfunding marketplace in China and employing a potential-dyad approach, we find that lenders are more likely to invest in local borrowers rather than in their hometown borrowers, indicating that local bias exists in this virtual marketplace rather than home bias. More interestingly, the local bias is more pronounced for local lenders whose work area and hometown are the same than for moving lenders who leave their hometowns. Furthermore, lenders' local bias is more pronounced if lenders (borrowers) are from more trust-propensity (trustworthy) regions. Finally, we find that lending to local borrowers cannot significantly increase the welfare of lenders. Various specifications, alternative dependent variables, and alternative potential-dyad sets show that our empirical-based results are robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analysing comprehensive firm data from 1999 to 2013 categorized by zip code, we find that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) companies consistently received more local government subsidies in China. When comparing FDI within the same county and year, it becomes evident that FDI creates positive growth and productivity spillovers for other businesses in the same zip code. Furthermore, there is additional evidence to support the amenities channel as a possible productivity spillover channel. This paper makes a significant contribution to the debate regarding FDI's spillover effects at a disaggregated level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has had colossal repercussions for all economic agents including households, corporations, and governments worldwide. Each economic agent responded in their own way to mitigate or at least diminish the scale of that impact. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) also countered the COVID-19 pandemic to their highest capacity despite being more vulnerable to crises. Many SMEs experienced shutdowns or declared bankruptcy due to the ineptitude and lack of financial resources or effective strategic response to cope with this unprecedented shock. In this paper, we assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic coping strategies such as adjusting the process and product, shifting business activity online, and remote working arrangements on SMEs' access to finance. Using the World Bank's COVID-19 impact survey data collected between 2020 and mid-2021 from 42 countries, we find that better strategies adopted by SMEs increase their likelihood of getting new credit from government and commercial banks. The results remain robust to alternative test settings. Our findings offer significant and timely contributions to SMEs' access to finance and to the practicing managers on adopting and adjusting strategies in response to crises or disruptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the financial markets of many countries have been impacted severely. In this context, based on the event study method and orthogonal decomposition method, this paper studies the impact of the novel coronavirus epidemic on the spillover effect of global financial risk, and further analyses the financial risk transmission channels of various countries. The results suggest that the novel coronavirus significantly increases the overall risk level of global financial markets, and exacerbates the contagion effects of financial risk through the global risk spillover network. In addition, the analysis of transmission channels reveals the source and direction of the financial risks in each country, manifesting as the unidirectional risk transmissions from developed countries to developing countries and the bidirectional risk contagion paths of countries with similar level of development. Therefore, facing the challenges of public health emergencies such as novel coronavirus epidemic, the major economies should strengthen multilateral cooperation and promote the coordination of macroeconomic policies to jointly defuse global systemic financial risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of whether self-esteem affects women's intra-household bargaining power by using the National Survey on Women's Social Status of China (NSWSS). While providing a conceptual framework, the study employs econometric models to show that self-esteem positively affects women's intra-household bargaining power. The analyses, using an instrument-variable approach, and using different indicators of household bargaining power, further collaborate the robustness of our conclusion. Overall, the empirical study provides important insights on future academic research and policy measures in women's empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the new generation of information technology represented by the Internet has swept the world, driving a new round of scientific and technological revolution as well as industrial transformation. In this context, an in-depth discussion of the relationship between Internet development and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is of great significance for promoting the high-quality development of the economy. Based on 2006 to 2020 annual reports of listed manufacturing enterprises in China, this paper takes resource allocation into the analysis framework of the impact of Internet development on manufacturing TFP to analyse the internal mechanism. The conclusions reveal that Internet development has not only a direct positive effect on manufacturing TFP but also a significant indirect promoting effect on manufacturing TFP by improving resource allocation efficiency. The resource allocation effect of Internet development on manufacturing TFP is mainly realized through the improvement of the allocation of labour factors. Furthermore, resource allocation can strengthen the nonlinear spillover effects of Internet development on manufacturing TFP. Therefore, enough attention should be paid to the improvement of resource allocation in the process of relying on Internet development to improve manufacturing TFP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) are playing an increasingly crucial role in the current international trade pattern of ebbing globalization, making it increasingly important to comprehensively analyse RTAs' impacts. Trade creation and trade diversion have been hot-button topics on RTAs since Jacob Viner raised, many scholars had conducted extensive research on their economic impacts, but little is known about their environmental impacts. In this paper, we take the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) as an example, comprehensively consider the tariff, geographic and temporal dimensions of trade to characterize the proxy variables that identify the two effects. Based on data of Chinese enterprises from 2002 to 2007, we empirically tests the impact of the trade effects on energy-related carbon emissions of enterprises from a fixed-effects panel model. Research finds the trade creation effect increases enterprises' $${\rm{C}}{{\rm{O}}_2}$$ C O 2 emissions intensity, whereas the trade diversion effect reduces and is more influential. Further mechanism analyses show coal use status of enterprises, especially coal consumption, utilization intensity, and share in primary energy consumption are important influence channels. Additionally, the scale and factors composition of production and technical efficiency are also important mechanisms. Furthermore, enterprises in different regions and of different ownership types show heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overnight money market rate is a key monetary policy tool. In recent years, central banks worldwide have developed new monetary policy strategies aimed at keeping its deviations from the policy rate small and short-lived. This paper describes the main instruments used for this purpose by the US Fed, the ECB and the BoE and also their policy responses to the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). Fractional integration and long-memory methods are then applied to investigate how those affected the persistence of policy spreads (i.e. the difference between overnight rates and policy rates) during different sub-periods. It is found that this increased sharply during the GFC but has fallen back in recent years. In the case of the ECB the introduction of the new €-STR benchmark in particular appears to have made monetary policy more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses whether the Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), which tracks the value of Bitcoin, improves equity portfolios, by using a robust portfolio performance analysis. The equity portfolio is represented by an ETF that tracks the Standard & Poor's 500. We use data from a turbulent investment period within the coronavirus pandemic, to study the diversification benefits of Bitcoin. We compare the performances of diverse portfolios composed of both ETFs, which include 40 classical dynamic volatility model-based portfolios and 900 score-driven portfolios. For the score-driven portfolios, the dynamic association is modelled by score-driven Clayton, rotated Clayton, Gumbel, rotated Gumbel and Student's t copulas. We compare portfolio strategies using the model confidence set test. We find that score-driven portfolios outperform classical volatility model-based portfolios and the equity portfolio. Our results may provide suggestions for cryptocurrency investors on portfolio optimization and may also have policy implications for regulators and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the 'national team', a direct government investment policy, influences the price efficiency of listed companies in the Shanghai Stock Index (SSE). We find that stocks directly invested in by the national team show greater price efficiency than stocks without direct bailout. We also analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this price efficiency differentiation. The data period is divided into two sub-periods, and the results show that the price efficiency of stocks decreased after COVID-19. The reduction in price efficiency is more notable for stocks with direct government investment; the difference observed under national team investment in price efficiency is clearly reduced. Increased pessimistic investor expectations due to the pandemic could explain these changes. Our study provides novel evidence for the policy evaluation of national team intervention and a more detailed explanation about the decrease in financial market efficiency in the post-COVID-19 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to find the determinants of productivity growth and its evolution over time for 27 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries over the period 2010–2017, with respect to the Global Peace Index. To this end, a production function was estimated for each year using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology while the components of efficiency change, technical change, scale efficiency change and productivity change were calculated using the Malmquist Index for determining the change in productivity over time. According to the results obtained, the countries show a variation in productivity with a rising trend of 2%; Albania, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Montenegro, Slovenia, Norway and the United Kingdom being the countries where the rise was more intense. Moreover, relative productivity fell in 11 other countries in the period under review. In particular, with regard to efficiency change, the countries improved on average by 0.2%, with Portugal showing the greatest rise and France the smallest. Regarding technical change, it rose on average by 5.2%. Finally, scale efficiency fell on average by 3.3%, with Romania being the most disadvantaged and Portugal the most favoured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the literature shows that stricter environmental regulations deter exports and inward foreign direct investment (FDI), few studies examine the impacts on outward FDI, especially for developing countries. In this paper, we analyse this issue in the context of China, which is the largest developing country in terms of FDI. We collect the transaction-level data of all the overseas mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by Chinese firms from 2000 to 2019. For the identification of the causal effect, we exploit the implementation of the Environmental Protection Law in 2015 as a quasi-natural experiment and carry out the difference-in-difference-in-differences analysis (DDD). The results show significant impacts of stricter environmental regulations on outward FDI. When the provincial emission reduction target increases by 10% points, the number of overseas M&A transactions in the high-polluting industries has increased by 32 every year since 2015. Moreover, the investments are more likely towards countries with better environmental protection. This suggests that firms aim at gaining cleaner technologies via M&As rather than transferring pollution abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of armed conflict on the tendency and value of investments in farm inputs. We further investigate whether unconditional cash transfers could stimulate investments in inputs under the context of armed conflict. Using panel data collected in 2014 and 2016 in Mali, we combine the control function approach with the correlated random effect model to address the time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity in non-linear context and the endogeneity problem of conflict variable. We take advantage of the randomized rollout of a national cash transfer program to investigate if there is any differential impact on farm inputs. We find that conflict has a negative and statistically significant impact on the tendency to use and the value of investments on fertilizers, pesticides and machinery. Interestingly, we find a statistically insignificant impact of the cash transfers on farm input investments. From a policy perspective, productive capacities of households cannot be restored by the cash transfers. Rather, a recovery of markets' operations through the re-establishment of security is a more effective policy measure to increase investments in farm inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to empirically assess the effectiveness of training services on borrowers' repayment performance in a leading microfinance institution in Tunisia. The two training services analysed are financial education and entrepreneurial coaching. Financial education as basic capital management training does not impact repayment performance. On the other hand, coaching programs to strengthen the technical, managerial, and marketing skills of microentrepreneurs significantly improve repayment performance. These results are obtained through an ordered probit model with endogenous treatment accounting for selection bias and endogeneity problems arising from unobservable factors that influence both the use of training services and repayment quality. These results remain significant after restructuring the sample into more homogeneous borrowers' groups and confirm the hypotheses of the human capital theory. The determinants of training services are also explored. The findings confirm the importance of integrated microfinance strategies, especially in remote rural areas. Combining microcredit with coaching will empower the poor to foster their entrepreneurial skills, productivity, and thus their repayment ability. This study sheds more light on how microfinance institutions can improve their programs in developing countries, which often suffer from a lack of technical and vocational training, the main handicap for transitioning young people to the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a comprehensive dataset, this paper estimates a hazard model to examine whether central bank independence matters for the sustainability of fixed exchange rate regimes. The findings suggest that fixed exchange rate regimes are more likely to have a longer duration under more independent central banks; a result that holds true whether an exit from such a regime is orderly or disorderly. Thus, a more independent central bank is more likely to facilitate a more durable fixed exchange rate regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper examines the causes of falling labour share in OECD and non-OECD countries since the 1980s by using Karabarbounis and Neiman's (2014) labour share model. While both groups of countries experience an elasticity of substitution between capital and labour, the factors driving down labour share are different. In OECD countries, export and volatility are key drivers, but in non-OECD countries, the significant factors are financial openness and the capital's relative price. Overall, technological advancement – as reflected by declining capital's relative price – coupled with globalization and low economic risk are key factors in explaining a long-term decline of labour share worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between ESG performance and equity returns has become a popular area of research, but the same is not yet the case for bond returns. In this paper, we explore whether incorporating ESG factors, beyond emissions into the bond portfolio investment process leads to under or out performance. We find that ESG investing in bond portfolios does not lead to over or under performance. In other words, you do not have to 'pay to do good'. Further, in the period since the Paris agreement, Energy sector bond portfolio returns are positively related to ESG factors. This finding aligns with the theoretical prediction of Pedersen, Fitzgibbons, and Pomorski (2020), namely, that the ESG-return relationship should become positive as investors become more aware of ESG risks and opportunities. Overall, we show that Bond investors can 'do well while doing good'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, a number of non-pharmacological interventions for dementia symptoms were evaluated using cost–benefit analysis (CBA) and found to be both effective and socially worthwhile. What is missing is a comparison of evaluations for these interventions with pharmaceutical interventions approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to see which interventions should be given priority in public expenditure budgets aiming to reduce dementia symptoms. This paper fills this knowledge gap by carrying out a CBA of FDA-approved medications using a large national data set provided by the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC). We find that the pharmaceutical medications were actually counterproductive, and therefore social welfare would be substantially improved by not investing in these medications. This therefore means that non-pharmaceutical interventions should be given higher priority at this time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bourbon whisky is one of the world's most popular spirits and is a vital component of U.S. spirits exports. Yet, very limited research has examined the trade patterns of U.S. bourbon whisky. The purposes of this paper lie in (i) filling a void in the literature about the driving forces behind U.S. bourbon whisky exports, especially justifying the impact of geographical indications and trade disputes, and (ii) examining global and regional trade efficiency and trade potential of U.S. bourbon whisky, considering consumer preferences. This study adopts the stochastic frontier gravity model and trade inefficiency model to analyze bourbon trade patterns between the U.S. and its primary bourbon trade partners over 1990–2019. Results reveal that economic size, income level, trade facilitation, common language and the weighted share of adults who drink in the importing country are important factors in boosting bourbon trade flows. As expected, U.S. bourbon's geographical indication is playing a significant role in boosting bourbon exports. Trade disputes between the U.S. and its trading partners are found to have significantly negative impacts on U.S. bourbon exports. Our research also reveals that U.S. bourbon whisky has great potential to reach markets throughout the world, particularly in Europe, North America and Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the SIS epidemic model into a production-based economy. We study the asset pricing implications of the interaction between COVID-19's shock and mitigation policy for the production economy. The mitigation policy could hinder the consumption, while it will prompt an investment slump. The results indicate some trade-offs between mitigating the transmission of the pandemic and economic output varying with different uncertainty of the pandemic. Notably, the risk premium and growth of capital value present an inverse hump-shape with the infection rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether regional innovation policy can stimulate firms' indigenous innovation is an essential issue of common concern for policymakers and scholars. Treating the pilot project of innovative cities as a quasi-natural experiment and using firm-level data from 2006 to 2013, this paper employs the difference-in-differences method to quantify the influence of innovative cities' policy on enterprise indigenous innovation. We found that the innovative city pilot policy significantly stimulates firms' indigenous innovation and this impact is heterogeneous at the industry and firm levels. In terms of industry heterogeneity, the innovative city pilot policy increases the number of patent filings in industries with high capital intensity; in terms of firm heterogeneity, the innovative city pilot policy stimulates the number of patent filings in both large and non-SOE enterprises. This policy mainly promotes high-quality indigenous innovation in firms. The test of the impact mechanism reveals that government subsidy and market competition are critical paths through which innovation city pilot policy influence enterprises' indigenous innovation activities. The research in this paper reveals the micro effects of regional innovation policy and points out the direction for further promoting innovation city pilot work and formulating regional innovation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper probes into the market efficiency and relevant issues of copper options, the first industrial options product launched in China and currently the only non-ferrous metals option. Since its listing on 21 September 2018, the copper options market, developing on the fast track, has become the largest copper options market in the world, and thus it is of important meaning to study its market efficiency. Taking the data of China's copper options market from its debut to 30 April 2022 as a sample, this paper studies the efficiency of this market using three typical risk-free arbitrages such as put-call-future parity arbitrage, box spread arbitrage, and boundary arbitrage strategies. To better reflect the actual situation, this paper, when establishing options arbitrage strategy models, not only took into account various actual trading factors such as transaction costs, market impact costs, liquidity costs, margin, and capital opportunity costs but also combined daily and high-frequency data to present highly practical arbitrage strategies. According to empirical results, there are few arbitrage opportunities with a very low proportion when actual trading factors were considered. Overall, no evidence was found to prove that China's copper options market significantly violates the market efficiency rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) reflects more information related to exchange rate volatility than traditional macroeconomic variables do, and thus may have stronger predictive power in forecasting exchange rate volatility. Based on data from developed and developing economies (including Japan, the United Kingdom, the Euro Area, Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, and China), this paper provides in- and out-of-sample evidence that the EPU differential between two economies outperforms several macroeconomic predictors (for example, GDP growth and volatility of inflation growth) in forecasting exchange rate volatility, which is also supported by a Monte Carlo experiment. Moreover, the mechanism analysis shows that increased EPU differential is associated with increased foreign exchange trading activities and reduced bilateral trade, which helps explain the predictive power of EPU for exchange rate volatility. Furthermore, we find that EPU can predict both long- and short-run components of exchange rate volatility. Our main findings are robust after using alternative empirical proxies or controlling for endogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the investment decisions of Indian equity mutual funds during various stages of the COVID-19 pandemic with monthly portfolio holdings. We find that funds favoured firms with lower risk, higher financial flexibility, and larger size during the early months of the pandemic. The preference for relatively low-risk firms, which reverses later, suggests a reallocation towards safer assets. Funds also preferred growth firms to value firms as the latter with greater invested capital are more vulnerable to the shock. Institutional investors also favoured group-affiliated firms throughout, reflecting their lower crisis vulnerability. We find that the stocks preferred by funds during the pandemic outperform others in the long run. The paper brings out key firm characteristics that impact mutual fund asset allocation during extreme uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a multi-period difference-in-difference model is constructed to investigate the impact of network infrastructure on enterprise digital transformation. The results show that network infrastructure has effectively promoted the digital transformation of enterprises. Meanwhile, as the scale of network infrastructure construction expands, the role of network infrastructure in promoting enterprise digital transformation will be enhanced. Based on the mechanism analysis, network infrastructure promotes enterprise digital transformation through two channels: easing corporate financing constraints and improving core technical capabilities. Furthermore, the role of network infrastructure in enterprise digital transformation is not invariable, the effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, growth enterprises, manufacturing enterprises, and enterprises located in developed cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses how the influx of skilled and unskilled refugees affects the technological-knowledge-bias and, consequently, the skill premium in host communities, looking in particular at the case of Poland following the war in Ukraine. We use a dynamic endogenous R&D general equilibrium model, in which labour endowments are related to the direction (or bias) of technological knowledge, which in turn drives the dynamics of key economic variables. With price channel dominance, the shock of the war causes an increase in the technological-knowledge-bias and thus the skills premium, given the increased supply of unskilled labour. Fiscal policy, driven by country governments and materialized through direct and indirect subsidies to R&D activity, has stronger effects on the growth rate when applied to unskilled workers. Monetary policy, driven by the central bank through a decline in the nominal interest rate, influences R&D activity through liquidity constraints and is limited by the zero nominal interest rate. To promote competitiveness and growth, a fiscal policy that subsidizes unskilled workers must be promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the impacts of model misspecification on the insurer's investment behaviours. Model misspecification comes from either the financial market or insurance business due to economic fluctuation. From the risk control point of view, we assume that an insurer has ambiguity aversion and we study the robust optimal investment strategy for the insurer under several settings. As a benchmark, we firstly obtain the optimal investment strategy for the insurer without considering model misspecification. Then, by assuming that model misspecification only exists in the financial market, we obtained the robust optimal investment strategy by solving the corresponding Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) equation under the objective of minimizing the probability of ruin. The results tells us the insurer's ambiguity aversion leads to a more conservative investment behaviour. At last, we incorporate the model misspecification for both financial market and insurance business in a general framework. The robust optimal investment is also obtained and we find that the investment is enlarged due to the insurer's ambiguity aversion on the insurance business because of the motivation of ambiguity hedging. The numerical examples display that different ambiguity aversion level on the financial market and insurance business have different impacts on the robust investment strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research from the medical and social science literature has found that spacing births closely together leads to adverse health and socioeconomic outcomes for the younger child. More recent evidence using inter-family comparisons is challenging the validity of those results. However, while inter-family comparisons allow for time-invariant unobservable heterogeneity across families, they cannot fully control for changes in families that occur over time and may affect both decisions about birth intervals as well as child outcomes. To our knowledge, this paper provides the first examination of the effects of birth spacing on later childhood cognitive outcomes that accounts for both time-invariant and time-varying heterogeneity in the same models. Instrumental variables estimations on data from Indonesia indicate that younger siblings perform significantly better on maths assessment exams when they are spaced farther apart from their immediately older sibling. This effect appears to be concentrated among the poorest and least educated households. The data thus suggest that close spacing may be detrimental to the socioeconomic outcomes of the younger sibling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]