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By contesting the political spectrum versus the economic side of regulation, it is found that the Indonesian cooperative's performance is influenced more by the first approach. As Golkar's electoral vehicle to protect its ruling party's majority vote, the cooperative apex organization (Dekopin) became a parastatal. As a 'bureaucratic capitalist' with state budget support, Dekopin's 'holdup problem' creates the 'subsidy mentality' and increasing corruption perception that stimulated the formation of pseudo-cooperatives. A bottom-up petition to remove Dekopin's parastatal status failed. By calibrating the 2012-2014 panel data, the pseudo-cooperatives decrease when active cooperatives increase. From the 2015 cross-section exercise, pseudo-cooperatives' number rises along with the growing population. External funding to cooperatives is used as a means to spend it on leisure. Many islands show different tendencies of pseudo-cooperatives' creation. In 2016, a government's economic strategy to create healthy cooperatives was started by closing down 32,778 pseudo-cooperatives. This process continued until 2019. JEL Classification : P13, C21, R51, A13 How to Cite: Soesilo, N. I. (2020). Government of Indonesia’s Battling Strategy to Cope with Pseudo-Cooperatives. Signifikan: Jurnal Ilmu Ekonomi , 9 (2), 219-240. https://doi.org/10.15408/sjie.v9i2.15547.

This thesis addresses the issue of “collect more spend better” in developing countries with a focus on Sub-Saharan countries. Better mobilization of tax revenue combined with an efficient use of public resources is a reliable solution to the financing needs of poor countries. The thesis contains six chapters and an additional chapter in the appendix. Chapter 1 focuses on tax policy in developing countries. In this chapter, we demonstrate the existence of interministerial tax competition when the power to tax is fragmented. Chapter 2 explores the relationship between trade liberalization and tax revenue. The results show that liberalization has led to a reduction in tax revenues. Chapter 3 studies the manifestations. It demonstrates the key importance of social media in protest spillover. Chapter 4 estimates the effect of internal conflicts on tax revenue. Our estimates show a negative impact of conflicts on tax revenues. Chapter 5 develops a measure of the quality of public expenditure. It shows the need to improve the quality of public spending in developing countries. In Chapter 6, we identify the determinants of this quality of public expenditure. The additional chapter in the appendix measures the tax effort in Sub-Saharan Africa.The various chapters illustrate the importance of improving the mobilization of tax revenues and of effectively using these collected resources in the developing country. For this “collect more spend better practice to contribute to the harmonious development of these countries, it must be; Cette thèse aborde la thématique du Collect more spend better dans les pays en développement avec un focus sur les pays d’Afrique sub-saharienne. Une meilleure mobilisation des recettes fiscales combinée à une utilisation efficiente des ressources publiques représente une réponse crédible au besoin de financement des pays pauvres. La thèse contient six chapitres et un chapitre supplémentaire en annexe. Le chapitre 1 porte sur la politique fiscale dans les pays en développement. Dans ce chapitre, nous démontrons l’existence d’une concurrence fiscale pour taxer la même base lorsque le pouvoir d’imposition est fragmenté. Le chapitre 2 explore la relation entre la libéralisation des échanges et les recettes fiscales. Les résultats montrent que la libéralisation a été accompagnée d’une réduction des recettes fiscales. Le chapitre 3 étudie les manifestations. Il démontre l’importance des réseaux sociaux dans le processus de propagation des manifestations. Le chapitre 4 estime l’effet des conflits internes sur les recettes fiscales. Nos estimations montrent un impact négatif des conflits sur les recettes fiscales. Le chapitre 5 développe une mesure de la qualité des dépenses publiques. On y montre le besoin d’amélioration de la qualité des dépenses publiques dans les pays en développement. Dans le chapitre 6, nous identifions les déterminants de cette qualité des dépenses publiques. Le chapitre complémentaire en annexe mesure l’effort fiscal en Afrique sub-saharienne.Les différents chapitres illustrent l’importance d’améliorer la mobilisation des recettes fiscales et d’utiliser efficacement ces ressources collectées dans le pays en développement. Afin que cette pratique collect more spend better contribue à un développement harmonieux de ces pays, elle doit être accompagnée d’un accroissement de la capacité de l’Etat et d’un renforcement de la sécurité.

To extract part of their monopoly rent, Coase (1972) famously claimed that durable goods monopolists require some institutional device that allows them to restrict their output stream in a credible manner. We empirically test this proposition by applying it to the production of visual art. The ultimate commitment device in artistic production is the artist’s death. As living artists cannot commit to a pattern of restrained production, the prices of artwork increase when the artist dies. We identify with the help of a toy model the drivers of this so-called death effect and estimate individual death effects of a sample of famous visual artists who died between 1985 and 2011. Using data from art auctions that took place in a narrow bandwidth around the artists’ death, we apply several variations of the classical regression discontinuity design. The heterogeneity in death effects across artists turns out to be substantial. Up to 40% of the variation can be explained by age and reputation at death., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Environmental effects and natural resources depletion associated with agriculture production affect the agriculture response to climate change. Traditional cross-sectional climate response models ignore this requirement. This research estimates the impact of climate on European agriculture using a continental scale Ricardian analysis. We correct farm income by accounting for resources (energy, fertilizers, pesticides and water) use intensity by calculating the sustainable value for a sample of 9,497 specialized field crop farms across Europe. The results show that a uniform increase in temperature (+1°C) across all four seasons lead to significant and negative effects on farmland values, net revenue and farms’ sustainable value, while additional precipitation (+1 cm) across the all seasons increases farms' land values and sustainable values, and harms farms’ net revenue. Compared with the traditional Ricardian method, the marginal effect of 1° C increase in temperature shift from positive to negative in Northern countries, while it leads to less damages in Southern countries when net revenue and farms’ sustainable values are used as dependent variables. We demonstrate that accounting for the environmental effects and depletion of natural capital by agriculture significantly improves the ability of the Ricardian method to estimate agriculture climate response functions in the long run.

The aim of the paper is to explore the association between environmental performance and income level in the world economy in 2016. Data from Yale University and World Bank are used in a cross-country regression analysis comprising 166 countries. The gross Domestic Product per capita (based in purchased power parity, constant 2011 international dollars) in these countries is positively associated with the environmental performance index (EPI) calculated by Yale and Columbia University in 2016. Furthermore, the causality of this relationship is from GDP per capita to Environmental Performance and both Environmental Health (EH) and Ecosystem Vitality (EV) are positively associated with GDP per capita. Environmental Health (EH) is stronger related to GDP per capita, meaning that investments in public health, sanitation and infrastructure are increasing as countries develop.

We seek to understand if spatial dynamics affect the population in social, economic and health terms. To carry out this study, we propose the following two stages. In the first stage we try to understand the causes of high infant mortality in rural areas in comparison to the urban areas based on literature and the changes made to the Colombian health model. The second stage is a spatial econometric analysis of the variables of interest, where the CEDE database of the Universidad de los Andes is utilized. The findings of this study confirm the importance of the inclusion of spatial effects, which is a sign that the health dynamics of populations are interrelated. This spatial interdependence corroborates the suggestion from literature where proposing policies coordinate the system and consider local and neighboring populations. Also, municipal administrations require the need to consider mechanisms of interlocution whilst working with their peers and allow these factors to be included in the planning of political measures taken that affect health conditions. Finally, we confirm differences between the rural and urban performance. Resumen Buscamos entender si la dinámica espacial afecta a la población en términos sociales, económicos y de salud. Para llevar a cabo este estudio, proponemos dos etapas. En la primera, buscamos comprender, desde la literatura y los cambios realizados en el modelo de salud colombiano, las causas de la alta mortalidad infantil en las zonas rurales en comparación con las zonas urbanas. La segunda, es un análisis econométrico espacial de las variables de interés, donde se utiliza la base de datos CEDE de la Universidad de los Andes. Los resultados de este estudio confirman la importancia de la inclusión de efectos espaciales, lo cual es una señal de que la dinámica de salud de las poblaciones está interrelacionada. Esta interdependencia espacial corrobora la sugerencia de la literatura que propone que las políticas deben estar coordinadas y considerar poblaciones locales y vecinas. Además, las administraciones municipales deberían considerar mecanismos de interlocución, mientras trabajan con sus pares, y permitir que estos factores se incluyan en la planificación de las medidas políticas en temas de salud. Finalmente, confirmamos diferencias en áreas rurales y urbanas. Résumé Nous cherchons à comprendre si la dynamique spatiale affecte la population en termes sociaux, économiques et sanitaires. Pour réaliser cette étude, nous proposons deux étapes. Dans la première, nous cherchons à comprendre, à partir de la littérature et des changements apportés au modèle de santé colombien, les causes de la haute mortalité infantile dans le milieu rural par rapport aux milieux urbaines. La deuxième étape est une analyse économétrique spatiale des variables d’intérêt, à partir de la base de données CEDE de l’Université de los Andes. Les résultats confirment l’importance de la prise en compte des effets spatiaux, puisque les dynamiques de santé des populations sont interdépendantes. Cette interdépendance spatiale montre que les politiques doivent être coordonnées et doivent également prendre en compte l’avis des populations locales. En outre, les villes devraient envisager mécanismes de dialogue et permettre que les effets spatiaux soient inclus dans la planification des politiques de santé publique. Enfin, nous confirmons les différences dans les zones rurales et urbaines.

This article aims to extend evaluation of the classic multifactor model of Carhart (1997) for the case of global equity indices and to expand analysis performed in Sakowski et. al. (2015). Our intention is to test several modifications of these models to take into account different dynamics of equity excess returns between emerging and developed equity indices. Proposed extensions include a volatility regime switching mechanism (using dummy variables and the Markov approach) and the fifth risk factor based on realized volatility of index returns. Moreover, instead of using data for stocks of a particular market (which is a common approach in the literature), we check performance of these models for weekly data of 81 world investable equity indices in the period of 2000-2015. Such an approach is proposed to estimate an equity risk premium for a single country. Empirical evidence reveals important differences between results for classical models estimated on single stocks (either in international or US-only frameworks) and models evaluated for equity in­dices. Additionally, we observe substantial discrepancies between results for developed countries and emerging markets. Finally, using weekly data for the last 15 years we illustrate the importance of model risk and data overfitting effects when drawing conclusions upon results of multifactor models.

International audience; This paper aims to study the determinants of corruption by examining specificities relating to the region and the level of economic development. Starting from a cross-sectional study on 130 countries, we rely on the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) approach to address the issue of model uncertainty and identify the key determinants of corruption according to the level of development and the region. Our results highlight the need for specific remedies in the fight against corruption given the regional, sociocultural, economic and institutional specificities. Indeed, the key determinants of corruption in sub-Saharan Africa are not the most relevant in the East Asia and Pacific region. Similarly, the most important determinants in developed countries are not the most worrying in developing countries.

Using a causal inference in a cross-country regression design made possible by the coincidence that the 2016 US Presidential election occurred during the fieldwork period of the European Social Survey (ESS8), we test whether Donald Trump’s unexpected win increased the willingness to report racist attitudes. The election significantly increased the gap between the opposition to different-race immigration, which did not change, vs. same-race immigration, which significantly decreased. The finding, robust to a large set of checks, is shown to be substantially shaped by socioeconomic and partisan identities. In particular, the causal effect of Donald Trump’s unexpected win on the willingness to report racist attitudes is stronger among old men living in urban areas. Moreover, the aggregate effect is driven by extreme right-wing units with high level of political interest., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

We show that a local average treatment effect (LATE) can sometimes be point identified and consistently estimated when treatment is mismeasured, or when treatment is estimated using a possibly misspecified structural model. Our associated estimator, which we call Mismeasurement Robust LATE (MR-LATE), is based on differencing two mismeasures of treatment. In our empirical application, treatment is women’s empowerment: whether a wife has significant control of household resources. Due to measurement difficulties and sharing of goods within a household, this treatment cannot be directly observed without error, and so must be estimated. Our outcomes are health indicators of family members. We first estimate a structural model to obtain the otherwise unobserved treatment indicator. Then, using changes in inheritance laws in India as an instrument, we apply our new MR-LATE estimator. We find that women’s empowerment substantially decreases their probability of being anemic or underweight, and children’s likelihood to suffer from cough, fever or diarrhea. We find no significant positive or negative effects on men’s health., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Energy performance certificates (EPC) can help solve information asymmetries between landlords and tenants about dwellings’ energy performance. EPCs may enable rent premiums for energy efficient dwellings, incentivizing energy efficiency investment in rental property. However, low EPC disclosure rates may undermine their potential to promote investment. Using a cross-sectional dataset of residential rental advertisements from Brussels, we estimate rent premiums from EPCs under de facto voluntary EPC disclosure. We use the Heckman correction and an instrumental variable approach to tackle potential selection bias and endogeneity. First, we find that highly energy-efficient compared to inefficient dwellings earn a rent premium, provided that EPCs are disclosed (energy efficiency effect). This premium may incentivize investment in energy efficiency of rental property. Second, dwellings with average energy performance are penalized from disclosing an EPC (information effect). This may provide a strategic motivation to hide EPCs that indicate mediocre energy performance., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Imagine a region that has a lower income per head than the rest of the territory, and becomes eligible for a generous EU-funded transfer programme (the treatment). The evaluation of the effectiveness of such a policy can rest on a difference-in-differences analysis (DiD); which in essence consists of comparing the income-level handicap before and after the treatment. Imagine that DiD shows that the handicap has not diminished, or even that it has risen. Most observers would conclude to the inefficiency of the policy. The point we raise in this paper is that second thoughts are needed, because DiD rests heavily on the validity of a key assumption: parallel paths in the absence of treatment. Without EU money the outcome difference between the treated and the controls should be time-invariant; so that any statistically significant change of that difference can be ascribed to the treatment. Parallel paths seems a priori unrealistic in the context of old industrial regions, as one of the reasons they become eligible for treatment is that their income-level handicap is on the rise. Also, from a methodological point of view, when more than one pre-treatment period is available in the data, the parallel-paths assumption can easily be abandoned in favour of more flexible assumptions as to the relative dynamics of treated vs. control entities. This paper illustrates the relevance this approach in the case of Objective 1-Hainaut; an EU-funded transfer policy implemented between 1994 and 2006 in Hainaut, the most economically-deprived province of Belgium; a former bastion of the country’s industrial revolution that has endured decades of decline., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Dunbar et al. (2013) develop a collective model of the household that allows to identify resource shares, that is, how total household resources are divided up among household members. We show why, especially when the data exhibit relatively flat Engel curves, the model is weakly identified and induces high variability and an implausible pattern in least squares estimates. We propose an estimation strategy nested in their framework that greatly reduces this practical impediment to recovery of individual resource shares. To achieve this, we follow an empirical Bayes method that incorporates additional (or out-of-sample) information on singles and relies on mild assumptions on preferences. We show the practical usefulness of this strategy through a series of Monte Carlo simulations and by applying it to Mexican data. The results show that our approach is robust, gives a plausible picture of the household decision process, and is particularly beneficial for the practitioner who wishes to apply the DLP framework. Our welfare analysis of the PROGRESA program in Mexico is the first to include separate poverty rates for men and women in a CCT program., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Les TIC représentent un des facteurs clés de performance des pays développés mais qu’en est-ildes entreprises des pays en voie de développement ?Cet article apporte un élément de réponseen s’interrogeant sur le lien entre le niveau de TIC et la performance des PME tunisiennes dusecteur des IEEE mesurée par la rentabilité économique. A partir d'une démarcheéconométrique (régression linéaire, causalité de Granger, test de Kruskal-Wallis, test del’ANOVA de Welch, tests post-hoc), nous mettons en évidence l’existence d’un lien statistiquesignificatif entre le niveau d’adoption des TIC et la performance des PME tunisiennes dusecteur des IEEE., Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are a key factor of performance ofdeveloped countries but what about companies in developing countries ?Our paper fills a gapby questioning the link between the level of ICT and performance of Tunisian electric andelectronic SMEs measured by profitability. By relying on a statistic and econometric approach(linear regression, Granger causality, Kruskal-Wallis test and the Welch ANOVA, post-hoctests), we show the existence of a statistically significant relationship between the level of ICTadoption and performance of Tunisian electric and electronic SMEs., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This paper investigates unemployment risk and job prospects of individuals in the three Northern Greek regions (Central Macedonia, Western Macedonia, and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace), during the implementation of the second (1994-99) and the third (2000-06) Community Support Frameworks. More specifically, the research focuses on the social and demographic characteristics that increase the chances of individuals in finding a job, and explores the impact of gender, age, marital status, residence location, level of education, immigrant status, registered in the Manpower Employment Organization (OAED) and participation in training courses. Furthermore, there is an investigation whether University graduates face greater difficulties in finding a job than non-University graduates, as a series of studies or aggregate statistics for Greece conclude. Sampling is based on individual anonymized records (micro-data) of the Labour Force Survey for both employed and unemployed at Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics-2 level. The findings of the logit model are mixed for all the variables used, apart from those of registered in OAED for which the results have no differences among regions and years.

Cet article présente les résultats d'une étude qui porte sur la distribution des revenus au sein des ménages en Belgique. Notre objectif est d'ouvrir la boîte noire qu'est le ménage, de calculer les revenus personnels de chacun des partenaires et de mesurer les inégalités entre les partenaires des couples. L'analyse fait systématiquement la distinction entre couples mariés et couples cohabitant. Elle a été réalisée en utilisant les bases de données SILC-Belgique 2006 et 2007. Dans un premier temps, nous situons les personnes vivant en couples par rapport à l'ensemble de la population adulte :nous comparons leurs caractéristiques, les indicateurs d'inégalité entre femmes et hommes et les taux de dépendance financière. Ensuite, nous présentons les écarts entre les revenus individuels nets et les taux de dépendance financière des partenaires au sein des couples. Les caractéristiques qui influencent les écarts de revenus entre les partenaires sont aussi analysées. Nous nous sommes intéressés à l'âge, au nombre d'enfants, au statut professionnel et au niveau d'éducation. / This article summarises the results of an analysis of the distribution of income within Belgian households. The aim is to open the black-box of the family by computing the personal income of each of the partners in a couple in order to measure the degree of within-partnership income inequality. The analysis systematically distinguishes between married and cohabiting couples. The underlying data are taken from two waves of the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) for Belgium relative to the years 2006 and 2007. In a first stage, the sample of couples is situated with respect to the whole population covered by the data :women and men living in couples are compared in terms of their characteristics, incomes and financial dependency with the whole population of women and men. In a next step, net income and financial dependency gaps between women and mena in a couple are computed and analysed. The study also addresses those characteristics that are found to have an impact on these gaps. More particularly, attention is given to age, the number of children, activity status and level of education., Numéro Spécial "Analyse des revenus individuels et de la dépendance financière des femmes et des hommes" Editrices :Danièle Meulders et Sile O'Dorchai, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Cet article présente les résultats d'une analyse des revenus individualisés calculés au départ de la base de données SILC-Belgique 2006 (Statistics on Income and Living Conditions). L'analyse des revenus individuels et de leurs composantes met en évidence de fortes inégalités entre femmes et hommes dans la distribution des revenus. Dans cet article, les revenus individuels sont également utilisés afin de calculer des taux de dépendance financière ou taux de risque de pauvreté mesurés au niveau de l'individu. Ces mesures individuelles de la pauvreté sont comparées aux taux standards de risque de pauvreté basés sur le revenu du ménage tels qu'ils sont définis au niveau européen. Les déterminants individuels observables de la dépendance financière sont étudiés par le biais d'une anlyse statistique descriptive ainsi que par l'estimation de reégressions du type probit bivarié pour les femmes et les hommes séparément. Une série de nouveaux indicateurs synthétiques est proposée afin de promouvoir la prise en compte d'une dimension de genre dans le suivi de la pauvreté et son éradication. / This paper presents the results of an analysis of individualised incomes reporter in the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (2006) for Belgium. The analysis of individual incomes and their components puts forth strong inequalities in the income distribution between women and men. We further use these individual income levels in order to compute financial dependency rates which can be described as at-risk-of-poverty rates measured at the level of the individual. These individual poverty measures are compared with conventioanl household-level at-ris-of-poverty rates as they are defined by the European Union and the individual and observable determinants of financial dependency are studied by means of descriptive statistics but also by the estimation of separate bivariate probit regressions for men and women. A st of new indicators are proposed to enhance a more gendered monitoring and fighting of poverty., Numéro Spécial "Analyse des revenus individuels et de la dépendance financière des femmes et des hommes" Editrices :Danièle Meulders et Sile O'Dorchai, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This paper analyses disparity in women’s pay across 25 European countries using EU-SILC 2005. First, the gender pay gap is examined. Next, the impact of parenthood is analysed. We show that women suffer a wage disadvantage compared with men all over Europe, except for Poland. Motherhood usually reinforces the gender gap but most discrimination is sex-related so that it concerns all women as potential mothers. There is no uniform relationship between the parenthood and the gender wage gap., RESUME :Cet article présente une analyse de la disparité salariale dans le salaire des femmes dans 25 pays européens sur base du EU-SILC 2005. Premièrement, l’écart salarial de genre est examiné. Ensuite, l’impact de la parenté est étudié. Il est montré que les femmes subissent un désavantage salarial comparé aux hommes partout en Europe à l’exception de la Pologne. La maternité renforce généralement l’écart salarial de genre même si la discrimination opère essentiellement selon le sexe concernant toutes les femmes en tant que mères actuelles ou potentielles. Il n’existe pas de relation uniforme entre l’effet salarial de la parenté et celui du sexe., Numéro spécial "Parentalité et emploi" décembre 2008, Editrice :Danièle Meulders, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

none 4 si Bilateral trade flows traditionally have been analysed by means of the spatial interaction gravity model. Still, (auto)correlation of trade flows has only recently received attention in the literature. This paper takes up this thread of emerging literature, and shows that spatial filtering (SF) techniques can take into account the autocorrelation in trade flows. Furthermore, we show that the use of origin and destination specific spatial filters goes a long way in correcting for omitted variable bias in an otherwise standard empirical gravity equation. For a cross-section of bilateral trade flows, we compare an SF approach to two benchmark specifications that are consistent with theoretically derived gravity. The results are relevant for a number of reasons. First, we correct for autocorrelation in the residuals. Second, we suggest that the empirical gravity equation can still be considered in applied work, despite the theoretical arguments for its misspecification due to omitted multilateral resistance terms. Third, if we include SF variables, we can still resort to any desired estimator, such as OLS, Poisson or negative binomial regression. Finally, interpreting endogeneity bias as autocorrelation in regressor variables and residuals allows for a more general specification of the gravity equation than the relatively restricted theoretical gravity equation. In particular, we can include additional country-specific push and pull variables, besides GDP (e.g., land area, landlockedness, and per capita GDP). A final analysis provides autocorrelation diagnostics according to different candidate indicators. R. Patuelli; G.-J.Linders; R. Metulini; D.A. Griffith R. Patuelli; G.-J.Linders; R. Metulini; D.A. Griffith

The health care for elderly population remains an important concern in the two populated economies of India and China. This paper provides an attempt to determine the extent of population aging in India and China and subsequently determine the ageing impacts on the aggregate as well as health care expenditures in these two countries, separately for the rural and urban areas. The respective state level (provincial) data from the most recent census information reveal wide regional differences in the levels of population aging in both India and China. The results of our cross-sectional regressions indicate statistically significant and positive impact of population ageing on the total as well as medical expenditures in both the rural and urban regions of India. In the case of China, the impact of old-age population turned out to be insignificant (statistically) on the total consumption expenditures for both the rural and urban areas. As concerns the impacts of ageing on the proportion of health care expenditure, only rural China reveals statistically significant and positive coefficients.

Substantial research has been devoted to the estimation and explanation of the gender wage gap. The effects of work status on wages have been studied somewhat less. This article draws on existing work to generate new estimates of the wage penalty associated with part-time employment in Belgium. Given the fact that women remain the primary caregivers, almost solely in charge of housework, part-time employment has often been presented as an ideal solution for those wanting to combine family and professional responsibilities. However, parttime employment has many flaws, not the least of which is the wage penalty it induces. On the basis of the 1995 Structure of Earnings Survey (SES), we estimate the wage gap between part-time and full-time work for a sample of women only. Based on our results, we advance explanations related to human capital and productivity differences, types of job and industry branches, personal characteristics of part-timers, etc. We also compare the results with earlier results for Belgium based on the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). The unexplained part of the part-time wage gap allows us to assess the degree to which labour markets discriminate against part-timers. The existence of such discrimination suggests that equal opportunities policies should focus not only on labour market conditions but also on a more equal sharing of domestic work between men and women., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between return and beta for Islamic unit trusts using the cross-sectional regression analysis. The estimation of return and beta without differentiating between positive and negative excess market returns produces a flat unconditional relationship between return and beta. Using the conditional CAPM and cross-sectional regression analysis, the evidence in this paper tends to support a significant positive relationship in an up-market and a significant negative relationship in a down-market. This paper suggests that beta could be used as a tool in explaining cross-sectional differences in Islamic unit trusts’ returns and as a measure of market risk. Based on the adjusted-R2 and standard error of the conditional relationship between returns we find that beta is higher in a down-market than in an up-market. Therefore, both statistics are appropriate measurements of conditional relationships.

Bilateral Investment Treaties BITs have become increasingly popular as a means of encouraging FDI from developed to developing countries. We adopt a matched difference-in-difference estimation to deal with the problem of endogeneity when estimating the effects of BITs on inward FDI. Our results indicate that forming a BIT with a developed country approximately doubles FDI inflows and stocks to developing countries on average, with a significant part of this arising from the development of new FDI relationships. The effects of BIT formation on FDI tend to increase with the size and similarity of the host and source economies and BITs may be complementary to institutional quality in the host country.

The aim of this paper is to explore the motivation of monetary transfers received by Italian household heads. The financial transfers may be motivated by altruism or by the expectation of future services. For this reason, we select a sample of Italian families from the 2006 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) dataset. First, we consider the transfer decision and try to account for the factors that affect the probability that the household head will receive a transfer. Next, we restrict our analysis to those families who did receive a positive transfer and examine the factors that affect the size of the transfer. The positive relationship between recipient’s income and transfer amount received is consistent with exchange theory: recipients with higher income ask for higher payments in exchange for services provided. We also explore the relationship between private and public financial transfers. In particular, we choose Italy for its peculiar institutional features. The results imply that the hypothesis about a crowding-out process cannot be rejected. The main contribution of the paper to the existing literature is to investigate the social motivation of private transfers and their implications in terms of policy in a unified framework.

The main aim of this study is to analyse the spatial distribution of R&D activity, as well as to measure whether this distribution has any impact on the location decision of innovating firms. To that extent, we work on firm level data. The first approach allows us to give an instantaneous representation of the spatial distribution of R&D activity, for each sector. Clusters of R&D activity appear to provide strong incentives for further investments in R&D, in the same sector as well as in the same area. Moreover, our analysis allows us to measure how geographic proximity helps firms benefiting from localization/urbanization economies. Some further policy implications conclude the paper., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This paper uses a unique and large-scale quasi-experimental data to study the effect of deworming and school meals programs as a package on educational outcomes pupils test scores aggregate, French or math; enrollment, promotion or dropout rates in rural Senegal. We extend the endogenous selection model la Heckman to incorporate a double-index selection mechanism. We also generalize the Roy model accordingly. We develop estimation strategies based on the full information maximum likelihood and the two-step method. We derive a wide and rich collection of treatment effects ranging from exclusive to relative effects including sequential and substitution effects. The results show that the combination of deworming and school meals programs is more beneficial to pupils achievements than taking programs separately. The sequence of implementation does matter. The two programs are complementary in increasing scores and promotion rates. However, they are substitutes in reducing dropouts. The cost-effectiveness analysis shows the deworming program is by far cheaper than the meals intervention. Implementing meals program before deworming is more cost-effective than the reverse. Lastly, unlike the deworming, meals program and the package deworming and meals have a welfare-enhancing effect on households. Key words Deworming programs; school meals programs; double-index selection; complementarity vs. substitutability; educational outcomes; quasi-experiment; social welfare; Africa; Senegal

I use data from the South African Social Giving Survey to investigate the role of social capital and motivations for giving to formal charities and beggars. Results suggest that both impure altruism and inequality aversion positively influence giving to formal charities but they have no influence on giving to beggars. The role of social capital is varied. Members of informal insurance groups are more likely to give to both charities and beggars, while members of formal community groups are more likely to give to charities only. Members of interest groups are actually less likely to donate to charities and prefer giving to beggars.

This paper introduces the notion of nowcasting causality for mixed-frequency VARs as the mixed-frequency version of instantaneous causality. We analyze the relationship between nowcasting and Granger causality in the mixed-frequency VAR setting of Ghysels 2012 and illustrate that nowcasting causality can have a crucial impact on the significance of contemporaneous or lagged high-frequency variables in standard MIDAS regression models.