Bulletin of Economic Research最新文献

We explore how elementary school students' classroom ordinal height or family income rank affects their future academic performance. Using a Korean panel dataset covering multiple classrooms within each school, we exploit the feature that two students with identical height or family income can be ranked differently based on their classroom assignment. We use classroom-level dummy variables to compare students who share similar characteristics but have different classroom ranks, as these indicators absorb all linear differences across classrooms. Our results indicate that ordinal family income rank consistently and significantly impacts future academic performance, even after controlling for income levels, whereas ordinal height rank does not. Additionally, we show that a higher income rank is positively associated with students' motivation and parental support for academic achievement.

Research shows that older people are more likely to be envious of their younger peers than the other way around. I analyze how such unilateral envy affects optimal incentive contracts for young and old agents. I show that the optimal contracts can be characterized by pay inversion: The principal offers a higher expected wage to the young agent than to the old agent. Further, I show that the principal is generally worse off with unilaterally envious agents than with bilaterally envious ones. I discuss the implications of these findings.

Ethnic diversity is a phenomenon that exists in many modern countries around the world. Although it is typically hailed for its cultural diversity and capacity for innovation, there has been some controversy about its impact on economic development. This article aims to contribute to this debate by investigating the causal effect of ethnic diversity on economic complexity for a global sample of 116 countries. Using cross-country OLS and the instrumental variables approach, we show that economic complexity is inversely related to ethnic diversity. Additionally, we find out that ethnic fractionalization has a negative effect on economic complexity in lower and middle income countries, but it is insignificant in high-income countries. These results are robust to additional controls, alternative measures of key variables, and the use of a panel specification. This effect is primarily attributed to their link to other economic complexity-related activities (i.e., human capital, governance, and internal conflict).

This article examines empirically the relationship between personality and employment using individual-level survey data collected in The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). The analysis is based on a subsample of Irish women who left their jobs because of the so-called marriage bar, which was a legal requirement at the time that women must leave employment when they marry. Two groups of women are compared: Those who did, and those who did not, return to work after having to leave because of the marriage bar. The main finding is that personality does impact employment, with less agreeable and more extroverted women being more likely to return to work after a spell of non-employment. More generally, the analysis highlights the role of non-cognitive abilities in labor market success.

Could building the Internet improve the green growth of production in cities and thereby realize economic progress of high quality? Utilizing a quasi-natural experiment from the implementation of “Broadband China,” the study explores the role of Internet construction in propelling the green production of urban regions in China. Its consequences illuminate that Internet construction could significantly elevate the green transformation of urban development. Furthermore, this advancement is facilitated via mechanisms of green technological innovation, optimized industrial structure, as well as economic agglomeration contributed by the well-established Internet construction in cities. Notably, the study discerns variations in the Internet's influence on the green advancement level within urban areas based on the geographic location, resource endowment, market construction, and the degree of government intervention in each city. This research offers valuable insights into the mechanisms by which the construction and promotion of the Internet affect the urban green economy.

This article presents an empirical analysis of export entry process of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by evaluating two mechanisms: self-selection and trial-and-error of exporting. We build a recursive non-linear model in which the likelihood of permanent export entry over the period 2009–2012 depends on export trials and the predicted productivity stemming from innovation activities, both over the previous period. Our sample of French SMEs from Community Innovation Survey (CIS 2008) strongly supports the mechanism of trial-and-error of exporting and the crucial role of different types of innovation in labor productivity without upholding the mechanism of self-selection. However, productivity favors occasional entry, suggesting a potential new and more complete SMEs export entry mechanism. Furthermore, we show evidence of the simultaneous existence of accelerated and gradual export entry. The results are confirmed using a second sample of Normandy SMEs from the interdisciplinary project on enterprise development, innovation, and strategy (IDEIS) project that provides highly pertinent information on SMEs’ innovation and export activities.

This paper examines whether infrastructure investment can mitigate inequality using Chinese data. The findings indicate that increased infrastructure investment is related to a reduced urban–rural consumption gap. After establishing the primary effect, the analysis delves into exploring the underlying mechanisms. Channel analyses unveil that improved infrastructure can impact the consumption gap by reducing the income gap and facilitating trade. Heterogeneity tests demonstrate that infrastructure investment has a more pronounced marginal effect on the consumption gap in central and western regions compared with eastern and northeastern areas. Additionally, the effect is more prominent in regions with larger income gaps. Overall, our findings suggest a substantial pro-poor impact of infrastructure investment.

As a measure to cultivate innovative firms, a certification has been introduced and spread rapidly in many Chinese cities. We use data of Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2008 to 2019 and investigate the causes of the adoption of the policy. Events such as term expirations (TEs) and cadres exchanges (CEs) are considered as potential internal causes, whereas pressure from peers and seniors is considered as potential external cause. A panel data model is used to analyze the causes of adoption. We find that, first, both TE and CE significantly promote adoption. Second, peer pressures significantly promote adoption but pressures from seniors do not. Third, TE significantly promotes adoption in northern China and CE significantly promotes adoption in southern China.

This study builds a growth model and investigates the effects of resource depletion and population increases or decreases on the growth rate of per-capita consumption in an open economy that trades with the rest of the world. We examine the two cases in which the input ratio of exhaustible resources is fixed or is determined endogenously. In both cases, depending on the conditions, the long-run growth rate of per-capita consumption can be positive, irrespective of whether the population growth rate is positive or negative.