Bulletin of Economic Research最新文献

Remittances are an important source of income for the very countries afflicted by high levels of corruption. However, corruption undermines the development potential of remittances. With this in mind, we propose policy reforms that harness the potential of remittances while mitigating corruption. Unlike previous studies, we point to two channels: (1) the corrupt government's trade-off between its financial interests (corruption), the provision of a public good, and the gains from a higher inflow of remittances; and (2) the household's consumption of the public good relative to that of the privately obtained substitute of the public good.

The school choice problem is of great importance both in theory and practice. This paper studies the (student-optimal) top trading cycles mechanism (TTCM) in an axiomatic way. We introduce two new axioms: MBG (mutual best group)-quota-rationality and MBG-robust efficiency. While stability implies MBG-quota rationality, MBG-robust efficiency is weaker than robust efficiency, which is stronger than the combination of efficiency and group strategy proofness. The TTCM is characterized by MBG-quota rationality and MBG-robust efficiency. Our results construct a new basis to compare the TTCM with the other school choice mechanisms, in terms of both fairness and incentive-related axioms.

When measuring poverty in developed countries, the poverty line used to identify the poor is usually relative and set as a percentage of the median (or of the mean) of the total income. In consequence, when poverty is analyzed over a period of time, changes in the poverty level depend on the impact of evolving standards. To eliminate this effect, sometimes, an anchored poverty line is used. Furthermore, changes in the mean of the distribution and in the inequality among the poor may also affect the poverty levels. This note proposes a decomposition of the changes in poverty as the sum of four terms. The first two reflect the impact in poverty of changes in living standards and the other two measure the effect of the distributional growth and redistribution. This decomposition will help policymakers in the implementation of a more specific antipoverty agenda. An application with data from the European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions shows the potential of the decomposition proposed.

This paper introduces an asymmetric robust weighted least squares (ARLS) approach to improve the forecasting performance of the heterogeneous autoregressive model for realized volatility. The ARLS approach down-weights extreme observations to limit the bad influence of outliers on the estimated parameters. Compared with existing robust regression methods, our model further takes into account the asymmetry of outliers using a class of kernel functions. Out-of-sample results show the ARLS approach can generate more accurate forecasts of the S&P 500 index realized volatility in the statistical and economic senses. The model that considers the asymmetry of outliers gains superior performance among various robust regression competitors. The forecasting improvements also hold in other international stock markets. More importantly, the source of the predictive ability of the ARLS model comes from the less biased and more efficient parameter estimation.

In hiring decisions, universities explicitly reward focusing on a specific field. I model the use of research specialization (focusing) in hiring as a signal of ability. Without explicit reward for focusing, candidates who focus are more likely to be able. However, if job market rewards focusing, less able candidates who would otherwise be indifferent between focusing or not, start focusing, which leads to smaller likelihood of observing an able candidate among those who focus than among those who do not. Specialization works as an effective ability signal only when generation of good ideas is highly likely for all ability levels.

How do investment subsidies bear on pure redistribution when coupled with capital income taxes? In a heterogeneous agent, neoclassical growth framework it is found that on impact, with no optimizing behavior, investment subsidies are good for growth but bad for redistribution. The opposite holds for capital income taxes. But when the government acts as a Stackelberg leader vis-à-vis the private sector (the follower), the optimal feedback policy is by construction time-consistent and implies that in a long-run optimum the tax scheme does not distort accumulation. This holds regardless of social preferences. For the feedback Stackelberg equilibrium I find that (pure) redistribution can go either way and capital income taxes are nonzero in the long-run, time-consistent optimum, depending on the social weight of those who receive redistributive transfers, the distribution of pretax factor incomes, and the intertemporal elasticity of substitution. It is argued that investment subsidies may be an important indirect tool for redistribution, and may allow for the separation of “efficiency” and “equity” concerns.

This article investigates the impact of microstructure factors on asset pricing in some African stock markets. We use data on stocks listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the “Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières,” and the Nigeria Stock Exchange, and we consider international portfolio management from 2000 to 2014. Generalized least square and fixed effect are estimation methods used to highlight the effect of microstructure variables on expected return. At the same time, panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) modeling is considered to identify the thresholds in this effect. The results show that liquidity and to a lesser extent the number of trading days are the most common significant microstructure variables for all the studied markets. However, other variables’ effects on the return are specific to the considered stock markets. Furthermore, the PSTR estimator reveals that the impact of indicated factors on asset pricing is not linear because it produces a double threshold between return and microstructure.

We examine the relationship between firm-sponsored training and product quality competition within a model of worker–firm bargaining. We develop a quality-adjusted monopolistically competitive setting in which firms invest in training to an extent that reflects: (i) the costs of training, (ii) the extent to which training increases product quality, and (iii) the extent to which product quality increases final product demand. We identify the conditions under which greater sensitivity between product demand and quality results in greater firm-sponsored training.

A country's unemployment rate can be affected by technology choice and the opening of international trade. This general equilibrium model examines the impact of international trade with the presence of dual labor markets in which manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose technologies with different marginal and fixed costs to maximize profits. In a closed economy, it is shown that an increase in labor market efficiency or a population increase induces manufacturing firms to adopt more advanced technologies and the wage rate in the manufacturing sector increases. With the existence of a continuum of technologies, technology choice is not a source of firm heterogeneity. The opening of international trade leads to an increase in the wage rate in the manufacturing sector and the price of the agricultural good. When countries are identical, international trade always increases national welfare.

Improving total factor productivity (TFP) is essential to achieving high-quality and sustainable economic development. The existing literature mainly focuses on the impact of traditional infrastructure on TFP but generally ignores the role of new digital infrastructure in TFP and does not test impact mechanisms and whether there is heterogeneity in effects. Using panel data of 30 regions in China from 2006 to 2017, this paper analyzes the impact of new digital infrastructure on TFP and its mechanisms. The results are as follows: (1) New digital infrastructure can significantly improve regional TFP. After the robustness test, the results still support the findings. (2) New digital infrastructure can promote technological innovation, optimize factor allocation, and achieve economies of scale, thus improving TFP. (3) Further analysis shows that the positive effect of new digital infrastructure on TFP shows significant heterogeneity. In regions with high economic development levels, high research and development (R&D) levels, and high traditional infrastructure development levels, the positive effect of new digital infrastructure on TFP is more obvious. These findings not only enrich the literature on digital infrastructure and economic growth but also serve as a reference for governmental departments as they optimize their strategy for developing digital infrastructure and realizing sustainable economic development.