Empirica最新文献

Abstract

This study aims to investigate whether individual beliefs about the fairness of society can account for differences in life satisfaction. Fairness here encompasses both procedural and distributive justice. The paper uses fifth-round individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS). The round in question contains information that can be used as a proxy for procedural justice, in the form of individual assessment of how the courts operate in their country. It also contains variables that will serve as a proxy for distributive justice. To that end we use survey information on individual assessment of whether pay is appropriate as well as a variable measuring the gap between received and expected pay. The latter is constructed using pay information and individuals’ personal demographic and productive features, as well as information on the characteristics of their workplace. The hypothesis that life satisfaction is impacted by perceived unfairness cannot be rejected. Furthermore, we find that dissatisfaction with pay increases when individuals have a negative view of procedural justice.

We assess public spending efficiency of 20 Latin American countries over the period of 2000–2019, computing data envelopment analysis efficiency scores. For the Public Sector Performance composite indicator, we use the annual data of socio-economic indicators, and for the input measure we consider Total Public Spending as a percentage of GDP, by spending category. The results show that public spending during the period under study increased, but that overall governments were not efficient, as on average they could have used 27% less spending to achieve the same levels of performance. On the other hand, governments could have increased their performance by 18% whilst maintaining the same level of spending. The most-efficient countries were Chile, Guatemala, Panama, and Paraguay, with the least efficient being Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Suriname, and Brazil.

Conclusive evidence on the relationship between corruption and migration has remained scant in the literature to date. Using 2008–2018 data on bilateral migration flows across EU28 and EFTA countries and four measures of corruption, we show that corruption acts as both push and pull factors on migration patterns. Based on a gravity model, a 1-unit increase in the corruption level in the origin country is associated with an 11% increase in out-migration. The same 1-unit increase in corruption in the destination country is associated with a 10% decline in in-migration.

The COVID-19 pandemic had disastrous effects on health and economic activity worldwide, including in the Euro Area. The application of mandatory lockdowns contributed to a sharp fall in production and a rise in unemployment, inducing an expansionary fiscal and monetary response. Using a uniquely large macro database, this paper examines the effects of the pandemic and the ensuing economic policies on public support for the common currency, the euro, as measured by the Eurobarometer survey. It finds that public support for the euro increased in a majority of the 19 Euro Area member states and reached historically high levels in the midst of the pandemic. This finding suggests that the expansionary fiscal policies initiated at the EU level significantly contributed to this outcome, while the monetary measures taken by the European Central Bank did not have a similar effect.

We study the impact of tiered payments originating from client banks on the liquidity consumption (relative intraday liquidity use) of settlement banks. Estimates of a panel data model, employing wholesale payments in euro, show that a higher share of tiered payments reduces liquidity consumption by settlement banks. Metrics on timing, delay, and payment priorities suggest that settlement banks use more leeway in settling tiered payments from client banks compared to in-house payments. Payment timing as a proxy for external delay suggests that tiered payments help smooth liquidity positions. Payment delay within the system does not follow a clear dynamic over time, whereas banks consistently de-prioritize tiered payments. Thereby, settlement banks employ tiered arrangements to manage intraday liquidity more efficiently. To a certain extent, this hints at “free riding” or higher recycling of liquidity from client banks’ payments. However, the results are also consistent with settlement banks’ monitoring role or tiered payments potentially exhibiting different characteristics which may be attributable to contractual arrangements.

This paper investigates factors that contribute to the survival of export relationships at the firm and product levels using a large anonymised firm-level database for Latvia. It finds that some characteristics of exporting firms, such as a higher productivity level, larger size, lower indebtedness and higher profitability are associated with longer duration of export relationships. This paper also reveals the role of product characteristics for export product survival, in particular focusing on product absolute and relative complexity, as well as proximity to existing product basket. Exporting complex products improves the survival of trade relationships. However, exporting products that are more complex or distant from the firm’s previous export bundle reduces the chances of survival.

In this paper, we study whether adopting inflation targeting in emerging market economies affects the output costs of disinflation, controlling for a number of additional factors. Based on a sample of 40 emerging market economies during 1990–2017, we provide evidence that adopting inflation targeting is not associated with lower sacrifice ratios in emerging market economies. Specifically, we show that, controlling for the macroeconomic and institutional environment in EMEs, the choice of monetary regimes does not matter for disinflation costs. We also find that, when starting from low to moderate initial inflation, the speed of disinflation (shock therapy versus gradual disinflation) does not matter in these economies. Moreover, we show that trade openness is associated with lower sacrifice ratios, while we obtain opposite results for central bank independence. However, the impact of these factors on sacrifice ratios is rather small. Our main findings are robust to alternative classifications of the inflation targeting regime, alternative definitions of disinflation episodes, different peak levels of trend inflation rate, and across various specifications of the empirical model.