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This paper studies the knowledge spillover effect through industrial correlation in the process of interregional textile industry transfer and its effects on the TFP of China's textile industry. The paper calculates the industrial similarity coefficients of subdivided industries with the textile industry and identifies the related industries of China's textile industry by using the data of China's input-output table and extension tables from 2002 to 2017. Then, the paper defines the industrial correlation spillover as the weighted sum of the indirect R&D investment of one industry from its related industries and constructs a quantitative method to qualify the industrial correlation spillover. Furthermore, the paper makes two empirical analyses on the existence of industrial correlation spillover in the interregional industrial transfer and its effects on productivity using the panel data of two-digit subdivided industries in 30 provinces. The results show that the correlation spillover effect does exist and promotes the interregional textile industry transfer from the eastern coastal region to the central and the northern-coastal regions; the correlation spillover from the related tertiary industries in industrial transfer promotes the TFP of China's textile industry, but the correlation spillover from the related secondary industries impedes the TFP of the textile industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low efficiency of environmental policy implementation is an important issue in China's environmental governance. The Environmental Protection Interview (EPI) policy is an administrative means for the central environmental protection department to urge local governments to earnestly fulfill their environmental protection responsibilities. This paper takes China's EPI policy as a quasi-natural experiment. We use panel data of 261 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2018 as research sample and use spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model to investigate the effect and mechanism of EPI policy on air pollution. The results show that EPI policy can effectively improve air quality, EPI policy has obvious spatial spillover effects. Namely, the EPI policy can not only reduce the local air pollution, but also reduce the air pollution in neighbouring cities. The EPI policy reduces the air pollution in the neighbouring cities within a spatial attenuation boundary of 400 km.The results of mechanism test show that the EPI policy can improve air quality by promoting industrial structure upgrading and technical advancement. Moreover, the pollution reduction effect of EPI is more significant in resource-based cities. The research results of this paper provide important reference for China and other developing countries to improve air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present work is to focus on the increased number of criminal crimes from the perspective of the rising housing price in China. Based on the theory of crime economics, the article analyzed the direct and indirect influence channel through which the housing prices may have impacts on criminal crimes. The paper collected the panel data of 27 province-level regions in China from 2004 to 2017 and verified the hypotheses by using fixed effect model, mediating effect model and spatial Dubin model. Our study offered the following conclusions: 1. The rise in housing price is a generative impetus for the frequent occurrence of the criminal offenses. 2. Consumption gap serves as the mediating variable between housing price and criminal crime. 3. There is a spatial correlation between housing price and criminal crime in China. Finally, the paper proposed relevant suggestions based on the above conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to estimate the effects of increasing debt burden on the wage share of national income in the eurozone from 1999 to 2019 in an attempt to verify, through a dynamic panel data cointegrating technique, whether an increase in debt implies a redistribution of resources from workers to non-wage incomes. To deepen this analysis, the empirical investigation also distinguishes between change in primary public balance and interest payments to evaluate separately the effects of the two components of public debt on wages. The outcomes are consistent with a negative relationship between public debt as a whole and the wage share. However, when accounting for the two debt components, opposite results are registered as the debt service is negatively connected, while change in primary public deficit is positively connected with the wage share of national GDP. These results allow reflecting on the interaction between the monetary policy strategy and the national fiscal policies in the eurozone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper hypothesizes that the quality of institutions tends to evolve slowly and in a piecemeal nature over time. In this process policy is seen to be a mechanism through which this evolutionary process takes place. Policy influences intermediary variables, which in turn create opportunities for institutional innovation. There are two hypotheses derived from this analysis and tested empirically in the paper. It is hypothesized that improvements in institutional quality lead to increases in economic development (using two different measures). It is also hypothesized that changes in intermediary variables resulting from policy changes lead to improvements in institutional quality. These two hypotheses are tested using a panel data set made up of twenty-five countries in Africa. The results indicate that improvements in the quality of governance institutions do lead to improvements in economic development and that policies aimed at influencing intermediary variables lead to improvements in governance institutional quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, this paper examines to what extent informal care provided by couples and single individuals affects their household savings. This paper is one of the first attempts to examine the relationship between informal care and savings. There are both negative and positive effects of informal care on wealth accumulation, but we do not know which of these effects dominate. We estimate quantile regression models and find that informal care provision has limited negative impacts on changes in household wealth formation. There was no effect of caring on wealth formation for the lower quantile and the negative effects are limited to the mid to high quantile groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper theoretically and empirically analyzes how the taxation of financial services under VAT ('financial VAT') influences trade openness. The empirical analysis uses data from the OECD and 36 European Union countries for the period 1960–2019. Dynamic panel data techniques are used, concretely the GMM System, and an unbalanced panel is handled. The results corroborate that financial VAT, and in particular the 'option-to-tax' method applied by some countries in the European Union, are positively associated with a country's trade openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an empirical framework to assess the nonlinear complementary linkage effects that arise from the interaction between motorway capital and information and communications technology (ICT) capital in developed economies. Using panel data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries and controlling for endogeneity, the paper finds that there exists a critical mass for ICT capital such that if the capital grows beyond the critical mass, the marginal contribution of motorway capital to productivity growth increases as the motorway is extended. This empirical result explains variations in the productivity contributions of transport infrastructure across countries that differ in their ICT infrastructure and has implications for setting the investment priorities of key components of infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public investment in advanced economies is at historical lows, following a declining trend since the 1980s. Two main hypotheses have been posed to explain this evolution: (i) the 'social dominance hypothesis', whereby increased public social spending has been displacing investment from government's budgets, despite the upward trend witnessed in tax burdens and debt; (ii) fiscal rules' frameworks, that would have forced governments to reduce investment in their quest for compliance. In this paper, we jointly test the validity of these two duelling explanations using two empirical approaches (panel data models; local projections) for a sample of advanced economies comprising data for the past six decades. We find that both factors are relevant to explain the observed downward trend in investment, with social spending acting as a structural driver, whereas fiscal rules contributed mainly when applied in fiscal consolidation episodes. [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 studies the empirical relationship between population's health and real GDP dynamics in low- and middle-income countries. We employ a semi-parametric technique, which combines mixed panel data models and cluster analysis to account for unobserved heterogeneity, an important source of estimation bias in growth regressions. We estimate a version of the Solow growth model augmented with human capital, in the form of both education and health. Our estimates show that population s health, here proxied by the life expectancy at birth, has a positive, sizable, and statistically significant effect on both the level and the growth rate of the real per capita GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the quality of foreign direct investment (FDI) is of great importance for the Chinese economy, which has transited from high-speed growth to high-quality development. Under the background of the rapid construction of high-speed rail (HSR), this paper uses panel data from 288 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2017 and implements the time-varying difference-in-differences (DID) model to investigate the effect of the HSR opening on FDI. This study also infers the quality of FDI before HSR opening and tests whether HSR opening could improve the quality of FDI. The empirical results show that in the short period after the HSR opening, the crowding out low-quality investment caused by the opening of HSR is greater than the effect of attracting high-quality investment. Therefore, FDI decreases after the opening of HSR, indicating the FDI before HSR opening is a low-quality investment. Moreover, the opening of HSR could gradually improve the quality of FDI over time, promoting FDI to transition to a neutral investment, then to a high-quality investment. Our research suggests that the Chinese government should choose FDI with adequate evaluation, introducing the high-quality FDI to generate technology spillovers and promote the industrial upgrades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent initiative of the RBI in reviving the policy of directed credit allocation in a period dominated by the neoliberal philosophy necessitates reconsideration of the role of policy-directed credit allocation process on financial development and financial structure of firms. Introducing certain policy parameters, the paper attempts to model how financial development-financial structure interlinkage is influenced by the liberalization policies of the government. The theoretical construct is empirically verified using both aggregated and disaggregated (firm-level) data comprising a panel of 932 Indian manufacturing firms. Findings reveal that following the liberalization measures in the early 1990s, there has been a structural shift in the debt-equity ratio of firms, with equity market activities assuming prominence over time. As regards financial development, it has been observed that the withdrawal of DFIs specialized in term-lending activities in the early 2000s led to a significant increase in the degree of financing constraints faced by the manufacturing firms. This contradicts the basic premise of financial liberalization. The paper argues that under certain conditions, government intervention in the form of directed credit programmes would not only act as an effective instrument in ushering financial development, but also provide important guidelines in ensuring sustainability of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to assess the role of hard and soft infrastructure in trade, distinguishing between traditional trade and supply-chain trade. Using factor analysis, we construct four aggregate trade facilitation indicators where we measure hard infrastructure as physical and ICT infrastructure, while soft infrastructure accounts for border efficiency and institutional efficiency. For traditional trade, we use bilateral trade data from UN Comtrade. Supply-chain trade is measured in terms of domestic value-added (DVAFX) embodied in foreign gross exports and foreign value-added (FVA) embodied in domestic gross exports obtained from Eora MRIO database. We use panel data regression analysis with an empirical model specification based on a gravity model and covering the 2000–2019 period. We estimate model with the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood Estimator (PPML). To control multilateral trade-resistance terms (MRT), we included reporter and partner fixed effects along with country pair fixed effects. The results confirm a statistically significant relationship between hard and soft infrastructure and trade. ICT and border efficiency have the strongest impact on both types of trade. Supply-chain trade responds most intensely to improvements in institutional efficiency. Results imply that ICT infrastructure and border efficiency might hold even greater importance for CEMS's traditional and supply-chain trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands on the scarce literature about the demand for casino gaming, particularly on electronic gaming machines (EGM). A dynamic panel data model is proposed for estimating the price elasticity of demand for slot machines in casinos located in Argentina. As far as we know, no similar study for Argentina or any other Latin American country has been previously conducted. In our study, the estimation of the elasticity coefficients was carried out by means of a procedure that corrects the construction bias generated by the model, something that has not been applied in the literature so far. The results, unlike most of the literature, show elasticity values greater than one in absolute value. Additionally, elasticities observed for touristic regions were greater (in absolute value) than for non-tourist areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between firms' performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and cost efficiency. We use a newly developed panel data model of stochastic frontier analysis that endogenizes cost efficiency. The dataset consists of 1,673 firms from ten provinces in Vietnam over three years: 2009, 2011 and 2013. Our results suggest that CSR can enhance cost efficiency of firms. This positive effect of CSR on efficiency can be masked if cost efficiency is treated as exogenous or endogeneity is not handled appropriately. The upshot is that our results challenge the widely held view of the existence of a trade-off between CSR and firm efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a dual sectors dynamic equilibrium model and introduces agricultural energy consumption and agricultural water consumption in a growth model that tested by using a panel data set from 2004 to 2016 in China. It presents a theoretical prediction on the interactions between agricultural energy consumption, agricultural water consumption, and food yield. Consistent with this prediction, agricultural electricity consumption and agricultural water consumption by themselves appear to have significant effects on food yield. The fixed-effects models verify that agricultural electricity consumption, agricultural water consumption, and food yield have long-run equilibrium relationships. The results of weather-based robustness checks reveal that food yield is positively correlated with agricultural electricity consumption. Also consistent with theory, agricultural water consumption is positively associated with food yield. These results are generally stable and hold with tests of panel data unit roots, with alternative estimation strategies, and with or without controlling for covariates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we start to address the lack of research into the relationship between innovation and subjective wellbeing (SWB). We focus on four channels by which innovation may influence SWB, namely income, use of ICT technologies, inequality and unemployment, synthesizing them into a conceptual framework. This framework constitutes the foundation for our theoretical model and empirical investigation of the relationship between innovation and SWB. As previous literature shows, the impact of innovation on SWB through these four channels is mostly negative. Analysis of panel data from eight European countries over the period 1980–201$ on the effects of technological innovation, measured in terms of patents, on population wellbeing confirms the negative impact of innovation on SWB. The analysis has policy implications, because it provides improved estimates of the contribution of innovation to collective wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constructs panel data of 150 economies from 2001 to 2017 to study the impact of RMB (Renminbi) swap agreements on foreign exchange reserve demand. The empirical results show that the swap agreements can significantly reduce the foreign reserve demand of non-OECD economies that have relatively insufficient liquidity. From the perspective of specific country classification, economies neighbouring China have higher RMB demand, Latin American and African economies hold less reserve, and commodity exporters are stuck in liquidity-nervous situations, in which RMB swap agreements are able to improve liquidity so that their reserve demand decreases. Regarding the channels of influence, swap agreements impose different impacts on the reserve demand mainly through bilateral trade and more impacts on economies that import more from China. On the contrary, the RMB swap agreements will not affect the OECD economies' foreign exchange reserve demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of place-based agricultural industry policy on firm-level development, focusing on the establishment of Modern Agricultural Demonstration Zones (MADZ) in China. Using a panel data of agricultural products processing companies from 2007 to 2013, we apply difference in difference (DID) method and find that the policy has significantly increased the employment, output and assets. The government's selection of MADZ may not be random, leading to endogenous problems. We deal with this selection bias on site and strengthen our estimation results with a series of robustness tests. Based on the mechanism analysis, the effect of MADZ comes from tax deductions and agglomeration effects. In addition, we use the data of listed companies to verify the role of MADZ in promoting the total factor productivity (TFP) of agricultural companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some macroeconomic dimensions like the economic business cycle, the exchange rate movements when the degree of country openness is significant, or the level of inflation are often considered to explain measured-inflation dynamics. However, inflation volatility may also be affected by statistical agencies methodological changes. This paper explores both potential explanations in a panel data for 100 United States CPI-U subcategories. Using both unconditional and conditional variances, we find that crucial changes in how agencies consider quality adjustment in products, together with the macroeconomic variables help to understand CPI volatility over time, both in the short-run and in the long-run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we estimate the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) for Chile, Colombia, and the United States using a hedonic wage model and a pseudo-panel approach. The VSL is a major component of the cost-benefit analysis of many policies, including public health, transportation safety, and environmental regulation. Using pseudo-panels, also known as synthetic cohort data, to estimate the VSL is relevant for low- and middle-income countries because many do not have panel data but do have repeated cross-sectional information. We conclude that the pseudo-panel approach is a suitable alternative for estimating the VSL when panel data is unavailable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an approach to measure the intensity and the territorial dispersion of spatial proximity effects, which affect efficiency scores obtained through data envelopment analysis in the field of municipal waste management systems (MWMSs). In particular, we show that these analyses cannot be conducted by relying on efficiency scores that are not comparable over time and treated as cross-sectional data, as is done in most previous studies. Instead, the use of panel data is a key element to obtain reliable results. We used a meta-frontier approach to obtain meta-efficiency scores comparable over time and a modified conditional autoregressive (CAR) model to provide an estimation of the intensity of spatial proximity effects. This approach was applied to data on 277 MWMSs located in the Italian region of Abruzzo. Our method provides useful information for policymakers. In particular, the areas in which stagnating and suboptimal performance can be expected over time can be identified by plotting over the regional territory the posterior medians of the random effects obtained by the spatial component of the CAR model together with the highly efficient municipalities. To improve efficiency, these areas require an active intervention by levels of government higher than the municipal level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade credit is an important auxiliary measure to complete transactions in supply chains, and it is also an important source of short-term financing for companies. This paper uses panel data for Chinese listed companies from 2002 to 2016 to study the impact of Tobin's Q and bargaining power on trade credit under different economic conditions, and we ultimately study how trade credit affects companies' performance during economic fluctuations. We find that companies with higher Tobin's Q values tend to reduce the use of trade credit demand, which increases during the economic expansion period and weakens during the economic downturn. Second, companies with lower bargaining power tend to increase their use of trade credit expansion as a competitive tool; however, this effect will weaken during the economic expansion period and will increase during the economic downturn. We also find that the amounts of trade credit demand and expansion are negatively correlated with corporate performance and that this effect weakens during the economic expansion period and increases during the economic downturn. The cycle of trade credit expansion is positively related to corporate performance. This relationship weakens during the economic expansion and strengthens during the economic downturn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses panel data techniques to investigate the impact of state mandates to cover telehealth services on private insurance premiums and enrollment, health-care utilization, and health outcomes. There is evidence that telehealth insurance mandates are associated with an increase in primary care, but no significant changes in overall health outcomes. However, there is evidence of a reduction of secondary care and improvement in health outcomes in non-metropolitan areas. The results provide useful information regarding the potential of telehealth to reduce health-care costs as well as to reduce disparities in access to health care and in health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends the literature on the consequences of over-education, in particular quit outcomes. It is the first study that explicitly tests the impact of job satisfaction and on-the-job training for workers in educational mismatched jobs and on quit behaviour using a longitudinal data set. Accounting for unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity, the dynamic analytical framework examines labour market outcomes for job-mismatched workers. We find that over-education alone, or accompanied by skill under-utilization in combination with lower job satisfaction, increases the incidences of job quitting. Opportunities for training facilitate the retention of initially job-mismatched workers. These results have implications for interpreting mismatch data, retention, and resource allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do national and local newspapers both impact voter turnout? This paper tackles this question by employing data from a unique dataset that collects detailed national and local newspapers, politico-institutional and socio-economic information for Italy during 1980–2007. We use a Dynamic Panel Data with Instrumental Variables methodology that allows for the consideration of potential sources of endogeneity that may affect the relation between the press and voting behavior. We strengthen this methodology by considering the industry's entry and exit of newspapers – i.e. turbulence – as an external shock. Our analysis provides robust evidence that local newspaper readership affects both national and local turnout and improves political accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marriage, as the most crucial event in one's lifetime, not only has a significant effect on one's future consumer preferences but also changes one's consumer decisions. This paper addresses how individuals change their expenditure when the marital status changes, three models are developed to explore this issue based on the equilibrium of current consumption and consumption purpose with the consideration of income growth, expenditure on public goods and mating competitiveness for males and females. By selecting the married group in the panel data of China Family Panel Studies between 2016 and 2018, we use the propensity score to match all the married individuals during the 2 years and search a control group for each of them and, in addition, use the difference-in-differences (DID) method to examine the effects of marriage on individuals' personal and public consumption. Benefiting to the model fitting the data relatively well, the results show that individual's expenditure raises by 24% when married, with highly increasing items in public goods. At last, males cost 11.4% more than females after their marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of different types of job-to-job transitions (from salaried employment to self-employment, from self-employment to salaried employment, and within salaried employment) on job satisfaction. Considering the three types of job transition, allows us to separate the pure mobility effect from the type of employment effect. We design an identification strategy based on the diff-in-diff approach. This is possible because our panel data allow us to compare the same individuals before and after job-to-job transitions occur. Our findings indicate that individuals who move from salaried employment to self-employment increase their overall job satisfaction more than workers who carry out other types of job transitions, while the impact of job changes on satisfaction in other job domains is mixed. We also find heterogeneous interactive effects of previous unemployment spells and self-perceived skill mismatch with job transitions depending on the type of transition. While skill mismatch is more important in the transition from salaried employment to self-employment, previous unemployment is more important for job changes within salaried employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among industrialized countries, the U.S. holds two somewhat inglorious records: the highest rate of fatal police shootings and the highest rate of deaths related to firearms. The latter has been associated with firearms prevalence mostly due to permissive legislation in several member states. The present paper investigates the relation between firearms legislation and the number of fatal police shooting episodes using a seven–year U.S state–level panel dataset. Our results confirm the negative impact of stricter firearms regulations on deadly use of force by police officers found in previous cross–sectional studies. However, in contrast with previous findings, we show that such impact is not mediated by gun availability. We also show that regulations pertaining to gun owner accountability are most effective in reducing fatal police shooting incidence. These results suggest that, from a public health perspective, what matters most is who owns guns rather than how many guns are owned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines the semiparametric modified ordinary least-squares approach by Simar et al. (2017) with the nonparametric shape constraint regression approach by Du et al. (2013) to evaluate the performance in the semiconductor industry. Using panel data on 470 companies in the global semiconductor industry over 1999–2018, we compare technical eficiencies between the integrated device manufacturer business model and the fabless-foundry business model. The performance differences between the vertically integrated device manufacturers and the vertically specialized fabless and foundry firms are disentangled by the intensity of labour and capital in a very flexible form. The estimation results indicate that the capital-intensive integrated device manufacturers taking advantage of the economies of scale are operating more efficiently than the niche fabless companies in the global semiconductor industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of economic downturns on regional inequalities. In a sample of 25 OECD countries for 1990–2014 period, we show that economic downturns are associated with a significant and long-lasting reduction in regional inequalities. Expansionary fiscal policy as well as higher share of the European development (cohesion) funds facilitate the response of lagging regions to negative nation-wide shocks, contributing to further stimulate the reduction in regional disparities. Additional evidence suggests that the effect of downturns tends to be larger in economies with a higher initial level of regional disparities in unemployment and human capital endowment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists usually prescribe countercyclical fiscal policies to stabilize economies: government spending should increase during economic downturns and decrease during booms. Yet, empirical research has documented procyclical fiscal policy in several democratic developing countries. Using an updated dataset of 63 developing countries from 1980 to 2013, this article robustly shows procyclical fiscal policy in democratic and non-democratic developing countries. The essence of this paper is controlling endogeneity issues by using the generalized method of moment (GMM) for the dynamic panel data model and investigating the interaction between democracy and the quality of democratic institutions in affecting the fiscal policy cycle. This article finds that an improvement in the quality of institutions plays a vital role in restraining procyclical fiscal policy and these effects are more prominent in democratic countries than non-democratic ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of international trade on technological change and productivity is an important and well-researched topic. The existing literature focuses on spillovers of knowledge, market size effects, Schumpeterian effects, and escape competition effects. Separately, economists working in the areas of Economic Growth and Industrial Organization have looked for a relationship, often nonlinear, between market structure and innovation. This paper investigates the indirect role of trade on innovation through a contribution to domestic competition. Using a unit of analysis of HJT technology subclass, I construct a panel data set that spans the period from 2002 through 2012. Trade adjusted and unadjusted concentration ratios are constructed for HJT technology subclasses and used to deconstruct the contribution of trade to innovation through this indirect channel. This novel approach to the data also uncovers strong evidence of a nonlinear relationship between innovation and market concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we empirically test the convergence of income and energy intensity for 61 countries using an augmented spatial growth model that includes energy and urbanization variables. We test an income convergence model to understand how energy use affects economic growth, and reveal that developing countries have energy constraints on their economic development. We show that energy is an essential component of economic growth in the early stages of development and that energy intensity converges between countries. It is consistent with the OLS estimation results that the convergence rate of energy intensity in developing countries of the spatial panel data model is still higher than in developed countries. However, the spatial panel data model shows that the gap between the two convergence rates is narrowed when spatial dependence is included. This implies that a country's steady state is influenced by the neighbouring countries and emphasizes the importance of international cooperation policies for reducing energy intensity. Since the effects of economic variables on the reduction of energy intensity are different in developed and developing countries, a country-specific energy policy rather than an internationally uniform policy is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High growth firms receive a lot attention from policy and academia. In this paper we investigate the general validity of an investor startup database in studying high growth firms and growth persistence. To do so, we match Dutch administrative firm level panel data with this startup database. We establish two main facts. First, although the vast majority of high growth firms in the Dutch economy does not appear in the database, included firms do have a higher probability of being a high growth firm. Second, in contrast to regular Dutch firms and previous findings in the literature, startups show a strikingly persistent growth pattern: their growth phases are prolonged. We conclude that commercial startup databases can complement more traditional data sources, but interpretation requires care due to unclear selection in the database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crime motivates self-protection, such as undertaken quite visibly by individuals, households, and businesses. But we know much less about self-protection by public institutions, including schools, especially from an economic perspective. This paper examines how universities use campus police for that purpose. Conceptually, self-protection reduces vulnerability to crime but incurs costs whether a victimization happens or not; an actual crime further imposes a victimization cost. The agent (university administration) determines the equilibrium level of self-protection within this analytical environment. Empirical analysis of a two-year panel of U.S. universities reveals increased campus police use given larger external and internal crime threats and in the presence of better students and faculty. Larceny appears particularly influential, but the violent crimes of rape and aggravated assault do not. Extended analysis reveals that schools plagued by burglary and vehicle theft on campus utilize significantly more ancillary, procedural protections such as night-time police escorts. Larger-acreage, larger-enrolment, and religious-affiliated universities exhibit the most ongoing vulnerability to crime, showing significantly lesser campus police use even when facing higher internal crime threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between public subsidies for research and development (R&D) and public sector drug development. For the analyses, a novel dataset based on the European clinical trial registry was created, and panel data between 2007 and 2015 originating from twenty-four countries in the European Union were incorporated. For the econometric analysis, I exploit an exogenous shock coming from the Lisbon strategy on innovation policy in Europe to deal with potential endogeneity issues. Two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimates suggest that an increase in public subsidies causes an increase in Phase I clinical trials for non-orphan drugs and also stimulates basic research and Phases I and II of orphan medicinal product clinical trials. These effects are robust, when different time lags and measures of innovation apply, and they are also robust to heteroscedasticity-based instrument estimations. Overall, the results imply that government funding is an important determinant of the pharmaceutical innovation process across different stages and products. Moreover, foreign sources of government funding have a negative impact on the European clinical trials across the examined phases and innovations, while at the same time, the importance of the potential market-size is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies mental health and loneliness in the Netherlands for individuals beyond age 50. The analysis is based on panel data over the period 2008 to 2018 and focuses on the effects of life events and ageing. It appears that mental health gets worse and loneliness increases if individuals lose their partner (through divorce or death) or become unemployed. On average, the mental health of males and high educated females improves at retirement. With respect to ageing, the main conclusions are that mental health improves while loneliness goes down at least up to the high 70s. From the perspective of mental health and loneliness, it does not seem to be a drag getting old. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of a country's public debt on its twin deficits. Using panel data of five South Asian countries characterized by acute twin deficits and a high debt-to-GDP ratio for 1980–2018, we find no evidence that the budget balance wields a statistically significant impact on the current account. When the relationship between fiscal and current account deficits is conditioned on public debt levels, we find a statistically significant non-linear twin deficits relationship. For low-to-moderate debt countries with debt ratios between 46.21% and 65.80% of GDP a fiscal deficit, increase leads to a lower current account deficit. For high debt countries (i.e. debt-to-GDP ratio is above 65.80%), a rising fiscal deficit results in a larger current account deficit. Maintaining a sustainable debt-to-GDP ratio of 65.80% or lower is crucial for reducing both fiscal deficits and current account imbalances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although farmland transfer is a radical solution to the problem of sustainable development of the land rental market in China, there is insufficient research that attempted to quantitatively explore the determinants of land transfer behaviour, particularly the effects of enrolment in public pension programs. In this paper, we examine how enrolment in the recently established and expanded New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) can affect land transfer decisions among the age-eligible and age-ineligible rural residents. Specifically, our study employs balanced panel data from the first two waves of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in the year 2010 and 2012. It reveals that, although the enrolment in the public pension system increases the scale of farmland transfer among age-eligible people, this effect is not shown among age-ineligible members. Moreover, for households with members over the age of 60, the positive income effects are concentrated among farmers from low-income family; for other groups, the heterogeneous outcomes are insignificant. These estimates may offer insights for the dynamic adjustments of the public pensions for the elderly population and for enhancing the vitality of land transfer in rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-commerce technology has been paid more and more attention by manufacturing companies. The wide application of e-commerce has enhanced the competitive advantage of companies, but it also intensified the competition among them. Competition has many impacts on companies, among which the impact on operating efficiency is particularly concerned. This paper provided in-depth analysis using a two-stage methodology to analyse the specific impact of competition on the operating efficiency of garment companies (with B2C mode) in e-commerce environment. Firstly, the game cross-efficiency (GCE) model and related indicators were used to evaluate the operating efficiency of selected companies from 2011 to 2018. The results showed that compared to the traditional cross-efficiency (TCE), the scores of GCE considering competition were improved. This indicated that although e-commerce technology intensified the competition among Chinese garment companies, competition improved their operating efficiency. Moreover, the GCE model theoretically remedied some shortcomings of traditional DEA models. Secondly, the panel data model was used to analyse the specific impact of competition on operating efficiency. The results indicated that competition significantly increased pure technical efficiency, but it was not beneficial to scale efficiency. Based on these findings, some policy implications were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using regional level panel data of three developed countries, comprising Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, the study investigates the response of consumption smoothing to housing capital gains. The consumption smoothing model first revisits the theory of perfect risk sharing. After rejecting a full consumption smoothing hypothesis, the results strongly indicate that the appreciation of house values smooths consumption further. For the sake of comparison, analysing three developed economies reveals the diversification in the response of consumption to long-run output shocks. Canadian residents appear to be more sensitive to permanent domestic output shocks while Australian's consumption pattern remains unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to present a longitudinal analysis of the AmericaEconomia MBA Ranking for the period 2005–2014. AmericaEconomia was the first international ranking specifically devoted to Latin American business schools, and with data gathered from this publication, we build a panel to study its stability and the main determinants of a school's position in such ranking. We examine the reliability of the ranking, that is whether changes in the relative positions are not just due to white noise, and compare its stability with those of the US and other global rankings. We also empirically determine which are the key quality variables this ranking is promoting for Latin America Business Schools and the evolution of these business schools during the period under study. Unlike previous literature that usually considers dynamic Tobit models for ranking analysis, we put forwards an alternative methodology based on a system GMM estimator with first-differenced instruments. We argue that dynamic Tobit models are appropriate only if you have truncated data about the ranking variable but full data on Business Schools variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land transfer incentives and their effect on farmers' income in developing countries have been widely examined in the literate, but little is known about the driving mechanism of rural household income effect during land transfer. To fill in this gap, this paper explains the incentives of land transfer, analyses the influencing factors of farmers' decision on land transfer, then measures the income effects of land transfer and identifies the main sources of income effects, utilizing open-access data collected through the China Family Panel Studies. The empirical results show that land flow out or in is beneficial to raise farmers' income, indicating that the income effects have a positive feedback to farmers' decision on land transfer. Further analyses reveal that land flow-out farmers and land flow-in farmers have different main sources of income growth. Our finding suggest that optimizing the incentive role of China's existing rural land property system can help orderly flow of rural land resources, which subsequently increases rural household income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UK policy concern about the value and funding of Higher Education has focussed on the intrinsic and instrumental impacts of education. Typically, returns to education are identified by narrow economic metrics, like earnings. However, policy makers recognize the need for wider measures of welfare. Consequently, contemporaneous relationships with subjective well-being (SWB) have been explored. In this paper the effects of higher education on SWB are mapped through time. The results show positive effects in the first year at university that dissipate afterwards. Intrinsic benefits from education remain but get eroded implying increased stress from loan financed education with transition to a more instrumental perspective on education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the impact of trade openness on child health, based on a cross-country panel data set covering 66 countries for the period 1960–2013. To account for the time-series properties of the data and potential cross-country heterogeneity in the impact of trade openness, the study employs heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques that are robust to omitted variables and endogeneity problems. The results reveal that trade openness and child health are cointegrated, and that trade works to reduce the child mortality rate significantly in the long-run. The results are robust to the methodology and trade openness and child health indicators employed, as well as to the presence of cross-sectional dependence and changes in the sample composition. The findings also suggest that the impact of trade on child health tends to be stronger in countries with better institutional quality, lower corruption, good governance, political stability, and sound policies that promote private sector development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using country-level panel data over 1995–2013 on within-country income inequality and foreign bank presence, this paper establishes a positive relation between the two, running from higher foreign bank presence to income inequality. Given that foreign bank participation increased by 62% over the period 1995 to 2013, our baseline results imply a 5.8% increase in the Gini coefficient on average over this period, ceteris paribus. These results are robust to the inclusion of country and year fixed effects and to the use of restrictions on foreign bank entry in the host countries as an instrumental variable. We show that this positive effect is channelled through the lack of greenfield entry and the associated lower levels of competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, there has been increasing disparity in savings across regions and income groupings globally. In this paper, we investigate whether the quality of institutions explains the saving disparities in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Utilizing comprehensive panel data and spanning the period 1980–2015, we estimate a savings model using the two-step instrumental variable generalized method of moment (2SIV-GMM) estimator. Our results show that the impact of institutions on savings behaviour differs across regions and income groupings, and in SSA, in aggregate. We find that the level and growth of per capita income and terms of trade enhance savings whereas government consumption expenditure, financial sector development and the elderly dependency rate are savings impeding. The findings are robust to alternative model specification and highlight the importance of institutions in influencing savings behaviour in SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital financial inclusion plays an important role in optimization of employment structure. In this article, we use panel data on 29 provinces over the period 2011 to 2018 to analyse the impact of digital financial inclusion on optimization of employment structure in China. The instrumental variables method (FE and 2SLS) is adopted to test the relationship empirically. Taking full consideration of endogeneity and verifying their robustness, our results show that digitally inclusive finance significantly drives optimization of employment structure in China, and the effect is heterogeneous. Digital financial inclusion has a significant driving effect on optimization of employment structure in eastern China. In central and western China, the driving impact is insignificant, more so in the former than the latter. We conduct further analysis, showing a positive effect of three dimensions of digital financial inclusion on employment structure optimization. From the perspective of promotion, from strong to weak, they are the depth, width and digitization of digital financial inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]