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on Transition Economics |
| By: | Loren Brandt; Gueorgui Kambourov; Kjetil Storesletten |
| Abstract: | Labor productivity in manufacturing differs starkly across regions in China. We document that productivity, wages, and start-up rates of non-state firms have nevertheless experienced rapid regional convergence after 1995. To analyze these patterns, we construct a Hopenhayn (1992) model that incorporates location-specific capital wedges, output wedges, and entry barriers. Using Chinese Industry Census data we estimate these wedges and examine their role in explaining differences in performance and growth across prefectures. Entry barriers explain most of the differences. We investigate the empirical covariates of these entry barriers and find that barriers are causally related to the size of the state sector |
| Keywords: | Chinese economic growth; SOEs; firm entry; entry barriers; capital wedges; output wedges; SOE reform. |
| JEL: | O11 O14 O16 O40 O53 P25 R13 D22 D24 E24 |
| Date: | 2020–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-652&r=all |
| By: | Vasily Astrov (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Rumen Dobrinsky (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Richard Grieveson (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Doris Hanzl-Weiss (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Gabor Hunya (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Sebastian Leitner (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Isilda Mara (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Olga Pindyuk (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Leon Podkaminer (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Sandor Richter (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Hermine Vidovic (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Goran Vuksic |
| Abstract: | Central, East and Southeast Europe Recent Economic Developments and Forecast Table Overview 2017-2018 and outlook 2019-2021 (p. 1) Figures GDP growth in 2018-2021 and contribution of individual demand components in percentage points (p. 2) Albania Institutional clash threatens stability (by Isilda Mara; p. 3) Belarus Economy past the trough (by Rumen Dobrinsky; p. 4) Bosnia and Herzegovina Some positive economic signals despite political stalemate (by Goran Vukšić; p. 5) Bulgaria Exports support an unexpected upturn (by Rumen Dobrinsky; p. 6) Croatia Surprisingly strong start to the year (by Hermine Vidovic; p. 7) Czech Republic Moderate growth continues (by Leon Podkaminer; p. 8) Estonia External demand above expectations (by Sebastian Leitner; p. 9) Hungary Signs of overheating (by Sándor Richter; p. 10) Kazakhstan Trying to preserve the status quo (by Olga Pindyuk; p. 11) Kosovo Stumbling Serbia–Kosovo dialogue (by Isilda Mara; p. 12) Latvia Pace of growth changes to a lower gear (by Sebastian Leitner; p. 13) Lithuania Domestic and external demand remain strong (by Sebastian Leitner; p. 14) Moldova Stable growth supported by lax fiscal policy (by Gábor Hunya; p. 15) Montenegro Impressive surge in employment (by Goran Vukšić; p. 16) North Macedonia On the way back up (by Richard Grieveson; p. 17) Poland Social spending supports high growth (by Leon Podkaminer; p. 18) Romania Still overheating (by Gábor Hunya; p. 19) Russia On the verge of recession (by Vasily Astrov; p. 20) Serbia Adjusting back to reality (by Richard Grieveson; p. 21) Slovakia Growth boosted by Jaguar Land Rover (by Doris Hanzl-Weiss; p. 22) Slovenia Returning to a moderate growth path (by Hermine Vidovic; p. 23) Turkey Still close to the eye of the storm (by Richard Grieveson; p. 24) Ukraine Growth holds steady despite political storm (by Olga Pindyuk; p. 25) |
| Keywords: | economic forecasts, GDP, GDP growth, consumer prices, unemployment, current account, investment, household consumption, net exports, |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:mpaper:mr:2019-06&r=all |
| By: | Alisher Tleubayev (Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO)) |
| Abstract: | Current study provides pioneering empirical evidence on the corporate governance and firm performance relationship in the case of the large scale agri-food companies in Russia. While Russia plays an important role in global food security, its domestic agri-food production is heavily dependent on large scale producers.In spite of the emergence and continuing growth of large scale agricultural enterprises in many parts of the world, the literature on large scale corporate farming is scarce. Corporate governance literature is especially limited in the case of transition economies like Russia, which has relatively short history of market economics. A sudden move towards the decentralized market after the collapse of the communist regime in the beginning of 1990s led to the emergence of new private companies. Most of these newly privatized companies were large in size, with very poor governance levels. However, increased attention from government, relatively stabilized national economy, improvements in legislation and access to international financial markets led to significant improvements in governance structure after 1999. All these factors taken together, makes it especially interesting to study the corporate governance in the case of Russia. A panel data of 203 agri-food enterprises of Russia for the period between 2012 and 2017 is employed in the analysis. |
| Keywords: | corporate governance, agri-food industry, firm performance, Russia, panel data |
| JEL: | M14 Q12 Q13 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:9911911&r=all |
| By: | Olegs Krasnopjorovs (Bank of Latvia) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates internal and external labour reserves in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. We find considerable internal labour reserves in the form of still high natural rate of unemployment and in hidden unemployment as many economically inactive people are available for work but are not actively engaged in job seeking. The employment rate is particularly low for upper-middle-aged men, especially those without a tertiary education degree, which is likely to reflect a low incidence of lifelong learning, low digital skills and rapidly deteriorating health condition. We document low employment of youth, mirroring low prevalence of apprenticeships. In Lithuania and Latvia, there is also a postponed entry of young women into the labour market. Moreover, the employment rate of Estonian women of fertile age who hold a tertiary education degree is consistently lower than that of their EU counterparts. These internal labour reserves total more than 25 thousand people in Estonia, 55 thousand in Latvia and 85 thousand in Lithuania, corresponding to 4%–7% of the total employment in these countries. Particular targeting on ethnic minorities and people living in disadvantaged regions is essential for activating these labour reserves. Moreover, we point to considerable external labour reserves in the form of more than a half million Baltic nationals currently residing in wealthier EU countries. |
| Keywords: | labour market, employment, unemployment, participation, migration |
| JEL: | J21 J82 E24 |
| Date: | 2019–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ltv:dpaper:201902&r=all |
| By: | Tasso Adamopoulos; Loren Brandt; Jessica Leight; Diego Restuccia |
| Abstract: | We use household-level panel data from China and a quantitative framework to document the extent and consequences of factor misallocation in agriculture. We find that there are substantial within-village frictions in both the land and capital markets linked to land institutions in rural China that disproportionately constrain the more productive farmers. These frictions reduce aggregate agricultural productivity in China by affecting two key margins: (1) the allocation of resources across farmers (misallocation) and (2) the allocation of workers across sectors, in particular the type of farmers who operate in agriculture (selection). We show that selection can substantially amplify the static misallocation effect of distortionary policies by affecting occupational choices that worsen the distribution of productive units in agriculture. |
| Keywords: | agriculture, misallocation, selection, productivity, China. |
| JEL: | O11 O14 O4 E02 Q1 |
| Date: | 2019–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-651&r=all |
| By: | Mathilde Maurel (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne; https://centredeconomiesorbonne.univ-paris1.fr); Thomas Pernet (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne; https://centredeconomiesorbonne.univ-paris1.fr); Zhao Ruili (Shangai University of International Business and Economics - Chine) |
| Abstract: | We study how a bank's involvement in a firm's financing may be in line with environmental policies pursued by the Chinese central government. Specifically, we evaluate the effectiveness of credit reallocation away from polluting projects when the government imposes stringent environmental policies. We combine the industries' financial dependencies with time, including cross-cities variation in policy intensity to identify the causal effect on the sulfur dioxide (SO2)emission. We find that SO2 emissions are lower in industries with high reliance on credits and stricter environmental regulations. Furthermore, our results suggest that locations with strong environmental policies lead firms to seek funding in less regulated areas, which confirms the pollution haven hypothesis |
| Keywords: | Banks; Financial Dependency; Environmental regulation; China |
| JEL: | F36 G20 Q53 Q56 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:19029&r=all |
| By: | David Procházka (University of Economics, Prague); Tomá? Zouhar (University of Economics, Prague) |
| Abstract: | Intangible assets are the main drivers of value creation and the competitive advantage of many firms across all industries. Despite the importance of intangibles in economy increases, their recognition in corporate balance sheets is restricted. Conventional accounting struggles with reliability of their measurement as well as with the uncertainty of their future economic benefits, despite the intangibles reporting provides the users with value-relevant information. The paper tests empirically the level of compliance of listed Czech companies with the disclosure requirements of IAS 38 Intangible assets in their annual reports. Using dataset of financial and non-financial firms from the period 2008-2017 (in total 210 annual reports and 2,730 individual disclosures manually collected), we document a moderate increase in disclosure quality of the sample firms over the period. Consistently with recent research, the evidence of improvement can be attributed to reporting incentives of the firms, acknowledging the importance of capital market to raise capital and, thus, to deliver useful information to the users of financial statements. However, the analysis reveal heterogeneity in the level of compliance across the firms, depending on company?s auditor and their ownership structure. Other investigated determinants, such as industry and country origin of the issuer, are not found as relevant. |
| Keywords: | intangible assets; IAS 38; disclosure quality; listed Czech firms |
| JEL: | M41 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:9912151&r=all |
| By: | Tommaso Agasisti (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Ekaterina Abalmasova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Ekaterina Shibanova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Aleksei Egorov (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In most countries which experience structural transformation of their higher education system, a crucial goal of policy makers is to tie the amount of university public funding to their performance. This research analyzes the Russian performance-based funding (PBF) reform to provide a quasi-experimental assessment of its effects on Russian universities’ performance. Data comes from the Monitoring for HEIs performance and covers the period between 2014/2015 and 2017/2018. To evaluate the causal effect of the PBF policy on university performance, in a first step we define the treatment and the control groups by distinguishing universities on the basis of the trend in their performance-based allocations. In a second step, we estimated the causal effect of the redistribution of public funds across universities as a result of PBF policy. Results indicate that the performance of universities is actually affected by getting extra funding after the reform, although heterogeneity is at play. The short-run effect is related with the impact on average national exam scores, indicating that the policy forced universities to be more selective. |
| Keywords: | performance-based funding, higher education funding, policy evaluation, difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | I22 I23 I28 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:221/ec/2019&r=all |
| By: | Cristina Procházková Ilinitchi (University of Economics, Prague); Anastasie Pustovalova (University of Economics from Prague); Lubomír ?t?pánek (University of Economics, Prague) |
| Abstract: | The paper assesses capital deepening as a response to constant wage rise in Czech Republic. The first part of the paper investigates the characteristics of capital and labour production factors in the Czech republic. It first assesses the specifics of the Czech labour market including the comparison with other countries of the Visegrad group and the EU. Secondly, it investigates the structure of capital and investment environment in the Czech republic. The second part of the paper estimates the elasticity of capital-labour substitution using FOC estimating equation and OLS method. It also discusses the applicability of the structural change theory based on differences in the value of elasticity of substitution among manufacturing sectors in Czech Republic. This is particularly relevant in the context of the actualisation of investment strategy of the Czech government, which aims to identify and support strategic manufacturing sectors for the future development of the Czech republic. |
| Keywords: | Elasticity of substitution, Capital, Wages, Intestment |
| JEL: | A10 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:9912112&r=all |
| By: | Pena-Boquete, Yolanda; Samambayeva, Aizhan; Zhumakanova, Aigerim; Makhmejanov, Galym |
| Abstract: | Child mortality rate is one of the key indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals from the United Nations. In the last two decades, this indicator became 6 times smaller during 1990 to 2017 (from 54.1 deaths/1,000 live births to 8.9) in Kazakhstan. This decrease in child mortality rate have been much faster in Kazakhstan than in other countries of Central Asia, so it would be useful to understand the reasons why. Thus, the aim of the paper is to analyze the socio-economic determinants of child mortality in Kazakhstan in order to shed light on the factors behind its huge reduction. In order to estimate the determinants of child mortality we run a logit model based on Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) database provided by UNICEF for Kazakhstan in 2006, 2010-2011, 2015. Results show that household composition may be a relevant variable for explaining child mortality: head of household is a relevant variable; however maternal education doesn’t come out significant. Additionally, the access to health resources also reduce infant mortality. On the one hand, the probability that women had experienced the death of a children increases for the 2th and 3th quintile of wealth, i.e. for those who have a worse access to the health resources. On the other hand, the probability that the child dies are higher for families living the rural areas compared with urban areas (explained for the difficulties of reaching the health facilities in rural areas). Results of this paper can be used to keep the positive path in the infant mortality decrease for Kazakhstan and taken as an example for other countries in Central Asia where infant mortality is still high. |
| Keywords: | child mortality risk, inequality, socio-economic status |
| JEL: | I15 I18 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:97328&r=all |
| By: | Shuyao Wu; Jiao Huang; Shuangcheng Li |
| Abstract: | To completely understand the effects of urban ecosystems, the effects of ecosystem disservices should be considered along with the ecosystem services and require more research attention. In this study, we tried to better understand its formation through the use of cascade flowchart and classification systems and compare their effects with ecosystem services. It is vitally important to differentiate final and intermediate ecosystem disservices for understanding the negative effects of the ecosystem on human well-being. The proposed functional classification of EDS (i.e. provisioning, regulating and cultural EDS) should also help better bridging EDS and ES studies. In addition, we used Beijing as a case study area to value the EDS caused by urban ecosystems and compare the findings with ES values. The results suggested that although EDS caused great financial loss the potential economic gain from ecosystem services still significantly outweigh the loss. Our study only sheds light on valuating the net effects of urban ecosystems. In the future, we believe that EDS valuation should be at least equally considered in ecosystem valuation studies to create more comprehensive and sustainable development policies, land use proposals and management plans. |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2001.01605&r=all |
| By: | Bendelová, Marta Paula |
| Abstract: | The small farmers are increasingly an irreplaceable part of Slovak agriculture. Therefore, it is important to identify their main credit constraints and to analyse their access to credit as this input belongs to one of the main factors of farther development of small, young and family farmers. In other words, their access to credit is crucial for the improvement of the Slovak agricultural sector as a whole. In this paper we specify the main sources of credit for small farmers in Slovakia, why there are some difficulties in credit acquisition and what are the main challenges of Slovak small, young and family farmers. |
| Keywords: | access to credit,credit constraints,sources of credit,small farmers |
| JEL: | Q10 Q14 E51 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:209635&r=all |
| By: | Dao, Minh Chau |
| Abstract: | Venture capital plays an important role in the development process, enabling firms with high risk and innovative ideas to access capital and management experiences from individual and organizational investors at home and abroad. However, this concept has not received much attention in Vietnam, a country having one of the smallest venture capital markets in Asia notwithstanding its roadmap to a developed country. The purpose of this paper is to examine the venture capital industry of Vietnam and propose some major legal reforms to develop this market. |
| Date: | 2019–08–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:lawarx:6byx5&r=all |
| By: | Virginie Arantes; Can Zou; Yue Che |
| Abstract: | Complex environmental issues are leading local governments to collaborate with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the urban environmental governance sphere. While previous studies have emphasized how the Chinese government engages NGOs in service contracting to meet rising service demands, they have not provided empirical evidence of the outcomes of these collaborations at a local level. Based on a mixed methods research design developed from May 2016 to February 2017 in Shanghai, the impact of Aifen, an environmental NGO, is assessed in the context of municipal solid waste management. A total of 400 questionnaires were completed. 200 questionnaires in 10 communities where Aifen developed its activities and 200 questionnaires in 10 communities where no environmental NGO activities were accomplished. The results show that a local government-NGO collaborative governance approach enhances public participation and respond to state decentralization and rising environmental issues in urban areas. |
| Keywords: | Collaborative governance; NGO; Public participation; Service contracting; Shanghai; Survey questionnaire; Waste management |
| Date: | 2019–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/298771&r=all |
| By: | Sy-Hoa Ho; Jamel Saadaoui |
| Abstract: | This empirical investigation aims at exploring the determinants of money demand in Vietnam by using both linear and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lags models over the period spanning from the third quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2018. Our findings can be summarized as follows: firstly, when the shock is symmetric (i.e. a permanent nominal appreciation of one percent), the money demand increases by 3.7 percent in the long term. Secondly, when the shock is asymmetric, for a permanent nominal appreciation of one percent, we observe an increase of 15.6 percent in the money demand. Whereas, for a permanent nominal depreciation of one percent, we observe a decrease of 7.4 percent in the money demand. These results are consistent with symmetry tests and lead us to think that asymmetries occur mainly in the short run and are transmitted to the long run. |
| Keywords: | Money Demand, Exchange Rate, ARDL models, NARDL models, Dollarization. |
| JEL: | C22 E41 F31 F33 F41 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2019-49&r=all |