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Entrenchment through corporate social responsibility: Evidence from CEO network centrality
No full textThis paper investigates whether CEOs with high network centrality entrench themselves when taking CSR decisions and how that affects firm value. Evidence portrays that CSR in firms with more central CEOs is negatively associated with firm-value, and this association is mitigated by better corporate governance mechanisms and by geographic areas of higher social capital. This negative association is lower during disasters which reflect periods of positive exogenous shocks to the societal demand for CSR. Furthermore, CSR by more central CEOs is positively associated with future increases in CEO compensation and future improvement in a CEO's network position. The findings reveal that, in general, central CEOs use CSR to entrench themselves and gain private benefits rather than increase shareholder value
On the Effect of Business and Economic University Education on Political Ideology : An Empirical Note
No full textWe empirically test the hypothesis that a major in economics, management, business administration or accounting (for simplicity referred to as Business/Economics) leads to more-conservative (right-wing) political views. We use a panel dataset of individuals (repeated observations for the same individuals over time) living in the Netherlands, drawing data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences from 2008 through 2013. Our results show that when using a simple fixed effects model, which fully controls for individuals’ time-invariant traits, any statistically and quantitatively significant effect of a major in Business/Economics on the Political Ideology of these individuals disappears. We posit that, at least in our sample, there is no evidence for a causal effect of a major in Business/Economics on individuals’ Political Ideology.Published in Bank of Finland Discussion Paper 22/2017
Employee Treatment and Contracting with Bank Lenders : An Instrumental Approach for Stakeholder Management
No full textAdopting an instrumental approach for stakeholder management, we focus on two primary stakeholder groups (employees and creditors) to investigate the relationship between employee treatment and loan contracts with banks. We find strong evidence that fair employee treatment reduces loan price and limits the use of financial covenants. In addition, we document that relationship bank lenders price both the levels and changes in the quality of employee treatment, whereas first-time bank lenders only care about the levels of fair employee treatment. Taking a contingency perspective, we find that industry competition and firm asset intangibility moderate the relationship between good human resource management and bank loan costs. The cost reduction effect of fair employee treatment is stronger for firms operating in a more competitive industry and having higher levels of intangible assets.First Online: 27 October 201
Relative Age Effects in Political Selection
No full textWe exploit a regression discontinuity design to provide causal evidence of the relative age effect (RAE) on a long-run adult age outcome: Political selection. We find strong evidence of the RAE in politics in Finland. However, the effect is heterogeneous: We find that male candidates born early in the calendar year have a significantly higher probability of getting elected to the parliament but no similar RAE applies to female candidates nor to municipal elections. Moreover, this effect only takes place in the most competitive parliamentary districts and is present only for some parties. We also find that in all the groups where the RAE does not exist, early-born candidates are under-represented suggesting attrition of talent in the candidate placement. Overall, our results show that seemingly artificial cutoffs imposed by the government have persistent consequences even on the selection to the highest positions of power within a society.Published in Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 15/2018 http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:bof-20180808192
Aikasarjamallit apuna Suomen talouden seurannassa
No full textViimeisten vuosikymmenien aikana kansainvälisessä ekonometrisessa tutkimuskirjallisuudessa on esitetty useita makrotaloudellista tilaa kuvaavien muuttujien informaatiota yhdistäviä lyhyen aikavälin mallinnus- ja ennustemenetelmiä. Näitä ns. nowcasting-menetelmiä on myös onnistuneesti hyödynnetty ja sovellettu Suomen talouden seurantaan. Tässä artikkelissa esittelemme katsauksen monella taholla tehtyyn kehitystyöhön ja näiden hankkeiden yhteydessä saatuihin tuloksiin Suomen aineiston tapauksessa. Suomen taloutta koskevien suhdanneindeksien hyödyntämisen myötä suhdanteiden käännepisteiden määrittäminen on tarkempaa ja käännepisteiden tuottamia taantumajaksoja voidaan vastaavasti ennustaa binäärivastemalleja käyttäen. Suomen Pankin nowcasting-malli mahdollistaa puolestaan uusien tilastojulkistusten uutisarvon analyysin. Tilastokeskuksessa ja Etlassa on vastaavasti hyödynnetty moderneja koneoppimisen menetelmiä, jotta puutteellisesta mikroaineistosta kyetään tuottamaan bruttokansantuotteen pikaestimaatteja aiempaa lyhyemmällä viiveellä. ETLAnowprojektissa hyödynnetään puolestaan mm. uusia Google-hakutilastoja työttömyyden ennustamisessa
Cross-border loan portfolio diversification, capital requirements, and the European Banking Union
No full textWe provide preliminary evidence of potential risk reduction benefits from banks’ loan portfolio diversification cross-border within the Euro area. Using aggregate data on banking sector cor-porate loan losses for each Euro area member-state, our estimates suggest that the static diversification benefit could be substantial. The minimum capital needed to withstand the max-imum annual loss from a hypothetical fully diversified Euro area bank loan portfolio over the period 2001-2017 would have been only 40 % of the total capital needed to withstand the maximum losses on a country by country basis. We also calibrate the country-specific loan loss distributions and the Euro area portfolio’s loss distribution to the Vasicek (2002) model, which underlies the Basel framework’s Internal Ratings Based Approach. We find that the im-plied asset correlation parameter of a median country portfolio is about twice as large as that of the fully diversified Euro area portfolio
Fiscal Stabilization in the United States : Lessons for Monetary Unions
No full textThe debate about the use of fiscal instruments for macroeconomic stabilization has regained prominence in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and the experience of a monetary union equipped with fiscal shock absorbers, such as the United States, has often been a reference. This paper enhances our knowledge about the degree of macroeconomic stabilization achieved in the United States through the federal budget, providing a detailed breakdown of the different channels. In particular, we investigate the relative importance and stabilization impact of the federal system of unemployment benefits and of its extension as a response to the Great Recession. The analysis shows that in the United States, corporate income taxes collected at the federal level are the single-most efficient instrument for providing stabilization, given that even with a smaller size than other instruments they can provide important effects, mainly against common shocks. On the other hand, Social Security benefits and personal income taxes have a greater role in stabilizing asymmetric shocks. A federal system of unemployment insurance, then, can play an important stabilization role, in particular when enhanced by a discretionary program of extended benefits in the event of a large shock, like the Great Recession
Forecasting stock market returns by summing the frequency-decomposed parts
No full textWe generalize the Ferreira and Santa-Clara (2011) sum-of-the-parts method for forecasting stock market returns. Rather than summing the parts of stock returns, we suggest summing some of the frequency-decomposed parts. The proposed method significantly improves upon the original sum-of-the-parts and delivers statistically and economically gains over historical mean forecasts, with monthly out-of-sample R2 of 2.60% and annual utility gains of 558 basis points. The strong performance of this method comes from its ability to isolate the frequencies of the parts with the highest predictive power, and from the fact that the selected frequency-decomposed parts carry complementary information that captures different frequencies of stock market returns.Published in Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 29/2016
Evaluating Indicators for Use in Setting the Countercyclical Capital Buffer
No full textThe European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) recently issued a recommendation on the use of early warning indicators in macroprudential decisions involving the countercyclical capital buffer (Basel III framework). In addition to a primary indicator, deviation in the credit-to-GDP ratio from long-term trend, the ESRB advises the use of supplemental indicators to measure private-sector credit developments and debt burden, overvaluation of property prices, external imbalances, mispricing of risk, and strength of bank balance sheets. Based on empirical analysis of data for European Union countries, a large assortment of potential indicators, and comprehensive robustness checks, we propose specific suitable early warning indicators for each of the six risk categories set forth by the ESRB.Published in Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 8/2015.http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:bof-20150324112