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Essays on Financial Development
Get PDFThe impact of financial development on economic growth has been studied in the past few decades. However, the empirical findings range from having a positive effect on economic growth in early studies to no impact or even negative effect in the last decade. Therefore, this thesis contributes to the finance-growth nexus by re-examining the relationship using different dimensions of financial development, namely financial stability, financial crises, and financial structure. This thesis is comprised of three empirical chapters. The first empirical study examines the impact of natural disasters on banking stability. Given that the effects of natural disasters on banking stability differ across the level of economic development, this study focuses on these heterogeneous effects. We combine two different datasets. The first utilises bank-level data comprising 1,242 banks across 72 countries, and the second uses the natural disasters dataset provided by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). We estimate our models by employing a panel regression estimator with the bank and year-fixed effects. The results suggest that natural disasters significantly affect the distance-to-default (Z-score), which is our measure of banks’ stability, especially for middle-and low-income countries. The results also indicate that natural disasters adversely affect non-performing loans, return on assets, and capital ratios of banks. The second empirical study examines the impact of banking, currency and debt crises on economic growth and its volatility. Financial crises often have a devastating impact on living standards. However, there needs to be more evidence about their effects in Africa, a vastly underdeveloped region. We empirically estimate a growth equation using both fixed effects and System GMM estimations. Using data from 1970 to 2017 for 52 African countries, we find that only currency and debt crises affect economic growth negatively in Africa. On the other hand, banking crises are shown to have a statistically insignificant effect on growth in Africa. Currency crises may reduce economic growth in the long run by 1.19 percentage points, and debt crises are the most harmful, reducing long-run growth by three percentage points. The third empirical study investigates the relationship between financial structure and economic growth. There is inconclusive empirical evidence regarding the importance of financial structure and whether a market or bank-based financial system contributes to economic growth. Consequently, we contribute to the literature by re-examining the relationship based on a broader sample and more recent data. Our sample includes 84 countries and covers the period from 1960 to 2019. The results of our study indicate that the banking sector is no longer an essential source of growth promotion in the last two decades. Moreover, according to some of our analyses, economic growth is negatively impacted by the increased development of the banking sector. In contrast, from 2000 to 2019, the stock market consistently and significantly contributed to economic growth
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
An Econometric Study into the Efficacy of Interventions by the English Football Authorities for the Promotion of Financial Sustainability and the Impact on Competitive Balance in the English Football League (EFL) Championship
Get PDFThis thesis, which contains original regression analysis using a unique and original set of variables, in addition to the unitary indicators for receiving a parachute payment, the P&S Rules, and the COVID-affected seasons, makes three significant contributions. We believe it to be the first study into the interaction between English Premier League (EPL) parachute payments, the Profitability and Sustainability (P&S) rules, and the COVID-19 restrictions on the financial health, competitive balance at a season level, and uncertainty of outcome at match level for the English Football League (EFL) Championship. Using Altman’s z-score, the first contribution shows that P&S has not made Championship clubs healthier, nor has COVID-19 made the clubs more financially distressed. Although parachute clubs are less financially distressed than non-parachute clubs, this is due to an advantage in Total Assets, which disappears when we group similar clubs. Our second contribution shows that the parachute payments have created a competitive imbalance in the Championship by giving the clubs receiving parachute payments a 16-point head start. However, contrary to established research, these payments provide this advantage only during the COVID-affected seasons. This is the first time club debt and club losses, among other things, have been controlled for in a competitive balance study of the Championship. Our third contribution shows that games between a parachute and a non-parachute club were no more predictable in the pre-and post-P&S period nor the COVID-affected seasons. Instead, manager changes, player turnover, and differences in player spending have a greater impact on unpredictability. This thesis helps practitioners, regulators, and football club owners improve their policy-making decisions for the EFL Championship. Future P&S regulations could consider a 'Pick and Mix' range of sustainability measures, and regulators should be mindful that competitive balance measures may harm attendance. This research is especially timely given that an Independent Football Regulator is proposed
The impact of banking regulations, institutional environment, and negative interest rates on bank risk-taking
Get PDFThis thesis makes three contributions to the literature. First, in Chapter 2, we add to the inconclusive literature on creditor rights and banking regulations regarding bank risk-taking. By using a panel dataset of commercial banks from 2004 to 2014, we find the risk-inducing impact of creditor rights and three regulatory measures (activity restrictions, capital stringency and official supervisory powers) from 2004-2014. These results propose that none of these measures by governments and regulators are sufficient to manage bank risk over the long run. we perform some post-crisis analysis and find that while the risk-inducing impact of creditor rights weakens after the crisis, bank regulations help mitigate banks' excessive risk-taking behaviour. These findings suggest that either bank became more risk-averse after the crisis or bank regulations became more effective around this time. Second, in Chapter 3, we contribute by addressing the scant literature on institutional environment and bank risk. In this area, we also contribute by using more advanced econometric methodologies (fixed effects and two-step system generalized method of moments) compared to existing literature (Ordinary Least Squares and Generalized Least Squares. We find that most of the WGIs (Voice & Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption) are helpful in reducing risk-taking behavior of banks. However, the magnitude is different for each of them. The only exception is political stability (PS), for which we find the opposing effect. These results suggest that paying attention to individual components of WGIs is important while improving the overall institutional quality of the country. Finally, in Chapter 4, we investigate banks' risk-taking behaviour in a negative interest rate environment. First, we contribute to the literature by employing only countries that adopted negative policy rates in 2014, while existing studies examined all countries that adopted negative rates in different years. Using a homogenous treatment year can provide a better analysis of heterogeneous treatment. We find that banks have not increased their risk-taking across European countries since their implementation. These findings suggest that negative rate policies serve the purpose they were designed for. In addition, we contribute by exploring this relationship based on types of banks such as commercial banks, cooperative banks, and savings banks. We find that while commercial banks tend to take more risks, savings banks exhibit more prudent behaviour. The behaviour of cooperative banks is unclear since they show the characteristics of both risk avoidance and risk-seeking
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Why the falling price of gold may be cause for optimism
No full textGold prices have tumbled to a five-year low. As a tradeable commodity, the price of gold is largely linked to supply and demand. While supply remains fairly fixed, demand is shaped by the state of the global economy and investor perceptions of gold’s value as an asset – this is in turn shaped by the strength of the US dollar
Tax Haven FDI Amongst Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) From Least Developed Countries
Get PDFThe last four decades have seen a steady rise in foreign direct investment (FDI) to become the main vehicle in driving the internationalisation of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Studies on FDI have largely concluded that MNEs are responsible for much of the global flows of FDI capital. Recent OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development) reports show total world flow of FDI in 2021 stood at 1,815 billion US dollars – an increase of 88 percent on the previous year. However, much of these FDI flows are channelled through tax havens, allowing MNEs to sometimes avoid taxes altogether on these vast capital flows. Consequently, the role of tax havens in global trade have received growing interests in the international business (IB) literature. However, much of these research interests have concentrated on outward FDI from developed countries, leaving a void in the IB literature regarding the outward tax haven FDI practices amongst MNEs from developing countries. This thesis presents the findings of three independent empirical investigations into outward tax haven FDI by MNEs from developing countries. Each of the three investigations utilised a firm-level panel dataset covering the period 2008-2018. The first investigation explored the impact of internal country-level risks on tax haven FDI. The second focused on corruption and its impact on the likelihood of state-owned MNEs (SO MNEs) to engage in tax haven FDI. The final investigation looked into the relationship between democratic accountability and tax haven FDI. Analysis of the first investigation showed all three measures of internal country risks to be strongly and positively correlated with tax haven FDI, with heterogeneity seen across MNEs operating across different industries. Corruption was seen to have a positive effect on tax haven FDI amongst state-owned firms, whilst authoritarian governments had a positive effect on MNEs propensity to engage in tax haven FDI
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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