1,721,021 research outputs found
Random interactions in the Chamber: Legislators’ behavior and political distance
No full textI investigate the role of social interaction among Members of Parliament (MPs) and the impact of such interaction on the political distance between parties. Using the random allocation of seats in the Icelandic Parliament, I find that MP's voting and speech behaviors are affected by the behavior of legislators seated nearby. I also show that greater (random) exposure to MPs from different parties ultimately reduces the political distance between parties. Similar evidence is found using historical data for the U.S. House of Representatives, by exploiting the introduction of a lottery mechanism to determine desk assignments in 1845. I argue that random seating arrangements could constitute a low-cost way of reducing differences within the political arena
Choosing the open sea: The cost to the UK of staying out of the euro
No full textIn this paper we provide an estimate of the trade flows that there would have been between the UK and its main trading partners if the UK had joined the euro. As an alternative approach to the standard log-linear gravity equation, we employ the synthetic control method. We show that the aggregate trade flows between Britain and eurozone members would have been 16% higher if the UK had adopted the euro. We also provide an estimate of the (hypothetical) euro's effect on trade flows between the UK and non-euro countries. Our results suggest that the adoption of the European currency would also have led to a substantial increase in British trade flows with non-euro members. Finally, we provide a new estimate of the euro's trade impact for euro members. Our results suggest that the adoption of the single currency led to an increase in intra-European trade flows of between 19% and 55%
Credit, Endogenous Collateral and Risky Assets: A DSGE Model
No full textWe propose a new Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model with credit frictions and a banking sector. LTV ratios are assumed to be influenced by systemic and idiosyncratic risk. The model also features endogenous balance sheet choices and a novel formulation of the capital ratio, in which assets are risk-weighted by risk-sensitivity measures. We find that the presence of endogenous LTV ratios exacerbates the procyclicality of lending. Moreover, the model captures the role played by prudential regulatory frameworks in affecting business cycle fluctuations and restoring macroeconomic and financial stability. Our findings highlight the scope for coordination between monetary and macro-prudential policies
The Costs of Firm Exit and Labour Market Policies: New Evidence from Europe
No full textThe churning of firms is an inherent process of industrialized economies, which entails a high rate of job destruction. Thus, a key question is: what are the policies that minimize the costs of worker displacement due to business closure? Accordingly, this paper exploits a retrospective panel of workers in 13 European countries over the period 1985-2008 to explore the factors which shape the reemployment prospects of workers displaced due to business closure. The results suggest that higher spending on active labour market policies increases the reemployment prospects of the unemployed workers displaced by business closure, both in terms of unemployment duration and in terms of stability of reemployment. On the contrary, there is evidence of a negative and sizable impact of passive labour market policies on unemployment duration
Threat of taxation, stagnation and social unrest: Evidence from 19th century sicily
Full text linkTaxation may trigger social unrest, as highlighted by historical examples. At the same time, tax income could boost state capacity which may, in turn, foster political stability. Under-standing the a priori ambiguous taxation-turmoil nexus is particularly relevant for low-income countries today - yet causal evidence on the topic is very scarce. Using a regres-sion discontinuity design, we exploit a unique policy experiment in 19th century Sicily to identify the effect of taxation on social unrest. It turns out that it is mostly the threat of taxation that may distort economic investment and ultimately result in greater political turmoil. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The demand for safe assets in emerging economies and global imbalances: New empirical evidence
No full textRecent economic theory has singled out mismatches between the supply and the demand of safe financial assets in emerging countries as drivers of international capital flows and, ultimately, global current account imbalances. This paper assesses empirically the contribution of such “search for safe assets” to the size and composition of emerging economies’ international asset portfolios. Excess demand for safe assets in financially less-developed countries would imply that these countries hold disproportionately high shares of their total portfolios in foreign assets. Moreover, financially less-developed countries would hold disproportionately high shares of their foreign portfolios in financially developed countries, which are the major producers of ostensibly safe assets. This paper finds little empirical support for these predictions. Financially less-developed countries allocate a larger proportion of their total holdings to domestic assets. Even when focusing on their foreign portfolios, there is no evidence of a general bias towards the assets of financially developed countries. Overall, asset mismatches do not appear to explain the asset allocation of financially less-developed countries
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Variations on the Author
Full text link“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
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe 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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