UPDATED:
6 September, 2006
![[The University of Leicester]](../../images/unilogo.gif)
The Impact
of Financial Liberalisation Policies on Financial Development: Evidence
from Developing Economies
(file size: 235K, last updated: 01/2002)
Abstract: We collect data on a number of financial restraints, including restrictions on deposit and lending interest rates and reserve and liquidity requirements, from central banks of six developing countries. We estimate the effects of these policies on financial development, controlling for the effect of economic development and using standard econometric techniques. We find that the effects of financial policies vary considerably across our sample of countries. Our findings demonstrate that financial liberalisation is a much more complex process than has been assumed by earlier literature and its effects on financial development are ambiguous.
The
Employment Prospects of Scottish and English Drug Abusers
(file size: 229K, last updated:01/2002 )
Abstract: In this paper the employment of Scottish and English self- reporting drug users is considered using data drawn from the Scottish and British Crime Surveys. Univariate and bivariate estimates of the probability of being employed reveal a robustly negative and statistically significant association between a number of measures of drug use and current employment. These results hold for separate samples of Scottish and English respondents, and confirm recent findings for the United States. We also highlight the paucity of data available for this type of research, particularly for Scotland, and suggest that this ought to be a serious concern for policy makers charged with implementing and monitoring polices aimed at tackling drugs misuse and its cost to society.
Business
Cycles and the Role of Confidence: Evidence from Europe
(file size: 207K, last updated: 02/2002)
Abstract: Using an under-utilised dataset on consumer and business confidence indicators across the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands, this paper considers the extent to which such indicators are linked to GDP and the business cycle. We adopt, cross correlation descriptive statistics, Granger causality tests, variance decomposition, and forecast probit tests to investigate the properties of the data. In general consumer and business confidence indicators are leading indicators and pro-cyclical. There is some evidence of causality between the indicators and GDP and confidence indicators would appear to have good predictive power of cycle turning points in relation to other leading indicators.
Spillovers
from FDI and Skill Structures of Host-Country Firms
(file size: 85K, last updated: 02/2002)
Abstract: This paper uses panel data across UK manufacturing from 1983 to 1992, to test whether inward flows of FDI have contributed to increasing trends in the employment of relatively higher skilled individuals. Moreover, the paper isolates the effect on domestic firms, and shows that this effect is a function of the size of the foreign productivity advantage. The results show, that even after controlling for the factors most commonly used to explain relative employment shifts – namely technological change and import intensity, that FDI has a role to play in influencing employment trends.
Political
Violence and Excess Liquidity in Egypt: A Note
(file size: 168K, last updated: 04/2002)
Abstract: In this paper we estimate a time-series model of excess liquidity in the Egyptian banking sector. While financial liberalization and financial stability are found to have reduced excess liquidity, these effects have been offset by an increase in the number of violent political incidents arising from conflict between radical Islamic groups and the Egyptian state. The link between political events and financial outcomes provides a rationale for economic policy interventions by the international community in response to increases in political instability.
How
does Political Violence Affect Currency Substitution? Evidence from
Egypt
(file size: 480K, last updated: 04/2002)
Abstract: In this paper we estimate a time-series model of the financial asset portfolio shares in Egypt, distinguishing between assets of varying degrees of liquidity and between domestic currency and foreign currency deposits. While financial liberalization and financial stability are found to have encouraged domestic residents to increase the share of their portfolio composed of domestic currency assets, these effects have been offset by an increase in the number of violent political incidents arising from conflict between radical Islamic groups and the Egyptian state. Greater violence has led to lower domestic asset demand and substitution into foreign currency deposits. The link between political events and financial outcomes provides a rationale for economic policy interventions by Bretton Woods institutions in response to increases in political instability.
Wages,
Supervision and Sharing:An Analysis of the 1998 Workplace Employee
Relations Survey
(file size: 275K, last updated: 04/2002)
Abstract: Instrumental efficiency wage models predict an inverse relationship between wages and supervision with this relationship becoming more pronounced amongst firms that participate in some form of employee sharing. To be sure, our theoretical exposition predicts that an increase in total remuneration will elicit a larger cut in optimal monitoring in ‘sharing’ rather than ‘non sharing’ firms. In this paper, we explore these predictions empirically using the British 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. Our results confirm an inverse relationship between supervision and pay but the trade-off is only heightened by the presence of performance related pay and employee share ownership schemes. We also find that employee share ownership and performance related pay are relatively more successful in alleviating the need to monitor, with the rate of profit sharing impacting insignificantly on the level supervision.
Currency
Unions and International Integration: Evidence from the CFA and the
ECCU
(file size: 631K, last updated: 11/2001)
Abstract: In this paper we develop a model to identify real exchange rate and output shocks in the African CFA Franc Zone and in Dollar-pegging Caribbean countries (including members of the East Caribbean Currency Union). These two groups of countries each comprise states using several different local currencies: on the one hand the BCEAOCFA Franc and the BEAC-CFA Franc (both pegged to the Euro), on the other the ECCU Dollar and other national Dollar-pegged currencies. The purpose of the analysis is to distinguish the effect of monetary union on macroeconomic integration from the effect of pegging to a common OECD currency.
Keeping
off the Grass? An Econometric Model of Cannabis Consumption by Young
People in Britain
(file size: 408K, last updated: 03/2002)
Abstract: This paper presents estimates of a dynamic individual-level model of cannabis consumption, using data from a 1998 survey of young people in Britain. The econometric model is a split-population generalisation of the non-stationary Poisson process, allowing for a separate dynamic process for initiation into cannabis use. The model allows for heterogeneity in consumption levels and behavioural shifts induced by leaving education and the parental home.
Behavioural
Finance and Aggregate Market Behaviour: Where do we Stand?
(file size: 283K, last updated: 05/2002)
Abstract: This paper selectively reviews the literature on behavioural finance, focusing on the aggregate market implications of the behavioural biases that this literature has identified. Advocates of behavioural economics and finance argue that economic agents behave in a way which departs significantly and systematically from the axioms of expected utility theory. The paper surveys the main “anomalies” identified by this literature in the light of their possible implications on aggregate market behaviour. In particular, the anomalies are categorised into (i) those derived from cognitive limitations (bounded rationality), (ii) those determined by the interference of agents’ emotional state, (iii) those determined by choice bracketing, and (iv) those which suggest that a pre-determined set of preferences does not exist altogether. Moreover, prospect theory is surveyed in particular detail, as it has become a serious challenger to expected utility in economics and finance due to the empirical support, its mathematical tractability and its being consistent with rational expectations. Finally, the paper claims that while convincing evidence against market rationality in the beatthe- market sense is yet to be provided, many indications are now available that financial markets may indeed be “irrational” in other reasonable and relevant meanings.
UK wage
inequality: An industry and regional perspective
(file size: 127K, last updated: 08/2002)
Abstract: This paper looks at male wage inequality in the United Kingdom across industries and regions over a fifteen year period. After controlling for the heterogeneity of productivity characteristics across the population, that part of wage inequality which cannot be explained by observable worker characteristics is examined. This is undertaken at both the industry and regional level to assess the key themes dominate in the literature capable of explaining within-group wage inequality, namely: technology; globalisation; female participation; immigration; shifts in the supply of relative education across cohorts; and falling unionisation.
Domestic
wage determination: Regional Spillovers and inward investment
(file size: 71K, last updated: 08/2002)
Abstract: This paper evaluates the extent of inter- industry, and inter-regional wage spillovers across the UK. A large literature exists suggesting that wages elsewhere affect wage determination and levels of satisfaction, but this paper extends the analysis to examine the effects of inward investment in the process. Thus far the specific effect of foreign wages on domestic wage determination has not been evaluated. Using industry and regional level panel data for the UK the paper reports evidence that such wage spillovers do occur, and that they are more widespread for skilled, than for unskilled workers and also lower in areas of high unemployment.
Government Ownership of Banks, Institutions, and Financial Development
(original title:
State
Banks, Institutions, and Financial Development)
(file size: 312K, last updated: 08/2006)
Abstract: Using a suitably modified locational model of banking, we examine the influence of institutions, such as deposit contract enforcement, in explaining the share of government owned banks in the banking system. We present cross-country evidence suggesting that institutional factors are relatively more important determinants of the share of state banks than political or historical ones. We argue that rather than privatizing or subsidizing state banks governments in developing countries should build institutions that foster the development of private banking.
Wage
Growth, Human Capital and Risk Preference: Evidence From The British
Household Panel Survey
(file size: 319K, last updated: 12/2002)
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore how interpersonal variation in risk preference affects human capital investment and, hence, wage growth. To date, there has been a distinct lack of empirical research in this area despite the fact that the risk preference of individuals plays a key role in the theoretical models of human capital accumulation. We investigate the link between risk preference, human capital investment and wage growth using data from four waves of the British Household Panel Survey using a measure of the extent of risky financial assets held by individuals as a proxy for risk preference. We exploit panel data enabling us to determine the change in real wages experienced by individuals across three different time horizons, 1995-96, 1995-98 and 1995-2000. Our empirical specification is derived from a theoretical framework, which explicitly allows the risk preferences of individuals to influence human capital accumulation and, consequently, wage growth. Our findings suggest that risk-loving behaviour impacts positively on the returns to human capital investment thereby enhancing wage growth.