Academic Working Papers
The Bulgarian Foreign and Domestic Debt – A No-Arbitrage Macrofinancial View
Bulgaria started the transition in the early 90’s with a sovereign default and debt restructuring. Later on, under a strict fiscal discipline, the country succeeded to reduce significantly its debt burden and is currently among the top EU performers in that respect. The current debt outstanding is composed mainly of local currency treasuries issued on the domestic market as well as Eurobonds and Global bonds on the international one. These instruments give rise to two risky spreads - credit and currency. The Currency Board Arrangement and the fixed exchange rate regime the country follows prevent from a discretionary monetary policy and this gives relative stability to the bonds’ yields and the risky spreads. Their financial role starts dominating over any macroeconomic one making them a natural object for investigation with financial engineering tools. The main focus of the paper is an analysis of the informational content of the risky spreads in a multifaceted way from no-arbitrage, financial, and macroeconomic points of view. For the purpose we build from scratch both a reduced form model in a Heath-Jarrow-Morton setting and a structural one which extends the classical Merton model to the case of a risky sovereign. We estimate the former model and extract the priced factors. Then we relate them to a set of indicators the latter model provides as well as to suitable macrofinancial and macroeconomic variables. The setting allows to have a better understanding of the spreads’ risk drivers, which could be useful not only to the participants in the bond market, but also for drawing qualitative conclusions what kind of optimal debt issuance policy the country could follow.
Macroeconomic Shock Synchronization in the East African Community
The East African Community (EAC) economic integration has gained momentum recently, with the EAC countries officially aiming to adopt a single currency in the summer of 2012. This paper assesses empirically the readiness of the EAC countries for monetary union. First, structural similarity of the EAC countries is measured in terms of intra-industry trade and similarity of production. Second, the symmetry of shocks among the EAC members is examined with structural VAR. Both methods show that the shock synchronization in the EAC is low, albeit increasing, suggesting that the move to EAMU should not be rushed. The paper concludes with policies that would facilitate the EAC regional economic integration, including the eventual establishment of monetary union.
Does human capital endowment of FDI recipient countries really matter? Evidence from cross-country firm level data
The stylized literature on foreign direct investment suggests that developing countries should invest in the human capital of their labour force in order to attract foreign direct investment. However, if educational quality in developing country is uncertain such that formal education is a noisy signal of human capital, it might be rational for multinational enterprises to focus more on job-specific training than on formal education of the labour force. Using cross-country data from the textiles and garments industry, we demonstrate that training indeed has greater impact on firm efficiency in developing countries than formal education of the work force.
Does Institutional Quality Affect Firm Performance? Insights from a semiparametric approach
Using a novel modeling approach, and cross-country firm level data for the textiles industry, we examine the impact of institutional quality on firm performance. Our methodology allows us to estimate the marginal impact of institutional quality on productivity of each firm. Our results bring into question conventional wisdom about the desirable characteristics of market institutions, which is based on empirical evidence about the impact of institutional quality on the average firm. We demonstrate, for example, that once both the direct impact of a change in institutional quality on total factor productivity and the indirect impact through changes in efficiency of use of factor inputs are taken into account, an increase in labor market rigidity may have a positive impact on firm output, at least for some firms. We also demonstrate that there are significant intra-country variations in the marginal impact of institutional quality, such that the characteristics of “winners” and “losers” will have to be taken into account before policy is introduced to change institutional quality in any direction.
International Stock Market Integration: Central and South Eastern Europe Compared
We examine the international stockmarket comovements between Western Europe vis-à-vis Central (the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) and South Eastern Europe (Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia) using multi-variate GARCH models in 2006-2011. Comparing these two groups, we find that the degree of comovements is much higher for Central Europe. The correlation of South Eastern European stockmarkets with developed markets is essentially zero. The exemption to this regularity is Croatia with its stockmarket displaying a greater degree of integration towards Western Europe recently, but still below the levels typical for Central Europe. All stockmarkets fall strongly at the beginning of the global fi-nancial crisis and we do not find that the crisis altered the degree of stockmarket integration between this group of countries.
LABOUR MARKET REFORMS AND OUTCOMES IN ESTONIA
The unemployment rate in Estonia rose sharply in 2010 to one of the highest levels in the EU, after the country entered a severe recession in 2008. While the rate declined relatively rapidly in 2011, it remained high especially for the less educated. In 2009, the Employment Contract Law relaxed employment protection legislation and sought to raise income protection of the unemployed to facilitate transition from less to more productive jobs while mitigating social costs. Utilizing a search model, this paper shows that increasing further labour market flexibility through reducing the tax wedge on labour would facilitate the structural transformation and reduce the long-term unemployment rate. Linking increases in unemployment benefits to participation in job search or training programmes would improve the unemployed workers’ incentives to search for jobs or retrain and the medium term labour market outcomes. Social protection schemes for the unemployed should be also strengthened as initially intended to give the unemployed sufficient time to search for adequate jobs or retrain for new opportunities.
The Impact of Capital Measurement Error Correction on Firm-Level Production Function Estimation
Based on a large panel of Czech manufacturing firms, we estimate firm-level production functions in 2003–2007 using the Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) and Wooldridge (2009) approaches, correcting for the measurement error in capital. We show that measurement error plays a significant role in the size of the estimated capital coefficient. The capital coefficient estimate approximately doubles (depending on the particular industry) when we control for capital measurement error. Consequently, while the majority of industries exhibit constant or (in)significantly decreasing returns to scale when the standard methods are used, increasing returns cannot be rejected in some industries when the estimation is corrected for capital measurement error.
Credit Constraints & Productive Entrepreneurship in Africa
Limited access of entrepreneurs to credit constrains the creation and growth of private firms. In Africa, access to credit is particularly limited for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) due to unclear property rights and the lack of assets that can be used as collateral. This paper presents a model where firm creation and growth hinge on matching potential entrepreneurs with productive technologies, while firm growth depends on acquired capital. The shortage of collateral creates a binding credit constraint on borrowing by SMEs and hence private sector growth and employment, even though the banking sectors have ample liquidity, as is the case in many African countries. The model is tested using a sample of 20 African countries over the period 2005-09. The empirical results suggest that policies aimed at easing the binding credit constraints (e.g., the depth of credit information and the strength of legal rights pertaining to collateral and bankruptcy) would stimulate productive entrepreneurship and private sector employment in Africa.
Entry Costs & Increasing Trade
Using confidential microdata from the US Census, we find that the fraction of manufacturing plants that export rose from 21% in 1987 to 39% in 2006. It has been suggested that similar trends in other countries may have been caused by declining costs of entering foreign markets. Our study tests this hypothesis for the first time. Both reduced form and structural estimation approaches find little evidence that the entry costs declined significantly in the US over this period. We instead argue that changes in other factors that determine export status are su¢ cient to explain these trends.
THE DEPENDENCE OF CEECs ON FOREIGN BANK CLAIMS: DIRECT AND INDIRECT RISKS OF CAPITAL WITHDRAWAL
CEECs are characterised by a significant presence of foreign banks and by a marked dependence upon financing from foreign bankers. We show that this situation leaves these countries open to two types of financial risk, which have grown throughout the present decade. The first relates to the direct finan-cial exposure between European creditor countries and CEECs and the risk of sudden withdrawal of capital. The second, which is indirect, is associated with the risk of regional contagion via spill-over effects and the common creditor channel. Based on a synthetic measure of these risks, we show that the degree of vulnerability of each country to the recent financial crisis could have been anticipated.
THE DEVELOPMENT EFFECTS OF NATURAL RESOURCES: A GEOGRAPHICAL DIMENSION
Despite the recent growth resurgence, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains the poorest region in the world. At the same time, it is a region that heavily relies on natural resources. In this paper we investigate the extent to which the second fact helps explain the first one. The distinctive feature of our study is that we take a geographical perspective and allow the effect of natural resources to differ across regions of the world. Our findings suggest that (i) the effect of natural resource intensity on per-capita income is positive and significant in general, but almost negligible and possibly negative in SSA, (ii) natural resources have a negative effect on institutional quality in SSA only, (iii) natural resources hinder human capital accumulation in SSA much more than anywhere else, and (iv) the combination of bad disease environments and large resource endowments accounts for most of the observed cross-regional differences in the effect of natural resources.
How to Stir Up FDI Spillovers: Evidence from a Large Meta-Analysis
The voluminous empirical research on horizontal productivity spillovers from foreign investors to domestic firms in transition and developing countries has yielded mixed results. In this paper, we collect 1,205 estimates of horizontal spillovers from the literature and examine which factors influence spillover magnitude. To identify the most important determinants of spillovers among 43 collected variables, we employ Bayesian model averaging. Our results suggest that horizontal spillovers are on average zero, but that their sign and magnitude depend systematically on the characteristics of the domestic economy and foreign investors. The most important determinants are the technology gap between domestic and foreign firms and the ownership structure in investment projects. Foreign investors who form joint ventures with domestic firms and who come from countries with a modest technology edge create the largest bene ts for the domestic economy.
Volatility transmission in emerging European foreign exchange markets
This paper studies the dynamics of volatility transmission between Central European (CE) currencies and the EUR/USD foreign exchange using model-free estimates of daily exchange rate volatility based on intraday data. We formulate a flexible yet parsimonious parametric model in which the daily realized volatility of a given exchange rate depends both on its own lags as well as on the lagged realized volatilities of the other exchange rates. We find evidence of statistically significant intra-regional volatility spillovers among the CE foreign exchange markets. With the exception of the Czech and, prior to the recent turbulent economic events, Polish currencies, we find no significant spillovers running from the EUR/USD to the CE foreign exchange markets. To measure the overall magnitude and evolution of volatility transmission over time, we construct a dynamic version of the Diebold-Yilmaz volatility spillover index and show that volatility spillovers tend to increase in periods characterized by market uncertainty.
Whither Human Capital? The Woeful Tale of Transition to Tertiary Education in India
In this paper we examine the issue of high dropout rates in India which has adverse implications for human capital formation, and hence for the country’s long term growth potential. Using the 2004-05 National Sample Survey employment-unemployment survey data, we estimate transition probabilities of moving from a number of different educational levels to higher educational levels using a sequential logit model. Our results suggest that the overall probability of reaching tertiary education is very low. Further, even by the woeful overall standards, women are significantly worse-off, particularly in rural areas.
From Prosperity to Depression: Bulgaria and Romania (1996/97 – 2010)
Bulgaria and Romania are neighbouring countries, which have always been rivals. Following the decision on EU enlargement to include Bulgaria and Romania (late 1999) and with membership negotiations already started (2004), the race between the two countries gained momentum and comparisons of performances in the areas of economy and democracy became a regular practice....In this paper, we investigate how the monetary regimes choice shaped the structure of both economies and the behaviour of the public and private sector, how they modified the mechanisms of adjustments and how they concentrate risks. We discus the institutional compatibility of monetary regimes with EU accession and EU membership using the theoretical insights form Dooley (1997, 2000) insurance model hypothesis.
Institutions, Governance & Technology Catch-Up in North Africa
This paper aims to analyse the effects of institution quality on technology catch-up in five North African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia) compared to 3 groups of developing and emerging countries (Sub Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America) over the period 1970-2005. The study adopts a two-stage methodology. In the first step we estimate the technology gap using the matafrontier approach. In second step we test the relationship between the technology gap and the quality of governance. The empirical results show that institutions (corruption, law and rules and investment climate) are very important in closing the technology gap and speeding up the technology catch-up. Other determinants of the technology gap are also identified: foreign direct investment, human capital and trade.
Financial Efficiency and the Ownership of Czech Firms
In this paper we analyze the evolution of firm financial efficiency in the Czech Republic. Using a large panel of more than 400,000 Czech firm/years we study whether firms fully utilize their resources, how firm financial efficiency evolves over time, and how firm financial efficiency is determined by ownership structure. We employ a panel version of a stochastic production frontier model for the period 1996–2007 with time-invariant efficiency. We differentiate among various degrees of ownership concentration and their domestic or foreign origin. In a two-stage set-up we estimate the degree of firm inefficiency and then we estimate the effect of ownership structure on the distance from the efficiency frontier. Our results support the hypothesis that concentration and foreign ownership are positively related to financial efficiency.
Default Predictors in Retail Credit Scoring: Evidence from Czech Banking Data
Credit to the private sector has risen rapidly in European emerging markets but its risk evaluation has been largely neglected. Using retail-loan banking data from the Czech Republic we construct two credit risk models based on logistic regression and Classification and Regression Trees. Both methods are comparably efficient and detect similar financial and socio-economic variables as the key determinants of default behavior. We also construct a model without the most important financial variable (amount of resources) that performs very well. This way we confirm significance of socio-demographic variables and link our results with specific issues characteristic to new EU members.
Exchange Rate Pass -Through in Transition Economies: The Case of the Republic of Macedonia
This paper investigates the relative costs and benefits associated with introducing a different exchange rate regime in the Republic of Macedonia. In this finding, all econometrics results, using different methodologies (SVAR and VECM), show that introducing a different strategy of the exchange rate targeting in order to promote rapid economic growth could easy disturb macroeconomic stability (after having achieved it at a substantial cost) without any significant economic benefits. In the long term, the coefficient of exchange rate reveals that a one percent change in the exchange rate will generate an increase in the prices level of 0.52 percent, indicating that 52 percent of changes in the exchange rate feed into the prices level. The investigation suggests that introducing a different strategy of the exchange rate regime is likely to incur more costs than benefits.
Establishing Data Collection Procedures Equivalence in International Business Research
Following a number of earlier studies on data equivalence in cross-cultural international business research, this article uses a content analysis of articles published in four leading international business journals from 2000 to 2009, to uncover the equivalence in current state of data collection procedures used by researchers in mail surveys. The results show that, despite repeated calls and the existence of a well established theoretical framework for mail survey data collection by Don Dillman (1978, 1999), international business scholars have not been inspired to adopt and report the data collection procedures adequately in their work. We hope this work will draw due attention to the aspect in international business research.
