Macroeconomic announcements, price discovery, and order flow efects in the stock market: evidence from incomplete data and multiple financial markets

This paper investigates heterogeneity in the market assessment of public macro- economic announcements by exploring (jointly) two main mechanisms through which macroeconomic news might enter stock prices: instantaneous fundamental news im- pacts consistent with the asset pricing view of symmetric information, and permanent order ow e¤ects consistent with a microstructure view of asymmetric information related to heterogeneous interpretation of public news. Theoretical motivation and empirical evidence for the operation of both mechanisms are presented. Signi cant in- stantaneous news impacts are detected for news related to real activity (including em- ployment), investment, in ation, and monetary policy; however, signi cant order ow e¤ects are also observed on employment announcement days. A multi-market analysis suggests that these asymmetric information e¤ects come from uncertainty about long term interest rates due to heterogeneous assessments of future Fed responses to em- ployment shocks.

Evidence on the relationship between incentives and exogenous risk

Theoretical models on moral hazard provide competing predictions on the incentive-risk relationship. These predictions are derived under the assumptions of homogeneous agents and exogenous risk. However, the existing empirical evidence does not account for risk-aversion heterogeneity and risk endogeneity. This paper uses a well-built database on tenancy contracts to address these issues. Detailed information on cropping activities is used to measure the exogenous risk. Risk-aversion heterogeneity and other self-selection problems are addressed through a portfolio schedule and a subsample of farmers who simultaneously own and sharecrop different farms. This controlled exercise finds a direct relation between incentives and exogenous risk.

Cooperation partnerships in manufacturing: evidence from Chile

Includes bibliography

Innovation and cooperation: evidence from the Brazilian innovation survey

Includes bibliography

The determinants of firms' distant collaboration. Evidence from Argentina, 1998-2001

Includes bibliography

Make, buy and and cooperate in innovation: evidence from Uruguayan manufacturing surveys and other innovation studies

Includes bibliography

Innovation and cooperation in Latin America: evidence from national innovations surveys in a comparative perspective

Includes bibliography

Business development service centres in Italy. An empirical analysis of three regional experiences: Emilia Romagna, Lombardia y Veneto

Includes bibliography

Political violence and economic development in Latin America: issues and evidence

Includes bibliography

Brazil: an empirical study on fiscal policy transmission

Includes bibliography

An empirical analysis of technology absorption capacity of the Brazilian industry

Includes bibliography.

Financial Development and Economic Growth: Time Series Evidence from Albania

The main objective of this thesis is to explore the short and long run causality patterns in the finance – growth nexus and finance-growth-trade nexus before and after the global financial crisis, in the case of Albania. To this end we use quarterly data on real GDP, 13 proxy measures for financial development and the trade openness indicator for the period 1998Q1 – 2013Q2 and 1998Q1-2008Q3. Causality patterns will be explored in a VAR-VECM framework. For this purpose we will proceed as follows: (i) testing for the integration order of the variables; (ii) cointegration analysis and (iii) performing Granger causality tests in a VAR-VECM framework. In the finance-growth nexus, empirical evidence suggests for a positive long run relationship between finance and economic growth, with causality running from financial development to economic growth. The global financial crisis seems to have not affected the causality direction in the finance and growth nexus, thus supporting the finance led growth hypothesis in the long run in the case of Albania. In the finance-growth-trade openness nexus, we found evidence for a positive long run relationship the variables, with causality direction depending on the proxy used for financial development. When the pre-crisis sample is considered, we find evidence for causality running from financial development and trade openness to economic growth. The global financial crisis seems to have affected somewhat the causality direction in the finance-growth-trade nexus, which has become sensible to the proxy used for financial development. On the short run, empirical evidence suggests for a clear unidirectional relationship between finance and growth, with causality mostly running from economic growth to financial development. When we consider the per-crisis sub sample results are mixed, depending on the proxy used for financial development. The same results are confirmed when trade openness is taken into account.

Financing university spin-outs: evidence from Imperial College London

This research work focuses on the factors which lead investors to finance university spin-outs. The achieved results related to spin-out companies in the United Kingdom are based on empirical evidence from Imperial College London. The characteristics of a sample of 557 university spin-outs have been examined in order to understand the investors’ attitude towards financing this typology of companies. The outputs of this study demonstrate that official spin-out companies supported by Imperial College are more likely to receive an investment. Furthermore, it is also shown that investors are not inclined to finance academic spin-outs in which the board of directors includes academics who are mainly involved in researching and teaching activities.

Target difficulty, intra-year target revisions and firm performance: evidence from business units' targets

Target difficulty is often argued to increase performance. While this association is well established in experimental research, empirical evidence in field research is rather mixed. We attempt to explain this inconsistency by analyzing the importance of intra-year target revisions, which are especially prevalent in real-world field settings. Using survey and archival data from 97 firms, we find that firms with more challenging business unit targets revise targets more often, in line with asymmetric, downward target revisions. Results further show that the degree to which targets are revised during a period results in negative effects on firm performance, as the anticipation of revision negatively affects the business unit management’s performance incentives. Additionally, we find that using targets predominantly for either decision-making or control influences the overall performance effects of target revisions. Our findings may partially explain the mixed field study evidence regarding the effects of target difficulty.

The direct-democratic challenge to evidence-based policy making: Questioning the governmental PISA narrative in Swiss school policy

The democratic deficit of evidence-based policymaking and the little attention the approach pays to values and norms have repeatedly been criticized. This article argues that direct-democratic campaigns may provide an arena for citizens and stakeholders to debate the belief systems inherent to evidence. The study is based on a narrative analysis of Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reports, as well as of newspaper coverage and governmental information referring to PISA in Swiss direct-democratic campaigns on a variety of school policy issues. The findings show that PISA reports are discursive instruments rather than ‘objective evidence’. The reports promote a narrative of economic progress through educational evidence that is adopted without scrutiny by governmental coalitions in direct-democratic campaigns to justify school policy reforms. Yet, the dominant PISA narrative is contested in two counter-narratives, one endorsed by numerous citizens, the other by a group of experts. These counter-narratives question how PISA is used by an ‘expertocracy’ to prescribe reforms, as well as the performance ideology inherent to. Overall, these findings suggest that direct-democratic campaigns may make more transparent how evidence is produced and used according to existing belief systems. Evidence, on the other hand, may be a stimulus for democratic discourse by feeding the debate with potential policy problems and solution. Thus, direct-democratic debates may reconcile normative positions of citizens with the desire to base decisions on empirical evidence.