Financial Markets and Real Ecinomy: Four Essays in International Trade

Financial markets play an important role in an economy performing various functions like mobilizing and pooling savings, producing information about investment opportunities, screening and monitoring investments, implementation of corporate governance, diversification and management of risk. These functions influence saving rates, investment decisions, technological innovation and, therefore, have important implications for welfare. In my PhD dissertation I examine the interplay of financial and product markets by looking at different channels through which financial markets may influence an economy.My dissertation consists of four chapters. The first chapter is a co-authored work with Martin Strieborny, a PhD student from the University of Lausanne. The second chapter is a co-authored work with Melise Jaud, a PhD student from the Paris School of Economics. The third chapter is co-authored with both Melise Jaud and Martin Strieborny. The last chapter of my PhD dissertation is a single author paper.Chapter 1 of my PhD thesis analyzes the effect of financial development on growth of contract intensive industries. These industries intensively use intermediate inputs that neither can be sold on organized exchange, nor are reference-priced (Levchenko, 2007; Nunn, 2007). A typical example of a contract intensive industry would be an industry where an upstream supplier has to make investments in order to customize a product for needs of a downstream buyer. After the investment is made and the product is adjusted, the buyer may refuse to meet a commitment and trigger ex post renegotiation. Since the product is customized to the buyer's needs, the supplier cannot sell the product to a different buyer at the original price. This is referred in the literature as the holdup problem. As a consequence, the individually rational suppliers will underinvest into relationship-specific assets, hurting the downstream firms with negative consequences for aggregate growth. The standard way to mitigate the hold up problem is to write a binding contract and to rely on the legal enforcement by the state. However, even the most effective contract enforcement might fail to protect the supplier in tough times when the buyer lacks a reliable source of external financing. This suggests the potential role of financial intermediaries, banks in particular, in mitigating the incomplete contract problem. First, financial products like letters of credit and letters of guarantee can substantially decrease a risk and transaction costs of parties. Second, a bank loan can serve as a signal about a buyer's true financial situation, an upstream firm will be more willing undertake relationship-specific investment knowing that the business partner is creditworthy and will abstain from myopic behavior (Fama, 1985; von Thadden, 1995). Therefore, a well-developed financial (especially banking) system should disproportionately benefit contract intensive industries.The empirical test confirms this hypothesis. Indeed, contract intensive industries seem to grow faster in countries with a well developed financial system. Furthermore, this effect comes from a more developed banking sector rather than from a deeper stock market. These results are reaffirmed examining the effect of US bank deregulation on the growth of contract intensive industries in different states. Beyond an overall pro-growth effect, the bank deregulation seems to disproportionately benefit the industries requiring relationship-specific investments from their suppliers.Chapter 2 of my PhD focuses on the role of the financial sector in promoting exports of developing countries. In particular, it investigates how credit constraints affect the ability of firms operating in agri-food sectors of developing countries to keep exporting to foreign markets.Trade in high-value agri-food products from developing countries has expanded enormously over the last two decades offering opportunities for development. However, trade in agri-food is governed by a growing array of standards. Sanitary and Phytosanitary standards (SPS) and technical regulations impose additional sunk, fixed and operating costs along the firms' export life. Such costs may be detrimental to firms' survival, "pricing out" producers that cannot comply. The existence of these costs suggests a potential role of credit constraints in shaping the duration of trade relationships on foreign markets. A well-developed financial system provides the funds to exporters necessary to adjust production processes in order to meet quality and quantity requirements in foreign markets and to maintain long-standing trade relationships. The products with higher needs for financing should benefit the most from a well functioning financial system. This differential effect calls for a difference-in-difference approach initially proposed by Rajan and Zingales (1998). As a proxy for demand for financing of agri-food products, the sanitary risk index developed by Jaud et al. (2009) is used. The empirical literature on standards and norms show high costs of compliance, both variable and fixed, for high-value food products (Garcia-Martinez and Poole, 2004; Maskus et al., 2005). The sanitary risk index reflects the propensity of products to fail health and safety controls on the European Union (EU) market. Given the high costs of compliance, the sanitary risk index captures the demand for external financing to comply with such regulations.The prediction is empirically tested examining the export survival of different agri-food products from firms operating in Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Senegal and Tanzania. The results suggest that agri-food products that require more financing to keep up with food safety regulation of the destination market, indeed sustain longer in foreign market, when they are exported from countries with better developed financial markets.Chapter 3 analyzes the link between financial markets and efficiency of resource allocation in an economy. Producing and exporting products inconsistent with a country's factor endowments constitutes a serious misallocation of funds, which undermines competitiveness of the economy and inhibits its long term growth. In this chapter, inefficient exporting patterns are analyzed through the lens of the agency theories from the corporate finance literature. Managers may pursue projects with negative net present values because their perquisites or even their job might depend on them. Exporting activities are particularly prone to this problem. Business related to foreign markets involves both high levels of additional spending and strong incentives for managers to overinvest. Rational managers might have incentives to push for exports that use country's scarce factors which is suboptimal from a social point of view. Export subsidies might further skew the incentives towards inefficient exporting. Management can divert the export subsidies into investments promoting inefficient exporting.Corporate finance literature stresses the disciplining role of outside debt in counteracting the internal pressures to divert such "free cash flow" into unprofitable investments. Managers can lose both their reputation and the control of "their" firm if the unpaid external debt triggers a bankruptcy procedure. The threat of possible failure to satisfy debt service payments pushes the managers toward an efficient use of available resources (Jensen, 1986; Stulz, 1990; Hart and Moore, 1995). The main sources of debt financing in the most countries are banks. The disciplining role of banks might be especially important in the countries suffering from insufficient judicial quality. Banks, in pursuing their rights, rely on comparatively simple legal interventions that can be implemented even by mediocre courts. In addition to their disciplining role, banks can promote efficient exporting patterns in a more direct way by relaxing credit constraints of producers, through screening, identifying and investing in the most profitable investment projects. Therefore, a well-developed domestic financial system, and particular banking system, would help to push a country's exports towards products congruent with its comparative advantage.This prediction is tested looking at the survival of different product categories exported to US market. Products are identified according to the Euclidian distance between their revealed factor intensity and the country's factor endowments. The results suggest that products suffering from a comparative disadvantage (labour-intensive products from capital-abundant countries) survive less on the competitive US market. This pattern is stronger if the exporting country has a well-developed banking system. Thus, a strong banking sector promotes exports consistent with a country comparative advantage.Chapter 4 of my PhD thesis further examines the role of financial markets in fostering efficient resource allocation in an economy. In particular, the allocative efficiency hypothesis is investigated in the context of equity market liberalization.Many empirical studies document a positive and significant effect of financial liberalization on growth (Levchenko et al. 2009; Quinn and Toyoda 2009; Bekaert et al., 2005). However, the decrease in the cost of capital and the associated growth in investment appears rather modest in comparison to the large GDP growth effect (Bekaert and Harvey, 2005; Henry, 2000, 2003). Therefore, financial liberalization may have a positive impact on growth through its effect on the allocation of funds across firms and sectors.Free access to international capital markets allows the largest and most profitable domestic firms to borrow funds in foreign markets (Rajan and Zingales, 2003). As domestic banks loose some of their best clients, they reoptimize their lending practices seeking new clients among small and younger industrial firms. These firms are likely to be more risky than large and established companies. Screening of customers becomes prevalent as the return to screening rises. Banks, ceteris paribus, tend to focus on firms operating in comparative-advantage sectors because they are better risks. Firms in comparative-disadvantage sectors finding it harder to finance their entry into or survival in export markets either exit or refrain from entering export markets. On aggregate, one should therefore expect to see less entry, more exit, and shorter survival on export markets in those sectors after financial liberalization.The paper investigates the effect of financial liberalization on a country's export pattern by comparing the dynamics of entry and exit of different products in a country export portfolio before and after financial liberalization.The results suggest that products that lie far from the country's comparative advantage set tend to disappear relatively faster from the country's export portfolio following the liberalization of financial markets. In other words, financial liberalization tends to rebalance the composition of a country's export portfolio towards the products that intensively use the economy's abundant factors.

Catholic Confession of Sins as Third-Party Moral Enforcement

Catholicism has built up a legalistic religion based on two pillars: salvation by works and 'auricular' confession of sins to a priest with judicial functions. Since the Reformation, many consider auricular confession inferior to less institutional and more individual conceptions of faith. This article analyzes how all these historical solutions trade off specialization advantages against exchange costs to produce moral enforcement. After showing the behavioral foundations of confession and the adaptiveness of its historical evolution, it tests hypotheses on its efficacy, exploitation and opportunity cost. Econometric evidence supports the efficacy but not the exploitative character of Catholic confession. It also explains its secular decline as a consequence of two factors. First, the rise in education, which makes moral self-enforcement less costly. Second, the productivity gap suffered by confession, given its necessarily interpersonal nature.

Motivação e Desempenho Dos Funcionários Da Administração Pública Cabo-Verdiana Actual

O processo de mudanças que vem acontecendo no mundo contemporâneo alcança, inevitavelmente, o sector público. A busca de uma nova gestão pública, que procure prestar serviços ao cidadão com qualidade e eficiência tem sido o alvo a ser alcançado pelo Estado contemporâneo. Dentro desse prisma o estudo das pessoas dentro das organizações públicas apresenta-se como estratégico. O conhecimento é gerado, processado e comunicado a grande velocidade, o que leva a sociedade a assumir novas posturas. Para enfrentar os desafios do novo milénio, as organizações terão que pensar mais nas pessoas e sobretudo, preocupar-se mais em criar estímulos que motivem os colaboradores para alcançarem tanto os objectivos da organização quanto os objectivos pessoais de cada um porque não adianta obter lucro e produtividade se a organização não desenvolver políticas e práticas que privilegiam o ser humano. Motivação envolve sentimentos de realização e de reconhecimento profissional, manifestado por meio de exercícios das tarefas e actividades que oferecem suficiente desafio e significado para o trabalho. A verdade é que a adopção de uma gestão pública focada na qualidade requer mudanças na cultura organizacional, exigindo principalmente motivação, que conduz ao esforço, dedicação, persistência e comprometimento. Com o presente trabalho pretende-se investigar a motivação como uma ferramenta para alcançar a produtividade e a excelência no desempenho das actividades na Administração Pública Cabo-verdiana. Para alcançar o objectivo deste trabalho, fez-se uma pesquisa bibliográfica sobre a Administração dos Recursos Humanos e sobre as diversas teorias relacionadas com a motivação para o trabalho nas organizações. Utilizou-se o método inquisitivo baseado num interrogatório escrito para se obter dados referentes a motivação dos funcionários da Administração Pública.

Protect Yourself from Domestic Violence

This booklet is a general summary of domestic abuse law and procedures in Iowa.

Lost in translation : euro-compatibility, legal security, and the autonomous implementation of EU law in Switzerland

This article presents the legislative and judicial practice relating to the "autonomous implementation" of EU law in Switzerland. Given that "euro-compatibility" is the central consideration behind this legislative policy, one would expect Swiss authorities to have devised legislative and hermeneutical techniques guaranteeing high fidelity to EU "mother law". That is not the case, however, and as this article shows much is lost in the translation from EU to Swiss Law

L'aplicació del dret anglès per part dels tribunals de Catalunya

Mitjançant aquest projecte s’ha pogut: a) constatar l’escassa aplicació pràctica en els tribunals catalans del dret anglès; b) discutir els motius d’aquesta realitat judicial que s’aparta de les disposicions normatives previstes a la Llei d’Enjudiciament Civil 1/2000; c) plantejar solucions als problemes detectats, formulant una proposta de modificació normativa. Tot això s’ha materialitzat en 4 Ponències Internacionals presentades al “Congreso Internacional sobre Prueba Judicial” organitzat per les Facultats Jurídiques de les Universitats de Deusto, Comillas i Esade els 19 a 21 de juliol de 2010; 3 Comunicacions presentades a la Universidad de Salamanca en la “Jornada en Homenaje a la Profra. Mª. Carmen Calvo Sánchez”, el 25 de novembre de 2010; i un llibre col•lectiu de tots els membres integrants d’aquest projecte de recerca titulat “La prova del dret estranger: teoria i pràctica. Estudi de 30 casos reals”, publicat per l’editorial J.Mª. Bosch, la més antiga a Espanya i de reconegut prestigi i àmplia difusió en l’àrea del Dret Processal: es va crear l’any 1889 i ha publicat més de 300 llibres en aquesta àrea de coneixement.

Common law and civil law as pro-market adaptations

We argue that in the development of the Western legal system, cognitive departures are themain determinant of the optimal degree of judicial rule-making. Judicial discretion, seen here as the main distinguishing feature between both legal systems, is introduced in civil law jurisdictions to protect, rather than to limit, freedom of contract against potential judicial backlash. Such protection was unnecessary in common law countries, where free-market relations enjoyed safer judicial ground mainly due to their relatively gradual evolution, their reliance on practitioners as judges, and the earlier development of institutional checks and balances that supported private property rights. In our framework, differences in costs and benefits associated with self-interest and lack of information require a cognitive failure to be active.

The role of institutions in the contractual process

Human beings increase their productivity by specializingtheir resources and exchanging their products. Theorganization of exchange is costly, however, becausespecialized activities need coordination and incentiveshave to be aligned. This work first describes how theseexchanges are organized in an institutional environment.It then focuses on the dual effect of this environment-as with any other specialized resource, institutions maybe used for expropriation purposes. They enjoyspecialization advantages in safeguarding exchange butthey also make possible new forms of opportunism,causing new costs of exchange. Three perverse tendenciesare identified:In the legal field, there is a surplus ofmandatory rules and, at the same time, a deficit in default rules. Second, courts activity is biased againstthe quasi-judicial role of the parties and the market. Third, Market enforcement is based on reputationalassets that are badly exposed to opportunism.

Judges' cognition and market order

We argue that during the crystallization of common and civil law in the 19th century, the optimal degree of discretion in judicial rulemaking, albeit influenced by the comparative advantages of both legislative and judicial rulemaking, was mainly determined by the anti-market biases of the judiciary. The different degrees of judicial discretion adopted in both legal traditions were thus optimally adapted to different circumstances, mainly rooted in the unique, market-friendly, evolutionary transition enjoyed by English common law as opposed to the revolutionary environment of the civil law. On the Continent, constraining judicial discretion was essential for enforcing freedom of contract and establishing a market economy. The ongoing debasement of pro-market fundamentals in both branches of the Western legal system is explained from this perspective as a consequence of increased perceptions of exogenous risks and changes in the political system, which favored the adoption of sharing solutions and removed the cognitive advantage of parliaments and political leaders.

Motivação e desempenho dos funcionários da administração pública cabo-verdiana actual

The process of changes that have been taking place in contemporary world reaches undoubtedly to the public sector. The quest for a new public management, that seeks to provide quality and effective services to the citizens, has been the target of contemporary State. Within this framework, the study of people inside publics organizations becomes strategic. Knowledge is generated, processed, and communicated at great speed, taking society to adopt new approaches. In order to meet the challenges of the new millennium, organizations must thing more of people and, above all, they must be more concerned with creating incentives that can motivate their collaborators to achieve not only the objectives of the organization but also personal objectives of each individual, since there is no point in gaining profit and having productivity if the organization do not develop policies and practices that focus on the human being. Motivation implies accomplishment feelings and professional recognition, expressed by means of executing tasks and activities that are sufficiently challenging and meaningful to the job. The truth is that the adoption of a public management focused on quality requires changes in organization culture, requiring mainly motivation, which leads to efforts, dedication, persistence, and commitment. This work is intended to research motivation as a tool to achieve productivity and excellence in the performance of activities in Cape Verdean Public Administration. To achieve the aim of this work, a bibliographical research on Human Resources Administration as well as different theories related to work motivation in organizations was conducted. The inquisitive method was used based upon a written questionnaire aimed at obtaining data referring to motivation of Public Administration workers.

Motivação e desempenho dos funcionários da administração pública cabo-verdiana actual

O processo de mudanças que vem acontecendo no mundo contemporâneo alcança, inevitavelmente, o sector público. A busca de uma nova gestão pública, que procure prestar serviços ao cidadão com qualidade e eficiência tem sido o alvo a ser alcançado pelo Estado contemporâneo. Dentro desse prisma o estudo das pessoas dentro das organizações públicas apresenta-se como estratégico. O conhecimento é gerado, processado e comunicado a grande velocidade, o que leva a sociedade a assumir novas posturas. Para enfrentar os desafios do novo milénio, as organizações terão que pensar mais nas pessoas e sobretudo, preocupar-se mais em criar estímulos que motivem os colaboradores para alcançarem tanto os objectivos da organização quanto os objectivos pessoais de cada um porque não adianta obter lucro e produtividade se a organização não desenvolver políticas e práticas que privilegiam o ser humano. Motivação envolve sentimentos de realização e de reconhecimento profissional, manifestado por meio de exercícios das tarefas e actividades que oferecem suficiente desafio e significado para o trabalho. A verdade é que a adopção de uma gestão pública focada na qualidade requer mudanças na cultura organizacional, exigindo principalmente motivação, que conduz ao esforço, dedicação, persistência e comprometimento. Com o presente trabalho pretende-se investigar a motivação como uma ferramenta para alcançar a produtividade e a excelência no desempenho das actividades na Administração Pública Cabo-verdiana. Para alcançar o objectivo deste trabalho, fez-se uma pesquisa bibliográfica sobre a Administração dos Recursos Humanos e sobre as diversas teorias relacionadas com a motivação para o trabalho nas organizações. Utilizou-se o método inquisitivo baseado num interrogatório escrito para se obter dados referentes a motivação dos funcionários da Administração Pública.

Motivação e desempenho dos funcionários da administração pública cabo-verdiana actual

The process of changes that have been taking place in contemporary world reaches undoubtedly to the public sector. The quest for a new public management, that seeks to provide quality and effective services to the citizens, has been the target of contemporary State. Within this framework, the study of people inside publics organizations becomes strategic. Knowledge is generated, processed, and communicated at great speed, taking society to adopt new approaches. In order to meet the challenges of the new millennium, organizations must thing more of people and, above all, they must be more concerned with creating incentives that can motivate their collaborators to achieve not only the objectives of the organization but also personal objectives of each individual, since there is no point in gaining profit and having productivity if the organization do not develop policies and practices that focus on the human being. Motivation implies accomplishment feelings and professional recognition, expressed by means of executing tasks and activities that are sufficiently challenging and meaningful to the job. The truth is that the adoption of a public management focused on quality requires changes in organization culture, requiring mainly motivation, which leads to efforts, dedication, persistence, and commitment. This work is intended to research motivation as a tool to achieve productivity and excellence in the performance of activities in Cape Verdean Public Administration. To achieve the aim of this work, a bibliographical research on Human Resources Administration as well as different theories related to work motivation in organizations was conducted. The inquisitive method was used based upon a written questionnaire aimed at obtaining data referring to motivation of Public Administration workers.

Mini-STRs em genética forense

A análise do ADN baseada nos STRs (Short Tandem Repeats) tem provado ser uma ferramenta extremamente útil em estudos forenses. A aplicação dos multiplex de STRs resulta em perfis genéticos completos, para a maior parte das amostras, desde que contenham uma quantidade apreciável de ADN. Contudo, em amostras com ADN degradado, a análise tornase mais complicada, uma vez que os STRs com maior peso molecular (acima dos 250 pb), podem não ser amplificados nestas condições. Como a metodologia de Mini-STRs não estava, ainda, implementada nos Laboratórios Forenses portugueses, o objectivo principal deste estudo consistiu na aplicação de um multiplex, designado por Mini-SGM, que contém os marcadores TH01, FGA, D18S51, D16S359, D2S1338 e a Amelogenina, para implementação na prática forense, tendo os resultados sido comparados com a metodologia de rotina. O trabalho experimental teve início com um estudo populacional, que compreendeu uma amostra de 110 indivíduos de origem portuguesa, não relacionados e uma amostra de 52 indivíduos, não relacionados, oriundos de Cabo Verde, encontrando-se, ambas as populações, em Equilíbrio de Hardy-Weinberg, excepto para o locus D18S51, na população portuguesa e o locus D2S1338 na população de origem africana. Em relação aos parâmetros estatísticos forenses, este estudo demonstrou que o poder de discriminação varia entre 0,903 e 0,959, para a população portuguesa, e entre 0,908 e 0,958, para a população de Cabo Verde. Após o estudo populacional, foram analisados 39 casos forenses, devidamente anonimizados, da casuística do Serviço de Genética e Biologia Forense da Delegação de Lisboa do INML, com diferentes tipos de vestígios biológicos, como sangue, ossos, pulmão, coração, tecidos embrionários, tecidos inclusos em parafina, fígado, rim e dentes, de modo a ilustrar a utilidade desta nova metodologia nos casos forenses. No estudo de amostras degradadas, o uso da metodologia de rotina pode,

Insects associated with exposed decomposing bodies in the Colombian Andean Coffee Region

In Colombia, mainly classic forensic medicine methods were used to clarify crimes until 2004. However, other disciplines, including forensic entomology, started to be considered only after the New Accusatory System introduction in Bogotá and the Coffee Region in 2005. In order to provide tools for obtaining evidentiary material elements in judicial trials, it is presented here the succession of insects throughout the decomposition process of an exposed carcass of Sus scrofa Linnaeus 1758 (Suidae) and the Occurrence Matrix of colonizing species. This process was evaluated under ambient conditions in the Andean rural area of the city of Pereira, in the Mundo Nuevo district, located in a pre-montane Wet Forest area, from October to November 2006. A sampling period of 27 days and 3198 individuals were collected. We found these colonizing species in the following stages of decomposition: Lucilia eximia (Wiedemann, 1819) fresh; Hemilucilia semidiaphana (Rondani, 1850), Oxelytrum discicolle (Brullé, 1840), and Cochliomyia macellaria (Fabricius 1775) bloated; Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann 1819), Compsomyiops verena (Walker, 1849), Ophyra aenescens (Wiedemann, 1830) and Musca domestica Linnaeus, 1758 active; Fannia sp. advanced and Stearibia nigriceps (Meigen, 1826) remains. This study provides support tools to define the Post Mortem Interval that may be used by experts from government institutions and laboratories officially accredited.

Courts at a Glance, For Everyone From Students to Seniors.

A brief description of the courts system in the United States and in Iowa.