We introduce heterogeneity in investors' ability to borrow from collateral in a Kiyotaki-Moore style macro model, calibrated to the quintiles of the leverage-ratio distribution of US non-financial firms. Financial amplification intensifies, because of stronger asset price reactions of highly levered investors. (authors' abstract)

This paper provides evidence on the extent of Global Value Chain (GVC) participation by Africa as a region and for individual African countries. We find that Africa as a whole is heavily involved in GVCs, being more engaged in GVCs than many developing country regions as well as developed countries such as the USA. This overall finding hides the fact that much of Africa's participation in GVCs is in upstream production, with African firms providing primary inputs to firms in countries further down the value chain. The possibility of upgrading within GVCs in Africa is likely to be limited therefore, something which the current analysis suggests. Despite this, we observe a great deal of heterogeneity in terms of GVC participation and upgrading across African countries, with a number of African countries participating in GVCs to a relatively large extent. (authors' abstract)

This paper provides an economic assessment of export credit guarantee commitments by the Austrian export credit agency, using firm-level data on a cross-section of 178 Austrian exporting firms for the year 2008. In a first step, we estimate the relative importance of various determinants of export guarantee usage. Results suggest that the most crucial determinants are: firm size, whether or not the firm is part of a multinational enterprise, exposure to revenue risk, and R&D intensity. In a second step, we investigate the effects of export guarantees on export performance. Identification is achieved by using as instruments the exogenous determinants of export guarantee usage identified in the first step. We find that there are economically and statistically significant effects of export credit guarantee usage on firm-specific export performance ranging from some 80 to 100 percent compared with the control group of non-users.

This paper reconsiders the trade effects of the euro, providing a decomposition into its effects on the extensive margin and intensive margin. Furthermore, it relates the more disaggregated estimates for 93 two-digit HS product groups to the elasticity of substitution, thereby testing a key hypothesis of recent trade theory. The estimates for the period 1996-2011 suggest a trade effect of the euro of some 28 percent, which has mainly materialized through the intensive margin. For several product groups, we find a negative net effect of the euro on the extensive margin, supporting anecdotal evidence that firms have consolidated their product varieties in response to the elimination of exchange rate variability. Finally, the disaggregated estimates are in line with recent trade theory, suggesting that a large elasticity of substitution dampens the effect of a trade cost reduction on the extensive margin and amplifies its effect on the intensive margin.

Many publishers use an honor system for selling newspapers in the street. We conducted a field experiment to study honesty in this market, finding that a moral reminder increases the level of honesty in payments, whereas the same message has no effect on whether one is honest. Reminding customers of the legal norm has no effect. We argue that these results are consistent with a preference for honesty, based on an internalized social norm. Auxiliary evidence suggests that the moral message remains effective when it is posted for longer periods, and even when it is removed again. (authors' abstract)

The finite sample properties of three semiparametric estimators, several versions of the modified rescaled range, MMR, and three versions of the GHURST estimator are investigated. Their power and size for testing for long memory under short-run effects, joint short and long-run effects, heteroscedasticity and t-distributions are given using Monte Carlo methods. The MMR with the Barlett window is generally robust with the disadvantage of a relatively small power. The trimmed Whittle likelihood has high power in general and is robust expect for large short-run effects. The tests are applied to chandes in exchange rate series (daily data) of 6 major countries. The hypothesis of no fractional integration is rejected for none of the series. (author's abstract) / Series: Preprint Series / Department of Applied Statistics and Data Processing

The importance of human capital in the form of education as a determinant of economic development has been highlighted in the theoretical and empirical economic growth literature. Less attention has been paid to the distributional characteristics of educational attainment within and across age groups, as well as between males and females. Exploiting new Age-structured data on educational attainment, we present an analysis of the degree of equality in the distribution of education in Europe over the last decades, both within and across generations. We highlight the differences existing across European regions and the changes experienced over time, as well as those implied by projected trajectories of educational attainment in the future.

Using a sample of highly (over-)leveraged Austrian ski hotels undergoing debt restructurings, we show that reducing a debt overhang leads to a significant improvement in operating performance (return on assets, net profit margin). In particular, a reduction in leverage leads to a decrease in overhead costs, wages, and input costs, and to an increase in sales. Changes in leverage in the debt restructurings are instrumented with Unexpected Snow, which captures the extent to which a ski hotel experienced unusually good or bad snow conditions prior to the debt restructuring. Effectively, Unexpected Snow provides lending banks with the counterfactual of what would have been the ski hotel's operating performance in the absence of strategic default, thus allowing to distinguish between ski hotels that are in distress due to negative demand shocks ("liquidity defaulters") and ski hotels that are in distress due to debt overhang ("strategic defaulters").

The expansion of universities' missions to include the support of regional economic development has led to conflicts between traditional norms of open science and the norms of entrepreneurialism, as well as placing university faculty in situations of potential conflict of interest. We posit that there are important differences between how universities support regional economic development in terms of leading to normative and ethical conflicts. Using data from two independent samples of U.S. and European faculty, we explore and compare faculty attitudes towards regional engagement and knowledge commercialization using factor analysis. The results show that U.S. faculty make a clear distinction between the appropriateness of university regional engagement, on the one hand, and knowledge commercialization, on the other. European faculty view regional engagement and knowledge commercialization along the same spectrum in terms of appropriateness. At the same time, attitudes of faculty in the U.S. and in Europe reveal independent commitment to the norms of open science and avoidance of situations of conflicts of interest.

This article systematically investigates the attitudes of voters towards capital taxation and further topics in the realm of the welfare state. We revisit various streams of literature and explore which views, beliefs and perceptions are connected to tax preferences and how these perceptions differ between various voting groups. Special weight is attached to questions of the distribution of income, wealth and opportunities. Inference relies on the outcomes of two large scale online surveys conducted in Austria. Our results suggest that, among others, opinions on fairness in the economic system in general as well as perceptions of inequality are strong predictors of tax preferences in Austria. In addition, these beliefs vary heavily across parties and are thus promising candidates to explain the variation in tax preferences between different voting groups. / Series: INEQ Working Paper Series