Measuring Ethno-Linguistic Affinity between Nations

Research on ethno-linguistic ties has so far mostly focused on domestic measures of ethno-linguistic heterogeneity. Little attention has been given to the possibility that ethno-linguistic relations between countries may affect out- comes, particularly in a spatial econometric context. In this paper, I propose a way of measuring Ethno-Linguistic Affinity between nations. This new index measures the degree of similarity two randomly drawn individuals from two different populations can be expected to display. I show that this measure has a number of attractive theoretical characteristics, which make it particularly useful and continue to actually construct such a measure for all countries in Africa. Finally, using this measure of Ethno-Linguistic Affinity, I show that civil conflict in Africa is likely to spill over between contiguous ethno-linguistically similar countries.Ethno-Linguistic heterogeneity, spatial econometrics, conflict, Africa

Ukrainische Banken: politische Patronage von Bedeutung

Verflechtungen zwischen Banken und Politikern werden hier am Beispiel ukrainischer Geschäftsbanken analysiert. Es zeigt sich, dass die "Nähe zur Politik" tendenziell einen dämpfenden Effekt auf die Entwicklung der Zinsmargen und einen positiven Effekt auf die Veränderung der Eigenkapitalquote der Banken hat. Bei der immer noch vergleichsweise niedrigen Kapitalisierung "politik- naher" Banken - sie liegt weit unter dem Niveau unabhängiger Banken - kann dieser Befund auch mit dem vermehrten Eintritt ausländischer Banken in den ukrainischen Markt zu tun haben. Es gibt Hinweise darauf, dass ausländische Investoren vor allem an politiknahen Banken interessiert sind. Wird die niedrige Eigenkapitalquote aber von ausländischen Investoren als Hindernis empfunden, erwächst für diesen Bankentyp möglicherweise ein starker Anreiz, die Eigenkapitaldecke zu erhöhen, um sich für Übernahmen attraktiv zu machen.Political patronage, Ukraine, Banking

Rating beeinflusst die Laufzeit von Unternehmenskrediten

Im Zuge der Umsetzung von Basel II ringen deutsche Banken darum, ein möglichst effizientes Rating-System aufzubauen. Erklärtes Ziel ist es, in Zukunft Kreditvergabe und -konditionen vor allem auf der Basis von Rating-Kennziffern zu treffen. Im Folgenden wird anhand von anonymisierten Mikrodaten aus Kreditportfolios die Beziehung von Banken zu Firmenkunden eingehend analysiert. Dabei wird insbesondere der Zusammenhang zwischen Rating und Kreditlaufzeit bei Unternehmenskrediten untersucht. Die Ergebnisse sind eindeutig: Das Rating determiniert bereits heute die Kreditlaufzeit. Dabei werden Gesellschaften (GmbHs, GbRs, AGs, KGs) und Einzelunternehmen durchaus unterschiedlich behandelt. Der Befund zeigt auch, dass die Dauer der Bank- Kunden-Beziehung für die Fristigkeit des Kredits kaum eine Rolle spielt.Loan maturity, Internal bank ratings, Risk of default, Creditworthiness

How Gender Ideology Affects the Public Attitude towards the Common Prosperity Policy?

Most of the existing studies on common prosperity policy in academia use qualitative research methods to explore how to achieve common prosperity policy, but there are few quantitative studies on public attitudes and other aspects, while public policy response attitudes are of great significance to policy implementation. This paper explores the mechanism of its influence on public attitude towards the income level gap by introducing the variable of gender ideology through the analysis of data from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) with a socialist feminist perspective. It is found that gender ideology significantly influences public attitude towards closing the income gap, and the more modern the gender ideology is, the more positive individuals’ attitude towards closing the income level gap is. In addition, gender ideology plays a masking role in the effects of age and education on public attitude towards the income level gap and a mediating role in the effects of social class on public attitude towards the income level gap. Therefore, the modernization of gender ideology is important for improving the public response to the common prosperity policy in China

Zunehmende Ungleichheit der Markteinkommen: reale Zuwächse nur für Reiche

Über die 90er Jahre hat die Ungleichheit der am Markt erzielten Bruttoeinkommen - Löhne und Gehälter, Unternehmer- sowie Vermögenseinkommen - in Deutschland zugenommen. Während die preisbereinigten Einkommen im Durchschnitt konstant blieben, gab es für die oberen 10 % der Einkommenspyramide nennenswerte Zuwächse. Diese Gruppe konnte ihr reales Markteinkommen von 1992 bis 2001 um gut 7 % steigern. Die "ökonomische Elite", die oberen 0,001 % der Einkommensbezieher, erzielten gegenüber 1992 sogar einen realen Einkommensanstieg um 35 %. In dieser Gruppe von 650 Personen lag das durchschnittliche Markteinkommen 2001 bei 15 Mill. Euro. Diese Ergebnisse hat das DIW Berlin mit einer integrierten Datenbasis aus Einkommensteuerstatistik und Sozio-oekonomischem Panel (SOEP) ermittelt, die auch die sehr hohen Einkommen vollständig erfasst. Daten des SOEP zur Entwicklung der Jahreseinkommen, die bis 2004 reichen, deuten darauf hin, dass sich die Ungleichheit der Markteinkommen nach 2001 weiter verstärkt hat.Income Distribution, Top Incomes, Inequality

Robust normative comparisons of socially risky situations

International audienceIn this paper, we theoretically characterize robust empirically implementable normative criteria for evaluating socially risky situations. Socially risky situations are modeled as distributions, among individuals, of lotteries on a finite set of state-contingent pecuniary consequences. Individuals are assumed to have selfish Von Neumann-Morgenstern preferences for these socially risky situations. We provide empirically implementable criteria that coincide with the unanimity, over a reasonably large class of such individual preferences, of anonymous and Pareto-inclusive Von Neuman Morgenstern social rankings of risks. The implementable criteria can be interpreted as sequential expected poverty dominance.An illustration of the usefulness of the criteria for comparing the exposure to unemployment risk of different segments of the French and US workforce is also provided

Long-term barriers to economic development

What obstacles prevent the most productive technologies from spreading to less developed economies from the world’s technological frontier? In this paper, we seek to shed light on this question by quantifying the geographic and human barriers to the transmission of technologies. We argue that the intergenerational transmission of human traits, particularly culturally trans- mitted traits, has led to divergence between populations over the course of history. In turn, this divergence has introduced barriers to the diffusion of technologies across societies. We provide measures of historical and genealogical distances between populations, and document how such distances, relative to the world’s technological frontier, act as barriers to the diffusion of devel- opment and of specific innovations. We provide an interpretation of these results in the context of an emerging literature seeking to understand variation in economic development as the result of factors rooted deep in history

Global Inequality:Relatively Lower, Absolutely Higher

This paper measures trends in global interpersonal inequality during 1975–2010 using data from the most recent version of the World Income Inequality Database (WIID). The picture that emerges using ‘absolute,’ and even ‘centrist’ measures of inequality, is very different from the results obtained using standard ‘relative’ inequality measures such as the Gini coefficient or Coefficient of Variation. Relative global inequality has declined substantially over the decades. In contrast, ‘absolute’ inequality, as captured by the Standard Deviation and Absolute Gini, has increased considerably and unabated. Like these ‘absolute’ measures, our ‘centrist’ inequality indicators, the Krtscha measure and an intermediate Gini, also register a pronounced increase in global inequality, albeit, in the case of the latter, with a decline during 2005 to 2010. A critical question posed by our findings is whether increased levels of inequality according to absolute and centrist measures are inevitable at today's per capita income levels. Our analysis suggests that it is not possible for absolute inequality to return to 1975 levels without further convergence in mean incomes among countries. Inequality, as captured by centrist measures such as the Krtscha, could return to 1975 levels, at today's domestic and global per capita income levels, but this would require quite dramatic structural reforms to reduce domestic inequality levels in most countries

The impact of the Corona pandemic (Covid-19) on some Macroeconomic variables in the Arab Region

  تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى توضيح الأثار الاقتصادية لجائحة كورونا (كوفيد-19) في المنطقة العربية خلال النصف الأول من عام 2020، وهذا من خلال تحليل الأثر على بعض المتغيرات الاقتصادية الكلية في المنطقة لاسيما النمو الاقتصادي، ميزان المدفوعات، التضخم والبطالة.    وتوصلنا من خلال الدراسة إلى أن الجائحة  أدت إلى أثار سلبية على مؤشرات الاقتصاد الكلي في الدول العربية،  وهذا راجع لاعتمادها الكبير على النفط والقطاع السياحي في ايراداتها، ومن أجل معالجة الاختلالات الناجمة عن الجائحة قامت بوضع مجموعة من السياسات النقدية والمالية.This study aims to clarify the economic effects of Corona (Covid-19) pandemic in the Arab region during the first half of  2020, througt analyzing the impact on some macroeconomic variables in the region, especially economic growth, the balance of payments, inflation, and unemployment.     The study found that this pandemic had a negative impact on the macroeconomic indicators of Arab countries, owing to their heavy dependence on oil and the tourism sector in their revenues, and in order to address the imbalances resulting from the pandemic, they developed a set of monetary and fiscal policies