41 research outputs found
Oil Prices and Real Exchange Rate Movements in Oil-Exporting Countries: The Role of Institutions
Political and legal institutions affect the extent to which the real exchange rates of oil-exporting countries co-move with the oil price. In a simple theoretical model, strong institutions insulate real exchange rates from oil price volatility by generating a smooth pattern of fiscal spending over the price cycle. Empirical tests on a panel of 33 oil-exporting countries provide evidence that countries with high bureaucratic quality and strong and impartial legal systems have real exchange rates that co-move less with the oil price.Real Exchange Rate; Commodity Price; Institutions; Development
Gender, Wages, and Social Security in Chinaâs Industrial Sector
This study compares average earnings and productivities for men and women employed in roughly 200,000 Chinese industrial enterprises. Womenâs average wages lag behind menâs wages by 11%, and this result is robust to the inclusion of non-wage income in the form of social insurance payments. The gender-wage gap is wider among workers with more than 12 years of education (28%), mainly because of the higher relative wages received by skilled men in foreign-invested firms. Womenâs average productivity falls behind menâs productivity by a larger margin than the gap in earnings, and the null-hypothesis of earnings discrimination is thereby rejected. Equal average wages between men and women are found among firms located in Chinaâs Special Economic Zones, and also among some light industrial sectors with high shares of female employees. Market reform hence appears to have improved womenâs relative incomes.China; Gender Wage Gap; Non-wage Compensation
Gender quotas and the crisis of the mediocre man
Quotas aren't anathema to meritocracy: they increase competence levels by displacing mediocre men, write Tim Besley, Olle Folke, Torsten Persson and Johanna Rickn
Gender quotas and the crisis of the mediocre man: theory and evidence from Sweden
We develop a model where party leaders choose the competence of politicians on the ballot to trade off electoral success against their own survival. The predicted correlation between the competence of party leaders and followers is strongly supported in Swedish data. We use a novel approach, based on register data for the earnings of the whole population, to measure the competence of all politicians in seven parties, 290 municipalities, and ten elections (1982-2014). We ask how competence was affected by a "zipper" quota, requiring local parties to alternate males and females on the ballot, implemented by the Social Democratic party in 1993. Far from being at odds with meritocracy, this quota raised the competence of male politicians where it raised female representation the most. We argue that resignations of mediocre male leaders was a key driver of this effect
Who becomes a politician?
Can a democracy attract competent leaders, while attaining broad representation? Economic models suggest that free-riding incentives and lower opportunity costs give the less competent a comparative advantage at entering political life. Moreover, if elites have more human capital, selecting on competence may lead to uneven representation. This article examines patterns of political selection among the universe of municipal politicians and national legislators in Sweden, using extraordinarily rich data on competence traits and social background for the entire population. We document four new facts that together characterize an "inclusive meritocracy." First, politicians are on average significantly smarter and better leaders than the population they represent. Second, this positive selection is present even when conditioning on family (and hence social) background, suggesting that individual competence is key for selection. Third, the representation of social background, whether measured by parental earnings or occupational social class, is remarkably even. Fourth, there is at best a weak trade-off in selection between competence and social representation, mainly due to strong positive selection of politicians of low (parental) socioeconomic status. A broad implication of these facts is that it is possible for democracy to generate competent and socially representative leadership
Svensk real vÀxelkurs och fundamenta : en kointegrationsanalys
I denna studie anvÀnds Johansens metod för kointegrationsanalys för att skatta ett lÄngsiktigt jÀmviktssamband för den svenska reala vÀxelkursen under perioden 1980-2004. Resultatet blir att den reala vÀxelkursen pÄ lÄng sikt kan vÀntas appreciera till följd av försÀmrad handelsbalans och höjt oljepris, medan en real depreciering blir följden av en ökning i den utlÀndska produktiviteten. Dessa resultat ger belÀgg för Balassa-Samuelssoneffekten, liksom för transfereringseffekten. Undersökningen visar Àven att den svenska respektive utlÀndska realrÀntan, liksom nivÄn av svenska Net Foreign Assets, inte uppvisar nÄgon lÄngsiktig pÄverkan