Credit Spread Dynamics: Evidence from Latin America

This paper examines the behaviour of credit spreads on key sovereign issuers from the Latin American region, which accounts for more than one third of international bond issues by developing, or emerging, markets. Since the late 1990s, credit spreads on Latin American issues have declined broadly inline with those in other emerging markets. Recent empirical analysis has explained this phenomenon by identifying critical macroeconomic factors, including the reduction in systematic risk in individual markets, although the structural models from the theoretical finance literature also predict the importance of key default and interest rate variables. This contribution adds to the understanding of these issues by investigating the application of structural models to the Latin American setting, one historically characterized by excessive volatility and susceptibility to episodes of default.credit spreads, long-run dynamics, Latin America, sovereign bonds, cointegration

From Local To Global : The Transformation of Japanese Companies

departmental bulletin pape

Impact Evaluation of the European Employment Strategy in Ireland. ESRI General Papers

Recent years have seen dramatic growth in employment following unprecedented economic growth and development during the 1990s. Total employment in Ireland grew by a remarkable 534,000, or by 46%, in the eight years from 1993 to 2001, and over 220,000 of this was achieved between 1998 and 2001. In very recent years, the rate of growth in employment fallen somewhat, from a peak of almost 7% in 1997-1998 to about 4% in 2000- 2001. The rapid growth in the economy and in employment after 1993 led to a steady decline in unemployment from 220,000 in 1993 to 127,000 in the 2nd quarter of 1998 and to 65,000 in the 2nd quarter of 2001. The unemployment rate thus fell from 15.7% of the labour force in 1993 to 7.8% in the 2nd quarter of 1998 and to 3.7% in the 2nd quarter of 2001. With the deterioration in the international economy, and the slowdown in the Irish growth rate in 2001, unemployment increased to just under 80,000, or 4.3% of the labour force, in the 3rd quarter of 2001

Restructuring corporate design in periods of dynamic change

牧野陽子名誉教授退任記念

Understanding the factors behind Tsunamis of change.

木下直也名誉教授退任記念

The earnings and employment effects of young people's vocational training in Britain

We examine the longer run effects of youth training using the Youth Cohort Study Cohort III. These data follow individuals up to the age of 23 while previous studies typically analyse younger people. The problem of attrition is addressed by using an 'item non-response' variable as an instrument to predict drop-out. We estimate earnings and employment equations to analyse the effects of training. The results contrast with those from previous studies by suggesting there are no adverse employment or earnings effects from government-sponsored training. We find significant returns to quality training such as degrees and apprenticeships