Race-to-the-bottom unilateralism

Brown Bag Lunch

Wednesday 29 April 2009

12h15 - R3

Pierre-Louis Vézina

“Race-to-the-bottom unilateralism”

Abstract: This paper provides an empirical assessment of a tariff race-to-the-bottom. Using spatial econometrics methods, I show that political economy forces, by which more FDI generated employment stirs a competition for low tariffs, explain part of the unilateral trade liberalization that took place in Factory Asia during the last 20 years.

The varying price of risk in emerging countries’ stock markets

Brown Bag Lunch

Wednesday 22 April 2009

12h15 - R3

Katsiaryna Svirydzenka

“The varying price of risk in emerging countries’ stock markets: The role of the foreign investor profiles”

Abstract: Does the composition of capital inflows affect the stability of the domestic financial system? This paper analyzes the role of the foreign investor types in the pricing of risk in the stock markets of emerging countries. Taking the APT approach to asset pricing and the dynamic common factor model as its empirical implementation, I extract the factors driving the returns of individual stocks in each emerging country. Having estimated the price of risk for each country, I then test whether it is affected by the sector breakdown of foreign equity holders, as measured by the IMF Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey.

How effective are social programs during conflicts?

Brown Bag Lunch

Wednesday 8 April 2009

12h15 - R3

Jean-Louis Arcand

“How effective are social programs during conflicts? Evidence from the Angolan civil war”

Abstract: How effective are social programs during conflicts? And how is the effectiveness of social programs affected by conflict intensity? In this paper, we consider the impact on child anthropometrics and household expenditures of the only major social program in Angola during the civil war. Our identification strategy is based on the political geography of program deployment. Our hypothesis is that one of the purposes of program implementation was to consolidate government political support in areas contested with UNITA, the main rebel group, as well to maintain the support of the population in areas to the rear of frontline communities. Based on a simple model of spatial competition, we show that the likelihood of treatment of a community should be increasing in the distance separating it from the government’s forward base, and decreasing in the distance to UNITA’s main base at the time. Using these exclusion restrictions to generate plausibly exogenous variation in treatment status, our linear instrumental variables estimates show that treatment at some point during the 1994-2000 period was associated with a 48.5% increase in household expenditures per adult equivalent, and a 0.359 increase in child height-for-age z−scores, in 2000. Results based on the local instrumental variables estimator show that each 1,000 additional deaths attributable to the civil war within a 20 km radius of the community shifts the marginal treatment effect associated with household income per adult equivalent up by 18.2%. This particular social fund was therefore associated with substantial benefits for treated communities, with these benefits being.