A multivariate normal mean-variance heterogeneous tails mixture distribution is proposed for the joint distribution of financial factors and asset returns (referred to as Factor-HGH). The proposed latent variable model incorporates a Cholesky decomposition of the dispersion matrix to ensure a rich dependency structure for capturing the stylized facts of the data. It generalizes several existing model structures, with or without financial factors. It is further applicable in large dimensions due to a fast ECME estimation algorithm of all the model parameters. The advantages of modelling financial factors and asset returns jointly under non-Gaussian errors are illustrated in an empirical comparison study between the proposed Factor-HGH model and classical financial factor models. While the results for the Fama-French 49 industry portfolios are in line with Gaussian-based models, in the case of highly tail heterogeneous cryptocurrencies, the portfolio based on the Factor HGH model doubles the average return while keeping the volatility, the maximum drawdown, the turnover, and the expected-shortfall at a low level.

Author(s): Deserranno, Erika; Kastrau, Philipp; Leon-Ciliotta, Gianmarco | Abstract: We study promotion incentives in the public sector by means of a field experiment with the Ministry of Health in Sierra Leone. The experiment creates exogenous variation in meritocracy by linking promotions to performance for the lowest tier of health workers and in perceived pay progression by revealing to them the salary of higher-tier workers. We find that meritocratic promotions lead to higher productivity for workers who expect a steep pay increase and those who are highly ranked in terms of performance. When promotions are not meritocratic, increasing the pay gradient instead reduces worker productivity through negative morale effects. The findings highlight the importance of taking into account the interactions between different tools of personnel policy.n

In the light of fears that the SARS-CoV-2 virus might be transmitted via cash - fears that were stoked by statements in the media and from public authorities - this paper aims to address the following issues: (1) to provide a descriptive account of the change in the circulation of euro banknotes and the use of cash in transactions during the pandemic; and (2) to assess the survivability of the virus on cash and the potential transmission risks. The pandemic has caused a significant increase in demand for cash as a store of value but a decrease in the use of cash in transactions. Although citizens reported using cash less in transactions partly out of fear of infection, research confirms that the risk of the virus being transmitted by banknotes and coins is very low. This supports the findings from the scientific community concluding that SARS-CoV-2 mainly spreads via respiratory fluids and airborne transmission, and that surfaces play a very minor role.

Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholarship contends that international law privileges nation-states in the Global North over those in the Global South. The literature primarily draws on a Westphalian conception of the North-South divide in analyzing asymmetrical issues of power in the global political economy. Given the expansion of global capitalism, however, the nation-state-based mode of analysis misses the fact that there are Global Souths in the geographic North and Global Norths in the geographic South. This Essay makes two theoretical claims.\n\nFirst, it argues that racial capitalism renders expendable populations across the geographic North and South, destabilizing the Westphalian North-South structure. Global Southerners, defined by their positionality as capitalism’s externalities, exist across the North-South schema. The Essay uses climate displacement as an example. The adverse effects of carbon pollution combine with postcolonial legacy and contemporary imperialism to transmogrify the lives, livelihoods, and homelands of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) around the world into the hidden cost of industrialization. Climate change, an issue that challenges strict notions of national borders, serves as germane material in the Essay’s work to deterritorialize the notion of the North-South divide.\n\nSecond, this Essay names the existence of Global Southerners in the geographic North as a heretofore unnamed site of resistance for reordering the North-South divide in international law. It leverages the author’s deterritorialized view of the Global South to claim that Global Southerners are political agents with the capacity to shift the global political economy of international law. Although others have begun to reimagine the Global South beyond geographical lines in order to articulate a theory of resistance in international law, this Essay seeks to break new ground by highlighting the particular power of Global Southerners residing in the geographic North. As such, this Essay reinvigorates the central TWAIL question of how to shift power along the North-South divide.

This analysis investigates the potential mechanism and the practical significance of the impacts of agricultural value chain development in a geographically challenging rural area of a developing country. We use data from a carefully designed primary survey administered in the hill and mountainous region in Western Nepal. Using the inverse probability weighted regression adjustment method, we show that linking small-scale producers with regional and local traders can help increase agricultural income. We unpack the potential mechanism of the impact pathway and show that the increase in agricultural income is a consequence of higher agricultural revenues, owing to a higher volume of sales at lower prices. We argue that value chain intervention in rural areas, where land is not fully exploited, can lead to acreage expansion or crop switching, which eventually results in higher supply at lower output prices. The positive impact on household income is practically significant in that it translated into improved food security, dietary diversity and household resilience. These findings are robust to various specifications. Targeted value chain interventions that strengthen and stabilize small-scale producers’ access to markets can contribute to rural poverty reduction via an increase in agricultural income.

We revisit the effects of globalisation over the past 50 years in a large sample of advanced and emerging countries. We use accessions to \\Globalisation Clubs" (WTO, OECD, EU), financial liberalisation and an instrument for trade openness to study the trade-off between efficiency (proxied by real GDP per capita and TFP) and equity (proxied by the labour share of income and the Gini index of inequality). We find that (i) most of our episodes lead to an increase in trade openness (ii) effects on GDP per capita are mostly positive with some interesting exceptions and (iii) there is little evidence that globalisation shocks lead to more inequality.

Transparency is often seen as a means of improving governance and accountability of investment, but its potential to do so is hindered by vague definitions and failures to focus on the needs of key local actors. In a new report focusing on agribusiness, forestry, and renewable energy projects (“land investments”), CCSI grounds transparency in the needs of project-affected communities and other local actors. Transparency efforts that seek to inform and empower communities can also help governments, companies, and other actors to more effectively manage operational risk linked to social conflict. Troublingly, the report finds that: -Disclosures around land investments continue to fall short -Communities struggle to access disclosed information -More action is needed to enable communities to understand available information; and -Communities face barriers to using information and to participating in open decision-making processes. Taking a politically informed approach that considers the incentives of powerful actors, the report proposes seven strategies to advance land investment transparency: 1. Driving agendas with community-led processes, such as protocols, bylaws, and development plans 2. Increasing technical support for communities 3. Empowering good faith regulators 4. Implementing multi-stakeholder and participatory processes, when appropriate 5. Factoring community-generated information into investment-related decisions 6. Initiating domestic mechanisms to increase public access to information 7. Extending community participation beyond individual projects to the policy level.

The short-selling of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) creates ETF shares, trading at ETF market prices, with cash flows rights but no associated voting rights. Unlike regular ETF shares backed by the ETF's underlying securities which are voted as directed by the ETF sponsor, phantom ETF shares are backed by collateral that is not voted. Introducing a novel measure of phantom ETF shares for the corresponding underlying securities, we find that increases in phantom shares are associated with decreases in number of proxy votes cast (for and against), and increases in broker non-votes, the voting premium, and value-reducing acquisitions.

The paper presents the concept of the as an economic system related to population aging and underlines the features of this policy idea. The study first introduces the discourse and stages of constructing this system by international and national public policy actors in aging. Next, a critical analysis of the dimensions and areas of implementation and development of the silver economy as a policy concept was carried out as well as a review of its external and internal limitations. The conclusion contains proposals for further research directions.

The aim of this paper is to investigate bi-directional spillovers into residential and industrial sectors induced by energy efficiency improvement (EEI) in both the short- and long-term, and the impact of nesting structure as well as the size of elasticities of substitution of production and utility functions on the magnitude and the transitional dynamic of rebound effect. Developing a dynamic general equilibrium model, we demonstrate that residential EEIs spillovers into the industrial sector through the labor supply channel and industrial EEIs spill-overs into the residential sector through the conventional income channel. Numerical simulations calibrated on the U.S. suggest that not taking into account these spillover effects could lead to mis-estimate the rebound effect especially of residential sector EEIs. We also demonstrate how the size and the duration of the rebound effect depend on the value of elasticities of substitution. Especially, the elasticity of substitution between energy and non-energy consumption in household utility and the elasticity of substitution between physical capital and labor in production play a major role. Numerical simulations suggest that alternative sets of value for the elasticities of substitution may give sizable different patterns of rebound effects in both the short- and long-term. In policy terms, our results suggest that energy efficiency policies should be implemented simul- taneously with rebound effect offsetting policies by considering short- and long-term wide-economy feedbacks. As a consequence, they recall for considering debates about what type of policy path- ways is more effective in mitigating the rebound effect.