C21 - Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile RegressionsReturn

This paper investigates the nonlinear risk transmission from the oil and natural gas markets to the foreign exchange markets of five energy importers and one major energy exporter. We separate conditional volatility into the transitory (short-term) and permanent (long-term) parts, and then these volatilities are embedded in an elaborate robust linear quantile regression model. We find that the risk spillover effect is relatively low in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) probably because they pursue a managed float exchange rate regime. On the other hand, this effect is higher for Turkey and Russia, which is especially true for the effect from oil to the rouble at the highest quantile. This happens because Russia receives the largest amount of foreign currency from oil exports. The results indicate that the short-term risk spillover effect is notably stronger than the long-term one, which means that the exchange rate volatility is mainly determined by market sentiment. The rolling regression results coincide very well with the estimated quantile parameters.

Psychological traits have received significant attention in labour market research in recent decades. Unfortunately, empirical evidence remains limited for some psychological traits and their interactions. To address this gap, we conduct a representative survey of employees, assessing competitiveness, persistence, and risk tolerance using single-item scales. This comprehensive study sheds light on the connection between these traits and wages. Our results confirm that individuals possessing these traits tend to earn higher wages, even when we account for indirect factors, such as higher educational attainment and better job positions. It also suggests that competitiveness and risk tolerance are particularly valuable for individuals with middle and high incomes, while persistence is valuable for those with low and middle incomes. These findings support the systematic development of competitiveness, persistence, and risk tolerance through education and sporting activities.

The manufacturing sector has been regarded as a key factor in the history of economic devel-opment and growth. However, economic fluctuations affect manufacturing seriously. This study examines the impact of the 2008 global economic crisis on Turkish manufacturing sector profit-ability. This paper uses micro-econometric difference in differences methods in conjunction with the macroeconomic forecasting method to investigate how profit levels in the Turkish manufacturing industry are affected by the crisis. The results indicate that the profit levels changed significantly after the crisis with a one-year lag and actual profits exceeded the estimated profits in the later years. Economic impacts of crises have long been investigated; however, this paper differs from the literature in using a new analytical framework for the issue. The suggested method can be expanded to other areas, which can spark new future studies.

This study evaluates the effects of opening new segments of mass rapid transit (MRT) lines on housing prices near the MRT stations in Tucheng District and Xinzhuang District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. The effect of proximity to each MRT station is estimated separately with difference-in-differences regressions integrated with spatial econometrics with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors. The opening of the new segment of the Blue Line, also known as Bannan Line of the Taipei Metro, does not significantly influence housing prices within 600-metre road network distance of the MRT stations, compared to prices outside the distance range. In contrast, and also unlike the findings of prior studies, although the segment and the stations are underground structures, the opening of the new segment of the Orange Line, also known as the Zhonghe-Xinlu Line of the Taipei Metro, significantly decreases housing prices within 600-metre road network distance of the MRT stations, compared to prices outside the distance range, perhaps because the opening of the stations is delayed about one and a half years to be used as a temporary storage area for MRT trains. The findings have implications for homebuyers, investors, mortgage lending institutions and tax assessment authorities.

We investigate how increases in minimum wage affect various firm-level characteristics. We study firm-level data from Poland, where the minimum wage experienced a large and persistent increase in 2008 and 2009. We show that firms which were more exposed to the minimum wage increase faced higher increases in total labour costs and larger reductions in profitability. Intuitively, higher total labour costs driven by higher minimum wages directly reduce firm profits in the absence of price adjustments. We also show that the sharp increases in the minimum wage increased capital and decreased overall labour productivity and employment. The impact of policy is statistically significant only on capital.

Using a unique firm-level data for Polish Special Economic Zones (SEZ) to estimate a set of panel data models we find that both employment and investment growth in SEZ are driven mainly by labour market characteristics of zone-hosting regions, while other factors (including market access, zone business climate and firms' concentration) play a less important role. Firms choose their locations based on labour availability rather than on labour costs. Moreover, they pay particular attention to availability of low-skilled rather than high-skilled labour. As far as tax incentives are concerned, their predictability matters more for SEZ development than their generosity.

This paper explores the dependence of emerging European stock markets (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine) on global risk factors (changes in gold prices, US implied volatility index and oil prices) based on daily data from 6 January 2004 to 31 December 2013. We employ a quantile regression model to analyse how the global factors affect stock returns under different market circumstances, such as bearish (lower quantiles), normal (intermediate quantile) and bullish (higher quantiles) times. Empirical results reveal that the response of stock markets is heterogeneous; larger equity markets, such as Poland, Russia and Turkey, are highly sensitive to the global factors while Bulgaria is the least sensitive. Overall, the dependence on gold and oil prices is positive while the dependence on US stock market uncertainty is negative. Additionally, in most of the cases, the dependence intensifies during bear market conditions, in which stock prices fall.

With the European Union expansion in 2004 providing a unique form of natural experiment, this paper uses the European Values Study data and the difference-in-differences estimation to identify causal effects of the EU expansion on migrants’ employment chances and income. Estimation results suggest that the expansion has increased migrants’ employment chances and income. The probability of having a full-time employment for a male migrant in the postexpansion period increases by about 7.7 percentage points. The increase in income for male migrants is higher than that of their female counterparts after the expansion. When the income distribution is broken down into quantiles, estimation results show that male migrants at lower ends of the income distribution experience higher increase in income. At the highest end of the income distribution, there is no evidence that the expansion has any significant effect on either male or female migrants´ income.

This paper seeks to investigate the effect of financial development on growth in OECD countries during 1999–2014. The aim of the analysis is to study the dependence of growth on given financial development indicators along quantiles of the conditional growth distribution, taking into account the effect played by each country over time. For the purpose of the empirical analysis, it performed the instrumental variable quantile regression panel data (IV-QRPD) model suggested by Powell (2016). The findings of IV-QRPD model indicated that the effect of finance on growth is changing along quantiles of the conditional growth distribution. That is to say, we provide some evidence that high-growth OECD countries react to the changes in financial development less than low-growth countries.

The aim of this paper is to explore, by estimating a cross-sectional econometric model, the determining factors of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in developing countries over the period of 2000-2004. The study is based on a sample of cross-sectional data on 38 developing countries. We have used average value of all data for the 2000-2004 period. In the models, dependent variable is FDI. Independent variables are growth rate of per capita GDP, inflation rate, telephone main lines per 1,000 people measured in logs, labour cost per worker in manufacturing industry measured in logs, degree of openness, risk and corporate top tax rate. According to the econometric results, in the main model, growth rate of per capita, telephone main lines and degree of openness have positive sign and are statistically significant. Inflation rate and tax rate present negative sign and are statistically significant. Labour cost has positive sign and risk has negative sign. However, both are not significant.