infonet-economy

This paper uses detailed information on the latitude and longitude of conflict events in Sub-Saharan African countries to study the impact of external income shocks on the likelihood of violence. We consider a number of external demand shocks faced by the countries or the regions within countries - temporary shocks such as changes in the world demand for agricultural commodities, and…

This paper develops a model of optimizing behavior of asylum seekers whose objective is to reach an advanced country. Their personal characteristics and the challenges anticipated along the way determine whether they try to reach the ultimate destination with the aid of human smugglers or by applying for resettlement with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In…

This paper uses probit and ordered probit methods to examine the impact of banks’ policies in terms of cost efficiency, capitalization, activity diversification, credit growth and profitability, on the loan quality in the Tunisian banking sector after controlling for the effects of firm-specific characteristics and macroeconomic conditions. Using a data set with detailed information…

We measure the response of household consumption of different income groups to social spending during the 2002-2012 period using the aggregated Household Budget Survey Data. We find that households respond more strongly to changes in pensions than to changes in allowances and in-kind transfers. The very weak response of households to changes in allowances and in-kind transfers, both…

We use a large sample of export transactions from customs files across six developing countries and several years to explore the extent of pricing to market and volume responses to exchange-rate variations in the East African Community (EAC), a customs union, and a control group of exporters from developing countries outside the region. We find that, relative to the control group,…

A guest-worker program can be a very flexible and convenient way of meeting labor shortages in a host country, assuming that the migrants obeythe rules. This paper investigates the conditions under which guest workers have sufficient incentives for voluntary return to their country of origin when their work permits expire. The analysis is conducted in the context of a lenient…

Following the idea of heterogeneous firms we examine responses to trade liberalization at the firm level in the presence of capital market imperfections. In our model, entrepreneurs differ in their wealth endowment, causing them to rely differently on external funds. With an imperfect capital market, we show that poor entrepreneurs run smaller firms, are less likely to invest in R…

Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist es, den Debit- und Kreditkartenbestand und -umsatz auf der Basis von neuesten Daten zu prognostizieren sowie die neuesten Trends im Schweizer Zahlungskartenmarkt zu beleuchten. Die Bargeldsubstitution hat durch die Debit- und Kreditkarte weiter zugenommen, wobei von der Debitkarte ein stärkerer Effekt ausgeht. Das Wachstum der Kartenumsätze und -…