infonet-economy

Empirical research shows that European governments and retailers are unlikely to be directly punished by taxpayers and consumers if they move away from their anti-GMO positions and policies. However, it is ultimately not the weak attitudes of taxpayers and consumers that matter to governments and retailers but the strong attitudes of the noisy anti-biotech movement.

The aim of this synthesis paper is to provide a narrative to the empirical findings of the comprehensive literature review concerning the quantitative effects of financial development on economic growth and employment and various determinants of financial sector development. The literature review has been restricted mostly to high-quality academic research that focus on developing...

This paper identifies the relative contribution of sustainability criteria to property value risk. We use a discounted cash flow (DCF) model to assess the effect of a given set of 42 sustainability sub-indicators on property value. The anticipated demand for each sustainability sub-indicator is described by four future states of nature. Their impact on costs and/or revenue is...

This paper uses an instrumental variable approach to study whether public debt has a causal effect on economic growth in a sample of OECD countries. The results are consistent with the existing literature that has found a negative correlation between debt and growth. However, the link between debt and growth disappears once we instrument debt with a variable that captures valuation...

How can the private sector work for development? This paper provides answers to this question from the firms’ perspective by examining the trade-offs that private firms face between maximizing their profits and achieving a positive social impact. In particular, it considers the experience of microfinance as the best available data source from the point of view of a firm engaged in...

In the last decade, models of rational choice have chimed into the discussion on racial profiling, the use of race in stop and search decisions of the police. The models describe the behavior of motorists and the police and provide empirical tests to assess the question whether the police exhibit racial animus. However, existing studies have neglected the effect of spatial and...

For decades, racial profiling has been subject of intense debate in US jurisdiction. Recently, outcome tests based on economic models have contributed to the legal discourse. However, it is not readily obvious if and to what extent they also pertain to European jurisdiction, where racial profiling has only as of late stirred up controversy. In a comprehensive examination of their...

This paper empirically examines the theoretically ambivalent relationship between socially responsible investing (SRI) and stock performance. It extends the existing literature by considering both the US and the entire European stock markets as well as by using consistent world-wide corporate sustainability performance data. Our portfolio analysis from 1998 to 2009 reveals the appeal...