Constantinos Alexiou and Emmanouil Trachanas
Despite the existing conceptual analysis on the impact of trade unions on employees' welfare and the wider economy, the mediating effect of political party orientation (i.e.…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the existing conceptual analysis on the impact of trade unions on employees' welfare and the wider economy, the mediating effect of political party orientation (i.e., right, centre and left) on income inequality remains under researched. In this paper, the authors empirically explore the relationship between the nature of political party orientation, trade unions and income inequality.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use three different measures of income inequality and dummy variables that capture government party orientation with respect to economic policy for a panel of 17 OECD economies over the period 2000–2016. The authors employ a panel fixed effects approach and the Driscoll and Kraay's (1998) nonparametric covariance matrix estimator.
Findings
The empirical evidence indicates that strong unions and, to some extent, left party governance, are fundamental institutional elements to combat rising levels of income inequality whilst countries dominated by right-wing political parties appear to exacerbate income inequality. The results pertaining to the impact of centrist parties on income inequality are ambiguous suggesting that a potential fragmentation may exist in their political approach.
Originality/value
The evidence generated can have significant policy ramifications in alleviating rising levels of income inequality as well in relation to the declining unionization rates observed across advanced economies.
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Constantinos Alexiou and Emmanouil Trachanas
Motivated by the scant available evidence, this paper explores the relationship between government political party orientation and infant mortality.
Abstract
Purpose
Motivated by the scant available evidence, this paper explores the relationship between government political party orientation and infant mortality.
Design/methodology/approach
A panel quantile methodology is applied to a data set that consists of 15 countries of the G20 group over the period 2000–2018. The authors control for heterogeneous parameters across countries and quantiles and obtain estimates across the different points of the conditional distribution of the dependent variable.
Findings
The findings support the hypothesis that political party orientation has a significant effect on a population health indicator such as infant mortality. The analysis suggests that, to a great extent, left-wing government parties contribute to better health outcomes – when compared to right and centre political parties – both individually as well as interacted with government health expenditure. Moreover, the impact of redistributing policies appears to be of a paramount importance in alleviating infant mortality, while more education and lower unemployment can also contribute to better health outcomes.
Originality/value
The authors explore the relationship between the nature of government political party orientation (i.e. right, centre and left) and infant mortality whilst at the same time gauging the mediating effect of party orientation via government health expenditure on infant mortality. Additional aspects of the impact of other control variables, such as income inequality, unemployment and education on infant mortality are also investigated.
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Constantinos Alexiou, Emmanouil Trachanas and Sofoklis Vogiazas
The authors explore the impact of financialization on income inequality for a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 2000–2017. The authors control for the effect of banking…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors explore the impact of financialization on income inequality for a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 2000–2017. The authors control for the effect of banking crises, credit market regulation and globalization, among other factors.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use three proxies for income inequality and four proxies for financialization. The authors employ a panel fixed effects approach using Driscoll and Kraay’s (1998) nonparametric covariance matrix estimator, which produces standard errors that are robust to general forms of cross-sectional dependence.
Findings
The authors provide evidence which to a great extent supports the view that the process of financialization has increased income inequality. In the disposable Gini specifications, two out of the four financialization measures are found to significantly contribute to rising inequality whilst in the specification with the market income Gini coefficient, three out of the four financialization proxies appear to adversely affect inequality. In the specification with the Gini coefficient based on manufacturing pay, the evidence is weak. Furthermore, trade unions appear to play a significant role in reducing inequality in two out of the three Gini specifications while the effect of credit market regulation is rather ambiguous.
Originality/value
The authors’ findings suggest a positive relationship between financialization and income inequality; however, the results depend on the proxies used to measure financialization and income inequality. The authors conclude that the process of financialization in triggering income inequality is complex and merits additional research.
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Glauco De Vita, Constantinos Alexiou, Emmanouil Trachanas and Yun Luo
Despite decades of research, the relationship between intellectual property rights (IPRs) and foreign direct investment (FDI) remains ambiguous. Using a recently developed patent…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite decades of research, the relationship between intellectual property rights (IPRs) and foreign direct investment (FDI) remains ambiguous. Using a recently developed patent enforcement index (along with a broader IPR index) and a large sectoral country-to-country FDI dataset, the authors revisit the FDI-IPR relationship by testing the impact of IPRs on UK and US outward FDI (OFDI) flows as well as earnings from outward FDI (EOFDI).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use disaggregated data for up to 9 distinct sectors of economic activity from both the US and UK for OFDI flows and EOFDI, for a panel of up to 42 developed and developing countries over sample periods from 1998 to 2015. The authors employ a panel fixed effects (FE) approach that allows exploiting the longitudinal properties of the data using Driscoll and Kraay's (1998) nonparametric covariance matrix estimator.
Findings
The authors do not find any consistent evidence in support of the hypothesis that countries' strength of IPR protection or enforcement affects inward FDI, or that sector of investment matters. The results prove robust to sensitivity checks that include an alternative broader measure of IPR strength, analyses across sub-samples disaggregated according to the strength of countries' IPRs as well as developing vs developed economies and an extended specification accounting for dynamic effects of the response of FDI to both previous investment levels and IPR (patent) protection.
Originality/value
The authors make use of the largest most granular sectoral country-to-country FDI dataset employed to date in the analysis of the FDI-IPR nexus with disaggregated data for OFDI and EOFDI across up to 9 distinct sectors of economic activity from both the US and UK The authors employ a more sophisticated measure of IPR strength, the patent index proposed by Papageorgiadis et al. (2014), which places emphasis on the effectiveness of enforcement practices as perceived by managers, together with the overall administrative effectiveness and efficiency of the national patent system.
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Peck-Ching Sia, Chin-Hong Puah, Choi-Meng Leong, Kwang-Jing Yii and Maggie May-Jean Tang
This paper examines the asymmetric effects of inflation and interest rate on stock prices in Indonesia.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the asymmetric effects of inflation and interest rate on stock prices in Indonesia.
Design/methodology/approach
Variables such as interest rate, inflation rate, gross domestic product (GDP), and exchange rate were tested using the time-series data fitted to the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model. The asymmetric effects of interest rate and inflation rate were estimated in two separate models, with data covering the period from 1997:Q1 to 2023:Q3.
Findings
The results indicated that interest rate exhibit asymmetric effects on stock prices in both the short and long run. Conversely, no asymmetric effect was identified for the inflation rate model. The NARDL result of the asymmetry interest rate model revealed that both positive and negative changes in interest rate have a negative impact on stock prices in Indonesia. Notably, stock prices were positively and significantly influenced by both economic growth and exchange rate. The results suggested that policymakers should respond more proactively by adjusting interest rate in line with stock price movements.
Originality/value
This study diverges from previous studies by employing a general equilibrium theoretic model to link output with stock returns and extending it to include macroeconomic variables relevant to stock price determination. This study uniquely examined the asymmetric effects of monetary policy variables in Indonesia, particularly by comparing the asymmetric effects of inflation and interest rate.