Anne-Gaël Vaubourg

Unemployment and Finance: How do Financial and Labour Market Factors Interact?

Using annual data for 18 OECD countries over the period 1980-2004, we investigate how labour and financial factors interact to determine unemployment by estimating a dynamic panel model using the system generalized method of moments (GMM). We show that the impact of financial variables depends strongly on the labour market context. Increased market capitalization as well as decreased banking concentration reduce unemployment if the level of labour market regulation, union density and coordination in wage bargaining is low. The above financial variables have no effect otherwise. Increasing intermediated credit and banking concentration is beneficial for employment when the degree of labour market regulation, union density and coordination in wage bargaining is high. These results suggest that the respective virtues of ed and market-based finance are crucially tied to the labour market context.

Institutional Herding in Stock Markets: Empirical Evidence from French Mutual Funds

Using the herding measures of Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1992) (LSV) and Frey, Herbst and Walter (2007) (FHW), we assess herding by French equity mutual funds between 1999 and 2005. We show that LSV herding amounts to 6.5% while FHW herding is about 2.5 times stronger. We observe that herding is stronger in small than in medium and large capitalization firms. Herding is also more severe among foreign than among UE-15 or French stocks. Moreover, French mutual funds are shown to partially use positive feedback strategies. Finally, we obtain that sell-herding have a destabilizing impact on stock prices.