Eleonora Cutrini

External Public Debt, Trade Linkages and Contagion During the Eurozone Crisis

Against the backdrop of the contagion literature, the paper analyses the impact of financial and trade linkages on sovereign bond spreads in the Eurozone crisis. Using quarterly data for a sample of EMU countries during the period 2000–13, we estimate fixed-effect panel models with Driscoll and Kraay standard errors that are robust to general forms of spatial and temporal dependence. Our main results can be summarised as follows: first, we suggest that the ‘sudden stop’ of capital inflow towards the peripheral sovereign debt triggered a re-segmentation of financial markets and economic systems along national borders, with negative implications for risk-sharing and the efficient allocation of capital. The ‘home bias’ effect – that is the increase in the share of sovereign debt held by domestic banks – worsened the country-specific risk because the twin crisis (sovereign and banking) began to be conceived as more closely intertwined within countries than before. Second, the structure of international trade helps to account for the geographic scope of contagion, even after controlling for macroeconomic and fiscal vulnerabilities. Finally, the ‘substitution effect’ of public debt securities of stand-alone emerging countries has affected more the sovereign spreads in the core than in the periphery.

Distance and Beyond. What Drives Financial Flows to Emerging Economies

We build a model for the analysis of financial flows from advanced to emerging economies and introduce the quality dimension in cross-border asset trade. We reformulate the issue of transaction costs (Martin and Rey, 2004) in terms of a problem of trade in assets with different quality. The focus is on countries’ economic distance, as reflected in characteristics such as their institutional development, regulation of markets, enforceability of laws and political risk, and the impact on the expected inflows from the projects/assets. We further consider the spillover effects from the country of origin to the country of destination building on the idea that quality matters, but not always with the same intensity. We thus model “perceived�? quality as depending on investors’ financial stress condition. We show that, besides the typical size effect, higher quality leads to higher asset demand and asset prices and, in particular, changes in “perceived�? economic distance impact on the evolution of financial flows. We run econometric estimations for cross-border bank flows from advanced to emerging economies over the period 2005-2014 and analyze the interaction of market segmentation and global spillover effects in determining the changes occurred between the old and the new “normality�?, as well as the heterogeneity across groups of countries.

International Integration and Uneven Development: An Enquiry into the Spatial Distribution of Foreign Firms in China

Abstract Purpose The objective of this chapter is to provide a first assessment on the evolution of spatial distribution of foreign firms in China. Methodology/approach We examine the overall changes in the location of foreign firms in China over the period 1999–2009. Then, we distinguish two time periods, 1998–2001 and 2002–2009 so as to analyze whether foreign firms’ agglomeration across regions has changed significantly after the China’s entry into the WTO (2001) and the first launch of the Chinese government policies to develop western internal areas. Findings Our analysis suggests that foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) with higher foreign capital shares are more geographically clustered in coastal regions than other enterprises with lower foreign capital shares. This group with the highest intensity of foreign involvement in firm capital also experienced the most relevant changes over the decade of our analysis becoming more localized between the core-periphery divide (coastal provinces and the rest of mainland China). Research limitations The main limitation refers to poor data availability, data matching problems, and measurement errors in the database used, as highlighted by Nie, Jiang, and Yang (2012). Practical implications A general analysis of location patterns and the role of public policies may inform foreign companies in their entry strategy in the Chinese market. Originality/value Very few studies have explored location patterns with detailed geographical data and, at the same time, with data disaggregated by foreign ownership shares.

Playmarche: un distretto regionale dei beni culturali 2.0 / Playmarche: a 2.0 regional cultural heritage district

Il contributo si propone di fornire una sintesi relativa agli obiettivi e metodi di realizzazione del progetto PlayMarche: un Distretto regionale dei beni culturali 2.0 presentato dall’Universita di Macerata ed approvato nell’ambito del bando per il DCE della Regione Marche. Il progetto mira a sviluppare e consolidare il settore economico delle tecnologie ICT applicate alla comunicazione, divulgazione e valorizzazione avanzata e innovativa di beni e valori culturali, focalizzandosi in particolare sulla filiera dell’ edutainment e dell’ entertainment , con ricadute in termini di creazione di posti di lavoro in settori a forte innovazione e sostenibilita economica. The paper aims to provide a brief overview on the objectives and methods of realization of the project PlayMarche: un Distretto regionale dei beni culturali 2.0 . The project – presented by the University of Macerata and approved in the call for the DCE of the Marche Region – aims to develop and consolidate the economic sector of the ICT technologies applied to communication, dissemination and innovative exploitation of cultural heritage. It focuses, in particular, on the supply chain both of edutainment and entertainment, with consequences in terms of job creation in sectors with high innovation and economic sustainability.

The Changing Location of European Industry: A Twofold Geographical Perspective

The authors in this book regard the process of economic expansion as a non-homogeneous and multifaceted phenomenon which has deeply affected human welfare, and cultural, social and political change. The book is a bridge between the theorists (Rosenstein-Rodan, Lewis, Myrdal, and Hirschmann) who in the post-war period analyzed regional inequalities, structural change and dualism, and the modern literature on economic growth. The latter has emphasized the existence of multiple equilibria, bifurcations and various types of dynamic complexity, and clarified the conditions for the emergence of phenomena such as cumulative causation, path dependence and hysteresis. These are the typical ingredients of structural change, economic development or underdevelopment.