Jonas Vlachos

Financial markets, the pattern of industrial specialization and comparative advantage: Evidence from OECD countries

Due to underlying technological differences, industries differ in their need for external finance. Since the services provided by the financial sector are largely immobile across countries, the pattern of specialization should be influenced by the degree of financial development. We find that this effect is strong: The financial sector has an even greater impact on the pattern of specialization among OECD countries than do differences in human- and physical capital. Further, it gives rise to comparative advantage in a way consistent with the Hecksher-Ohlin-Vanek model. Results on which aspects of financial systems that matter for specialization are also presented.

Markets for Risk and Openness to Trade: How are they Related?

If protectionist trade policies aim to insure domestic industries against swings in world market prices, the development of financial markets could lead to trade liberalization. Likewise, trade lib ...

The headmaster ritual: the importance of management for school outcomes

The role of school principals largely resembles that of corporate managers and the leadership they provide are often viewed as a crucial component for educational success. We estimate the impact of individual principals on various schooling outcomes, by constructing a principal-school panel data set that allows us to track individual principals as they move between schools. We find that individual principals have a substantive impact on school policies, working conditions and student outcomes. Particularly, students who attend a school with a one standard deviation better principal receive on average 0.12 standard deviations higher test scores. Despite having very rich background information on principals, it is difficult to determine which principal characteristics that form the basis for successful school management. We also find a somewhat mixed picture on what management style characterizes a successful principal. We further show that the scope for principal discretion—for better or for worse—is larger in small schools, in voucher schools and in areas with more school competition.

Cross-border acquisitions and taxes: efficiency and tax revenues

We develop a theoretical oligopoly model to study how international differences in profit and capital gains taxes affect foreign acquisitions. Reductions in foreign profit taxes tend to trigger inefficient foreign acquisitions, while reductions in foreign capital gains taxes may trigger efficient foreign acquisitions. Foreign acquisitions can increase domestic tax revenues even when profit taxes are evaded. The reason is that bidding competition between foreign firms ensures that all benefits from the acquisition, including tax advantages, are captured by a domestic seller paying capital gains taxes. Tax code issues, such as the treatment of goodwill, are shown to affect the pattern of foreign acquisitions.

Competition, Takeovers and Gender Discrimination

Theories of taste-based discrimination predict that competitive pressures will drive discriminatory behavior out of the market. Using detailed matched employer-employee data, we analyze how firm takeovers and product market competition are related to the gender composition of the firms workforce and the gender wage gap. Using a difference-in-difference framework and dealing with several endogeneity concerns, we find that the share of female employees increases as a result of an ownership change, in particular when product market competition is weak. Further, increased competition reduces the gender wage gap, especially among highly educated employees. While the estimated wage effect is quite small, the results support the main theoretical predictions.

Trade finance in a liquidity crisis

The paper discusses the reasons for supporting international trade finance during a liquidity crisis. Targeted interventions are justified when prices are rigid and sellers insist on immediate payment due to fears of strategic default. In this case, buyers who reject the sellers offer fail to internalize the sellers benefit from additional liquidity. A general infusion of credit will not facilitate the beneficial transaction, but an infusion targeted at the buyers banks trade finance supply will do so. Since there is a need for interventions in one country to benefit actors in another, international coordination is called for.

Cross-Border Acquisitions and Corporate Taxes: Efficiency and Tax Revenues

We find that reduced foreign corporate taxes may lead to inefficient foreign acquisitions if complementarities between foreign and domestic assets are low, and to efficient foreign acquisitions if such complementarities are high. Moreover, with large complementarities, foreign acquisitions can increase domestic tax revenues. The reason is that in the bidding competition between the foreign firms, all benefits from the acquisition, including tax advantages and evaded taxes, are competed away and captured by the domestic seller which, in turn, pays capital gains tax on the proceeds. Technical issues in the tax code, such as the treatment of goodwill deductibility, is also shown to crucially affect the pattern of foreign acquisitions.

Factor Supplies and the Direction of Technical Change

In this paper, we empirically address the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the supply of human capital and the rate and direction of skill-biased technical change (SBTC). Using country- and industry-level data on OECD countries, we find R&D to be positively related to the supply of human capital. There is, however, no indication that this translates into higher rates of SBTC, when SBTC is measured as changes in the wage bill share of skilled labor. Interestingly, both R&D and the rate of SBTC seem to be relatively high in low-skill industries in countries where the supply of human capital is relatively high.

Do Regulatory Similarities Increase International Portfolio Holdings

By combining new data on bilateral asset holdings with data on securities regulation in an empirical gravity model, it is found that bilateral differences in securities regulation lead to decreased portfolio holdings. Hence, regulatory harmonization can foster financial integration. The results are especially strong for equity holdings. It is verified that the results do not just reflect general economic, institutional, and cultural differences. Additional analysis of causality shows the exogenous component of asset holdings to be associated with larger differences in securities regulation. This might suggest that regulatory differences are used to protect domestic capital markets from outside competition.