We estimate the relation between union presence and executive compensation using a unique panel of executives in publicly listed US firms during the period 1992-2001. We find evidence that union presence is associated with lower levels of total executive compensation. We find this union effect to be primarily the result of substantially lower stock option awards, and to a lesser extent due to l...

Both the quality and quantity of human capital are important for growth. Although the quality aspects of human capital may have greater potential in explaining growth, given that the quantity effects of human capital have been found to be ambiguous, they have long been ignored in empirical growth literature. This paper empirically tests the joint effects of both the quantity and quality of huma...

This paper attempts to elucidate whether firm performance and macroeconomic conditions play a significant role in explaining credit default swap (CDS) spreads. Our panel dataset covers 112 reference entities in four markets (South Korea, Hong Kong, France, and Germany) for the period 2001-12. Overall, our results suggest that market value indicators (Tobin’s Q, stock market returns, and the int...

Credit has been found to be a catalyst for economic growth, as it spurs investment, enhances productivity, allows costs to be spread out over time, improves resource allocation, and enables investors to cope better with macroeconomic volatility. Most studies focus on the relationship between financial development and growth at the country level, while few analyze the relationship at the firm le...

The banks’ response to their changes in leverage ratios is examined and evaluated in this paper. This reaction can be interpreted as if the coefficient of total debts to equity (lev1) and total assets to equity (lev2) are positive as anticipated in the banking network of Iran. The paper uses data from 31 Iranian banks’ annual databases during the course of 2006-13 in order to estimate an empiri...

Credit has been found to be a catalyst for economic growth, as it spurs investment, enhances productivity, allows costs to be spread out over time, improves resource allocation, and enables investors to cope better with macroeconomic volatility. Most studies focus on the relationship between financial development and growth at the country level, while few analyze the relationship at the firm le...

Heterogeneous firm models of international trade include a country specific sunk cost that firms pay to enter a foreign market. Despite the important role these costs play in determining firm participation, we understand little about their structure. In particular, we do not know if there are country complementarities or general exporting experience components in entry costs. Characterizing the...

The asymptotic local power of least squares based …xed-T panel unit root tests allowing for a structural break in their individual e¤ects and/or incidental trends of the AR(1) panel data model is studied. These tests correct the least squares estimator of the autoregressive coe¢ cient of this panel data model for its inconsistency due to the individual e¤ects and/or incidental trends of the pan...

This paper uses panel and retrospective life history data from an important new data source the British Household Panel Survey to establish some stylised facts about the unemployment experiences of men. In particular we investigate the proportion of the sample who suffer from repeated unemployment spells, the origin and destination states of unemployment spells, some reasons for entering unempl...

Random Coefficient Panel Data Models This paper provides a review of linear panel data models with slope heterogeneity, introduces various types of random coefficients models and suggest a common framework for dealing with them. It considers the fundamental issues of statistical inference of a random coefficients formulation using both the sampling and Bayesian approaches. The paper also provid...