Documents investment 365 results

"It is widely acknowledged that introducing a price on carbon represents a crucial precondition for filling the current gap in low-carbon investment. However, as this paper argues, carbon pricing in itself may not be sufficient. This is due to the existence of market failures in the process of creation and allocation of credit that may lead commercial banks – the most important source of external finance for firms – not to respond as expected to price signals. Under certain economic conditions, banks would shy away from lending to low-carbon activities even in presence of a carbon price. This possibility calls for the implementation of additional policies not based on prices. In particular, the paper discusses the potential role of monetary policies and macroprudential financial regulation: modifying the incentives and constraints that banks face when deciding their lending strategy - through, for instance, a differentiation of reserve requirements according to the destination of lending - may fruitfully expand credit creation directed towards low-carbon sectors. This seems to be especially feasible in emerging economies, where the central banking framework usually allows for a stronger public control on credit allocation and a wider range of monetary policy instruments than the sole interest rate."

"Differences between capital exporting and capital importing countries are decreasing, which may facilitate an agreement on international investment rules. This has been an aim of EU policy for some time. However, the emergence of mega regional agreements have echoes of previous plurilateral agreements. This European Policy Analysis assesses the impact of the mega regional agreements on international investment norms by considering the likely outcome of the Transpacific Partnership negotiations (TTIP) and the text of EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). It finds the mega regional agreements may introduce norms that are closer to the preferences of developing countries. On the other hand, pressing ahead with mega regional agreements will reduce the incentive to reach a genuine multilateral investment agreement."

"In November 2014, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker submitted a long-awaited proposal for a European Investment Plan that aims to stimulate private investment, which will - hopefully - break the vicious cycle of continued low growth and high unemployment in Europe. But there are doubts whether the Plan can live it up to its potential. In this Discussion Paper, Jan David Schneider presents a number of proposals that could improve the impact of the Plan, and discusses the hurdles that will have to be overcome before it can deliver growth and jobs in Europe."

"Based on the related literature in economics, organizational sociology and the sociology of finance, this article constructs a novel conceptual explanation for corporate short-termism, that is, the tendency of corporate managers to sacrifice long-term investments to improve short-term earnings (STEs). We theorize about how such corporate short-termism emerges, at least partly, from systemic, self-reinforcing processes across various communities of actors including investors, the media and managers themselves. In doing so, we refute the common notion that corporate short-termism is caused by an inherent preference of investors or other actors to focus on STEs. Consequently, the systemic perspective offered by this article questions some conventional assumptions about the roots of corporate short-termism and emphasizes the influence of coordination mechanisms and behavioural biases in giving rise to self-reinforcing loops."

"Since the early 2000s, scholars from a variety of disciplines have used the concept of financialization to describe a host of structural changes in the advanced political economies. Studies of financialization interrogate how an increasingly autonomous realm of global finance has altered the underlying logics of the industrial economy and the inner workings of democratic society. This paper evaluates the insights of more than a decade of scholarship on financialization. Three approaches will be discussed: the emergence of a new regime of accumulation, the ascendency of the shareholder value orientation and the financialization of everyday life. It is argued that a deeper understanding of financialization will lead to a better understanding of organized interests, the politics of the welfare state, and processes of institutional change."

"Human capital investments increase lifetime income, but may involve substantial risk. In this paper we use a Finnish panel spanning 22 years to nonparametrically predict the mean, the variance and the skew of the present value of lifetime income, and to calculate certainty equivalent lifetime income at different levels of education. We find that university education is associated with about a half a million euro increase in discounted lifetime disposable income compared to vocational high school. Accounting for risk does little to change this picture. By contrast, vocational high school is associated with only moderately higher lifetime income compared to compulsory education, and the entire difference is due to differential nonemployment."