Documents investment return 17 results

"This article makes a systematic presentation of returns to education in Bulgaria, a country that has witnessed a number of dramatic structural changes over the last two decades. It examines the headway of returns to education for Bulgaria in two observed economic regimes — from communism to EU membership. The findings show a steady increase in returns to education for both men and women until 2003. The average returns to one additional year of education rose from 1.1 per cent in 1986 to 5.1 per cent in 2003 for men and from 2.1 to 5.9 per cent for women. Quantile regression estimations between 1986 and 2003 evince that the most prominent increase in the wage premium occurred at the top end of the distribution, where the rate of returns to education increased in particular for women — from a negative and insignificant sign in 1986 to 7 per cent in 2003. However, this increasing trend in returns to education seems to take an inverted U-shape in 2007, the year when the country joined the EU, which poses a new puzzle to be resolved. To this end, the current article introduces possible explanations for such a puzzle and sheds lights on a number of insightful policy implications."

"Background:This study is the first cost–benefit analysis (CBA) of occupational health and safety (OHS) in a low-income country. It focuses on one of the largest shipbuilding companies in Bangladesh, where globally recognised Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Services (OHSAS) 18001 certification was achieved in 2012.Objectives:The study examines the relative costs of implementing OHS measures against qualitative and quantifiable benefits of implementation in order to determine whether OHSAS measures are economically advantageous.Methods:Quantifying past costs and benefits and discounting future ones, this study looks at the returns of OHS measures at Western Marine Shipbuilding Company Ltd.Results:Costs included investments in workplace and environmental safety, a new clinic that also serves the community, and personal protective equipment (PPE) and training. The results are impressive: previously high injury statistics dropped to close to zero.Conclusions:OHS measures decrease injuries, increase efficiency, and bring income security to workers' families. Certification has proven a competitive edge for the shipyard, resulting in access to greater markets. Intangible benefits such as trust, motivation and security are deemed crucial in the CBA, and this study finds the high investments made are difficult to offset with quantifiable benefits alone."

"Les plateformes de financement participatif sur Internet (crowdfunding) connaissent un véritable engouement. Il en existe principalement trois formes : celles qui proposent aux internautes de faire un don – la plus populaire, notamment dans le secteur culturel (musique, cinéma, etc.) –, d'autres encore qui fonctionnent selon le principe de prêts rémunérés (crowdlending), et enfin les plateformes qui permettent un financement participatif en capital (crowdequity). La France, plutôt bien placée dans le secteur nouveau du crowdfunding, pourrait l'être davantage encore. Le financement participatif reste en effet peu efficace : de nombreuses campagnes de crowdfunding échouent. C'est pourquoi le gouvernement français, qui a décidé de faire de notre pays un leader européen en la matière, a mis en place une régulation propre aux activités de crowdfunding afin de renforcer la confiance du public vis-à-vis de ce type de financement."

"We measure the commonality in hedge fund returns, identify its main driving factor and analyse its implications for financial stability. We find that hedge funds' commonality increased significantly from 2003 until 2006. We attribute this rise mainly to the increase in hedge funds' exposure to emerging market equities, which we identify as a common factor in hedge fund returns over this period. Our results show that funds with a high commonality were affected disproportionately by illiquidity and exhibited negative returns during the subsequent financial crisis, thereby providing little diversification benefits to the financial system and to investors."

"We study the returns on education in Europe in a comparative perspective. We extend the model of de la Fuente [(2003). Human Capital in a Global and Knowledgebased Economy. part II: Assessment at the EU Country Level. Report for the European Commission], by estimating the values of the relevant parameters for men and women and introducing several variables specifically related to maternity leaves and benefits. As a preliminary step, we evaluate the effect of education on the wage profile. We estimate the Mincerian coefficients for 12 West European countries using the EU-SILC data for 2007 and use them as input in the optimisation problem of the individual to calibrate the model. Finally, we analyse the impact and relevance of several public policy variables. In particular, we evaluate the elasticities of the returns on education with respect to unemployment benefits, marginal and average tax rates, maternity leaves and childcare benefits."

"This article provides estimates of the private Internal Rates of Return to tertiary education for women and men in 21 OECD countries, for the years between 1991 and 2005. IRR are computed by estimating labour market premia on cross-country comparable individual-level data. Labour market premia are then adjusted for fiscal factors and costs of education. We find that returns to an additional year of tertiary education are on average above 8% and vary in a range from 4 to 15% in the countries and in the period under study. IRR are relatively homogenous across genders. Overall, a slightly increasing trend is observed over time. The article discusses various policy levers for shaping individual incentives to invest in tertiary education and provides some illustrative quantification of the impact of policy changes on those incentives."

"In this paper, we analyze investments in human capital in a way which is standard for financial assets, but not (yet) for human capital assets. We study mean-variance plots of human capital assets. We compare the properties of human capital returns using a performance measure and by using tests for mean-variance spanning. Fields differ strongly not only in common rates of return, but also in return per unit of risk. We identify a range of educations that are efficient in terms of investment goods, and a range of educations that may be chosen for consumption purposes."

"This paper extends the standard human capital model with real options. Real options influence investment behavior when risky investments in human capital are irreversible and individuals can affect the timing of the investment. Option values make individuals more reluctant to invest in human capital and, as a result, required returns on the investment increase. Real options may help to explain a larger human capital premium for higher education, smaller responsiveness of higher educational investments to financial incentives, and larger sensitivity of higher educational investments to low-return outcomes and human capital risks. Higher tax rates (or lower subsidies) depress human capital investments, but to a lesser extent than in the standard human capital model if not all direct costs are tax-deductible. A flat income tax remains neutral if education expenditures are fully deductible. "