why is china different from eastern europe perspectives from organization theory we draw from recent work in organization theory to explain the differences in reform strategies between china and eastern europe an experimentation approach was adopted in china whereas a big bang approach was more favored in eastern europe the explanation is based on differences in the organizational structure of central planning u form in eastern europe and m form in china the m form is more flexible because it makes local experiments possible contrary to the u form where this would give rise to major complications in coordination

engendering an inclusive low carbon energy transition in japan considering the perspectives and awareness of the energy poor abstract engendering a low carbon energy transition is necessary to limit climate change impacts and temperature rises ideally this transition would be inclusive incorporating all stakeholders however the issue of energy or fuel poverty is a major obstacle to this goal this research investigates energy poverty in japan using a subjective multidimensional energy poverty measure clarifying the linkages between energy poverty and an inclusive just transition in terms of energy system and policy awareness behavior and preferences through the analysis of an original survey we uncover that there is a marked difference between low income and energy poverty households environmental awareness and their subsequent attitude toward the low carbon energy transition currently the energy poor have a negative attitude toward the low carbon energy transition in japan causing a lack of self reported engagement which will not engender an inclusive just transition our findings suggest that if the japanese low carbon energy transition were to be inclusive a further 5 percent of households could participate in the low carbon energy transition through access to solar or renewable energy capital findings identify the need for policies targeted at the energy poor specifically promoting access to solar capital and low carbon technologies in addition to existing policies targeted at low income households

bribes lobbying and development paign contributions or influence buying through other means as an activity that is aimed at changing existing rules or policies we view bribery in contrast as an attempt to bend or get around existing rules or policies the analysis contrasts these two means of influencing politics we use the labels lobbying and bribery for convenience and not because they are perfect defini tions for the two rent seeking activities we study in reality bribery and lobbying differ in several di mensions first lobbying is a legal and regulated activ ity in many countries whereas bribery is not second a change in the rules as a result of lobbying often af fects an entire industry whereas the return to bribery is more firm specific third a government that ponders a change in the rules might have quite different concerns than a bureaucrat considering a bribe our model cap tures all these differences possibly the most important difference however and the driving assumption in the model is that bending the rules is only temporary bu reaucrats can seldom commit to not asking for bribes in the future because corrupt deals are not enforceable in courts and because firms deal with different officials over time a legislative change on the other hand al ters the status quo and is therefore likely to last longer although policies and politicians also change over time our key assumption is that changing the rules is long lasting relative to bending them 2

an economic approach to the study of the relationship between housing hazards and health the case of residential fuel poverty in france abstract the impact of housing hazards on health outcomes is becoming a major issue especially given the recent and on going reviews of energy legislation in many european countries a large body of epidemiological literature argues that fuel poverty a frequently debated example of a housing hazard involving low indoor temperatures is associated with heightened health risks by using a large scale nationally representative dataset i seek in this article to delve into this alleged association and uncover a causal relationship between fuel poverty and self assessed health coming from an economics standpoint i used a panel approach based on an instrumental fixed effects model which allow me to analyse causality i used both objective and subjective fuel poverty indicators the results show that there is a significant causal relationship between fuel poverty and self assessed health status the estimated causality is exacerbated when subjective fuel poverty indicators are used the results also show that the negative impact of fuel poverty on health is deferred meaning that fuel poverty takes time to manifest itself in terms of poor health in policy terms this study adds to the debate on investing in housing energy efficiency schemes to reduce fuel poverty and thereby improve health outcomes it also lends support to the argument according to which improving housing conditions to curb fuel poverty is a lever for reducing pubic expenditures on health care

fiscal federalism and lobbying abstract which government functions should be decentralized resp centralized once lobbying behavior is taken into account we find that the answer largely depends on how the interests of the regional lobbies are positioned with respect to the function to be decentralized resp centralized when regional lobbies have conflicting interests then lobbying is less damaging for social welfare under centralization than under decentralization on the contrary when regional lobbies have aligned interests then lobbying is less damaging for social welfare under decentralization provided that policy spillovers on the non organized groups are not too strong

political pluralism public policies and organizational choices banking branch expansion in india 1948 2003 data on the expansion of 94 commercial banks in india from 1948 to 2003 were analyzed to test the proposition that political pluralism wherein competing parties control the state and national governments of a nation can promote business expansion the results confirm that such political pluralism reduces the power of either government to constrain business decision making but that pluralism might at times lead to unhealthy competition between parties harming local expansion opportunities the data show that in india banks selectively exploit political pluralism to guide their expansion decisions

academic earmarks and the returns to lobbying abstract in this paper we estimate the returns to lobbying by universities to motivate our empirical work we develop a simple theoretical model of university lobbying for academic earmarks our statistical analysis shows that universities represented by a house appropriations committee hac or senate appropriations committee sac member spend less money on lobbying than those that are not represented in addition using instrumental variables estimations we show that universities without hac or sac representation may receive some benefit to lobbying for earmarks although in many estimations this benefit is not statistically different from zero however for universities with hac or sac representation a 10 percent increase in lobbying yields an additional 2 8 percent or 3 5 percent increase in earmarks respectively this suggests that there are large returns to lobbying for academic earmarks if a university is represented by a member of one the hac or sac but little or no return if not

fuel poverty in the uk is there a difference between rural and urban areas abstract fuel poverty is a significant policy issue an argument often made is that rural households are more likely to be fuel poor due to the nature of rural housing stock and the more limited choice of energy sources in rural areas this paper uses panel data to compare the level and dynamics of fuel poverty in rural and urban areas of the uk in addition to descriptive analysis discrete hazard models of fuel poverty exit and re entry are estimated and used to assess the influence of housing and personal characteristics on the time spent in fuel poverty the results indicate that on average the experience of fuel poverty in urban areas is longer with a higher probability of fuel poverty persistence however on average the rural fuel poor appear more vulnerable to energy price increases while living in private accommodation or a flat increases their probability of remaining fuel poor relative to their urban counterparts these results indicate policy effectiveness may differ across rural and urban space however they also emphasise the limits of spatial targeting monitoring the dynamics of fuel poverty is important for ensuring that policy targets are effective and reaching those most in need

capture and governance at local and national levels 135 despite the importance of this issue not much systematic research appears to have been devoted to assessing the relative susceptibility of national and local governments to interestgroup capture here we describe a model of two party electoral competition with probabilistic voting behavior and lobbying by specialinterest groups based on david baron 1994 and gene grossman and elhanan helpman 1996 that helps identify determinants of relative capture at different levels of government these include relative levels of voter awareness and interest group cohesiveness electoral uncertainty electoral competition heterogeneity of districts with respect to inequality and the electoral system while some of these uphold the traditional madisonian presumption others are likely to create a tendency for lower capture at the local level so the net effect is theoretically ambiguous this suggests that the extent of relative capture may be context specific and needs to be assessed empirically

objective vs subjective fuel poverty and self assessed health abstract identification of fuel poverty and its impact on individuals is a growing social issue classifying households using subjective measures of fuel poverty yields different results than when objective measures are used moreover there are assessment related difficulties in establishing the effects on health and wellbeing which hinders policy design to tackle this problem in this paper we propose a latent class ordered probit model to control for subjectivity when analysing the influence of fuel poverty on self reported health this methodology is applied to a sample of 25 000 individuals in 11 000 households for the 2011 2014 period in spain where 5 1 million people 11 of the population could not afford to heat their homes to an adequate temperature in 2014 the results show that poor housing conditions low income material deprivation and fuel poverty have a negative impact on health we also find that the effect of objective fuel poverty and other poverty related factors on health are stronger when we control for unobserved heterogeneity among individuals since objective measures alone may not fully capture the adverse effect of fuel poverty on health we advocate policy approaches that combine both objective and subjective measures and its application by policymakers

the structure of political institutions and effectiveness of corporate political lobbying this paper investigates how the structure of political institutions influences the effectiveness of corporate political lobbying by shaping the veto points and entry points that lobbying firms encounter and require respectively when attempting to influence public policies in so doing this study deepens our understanding of the strategic implications of institutional environments using large sample and cross country firm level data we find that the influence of firms lobbying activities on public policies is weakened when there are tighter constraints generated as a result of greater political partisan competition and more subnational government tiers we find that the negative association between the effectiveness of lobbying and political partisan competition is particularly pronounced in countries with lower electoral accountability and that the negative association between the effectiveness of lobbying and subnational government tiers is particularly pronounced in more centralized politi

aggregate implications of factor substitution in industrial processes abstract using a number of recently completed studies of the scope for factor substitution in industrial processes we estimate the total private benefits of systematic adoption cost minimizing technology as compared with capital intensive technology obstacles to the choice of such technology are examined and presented within a benefit cost framework the reasons for some of the current choices of technology are analyzed and policies necessary to alter these are suggested

energy affordability in the eu the risks of metric driven policies abstract this paper provides a pan eu mapping of energy affordability using energy expenditure shares large variations in energy expenditure shares are identified with the shares being significantly higher in new member states than the eu15 first these variations indicate that a single expenditure based pan eu fuel poverty metric is problematic there is a trade off between a metric identifying households in most need within individual member states and one identifying households in a similar position across member states second household level data from the uk france and the republic of ireland are used to simulate the impact of policy interventions involving energy expenditure reductions or income increases on the recorded rate of fuel poverty these simulations highlight that emphasising high level fuel poverty metrics may distort policymakers choices towards improving the picture of fuel poverty rather than maximising welfare improvements robust impact assessments identifying the fuel poverty interventions which deliver the greatest welfare increases for a given cost offer a better means of policy evaluation

empowered examining self disconnection in a postal survey of electricity prepayment meter consumers in new zealand abstract prepayment metering is an electricity payment method often used by low income consumers fuel poverty is an important public health problem in new zealand and is likely to be a particular problem for those using prepayment metering this paper details a nationwide postal survey of consumers undertaken with the support of three major electricity retailers which investigated the advantages and disadvantages of using prepayment metering from a consumer perspective the study surveyed a total pool of 359 randomly selected consumers across the three companies a response rate of 48 the study found that while almost all respondents felt the benefits of using prepayment outweighed the risks of running out of credit or self disconnection 53 of respondents experienced self disconnection in the past year of concern over a third of respondents experiencing self disconnection were without electricity for more than 12 h the frequency of self disconnection was also high with 17 of those disconnecting reporting six or more events in the past year government intervention could reduce the risks and disadvantages involved with using prepayment metering which could then support initiatives aimed at reducing fuel poverty

crisis and competition in expert organizational decision making credit rating agencies and their response to turbulence in emerging economies firms often delegate elements of strategic decisions to outside experts who promise objective assessments which are especially valuable in unstable environments however experts themselves may be prone to skewed decision making as the stability of their own industry environment changes and as their positioning within the industry shifts we examine this possibility in the context of expert credit rating agencies agencies and their risk ratings of emerging market sovereign borrowers ratings published from 1987 to 1998 a period that includes both industry stability 1987 1996 and industry turbulence set off by financial crises in several emerging market countries 1997 1998 after controlling for macroeconomic and related objective risk factors linked to the sovereigns themselves we find several points 1 agency ratings during crisis induced industry turbulence are negatively skewed indicating undue pessimism among these experts in line with decision making perspectives predicting negative reaction by experts in an effort to retain legitimacy with salient stakeholders in this case investors and public regulators 2 this negative shift is greater for incumbent firms and regionally focused firms possibly because of the loss of previous informational advantages and 3 this negative shift during crisis induced turbulence is greater as industry rivalry among these experts increases in particular market segments possibly indicating the development of competitive bandwagons among experts together our results suggest that objective assessments by expert organizations are vulnerable to substantial distortion from the confluent effects of industry instability and expert positioning within the industry particularly positioning affecting rivalry among experts ironically experts may be most likely to mislead clients in unstable industry environments when experts command greater attention and should show greater fidelity to disinterested objectivity

energy poverty policies in the eu a critical perspective abstract once confined to the uk context where it was struggling to receive political recognition for years the concept of energy or fuel poverty is slowly entering the eu s agenda where it has crept into a number of regulatory documents and policy proposals using evidence gathered from an international workshop and semi structured interviews with decision makers experts and advocacy activists in brussels and sofia this paper explores the adoption of policies aimed at addressing energy poverty within i the organisational context of the eu and ii national state institutions in bulgaria a member state facing considerable problems at the energy affordability social inequality nexus while the former are largely nascent and poorly co ordinated the latter have already been implemented de jure to a significant extent however many unresolved issues surrounding their de facto implementation remain at the same time national policy makers remain largely unaware of the existence of direct energy poverty related initiatives at the eu level

fuel poverty and access to electricity comparing households when they differ in needs although sequential stochastic dominance techniques have been used in the literature to make comparisons of income poverty which are robust to the assumptions made about the economies of scale within households the techniques could be applied to a much wider set of issues in this paper these techniques are applied to energy deprivation in guatemala fuel poverty is compared among households with and without access to electricity and it is assessed whether access to electricity for those who do not have access currently would eliminate the observed difference in fuel poverty between the two groups of households

technology imports and their impacts on the enhancement of china s indigenous technological capability this article analyses the pattern of technology imports and its influences on china s indigenous technology indigenous technology consists of two dimensions technology generation measured by rd and application measured by output value of heavy industry and its export value respectively the analysis reveals increased reliance on foreign loans to finance technology imports diversified sources of supply and strong emphasis on the purchase of disembodied technology after the late 1970s based on time series data from 1960 to 1991 statistical evidence indicates that imported technology has significantly enhanced china s technological build up imported technology is positively correlated with both dimensions

do political connections buffer firms from or bind firms to the government a study of corporate charitable donations of chinese firms do political connections buffer firms from or bind firms to the government to examine this theoretical puzzle we distinguish two types of managerial political connections ascribed and achieved

foreign political connections liability of foreignness a firm s social and economic costs of operating in a foreign market is a major concern for multinational corporations and firms trying to enter new markets to reduce the liability of foreignness a firm may engage in strategic international political management via foreign political connections and thus lower barriers to entry faccio am econ rev 96 1 369 386 2006 suggests that political connections can be established by having large shareholders who are politicians or are politically connected this paper investigates the value of such foreign political connections for publicly listed firms we find that foreign political connections create large firm value and improve access to foreign markets one of the main channels of value creation is government contracts awarded to firms with direct foreign political connections our findings provide evidence of the effectiveness of having large and active foreign politically connected shareholders as part of a firm s international political corporate strategy

measuring energy poverty in japan 2004 2013 abstract this paper first examines energy or fuel poverty in japan from 2004 to 2013 especially around the time of the 2011 great east japan earthquake geje to analyze the issue the paper employs various poverty and vulnerability measures with the assistance of our unique dataset the results indicate the aggravation of energy poverty among lower income and vulnerable households during the past decade resulting from both the escalation of energy prices and lowering of income the analysis also employs a new decomposition technique and identifies the explanatory factors associated with the increase in energy poverty these results suggest there were major changes in the forces driving the increase in energy poverty before and after the geje after 2011 income alleviates energy poverty in japan with energy prices becoming the main driving factor

understanding corruption and firm responses in cross national firm level surveys the issue of corruption is important to politicians citizens and firms since the early 1990s a large number of studies have sought to understand the causes and consequences of corruption employing firm level survey data from various countries while insightful these analyses have largely ignored two important potential problems nonresponse and potential false response by the firms we argue that in politically repressive environments firms use nonresponse and potential false response as self protection mechanisms corruption is likely understated in such countries we test our argument using the world bank enterprise survey data of more than 44 000 firms in 72 countries for the period 2000 2005 we find that firms in countries with less press freedom are more likely to provide nonresponse and false response on the issue of corruption therefore ignoring these systematic biases in firms responses could result in serious underestimation of the severity of corruption in politically repressive countries more important these biases are a rich and underutilized source of information on the political constraints faced by the firms firm managers can better evaluate levels of corruption not only by truthful answers to corruption questions but also by nonresponses and false responses to such questions

the impact of corruption on entry strategy evidence from telecommunication projects in emerging economies with globalization and the growth in emerging economies multinational enterprises mnes now frequently confront challenges associated with corrupt governments already a growing body of research has demonstrated that corruption significantly reduces a countrys aggregate inflows of foreign direct investment through its effects on firm performance we move the analysis of corruption from aggregate financial flows toward managerial theory and practice by examining how firms adjust their strategy for entering foreign markets in corrupt environments and how different types of corruption affect firms choices building on institutional theory we predict that mnes will respond to pervasive and arbitrary corruption in a host country by selecting particular types of equity and nonequity modes of entry using data on 220 telecommunications development projects in 64 emerging economies we find that firms adapt to the pressures of corruption via short term contracting and entry into joint ventures we also find that the arbitrariness surrounding corrupt transactions has a significant impact on firms decisions in addition to the overall level of corruption in contrast to extant research we show that mnes use nonequity entry modes or partnering as an adaptive strategy to participate in markets despite the presence of corruption

political decentralization and corruption evidence from around the world abstract how does political decentralization affect the frequency and costliness of bribe extraction by corrupt officials previous empirical studies using subjective indexes of perceived corruption and mostly fiscal indicators of decentralization have suggested conflicting conclusions in search of more precise findings we combine and explore two new data sources an original cross national data set on particular types of decentralization and the results of a firm level survey conducted in 80 countries about firms concrete experiences with bribery in countries with a larger number of government or administrative tiers and given local revenues a larger number of local public employees reported bribery was more frequent when local or central governments received a larger share of gdp in revenue bribery was less frequent overall the results suggest the danger of uncoordinated rent seeking as government structures become more complex

quantifying the severity of fuel poverty its relationship with poor housing and reasons for non investment in energy saving measures in ireland fuel poverty has generally been calculated by quantifying the number of households spending in excess of 10 of income on home heating this definition has a number of significant practical and scientific limitations this paper employs self reported data to calculate the severity of fuel poverty in ireland to identify chronic fuel poor households from occasional sufferers it also assesses domestic energy efficiency levels ireland is a useful case study as it demonstrates the highest variations in seasonal mortality and morbidity in northern europe both of which are associated with fuel poverty ireland is also experiencing extreme difficulties meeting its environmental emissions targets in light of recent spectacular economic growth reducing fuel poverty would lower energy related emissions assisting policy makers achieve these challenging targets furthermore little empirical research has been undertaken on fuel poverty in ireland this paper identifies key social groups at risk by conducting detailed socio economic and socio demographic analyses the relationship between fuel poverty and adverse housing conditions damp condensation is also examined moreover the reasons behind householders not investing in energy saving measures are reported the results show that ireland suffers from similar levels of fuel poverty as the uk with low income households suffering the greatest the key policy implications are outlined

measuring energy poverty in greece a comprehensive research in the field of energy poverty is undertaken in this paper in an attempt to highlight the great vulnerability of greek households on energy poverty in the middle of a severe economic crisis till now greek energy policy has been considered insufficient to tackle energy poverty issues as focusing mainly on short term rather than permanent solutions a primary survey has been conducted recording objective data of energy expenses as well as subjective perceptions about housing conditions the findings showed that under the objective expenditure based method 58 of greek households are energy poor among households under the poverty threshold the energy poverty rate exceeds 90 existing and new subjective indicators shed light on other aspects of energy poverty such as the level of thermal comfort at home damp problems detected restriction of other essential needs in order to manage energy payments etc some interesting conclusions are also drawn by exploring the relationship between various indicators it appears that households considered energy poor are not identical when examined by objective and subjective indicators however different indicators complement each other by capturing different aspects of the problem and provide a broader overview of the issue

spatializing energy justice this paper introduces the concept of spatial justice and inequality to understandings of energy poverty and vulnerability by applying an explicitly spatial lens to conceptualize energy poverty as a form of injustice it contributes to debates in the domain of energy justice where previous examinations of energy deprivation through a justice framing have focused on inequalities between social groups and often marginalized questions of spatial difference we start from the premise that geographic disparities in the risk and incidence of domestic energy deprivation are a key component of energy justice an extensive literature review has allowed us to highlight the spatial and temporal variation of cross sectoral and entire energy chain injustices that lead to elevated energy poverty risks these processes contribute to the rise of energy injustices via four mechanisms which we term landscapes of material deprivation geographic underpinnings of energy affordability vicious cycles of vulnerability and spaces of misrecognition operating at a multiplicity of scales while lending some support to area based approaches towards energy poverty alleviation our findings also suggest that such policies alone may marginalize the underlying structural dynamics that re produce spatial inequalities therefore achieving energy justice necessitates broader interventions in the fundamental driving forces of spatial inequality

from the editors common method variance in international business research jibs receives many manuscripts that report findings from analyzing survey data based on same respondent replies this can be problematic since same respondent studies can suffer from common method variance cmv currently authors who submit manuscripts to jibs that appear to suffer from cmv are asked to perform validity checks and resubmit their manuscripts this letter from the editors is designed to outline the current state of best practice for handling cmv in international business research

decentralization of governance and development all around the world in matters of governance decentralization is the rage even apart from the widely debated issues of subsidiarity and devolution in the european union and states rights in the united states decentralization has been at the center stage of policy experiments in the last two decades in a large number of developing and transition economies in latin america africa and asia the world bank for example has embraced it as one of the major governance reforms on its agenda for example world bank 2000 burki perry and dillinger 1999 take also the examples of the two largest countries of the world china and india decentralization has been regarded as the major institutional framework for the phenomenal industrial growth in the last two decades in china taking place largely in the nonstate nonprivate sector india ushered in a landmark constitutional reform in favor of decentralization around the same time it launched a major program of economic reform in the early 1990s on account of its many failures the centralized state everywhere has lost a great deal of legitimacy and decentralization is widely believed to promise a range of benee ts it is often suggested as a way of reducing the role of the state in general by fragmenting central authority and introducing more intergovernmental competition and checks and balances it is viewed as a way to make government more responsive and efe cient technological changes have also made it somewhat easier than before to provide public services like electricity and water supply relatively efe ciently in smaller market areas and the lower levels of government have now a greater ability to handle certain tasks in a world of rampant ethnic cone icts and separatist movements decentralization is also regarded as a way of diffusing social and political tensions and ensuring local cultural and political autonomy these potential benee ts of decentralization have attracted a very diverse range

productivity and technical choice applications to the textile industry abstract this paper analyzes past choices of technology and present levels of productivity in the philippines cotton spinning and weaving industries detailed engineering and economic information are used to assess the costs of alternative technologies to estimate levels of productivity relative to international standards of best practice and to analyze the sources of productivity short falls high costs of production are due both to inappropriate technological choices and to low productivity in the use of the technologies chosen the major sources of low productivity are lack of sufficient firm level specialization among product varieties and deficient firm level technological capabilities inadequate labor skills are not a major problem the discussion emphasizes the general applicability of the analysis wherever low productivity is likely to be a problem

does france have a fuel poverty trap abstract in this article we focus on fuel poverty dynamics by answering two questions does france have a fuel poverty trap and what are the determinants of staying in or moving out of fuel poverty first we define three states into which individuals may be placed which are as follows the non fuel poverty state the fuel poverty state and the severe fuel poverty state second we use a mover stayer model that divides the population into the following two types of individuals those who remain in the same state during the observation period the stayers and those who move across states the movers this model applies to longitudinal data from mainland france showing that fuel poverty is not an absorbing state indeed a majority of the fuel poor and the severely fuel poor move to another better state therefore we can argue that france has no fuel poverty trap using two econometric models logit and multinomial logit we identify the stability and mobility determinants in different states as expected there is a relationship between income and the likelihood of an individual remaining in a particular state furthermore poor housing implies a greater likelihood of stability in fuel poverty or severe fuel poverty another result is that deterioration in fuel poverty status seems to stem more from difficult financial situations than from bad dwelling conditions

quantifying the prevalence of fuel poverty across the european union abstract the literature and policy base for fuel poverty in the uk and ireland is well established and there is a growing body of single country studies beyond these two eu member states for example brunner et al 2012 dubois 2012 robine et al 2008 however on a european level the last analysis of fuel poverty was conducted in 2004 prior to the enlargement of the eu using survey data this paper presents an updated overview of the prevalence of european fuel poverty in the context of the accession of numerous former social states and rising fuel prices analysis reveals the phenomenon of fuel poverty is occurring across the eu with particularly high levels of fuel poverty found in eastern and southern european states it is argued that there are both eu and national policy frameworks in place that address climate change and these could be used as a starting point for countries to address fuel poverty through improved domestic energy efficiency measures this paper reflects research undertaken in 2011 supported by eaga charitable trust within the umbrella of work examining issues of poverty and social exclusion across the eu which has enabled access to the eu silc dataset

nonmarket strategy performance evidence from u s electric utilities this paper develops and tests a theory of the performance determinants of a firm s nonmarket strategy in shaping public policy outcomes building on the concept of political market attractiveness we argue that nonmarket performance is influenced by both the characteristics of a firm s regulatory and political environment especially rivalry among interest groups or politicians and by internal capabilities that enable a firm to mitigate political transaction costs using data on regulatory filings for rate increases made by u s electric utilities over a 13 year period we find empirical support for our approach

objective and subjective measures of fuel poverty as energy prices continue to rise to reflect the real cost of carbon the numbers of households in fuel poverty is increasing rapidly this paper uses a unique data set to explore one alternative measure of fuel poverty based on whether consumers feel able to afford their energy similar to one introduced by the government a few years ago we explore the links between an expenditure based and our subjective measure of fuel poverty and compare these differences with those between official measures amongst low income households 28 spent more than a tenth of their income on energy in the home and so would be likely to qualify as fuel poor under the most usual definition but only 16 felt unable to afford sufficient energy to keep their homes warm amongst this group who felt they had difficulty in affording sufficient energy less than half were expenditure fuel poor the paper argues that reintroduction of a self reported measure by the government would be a valuable aid to policy development

densification what does it mean for fuel poverty and energy justice an empirical analysis energy is increasingly at the forefront of the global political agenda while there is a longstanding literature relating to fuel poverty and increasingly energy justice there remains little evidence which explores its link with the urban form specifically the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the urban consolidation hypothesis and the cultivation of energy justice in australia this study uses data from the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey years 2007 2014 a national probability sample and indefinite life panel the substantive findings of this study demonstrate that for low income and renting households greater urban density corresponds to a higher likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty further for households with a dwelling type described as an apartment two or three storeys there is a separate and quite generalisable indication that this type of dwelling is associated with a lower likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty this study connects the debate regarding urban consolidation and energy consumption to the fuel poverty and energy justice literature alongside this contribution this study also provides policymakers and planners with new evidence to inform remediation policies that are directed at supporting the fuel poor

federalism as a commitment to reserving market incentives the authors advance a new perspective in the study of federalism their approach views federalism as a governance solution of the state to credibly preserving market incentives market incentives are preserved if the state is credibly prevented from compromising on future economic success and from bailing out future failures the salient features of federalism decentralization of information and authority and interjurisdictional competition help provide credible commitment or these purposes in addition the authors suggest that some federalism are self sustaining

on the power of indicators how the choice of fuel poverty indicator affects the identification of the target population in light of the creation of the eu energy poverty observatory epov in january 2018 and the increase in debates on how fuel poverty is measured we propose a critical analysis of fuel poverty indi

assessing the extent and intensity of energy poverty using multidimensional energy poverty index empirical evidence from households in india abstract in this paper we have made a comprehensive assessment of the extent and various socio economic implications of energy poverty in india amartya sens s capability approach to development underpins the analysis of household level data taken from the india human development survey ii ihds ii 2011 12 using the multidimensional energy poverty index mepi the overall results show that energy poverty is widespread in india and the existence of energy poverty also coincides with the other forms of deprivations such as income poverty and social backwardness for example dalits lower caste and adivasis tribal are found to be extremely energy poor compared to the other social groups in india the results also reveal that it is the responsibility of women to manage the domestic chores such as collection of firewood and making of dung cake in traditional indian households inefficient use of such biomass fuels is found to cause health hazards

subjective versus objective energy burden a look at drivers of different metrics and regional variation of energy poor populations abstract energy poverty is typically assessed using the energy expenditure to income ratio as a metric this metric fails to account though for residents demographics and regional variation in energy consumption in the united states policymakers dealing with energy poverty have faced challenges estimating the needs for energy assistance programs this study seeks to explore regional variations in energy poverty using texas as the region of study this work also explores differences in the populations captured via objective and subjective metrics i e those who are unable to pay their bill and those who state they struggle to do so drawing on survey data this work uses statistical analyses to 1 assess the regional variation of energy poverty defined as a ratio of household income spent on electricity bills 2 determine if there is an association between objective and subjective metrics of energy poverty and 3 identify statistical drivers of objective and subjective energy poverty metrics of respondents 51 of objectively energy burdened individuals indicated they struggled to pay electricity bills and 53 faced great stress due to the electricity bill if policymakers can use metrics that are more accurate in capturing populations facing energy poverty more effective energy poverty policies might be formulated

a stochastic model for energy poverty analysis abstract so far the lack of a common effective way of measuring energy poverty has been detected as a major weakness in handling the energy poverty problem one of the main causes has been the complexity of modeling the required energy consumption of households as demanded by the official 10 indicator and its replacement in calculations by the actual energy consumption which as is well known underestimates the real needs of households this weakness is addressed in this paper through the development of the stochastic model of energy poverty smep the development of the model includes firstly the modeling of energy consumption at household level and subsequently the transition from household level to country level through stochastic analysis monte carlo simulation through sensitivity analysis the impact of various parameters on energy poverty is quantified for the first time by determining their weighting factors applied to the case of greece it is found that energy poverty reaches 70 4 with income being the decisive factor affecting energy poverty at 63 while other variables htot etc follow at significantly lower percentages the findings can be used in order to assess in advance the effectiveness of energy poverty measures making the model a valuable policy tool

fuel poverty and well being a consumer theory and stochastic frontier approach abstract evidence and conventional wisdom suggest that general poverty has a negative effect on the well being of individuals however the mechanisms through which this effect occurs are not well understood through economic approach in this paper we analyse the influence of general and fuel poverty as well as the social dimension through peer comparison on the subjective well being of households we develop a novel approach to analyse fuel poverty and well being based on consumer theory individual preferences are modelled using indifference curves and a distance function where the preferences of individuals are affected by their poverty status we use the survey data from the official spanish life condition survey for 2013 which contains over 16 608 observations on household members the results show that both general and fuel poverty influence the reference indifference curve but that individuals also compare themselves with their peers the proposed model also allows us to corroborate how general and fuel poverty affect well being and how effective policies can be designed to improve social welfare

textile manufacturing in eight developing countries does business environment matter for firm technical efficiency abstract production frontiers with technical inefficiency determinants are estimated using stochastic models for textile manufacturing in eight developing countries encompassing about 800 firms inefficiency determinants are considered either on an individual basis or in the form of composite indicators reflecting in house or managerial factors and various dimensions of the external environment although each of these two categories of factors is statistically significant the former proves more influential in the explanation of the difference in efficiency between firms simulations are then proposed to assess the efficiency levels that would occur if firms had the opportunity to produce in the most favourable productive environments

the mediating role of social workers in the implementation of regional policies targeting energy poverty abstract this paper aims to provide a socio political reflection of the role played by social workers in regional policies and of the real needs of households affected by energy poverty the paper also examines the impact of technical specialised training on the ability of social workers to prevent and mitigate conditions of household energy poverty in europe the adoption of a research action participation methodological framework and a training research approach has permitted the opinions of social workers to be collected through surveys and their central role in implementing regional policies to be highlighted the conclusions obtained have made possible the construction of a self diagnosis and data collection tool which increases the ability of social workers to mediate and implement urgent mitigation measures for energy poverty finally regional policies which aim to mitigate household energy poverty are examined from the professional perspective of social workers

store wars the enactment and repeal of anti chain store legislation in america1 competition between organizational forms manifests itself in political contention over the law the authors analyze the political strength and organization of the groups that supported and opposed state anti chain store laws the enactment of these laws depended on intrastate political activity and the interstate diffusion of anti chain store legislation the repeal process relied on suprastate activity as nationally organized pro chain store forces shifted the arena of contention to the supreme court and forged national alliances with labor unions and agricultural cooperatives in both enactment and repeal the political resources and strategies of organziational forms interacted with existing institutions to determine the trajectory of institutional change

ethnic diversity energy poverty and the mediating role of trust evidence from household panel data for australia abstract energy poverty is now a major concern on the public policy agenda in many countries however evidence on the determinants of energy poverty is relatively scant our study contributes to the debate on the determinants of energy poverty by being the first to examine the impact of ethnic diversity on household energy poverty using 12 waves of longitudinal data from the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey we find that in australia ethnic diversity is positively associated with energy poverty our preferred instrumented estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in ethnic diversity is associated with a 0 103 0 422 standard deviation increase in energy poverty depending on how energy poverty is measured this finding is generally robust to alternative ways of measuring ethnic diversity and energy poverty we identify trust as an important channel through which ethnic diversity operates and point to the need for policies that engender social capital in multicultural societies as a means to harness the benefits of diversity

the dynamics of low income in rural areas phimister e upward r and vera t oscano e 2000 the dynamics of low income in rural areas reg studies 34 407 417 this paper provides a picture of the dynamics of low income in rural areas by comparing a rural sample with a non rural sample using the british household panel survey the paper considers income distributions and inequality low income mobility the distribution of low income spells the characteristics of those on low incomes and possible trigger events associated with low income entry and exit across the two samples although in absolute terms somewhat less important than in non rural areas the results confirm that low income in rural areas is significant and emphasize a number of important dynamic aspects of the problem such as the extent of persistent low income among the rural poor phimister e upward r et vera toscano e 2000 la dynamique du faible revenu dans les zones rurales reg studies 34 407 417 a partir du british household panel survey un sondage aupres des m

measuring and monitoring fuel poverty in the uk national and regional perspectives abstract throughout the industrialised world fuel poverty is the most commonly accepted term with which to describe a household s inability to afford basic standards of heat power and light whilst the term gained widespread acceptance with the publication of the uk s fuel poverty strategy in 2001 little is known about the origins of the term itself this paper traces the earliest formulations of the concept focusing particularly on the 10 needs to spend threshold which was adopted in 1991 and remains in place some 20 years later this paper argues that understanding more about the origins of this threshold yields a more critical understanding of why fuel poverty targets in the uk have not been reached and enables a more informed approach to setting realistic targets for the future it also provides an opportunity to explore regional disparities in uk fuel poverty prevalence highlighting the extent to which rigid adherence to a 10 threshold has created an unstable regional mosaic of over estimation and under estimation

from targeting to implementation the role of identification of fuel poor households this paper proposes to evaluate the efficiency of fuel poverty policies by looking at them as a three step process these steps are policy targeting identification of households and implementation of measures each of these steps are costly and can face feasibility problems this is particularly true in the case of fuel poverty policies because of the multidimensional aspect of fuel poverty therefore public policies in that field are necessarily imperfect and this should be taken into account in the analysis of policies this three step framework is applied to the french fuel poverty policy which has been developed in 2010 as its practical modalities of implementation are still under discussion we mainly discuss the choices made in terms of targeting and highlight the role of identification of fuel poor households as a key factor for the success of that policy the general idea behind this discussion is that the efficiency of such policies has to be viewed in a comprehensive way which includes the three policy steps

definitions of fuel poverty implications for policy abstract this paper outlines why the definition of fuel poverty is important in policy formulation and describes how the government s current definitions evolved from the original concept it discusses the determination of income and fuel costs and the possibilities for a relative and common european measure it examines problems inherent in assessing fuel costs as a percentage of income and puts forward the arguments for a budget standard approach the paper illustrates how the size of the problem depends on the definition and chosen threshold and suggests advantages for a rating scale it illustrates how the income composition and thresholds also govern the distribution of the target populations and the relative importance of the main causal factors and examines the consequent policy implications it explores the definition of vulnerable households and the importance of severity and questions whether the uk fuel poverty strategy is targeted at households least able to afford their fuel costs as the name implies or primarily those at risk from excess winter and summer mortality and morbidity finally after examining the role of supplementary indicators it looks at the opportunities for changing the definition and comments on the government review of the definition and targets

federalism and central bank independence the politics of german monetary policy 1957 92 two channels of political control allow elected politicians to influence monetary policy first political threats to the status structure or very existence of the central bank may force central bankers to comply with politically motivated demands on monetary policy second politicians may use their powers of appointment to ensure that central bank appointees share their electoral and party political goals this paper derives the monetary policy outcomes obtained as a function of the degree of central bank independence zero partial or full and central bankers types partisans or technocrats based on a case study of the 1957 and 1992 institutional changes to the german central banking system and a regression analysis covering the period in between i argue that the formal independence of the system is protected by its embeddedness in the institutions of german federalism and by the federalist components of its decentralized organizational structure the behavioral independence of the german central bank fluctuates over time with the party control of federalist veto points the bundesbank is staffed with nonpartisan technocrats who are partially insulated from political pressures

reviving leviathan fiscal federalism and the growth of government this article revisits the influential leviathan hypothesis which pos its that tax competition limits the growth of government spending in decentralized countries i use panel data to examine the effect of fiscal decentralization over time within countries attempting to distinguish between decentralization that is funded by intergovernmental transfers and local taxation first i explore the logic whereby decentralization should restrict government spending if state and local governments have wide ranging authority to set the tax base and rate especially on mobile assets in countries where this is most clearly the case decentralization is associated with smaller government second consistent with theoretical arguments drawn from wel fare economics and positive political economy i show that governments grow faster as they fund a greater portion of public expenditures through intergovernmental transfers

perspective explaining influence rents the case for an institutions based view of strategy research in strategy has identified and tried to explain four types of rents monopolistic rents efficiency rents quasi rents and schumpeterian rents building on previous work on political and institutional strategies we add a fifth type of rent influence rents influence rents are the extra profits earned by a firm because the rules of the game laws regulations and informal rules are designed or changed to suit it to aid the analysis of the relationship between institutional context and firm performance and to provide a structure to guide research we develop a framework with five key components a an identification of the five fundamental problems of a market economy b a typology that describes the five different types of institutions that emerge to solve these problems c the market ordering mechanisms used by institutions to solve these problems d the common causes of weak institutional performance and e generic strategies used by firms to exploit these weaknesses of an institutional context to enhance firm performance we highlight potential applications of the framework as well as an illustrative research agenda that can advance the development of theory to explain the emergence and persistence of influence rents

the elephant in the energy room establishing the nexus between housing poverty and fuel poverty abstract this paper contributes to the literature on fuel poverty by bringing together the housing cost induced poverty definition and the low income high cost indicator relying on the housing cost induced poverty definition this paper identifies three dimensions of fuel poverty 1 income poverty high cost 2 housing cost induced poverty high cost and 3 fuel cost induced poverty high cost after breaking down the underlying structure of the low income high cost framework this paper proposes an alternative conceptual definition of fuel poverty and puts forward an empirical strategy which can help to identify the households most in need of financial and energy related support an application based on energy cost data in england allows us to identify several policy implications following from our proposed approach

a new measure of italian hidden energy poverty abstract as highlighted by european policymakers and academic research the global economic crisis of 2008 emphasized the energy poverty phenomenon a number of households have had to considerably reduce their energy expenditure but the traditional criteria adopted to calculate energy poverty are not able to measure their number placed in this framework the paper aims to define a new measure of hidden energy poverty suitable to identify which italian households restrain their energy consumption due to their inability to afford energy services a review of the available energy poverty metrics supports the definition of a new indicator that is able to include hidden energy poor consumers considering some key peculiarities such as the poor energy efficiency of buildings the poverty situation low energy consumption and sensitivity to the climate using data from the household budget survey provided by the italian national institute of statistics in 2018 the newly identified indicator supports the assessment of the percentage of italian households in hidden energy poverty and supplies useful insight to policymakers in their effort to support vulnerable consumers

the policy implications of energy poverty indicators abstract the methodologies and indicators that have been proposed in the literature to measure energy poverty are quite diverse some are subjective approaches based on personal or third parties perceptions of affordable warmth at home whereas others calculate objective indicators although these different proposals have already been theoretically compared an empirical comparative analysis that measures in a real case study the practical impact of the theoretical limitations detected for the different indicators was still pending the goal of this paper is thus to contribute to this debate by comparing critically the different approaches used to measure energy poverty in a real case spain in 2015 and to propose a new methodology that might be able to overcome some of the major problems that affect current methods

scale factor intensity and efficiency an empirical study of the chinese coal industry this paper deals with the interrelationship among firm scale factor intensity and efficiency using the chinese industrial survey data in 1985 and stochastic frontier models according to empirical

beyond the fiction of federalism macroeconomic management in multitiered systems recent research on federalism is extremely divided while some tout the benefits of market preserving federalism others point to the fragmentation and incoherence of policy in federal states this research bridges the divide by analyzing the political and fiscal structures that are likely to account for the highly divergent economic experiences of federal systems around the world to test these propositions the authors use an original data set to conduct analyses of budget balance and inflation in fifteen federations around the world from 1978 through 1996 the empirical research suggests that the level of fiscal decentralization the nature of intergovernmental finance and vertical partisan relations all influence macroeconomic outcomes the findings have broad implications for the widespread move toward greater decentralization and for the theoretical literatures on federalism and macroeconomics

energy affordability and the benefits system in italy abstract in this paper we discuss a number of ways to define and measure the affordability of energy consumption and we examine the emergence of energy poverty in italy in the period from 1998 to 2011 the paper examines the eligibility criteria for claiming the benefits available to support energy consumption for vulnerable families and it identifies the potential beneficiaries the study assesses the appropriateness of the eligibility criteria by comparing the population targeted by the policy with the population actually facing affordability problems a simulation exercise using the hypothetical scenario most likely to result in energy benefits being made available shows that regardless of the affordability index adopted the provision of state energy benefits has little impact on fuel poverty

businesspeople in elected office identifying private benefits from firm level returns do businesspeople who win elected office use their positions to help their firms business leaders become politicians around the world yet we know little about whether their commitment to public service trumps their own private interests using an original dataset of 2 703 firms in russia i employ a regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effect of firm directors winning seats in subnational legislatures from 2004 to 2013 first having a connection to a winning politician increases a firm s revenue by 60 and profitability by 15 over a term in office i then test between different mechanisms finding that connected firms improve their performance by gaining access to bureaucrats and not by signaling legitimacy to financiers the value of winning a seat increases in more politically competitive regions but falls markedly when more businesspeople win office in a convocation politically connected firms extract fewer benefits when faced with greater competition from other rent seekers

firm size and technical efficiency applications of production frontiers to indian survey data abstract this paper is an empirical investigation of the relationship between relative technical efficiency and firm size in four indian manufacturing industries a frontier translog production function is used to derive measures of technical inefficiency at the enterprise level given the properties of the estimated production frontier these indices of technical efficiency are also indices of total factor productivity tfp which is the single most widely accepted measure of productive efficiency variations in technical efficiency are correlated with several explanatory variables including size of firm firm size is found to be positively associated with relative productive efficiency in only one of the four industries

the determinants of mne subsidiaries political strategies evidence of institutional duality in this study we develop and test a model of the determinants of political strategies used by foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises mnes using recent theoretical advances in institutional theory that recognize that mne subsidiaries are confronted with pressures for isomorphism within the corporation internal legitimacy and within the host country external legitimacy we integrate international business and political strategy literatures to create a multilevel model of subsidiary host country and parent determinants of political strategy our hypotheses are tested using survey and archival data from western european subsidiaries of us mnes

fuel poverty potential risk index in the context of climate change in chile abstract public housing policies face a challenge in order to meet not only the right to housing but also an affordable and comfortable use for them in this context most of the studies related to fuel poverty are based on a diagnosis of existing conditions but there is a lack of information focusing on how to predict the risk of fuel poverty in future dwellings considering a context of climate change this research develops an index to assist policymakers in the decision making process during the early stages of social housing allocation the analysis is based on the applicability of adaptive comfort the influence of climate change the urban context and the building features energy use patterns and the ability to pay utility bills have been also considered for social housing in the central south of chile after that several future scenarios are discussed considering the probable income and energy inflation rates the potential risk variables that influence the early stages of design are also discussed the results reveal that the fuel poverty potential risk index is an effective tool to select appropriate housing for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable segments of society considering the future climate income and energy price trends

experiencing fuel poverty coping strategies of low income households in vienna austria abstract until the present day research on fuel poverty focussing on the point of view of those concerned is few and far between the present paper aims at filling this gap analysing experiences with and behavioural responses to fuel poverty it examines the day to day energy situation of households which are poor at risk of poverty and or suffering from fuel poverty in a case study conducted in the austrian capital vienna qualitative interviews provide the data for investigating the relevant factors in causing fuel poverty among those bad housing conditions outdated appliances financial problems and provide a basis for discussion about the respective behavioural strategies of the people concerned the results show that the ways of handling this problematic situation vary greatly and that people follow different strategies when it comes to inventing solutions for coping with the restrictions and finding ways of satisfying at least a part of their basic energy needs nonetheless it also clearly surfaces that the scope of action is limited in many cases which in turn only supports the claim that changes in the overall conditions are essential

incentives information and organizational form we model an organization as a hierarchy of managers erected on top of a technology here consisting of a collection of plants in our framework the role of a manager is to take steps to reduce the adverse consequences of shocks that affect the plants beneath him we argue that different organizational forms give rise to different information about managers performance and therefore differ according to how effective incentives can be in encouraging a good performance in particular we show that under certain assumptions the m form multi divisional form is likely to provide better incentives than the u form unitary form because it promotes yardstick competition i e relative performance evaluation more effectively we conclude by presenting evidence that the assumptions on which this comparison rests are satisfied for chinese data

the determinants of industry political activity 1978 1986 c ampaign contributions made by corporate political action committees pacs are increasingly important and controversial in u s elections influence purchasing is often alleged by pundits and campaign finance reform is continually debated in congress in the academy social scientists have analyzed the allocation of interest group monies and have looked for possible impacts on legislation few however have tried to explain the total contributions of economic interest groups we shall analyze variations in contributions across industries and over time with an empirical model based on organizationally constrained profit maximizing behavior we assume that corporate pac contributions in an industry are raised to enhance industry profits subject to the constraints of organization costs and freeriding incentives our empirical work covers 124 industries over five election cycles from 1978 through 1986 both the costs and benefits of political activity vary across industries we argue that the benefits of political action are determined by direct contact with the government as a regulator or purchaser of industry output by government s ability to ameliorate adverse market conditions and by the industry s ability to solve collective action problems without government assistance the costs of industry political action arise mainly from collective action problems because effective political activity often requires concerted action by the constituent firms in each industry we also make a methodological contribution previous studies use statistical techniques that suffer from sample selectivity bias or else force the probability of acting politically to be explained by the same set of coefficients as is the amount of action taken we explain and employ a technique that accounts for both problems the results are consistent with the theses that industries follow investment oriented goals in deciding the amount of political action to undertake and that collective action problems are important constraints on industry political activity we can explain between 60 and 80 of the variation in contributions in our sample first we review existing work on corporate political activity particularly papers examining patterns of aggregate pac spending by industry then we present an organization cost constrained industryprofit maximizing model based on a comparison between an idealized zero organization cost industry and the more realistic case where organizing collective action is difficult the independent variables used in the analysis are also discussed and defined next we discuss the dependent variable and total industry contributions and explain our statistical method then the results are presented followed by a discussion of industry structure and political activity to make clear how our results can explain different contribution patterns we give examples using five actual industries

determinants of efficiency in least developed countries further evidence from nepalese manufacturing firms using a translog stochastic production frontier and maximum likelihood econometric methods we estimate and model the determinants of firm level efficiency in the nepalese context our results are broadly in line with theoretical expectations we find that large firms are more efficient and that a higher capital intensity leads to inefficiency there is no statistical evidence to suggest that foreign participation leads to efficiency improvements also we do not observe any link between export intensity and efficiency improvement we find that higher protection leads to inefficiency overall our results suggest that an outward looking industrial strategy which relies on less intervention and permits the development of large scale industries is conducive to efficiency improvement in least developed countries ldcs like nepal

climbing out of poverty falling back in measuring the persistence of poverty over multiple spells this paper investigates the persistence of poverty over individuals life times using a hazard rate approach that accounts for multiple spells of poverty and incorporates spell duration individual and household characteristics and unobserved heterogeneity the findings highlight the importance of considering multiple spells in an analysis of poverty persistence with half of those who end poverty spells returning to poverty within four years accounting for multiple spells shows that approximately 50 percent of blacks and 30 percent of whites falling into poverty in some year will have family income below the poverty line in five or more of the next ten years

federalism chinese style the political basis for economic success in china china s remarkable economic success rests on a foundation of political reform providing a considerable degree of credible commitment to markets this reform reflects a special type of institutionalized decentralization that the authors call federalism chinese style this form of decentralization has three consequences first it fosters competition not only in product markets but also among local governments for labor and foreign capital this competition in turn encourages local government experimentation and learning with new forms of enterprises regulation and economic relationships second it provides incentives for local governments to promote local economic prosperity finally it provides a significant amount of protection to local governments and their enterprises from political intrusion by the central government

corruption in bank lending to firms cross country micro evidence on the beneficial role of competition and information sharing abstract building on the important study by beck demirguc kunt and levine 2006 bank supervision and corruption in lending journal of monetary economics 53 2131 2163 we examine the effects of both borrower and lender competition as well as information sharing via credit bureaus registries on corruption in bank lending using the unique world bank data set wbes covering more than 4 000 firms across 56 countries with information on credit bureaus registries assembled by djankov mcliesh and shleifer 2007 private credit in 129 countries journal of financial economics 84 299 329 and bank regulation data collected by barth caprio and levine 2006 rethinking bank regulation till angels govern cambridge university press new york to measure bank competition and information sharing we find strong evidence that both banking competition and information sharing reduce lending corruption and that information sharing also helps enhance the positive effect of competition in curtailing lending corruption we also find that the ownership structure of firms and banks legal environment and firm competition all exert significant impacts on lending corruption