•Wage inequality has fallen in Slovenia in the past 25 years, in contrast to most developed countries.•The increase in the number of tertiary graduates outpaced the rise in the demand for ...skills.•Declining returns to schooling coincide with the implementation of the Bologna Reform.•Falling returns to tertiary education for young workers contributed to overall wage inequality.
Over the past twenty-five years, wage inequality has fallen in Slovenia, even as it has risen in most developed economies. The rates of return to education and work experience rose and remained high on average. However, rapid increases in the number of college graduates have outpaced the rising relative demand for skill among the youngest labor market entrants. As a result, the youngest cohorts of college graduates have experienced declining returns to education and a downward shift in their occupational distribution, which has not been experienced by older college graduates. These changes coincide with the implementation of the Bologna Reform, which reduced the length of time necessary to complete a bachelor’s degree and contributed to the incentives to attend college. Falling returns to tertiary education contributed to declining within-cohort wage inequality among the young, which was large enough to reduce overall wage inequality.
•The Water Ecological Civilization City Pilot (WECCP) policy has significant regional pollution reduction effect.•The WECCP policy is beneficial to water quality in the pilot city.•The WECCP policy ...helps to improve urban green innovation ability.•The WECCP policy can improve regional environmental quality by strengthening urban green innovation capacity.
This paper treats the Water Ecological Civilisation City Pilot (WECCP) policy as a quasi-natural experiment, and integrates environmental regulation, pollution reduction and green innovation into a unified analytical framework. Based on the pollution emission index and green patent data for 283 Chinese cities from 2010 to 2018, we examine the impact of WECCP policy on urban pollution emissions and green innovation by using a difference-in-differences model. The results show that the WECCP policy has significant regional pollution reduction effects, that is, the policy significantly reduces water pollution in the pilot cities, while it has a weak impact on air quality improvement. Also, we find that the WECCP policy significantly promotes the growth of the number of green patent applications in the pilot cities, indicating that the policy can significantly improve urban green innovation capacity. The mediating effect analysis shows that the WECCP policy can improve regional environmental quality by enhancing urban green innovation ability. Furthermore, the heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the WECCP policy has more significant effects on pollution reduction and green innovation in small cities.
•BRICS stock markets do not react to geopolitical risks (GPRs) in a uniform way.•GPRs generally drive stock market volatility rather than returns.•The effect of GPRs is particularly strong at return ...quantiles below the mean.•Russia is the market most affected by GPRs, while India is the most resilient.
This paper examines the effect of geopolitical uncertainty on return and volatility dynamics in the BRICS stock markets via nonparametric causality-in-quantiles tests. The effect of geopolitical risks (GPRs) is found to be heterogeneous across the BRICS stock markets, suggesting that news regarding geopolitical tensions do not affect return dynamics in these markets in a uniform way. GPRs are generally found to impact stock market volatility measures rather than returns, and often at return quantiles below the median, indicating the role of GPRs as a driver of bad volatility in these markets. While Russia bears the greatest risk exposure to GPRs in terms of both return and volatility, India is found to be the most resilient BRICS nation in the group. Noting that geopolitical shocks and in particular terrorist incidents are largely unanticipated, our findings underscore the importance of a strong financial sector that can help return the market to stability and an open economy that allows local investors to diversify country-specific risks in their portfolios.
•We analyze the environmental impact of capital inflows, such as the halo effect of FDI.•The effect of FDI depends on the industry and the country’s level of development.•FDI in manufacturing and ...nonfinancial services has a negative effect on pollution.•FDI in poor countries has a harmful effect on the environment.•FDI to developed countries has a beneficial effect, supporting the halo hypothesis.
We analyze the environmental impact of capital inflows and investigate the halo effect (FDI improves the environment). We control for the type of FDI inflows, the EKC (Environmental Kuznets Curve) effect and the country income level, and find (i) a differential industry effect: FDI flows into manufacturing increase pollution (negative halo effect), while those flowing into services support the halo effect hypothesis; (ii) an income inequality effect: FDI flowing into low- and middle-income countries degrades the environment, while flows to high-income countries benefit the environment and support a halo effect; (iii) support for the EKC effect if capital flows into agriculture and services in poorer countries and into mining and manufacturing in wealthier economies. We show that studies relying only on firm-level or aggregate data miss the sectoral spillovers, and thus may lead to misleading conclusions.
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