PEGFA Past Events | 2024

10th December 2024: PEGFA Seminar Series 2024/25: Wildaeur & Rabensteiner

The final PEGFA Research Seminar of the term was presented by PEGFA speakers Rafael Wildauer and Thomas Rabensteiner.

Rafael Wildaeur's seminar discussed 'Wage and price inflation in a comprehensive model', and Thomas Rabensteiner presented on 'The rise of the supervisory wage premium'.

The full summary and abstracts of this seminar can be found here.

4th December 2024: Research Seminar with Dr. Giorgio Ricchiuti

PEGFA hosted a Research Seminar featuring Dr. Giorgio Ricchiuti from University of Florence. The focus of this seminar was "Monetary policy and inequality in a agent-based approach".

The full abstract and link to the working paper can be found here.

28th November 2024: PEGFA Research Seminar with Dr Trung Bao Hoang

The third PEGFA Research Seminar 2024-25 was presented by Dr Trung Bao Hoang.

Dr Hoang's seminar discussed 'Do borrowers benefit from Green Loans?'.

The full summary and abstracts of this seminar can be found here.

12 November 2024: PEGFA Research Seminar with Ines Heck & Dr Botta

The third PEGFA Research Seminar 2024-25 presented Ines Heck and Dr Alberto Botta.

Ines Heck discussed 'The profits-prices spiral: measures to avoid inflation', whilst Dr Alberto Botta presented "Back to fiscal rules: The insanity of normality, unless the rich pay for it!".

The full summary and abstracts of this seminar can be found here.

31st October 2024: PEGFA Research Seminar with Dr Guschanski and Prof. Onaran

For the second of the PEGFA Research Seminars 2024-25. Dr Alexander Guschanski discussed 'UK Mark-ups and Profit Margins during the pandemic and its aftermath', co-authored by Professor Ozlem Onaran.

The full summary and abstract of this seminar can be found here.

14th October 2024: PEGFA Research Seminar with Dr He

For the first of the PEGFA Research Seminars 2024-25. Dr Chusu He discussed 'Managing natural hazard risks in lower income economies: a cluster analysis and a proposal for state-owned captive insurance'.

The full summary and abstract of this seminar can be found here.

25th June 2024: STIR Workshop 2024

The Sustainability, Technology and Innovation Research Group (STIR) ran its annual workshop on 25^th June on the topic of Sociotechnical Narratives organised by Anne-Marie Coles, Ian Clarke and Athena Piterou. STIR is a research group within PEGFA.

The summary of the STIR Workshop 2024 can be found here.

24th - 28th June 2024: Beyond The Optimising Agent: Summer School in Advanced Methods for Economics and Political Economy

University of Leeds

This summer school provided training in Advanced Methods for Economics and Political Economy with practical applications, focussing on theoretical and empirical methods beyond constrained optimisation that capture features such as uncertainty, instability, complexity, institutions, and historical change. In this way, the school provides methods that receive less attention in standard economics programmes but are essential to analyse real-world issues such as financial cycles, climate change, income and wealth inequality, and much more.

The school covered both analytical foundations in the form of lectures as well as applications in the form of hands-on computer-lab exercises and interactive group work. A variety of different methods were introduced, both quantitative and qualitative (see programme linked below). Concrete applications illustrated how participants can apply these methods in their own research.

Organising Team and Support

The summer school was jointly organised by the Department of Economics at the University of Leeds and the Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (PEGFA) at the University of Greenwich. We are grateful for financial support from the Young Scholar Initiative (YSI) at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).

• Coordinator Leeds: Karsten Kohler
• Coordinator Greenwich: Rafael Wildauer
• Contact Email: beyondoptimization@gmail.com

Who can participate?

The summer school is targeted at PhD students (or PGRs) and Early Career Researchers (up to 3  years since completion of PhD). In exceptional cases, we will also consider applications from postgraduate students.

Pre-requisites

There are no formal pre-requisites. However, note that the focus is on advanced methods, some of which will naturally build on more elementary methods we won’t have time to review. This is an indicative list of methods or skills the school will build on:

• maths: familiarity with elementary algebra, functions, calculus (eg differentiation rules) and basics of linear algebra (vectors and matrices). These methods are covered, e.g., in chapters 2 – 7 of Alpha C. Chiang and Kevin Wainwright (2005) Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics
• coding: basic familiarity with Stata and R. A brief overview of the most elementary functions in R that will be used can be found here.

Successful applicants will receive a reading list and a set of optional exercises to prepare for the summer school in advance.

Accommodation and participation fees

• Participation fee with accommodation (for 6 nights from 23 to 29 June, Storm Jameson Court, University of Leeds Campus): GBP 200
• Participation fee without accommodation: GBP 100
• Lunch and coffee will be provided.

Tickets with accommodation include a private room in the accommodation at Storm Jameson Court, University of Leeds Campus (a few minutes walking distance from where the summer school will take place).

International travel scholarships and fee waivers

We encourage applications from scholars from low- and middle-income countries (see World Bank classification here) for whom we provide two international travel scholarships of up to 1,000 GBP each. In addition, we provide a limited number of fee waivers for participants without access to funding from their institution.

Programme:

20th June 2024: Busting the Bankers' Club: Finance for the Rest of Us - Seminar with Professor Gerald Epstein

5:30pm - 7pm, Queen Anne Court QA265 and online

Professor Gerald Epstein (University of Massachusetts Amherst) presented his new book, Busting the Bankers' Club Finance: for the Rest of Us at PEGFA.

About the Book

An eye-opening account of the failures of our financial system, the sources of its staying power, and the path to meaningful economic reform.

Bankers brought the global economic system to its knees in 2007 and nearly did the same in 2020. Both times, the US government bailed out the banks and left them in control. How can we end this cycle of trillion-dollar bailouts and make finance work for the rest of us? Busting the Bankers' Club confronts the powerful people and institutions that benefit from our broken financial system—and the struggle to create an alternative.

Drawing from decades of research on the history, economics, and politics of banking, economist Gerald Epstein shows that any meaningful reform will require breaking up this club of politicians, economists, lawyers, and CEOs who sustain the status quo. Thankfully, there are thousands of activists, experts, and public officials who are working to do just that. Clear-eyed and hopeful, Busting the Bankers' Club centres the individuals and groups fighting for a financial system that will better serve the needs of the marginalized and support important transitions to a greener, fairer economy.

https://peri.umass.edu/?view=article&id=1761&catid=10

19th - 21st June 2024: Introduction to Post Keynesian Economics and Political Economy: PKES Summer School

King William Building KW315

At the 13th annual PKES summer school on post-Keynesian Economics and Political Economy, participants could spend three days discussing topics in heterodox economics with leading economists and a group of peers with likeminded research interests. This year’s summer school offered a topics-based introduction to post-Keynesian economics and Political Economy, including: growth and distribution, fiscal policy and austerity, ecological and environmental macroeconomics, money and finance, development, feminist economics, wealth and income inequality.

The summer school is jointly organised by the Post-Keynesian Economic Society and the Institute of Political Economy Governance Finance and Accountability (PEGFA) at the University of Greenwich. We would like to thank the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust and PEGFA for their generous financial support.

Organising Committee:

• Dr Ben Tippet B.M.Tippet@greenwich.ac.uk
• Dr Adam Aboobaker adam.aboobaker@manchester.ac.uk
• Dr Alex Guschanski alexander.guschanski@greenwich.ac.uk

More detailed information and the full programme can be found here.

6th June 2024: AFE PhD Conference

Queen Anne Court QA063 and QA075

The 2024 PhD Conference of the School of Accounting, Finance and Economics (AFE) was held on Thursday 6th June in Queen Anne Court (QA063 and QA075). In this one-day conference, twelve AFE PhD students presented their work and received feedback and suggestions from the academics in attendance (this was facilitated through Q&A and feedback forms). The conference was opened by Professor Aleksandar Stojanovic who shared advice for a successful PhD journey with the audience. Professor Ozlem Onaran outlined helpful strategies for publishing and for research careers in her closing speech. The conference breakfast and lunch buffets allowed for further exchanges between the PhD students, academics and interested Master students in attendance, and the day concluded at the Old Brewery.

The conference was convened by AFE PhD students Elia Perrot, Edward Stubbs and Jasmin Lukasz, supported by Julia Mundy, Ozlem Onaran, Trung Hoang and Xianmin Liu.

Please find the full conference programme below;

9.00 - 9.30: Welcome and breakfast

9.30 - 9.40: Opening speech - Prof. Aleksandar Stojanovic (Head of Accounting, Finance, and Economics School, University of Greenwich)

9.40 - 11.10: Session 1
- Elia Perrot: The impact of FinTech on bank risk-taking behaviour: evidence from developed and developing countries
- Junchen Lu: The CBDC Era: Current Development and Future of Central Bank Digital Currencies
- Edward Stubbs: The political economy of extractive industries across the world: a synthetic control analysis from 1970 to 2020

11.10 - 11.25: Coffee break

11.25 - 12.55: Session 2
- Xinyue Xiao: The Application of Knapsack Model in Banking
- Gal Rakover: The disappearance of the rentier-worker – the evolution of households' financial income in the US
- Brian Cepparulo: Is mobility a good proxy for economic activity?

12.55 - 13.40: Lunch break

13.30: Open session in QA075 for Masters students interested in studying for a PhD to speak with academics

13.40 - 15.10: Session 3
- Stuart Leitch: The Macroeconomic Consequences of Fiscal and Monetary Interventions
- Ines Heck: Europe's Productivity Puzzle
- Jasmin Lukasz: Macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of the transition to a green and caring economy: a global input-output analysis

15.10 - 15.25: Coffee break

15.25 – 16.55: Session 4
- Ali Kokbudak: Housing decarbonisation policies and household financial fragility: a stock-flow consistent analysis
- Humaira Mustafiz: Recent Trend of Size Premium: A Meta-Analysis
- Al-Hassan Adam: The Drivers and Approaches of Private Equity Financing in the Global Health Systems: A Case Studies of Ghana and Kenya

16.55 - 17.10: Closing speech - Prof. Ozlem Onaran (Associate Head of the School of Accounting, Finance & Economics - Research and Knowledge Exchange, University of Greenwich).

17.10: Networking at The Old Brewery

24th May 2024: PKES - PEGFA co-organised PhD conference

QA063, Queen Anne Building

The 15th PKES annual PhD student conference took place the 24th of May at Greenwich. The event was co-organised by PEGFA, The Post-Keynesian Economics Society (PKES) and the Young Scholar Initiative (YSI) Keynesian Economics Working Group.

The conference gave students the opportunity to present a chapter of their PhD dissertation and receive detailed and structured feedback from a senior researcher from PKES in a friendly environment. Eleven promising PhD students from across the world travelled to Greenwich for this one-day conference. This was supported by travel and accommodation grants by YSI.

PhD students were also able to come together, build their network and exchange further during the conference's lunch buffet and social dinner.

More detailed information and the full programme can be found here.

Organising Committee:

Dr Alexander Guschanski (PEGFA & University of Greenwich)

Dr Christina Wolf (University of Hertfordshire)

Ivan Weigandi Martinez (Leeds University Business School)

Tom Lawrence (PEGFA & University of Greenwich)

Jasmin Lukasz (PEGFA & University of Greenwich)

Stuart Leitch (PEGFA & University of Greenwich)

Thomas Rabensteiner (University of Greenwich)

26th April 2024: Public pathways to renewable energy: economically necessary, politically  contested

The conference was co-organised at the University of Greenwich by PEGFA and PSIRU, the Public Services International Research Unit, which researches public services including energy, water, waste , healthcare and social care, local government , and political economy of public sector, working with unions and social movements, globally and in the UK;

Programme

2pm  Political economy of municipal and community generation of renewable energy (RE)

June Sekera, Honorary Senior Research Fellow , Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London, and  Senior Research Fellow, Global Development Policy Center, Boston University

• the economic and public need political case for municipal or community generation and control of RE in the USA despite federal support to expand the corporate-led electricity system of centralized generation and control ;
• response by Simon Pirani, honorary professor Durham University

3pm Campaigns, politics, economics and trends in public renewable energy

Sean Sweeney, director of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) (Online):

• campaigns, economics and politics of public renewable energy generation in Colombia, Indonesia and sub-Saharan Africa

Mika Minio-Paluello, researcher at the TUC (UK) (Online):

• union policies on public RE generation, and the Labour party's 'Great British Energy'.

Vera Weghmann, senior researcher at PSIRU:

• Energy transition and public ownership: shifting narratives in Europe

Ozlem Onaran, professor of economics, co-director of PEGFA, Associate Head of the School of Accounting, Finance and Economics in RKE and Cem Oyvat , senior lecturer in economics and member of PEGFA, University of Greenwich:

• employment effect of public investment in green and other infrastructure in the global south  and the UK

4pm  “The Price is Wrong” : the need for public RE generation

Brett Christophers (Online), professor at Institute for Housing and Urban Research , Uppsala University, and author of “The Price is Wrong” , arguing that the private sector will not deliver  investment in RE because the returns are too low, so it must be delivered by the public sector. Response by Ozlem Onaran.

Video recordings of the conference contributions are available here.

16th April 2024: The CBDC Era: The Current Development and Future of Central Bank Digital Currencies

12pm - 7pm, QA080, Queen Anne Court

The University of Greenwich in association with the Global Policy Institute held a 2024 Conference.

This year’s half-day conference aimed to develop the discussion of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) from the position elaborated at the April 2023 GPI conference, indicating both the progress made internationally and domestically and exploring research agendas that need to be pursued with financial and non-financial businesses, central banks, commercial banks, and social and political institutions.

While taking account of technological developments, such as tokenization, the research agendas should not solely be driven by technology. There is a need to explore the overall monetary, economic, and societal implications, the impacts on non-financial businesses as well as financial organizations, and the national and international legal and regulatory implications.

Speakers from the Bank of England, Clifford Chance, SWIFT (tbc), Ernst and Young, GPI, and University of Greenwich. Full conference brochure here.

27th March 2024: Round Table on Sustainable Finance, UN's SDGs and the Adoption of Innovations: Could SMEs make a difference in Global Development?

5:30pm - 20:30pm, QA063, Queen Anne Court and via Teams

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face significant challenges in implementing sustainability management practices compared to larger enterprises, such as a lack of institutional infrastructure, targeted technical advice, and access to funding. In fact, the complex context in which SMEs are placed regarding the tracking of the UN's SDGs highlights the absence of SME sustainability policies in both developed and developing economies.

It seems then apparent that the role of SMEs in the use of finite global natural and social resources and the harnessing of sustainable development needs better research with real policy-making impact. In this roundtable, we would like to engage with the audience to discuss sustainable finance and the adoption of innovations in SMEs. We aim to explore the challenges faced by SMEs in implementing sustainability practices and how to support their efforts.

Organised by: Dr Mary Arrieta (University of Greenwich, PEGFA, ISBE)

SPEAKERS

Dr Mónica de Castro Pardo (Universidad Complutense, Madrid), "Small enterprises and sustainability in rural areas" (SDGs: 1,11,15).

Prof Pınar Gedikkaya (Bal), İstanbul Beykent University, İstanbul, Türkiye, "Innovation for sustainability: The challenges faced by family-owned SMEs in Türkiye" (SDGs: 12 and 13).

Prof Robyn Owen (Middlesex University, London), "The role of sustainable development goals in defining and measuring ecological innovation." (SDGs: 6, 12-15, 17).

Dr Kenechukwu Ikebuaku (University of the Western Cape, South Africa), "The Role of Technology in Empowering SMEs Towards the Actualization of the SDGs" (SDGs: 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 12, 13).

Prof Rafael Cartay (Emeritus Professor, University of Los Andes, Venezuela), "Climate change, production family and business agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean". (SDGs: 1,11,15,16).

26th March 2024: PEGFA Research Seminar with Mary-Paz Arrieta Paredes and Maria Nikolaidi

1pm - 2:30pm, HH102, Hamilton House

This term's final research seminar featured PEGFA speakers Mary-Paz Arrieta Paredes and Maria Nikolaidi.

Mary-Paz Arrieta Paredes presented "ESG investing, reputation and Government Policies in British SMEs: Why does firmographics matter?”

This study examines the impact of firmographics on SMEs' attitudes towards ESG investing in the UK. The research uses the British Business Bank (BBB) survey to analyze the potential of the ESG section and evaluate the relation between innovation adoption and ESG investing popularity among SMEs. The study differentiates between five regions and examines co-factors such as external finance, firm age, gender, and minority leadership. The study also examines the functions of government policies in sustainability-oriented processes. Preliminary results for years 2021-23 show that implementing ESG because of reputation and brand is positively affected by government policy changes, over 8 times. However, implementing ESG for competitive advantage has a negative impact in the South of the country. Government expenditure is also significant but not robust. At this stage, it appears that reputational factors are the main influencing factors for SMEs supporting ESG investing. However, if these firms were to implement ESG criteria based on reputation, government policies would have been instrumental in encouraging them.

Maria Nikolaidi discussed "Environmental regulation, macrofinancial stability and climate policy mixes".

Environmental regulation has a key role to play in achieving the transition to a green economy. However, an abrupt implementation of environmental regulation can have adverse implications for macrofinancial stability, undermining the effectiveness of regulatory initiatives. This can be the case because the introduction of environmental regulatory restrictions can lead to stranded carbon-intensive capital that can affect the ability of firms to repay debt with feedback effects on the macroeconomy. In addition, the implications of environmental regulation might differ significantly depending on whether regulations are put in place in an isolated manner or in conjunction with other policies. In this paper, we deploy an ecological stock-flow consistent (E-SFC) model to analyse (i) how environmental regulation can affect macrofinancial stability and (ii) how the effectiveness of environmental regulation can be affected when regulatory initiatives are combined with green fiscal policy. We categorise regulatory interventions based on their credibility. We show that the short-run disruptive macrofinancial effects of environmental regulation are lower when regulatory commitments are credible. We also show that, when environmental regulation is combined with green subsidies, the reduction of emissions is reinforced and the adverse macrofinancial stability effects are reduced.

14th March 2024: PEGFA Research Seminar with Edna Solomon and Pedro Siqueira Machado

5pm - 6:30pm, QM369, Queen Mary Court, University of Greenwich

"Investigating the economic effects of higher education providers’ (HEPs) activities has become pertinent, if not essential, as their estimated and expected economic impact in knowledge-based economies has significantly expanded and increased over the last few decades. Since a significant amount of knowledge is generated in the academic sector, HEPs have recently become under increasing internal and external pressures to deliver and commercialise on their knowledge and entrepreneurial activities, respectively.
In this paper, we examine the impact of knowledge creation and transfer, and entrepreneurial activities conducted by HEPs on UK regional productivity. In doing so, this article contributes to the extant literature that deals with the effect HEPs’ knowledge creation and transfer and entrepreneurial activities have on regional productivity.

The analysis will be conducted using panel data regressions, applied to 41 UK ITL2 regions from 2003/04 to 2020/21. Regional productivity is measured as real gross value added per hour worked. Two hypotheses are presented: H1: HEPs’ knowledge creation and transfer activities are positively associated with the UK’s regional productivity; H2: HEPs’ entrepreneurial activities are positively associated with the UK’s regional productivity.

Our findings suggest that HEPs’ knowledge generation and transfer and entrepreneurship were significant drivers of regional productivity in the UK. Indeed, the knowledge and entrepreneurial capital generated through knowledge-intensive and entrepreneurial activities by HEPs led to foster the UK’s regional growth. The results highlight the positive impact of collaboration between universities and businesses, and the entrepreneurship within universities, on UK's productivity, suggesting the potential benefits of universities in supporting regional development."

Pedro Siqueira Machado discussed "The current state of the Sraffian Monetary Theories of Distribution, tensions and possible resolutions".

"There is a long-lasting tradition in classical political economy of equating the profit rate on real investment and the monetary rate of interest. There is also a long debate on the causality of this equation which goes as far back as Adam Smith. This discussion has implications for the effects of monetary policy on the distribution of income among social classes. In this paper, I aim at contributing to the first of these issues, namely the correlation between profit rates and interest rates. In the modern literature on classical political economy, these discussions on the relationship between interest and profits were resumed after Sraffa’s rehabilitation of the classical method (Sraffa, 1951, 1960). This short passage gave rise to many attempts to formulate a monetary theory of the rate of profits and distribution. Two main exponents of this discussion are Pivetti (1991) and Panico (1988). These two authors provided new arguments for an explanation of the profit rates based on the rate of interest. This paper critically examines both contributions and points to some tensions in either formalization that have not been resolved. The paper then proposes a novel way to incorporate the banking sector into Sraffa’s price of productions. We argue that the difference in interest rates is only the appearance of banks’ profitability, while in essence banks behave as any other sector. With this insight, the paper formalizes banking sector as offering a service that is analytically separate from the loans. This service carries with itself a price of production like any other produced service. This avoids the perceived difficulties of treating the lending rate as the price of banking sector."

6th March 2024: Conflict inflation: Keynesian path dependency or Marxian cumulation? Seminar with Prof Peter Skott

4pm - 6pm, QA020, Queen Anne Court, University of Greenwich

Professor Peter Skott (University of Massachusetts Amherst, Aalborg University) presented his recent paper on Conflict inflation at Greenwich. Please find the corresponding abstract below.

Abstract

Notions of conflict inflation have been central to neo-Marxian and post-Keynesian economics. There are tensions, however, within the Marxian/post-Keynesian camp. Wanting to preserve a role for aggregate demand in the determination of output and employment, Keynesians emphasize weak feedback effects between price and wage inflation. Like Kalecki (1943), Marxists typically suggest, on the contrary, that if unemployment is kept low, cumulative increases in labour militancy and power imply severe limitations of aggregate demand policy in the long run. The paper discusses these rival perspectives and their implications, suggesting: (i) Marxian concerns are likely to derail ambitious reform programs that rely on fiscal expansion, (ii) Kalecki's analysis failed to recognize both the centrality of inflation for aggregate demand policy and the multidimensional character of class conflict, and (iii) rather than focus on the wage struggle, labour movements may benefit from prioritizing political and institutional change.

27th February: PEGFA Research Seminar with Jose Alejandro Coronado Arciniegas and Menatulla Mohamed

1pm - 2:30pm, SL007, Stephen Lawrence Building, University of Greenwich

This term's third research seminar featured PEGFA speakers Jose Alejandro Coronado Arciniegas and Menatulla Mohamed.

Jose Alejandro Coronado Arciniegas presented "Information-Constrained Models for Ultimatum Bargaining".

"We argue for the use of the principle of maximum entropy to better predict behaviour in experimental economics and use the ultimatum game as a case study. The Logit equilibrium can be derived by maximizing Shannon's informational entropy subject to behavioural constraints. This provides an effective way to translate behavioural hypotheses into theoretical distributions that are candidates to characterize empirical frequencies when performing experiments. We develop multiple candidate behavioural models for the joint distribution of offers and acceptance rates. We train the models using a database containing observed interactions of simple ultimatum game experiments conducted by Henrich et al. (2004), and Ensminger & Henrich (2014).
The experiments conducted by Henrich et al., and Ensminger & Henrich consists of ultimatum experiments performed around the world on small scale societies. We extend our models to consider variations in offers and acceptance rates across different types of societies measured by their integration to markets, complexity, population size, and payoffs to cooperation. We further relax the common knowledge assumption in the QRE literature by making proposers approximate the acceptance distribution by minimizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence. In line with the literature, the model that performs better at predicting the observed patterns has a responder rejecting low offers and the proposer offering an equal split in anticipation."

Menatulla Mohamed discussed "The impact of non-executive female directors on CSR decoupling".

"This study examines the relationship between female non-executive directors and CSR decoupling in UK firms. CSR decoupling occurs when there is a disparity between a firm’s CSR activities and its disclosure. We argue that female non-executive directors significantly enhance board monitoring functions, decision-making processes, and stakeholder engagement, leading to more authentic and effective CSR practices and lower CSR decoupling. Utilising a sample from the FTSE 350 index spanning 2012 to 2019, our analysis reveals a significant negative relationship between the proportion of female non-executive directors and CSR decoupling. This indicates that greater female representation on boards is associated with a lower CSR decoupling. This trend persists across various industries, with a 'critical mass' of female directors amplifying this positive effect. Our findings suggest that regulators and policymakers should consider the role of board composition in CSR activities and use CSR decoupling as a metric for evaluating CSR effectiveness. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion on non-financial reporting and transparency in corporate practices and enriches the broader CSR literature by highlighting the unique impact of gender diversity at the board level."

15th February: PEGFA Research Seminar with Xianmin Liu and Ines Heck

5pm - 6:30pm, QM369, Queen Mary Court, University of Greenwich

Our second Research Seminar featured PEGFA speakers Ines Heck and Dr Xianmin Liu.

Xianmin Liu presented "Green innovation and cross-border M&As: Evidence from China"

"Using a sample of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CBMAs) attempted by Chinese listed firms between 2007 and 2021, we explore how green innovation affects emerging market economy (EME) bidders’ internationalization via CBMAs. We document that green innovative bidders are more likely to complete CBMA deals successfully, realize higher announcement abnormal returns in the short run, and achieve better post-merger operating performance in the long term. This better performance is achieved due to lower growth rate of carbon emission, superior environmental performance, reduced environmental compliance costs, and larger government subsidies after CBMA deal completion. Moreover, the positive effect of green innovation on deal completion probability and post-merger operating performance is more pronounced when host economies have greater physical climate risk, while weakened when host economies incur higher economic policy uncertainty. Brought together, these findings suggest that green innovative EME bidders positively respond to stakeholders’ concerns about climate change-related risks and environmental issues, thus contributing to the attainment of legitimacy and facilitating their internationalization via CBMAs."

Ines Heck discussed “A Progressive Excess Profits Tax for the European Union”

"We introduce a novel tax policy known as the Progressive Excess Profit Tax (PEPT) designed for implementation within the European Union. In addition to existing corporate taxation, the PEPT entails an additional 20% tax rate on `base' excess profits, which are defined as profits falling within a rate of return ranging from 10% to 15%. Furthermore, it imposes an additional 40% tax rate on `super' excess profits, which encompass profits exceeding a rate of return of 15%. We use ORBIS firm level data for firms above an operating revenue (turnover) of €80 million or more to estimate an extra EU-level revenue of €126 billion for the year 2022, in addition to the existing corporate tax income. This constitutes approximately 0.8% of the European Union's GDP and roughly 1.6% of the collective government expenditures of EU member states, equating to €280 for each EU citizen. EU member states possess the necessary tools, information, and legal authority to enforce the PEPT, with the potential for coordinated efforts at the European level. Importantly, this proposal effectively curbs tax avoidance by taxing firms based on their sales location rather than their legal registration, thus limiting their ability to relocate profits to low-tax jurisdictions to evade taxation. Using Country-by-Country (CbC), we apportion revenues to countries, and only the share of revenue generated in a country is considered for the tax base calculation. Moreover, this tax policy is designed to not deter investment, as firms can still attain a 10% return on assets without incurring additional taxes. Even in the absence of global coordination, the report demonstrates that the European Union has the capacity to unilaterally implement the PEPT."

30th January: PEGFA Research Seminar with Ben Tippet and Pavlo Ulianiuk

1pm - 2:30pm, HH102, Hamilton House, University of Greenwich

Our first Research Seminar featured PEGFA speakers Ben Tippet and Pavlo Ulianiuk.

Ben Tippet presented "Finding fortunes: A new methodology to estimate missing wealth in survey data".

"How much do the wealthiest really own?  Measuring wealth concentration using raw micro survey data has tended to underestimate the true extent of inequality in the population. As richer households are less likely to respond to surveys than poorer ones, many major wealth surveys are plagued by such differential unit non-response bias.[1] This article derives a new methodology, which we call Missingness Maximum Likelihood (MML), to tackle this bias. Applying MML to the UK Wealth and Asset’s Survey (WAS), we estimate the missing wealth at the top of the UK wealth distribution. To demonstrate the research and policy implications of MML, we measure the revenue potential of a new progressive wealth tax on the wealthiest top 1% of households using the adjusted data."

Pavlo Ulianiuk discussed "The evolution of corporate attention: Evidence from UK public companies, 2000-2016".

"With this work we empirically address the concept of corporate attention established in the Attention-Based View (ABV) model (Ocasio, 1997). While corporate attention has a significant impact on everyday business activity and on key strategic decisions there is a lack of relevant empirical findings caused by the limitation of existing measurement methodology. The rare existing quantitative studies are mainly constrained to a cross sectional dataset and exclusively is oriented on the US registered companies. With this work we overcome these limitations. We measure and create a unique longitudinal dataset of managers’ attention for the biggest non-financial companies listed in the FTSE350 index.
We quantify the evolutionary change in corporate attention over 5 key goals and 5 main stakeholders during the period 2000-2016. We identify several factors/channels from the Attention-Based theory which determine the difference in attention perception: (i) The adverse shocks (the financial crisis 2008-2009); (ii) The difference in managers’ role (CEO vs chairman); (iii) The industry specific characteristics; (iv) The difference over company life cycle. With this work we also contribute to the stakeholders and goals selection literature empirically assessing the attention correlation between stakeholders and goals."

Please find the entire programme for this year's Research Seminar Series here.