Economics and Finance

Conflicts of interest are still a major issue in corporate governance systems which concerned with the relationships between owners and top management. Despite the fact, there has been a considerable amount of attention towards a better solution to mitigate conflicts of interest, but the issue is still dubious due to the substantial corporate crisis are outlined. By carrying forward the previous research, typology of corporate governance systems including values, this study identified the research problem that is: " Lacking the justifiability of constructed typology of corporate governance systems including values towards mitigating conflicts of interest. " There were two sets of research data was analysed during this study. One is Doing business data: The World Bank group and the second set of data is Schwartz's value survey to characterise multiple countries by their culture. The result of the study comes with an empirically justified the best possible corporate governance type including values towards mitigating conflicts of interest.

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative will open new trade routes between China and the European Union (EU) and increase competition pressures on smaller EU member states. This article ranks where states like Estonia stand internationally in terms of innovativeness (and consequent competitiveness) by conducting an econometric study of patent development, education policy and research and development (R&D) expenditure policy. The authors claim that small member states such as Estonia should follow the example of countries such as Germany and adopt policies which focus more on increased public spending on R&D and innovation in public universities of science and technology, and raise support for high tech startups with a strong focus on international patenting. Member States must go further and subsidise R&D activities by focusing, inter alia, on filing of foreign patents such as triadic patents.

This paper identifies the relationship between pupils' Family Background, their mathematics scores, and school-level policies, using the 2012 Programme of International Student Assessment for Italy and multilevel modelling. School-level policies have played a leading role in recent school reforms in many countries, but there is no straightforward empirical evidence for how they affect pupils' outcomes and the equality of educational outcomes. Our findings show that that only some school policies intensify the Family Background Effect-(educational equity) and affect student outcomes (educational

This paper identifies the relationship between pupils’ Family Background, their mathematics scores, and school-level policies, using the 2012 Programme of International Student Assessment for Italy and multilevel modelling. School-level policies have played a leading role in recent school reforms in many countries, but there is no straightforward empirical evidence for how they affect pupils’ outcomes and the equality of educational outcomes. Our findings show that that only some school policies intensify the Family Background Effect – (educational equity) and affect student outcomes (educational efficiency) simultaneously. We find that competitive schools are able to screen students by selecting higher socio-economic status parents, which mainly harms equity without having much effect on efficiency. There are some policies which allow some trade-off between aforementioned objectives, mainly policies related to management schools.

This paper analyses how the statutory minimum wage has affected the wage distribution in Estonia, a country with virtually little collective bargaining and relatively large wage inequality. The computations follow Lee (1999) but the effects of the minimum wage are identified by the degree to which the minimum wage binds in different labour markets defined by time, region and sector. The minimum wage affects wages in the lower tail of the distribution, but the effects are most pronounced up to the 20th percentile and then decline markedly as the wage approaches the median wage. The minimum wage is of greater importance for women than for men. Interestingly, the importance of the minimum wage for the lower tail of the wage distribution was smaller during the global financial crisis than before or after the crisis.

Educators and policy makers have looked at the use of the Information and Communication Technologies at school as a tool to raise educational achievements. They have stressed the importance of improving technology-related skills and competencies for students. This paper tries to shed a light on the impact of the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at school on students' achievements using the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 for Italy and Estonia. Using the Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) as a flexible function form of the Bayesian analysis, results show that there is a positive effect of using ICT at school on students' achievement for Italy but no effect for Estonia.

This paper assesses how the integration of ICT in education has affected the mathematics test scores for Italian students measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 data. The problem of endogeneity that affects survey data in this area, is addressed by applying the Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) methodology as in Cabras & Tena Horrillo (2016). The BART methodology needs a prior and likelihood functions using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm to obtain the posterior distribution. Controlling for socioeconomic , demographic and school factors, the predicted posterior distribution implies an increase , on average, of 16 points in the test scores. The result indicates that the use of ICT at school has a positive and strong impact on mathematic test scores.

This article studies how changes in the statutory minimum wage have affected the wage distribution in Estonia, a post-transition country with little collective bargaining and relatively large wage inequality. The analyses show that the minimum wage has had substantial spillover effects on wages in the lower tail of the distribution; the effects are most pronounced up to the twentieth percentile and then decline markedly. The minimum wage has contributed to lower wage inequality and this has particularly benefitted low-wage segments of the labour market such as women and the elderly. Interestingly, the importance of the minimum wage for the wage distribution was smaller during the global financial crisis than before or after the crisis.

In Italy, the provision of educational ancillary services (like meals and school transportation) is in charge of the municipalities. We investigate whether municipalities differ in their efficiency when providing these services and whether such heterogeneity explains some portion of the variability observed in pupils’ test scores. The paper is the first application of a nonparametric order-𝑚𝑚 model and a two-stage multilevel regression to a unique administrative dataset, made of the entire population of Italian pupils tested in reading and mathematics at grade 5 (academic years 2012/2013 and 2014/2015). Results demonstrate that local governments have different efficiency levels in providing services to schools. The test scores’ variability among pupils, however, is not explained by different efficiency levels of local government in producing ancillary services.

In Italy, the provision of educational ancillary services (like meals and school transportation) is in charge of the municipalities. We investigate whether municipalities differ in their efficiency when providing these services and whether such heterogeneity explains some portion of the variability observed in pupils' test scores. The paper is the first application of a nonparametric order-model and a two-stage multilevel regression to a unique administrative dataset, made of the entire population of Italian pupils tested in reading and mathematics at grade 5 (academic years 2012/2013 and 2014/2015). Results demonstrate that local governments have different efficiency levels in providing services to schools. The test scores' variability among pupils, however, is not explained by different efficiency levels of local government in producing ancillary services. JEL codes: I21, H52

The aim of this empirical investigation is to assess how the support targeted at R&D and innovation in the European Union Cohesion Policy Programme 2014-2020 affects the labour productivity, employment and exports of small and medium-sized companies. We estimate the treatment effects of two financial support activities using a semiparametric efficient estimator with over-identified moment conditions and inverse probability weighting. The impact assessment uses population data on small and medium-sized enterprises in Estonia, the European Union member state that benefits most per capita from Cohesion Fund allocations. We found that support for R&D and innovation from the Cohesion Policy had a positive short-term effect on labour productivity and employment over the estimation period 2014-2018, and that the size and robustness of the effect were strongest for labour productivity. The effect on exporting was ambiguous.

This paper assesses how the integration of ICT in education has affected the mathematics test scores for Italian students measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 data. The problem of endogeneity that affects survey data in this area, is addressed by applying the Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) methodology as in Cabras & Tena Tena Horrillo (2016). The BART methodology needs a prior and likelihood functions using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm to obtain the posterior distribution. Controlling for socioeconomic, demographic and school factors, the predicted posterior distribution implies an increase, on average, of 16 points in the test scores. The result indicates that the use of ICT at school has a positive and strong impact on mathematic test scores.

In Italy, the provision of educational ancillary services (like meals and school transportation) is in charge of the municipalities. We investigate whether municipalities differ in their efficiency when providing these services and whether such heterogeneity explains some portion of the variability observed in pupils' test scores. The paper is the first application of a nonparametric order-model and a two-stage multilevel regression to a unique administrative dataset, made of the entire population of Italian pupils tested in reading and mathematics at grade 5 (academic years 2012/2013 and 2014/2015). Results demonstrate that local governments have different efficiency levels in providing services to schools. The test scores' variability among pupils, however, is not explained by different efficiency levels of local government in producing ancillary services.

This paper assesses the effect of increases in the Estonian minimum wage in 2013-2016 on the probability of workers at different wage levels retaining employment. The effect is identified by comparing the probability of workers remaining employed after increases in the minimum wage in 2013-2016 with the probability of workers at comparable wage levels remaining employed in the 2009-2011 when the minimum wage was left unchanged. Estimations on data from the Estonian Labour Force Survey show that the increases in the minimum wage in 2013-2016 had no or small and imprecisely estimated effects on employment retention for the directly affected workers and similarly for those indirectly affected. These results are robust to the choice of control variables, to refinements of the treatment group and to changes in the time sample.

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative will open new trade routes between China and the European Union (EU) and increase competition pressures on smaller EU member states. This article ranks where states like Estonia stand internationally in terms of innovativeness (and consequent competitiveness) by conducting an econometric study of patent development, education policy and research and development (R&D) expenditure policy. The authors claim that small member states such as Estonia should follow the example of countries such as Germany and adopt policies which focus more on increased public spending on R&D and innovation in public universities of science and technology, and raise support for high tech startups with a strong focus on international patenting. Member States must go further and subsidise R&D activities by focusing, inter alia, on filing of foreign patents such as triadic patents.

This paper identifies the relationship between pupils' Family Background, their mathematics scores, and school-level policies, using the 2012 Programme of International Student Assessment for Italy and multilevel modelling. School-level policies have played a leading role in recent school reforms in many countries, but there is no straightforward empirical evidence for how they affect pupils' outcomes and the equality of educational outcomes. Our findings show that that only some school policies intensify the Family Background Effect-(educational equity) and affect student outcomes (educational efficiency) simultaneously. We find that competitive schools are able to screen students by selecting higher socioeconomic status parents, which mainly harms equity without having much effect on efficiency. There are some policies which allow some trade-off between aforementioned objectives, mainly policies related to management schools.