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We show that international home bias in debt and equity holdings has declined during the late 1990s at the same time as international risk sharing has increased. Using panel data estimations, we demonstrate that less home bias is associated with more international risk sharing. Alternatively, we show that the higher the level of foreign assets to Gross Domestic Product, the more risk sharing is obtained. This indicates that lack of risk sharing and international financial integration are closely related empirical phenomena.JEL Classification: F36

This paper reports estimates of the UK "college premium" for young graduates across successive cohorts from large cross section datasets for the UK pooled from 1994 to 2006 -a period when the higher education participation rate increased dramatically. This implies that graduate supply considerably outstripped demand which ought to imply a fall in the premium. We find no significant fall for men and even a large, but insignificant, rise for women. Quantile regression results reveal a fall in the premium only for men in the bottom quartile of the distribution of unobserved skills.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu This paper provides estimates of the impact of higher education qualifications on the earnings of graduates in the UK by subject studied. We use data from the recent UK Labour Force Surveys which provide a sufficiently large sample to consider the effects of the subject studied, class of first degree, and postgraduate qualifications. Ordinary Least Squares estimates show high average returns for women that does not differ by subject. For men, we find very large returns for Law, Economics and Management but not for other subjects. Quantile Regression estimates suggest negative returns for some subjects at the bottom of the distribution, or even at the median in Other Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities for men. Degree class has large effects in all subjects suggesting the possibility of large returns to effort. Postgraduate study has large effects, independently of first degree class. A large rise in tuition fees across all subjects has only a modest impact on relative rates of return suggesting that little substitution across subjects would occur. The strong message that comes out of this research is that even a large rise in tuition fees makes little difference to the quality of the investment -those subjects that offer high returns (LEM for men, and all subjects for women) continue to do so. And those subjects that do not (especially OSSAH for men) will continue to offer poor returns. The effect of fee rises is dwarfed by existing cross subject differences in returns. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SJEL Classification: I23, I28

It is clear that education has an important effect on wages paid in the labour market However it not clear whether this is due to the role that education plays in raising the productivity of workers (the human capital explanation) or whether education simply reflects the ability of the worker (through a signalling role). In this paper we describe and implement, using a variety of UK datasets, a number of tests from the existing literature for discriminating between the two explanations. We find little support for signalling ideas in these tests. However, we have severe reservations about these results because our doubts about the power of these tests and the appropriateness of the data. We propose an alternative test, based on the response of some individuals to a change in education incentives offered to other individuals caused by the changes in the minimum school leaving age in the seventies. Using this idea we find that data in the UK appears to strongly support the human capital explanation.

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This paper investigates the effect of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative on China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) using a dataset of all host countries for the period of 2010-2015. The employed econometric technique combines a difference-in-differences estimator with matching techniques. The results show that China's OFDI in OBOR countries is about 40% higher than in non-OBOR countries. After the initiative, the OFDI from China increases by 46.2% in OBOR countries. However, after controlling for the heterogeneity across OBOR and non-OBOR countries using the matching approach, the significance of the increasing effect caused by the OBOR initiative disappears. We also find the OBOR initiative diminishes the resource-seeking motivation and improves the market-seeking motivation of China's OFDI. Our results cast doubts on the infrastructure-led and institution-based strategy of the OBOR initiative, but support the boosting effect of the OBOR initiative on institutional cooperation and cultural convergence. Thus, the OBOR initiative is a sustainable continuation and development of the long tradition of economic, institutional, and cultural convergence with the OBOR countries, rather than a temporary policy shock.