Working papers SES

Working papers SES
La collection des Working Papers SES est une série de cahiers de recherche présentant les différents travaux menés au sein de la Faculté des sciences économiques et sociales de l'Université de Fribourg (Suisse). Cette collection existe depuis 1980 et les thèmes abordés reflètent les différentes orientations scientifiques des membres de la Faculté: économie politique, gestion d'entreprise, informatique de gestion, méthodes quantitatives, sciences sociales et sciences des médias et de la communication. Le contenu de ces travaux n'engage que la responsabilité de leurs auteurs.

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Université de Fribourg

Assessing the effects of seasonal tariff-rate quotas on vegetable prices in Switzerland

Loginova, Daria ; Portmann, Marco ; Huber, Martin

(Working Papers SES ; 521)

Causal estimation of the short-term effects of tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on vegetable producer prices is hampered by the large variety and different growing seasons of vegetables and is therefore rarely performed. We quantify the effects of Swiss seasonal TRQs on domestic producer prices of a variety of vegetables based on a difference-indifferences estimation using a novel dataset of weekly...

Université de Fribourg

Chasing dividends during the COVID-19 pandemic

Eugster, Nicolas ; Ducret, Romain ; Isakov, Dušan ; Weisskopf, Jean-Philippe

(Working Papers SES ; 520)

This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the trading behavior of investors around ex-dividend dates in Europe. The sudden decrease in the number of companies paying dividends reduced the opportunities to capture dividends. The firms that have maintained dividend payments during the pandemic thus attracted more interest than before. This led to a doubling in the magnitude...

Université de Fribourg

Transnational machine learning with screens for flagging bid-rigging cartels

Huber, Martin ; Imhof, David ; Ishii, Rieko

(Working Papers SES ; 519)

We investigate the transnational transferability of statistical screening methods originally developed using Swiss data for detecting bid-rigging cartels in Japan. We find that combining screens for the distribution of bids in tenders with machine learning to classify collusive vs. competitive tenders entails a correct classification rate of 88% to 93% when training and testing the method...

Université de Fribourg

A substantial discount on ski passes : a synthetic control analysis

Wallimann, Hannes

(Working Papers SES ; 507)

The synthetic control method serves as an appropriate and promising approach to do quantitative comparison research. However, the method is rarely used in the context of tourism. We fill this research gap by applying the method to the case of a Swiss mountain destination. Alpine tourist destinations have suffered from a declining demand in the last decade. Fewer tourist visit ski resorts....

Université de Fribourg

The effects of gender and parental occupation in the apprenticeship market : an experimental evaluation

Fernandes, Ana ; Huber, Martin ; Plaza, Camila

(Working Papers SES ; 506)

The apprenticeship market is the earliest possible entry into the workforce in developed economies. Since early labor market shocks are likely magnified throughout professional life, avoiding mismatches between talent and occupations e.g. due to gender- or status-based discrimination appears crucial. This experimental study investigates the effects of applicant gender and its interaction with...

Université de Fribourg

An introduction to flexible methods for policy evaluation

Huber, Martin

(Working Papers SES ; 504)

This chapter covers different approaches to policy evaluation for assessing the causal effect of a treatment or intervention on an outcome of interest. As an introduction to causal inference, the discussion starts with the experimental evaluation of a randomized treatment. It then reviews evaluation methods based on selection on observables (assuming a quasi-random treatment given observed...

Université de Fribourg

Returns to farm child labor in Tanzania

André, Pierre ; Delesalle, Esther ; Dumas, Christelle

(Working Papers SES ; 502)

In developing countries, the opportunity costs of children’s time can significantly hinder universal education. This paper studies one of these opportunity costs: we estimate the agricultural productivity of children aged 10 to 15 years old using the LSMS-ISA panel survey in Tanzania. Since child labor can be endogenous, we exploit the panel structure of the data and instrument child labor...

Université de Fribourg

What if dividends were tax-exempt? : evidence from a natural experiment

Isakov, Dušan ; Pérignon, Christophe ; Weisskopf, Jean-Philippe

(Working Papers SES ; 498)

We study the effect of dividend taxes on the payout and investment policy of listed firms and discuss their implications for agency problems. To do so, we exploit a unique setting in Switzerland where some, but not all, firms were suddenly able to pay tax-exempted dividends to their shareholders following the corporate tax reform of 2011. Using a difference-in-differences specification, we...

Université de Fribourg

Direct and indirect effects of continuous treatments based on generalized propensity score weighting

Hsu, Yu-Chin ; Huber, Martin ; Lee, Ying-Ying ; Pipoz, Layal

(Working papers SES ; 495)

This paper proposes semi- and nonparametric methods for disentangling the total causal effect of a continuous treatment on an outcome variable into its natural direct effect and the indirect effect that operates through one or several intermediate variables or mediators. Our approach is based on weighting observations by the inverse of two versions of the generalized propensity score (GPS),...

Université de Fribourg

Founding family ownership, stock market returns, and agency problems

Eugster, Nicolas ; Isakov, Dušan

(Working Papers SES ; 490)

This paper explores the relationship between founding family ownership and stock market returns. Using the entire population of non-financial firms listed on the Swiss stock market for 2003–2013, we find that the stock returns of family firms are significantly higher than those of non-family firms after adjusting the returns for different risk factors and firm characteristics. Family firms...