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This paper assesses the role of financial performance in explaining firms' investment dynamics in the wine industry from the three European Union (EU) largest producers. The wine sector deserves special attention to investigate firms' investment behavior given the high competition imposed by the latecomers. More precisely, we investigate how the capitalization, liquidity and profitability influence the investment dynamics using firm-level data from the wine industry from France (331 firms), Italy (335) firms and Spain (442) firms. We use data from 2007 to 2014, drawing a comparison between these countries, and relying on difference-and system-GMM estimators. Specifically, the impact of profitability is positive and significant, while the capitalization has a significant and negative impact on the investment dynamics only in France and Spain. The influence of the liquidity ratio is negative and significant only in the case of Spain. Therefore, we notice different investment strategies for wine companies located in the largest producer countries. It appears that these findings are in general robust to different specifications of liquidity and profitability ratios, and to the different estimators we use.

This paper assesses the role of financial performance in explaining firms' investment dynamics in the wine industry from the three European Union (EU) largest producers. The wine sector deserves special attention to investigate firms' investment behavior given the high competition imposed by the latecomers. More precisely, we investigate how the capitalization, liquidity and profitability influence the investment dynamics using firm-level data from the wine industry from France (331 firms), Italy (335) firms and Spain (442) firms. We use data from 2007 to 2014, drawing a comparison between these countries, and relying on difference-and system-GMM estimators. Specifically, the impact of profitability is positive and significant, while the capitalization has a significant and negative impact on the investment dynamics only in France and Spain. The influence of the liquidity ratio is negative and significant only in the case of Spain. Therefore, we notice different investment strategies for wine companies located in the largest producer countries. It appears that these findings are in general robust to different specifications of liquidity and profitability ratios, and to the different estimators we use.

This paper assesses the convergence process in the health care expenditure for selected European Union (EU) countries over the past 50 years. As a novel contribution, we use bound unit root tests and, for robustness purposes, a series of tests for strict stationarity to provide new insights about the convergence process. We make a comparison between public and private health expenditure per capita and as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), with a focus on six EU countries with different health care systems in place. When we consider the health expenditure per capita, we report mixed findings. We show that the spread from the group average is stationary in the cases of Finland and Portugal when the overall and public expenditure is considered. In terms of private expenditure, the convergence process is noticed only for Austria. For all other countries included in our sample, we document a non-stationary process, indicating a lack of convergence. This result is robust to the different tests we use. However, when we assess the convergence in terms of the health-expenditure-to-GDP ratio, the convergence process is recorded for Austria only. The robustness check we performed using strict stationarity tests partially confirmed the mixed results we obtained. Therefore, our findings highlight the heterogeneity of the EU health care systems and the need for identification of common solutions to the EU health care systems' problems in order to enhance their convergence processes.

In the present paper, we assess the long-run relationship between FDI inflows and the financial environment in 16 EU countries. For this purpose, we use a cointegration technique for heterogeneous panels and the FMOLS and DOLS estimators, over the period 2001 to 2015. We show that financial conditions are important for FDI inflows. More precisely, the monetary uncertainty, calculated as the difference between the recorded and the forecasted interest rate values, negatively affects the FDI inflows. In addition, the banking stability, measured through different Z-score specifications, positively influences the foreign investment. However, this result is influenced by the way the Z-score is calculated. We further report a positive relationship between the business cycle and the FDI entrance. The robustness analyses based on alternative specifications of monetary uncertainty and banking stability confirm our findings. These results are also supported by a PMG estimation. Therefore, authorities must pay special attention to monetary policy predictability and to banking stability in order to facilitate the investors' access to finance and their investment decision.

In the present paper, we assess the long-run relationship between FDI inflows and the financial environment in 16 EU countries. For this purpose, we use a cointegration technique for heterogeneous panels and the FMOLS and DOLS estimators, over the period 2001 to 2015. We show that financial conditions are important for FDI inflows. More precisely, the monetary uncertainty, calculated as the difference between the recorded and the forecasted interest rate values, negatively affects the FDI inflows. In addition, the banking stability, measured through different Z-score specifications, positively influences the foreign investment. However, this result is influenced by the way the Z-score is calculated. We further report a positive relationship between the business cycle and the FDI entrance. The robustness analyses based on alternative specifications of monetary uncertainty and banking stability confirm our findings. These results are also supported by a PMG estimation. Therefore, authorities must pay special attention to monetary policy predictability and to banking stability in order to facilitate the investors' access to finance and their investment decision.

In the present paper, we assess the long-run relationship between FDI inflows and the financial environment in 16 EU countries. For this purpose, we use a cointegration technique for heterogeneous panels and the FMOLS and DOLS estimators, over the period 2001 to 2015. We show that financial conditions are important for FDI inflows. More precisely, the monetary uncertainty, calculated as the difference between the recorded and the forecasted interest rate values, negatively affects the FDI inflows. In addition, the banking stability, measured through different Z-score specifications, positively influences the foreign investment. However, this result is influenced by the way the Z-score is calculated. We further report a positive relationship between the business cycle and the FDI entrance. The robustness analyses based on alternative specifications of monetary uncertainty and banking stability confirm our findings. These results are also supported by a PMG estimation. Therefore, authorities must pay special attention to monetary policy predictability and to banking stability in order to facilitate the investors' access to finance and their investment decision.