A prospective analysis of labour market status and self-rated health in the UK and Russia

Comparing prospective data from the UK and Russia, this paper analyzes whether the association of labour market status, and particularly unemployment, with subsequent health varies by the level of state protection provided to the unemployed. While the UK's unemployment welfare regime is classified as providing minimal protection, the Russian regime is sub-protective. Employing Cox duration analysis upon data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey and the British Household Panel Survey for the period 2000–2007, this study finds that labour market status and economic circumstances independently predicted individual-level declines in self-rated health and, contrary to expectations, the associations of unemployment with health decline were similarly sized in the two countries.     

Restricted Hodrick–Prescott filtering in a state-space framework

The current paper extends previous results on Hodrick–Prescott (HP) filtering and shows that it is possible to implement the judgement-augmented, or restricted, HP filter within the state-space framework. The implementation entails augmenting the vector of measurements and altering one of the system matrices of the state-space model for the HP filter. Restrictions can thereby be incorporated in the HP filter, making, e.g., estimation more accessible. An application to US GDP gap estimation illustrates how the restricted filter could be usefully applied in an empirical macroeconomic setting.     

Bridging the gap: How sustainable development can help companies create shareholder value and improve financial performance

This study examines the effect of integrating sustainability into corporate strategy on various aspects of shareholder value creation and financial performance in the British capital market. The employed method is based on the content analysis of corporate disclosures and a new technique for assessing the adoption of the corporate sustainability concept (embracing the environmental, social, and financial aspects of a company's policies at the same time). Using extensive data of FTSE 350 firms covering the years 2006–2012, 65 companies were selected as meeting corporate sustainability criteria. For the above period, we find that these firms were characterized by higher financial risk exposure, lower asset growth rates, lower BV/MV ratios, lower EVA ratios, and higher MVA ratios. Such relations were generally present among different size and industry groupings. The results support the thesis that firms that incorporate sustainability issues into their business operations are better able to leverage their resources toward stronger financial performance and shareholder value creation than other companies. The paper contributes to the literature by offering a more holistic approach to corporate sustainable performance measurement and shedding additional light on its relation to financial performance in the context of the recent global financial crisis and its direct aftermath.     

Transatlantic wage gaps and the migration decision: Europe–Canada in the 1920s

As has been seen in other contexts, workers in similar occupations earned much higher wages in Canada than Europe during the 1920s. This observation and related aspects of immigration are addressed with a life-cycle model of the migration decision. The characteristics of immigrants from five European countries: Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden, are explored in a way that sheds light not just on those population flows but on the process of immigration generally. We draw on passenger manifests from immigrant ships for information on the individual migrants. Simulations, based partly on the these manifests, reveal that the costs of migration, borrowing constraints, concern for status, and country-specific taste preferences account for key immigrant characteristics, and help explain the large wage differentials that persisted despite Canada’s relatively open immigration policy.     

Augmenting the eye of the beholder: exploring the strategic potential of augmented reality to enhance online service experiences

Driven by the proliferation of augmented reality (AR) technologies, many firms are pursuing a strategy of service augmentation to enhance customers’ online service experiences. Drawing on situated cognition theory, the authors show that AR-based service augmentation enhances customer value perceptions by simultaneously providing simulated physical control and environmental embedding. The resulting authentic situated experience, manifested in a feeling of spatial presence, functions as a mediator and also predicts customer decision comfort. Furthermore, the effect of spatial presence on utilitarian value perceptions is greater for customers who are disposed toward verbal rather than visual information processing, and the positive effect on decision comfort is attenuated by customers’ privacy concerns.     

Designing a medicalized wellness service: balancing hospitality and hospital features

Medicalized environments around the world are challenged with making trade-offs between the clinical nature of the service and the customer service elements needed to deliver the service. Many medicalized wellness services have yet to achieve an effective balance between their hospitality and hospital features to generate loyalty (repeat patronage). We present a case study of a blood service organization in a developed country that, at the time of data collection (2011), was working to resolve tension between clinical goals and expectations of Millennial donors. The results identified seven principles: ‘control over booking and service interactions’; ‘build social connections’; ‘offer a luxury, indulgent experience’; ‘build relationship with customer beyond the “medical” procedure’. The three remaining principles related to hospital-like features: ‘hide the functional/medical features of the service experience’; ‘demystify the “hidden” processes’; ‘ability for the physical service environment to be modified by the customer’.     

Family businesses and non-family equity: literature review and avenues for future research

Family firms commonly prefer internal funding and retention of control. Under certain circumstances, however, equity investments from outside the family can be a relevant alternative source of capital. To facilitate further knowledge about the interaction of family-owned businesses and external equity investors, the present work reviews 42 studies and suggests possible directions for future research. Results reveal that extant studies focus mainly on five key areas—corporate finance, contract design and collaboration, succession and exit route, strategy and performance, and corporate governance. Moreover, the paper discusses various gaps in the extant work and presents three opportunities for future research in a detailed manner. These include a comparison of different types of investors in the context of family-owned businesses, an investigation of minority investor exits from family firms, and an analysis of the impact of investors on family firm boards. All in all, the findings can guide the future development of this emerging field of research and have implications for theory and practice.     

Inefficient but Robust Public Leadership

We investigate endogenous timing in a mixed duopoly in a differentiated product market. We find that private leadership is better than public leadership from a social welfare perspective if the private firm is domestic, regardless of the degree of product differentiation. Nevertheless, the public leadership equilibrium is risk-dominant, and it is thus robust if the degree of product differentiation is high. We also find that regardless of the degree of product differentiation, the public leadership equilibrium is risk-dominant if the private firm is foreign. These results may explain the recent revival of public financial institutions in Japan.     

At a Loss for Words: Measuring Racial Inequality in America

Scholars of race tend to measure racial inequality in either absolute or relative terms. How much Blacks have advanced from their historical antebellum status is an absolute measure. How the status of Blacks compares with that of Whites is a relative measure. A more revealing measure might be how much racial equality will be strategically necessary to avoid a major politico-economic crisis like the ones that occurred during the civil war and the 1960s. Though it is easier to measure absolute or relative equality, measures of strategic equality yeild more important information. Using the Current Population Survey, General Social Survey, Center for Education Statistics, Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, and Census Bureau estimates, I find that, strategically, America is actually declining in racial equality, not advancing.