The effect of matching on perceived export barriers and performance in an era of globalization discontents: Empirical evidence from UK SMEs

In this study we examine the effect of matching, a comprehensive networking concept, on the perceived export barriers and export performance of small exporting firms. We introduce matching as a moderating variable affecting the link of perceived internal/external export barriers to export performance. Using a sample of 106 UK-based exporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs), we find that matching alleviates the negative impact of perceived internal export barriers on export performance. Furthermore, the empirical results show that export experience and export commitment reduce managers' perceived internal and external export barriers. The study shows that matching, as a networking-tool at multiple levels, can help to overcome export barriers, thus providing a mechanism to offset challenges opened up through nationalistic policies.     

Environmental Policy in a Green Market

This paper studies the impact of some frequently-used environmental policies in a duopolistic market where purchasers are willing to pay more for less polluting goods. When consumers differ in their environmental awareness, a cleaner and a dirtier variant coexist in equilibrium. The higher the average willingness-to-pay for the good, the lower are variants' unit emissions but the higher are industrial aggregate effluents. A maximum unit emission standard reduces unit emissions of both variants, but boosts firms' sales and consequently increases industrial aggregate emissions. As a result, social welfare may be reduced. We also explore the effects of technological subsidies and product charges, including differentiation of charges.     

The operation of the Mexican banking system under foreign multinational corporations’ control: new activities and traditional income

This paper discusses the operation of banks in developing economies dominated by foreign multinational corporations (FMCs), and argues that banks have acquired new activities without drastically modifying the composition of their income. This discussion takes place in the light of the profound changes in financial systems that have modified the linkages between banks, capital markets, businesses and households, during the period of globalization and financialization. The main argument of this paper is that although foreign multinational corporations have become dominant in developing countries, and bank activities have diversified, the multinational corporations of the banking sector still rely on interest margins, particularly from consumer credit. This is explained in terms of specific bank credit activities that operate under oligopolistic structures, a condition that has not being modified by foreign multinational corporations’ dominance in developing banking markets.     

Steady states,stability and bifurcations in multi-asset market models

We provide a full analytical treatment of a multi-asset market model in which speculators have the choice between two risky and one safe asset. As it turns out, the dynamics of our model is driven by a four-dimensional nonlinear map and may undergo a transcritical, flip or Neimark–Sacker bifurcation. While the first bifurcation is associated with an undervaluation of the risky assets, the latter two may trigger (complex) endogenous dynamics. To facilitate our analysis, we first study a simpler two-dimensional setup of our model in which speculators can only switch between one risky and one safe asset.     

Gender policy and female employment: a CGE model for Italy

The gender integration in all areas of policy choices and at all stages of the decision-making process is strongly recommended by the European Union and represents an achievement that the Member States should accomplish when implementing policy measures. In a country like Italy, where the level of female labour participation is among the lowest in Europe, policy maker decisions should encourage and stimulate the demand for female labour without neglecting the global employment rate and income growth. The multisectoral analysis offers the possibility to bridge gender disaggregation within income formation and distribution from the production phase to the demand formation. In this perspective, this paper develops a gender-aware CGE model based on the gender-aware SAM for the Italian economy to evaluate the impact of different fiscal policies aimed to reduce female labour cost and trigger woman hiring in those sectors with high gender disparity.     

You can't be what you can't see: The role of gender in the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship

In this paper, we investigate how the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship varies between sons and daughters and whether such a process depends on living in a country characterized by a high gender gap. Using the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe data set, we find that the effect on daughters' entrepreneurial choices of having an entrepreneur as father is lower than the one on sons only in countries with a high gender gap. Moreover, it is just in countries with high gender inequality that the effect of having an entrepreneurial mother is different between sons and daughters, with the impact being positive for daughters only. We also develop an individual-level indicator of gender gap within countries that corroborates our findings, which we interpret as evidence of the presence of a role-modeling mechanism. However, we find evidence of convergence across time of the intergenerational transmission process to the gender-independent transfer typical of more gender-equal countries.