The impact of entrepreneurship on economic,social and environmental welfare and its determinants: a systematic review

Management Review Quarterly - This paper presents a systematic review of (a) the impact of entrepreneurship on economic, social and environmental welfare and (b) the factors determining this...     

Pension regulation and the market value of pension liabilities: A contingent claims analysis using Parisian options

We analyze the market-consistent valuation of pension liabilities in a contingent claim framework whereby a knock-out barrier feature is applied to capture early regulatory closure of a pension plan. We investigate two cases which we call “immediate closure procedure” and “delayed closure procedure”. In an immediate closure procedure, when the assets value hits the regulatory boundary, the pension plan is terminated immediately. Whereas in a delayed closure procedure, a grace period is given to the pension fund for reorganization and recovery before premature closure is executed. The framework is then used to construct fair pension deals. Furthermore, we provide rules for deriving the optimal recovery period in pension regulation using utility analysis and interconnect the recovery period to the regulatory liquidation probability.     

Ex ante governance decisions in inter-organizational relationships: A case study in the airline industry

This paper discusses the theory behind ex ante governance decisions in inter-organizational relationships and uses an explanatory case study involving an inter-firm relationship between two European airlines to empirically assess the theoretical propositions. The case study complements existing literature by providing a comprehensive explanation of opportunism-based ex ante governance decisions. It deconstructs opportunism, links such behavior to unique governance responses and discusses the ex post effects of ex ante governance decisions in light of the necessary development of trust and relational governance mechanisms. In this context, it also takes account of differences in bargaining power between the two partners and examines the “control strategy” employed by the dominant partner. The paper offers further insights into the influence of bargaining power on governance decisions by illustrating how cooperating partners can address ex ante power differences. An interesting finding from this case study is the fact that the more powerful of the two partners deliberately relinquished the advantages associated with its ex ante privileged position. It accepted a governance structure that virtually equalized positions to motivate its weaker partner to participate and stimulate the development of trust.     

Comparing inequality aversion across countries when labor supply responses differ

We analyze to which extent social inequality aversion differs across nations when controlling for actual country differences in labor supply responses. Towards this aim, we estimate labor supply elasticities at both extensive and intensive margins for 17 EU countries and the US. Using the same data, inequality aversion is measured as the degree of redistribution implicit in current tax-benefit systems, when these systems are deemed optimal. We find relatively small differences in labor supply elasticities across countries. However, this changes the cross-country ranking in inequality aversion compared to scenarios following the standard approach of using uniform elasticities. Differences in redistributive views are significant between three groups of nations. Labor supply responses are systematically larger at the extensive margin and often larger for the lowest earnings groups, exacerbating the implicit Rawlsian views for countries with traditional social assistance programs. Given the possibility that labor supply responsiveness was underestimated at the time these programs were implemented, we show that such wrong perceptions would lead to less pronounced and much more similar levels of inequality aversion.     

Corporate Focus and Stock Performance International Evidence from Listed Property Markets

Does corporate focus translate into superior stock performance? We use 17 years of international data on 275 property companies from the U.S., British, French, Dutch and Swedish listed property share markets to answer this question. After analyzing corporate structures, we document significant differences in corporate focus strategies both between nations and firms and over time. By linking these focus profiles to risk-adjusted performance measures, we show that companies with high levels of geographical focus perform significantly better than the overall market. With regard to industrial focus, our results are mixed but again imply a positive relationship between corporate focus and stock outperformance. At the same time, our results show that the firm-specific risk of a company increases with higher levels of corporate focus. Hence, our results imply that within the real estate sector a focused strategy mildly increases both a firm’s return and risk.