The evolution of mobile communications in Europe: The transition from the second to the third generation

This paper analyses the evolution of the mobile communications industry in the European Union. The research focuses its interest on the different roles played by the regulator in Europe and in other regions of the world (mainly the US). The diffusion of GSM was extraordinarily fast in Europe, mainly due to the adoption of a unified standard from inception. This rapid diffusion has resulted in an important competitive advantage for European operators. Interestingly, while the regulator acted similarly in the case of UMTS, the development of the latter has faced many problems and, presently, its diffusion is still low (about 5% in the EU). The paper also offers basic information on market structure that may be useful for extracting some preliminary conclusions about the degree of rivalry within the industry and the differences that can be observed between European countries.     

Legal rights,national culture and social networks: Exploring the uneven adoption of United Nations Global Compact

We develop and test a novel framework for explaining cross-country differences in corporate participation in a prominent initiative often associated with social responsibility, United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). Drawing upon neo-institutional and cross-country comparative literatures, we explore the impact of (a) stakeholder legal rights; (b) national culture, and (c) the country's social network position, as reflected by international trade patterns. Results suggest that firms from countries with strong labor rights, collectivist cultures, and long traditions of stock trading join UNGC at higher rates. Our framework can be modified for future cross-country research on the adoption of practices.     

How Well Have Social Economy Financial Institutions Performed During the Crisis Period? Exploring Financial and Social Efficiency in Spanish Credit Unions

As Social Economy financial institutions, credit unions have traditionally been considered less efficient than traditional banking entities. However, like banks and savings banks, they have to be as efficient and competitive as possible to survive in today’s business environment, especially at times of crisis. To date, there have been very few studies on their efficiency and practically none for the crisis period. Moreover, almost all the existing studies assess only financial efficiency, without considering their social function. This study examines the levels of both financial and social efficiency in Spanish credit unions as well as their main determinants during the recent crisis. We apply the two-stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology based on panel data corresponding to all the credit unions active in Spain between 2008 and 2013. The empirical results indicate that financial and social efficiency achieved an acceptable level, although on average the former was slightly greater than the latter. We also find that both age and merger and acquisition activity were positively influential on the financial efficiency of credit unions but had a significant negative effect on their social efficiency. Moreover, the regional location of such entities and the financial crisis were also crucial determinants of both types of efficiency. Our findings are therefore useful for all the stakeholders of credit unions to know if these entities have been efficient according to a double bottom line accounting in the crisis period and hence to maintain successful social management that is compatible with satisfactory financial efficiency.     

New Work Forms: How to Integrate Them in Our Social Insurances

The increase in the group of atypical workers means that their social security protection needs reviewing. How far should we go in approaching social security for self-employed workers, flex workers, crowd workers and all new employment relationships differently? This will depend on the number of elements in respect to which the atypical employment relationship differs from the established standard: the full-time employee with a permanent employment contract. What we propose is a social security system that is sufficiently flexible in its implementation to give the different groups of workers an equal place and at the same time maintain a financially sustainable social security system providing sufficient social security protection for typical and atypical workers.

     

Constructing an index for comparing human resources management sustainability in Europe

Assuming that a company's institutional context influences its sustainability approach and its human resources management (HRM), this article compares firms' sustainable HRM systems across countries. Despite the presence of a supranational government, different social models exist in Europe according to the level of social protection in each country. The article compares the engagement of companies with sustainable HRM across Europe and develops an index with which to compare HRM sustainability in countries that present significant institutional differences: Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The index is constructed based on a formative measurement model, which reflects the implementation levels of sustainable HRM in 106 western European firms. The index reveals significant differences between companies from the four countries and between liberal and coordinated market economies, indicating the need to address the impact of the national institutional context on firms' HRM sustainability.     

The Financialization of A Social Housing Provider

Why does a social housing provider bet on interest rate fluctuations? This article presents a case study of the financialization of both housing and the state. Social housing in the Netherlands is provided by non‐profit housing associations that have since 1989 been set apart from the state. Many associations started developing housing for profit, borrowing on global capital markets or buying derivatives. Whereas other semi‐public institutions moved into the world of finance due to financial constraints, housing associations did so to capitalize on the possibilities offered by their asset‐rich portfolios. Vestia, the largest of them all, is an extreme––but not exceptional––case of what can happen when public goals are left to be realized by inadequately supervised and poorly managed private organizations. As a result of gambling on derivatives, Vestia had to be bailed out to the tune of over 2 billion euros. To recoup the losses, housing was sold off and rents were raised. Almost half of Dutch housing associations used derivatives, although most refrained from using them purely speculatively. The changes in the housing sector that led to its financialization cannot be separated from the wider financialization of the state.     

Tracking position premiums in discrete choice experiments

Eye-tracking was used to identify potential location ‘premiums’ in discrete choice experiments for certain positions in the computer screen in terms of increasing the visibility, general interest and attention of respondents. The search dynamics to choose the optimal alternative closely resembled the natural process of reading in a ‘Z’ motion going from left to right and top to bottom. An empirical application of water conservation showed that conservation practices in the production process were not statistically different than zero. On the other hand, respondents are interested in water conservation practices in their landscapes where they benefit directly from the sustainable practice.     

Stock volatility and pension funds under an individual capitalization-based system

The existence of feedback effects between volatility and institutional investor holdings has been extensively studied for the United States. This article contributes to the literature by investigating this issue for Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) in Chile. To this end, data on PFAs' holdings is gathered for 42 firms actively traded on the Santiago Stock Exchange during December 2002–July 2008. The main findings of this study are the following. First, an increase in PFAs' stock holdings translates into a mild effect on stock return volatility. Second, an increase in stock return volatility leads to a moderate decrease in PFAs' stock holdings, suggesting PFAs' preference for safer stocks. The key policy implication of these conclusions is that PFAs' stock trading does not have a destabilizing impact on the domestic stock market.     

Nitrate pollution control under soil heterogeneity

This article presents results on measures to abate nitrogen pollution when soil heterogeneity is considered by using a dynamic model of corn production. Several policy options for the control of nitrate pollution are evaluated by their cost efficiency. While results show that a nitrogen standard or tax is a good second-best control instrument, neglecting dynamics may lead to the wrong choice of instrument. Other important findings for the design of nonpoint pollution policy measures are that water pricing, as advocated by the Water Framework Directive, is inefficient as a pollution abatement tool, and differentiating control measures by soil type enhances welfare, although welfare gains may be small.