Public Credit Guarantee Schemes and SMEs’ Profitability: Evidence from Italy

The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the Italian State Credit Guarantee Scheme (Central Guarantee Fund). The paper analyzes the impact of the program on SMEs’ profitability considering the firm size and sector. The analysis is performed using propensity‐score matching estimators and the Difference in Differences regressions on a proprietary sample of about 38,000 SMEs in the period 2007–2009. Overall, the Central Guarantee Fund generated an increase in the profitability of guaranteed firms during the period of economic downturn. However, significant differences emerged across firms by size and sector. The effect is positive and robust only for micro‐ and small‐sized firms, and the most relevant improvement in the profitability is recorded for firms operating in the manufacturing sector. This implies that more customized programs are necessary to reach a higher value for money in entrepreneurial policies.     

Reshoring: Does home country matter?

The role of the country, either home or host, in firms' internationalization has been widely analysed in the International Business field. A large number of studies have shown that home country shapes many aspects of firms' internationalization processes such as investment decisions, location selections, and entry modes. However, these studies mainly focus on the firms' foreign expansion. Little is known about the relations between firms’ home country and reshoring processes. This paper aims to analyse whether and how reshoring projects are different across countries, thereby further exploring the underlying home country-related factors contributing to reshoring peculiarities. By using a dataset including 529 cross-industry reshoring projects developed by companies headquartered in five countries (i.e., US, Germany, UK, France, and Italy), the study shows that these projects differ in terms of industry, entry mode, firm size and motivations. Thus, reshoring turns out to be a phenomenon where each country has its own peculiarities. The research further sheds light on the possible institutional, cultural/cognitive and industry/resource-related factors underlying these specificities.This study contributes to both reshoring and international business literature by highlighting how reshoring differs across countries. It also provides policy and managerial implications, at a time when several governments are considering the economic and employment potential of this phenomenon.     

Offshoring and backshoring: A multiple case study analysis

Motivations underscoring offshoring and backshoring are typically investigated as separate entities in the academic literature. This separation undermines a deeper comprehension of the two phenomena, and implicitly denies the conceptualization of backshoring as a possible step of the firm internationalization process. Our paper seeks to fill this gap by (1) understanding the relations (if any) among offshoring and backshoring motivations at firm level; (2) exploring whether backshoring is a “failure” of the offshoring initiative, or rather the evolution of the firm's competitive and location strategies. A content-based literature review provides the base for the identification of the key motives for offshoring and backshoring, which are then organised using a theory-grounded framework. Next, we conduct a multiple case study analysis based on four companies, searching for common patterns in offshoring and subsequent backshoring initiatives. Cases allow understanding how the motivations (Why) connect with the governance modes (How), and the location choice (Where). Building on the case findings, the paper presents some propositions for future empirical research.     

Monetary Policy with Parameter Uncertainty in Small-Open Economy

This paper computes optimal robust monetary policy in a new Keynesian small-open economy model with Knightian uncertainty about the degree of price stickiness and the elasticity of substitution between domestic and foreign goods. Due to the simple model structure used in the paper, I can derive analytical results for the min–max solution under discretion and assess how a robust optimal Taylor rule must be set in small-open economy. I find that, in an optimal robust discretionary equilibrium, the central bank should assume that the degree of price stickiness and the elasticity of substitution between domestic and foreign goods take on their highest numerical values. In terms of interest rate setting, if the optimal discretionary robust equilibrium is implemented with a Taylor rule, the policy rate should react to inflation in a less aggressive way than in the case of complete information.     

Nanomarketing: A New Frontier for Neuromarketing

The emergence of neuromarketing has significantly advanced conventional marketing research, illuminating how unconscious responses and emotions impact consumers’ perceptions and decision‐making processes. Neuromarketing is founded on the assumption that individual sensory and motor systems can be identified in specific networks of brain cells, the observation of which can reveal the unconscious or emotional characteristics of consumer decision making. Yet, neuromarketing technologies present several limitations that can impede the extension and validation of their application: (i) the development of high‐priced and time‐restricted neuroimaging experiments; (ii) the employment of large and immovable devices confined to artificial laboratory environments; (iii) the use of a single neuroimaging technology at a time (usually the functional magnetic resonance imaging); (iv) the use of a single nonneuroimaging device at a time; and (v) the potentially unethical manipulation of research subjects. One way to address these issues involves nanotechnologies, which present a ground‐breaking opportunity for neuromarketing research. These technologies encompass not only the traditional notion of structures, devices, and systems created by limiting shape and size at the nanometer scale, but also the new miniaturized tools based on one or more nanocomponents. The integration of neuromarketing and nanotechnologies could start a new field of research, which is termed here nanomarketing. Nanomarketing makes it possible to: (i) carry out noninvasive and nonintrusive experiments in shopping places; (ii) monitor consumers’ mental processes in real time; (iii) combine different technologies to corroborate results obtained by different neuroscientific tools; (iv) integrate neurophysiological field indicators with laboratory neuroimaging results; and (v) highlight ethical issues raised by the use of these novel, portable, and easy‐to‐use nanodevices. This study thus has a twofold aim: (i) investigating both the limitations and opportunities, for researchers and practitioners, that accompany the miniaturization process and application of nanotechnologies to neuromarketing; and (ii) providing a critical review of the aforementioned limitations, highlighting the theoretical and managerial implications, and summarizing the discussion for future research.     

New-structuralist exchange-rate policy and the pattern of specialization in Latin American countries

The present article critically examines the transmission channels from real exchange rate undervaluation to output growth adduced by New-Structuralism (NS). To this end, we slightly modify new-structuralist canonical model for small open peripheral economies, and make the underlying productive structure depend on income distribution. This allows us both to discuss: (a) the limits of the transmission channels adduced by NS in their own terms, that is, under the assumption that the tradable sector is the modern sector; and (b) the further limitations of these channels when the pattern of trade is more suitable to characterize Latin American countries, whose tradable sector mainly exports primary goods under conditions of differential rent. We conclude that the channels work under highly restrictive assumptions, and therefore the alleged positive relationship between real exchange rate and growth cannot be generally ascertained.     

Technology Foresight in Companies: From an Indicator to a Network and Process Perspective

Technology foresight is an important activity in companies to meet the challenges of a fast changing environment. The understanding and the concepts of technology foresight have changed during the last decades. Three generations of technology foresight are developed in this paper. In the third generation, technology foresight is an integrated part of strategic management, process-oriented, need- and value-driven and network-dominated. Although this model represents practices in companies, not all elements are included in one firm. This paper is based on interviews in large multinational corporations and a review of the literature.     

Network valuation in financial systems

We introduce a general model for the balance‐sheet consistent valuation of interbank claims within an interconnected financial system. Our model represents an extension of clearing models of interdependent liabilities to account for the presence of uncertainty on banks' external assets. At the same time, it also provides a natural extension of classic structural credit risk models to the case of an interconnected system. We characterize the existence and uniqueness of a valuation that maximizes individual and total equity values for all banks. We apply our model to the assessment of systemic risk and in particular for the case of stress testing. Further, we provide a fixed‐point algorithm to carry out the network valuation and the conditions for its convergence.