Something old and something new: comparing views about nanotechnology and nuclear energy

This paper provides a review and evaluation of different food‐risk prioritization and management frameworks that have been developed by governmental food‐safety authorities, regulatory agencies and non‐governmental institutions worldwide. It emphasizes the need for a new science‐ and risk‐based system approach to microbial risk prioritization. We find that most studies and projects argue for a systematic and multi‐disciplinary approach to risk prioritization but nevertheless lack it. Human and public health issues have constituted the core focus of food‐risk analysis in food‐borne risk prioritization studies, where the majority of studies use the concept of disease burden. Even though it is widely recognized that economic and market‐level impacts of microbial hazards and preventive interventions to reduce food‐borne risks are crucial to the performance of industries and markets, they are almost never accounted for in risk prioritization frameworks.     

The value of commuting time in an empirical on-the-job search model – an application based on moments from two samples

This article estimates the Value of Commuting Time (VOCT) among Swedish males in an empirical on-the-job search model. It uses a large sample of employee-establishment linked data obtained from administrative registers. The sample lacks information on mode choice for the journey to work. We therefore estimate a mode choice model on another sample and use this model to link the administrative data to the relevant set of travel times, costs and distances. The VOCT is found to be 1.8 times the net hourly wage rate in the sample. The relatively high estimate results from a high VOCT among cohabiting men.     

An asset protection scheme for banks exposed to troubled loan portfolios

We examine a specific portfolio credit derivative, an Asset Protection Scheme (APS), and its applicability as a discretionary regulatory tool to reduce asymmetric information and help restore the capital base of troubled banks. The APS can be a fair-valued contract with an appropriate structure of incentives. We apply two alternative multivariate structural default risk models: the classical Gaussian Merton model and a model based on Normal Inverse Gaussian processes. Using a data set on annual farm level data from 1996 to 2009, we use the Danish agricultural sector as a case study and price an APS on an agricultural loan portfolio. We compute the economic capital for this loan portfolio with and without an APS. Moreover, we illustrate how model risk in the form of parameter uncertainty is reduced when an APS is attached to the loan portfolio.     

Does best practice HRM only work for intrinsically motivated employees?

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between perception of multiple best practice HRM and employee outcomes. Four cross-sectional surveys from different Norwegian service organizations of a total of 838 employees showed that several relationships between perceived empowerment and perceived information sharing and employee outcomes were moderated by intrinsic motivation. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.     

Antecedents and Employee Outcomes of Line Managers' Perceptions of Enabling HR Practices

To learn more about the role of line managers in the implementation of HR practices, we propose and test a model of line managers' perceptions of enabling HR practices on the one hand and employee outcomes on the other. In a field study of 89 line managers and 631 employees, we observed that the relationship between line managers' perceptions of enabling HR practices and employees' intrinsic motivation, affective organizational commitment, and turnover intention was mediated by employees' perceived supervisor support. Line managers' perceptions of enabling HR practices, in turn, were predicted by line managers' perceived quality of the HR training they received. Theoretical and practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Forecasting performances of three automated modelling techniques during the economic crisis 2007–2009

In this work we consider the forecasting of macroeconomic variables during an economic crisis. The focus is on a specific class of models, the so-called single hidden-layer feed-forward autoregressive neural network models. What makes these models interesting in the present context is the fact that they form a class of universal approximators and may be expected to work well during exceptional periods such as major economic crises. Neural network models are often difficult to estimate, and we follow the idea of White (2006) of transforming the specification and nonlinear estimation problem into a linear model selection and estimation problem. To this end, we employ three automatic modelling devices. One of them is White’s QuickNet, but we also consider Autometrics, which is well known to time series econometricians, and the Marginal Bridge Estimator, which is better known to statisticians. The performances of these three model selectors are compared by looking at the accuracy of the forecasts of the estimated neural network models. We apply the neural network model and the three modelling techniques to monthly industrial production and unemployment series from the G7 countries and the four Scandinavian ones, and focus on forecasting during the economic crisis 2007–2009. The forecast accuracy is measured using the root mean square forecast error. Hypothesis testing is also used to compare the performances of the different techniques.     

The cause of Danish unemployment: Demand or supply shocks?

We study the Danish unemployment experience 1905–92 using a common trends model with cointegration constraints. To justify the identifying assumptions about the cointegration vectors and the common trends we present a simple macroeconomic model of the labor market. The model determines the long run behavior of labor productivity, employment, unemployment, real product and real consumer wages. The empirical results give support for three cointegration relations and two common trends. Based on the economic model the trends are interpreted as representing labor productivity (technology) and labor supply. With unemployment being nonstationary, the common trends analysis indicates that labor supply shocks is the primary source for explaining the behavior of unemployment. First Version Received: August 1999/Final Version Received: June 2000     

Factors of electric vehicle adoption: A comparison of conventional and electric car users based on an extended theory of planned behavior

Increasing the share of battery electric vehicles (BEV) in the total car fleet is regarded as a promising way to reduce local car emissions. Based on online surveys in Denmark and Sweden, this study compares BEV users' (n = 673) and conventional vehicle (CV) users' (n = 1794) socio-demographic profiles, attitudinal profiles, and mobility patterns. In line with previous research, BEV users are typically male, highly educated, have high incomes, and often more than one car in their household. Additionally, BEV users perceive less functional barriers toward BEV use and have more positive attitudes and norms than CV users. The different profiles of these user groups suggest a separate analysis of potential factors of BEV adoption in both groups. In regression analyses, CV and BEV users' intention to use/purchase a BEV is modeled based on factors of the Theory of Planned Behavior extended by personal norm, perceived mobility necessities, and BEV experience. For CV users, symbolic attitudes related to BEVs are the most important factor of intention, while perceived functional barriers in terms of driving range are most relevant for BEV users' intention. How BEV users cope with trips of longer distance seems of particular relevance. In multiple car households, we found the percentage of actual BEV usage related to the type of other cars in the household, perceived functional barriers of BEVs as well as (successful) behavioral adaption to longer trips by BEVs. Based on the results, we discuss ways to increase BEV adoption for current users and non-users.     

Career success schemas and their contextual embeddedness: A comparative configurational perspective

We introduce career success schemas as critical for understanding how people in different contexts perceive and understand career success. Using a comparative configurational approach, we show, in a study of 13 countries, that two structural characteristics of career success schemas—complexity and convergence—differ across country contexts and are embedded in specific configurations of institutional factors. Adopting complexity and convergence as primary dimensions, we propose a taxonomy of career success schemas at the country level. Based on this taxonomy, we contribute to the understanding of subjective career success across countries, discuss the importance of schemas for organisational career systems in multinational enterprises, and propose specific guidelines for future comparative careers research.     

A Socio-Dynamic Understanding of Markets

A bstract    Economic sociology furthers a healthy alternative to price-theory–oriented economics as it sets out to remedy the invisibility of the market within the latter. There is, however, no doubt that such a market-oriented sociology is still in its infancy, given among other issues its inability to shoulder market change. The void thus recognized opens up the potential for a market idea with both social and dynamic properties. There is good reason to believe that such an endeavor would benefit from the constructive blending of economic sociology and Austrian economics. This paper argues that such a "socio-Austrian" connection is in the position to enrich the socioeconomic discourse in general and its market conception in particular.