The value of local political connections in a low-corruption environment

We use exogenous changes in Danish local municipality sizes to identify a large positive effect of political power on the profitability of firms related by family to local politicians. Our difference-in-differences estimate is consistent with a unitary elasticity of connected firms’ performance to political power (as measured by population per elected politician). Increasing power boosts firms’ operating returns, especially in industries relying heavily on public demand. Focusing on arguably the world's least corrupt country, we highlight the importance of corporate rent seeking at local governmental levels, which account for nearly half of total public expenditures.     

CEO Succession Mechanisms,Organizational Context,and Performance: A Socio‐Emotional Wealth Perspective on Family‐Controlled Firms

This article extends the literature on CEO succession and financial performance by addressing corporate owners' mixed motives and desires to protect their interest in being in business. We draw on a Socio‐Emotional Wealth (SEW) perspective to investigate how the choice of one of three succession mechanisms – relay succession, ‘horse races’ among internal CEO candidates, and hiring from outside – may effectively balance trade‐offs between corporate owners' non‐financial SEW motives and the firm's financial performance. We find that implementing one of these succession mechanisms reduces the negative impact that typically characterizes CEO transitions in family firms. We also show that family presence on the board of directors offsets the benefits of having selected these balancing succession mechanisms, in either placing too much emphasis on SEW, or creating negative dynamics that make the chosen succession mechanisms less effective.     

Functional separability within a quadratic inverse demand system

In this paper, a quadratic inverse (almost ideal) demand system (IQUAIDS) is derived, that generalizes the inverse (almost ideal) demand system (IAIDS). Starting from a flexible parameterization of the distance function, this model allows a more flexible specification by overcoming the potential restrictiveness of linear scale curves. However, at a point of normalization, the IQUAIDS boils down to the IAIDS, thus the additional flexibility pertains only to the specification of scale elasticities away from the point of approximation. Previous work on functional separability is extended to the case of inverse demands, and necessary and sufficient conditions for weak separability of the direct and indirect utility function derived, in terms of the Antonelli elasticities of complementarity and of the scale elasticities. Their proper parametric representation within the inverse specification is also derived. An empirical application to fish demand in Italy is provided, mainly for illustrative purposes.     

Empirical issues in the computation of Stone–Lewbel price indexes in censored micro-level demand systems

In this article, we propose an empirical method for the computation of the Stone–Lewbel (SL) price index for product aggregates, when censored samples with zero expenditures are available from household budget surveys. The proposed technique is based on a regression imputation method that takes into account the price dynamics, therefore, allowing to disentangle the role of demographics from the role of prices in computing the SL index. Our simulations seem to indicate that our method is a valuable alternative.     

Inequality and Union Membership: The Influence of Relative Earnings and Inequality Attitudes

Using surveys from the International Social Survey Programme covering the period 1985–2002 for seven European countries (West and East Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Great Britain), we examine the effect of relative earnings on union membership and show that union density is higher among workers in the intermediate earnings group than among low or high earners. Next, we examine the association of inequality attitudes with union membership and demonstrate that union membership is not only motivated by instrumental considerations related to relative earnings, but also by normative concerns about inequality. We interpret our findings suggesting that rising earnings inequality is in itself a source of union decline.     

University-Business Cooperation in Education： Real and Perceived Performances

The purpose of this paper is to describe and demonstrate the validity of a methodology to distinguish, in the performances of high education institutions （HEIs）, real from perceived performances. The extension of accountability to the evaluation of educational programs involves significant topics concerning the gap between perceived and real performances. It means that, since many actors such as teachers, students, and external stakeholders are involved in the process, the research on methodologies to distinguish subjective from objective parameters is still on the floor. Debate about performance evaluation in this collaboration is still in progress particularly as it concerns the proposal of several parameters and indexes to quantify the topic and reduce the subjectivism in the assessment and the gap between real and perceived performances. After describing and discussing an evaluation model based on three interdependent typologies of indexes, this will be tested in two Tempus projects having the purpose of activating Ph.D. and masters courses. The results encourage deepening researches in this direction and disseminating this methodology and extending and enriching the validation process.     

Imported Intermediate Inputs and Firms’ Productivity Growth: Evidence from the Food Industry

Imported goods play a central role in determining the gains from trade. Using detailed trade and firm‐level data for Italy and France, we investigate the relationship between trade integration, imported intermediate inputs and firm performance in the food industry. Our main findings show that an increase in import competition spurs firm‐level productivity growth. Furthermore, the productivity growth effect attributable to imported intermediate inputs is significantly stronger than the effect due to imported final products. In addition, we find that new imported inputs are of particular importance, especially for Italian food firms, though less so for the French firms. Finally, the productivity growth effect of trade integration tends to be asymmetric across firms: more productive firms gain more from trade integration. These stylised facts have interesting policy implications.