John R. Commons and Government as Employer of Last Resort: Three Paths to a Progressive Right to Work

Abstract:

Today in the United States, a number of congressional Democrats endorse proposals that would establish a job guarantee for all Americans seeking work. Arguments for such a policy can be traced back at least to the work of John R. Commons, one of the first institutional economists. This article demonstrates that there are actually three arguments in Commons’s scholarship that provide a case for government to hire the unemployed by serving as employer of last resort. These arguments, each highlighted at a different point in Commons’s career, can be viewed in turn as legal, financial, and historical paths to public provision of work for the jobless—government employment that Commons considered part of “the right to work.” The article traces each path, highlighting insight that remains relevant and calling for greater attention to Common’s writings as a way to reclaim the right to work as a progressive cause.     

Business Cycles Around the Globe: Some Key Facts

We document massive heterogeneity in basic cyclical patterns within groups of developed and emerging market economies. While we detect marked differences between developed and emerging countries as well, the distributions of key business cycle statistics tend to overlap across different country groups.     

The ties that bind: Bank relationships and small business lending

The importance of bank relationships for small firms’ ability to raise external finance is well-documented, yet the mechanism through which relationships improve access to capital markets has received little empirical attention. This paper uses hand-collected, proprietary data from a mid-sized bank in the United States to identify the channels that strengthen the relationship between a small business and its bank. In contrast to earlier work that focuses on the role of relationships in alleviating information and incentive problems in lending, I find that the source of value in relationship banking is not limited to enhanced monitoring. Exploiting a unique feature of this dataset, I examine two channels of relationship strength that directly measure the stream of non-lending profits generated from (1) the non-credit services cross-sold to the borrower, and (2) the additional bank clients referred by the borrower. I document that non-lending profitability empirically determines the risk-adjusted terms of lending. In models of loan price that already include both the bank’s proprietary risk rating and traditional risk proxies, non-lending profits significantly improve explanatory power and account for up to half of the total explained variation. Conditional on risk profile, a one-standard deviation increase in aggregate non-lending profits lowers the loan interest rate by 32 basis points and increases access to credit by 26%.     

人力资本、营商环境优化与外资企业创新——兼论引智的重要性

在营商环境优化成为培育引资及引技竞争新优势的背景下，考察发展中国家的营商环境优化对外资企业创新意愿的影响以及外资企业人力资本的调节效应。研究表明：营商环境优化降低了外资企业进行技术创新、流程创新和产品创新的意愿，且平均边际效应依次增强；内在机制是营商环境优化带来的外资企业特惠度降低和内资企业竞争力增强；外资企业的人力资本增强了营商环境优化对其创新意愿的降低作用，且是通过增强外资企业特惠度、降低抑制其创新意愿以及营商环境优化促进内资企业竞争力的方式实现的。进一步发现，外资企业的引智具有显著的创新溢出效应，且内资企业的吸收能力存在积极的调节效应。     

Entrepreneurial ecosystems

International business fundamentally is about creating an ecosystem environment conducive to entrepreneurship. This means fostering actions and behavior that provide a systemic interaction with multiple entities. In this editorial for the special journal issue, the historical background and origins of the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept is discussed with the view to connected different strands of literature. This provides an optimal way to understand the way entrepreneurship develops through an ecosystem logic. The theoretical perspectives for understanding entrepreneurial ecosystems are discussed that lead to a discussion on each of the articles included in the special journal issue. Themes emerging from these articles are then stated that include a focus on value co‐creation, stakeholder collaboration and entrepreneurial networks. This enables a holistic way to understand the linkages international business has with entrepreneurial ecosystems.     

Net-zero emission targets and the role of managerial environmental awareness,customer pressure,and regulatory control toward environmental performance

To avoid the worst effects of global warming, countries agreed to limit warming below 2.0°C and ideally to 1.5°C preindustrial level. This requires countries to drop half of their greenhouse gas emission by 2030 and reach net-zero emission by 2050. In this regard, current study explores the role of green production as a mediator in the impact of managerial environmental awareness, customer pressure, and regulatory control on environmental performance. The data collected from 381 managers was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. Results indicate that customer pressure, regulatory control, and managerial environmental awareness play a pivotal role toward green production, whereas only managerial environmental awareness among them directly influences environmental performance. Green production fully mediates the relationship from customer pressure and regulatory control to environmental performance. However, it partially mediates the relation between managerial environmental awareness and environmental performance. Similarly, the importance of green production for environmental performance is highlighted.     

关于新经济形势下我国工商管理的现状分析

随着我国市场经济机制改革范围与规模的不断扩大,工商管理部门的各项管理工作内容发生了一定的变化,随之产生了许多的问题。新经济形势下,工商管理部门应该从我国市场经济发展现状出发,探寻更有效地解决对策,进一步完善工商管理手段。论文主要对我国新经济形势下工商管理的现状进行分析,并对其中存在的一些问题进行思考,分析解决对策,希望能够改善我国工商管理部门的管理效果。     

Female franchisees; a lost opportunity for franchising sector growth?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate why female franchisees are under-represented in franchise ownership. A qualitative approach was adopted using a collective, instrumental case study of 30 female franchisees. A number of different types of influences were identified in the literature and then elucidated and assessed. It was found that push and pull factors, work–family life balance, franchising sector characteristics and external influences act as variable incentives and disincentives among female franchisees’ selection of the franchise business model with different levels of risk-taking propensity. The marketing efforts of franchises would be more effective if the way in which the identified influences that impinge on the selection of the franchise business model informed the prospecting of potential female franchisees. A further need is identified for franchises to adjust their recruitment programmes to reflect the variable effect of incentives and disincentives at different levels of capital investment. Limited research specifically examines the selection of the franchise business model by female franchisees with various levels of risk-taking propensity and identifies the nature of influences that act as incentives and/or disincentives on that selection decision.     

基于人工神经网络的互联网公司估值方法研究

资本市场认为互联网公司市值的驱动因素应包括盈利因子、运营因子、流量因子和协同因子。将协同效应指标考虑到公司估值体系中,意图构造互联网公司优化估值模型。使用美股上市的互联网企业数据建立了评价指标体系,通过因子分析实现了二级指标降维,通过实证分析确认了四个因子与公司市值的相关关系,最后构建了基于人工神经网络BP算法的互联网公司估值模型,通过预测数据的检验发现模型的准确度较高。随着2018年互联网公司美股上市潮的持续,该模型能有效为资本市场估值提供参考。     

基于业财融合的铁路运输企业全面预算管理体系研究

随着铁路运输企业不断深化改革和转型升级,作为企业财务管理有效工具之一的全面预算管理也应适应经济发展而不断优化。以业财融合为出发点,结合我国铁路运输企业的经营业务和预算管理的研究现状,对预算管理指标体系进行了总体分析及结构设计,构建了“国铁集团—路局—基层站段”三级次的预算指标模型,并设计了国铁集团到路局层面以及路局到站段层面的闭环式预算编制流程,健全和完善了相应的预算管理流程和责任分工。