Incomplete markets, labor supply and capital accumulation

Endogenous labor supply decisions are introduced in an equilibrium model of limited insurance against idiosyncratic shocks. Unlike in the standard case with exogenous labor (e.g. [Aiyagari, S.R., 1994. Uninsured idiosyncratic risk and aggregate saving. Quarterly Journal of Economics 109, 659-684; Huggett, M., 1997. The one-sector growth model with idiosyncratic shocks: steady states and dynamics. Journal of Monetary Economics 39, 385-403]), labor supply is likely to be lower than under complete markets. This is due to an ex post wealth effect on labor supply (rich productive agents work fewer hours) that runs counter the precautionary savings motive. As a result, equilibrium savings and output may be lower under incomplete markets. It is also found that long-run savings remain finite even when the interest rate equals the inverse of the discount factor.     

Code and conduct in French cuisine: Impact of code changes on external evaluations

We study the effects of organizational code‐preserving and code‐violating changes on external evaluations by third parties—an essential but under‐studied strategic outcome. We define code‐preserving changes as a variation in the firm's product range that preserves the social code within which the firm positions its offering. By contrast, a code‐violating change corresponds to a variation in the product range that breaks with past codes and embraces another social code. Our analyses of French haute cuisine restaurants show that code‐preserving changes and code‐violating changes have positive effects on external evaluations. Both effects decline with prior evaluations received by the organization, but only the effect of code‐violating changes is reduced with age. Moreover, external evaluations improve when restaurants undertake more code‐preserving changes than their direct competitors but decline when they make more code‐violating changes than competitors. These results enable us to derive implications for research on strategic change, strategic groups, and strategic social positioning. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Competition and productivity growth in South Africa

This article shows that mark‐ups are significantly higher in South African manufacturing industries than they are in corresponding industries worldwide. We test for the consequences of this low‐level of product market competition on productivity growth. The results of the paper are that high mark‐ups have a large negative impact on productivity growth in South African manufacturing industry. Our results are robust to three different data sources, two alternative measures of productivity growth, and three distinct measures of the mark‐up. Controlling for potential endogeneity of regressors does not eliminate the findings.     

Mixed bundling auctions

We study multi-object auctions where agents have private and additive valuations for heterogeneous objects. We focus on the revenue properties of a class of dominant strategy mechanisms where a weight is assigned to each partition of objects. The weights influence the probability with which partitions are chosen in the mechanism. This class contains efficient auctions, pure bundling auctions, mixed bundling auctions, auctions with reserve prices and auctions with pre-packaged bundles. For any number of objects and bidders, both the pure bundling auction and separate, efficient auctions for the single objects are revenue-inferior to an auction that involves mixed bundling.     

Research in marketing in Europe: Some reflections on its setting,accomplishments and challenges

In this paper we present some reflections on the development and state of research in marketing in Europe. After briefly putting European research in a historical perspective, we devote a major section to discussing the institutional setting in which research takes place. We believe that the institutional setting is a crucial determinant of research. We then discuss numumber of European research accomplishments. We essentially limit ourselves to marketing models and industrial marketing, our own major areas of interest. In the final section we list some challenges for the future and discuss how they could be turned into opportunities.     

Exchange rate volatility and productivity growth: The role of financial development

The vast empirical exchange rate literature finds the effect of exchange rate volatility on real activity to be small or insignificant. In contrast, this paper offers empirical evidence that real exchange rate volatility can have a significant impact on productivity growth. However, the effect depends critically on a country's level of financial development. The results appear robust to time window, alternative measures of financial development and exchange rate volatility, and outliers. We also offer a simple monetary growth model in which real exchange rate uncertainty exacerbates the negative investment effects of domestic credit market constraints.     

Pareto-Improving Social Security Reform

It is generally accepted that moving from an unfunded to a funded social security system implies a welfare loss for the transition generation—that is, the generation that has to pay twice: first, saving for its own retirement and, second, contributing to the pensions of the then retired generation. This article shows that in a setting of endogenous growth with positive externality such a transition can be Pareto improving. But it argues also that social security reform is more a pretext than a requirement for internalizing such a positive externality.