Did Italy Need More Labour Flexibility?

The dramatic impact of the 2008 crisis on the Italian economy led to policy responses including structural reforms and labour market liberalisation to reverse the worrisome output and employment trends. A key action by the Italian government, the evocatively named Jobs Act of 2014, has deeply changed Italian industrial relations. The Jobs Act has introduced a new contract type that substantially limits workers’ rights to reinstatement in case of fi rms invalidly fi ring them. This article frames the Jobs Act within the overall liberalisation process begun in Italy in the 1990s, providing an initial evaluation of its impacts. Using detailed data sources, we show that the expected boost in employment cannot be detected, the share of temporary contracts over open-ended ones has increased and the number of part-time contracts has risen. This evidence suggests that the Jobs Act is failing to achieve its main goals.     

Intraday volatility in the bond,foreign exchange,and stock index futures markets

Intraday volatility for the Eurodollar, the Euro/dollar foreign exchange rate, and the E‐mini S&P 500 futures contracts traded on a continuous 23‐hour schedule on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Globex electronic platform is studied. Volatility transmission in a single market across different regions is mainly explained by intraregion volatility (heat waves); interregion volatility (meteor showers) plays a secondary role. The joint impact of liquidity variables such as volume and open interest on volatility is also analyzed. Volume tends to increase volatility, but open interest does not affect it. The results are explained by the type of trading venue. Unlike floor‐based trading systems, in electronic markets open interest does not seem to provide additional information on market liquidity and its relation to volatility beyond any information contributed by volume. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28:313– 334, 2008     

Is it punishment? Sovereign defaults and the decline in trade

Sovereign defaults are associated with declines in defaulting countries trade. Are these declines the result of trade sanctions as the trade sanctions argument of sovereign borrowing would suggest? We devise an empirical strategy to evaluate this issue based on the idea that if trade sanctions are causing the declines, bilateral trade with creditor countries should fall more than trade with other countries. We find that this is not the case. The analysis does not yield much evidence of broader punishment strategies including a league of major creditors either. These results contradict the predictions of the trade sanctions theory of sovereign borrowing.     

The Diffusion of Employment Practices of US‐Based Multinationals in Europe. A Case Study Comparison of British‐ and Italian‐Based Subsidiaries

A number of approaches to the diffusion of employment practices within American‐based multinational companies (MNCs) can be discerned. In this paper, two theoretical approaches are contrasted: a ‘country‐of‐origin’ approach in which the influence of the home country is mediated by national features of host‐country institutional environments; and a power resources or strategic choice approach that emphasizes the autonomy of local actors within MNCs and their capacity to shape the diffusion of employment practices. Using a case study comparison of three Italian and two British‐based subsidiaries owned by an American MNC, the paper examines factors and patterns of diffusion of employment practices from the parent company to the local subsidiaries. The argument is put forward that company‐specific features enhance the strategic power of the subsidiary firm within the wider corporation, thus complementing institutional host‐country characteristics in shaping the diffusion of employment practices abroad. Hence, organizational as well as institutional effects contribute to creating the space that the various actors across host countries possess for protecting their interests and for exercising power on the terms and conditions of the diffusion.     

Reaching out: Access to and use of banking services across countries

This paper is a first attempt at measuring financial sector outreach and investigating its determinants. First, we present new indicators of banking sector outreach across 99 countries, constructed from aggregate data provided by bank regulators. Second, we show that our indicators closely predict harder-to-collect micro-level statistics of household and firm use of banking services, and are associated with measures of firm financing obstacles in the expected way. Finally, we explore the association between our outreach indicators and standard determinants of financial sector depth. We find many similarities but also some differences in the determinants of outreach and depth.     

Incentive Regulation and Telecommunications Service Quality

We examine the impact of incentive regulation—price regulation and earnings sharing regulation—on retail service quality in the U.S. telecommunications industry between 1991 and 2002. We find that incentive regulation is associated with significantly higher service quality on several dimensions (e.g., more rapid installation of new telephone service, fewer trouble reports, and increased customer satisfaction) but significantly lower quality on some dimensions (fewer installation commitments met and longer delays in resolving reported service problems)JEL Classification: L51, L96, L15We thank Michael Crew and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to Vanessa Cruz and Mircea Marcu for excellent research assistance.     

Effects of institutions on ecological attitudes and behaviour of consumers in a developing Asian country: the case of the Philippines

This study examines the effects of institutions emanating from the social environment on ecologically sustainable consumer behaviour in a developing country context. Drawing on the behavioural perspective model of consumer choice and institutional theory, this study argues that the regulative, normative and cognitive dimensions of the institutional environment play critical roles in shaping the pro‐environmental attitudes called eco‐attitudes of consumers. In turn, eco‐attitudes positively influence the eco‐behaviour of consumers. The structural equation modelling of data from a survey of 1045 consumers from the Philippines shows the significant and positive effects of the regulatory, normative and cognitive dimensions of the institutional environment on the eco‐attitudes of consumers, which in turn have strong positive influence on eco‐behaviour. The findings about the partial mediating role of eco‐attitudes offer a more nuanced explanation on how institutions explain the eco‐behaviour of consumers which is a topic that is less understood especially in a developing country context. The study highlights the theoretical, methodological, policy and future research implications of the findings.