Revisiting the Effects of Remittances on Bank Credit: A Macro Perspective

We investigate the effect of remittances on bank credit in developing countries. Understanding this link is important in view of the growing relevance of remittances as a source of external finance and of the beneficial impact that financial intermediation is likely to have on economic growth. Our contribution is twofold. First, we present a theoretical model of bank credit in a hypothetical remittances‐receiving country where: (1) the banking sector is imperfectly competitive; and (2) bank rates change infrequently because of the presence of adjustment costs. We show that in equilibrium, the relationship between remittances and bank‐credit is likely to be non‐linear. Second, we look at the evidence using a panel data set for a large group of developing and emerging economies over the period 1970–2009. We find that at initially low levels of remittances, an increase in remittances reduces the volume of credit extended by banks. However, at sufficiently high levels of remittances, the effect becomes positive. The turning point of the relationship occurs at a level of remittances of about 2.5% of GDP, which would imply that approximately 50% of our sample lies to each side of this threshold.     

International Development Strategies of Luxury-goods Players in China

The aim of this paper is to study and analyse the intemationalisation strategies chosen by the main luxury-goods players in the Chinese market, demonstrating the business intemationalisation processes. The research questions are： ttow luxury companies have developed distribution strategies in the Chinese markets？ What are the main formats of distribution for the Chinese markets？ Are there any differences in the internationalization process between the main players of the luxury markets and the smaller ones？ The methodology is based on the analysis on multiple-case ~.nalysis on a sample of luxury-goods companies and identifies and compares the different strategies used by the players analysed. The research process starts from identifying and selecting the most well-known companies operating in the luxury branded sector, which have established a presence in the Chinese market with their own brand, collecting secondary data for the selected companies （website, corporate profile, articles on websites and in trade magazines and interviews with the management）, analysing the data collected and interpreting the main results to have emerged from the research. The main findings and conclusions are that the route to development in the Chinese market taken by the players in the luxury-goods sector, historically undertaken by delocalising production operations, has in recent years begun to accelerate with new forms in play, principally linked to distribution. The Chinese market tbr luxury brands is ever more an outlet market rather than a production hub. The ability to create brand awareness will become a key factor for successful consolidation of the competitive position in this market, an operation that can only be performed through distribution. Moreover, Chinese high-end consumers are becoming ever more demanding, seeking out an ever more sophisticated shopping experience. Just as happening in other markets, opening directly operated stores is a strategic choice for reaching and convincing end-consumers, sinc     

Food for Kids: How Children Influence their Parents Purchasing Decisions

During the last decades, sociological changes have modified the role of children within families: participatory models have become more widespread, to the detriment of more authoritative ones: this change has had consequences also in reference to families’ purchases. In scientific literature some scholars have shown that this influence is real, and marketers try to take advantage of this through a communication style that attempts to “teach” children how to pester their parents: this is the so-called nag factor. To understand which are the parental attitudes toward kids’ food products, a questionnaire has been administered in schools (nursery and primary) to a random sample of parents, representative of a larger sample of kids (200 in all). Findings showed that pestering is a real attitude, in particular among the littlest children. Moreover, these findings reflect in part the reality described by marketing literature: children influence the purchasing decisions of their parents, but this influence decreases when mothers and fathers are more aware of the importance of a quality-based diet.     

Temporal mixture ensemble models for probabilistic forecasting of intraday cryptocurrency volume

Decisions in Economics and Finance - We study the problem of the intraday short-term volume forecasting in cryptocurrency multi-markets. The predictions are built by using transaction and order...     

Public utility planning and cost efficiency in a decentralized regulation context: the case of the Italian integrated water service

The reformed Italian water and sewerage industry has several distinctive features. It is based on a decentralized structure where local authorities are entitled to define detailed long-term budget plans that claim to provide efficiency incentives to operating suppliers. Unlike previous studies, this paper analyzes the cost efficiency embedded in these budget plans to evaluate the actual capability of local regulators to adequately orientate firm performance. Several panel data cost frontier models were estimated that incorporate diverse specifications for inefficiency and unobserved heterogeneity terms. The results indicate that the decentralized planning mechanism applied in Italian water and sewerage industry regulation failed in fulfilling the declared goal and further highlights that the time-invariant terms are the prevailing source of cost differences, which may conceal a structural component attributable to persistent inefficiency.     

Opting Out,Collective Contracts and Labour Flexibility: Firm-Level Evidence for The Italian Case

This article analyses the role of deviations from higher level collective agreements adopted in firm-level bargaining to regain higher labour mobility, net positive employment effects and a resurgence of labour productivity. Using Italian firm-level data, after performing preliminary pooled ordinary least squares and fixed effects estimates, we adopt a difference-in-difference approach combined with a propensity score matching. All the estimations show that opting out clauses notably increases both hiring and separations, but without significant variations in terms of net employment. In addition, no significant labour productivity gains are obtained. The only significant change concerns the increase in the share of temporary workers.     

Customers’ judgments and misjudgments of corporate responsibility communication: A cross‐country investigation of the effects on confidence and trust within the banking sector

Customers’ judgment of corporate responsibility (CR) communication and the effect on confidence and trust as interlinked paradigms are intriguing areas of investigation from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This research aims to clarify the nature of effective CR communication toward customers by identifying situations of over‐ and undercommunication of CR that might cause misjudgments and therefore lower the level of confidence among customers. The study also provides insights to better explain the link between confidence and trust related to customers’ perceptions of CR communication and compares different judgments and misjudgments regarding the banking industries in Italy and the United Kingdom. The study adopts real and fictitious bank case studies to conduct focus groups investigations of 160 millennial customers’ perceptions of CR communication and how it affects their level of confidence. The findings highlight the role of trust in making independent judgments on CR communications. Some similarities and slight differences in the impact of CR communication on confidence emerge between the countries and greatly depend on the customers’ level of trust in real banks and the influence of the industry effect characterizing the banking sector. This study provides fertile ground for future research into the implementation of a more effective and balanced CR communication strategy to increase customers’ confidence and into the understanding of which communication drivers, apparently independent of CR, affect trust in the long term.     

Towards democratic governance of uncertainty? Contesting notions of participation,control and accountability

Managing risk in international society has posed a new challenge not only to states and international organisations, but also to experts, scientists and citizens. It has generated a demand for new sets of laws, regulations, instruments and governing bodies to tackle various risks such as natural disasters, economic and financial crises, and unintended consequences of policy reforms. Accordingly, new modes of interactions between states, experts and citizens seem to be emerging across countries and in different high-risk sectors. Little research has been done to illuminate interactive and dynamic aspects of emerging governance and regulatory arrangements and their impact on participation, control and accountability in liberal democracies. This special issue has assembled research papers and commentaries from practitioners and academics which critically examine these themes and explore what future research on the ‘world risk society’ could offer to political science and beyond.