When deeds speak,words are nothing: a study of ethical leadership in Colombia

Using a sample of 124 managers and 248 subordinates, this study examines the mediating effect of subordinates’ job satisfaction in the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinate organizational citizenship and counter‐productive work behaviour in the Colombian context. We additionally analyse the effect of ethical leadership on subordinates’ perception of leaders’ performance. Factor analyses of the ethical leadership scale revealed two factors, ethical person (EP) and ethical guidance (EG), which were differentially associated to the outcomes. We offer an explanation from three cultural dimensions (in‐group collectivism, institutional collectivism, and power distance) by which Colombian employees seem to be more willing to follow leaders’ ethical example as a way to strengthen their membership to the leader's group, than leaders ethical disciplining by which norms are imposed. These findings have a number of implications for organizations and managers who aim to improve their employees’ behaviour. Our advice to them is that leaders’ deeds have a greater impact than their ethical words.     

Multi-level driving forces of biological invasions

Biological invasions are human-induced processes affecting biodiversity. Information on biological invasions can be organized following the categories of the DPSIR model. This paper examines the state of the art in the application of this model to the study and management of biological invasions.The paper focuses on driving forces and pressures, clarifying the different levels at which drivers operate and promote invasion processes. Identifying driving forces is necessary not only to understand the processes behind biological invasions but also to generate policy initiatives that address threats to biodiversity at different levels of governance. Thus driving forces and pressures on biological invasions are identified taking into account the multi-level character of such processes. The final section reviews the role that different stakeholders play in biological invasion management and finally elaborates a list of indicators derived from the analysis that can be used in decision making concerning invasion processes.     

On the endogeneity of exchange rate regimes

The literature has identified three main approaches to account for the way exchange rate regimes are chosen: (i) the optimal currency area theory; (ii) the financial view, which highlights the consequences of international financial integration; and (iii) the political view, which stresses the use of exchange rate anchors as credibility enhancers in politically challenged economies. Using de facto and de jure regime classifications, we test the empirical relevance of these approaches separately and jointly. We find overall empirical support for all of them, although the incidence of financial and political aspects varies substantially between industrial and non-industrial economies. Furthermore, we find that the link between de facto regimes and their underlying fundamentals has been surprisingly stable over the years, suggesting that the global trends often highlighted in the literature can be traced back to the evolution of their natural determinants, and that actual policies have been less influenced by the frequent twist and turns in the exchange rate regime debate.     

Micro versus macro consumption data: the cyclical properties of the consumer expenditure survey

The Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) offers the most comprehensive consumption data at the consumer level for the United States. Several previous studies have shown a large gap between per-capita consumption from the CEX and the aggregate Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) series. While previous research has focused on consumption levels, we focus on the cyclical properties of consumption. We find that the cyclical properties of consumption expenditure data from the two sources are quantitatively very different. This result calls for caution when using CEX data for business cycle research.     

Measurement error in imputation procedures

We study how estimators that are used to impute consumption in survey data are inconsistent due to measurement error in consumption. Previous research suggests instrumenting consumption to overcome this problem. We show that, if additional regressors are present, then instrumenting consumption may still produce inconsistent estimators due to the likely correlation between additional regressors and measurement error. On the other hand, low correlations between additional regressors and instruments may reduce bias due to measurement error. We apply our findings by revisiting recent research that imputes consumption data from the CEX to the PSID.     

Autarky in Franco's Spain: The costs of a closed economy

Between the 1940s and 1970s, Spain used a variety of economic policies that hindered international trade. Because the mix of tariffs, quotas, administrative barriers, and exchange rate regimes varied greatly over time, the quantification of the effect of the various trade policies on international trade in this period is particularly elusive. In this paper, we use historical bilateral trade flows and a structural gravity model to quantify the evolution of Spain's border thickness, a summary measure of its barriers to international trade. We find that Spain's borders in the period 1948–75 were thicker than those of any other country in Western Europe, even after the liberalization of trade that started in 1959. These comparatively higher impediments to international trade implied substantial negative effects on consumer welfare. We estimate that accumulated welfare costs over the period 1948–75 exceed 20 per cent of a year's total consumption.