An empirical note about estimation and forecasting Latin American Forex returns volatility: the role of long memory and random level shifts components

Portuguese Economic Journal - A set of RLS-type models with ARMA and ARFIMA dynamics is estimated and compared in a forecasting exercise with ARFIMA, GARCH and FIGARCH models. It is an extension of...     

Mapping global sustainability report scoring: a detailed analysis of Europe and Asia

This study maps the General Reporting Initiative (GRI) relations for a set of global enterprises. Enterprise interrelationships are built using the Mutual Information (MI) of the data reported by enterprises. From the MI topology, we describe interrelationships among the enterprises using chord diagrams to represent the inter- and intra-connectivity between geographical regions and economic sectors globally, by continent and country. Detailed maps are presented for European and Asian regions/sectors, including the relationship between Europe and Asia’s top reporting countries. Our findings reinforce previous research regarding the role of Europe as a driver of sustainability and its influence worldwide. We also determined that Spain is a major player in Europe and that Northern Europe does not have the assumed leading role mentioned in related studies. Eastern Asia is, by far, the leader of the region, and the GRI maps demonstrate the preponderant role of China in the region and the minimal role of India. MI topology maps outline the behavior of the economic sectors, for all the studied regions. Furthermore, a measure that relates the inter- to intra-connections is presented to describe the internal an external relationships among regions/sectors.     

Inequality and entrepreneurial thresholds

We explore the relationship between inequality and entrepreneurial activity. Drawing on cross-sectional data from a largescale survey of the economic conditions of individuals across India, we develop a number of dimensions of inequality to explore empirically how inequality interacts with entrepreneurship, operationalized as self-employment or as employing other people. We find compelling evidence that there are thresholds to becoming self-employed, and even more so to assembling the combinations of resources and personal attributes required to become an employer. Greater inequality leaves more people unable to make the transition to self-employment, leaving casual laboring as the occupation of necessity. At the same time, inequality increases the number of employers in a society, by concentrating resources - particularly land and finance - enough for significant numbers of people to be able to cross this higher threshold. Lastly, greater differentiation into social or religious groups curtails the ability to cross either entrepreneurial threshold, presumably by limiting the extent and benefits of social networks of value for entrepreneurship.     

Productivity Growth: Technological Progress and Technical Efficiency

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

Dynamic managerial capabilities: Scale development and validation

Studies on dynamic managerial capabilities still have a rather theoretical nature, and there is great difficulty in finding a valid, reliable instrument to measure this construct. The present study contributes to solving this problem: It aims to develop and validate a scale to measure dynamic managerial capabilities. In this investigation, we develop a scale for three factors related to dynamic managerial capabilities: human capital, managerial cognition (already described in the literature), and relationship networks. The prominent finding in this research is the factor that is referred to here as relationship networks.     

Who do you care about? Scientists’ personality traits and perceived impact on beneficiaries

We investigate the roots of scientists' perceptions of the impact of their work by examining stable psychological characteristics such as personality traits. An analysis of personality traits highlights the effects of policies related to gender equality, allocation of research time and skills acquisition. It improves our understanding of the conflicts related to scientists’ perceptions of the impact of their research on beneficiaries. For example, conscientiousness increases the perceived impact on clinical beneficiaries, but reduces the perceived impact on industrial beneficiaries. Organizational scientific freedom increases the effects of personality traits on perceived impact on beneficiaries such that scientists affiliated to a university are less likely than colleagues working in other research settings to perceive the simultaneous impact of their work on both industrial and clinical beneficiaries.     

Shareholder Engagement on Environmental,Social, and Governance Performance

We study behind-the-scenes investor activism promoting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) improvements by means of a proprietary dataset of a large international, socially responsible activist fund. We examine the activist’s target selection, forms of engagement, impact on ESG performance, drivers of success, and effects on the targets’ operations and value creation. Target firms are typically large and visible, perform well, and have high liquidity (stock turnover) and low ESG performance. Engagement induces ESG rating adjustments: firms with poor ex ante ESG ratings experience a ratings increase after complying with the activist’s demands, whereas firms with high ex ante ESG ratings experience a ratings decrease following the revelation of their ESG problems. Activism that is focused on environmental and social issues is more likely to succeed if targets are ESG-sensitive (i.e., they have a strong ex ante ESG profile). Successful engagements boost targets’ sales. Risk-adjusted excess stock returns (with four-factor adjustment and relative to a matched sample of non-engaged firms) of successful engagements outperform those of unsuccessful engagements by 2.7%. Results are especially strong for firms with low ex ante ESG scores. Specifically, targeted firms in the lowest ex ante ESG quartile outperform matched peers by 7.5% in the year after the end of the engagement. Our results thus suggest that the activism regarding corporate social responsibility generally improves ESG practices and corporate sales and is profitable to the activist. Taken together, we provide direct evidence that ethical investing and strong financial performance, both from the activist’s and the targeted firm’s perspective, can go hand-in-hand together.

     

Local tax interaction and endogenous spatial weights based on quality of life

This paper studied the role of municipal quality of life as a driver of strategic tax interactions among local governments. A number of studies point out the existence of strategic interactions using spatial econometric models in which the spatial weights are mostly based on non-economic criteria or basic economic variables such as per capita gross domestic product (GDP). We propose the more sophisticated well-being indicator of municipal quality of life as the driver for these interactions. To deal with the potential endogeneity, we rely on instrumental variable estimators. The empirical analysis focuses on the main local tax in Spain (property) and on municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, and it confirms the relevance of differentials in quality of life for the understanding of tax choices.     

Family firm’s management composition: the role played by family members’ age in TMT and supervisor levels

Quality & Quantity - Family firms (FFs) are the backbone of entrepreneurial fabric in many countries. Management of such businesses is complex because of their features: the overlap between...