Hiring for Subsidiaries in Developing Countries

If local personnel are qualified or can be trained to fill managerial positions in a subsidiary located in a developing country, then MNCs should give them the opportunity to do so. When local talent isn%'t available, expatriates should be used but they need to be fully briefed about the culture, language, and other aspects of the developing country to be their home.     

Can traffic light nutritional labels induce healthier consumer choices? Experimental evidence from a developing country

In a context of increasing health problems related to bad dietary habits in developing countries, simplified nutritional label formats may be a promising policy alternative. The aim of this study is to assess whether the multiple traffic light (MTL) system can improve the nutritional quality of consumer decisions. We conducted a selection experiment in Peru, where participants were offered a choice between three alternatives in two different food categories (crackers and beverages). Individuals were randomly assigned products with MTL labels on them. Our results reveal that exposure to MTL labels significantly increases the probability of avoiding the least healthy options and of choosing the healthiest items among the alternatives provided. These effects are large in magnitude and seem to be driven by individuals that are female, report average or above average dietary habits, and lack basic nutritional knowledge. However, our findings also suggest that the effectiveness of MTL labels may be sensitive to the specific characteristics of the set of options provided. These findings contribute to the emerging experimental literature on MTL labels in two ways. First, we provide evidence that this system can be effective in inducing consumers to make healthier choices in real‐life situations. Second, we explore which individuals are more likely to benefit from exposure to MTL labels, as well as potential limitations to their effectiveness. Overall, our results provide new insights on how to assess the issue of bad nutrition in emerging economies.     

Is Economic Integration the Solution to African Development?

In the African continent, several regional initiatives have been launched or executed. These gave rise to several groupings including COMESA consisting of 19 countries, ECOWAS (15 countries), ECCAS (10 countries), and SADC with 15 countries. These groupings are not exclusive in that several countries belong to more than one regional group. The road to full integration clearly begins with a regional arrangement. The many groupings in Africa had the long term goal of creating an all inclusive African Economic Union. The objective is to promote the African continent’s economic growth, political stability, and good governance. The paper examines the effectiveness of some of these regional grouping in the context of an all-inclusive African club with the aid of the club model. Using data for the period 1986–2005, costs and benefits of membership are evaluated using the gravity Model. The Helpman’s size dispersion index is used to identify a potential anchor for a regional grouping.

Safety and Ethics in the Global Workplace: Asymmetries in Culture and Infrastructure

This study described and analysed the circumstances surrounding a fatal car accident involving personnel of a multinational corporation in a developing country. For some companies, road accidents are the leading cause of work-related fatalities in developing countries. This reality highlights the ethical dilemmas encountered in a global workplace. Questions as to how a company addresses safety concerns outside the standard work environment, the ethics of operating in a risky environment and the requirements for international consistency in compensation standards for loss of life were addressed. The authors argued that multinational companies should localize health and safety practices to address the important asymmetries between different regions of the world regarding social, cultural and infrastructural issues. Furthermore, the authors analysed the leadership role that should be played by multinational companies to help and support national governments to reduce traffic fatalities in developing countries. From this perspective, the article represents a contribution for the body of knowledge dealing with the business–society relations. The authors used an action research approach to address these issues, both in response to the particular incident and to contribute to the body of research in this field.     

Los efectos de largo plazo de la asimetría y persistencia en la predicción de la volatilidad: evidencia para mercados accionarios de América Latina

This article proposes an extension to the CGARCH model in order to capture the characteristics of short-run and long-run asymmetry and persistence, and examine their effects in modeling and forecasting the conditional volatility of the stock markets from the region of Latin America during the period from 2 January 1992 to 31 December 2014. In the sample analysis, the estimation results of the CGARCH-class model family reveal the presence of short-run and long-run significant asymmetric effects and long-run persistency in the structure of stock price return volatility. The empirical results also show that the use of symmetric and asymmetric loss functions and the statistical test of Hansen (2005) are sound alternatives for evaluating the predictive ability of the asymmetric CGARCH models. In addition, the inclusion of long-run asymmetry and long-run persistency in the variance equation improves significantly the out of sample volatility forecasts for emerging stock markets of Argentina and Mexico.     

Long-term effects of the asymmetry and persistence of the prediction of volatility: Evidence for the equity markets of Latin America

This article proposes an extension to the CGARCH model in order to capture the characteristics of short-run and long-run asymmetry and persistence, and examine their effects in modeling and forecasting the conditional volatility of the stock markets from the region of Latin America during the period from 2 January 1992 to 31 December 2014. In the sample analysis, the estimation results of the CGARCH-class model family reveal the presence of short-run and long-run significant asymmetric effects and long-run persistency in the structure of stock price return volatility. The empirical results also show that the use of symmetric and asymmetric loss functions and the statistical test of Hansen (2005) are sound alternatives for evaluating the predictive ability of the asymmetric CGARCH models. In addition, the inclusion of long-run asymmetry and long-run persistency in the variance equation improves significantly the out of sample volatility forecasts for emerging stock markets of Argentina and Mexico.