The cross‐cultural study of LMX and individual employee voice: The moderating role of conflict avoidance

This article examines the role of national culture, measured by conflict avoidance, on the relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) and individual employee voice. Using data collected from automotive industry employees in the United States and Korea, the findings show that conflict avoidance is negatively related to employee voice and also moderates the relationship between LMX and employee voice in the Korean sample. In particular, the relationship between LMX and voice becomes less positive when conflict avoidance is high. On the other hand, conflict avoidance does not have a direct effect on employee voice as well as an interactive effect with LMX on employee voice in the U.S. sample. This study, therefore, highlights the importance of the national culture in the comparative study of employee voice.     

Co-movement in Stock Prices in Emerging Economies: The Case of the Caricom Region

The Grand Anse Declaration of 1989 recognised the need for financial integration within the emerging economies that comprise the CARICOM region, as a way of furthering the wider process of economic integration and, indeed, economic development in that region. Using co-movement as a measure of financial integration, this paper investigates the co-movement in stock prices among the Barbados, the Jamaica and the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchanges, the three major exchanges within the CARICOM region. It also examines how integrated these exchanges are with the New York Stock Exchange. The GARCH-Copula methodology and, to a lesser extent, estimated correlation coefficients, are used to attain this objective. There appears to be co-movement in stock prices and returns within the CARICOM stock markets and significant dependence structures between the returns of the three CARICOM stock markets. However, there is considerably less evidence of integration between the CARICOM markets and the New York Stock Exchange.     

Measuring Inflation Anchoring and Uncertainty: A U.S. and Euro Area Comparison

We use several U.S. and euro‐area surveys of professional forecasters to estimate a dynamic factor model of inflation featuring time‐varying uncertainty. We obtain survey‐consistent distributions of future inflation at any horizon, both in the U.S. and the euro area. Equipped with this model, we propose a novel measure of the anchoring of inflation expectations that accounts for inflation uncertainty. Our results suggest that following the Great Recession, inflation anchoring improved in the United States, while mild de‐anchoring occurred in the euro area. As of our sample end, both areas appear to be almost equally anchored.     

The US financial crisis and corporate dividend reactions: for better or for worse?

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We examine how changes in dividend policy in 2008 as the financial crisis was unfolding influenced firm risk-adjusted returns in the following years....     

Investor behaviour and reaching for yield: Evidence from the sterling corporate bond market

We provide evidence on how corporate bond investors react to a change in yields, and how this behaviour differs in times of market‐wide stress. We also investigate ‘reaching for yield’ across investor types, as well as providing insights into the structure of the corporate bond market. Using proprietary sterling corporate bond transaction data, we show that insurance companies, hedge funds and asset managers are typically net buyers when corporate bond yields rise. Dealer banks clear the market by being net sellers. However, we find evidence for this behaviour reversing in times of stress for some investors. During the 2013 ‘taper tantrum’, asset managers were net sellers of corporate bonds in response to a sharp rise in yields, potentially amplifying price changes. At the same time, dealer banks were net buyers. Finally, we provide evidence that insurers, hedge funds and asset managers tilt their portfolios towards higher risk bonds, consistent with ‘reaching for yield’ behaviour.     

Alliances and the innovation performance of corporate and public research spin-off firms

We explore the innovation performance benefits of alliances for spin-off firms, in particular spin-offs either from other firms or from public research organizations. During the early years of the emerging combinatorial chemistry industry, the industry on which our empirical analysis focuses, spin-offs engaged in alliances with large and established partners, partners of similar type and size, and with public research organizations, often for different reasons. We seek to understand to what extent alliances of spin-offs with other firms (either large- or small- and medium-sized firms) affected their innovation performance and also how this performance may have been affected by their corporate or public research background. We find evidence that in general alliances of spin-offs with other firms, in particular alliances with large firms, increased their innovation performance. Corporate spin-offs that formed alliances with other firms outperformed public research spin-offs with such alliances. This suggests that, in terms of their innovation performance, corporate spin-offs that engaged in alliances with other firms seemed to have benefitted from their prior corporate background. Interestingly, it turns out that the negative impact of alliances on the innovation performance of public research spin-offs was largely affected by their alliances with small- and medium-sized firms.     

Is bank staff interaction associated with customer saving behavior in banks?

Major changes are underway in the U.S. retail banking sector toward heavy investments in technology and fewer in personnel. Using the 2017 survey of household economics and decision‐making (SHED) (n = 11,359), we examine the relationship between saving behavior related to emergency, long‐term and periodic expenses and personal, technological, and hybrid bank account access methods. Binary logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds of reporting various saving behaviors in relation to various banking access methods. Findings suggest that the personal access method is positively associated with savings behavior for periodic expenses for the general population, and negatively associated with emergency savings in people with lower education attainment. Technology is associated with all types of saving behavior, while the hybrid access method is associated only with saving for periodic expenses. As investments in self‐service technology increase, the importance of access methods to savings behavior must be considered.     

Close relationship with the supervisor may impede employee creativity by suppressing vertical task conflict

Leader‐member exchange as a form of supportive leadership is expected to foster employee creativity. However, empirical evidence suggested this relationship is complex. This study attempts to address this complexity by proposing and testing a curvilinear mechanism, which attenuates the overall positive effect of LMX on creativity by transmitting a curvilinear indirect effect via vertical task conflict. Results drawn from a sample of 276 supervisor–subordinate dyads provided support for the hypothesized curvilinear indirect effect. Specifically, LMX was found to negatively influence employee creativity by suppressing vertical task conflict for subordinates in high‐quality LMX relationships, while the indirect effect was not significant for subordinates in low‐quality LMX relationships.     

State‐Dependent Forward Guidance and the Problem of Inconsistent Announcements

Forward guidance can be provided as an unconditional promise, i.e. commitment to a specific low policy rate. Alternatively, the promise may include an escape clause, i.e. a condition defining the state of the economy under which the central bank would not keep such a low rate and, instead, it would revert to setting policy under discretion. The escape clause can be expressed as a threshold in terms of a specific variable. The present paper shows that, when such a threshold is expressed in terms of an endogenous variable (e.g. output, inflation), there are cases where it becomes impossible for the central bank to act in a way that is consistent with its promise. Consistency imposes limits on the policy rate that can be set since reverting immediately to the optimal discretionary rate can be incompatible with exceeding the threshold.