Cointegration and control: Assessing the impact of events using time series data

Control groups can provide counterfactual evidence for assessing the impact of an event or policy change on a target variable. We argue that fitting a multivariate time series model offers potential gains over a direct comparison between the target and a weighted average of controls. More importantly, it highlights the assumptions underlying methods such as difference in differences and synthetic control, suggesting ways to test these assumptions. Gains from simple and transparent time series models are analysed using examples from the literature, including the California smoking law of 1989 and German reunification. We argue that selecting controls using a time series strategy is preferable to existing data‐driven regression methods.     

Assessing information integration processes: a comparison of findings obtained with between-subjects designs versus within-subjects designs

Quality & Quantity - Within-subject designs (WSDs) remain unpopular in psychology. Social psychologists have argued that they create “demand” and “order” effects....     

Capital gains lock-in and governance choices

Differences in accrued gains and investors’ tax-sensitivity induce variation in a capital gains lock-in effect across mutual funds even for the same stock at the same time. Exploiting this variation, we show this effect influences funds’ governance decisions: higher capital gains decrease the likelihood a fund exits prior to contentious votes and increase the likelihood a fund votes against management. Consistent with tax motivation, these findings are concentrated among funds with tax-sensitive investors. Further, high aggregate capital gains across funds holding a stock predict a higher likelihood management loses a vote and a lower likelihood a contentious vote is proposed.     

Environmental Policy,Sustainable Development,Governance Mechanisms and Environmental Performance

We investigate the effects of environmental policy (Climate Change Act – CCA), sustainable development frameworks (Global Reporting Initiative – GRI; UN Global Compact – UNGC) and corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on environmental performance (carbon reduction initiatives – CRIs; actual carbon performance – GHG emissions) of UK listed firms. We use the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique to analyse data consisting of 2245 UK firm‐year observations over the 2002–2014 period. First, we find that the CCA has a positive effect on CRIs, and this effect is stronger in better‐governed firms. Second, we find that the GRI‐based framework is positively associated with CRIs. Third, we find that firms with poor CG structures have lower actual carbon performance compared with their better‐governed counterparts. Overall, our evidence suggests that firms can symbolically conform to environmental policy (CCA) and sustainable development frameworks (GRI, UNGC) by engaging in CRIs without necessarily improving actual environmental performance (GHG emissions) substantively. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Blockchain in Additive Manufacturing and its Impact on Supply Chains

Additive manufacturing (AM) appears to be a particularly attractive use case for blockchain. This research combines inductive in‐depth interviews with the Delphi method to explore what potentials blockchain technology in AM creates, which adoption barriers firms need to overcome, and how supply chains will be affected by the integration of these two potentially disruptive technologies. The results suggest opportunities that are related to intellectual property (IP) rights management, the monitoring of printed parts throughout their lifecycle, process improvements, and data security. The most important barriers for blockchain adoption in AM are an absence of blockchain‐skilled specialists on the labor market, missing governance mechanisms, and a lack of firm‐internal technical expertise. By addressing important limitations of AM, blockchain is expected to improve the competitiveness of AM in parts’ production, catalyzing the trend toward more decentralized manufacturing resulting in more agile, resilient, and flexible supply chains and reduced logistics costs. Beyond that, blockchain‐based AM platforms are expected to enhance supply chain visibility, drive supply chain digitalization, support supply chain finance, and contribute to the emergence of shared factory systems.     

Outward foreign direct investment by Polish state-owned multinational enterprises: is ‘stateness’ an asset or a burden?

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are commonly associated with undue advantages due to preferential treatment by the state. Simultaneously they are often quoted as handicapped given the notorious state interference, management problems and agency tensions. They used to be regarded as a mainly domestic issue but in the context of globalisation and the fact that states enter treaties with new obligations, SOEs’ performance ceased to be solely a domestic problem, increasingly so as state-owned multinational enterprises (SOMNEs) emerge. This article presents the results of research on Polish SOEs’ outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). It offers an overview of overseas activities of nine major Polish firms with a state stake and aims to contribute to the conceptual literature on foreign investments conducted by SOMNEs. We distinguish between FDI by SOMNEs as specific – privileged (facilitated) or discriminated (hampered) – investments subject to the home country’s state power and the host country’s state perception.     

Modularization of hybrid censoring schemes and its application to unified progressive hybrid censoring

In this paper, a structural analysis of hybrid censoring models is presented. This new modularization approach to hybrid censoring models enables a convenient derivation of distributional results. For instance, it allows to derive the exact distribution of the MLEs under an exponential assumption for very complex hybrid scenarios. In order to illustrate the benefit of this idea, we apply it to four new unified progressive hybrid censoring schemes. They are extensions of already proposed unified Type-I/II/III/IV hybrid censoring schemes to progressively Type-II censored data. The resulting analysis shows that the modularization approach provides a powerful, efficient, and elegant tool to study even more complex hybrid censoring models.     

Introduction to symposium: Smallholders in communist and postcommunist societies

The primary contributions of smallholders during the communist and early postcommunist periods have been food production and labour for large farms. Those conditions are changing, however, as modern farms require less labour and food supply may be imported. For most smallholders in Central and Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries, the postcommunist neoliberal environment has not brought significant improvement, and strong arguments can be made that land grabbing, social and economic exclusion, and rural poverty are worse than regime bias during the communist period. Cooperatives, which have empowered smallholders in other parts of the world, have not been as well developed in postcommunist nations.     

The Impact of Automated Reminders on Credit Outcomes: Results from an Experimental Pilot Program

This study evaluates the impact of an automated reminder program designed to help credit counseling consumers manage their payment obligations and financial goals. Credit counseling consumers were randomly assigned to receive reminders linked to their financial goals and payment obligations for one year after an initial credit counseling session. We find that consumers offered reminders were 21% less likely than the control to experience severe (60+ day) payment delinquencies and were 12% less likely to experience a 30+ day delinquency. At the same time, these consumers saw a 10.5 point increase in credit scores relative to the control group. There were no significant impacts on total credit card balances or installment debt levels. This analysis provides promising evidence that automated reminders can provide an important complement to traditional credit counseling when it comes to improving consumers' credit profiles and does so at a fairly low cost.