Navigating Rough Waters: Global Shipping and Challenges for the North Range Ports

Intereconomics - Ports and shipping have been in the spotlight in 2021 with surging demand, skyrocketing freight rates and week-long queues. This development stands against the background of the...     

What Factors Keep Cash Alive in the European Union?

This paper aims to analyze the determinants of cash usage in a selection of European Union (EU) countries over the 2003–2016 period, based on a set of technological, socioeconomic, and socio-cultural indicators and cost components. Our results reveal the existence of both common and region-specific determinants for the EU advanced and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. In both groups cash usage is determined by payment system characteristics. Additionally, in the EU advanced countries cash usage can also be explained by the level of economic development and income inequalities and proliferation of Internet. In contrast, cash usage in CEE countries is negatively associated with consumer confidence and is inversely related to the technological progress, expressed in terms of mobile users.

     

Circular business model implementation: A capability development case study from the manufacturing industry

Circular business models (CBMs) have huge potential to deliver economic, social, and environmental benefits, but CBMs have yet to be implemented widely in industrial settings. One reason is that they are often presented as one-size-fits-all solutions, but this is misplaced because product-specific criteria and company capabilities determine the correct choice and implementation of CBMs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how CBM selection and capability development facilitates the implementation of CBMs. For this purpose, we have adopted a qualitative research approach and undertaken 25 explorative interviews in three large Swedish manufacturing companies. In this paper, a CBM implementation framework consisting of two parts has been developed. The first part addresses the choice of the appropriate CBM based on tactical configurations. The second part provides a capability development path by explicating underlying routines that need to be progressively developed in order to move smoothly to more advanced CBMs.     

What has New Zealand gained from The FTA with China?: Two counterfactual analyses†

We investigate the effects of the 2008 New Zealand (NZ)–China free trade agreement (FTA) on exports from NZ to China, and real GDP per capita in NZ using the synthetic control method to estimate the counterfactuals. NZ exports to China were more than 200% higher in 2014 than what they would have had the FTA never been signed. NZ's food and live animals exports to China were more than 180% higher in 2014 than the counterfactual. Our counterfactuals indicate a small but negative effect of the FTA on NZ's real GDP per capita between 2009 and 2012.     

Firms and wage inequality in Central and Eastern Europe

We use large linked employer-employee data to analyze wage inequality patterns in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries between 2002 and 2014. We show that, unlike in many other advanced economies, wage inequality levels have decreased in almost all CEE countries. These reductions in wage inequality resulted from disproportionately large increases in wages at the bottom of the wage distribution, and from decreases in between-firm wage inequality. We further find that the declines in wage inequality were driven by large wage structure effects that compensated for changes in the composition of workers.     

Intrapreneurship model in the software industry

Quality & Quantity - The complexity of business dynamics demands that companies search for alternative ways to ensure their growth and survival. Thus intrapreneurship emerges as an ad-hoc...     

A note on the long rate in factor models of the term structure

In this paper, we consider factor models of the term structure based on a Brownian filtration. We show that the existence of a nondeterministic long rate in a factor model of the term structure implies, as a consequence of the Dybvig–Ingersoll–Ross theorem, that the model has an equivalent representation in which one of the state variables is nondecreasing. For two‐dimensional factor models, we prove moreover that if the long rate is nondeterministic, the yield curve flattens out, and the factor process is asymptotically nondeterministic, then the term structure is unbounded. Finally, we provide an explicit example of a three‐dimensional affine factor model with a nondeterministic yet finite long rate in which the volatility of the factor process does not vanish over time.     

The process of entrepreneurial action at the base of the pyramid in developing countries: a case of vegetable farmers in Benin

The assumption that entrepreneurship is a critical factor in expanding employment, creating wealth and contributing to poverty alleviation at the base of the pyramid (BoP) in developing countries has led to the development of many initiatives to strengthen the entrepreneurial activities of poor people. Despite the fact that entrepreneurship is seen as a strategy in combatting poverty, the process that leads to entrepreneurial action in a BoP context is still unclear. In this paper, we illustrate the possibilities a multi-layered perspective offers to understand the complexity of entrepreneurship in poverty settings. Based on five focus group discussions and 36 in-depth interviews with vegetable farmers in Benin, we examined the entrepreneurship of poor people. We learned that entrepreneurial action is the nexus of individual and exogenous factors in complex relationships. Based on this, we elaborate on the characteristics of the process model of entrepreneurial action. We provide a process-based view of entrepreneurship at the BoP, suggesting a need for consistency between individual, behavioural strategies and contextual elements. We discuss the implications of our findings for BoP practice and provide a framing perspective that we hope will encourage a greater focus on the complexity of entrepreneurship phenomenon.     

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

Bayesian Inference in Spatial Sample Selection Models

In this study, we consider Bayesian methods for the estimation of a sample selection model with spatially correlated disturbance terms. We design a set of Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms based on the method of data augmentation. The natural parameterization for the covariance structure of our model involves an unidentified parameter that complicates posterior analysis. The unidentified parameter – the variance of the disturbance term in the selection equation – is handled in different ways in these algorithms to achieve identification for other parameters. The Bayesian estimator based on these algorithms can account for the selection bias and the full covariance structure implied by the spatial correlation. We illustrate the implementation of these algorithms through a simulation study and an empirical application.