The Moderating Effects of Political Skill and Leader–Member Exchange on the Relationship Between Organizational Politics and Affective Commitment

Previous empirical studies have shown that perceptions of organizational politics are negatively related to individuals’ affective commitment. The key contribution of this study was that it found the interactive moderating effects of political skill and quality of leader–member exchange (LMX) on the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and affective commitment. Our results indicated that politics perception affective commitment relationship was weaker when both political skill and quality of LMX are high. When only political skill is high and the quality of LMX is low, or LMX quality is high but political skill is low, the negative relationship between politics perception and affective commitment was not mitigated. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.     

Secure implementation in Shapley–Scarf housing markets

This paper considers the object allocation problem introduced by Shapley and Scarf (J Math Econ 1:23–37, 1974). We study secure implementation (Saijo et al. in Theor Econ 2:203–229, 2007), that is, double implementation in dominant strategy and Nash equilibria. We prove that (1) an individually rational solution is securely implementable if and only if it is the no-trade solution, (2) a neutral solution is securely implementable if and only if it is a serial dictatorship, and (3) an efficient solution is securely implementable if and only if it is a sequential dictatorship. Furthermore, we provide a complete characterization of securely implementable solutions in the two-agent case: a solution is securely implementable if and only if it is either a constant solution or a serial dictatorship.     

Debt covenants in Japanese loan markets: in comparison with the traditional relationship banking

This study investigates determinants of debt covenants in Japanese loan markets. We focus on a unique monitoring mechanism by Japanese banks and hypothesise that debt covenants substitute for the traditional main bank governance. Consistently, we find that debt covenants are less likely to be used for firms with stronger ties with their main banks. We also document that such use of debt covenants results in borrower’s upward earnings management. Overall, our evidence suggests that, in the Japanese context, debt covenants are used as a substitute for the main bank system yet they alone are an incomplete monitoring mechanism.     

Endogenous business cycles in a perpetual youth model with financial market imperfections**

An economy in which entrepreneurs and financiers interact with each other through an imperfect financial market is investigated by applying a dynamic general equilibrium theory. In each period, there is a certain probability of each entrepreneur's life ending, and a certain number of entrepreneurs are newly born. Although entrepreneurs are potential capital producers, they receive an idiosyncratic productivity shock in each period. Therefore, entrepreneurs who draw higher productivity become capital producers and those who draw lower productivity become lenders. Financiers do not have an entrepreneurial talent for capital production, and thus they lend their assets in the financial market to acquire an interest income. In equilibrium, deterministic endogenous business cycles can occur at the intermediate level of financial constraints.     

Asset bubbles and borrowing constraints

In this paper, we study the existence of asset bubbles in an overlapping generations economy à la Tirole [Tirole, J., 1985. Asset bubbles and overlapping generations. Econometrica 53, 1499–1528] with borrowing constraints. Deriving a condition for the existence of equilibrium paths with bubbles, we demonstrate that (i) a monetary steady state (a steady state with bubbles) is constrained dynamically inefficient, whereas capital in the monetary steady state is underaccumulating relative to the quasi-golden rule, (ii) there exists a government intervention which corrects the constrained dynamic inefficiency, and (iii) for some parameter values, such a government intervention reduces the utilities of agents with high productivity, while it increases per capita consumption.     

Dominant strategy implementation in economic environments

We study dominant strategy implementation especially in economic environments. We first show that in general environments, strategy-proofness and quasi-strong-non-bossiness together are necessary and sufficient for dominant strategy implementation via the associated direct revelation mechanism. We next prove that in weak separable environments, strategy-proofness is sufficient for dominant strategy implementation, by using an augmented revelation mechanism similar to the one devised by Jackson, Palfrey, and Srivastava [Jackson, M.O., Palfrey, T.R., Srivastava, S., 1994. Undominated Nash implementation in bounded mechanisms. Games Econ. Behav. 6, 474–501]. Moreover, we focus on pure exchange economies without free disposal, and try to construct another augmented revelation mechanism that satisfies balancedness in and out of equilibrium, and which implements all strategy-proof social choice functions in dominant strategy equilibria.     

A Simple Model of Contract Enforcement Institutions

We demonstrate that in highly productive economies contract enforcement institutions are endogenously established, and partnership contracts correct inefficient land allocation. In less productive economies, however, such institutions are not established, and partnership contracts are not formed. In economies with intermediate productivity levels, multiple Nash equilibria exist; that is, contract enforcement institutions are established in the high Nash equilibrium whereas they are not formed in the low Nash equilibrium. In this case, institutional quality can be diverse across economies. We also prove that improvement in institutional quality reduces within‐country inequality. All these outcomes are consistent with cross‐country observations.     

Asymptotics and smoothing parameter selection for penalized spline regression with various loss functions

Penalized splines are used in various types of regression analyses, including non‐parametric quantile, robust and the usual mean regression. In this paper, we focus on the penalized spline estimator with general convex loss functions. By specifying the loss function, we can obtain the mean estimator, quantile estimator and robust estimator. We will first study the asymptotic properties of penalized splines. Specifically, we will show the asymptotic bias and variance as well as the asymptotic normality of the estimator. Next, we will discuss smoothing parameter selection for the minimization of the mean integrated squares error. The new smoothing parameter can be expressed uniquely using the asymptotic bias and variance of the penalized spline estimator. To validate the new smoothing parameter selection method, we will provide a simulation. The simulation results show that the consistency of the estimator with the proposed smoothing parameter selection method can be confirmed and that the proposed estimator has better behavior than the estimator with generalized approximate cross‐validation. A real data example is also addressed.     

Examining the success of women of color-owned small and medium-sized enterprises in the United States: A system dynamics perspective

The objective of this study was to unravel the challenges confronting women of color (WoC)-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United States. This is based on findings that most WoC-owned SMEs fail within the first few years of establishment. The impact of the global financial crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic on WoC-owned SMEs was also explored. System Dynamics (SD) is a computational modeling approach useful for understanding changes in a system over time and is applied in this study to illustrate WoC entrepreneurs' navigation through the startup and maturation of SMEs. The authors calibrated and validated the model with publicly available data. Findings revealed that more emphasis should be placed on failure reduction in the early years of establishment of these businesses. Also, there is the need for early intervention rather than focusing on the improvement of the successful business exit from the system. Results indicated that the creation of new businesses by WoC after the failure of existing businesses produced an increase in the number of failed enterprises. The authors assert that attention must be paid at the individual level through support to the entrepreneur. This study contributes to the extant literature by providing the first known SD model useful in depicting the SME system for WoC entrepreneurs in the US. The model serves as a potentially useful tool for informing effective policy making, education, and programmatic approaches to support the success of WoC entrepreneurs in the US.