Educational upgrading,structural change and the task composition of jobs in Europe

We analyze the changes in the task content of jobs in 24 European countries between 1998 and 2015. We link the O*NET occupational data with the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU‐LFS), and use the methodology of Acemoglu and Autor ( 2011 ). We find that the intensity of non‐routine cognitive tasks grew in all countries, while the intensity of manual tasks declined. Workforce upskilling was the major factor contributing to these developments. The intensity of routine cognitive tasks grew in most Central and Eastern European countries, but it declined in Western European countries. This difference is attributed to the contrasting patterns of structural changes in these groups of countries.     

Travel information online: navigating correspondents,consensus, and conversation

Travel information exists in paper guides, word of mouth, and countless websites. Organizing a trip has never been more accessible and simultaneously riddled with doubt. Professional journalists produce travel journalism while often anonymous reviewers on TripAdvisor provide their commentaries, and in between, there are blogs, wikis, tourism boards, vendors, and a host of other information sources available. How does the twenty-first-century tourist make sense of all of this information? Through a study of tourists in Paris, this study seeks to understand the methods and strategies that they employ in order to identify trustworthy and useful information. Interviews with a sample of travellers reveal that each person has his/her own unique process guided by their personal motivations, but they also share several practices along the way. This research reveals that tourists ultimately exhibit a multistep process of verification using both professional and non-professional sources. No one type of author or website appears to be a unique or singular influencer when it comes to primary or trustworthy sources. These findings will lead to larger discussions about destination management and transparent practices among information providers.     

Home sweet host: A cross‐country perspective on prudential and monetary policy spillovers through global banks

Prudential regulation of banks is multi‐layered: policy changes by home‐country authorities affect banks’ global operations across many jurisdictions; policy changes by host‐country authorities shape banks’ operations in the host jurisdiction regardless of the nationality of the parent bank. Do these policies create (unintended) cross‐border spillovers? Similarly, monetary policy actions by major central banks may also have effects on the behaviour of banks in other countries. This paper examines the effect that changes in home‐ and host‐country prudential measures have on cross‐border dollar credit provision, and how these interact with US monetary policy. We first run panel regressions with both layers of regulation, to examine which has a greater effect on cross‐border lending. We then use a novel approach to decompose growth in cross‐border bank lending into separate home, host and common components, and then match each with the corresponding home or host policies. Our results suggest that prudential policies can have spillover effects, which depend on the instrument used and on whether a bank's home or host country implemented them. Home policies tend to have larger spillovers on cross‐border US dollar lending than host policies. We also find that a tightening of US monetary policy can compound the spillovers of some prudential measures.     

From market to hierarchy: An empirical assessment of a supply chain governance typology

This study performs an empirical assessment of the highly influential supply chain governance typology put forth in Gereffi et al. (2005). In spite of the influence this Global Value Chain (or GVC) Typology has had, there have been few (if any) attempts to empirically assess its alignment with real-world supply chain structures and to establish a baseline for its predictive utility. The GVC Typology is assessed for face and nomological validity through testing of its key dimensions in relation to purchasing-logistics integration and supplier performance measures, using an information-processing theory framework. The GVC Typology appears to have considerable face validity as actual supply chain governance structures aligned well with those it proposes. It also has reasonable predictive power with regards to governance dimensions and integration, and in some connections between governance types, integration, and supplier performance. This study provides researchers with the tools to move this typology beyond the “conceptual” stage in their work, allowing for holistic and higher-level assessments of supply chain governance structures and changes. It may also help researchers and managers to consider when and to what extent purchasing-logistics integration should be fostered.     

Firm-hosted online brand communities and new product success

Many firms use online brand communities to support the launch of their new products. This study proposes a typology of firm-hosted online brand communities and examines whether such a classification system can improve predictions of new product success. A cross-industry analysis of 81 firm-hosted online brand communities shows that these communities reflect three archetypes. A subsequent survey of 170 community-hosting firms in the consumer durable goods industry reveals that the three types of communities are not equally important for new product success. Moreover, one archetype generally underperforms the other two as a new product support mechanism. Overall, the results demonstrate that firm-hosted online brand communities can be a predictor of new product success.     

‘Communities of resistance’ and the use of newspaper discussion boards: Polish workers in Japanese foreign investments

This article examines the content of 200 posts on newspaper discussion boards by workers in a cluster of Japanese foreign investments in Poland. The conclusions are first, that the material experiences of workers generate a set of themes in relation to the labour process with regard to wages and working conditions, bullying and monitoring that exhibit similarities across countries. Second, we argue that an analysis of the discourse used is shaped by political and institutional conditions, which reveal national differences in how workers perceive and locate their exploitation. Finally, in relation to debates about workers’ resistance and the use of the Internet we argue that the interaction of themes related to the material experience of work are intertwined with institutionally embedded understandings of exploitation, which not only enable a shared framework for venting, but also provide the basis for a community of resistance.     

Financial competence,overconfidence, and trusting investments: Results from an experiment

Financial transactions sometimes occur in an environment where third-party enforcement is lacking. Behavioral explanations typically allude to the social preferences, where an individual’s utility is directly affected by another’s outcome, as the driver of the trusting investments and reciprocal returns. We hypothesize that, in part, these decisions are determined by an individual’s financial literacy and overconfidence in one’s knowledge. Experimental evidence is coupled with an innovative financial literacy assessment, which measures general competence, numeracy skills, and overconfidence in one’s knowledge. Results indicate that overconfidence is a significant determinant of behavior. Specifically, overconfident individuals make larger contributions in the investment game. We also document that there is an escalated effect in overconfident individuals who are also exhibit risk loving preferences.     

Black Female Earnings and Income Volatility

I provide new evidence on earnings and income volatility among Black women in the United States over the past four decades by using matched data from the March Current Population Survey. I use a measure of total volatility that encompasses both permanent and transitory instability, and that admits labor-force transitions. My results show that, for Black women, earnings volatility fell over the entire period and income volatility rose after the mid 1980s. I also find that changes over time in labor force transitions into and out of work along with an increasing share of Black women continuously employed coincide with shifts in volatility levels and trends. Among Black women, differences in volatility levels emerge across education groups and marital status, though the trends typically remain consistent both across and within racial groups.     

Asymmetric Adjustment in the City of London Office Market

Earlier estimates of the behavior of the City of London office market are extended by considering a longer time series of data, covering two full cycles, and by explicitly modeling asymmetric space market responses to employment and supply shocks. A long run structural model linking real rental levels, office-based employment and the supply of office space is estimated and then rental adjustment processes are modeled using an error correction model framework. Rental adjustment is seen to be asymmetric, depending both on the direction of the supply and demand shocks and on the state of the space market at the time of the shock. Vacancy adjustment does not display statistically significant asymmetries. There is also a supply adjustment equation. Two three-equation systems, one with symmetric rental adjustment and the other with asymmetric adjustment, are subjected to positive and negative shocks to employment. These illustrate differences in the properties of the two systems.