Does ethnic diversity decrease economic interactions? Evidence from exchange networks in rural Gambia

Using a unique dataset collected in 59 rural Gambian villages, we study how ethnic heterogeneity is related to the structure of four economic exchange networks: land, labour, inputs and credit. We find that different measures of village‐level ethnic fragmentation are mostly uncorrelated with network structure. At a more disaggregated level, household heads belonging to ethnic minorities are not less central than those from the predominant ethnicity in any of the networks and, at the dyadic level, the fact that two households share ethnicity is not an economically significant predictor of link formation. Our results indicate that, in the particular setting of our study, the structure of the exchange networks is better defined by other variables than ethnicity and that ethnic heterogeneity is unlikely to be a driver for sub‐optimal economic exchanges.     

Interlocking Lives: Employment Mobility and Family Fixity in Three Gentrifying Neighbourhoods of Montreal

This article explores the relationship between employment mobility, family fixity, and gentrification in the lives of 36 residents in and extended commuters to Montreal's southwest borough. Once described as the birthplace of industry in Canada, the neighbourhoods of Saint-Henri, Little Burgundy and Point Saint-Charles have undergone sweeping changes in recent decades. Inner-city areas are not necessarily where one expects to find mobile workers, but this is changing due to shifting gender roles, the rise of dual-income households and gentrification. Michael Savage's concept of ‘elective belonging’ proved particularly useful in understanding this connection. With its proximity to childcare, schools, stores and workplaces, the central city permits a more equitable division of labour within the household. Our place-based approach to mobile work enables us to capture a wide spectrum of experience, ranging from people with extended daily commutes to those whose work takes them away from home for days, weeks or months at a time. Our interviews reveal a connection between employment mobility and family gentrification, as upwardly mobile families find ways to localize other aspects of their lives. The simultaneity of mobility and immobility are often essential, especially in dual-income households. One parent's mobility often leads to the relative immobility of other family members.     

Towards a fairer manager performance measure: a DEA application in the retail industry

Abstract

Retailers need to determine the performance of their individual stores and, beyond the stores, the managers in charge of running them. The aim of this paper is to develop performance standards that can be applied to fairly distribute rewards to managers regarding their performances by taking into account store neighbourhood characteristics. In order to propose a fairer measure of store performance, the authors introduce and explore the concepts of organizational justice and store efficiency. They use real data from a French supermarket chain and a geomarketing approach. The two-step Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model results are compared with a retailer’s ranking. The retailer tends to favour points of sale having a more important sales area, with more employees and operating in a more densely populated area with a higher buying power. The ranking stemming from the DEA model links store performance to other geo-demographic variables.     

Neighbors and the evolution of the comparative advantage of nations: Evidence of international knowledge diffusion?

The literature on knowledge diffusion shows that knowledge decays strongly with distance. In this paper we document that the probability that a product is added to a country's export basket is, on average, 65% larger if a neighboring country is a successful exporter of that same product. For existing products, growth of exports in a country is 1.5% higher per annum if it has a neighbor with comparative advantage in these products. While these results could be driven by a common third factor that escapes our controls, they align with our expectations of the localized character of knowledge diffusion.     

‘Free actors’ and organizations: critical remarks about the new career literature,based on French insights

What is the reality of contemporary careers? Have individuals become masters of their professional destiny? While the ‘new career literature’ puts forward the figure of an individual free to invent his/her career (the ‘free actor model’), this article shows that the changes purported to affect careers are less radical than they seem. Despite a weakening of environments, discriminating career mechanisms are still imposed on cadres, at least in France. Because individuals do not always have the means or the will to escape those mechanisms, ‘external clues’ continue to mark careers more than the new career literature supposes. To account for the realities observed in France, this paper proposes a specific view on careers, which highlights why career rules still exist in the country.     

Assessing the impact of a wage subsidy for single parents on social assistance

Abstract This paper studies the impact of a wage subsidy program aimed at long‐term social assistance recipients in Quebec. The program closely mimics the Self‐Sufficiency Project and was implemented for a trial period of one year in 2002.We focus on the labour market transitions of the targeted population starting one year before the implementation of the program and until the end of 2005. Our results show that the duration of spells off social assistance increased, while the duration of social assistance spells decreased slightly. The response to the program varies considerably with both observed and unobserved characteristics.     

Firm dynamics, markup variations, and the business cycle

We present a model in which net business formation is endogenously procyclical. Variations in the number of operating firms lead to countercyclical variations in markups that give rise to endogenous procyclical movements in measured total factor productivity (TFP). Based on this result, the paper suggests a simple structural decomposition of variations in TFP into those originating from exogenous shocks and those originating endogenously from the interaction between firms’ entry and exit decisions and the degree of competition. The decomposition suggests that around 40% of the movements in measured TFP can be attributed to this interaction. Moreover, the paper analyzes the effects on (i) the measurement of the volatility of exogenous shocks in the U.S. economy and (ii) the magnification of shocks over the business cycle.     

Industrial clusters and the competitiveness of The Netherlands

Summary In this contribution the application to The Netherlands of Michael Porter's new method for assessing the competitiveness of a nation is presented. Special attention is given to the clustering of Dutch industries, their geographical scope and the integration of services. On this basis we assessed Porter's approach. Our conclusion is that the clustering method is a valuable tool but may be improved upon, and that too much and one-sided emphasis is put on national specificities.     

TECHNOLOGICAL LEARNING AND LABOR MARKET DYNAMICS

The search‐and‐matching model of the labor market fails to match two important business cycle facts: (i) a high volatility of unemployment relative to labor productivity, and (ii) a mild correlation between these two variables. We address these shortcomings by focusing on technological learning‐by‐doing: the notion that it takes workers' time using a technology before reaching their full productive potential with it. We consider a novel source of business cycles, namely, fluctuations in the speed of technological learning, and show that a search‐and‐matching model featuring such shocks can account for both facts. Moreover, our model provides a new interpretation of recently discussed “news shocks.”