A Statistical Model to Investigate the Reproducibility Rate Based on Replication Experiments

The reproducibility crisis, that is, the fact that many scientific results are difficult to replicate, pointing to their unreliability or falsehood, is a hot topic in the recent scientific literature, and statistical methodologies, testing procedures and p‐values, in particular, are at the centre of the debate. Assessment of the extent of the problem–the reproducibility rate or the false discovery rate–and the role of contributing factors are still an open problem. Replication experiments, that is, systematic replications of existing results, may offer relevant information on these issues. We propose a statistical model to deal with such information, in particular to estimate the reproducibility rate and the effect of some study characteristics on its reliability. We analyse data from a recent replication experiment in psychology finding a reproducibility rate broadly coherent with other assessments from the same experiment. Our results also confirm the expected role of some contributing factor (unexpectedness of the result and room for bias) while they suggest that the similarity between original study and the replica is not so relevant, thus mitigating some criticism directed to replication experiments.     

Firm age and performance

Amid increasing interest in firm age and its effects on firm performance, this special issue offers an exhaustive review of the literature and a novel collection of evidence on the effects of firm age on performance, including a special focus of interest on innovation performance, financial performance, exports, survival and growth. This editorial positions the theme in the extant literature, and provides key definitions and challenges ahead in the field of evolutionary economics. It introduces the collection of articles composing the special issue. The papers offer a diversity of country contexts, as well as analytical approaches and methods. They include an exhaustive review of the literature on age and firms’ performance, and present original empirical studies focusing on the effects of age on firms’ economic outcomes on the one hand, and on innovation outcomes on the other hand. While most of the papers use econometric analysis, the level of analysis ranges from firm to individual.     

Revisiting the expatriate failure concept: A qualitative study of Scandinavian expatriates in Hong Kong

This article advances the understanding of expatriate failure, which remains a contested social phenomenon in international work life as well as scholarly research. The study challenges the definition of expatriate failure and its inherent biases, i.e., the epistemological primacy of the firm level and the failure/success binary. We argue that this qualitative study of 51 Scandinavian expatriates in Hong Kong can contribute to advancing theory on the expatriate failure concept by asking individual expatriates what constitutes failure to them. By applying social constructionist and social anthropological ideas to the expatriate failure concept debate, we develop the internationality thesis which demonstrates a discrepancy between the expatriates’ perceptions of successful international assignments and the actual nature of their lived lives; many expatriates desire to enrich their lives through experiencing an international/intercultural and adventurous lifestyle, but, in fact, living lives with limited intercultural exposure and interaction. We conclude by proposing a reconceptualisation of expatriate failure in terms of offering both a new definition and approach to researching expatriate failure in which time/duration, context, and geographical location need to be taken into account. We believe the new approach can overcome some of the empirical unsoundness of mainstream definitions.     

The Effects of Screening and Monitoring on Credit Rationing of SMEs

In this paper, we seek to empirically assess which determinants of the capability and incentives of banks to screen and monitor firms are significant in explaining credit rationing to Italian SMEs. After testing for the presence of non‐random selection bias and the potential endogeneity of some determinants of interest, the probit model results we obtain suggest that the average banking size and the multiple banking relationship phenomenon are statistically significant factors affecting credit rationing, presumably through their impact on the aforementioned banks' capability and incentives. Other potential determinants of banks' incentives to monitor and screen, such as local banking competition and firm' capacity to collateralize, are never significant. However, when we split the sample according to the level of competition in credit markets, we find that the estimated marginal effects of all significant determinants of interest are larger in absolute value than those obtained when using the whole sample.     

Are Venture Capitalists a Catalyst for Innovation?

In this paper we test two hypotheses concerning the presence of innovation in venture capital investments and the growth of innovative venture backed firms. To examine these hypotheses we considered sample of 37 Italian venture backed firms that went public on the Italian Stock Exchange between 1995 and 2004 and by a statistical matching procedure we picked 37 twin firms among the non‐venture backed IPOs for the same period. Our evidence shows that innovation is an important factor during the selection phase but once the investment is made, the company does not promote continued innovation and concentrates all efforts to improve other economic and managerial aspects.     

Exploring efficient sets and equilibria on risky assets with APABO DSS prototype version 2.1

ABAPO 2.1 (Assets/Business(es) Analyser and Portfolio Optimizer) is a DSS prototype for portfolio managers. It assists the decision maker in two important stages of his task. First, it provides an integrated synthesis of the returns scenario in order to support the decision maker in the selection of the assets to retain, in accordance with his strategy. Second, on the retained assets it computes and shows the E- efficient solutions. For each efficient portfolio ABAPO supplies immediately a lot of information that should help the decision maker to single out the portfolio which fits his goals best.ABAPO works on an integration of elements derived from the Portfolio Selection Theory, the Capital Asset Pricing Model, the Utility Theory. ABAPO uses the principal component, the univariate, the bivariate regression and the correlation analysis, a parametric quadratic programming model and an algorithm based on the critical line method.ABAPO is implemented in C language under AIX operating system and runs on a IBM RT PC 6150. It is a ductile, interactive procedure that involves graphics in order to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of the what if simulations.This version 2.1 improves upon the previous one by the evaluation of the Security Market Line, some statistics on the returns of the efficient portfolios, the evaluation of the quadratic indifference curves associated to the efficient portfolios.Research supported by the Italian National Research Council (CNR), grant n. 88.03065.10. ABAPO DSS 2.1 prototype has been developed with the support of the CNR (grant n. 87.1210.10), of the Banca Popolare di Verona, of the Cassa di Risparmio di Verona Vicenza e Belluno, of the Società Cattolica di Assicurazione, at the Istituto di Matematica, Università di Verona.     

Revisiting the case for a populist central banker

It is known that discretionary policy may give rise to an inflationary bias if wages are negotiated in nominal terms. In a recent issue of this Review, Guzzo and Velasco argued that this bias can be eliminated, and welfare maximized, by the appointment of a central banker who does not care at all about inflation (a ‘populist’ central banker). A conceptual flaw of the latter result is identified here. It is shown that when wages are negotiated in nominal terms the result is true only in the special case of a single, all-encompassing, union. In the more general case of multiple unions, however, inflation increases linearly with their number and a populist central bank may turn out to decrease welfare.     

Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development

We estimate the respective contributions of institutions, geography, and trade in determining income levels around the world, using recently developed instrumental variables for institutions and trade. Our results indicate that the quality of institutions trumps everything else. Once institutions are controlled for, conventional measures of geography have at best weak direct effects on incomes, although they have a strong indirect effect by influencing the quality of institutions. Similarly, once institutions are controlled for, trade is almost always insignificant, and often enters the income equation with the wrong (i.e., negative) sign. We relate our results to recent literature, and where differences exist, trace their origins to choices on samples, specification, and instrumentation.     

Stochastic stability in networks with decay

This paper considers a stylized model of network formation in which relations among agents are subject to frictions, as described in Bala and Goyal [A non cooperative model of network formation, Econometrica 68 (2000) 1181-1231]. We analyze the process of network formation in a dynamic framework where self-interested individuals can form or delete links and, occasionally, make mistakes. Then, using stochastic stability, we identify the network structures to which the formation process will converge.