Public Sector Organizations and Cocreation With Citizens: A Literature Review on Benefits,Drivers, and Barriers

ABSTRACT

Cocreation has captured the attention of public managers and policymakers and yet the literature focusing in the public sector is still relatively dispersed. In this literature review we present a contextualized analysis of the potential reasons that lead public sector organizations to cocreate with citizens and identify potential barriers that may hamper the adoption of cocreation in public settings. The analysis undertaken allowed us to conclude that the topic is increasingly capturing the interest of researchers, although the state of the literature is characterized by a reduced heterogeneity in research methods. We classified cocreation benefits in the public sector as innovation related, improved decision-making, and symbolic related, and we categorized the drivers for cocreation according to three broad categories: external, relation-specific and internal. Finally, we identified potential barriers of cocreation, including structural, organizational, and behavioral barriers.     

A single currency for the Economic Community of West Africa? An economic assessment

This paper assesses the economic support for the creation of an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) monetary union encompassing all its 15 members, an objective that was set more than 30 years ago. In line with previous empirical research, our conclusion is that the adoption of a common currency by the whole region is not recommended. This work takes a step forward and assesses alternative ways to reduce the current number of currencies in circulation in the Community. Based on our results, we suggest (i) the merging of the currencies of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone into a single currency and (ii) the Gambia to join the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU).     

Reconstruction of money supply over the long run: the case of England, 1270–1870

This article provides a time series of coin and money supply estimates for six hundred years of English history. Two main estimation methods are proposed. The first (the direct method) is used to measure the value of government‐provided, legal‐tender coin supply only. Two varieties of the direct method are proposed. Additionally, an indirect method is proposed which relies on a combination of information about nominal GDP with an assumption regarding the evolution of velocity in time, and which can be used to calculate coin supply and M2. Both methods rely on benchmark values known for certain years, but no particular benchmark is determinant for the results. The new methodologies set out here may serve as a blueprint for a similar reconstruction of coin and money supply series for other economies for which analogous data are available.     

Counterfactual analysis of bank mergers

We introduce a counterfactual analysis of banks mergers, combining the pre-merger equilibrium setting with post-merger environmental characteristics, while accounting for endogenously propagated changes in market structure. Using this procedure we are able to estimate the effects on loan flows and interest rates that would have been observed if the pre-merger equilibrium was not altered. Results are obtained for firms, households, and banks inside and outside the merging circles separately. We find that mergers increased firms’ access to credit, but had an opposite effect on households and led to a widespread decrease in interest rates.     

Keeping Up with the Joneses: A Model and a Test of Collective Accounting Fraud

This paper explains the variations in incidence of accounting fraud across economic settings by putting the behaviour and motivation of managers under the microscope. To safeguard their reputation in the managerial labour market, managers of firms that perform poorly are prone to fraudulently inflate earnings if they expect the economy to be strong, since that raises the likelihood of peers reporting high performance. A realised level of economic activity, on the other hand, counteracts this tendency on the part of managers to overstate earnings, by reducing the number of firms that actually perform poorly. We term these two effects the incentive effect and the need effect, respectively. The two effects yield a distinctive relationship between the incidence of accounting fraud and macroeconomic conditions. Specifically, the fraction of firms fraudulently over-reporting earnings is positively related to expected economic performance and negatively related to realised economic performance.
The incentive and need effects on collective fraud are examined empirically by relating proxies of the aggregate incidence of accounting fraud to expected and realised GDP growth rates. The results unambiguously support the predicted influence of macroeconomic performance.     

A money demand system for euro area M3

In order to assess the importance of monetary and financial developments for key macroeconomic variables in the euro area a money demand system for M3 is estimated adopting a structural cointegrating VAR approach. While maintaining a good statistical representation of the data, long-run relationships are based on economic theory. By using generalized response profiles the dynamics of the money demand system is investigated without any further identifying assumptions. Error bounds of the profiles are derived using bootstrap simulations.     

Interaction processes in long-term relationships in the metal mining industry: Longitudinal case studies of capital equipment buying

This study investigates the development of the relationships between customers and suppliers of capital equipment in the mining industry. The interorganizational relationships were characterized along three sets of variables: context, task characteristics, and interaction processes. Longitudinal case study research was conducted, and four long-term relationships in the Portuguese metal mining industry were investigated. The domesticated nature of the market, compatibility of partners' objectives and strategies, and the choice of a direct channel are significant driving forces for the establishment and development of these relationships. Well-driven interaction processes were found determinant to relationship development and outcomes. Particularly, the extent of supplier-based adaptations and scope of after-sales agreements are core to relationship development and continuity.     

Escape from New York: The market impact of loosening disclosure requirements

We examine the first significant deregulation of U.S. disclosure requirements since the passage of the 1933/1934 Exchange and Securities Acts: the 2007 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 12h-6. Rule 12h-6 has made it easier for foreign firms to deregister with the SEC and thereby terminate their U.S. disclosure obligations. We show that the market reacted negatively to the announcement by the SEC that firms from countries with weak disclosure and governance regimes could more easily opt out of the stringent U.S. reporting and legal environment. We also find that since the rule's passage, an unprecedented number of firms have deregistered, and these firms often had been previous targets of U.S. class action securities lawsuits or SEC enforcement actions. Our findings suggest that shareholders of non-U.S firms place significant value on U.S. securities regulations, especially when the home country investor protections are weak.