Sharing risk within and across countries: the role of labor market institutions

This paper studies the effect of labor market institutions on within- and cross-country risk sharing, using a model of international trade in risky assets modified to include a subset of agents, labor-owners who do not access financial markets, and employment security provisions. Labor market, institutions, by promoting within-country risk-shifting arrangements between agents with or without, access to financial markets, reduce the fluctuations of non-tradable labor incomes and amplify the, fluctuations of capital incomes. Capital flows become more volatile across countries, and if the, configuration of labor markets differs across countries, capital-owners bear the burden of systematic, undiversifiable world aggregate uncertainty.     

Matching in local labor markets: a stochastic frontier approach

This paper investigates the technical efficiency of labor market matching from a stochastic frontier approach. The true fixed-effects model (Greene J Prod Anal 23:7–32, 2005a; J Econom 126:269–303, 2005b) is utilised in order to separate cross-sectional heterogeneity from inefficiency, and inefficiency terms are modelled following Battese and Coelli (Empir Econ 20:325–332, 1995). The data set consists of almost 17,000 observations from Local Labor Offices (LLOs) in Finland. According to the results, there are notable differences in matching efficiency between regions, and these differences contribute significantly to the number of filled vacancies. If all regions were as efficient as the most efficient one, the number of total matches per month would increase by over 23%. The heterogeneity of the job-seeker stock is an important determinant of matching efficiency: the weight of the composition of the job-seeker stock in the inefficiency terms is on average 85%.

Intra-metropolitan shifts in labor demand and the adjustment of local markets

I offer new evidence on the adjustment of local labor markets to geographic shifts in labor demand within US metropolitan areas using a unique data set in which metropolitan subregions are geographically matched across the 1970–1980 and 1980–1990 decades. The evidence uncovered paints the following picture. Workers, especially those with less education, make incomplete adjustments within metropolitan areas in response to intra-metropolitan demand shifts. Although blacks may not make especially limited adjustments, they have disproportionately suffered deleterious effects from job movements because the demand shifts have tended to be away from their places of residence.     

Credit market constraints and labor market decisions

In this paper, we examine whether imperfections in credit markets spill over to other markets, particularly the labor market. We take the case of Italy, a country that experienced changes in the mortgage market brought about by the 1992 European unification and other institutional shifts. These events make Italy a good laboratory to study the effects of financial markets on the labor market. Using household data from the Bank of Italy between 1989 and 1993, we estimate the relationship between female participation and mortgage use. We find a significant impact of mortgages on women's participation in the labor market.     

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

Why ‘Good Governance’ Fails: Lessons from Regional Economic Development in Colombia

By critically reviewing different strands of literature on institutional change and development, this essay argues that, in order to fully understand subnational economic development, we need to move away from ‘good governance' explanations in which geography‐specific analyses of power structures and elite interests are largely absent. Using findings for Colombia and insights from economic geography and heterodox political economy theories, this essay gives theoretical and conceptual guidelines and approximations for future studies on regional economic development. The contribution provides a place‐based discussion of how the historically evolved distribution of power balances, context‐specific elite interests, and the interaction between place‐bound actors and place‐less dynamics affect subnational institutional arrangements shaping policies and development outcomes. The conclusions drawn are not limited to Colombia and will prove beneficial to researchers studying regional economic development in subnational contexts elsewhere in the world.     

Russia’s and Kazakhstan’s agro-food sectors under liberalized agricultural trade: a case for national product differentiation

Russia is a major importer of agro-food products in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), whereas Kazakhstan’s agro-food sector is more export-oriented. Based on a multi-market-model with bilateral trade, the paper investigates how a Common Agricultural Market (CAM) and World Trade Organization (WTO) accession would affect prices, quantities, and welfare on agro-food markets in both countries. Trade diversion effects are expected because of a changed tariff structure. Kazakhstan’s agro-food sector will loose price competitiveness on Russia’s markets if liberalization is too narrowly focused on import tariffs. Simulations also suggest that national product differentiation can be part of a strategy for Russian agro-food industries to cope with stronger international competition.     

Capital–labor substitution and equilibrium indeterminacy

This paper examines the quantitative relationship between the elasticity of capital–labor substitution in production and the conditions needed for equilibrium indeterminacy (and belief-driven fluctuations) in a one-sector growth model. With variable capital utilization, the substitution elasticity has little quantitative impact on the minimum degree of increasing returns needed for indeterminacy. However, when capital utilization is constant, a below-unity substitution elasticity sharply raises the minimum degree of increasing returns because it imposes a higher effective adjustment cost on labor hours. Overall, our results show that empirically-plausible departures from the Cobb–Douglas production specification can make indeterminacy more difficult to achieve.     

Union algebra: Unionization,productivity and labor intensity restrictions

Two models are developed to investigate unionism effects. The first assumes Cobb-Douglas technology, derives an explicit cost function allowing for noncost minimization and separates productivity and labor intensity effects. The second assumes a more flexible translog shadow cost function and isolates a neutral productivity effect and factor-specific composite effects. The models are estimated using Allen's construction data. Both models indicate a positive union productivity effect in office construction and a negative union productivity effect in school construction. The Cobb-Douglas model indicates a binding labor-to-materials restriction in both office and school construction, but this evidence disappears with the nonminimum cost function.     

平台经济发展与“保就业和稳就业”:基于就业弹性与劳动过程的分析

平台经济在此次新冠肺炎流行期间得到了快速发展,不但在有效保持防疫所要求社交距离的同时,满足了百姓的日常生活必需,更重要的是其提供了大量的就业岗位。本文首先分析"稳就业"与"保就业"的内在逻辑,阐述"稳就业"的大局观和长期性。然后基于经济学视角,运用统计年鉴数据计算就业弹性,剖析行业发展与平台经济融合对就业的吸纳效应,显示平台经济发展对保就业和稳就业岗位的正向作用。但同时从劳动关系视角,通过对平台经济灵活就业劳动过程分析,指出其有别于正规就业劳动关系导致就业的不稳定性,对稳定就业带来了挑战。文章最后界定了"灵活就业劳动关系"的内涵和外延,建议在发展平台经济以稳就业岗位的同时,从劳权的具体七个方面系统思考灵活就业劳动关系的规制体系,以保障灵活就业劳动者的权益,化解发展平台经济对就业劳动关系的不稳定因素。     

Green bonds,sustainable development and environmental policy in the European Union carbon market

This study assesses the non-linear effects of green bonds, conventional bonds and energy commodities on the behaviour of the cap-and-trade European Union carbon market (European Union Emissions Trading System [EU-ETS]). By estimating four models, using Markov-switching (MS) econometric methodology, non-linearities are confirmed in dynamic behaviours, observing in the global calculation a positive effect of green bonds (S&P Green and Sol Green) on the carbon market, in regimes of both high and low volatility, whereas conventional bonds (S&P Agg) and energy commodities (DJCI En) contribute to a decrease in the carbon market in regimes of high volatility. The relevance of green bonds is underlined in determining the behaviour of the carbon market, besides observing greater persistence of the low volatility regime. These results allow both investors and fund managers to implement strategies in different volatility or economic activity contexts through a diversified portfolio and green/climate structure.     

Women and poverty: Beyond earnings and welfare

Women’s poverty rates are higher than men’s, with single mothers having extremely high poverty rates. This article first briefly examines poverty measures and U.S. poverty rates among men and women. The author then describes and evaluates three categories of economic research on poverty: the lack or inadequacy of employment and earnings; family structure and welfare; and earnings capacities, care-giving responsibilities and employment. Finally the author assesses the policies to alleviate women’s poverty derived from these explanations.     

Mexico’s balance of payments and exchange rates: a cointegration analysis

Mexico’s recurrent economic crises have cast serious doubts on the existence of a long-run relationship between the country’s balance-of-payments and exchange rates. In this paper, cointegration and vector autoregression techniques are applied to Mexico’s data covering the period 1971 through 1988. Despite the presence of nonstationarity, the statistical analysis supports a long-run relationship between changes in international reserves and the exchange rate and changes in domestic credit. Further multivariate Granger causality tests, together with innovation accounting, indicate that Mexico’s monetary authorities adjust domestic assets to sterilize balance-of-payments deficits in a futile attempt to control its monetary policy.     

The Manager’s Notepad: Working Memory,Exploration, and Performance

This study builds upon March and Simon’s proposition that individual‐level differences must be considered when explaining decision‐making performance. We extend their discussion on the importance of decision‐makers’ attention to explain heterogeneous patterns of exploration and exploitation within the same uncertain environment. We develop a model of decision‐making under uncertainty in which ‘working memory’ – i.e., the ability to hold multiple elements in mind to actively process them – explains the emergence of heterogeneity in exploration‐exploitation choice patterns. We validated the model in a laboratory study and two replications involving 171 individuals. Our findings show that differences in working memory allow us to identify individuals who are more likely to choose exploration over exploitation appropriately, and thus achieve higher performance. We discuss the implications for management theories, and re‐propose the work of March and Simon as a unifying framework that still can be used to generate and test managerially relevant hypotheses.     

More than ‘Mutual Information’: Educational and sectoral gender segregation and their interaction on the Flemish labor market

We build on the Information Theory foundations of the Mutual Information Index of Segregation [Mora and Ruiz-Castillo, 2003; Frankel and Volij, 2011] to analyze two horizontal dimensions of gender segregation on the labor market. We provide a novel, three-way additive decomposition of their effects on overall segregation. Using survey data from 41,712 Flemish employees, we find that choice of study field has a larger effect on overall segregation than sectoral choice. Their mutual interaction is negative, indicating that sectoral segregation, although low, is still partly explained by educational choices.     

HRM and performance—The role of talent management as a transmission mechanism in an emerging market context

This paper investigates the link between HRM practices, talent management (TM), and firm performance and examines the role of HRM/business strategy alignment in an emerging market context. Through survey evidence gathered from 198 respondent firms, this study shows that TM, when focused on a series of practices aimed at developing workforce networks and social capital, is a key transmission mechanism mediating the relationship between HRM and firm performance. HRM strategy and business strategy alignment increases these performance impacts but is not an essential component in the HRM‐TM‐performance link.     

Public cluster policy and firm performance: evaluating spillover effects across industries

ABSTRACT

While the direct positive effects of public cluster policy on subsidized industries are beyond controversy, the impact of such policy interventions on non-subsidized industries within the same region, that is, the indirect effect of public cluster policy, remains vague and unexplored. This study examines the impact of a prominent public cluster policy in Germany, the so-called Leading-Edge Cluster Competition. Based on a unique dataset, we analyse the spillover effects of this cluster policy initiative on those firms and industries, which have not been the primary target of the cluster policy. Our results suggest that public cluster policy seems to have an indirect negative effect on firms that have not primarily been related to the targeted industries; therefore, the concept of ‘agglomeration shadows’ might also apply to industries and related firms. Despite the existence of knowledge flows induced by additional governmental funding within a region, non-subsidized industries, that is, non-targeted firms, seem to be unable to compete against targeted industries and, therefore, suffer from a lack of human, financial and social capital. Based on our findings, we propose policy recommendations on how to best identify policy instruments aimed at augmenting innovation-driven growth across a broad spectrum of industries and regions.     

Stock market reactions to upside and downside volatility of Bitcoin: A quantile analysis

We investigate how sensitive developed and emerging equity markets are to volatility dynamics of Bitcoin during tranquil, bear, and bull market regimes. Intraday price fluctuations of Bitcoin are represented by three measures of realized volatility, viz. total variance, upside semivariance, and downside semivariance. Our empirical analysis relies on a quantile regression framework, after orthogonalizing raw returns with respect to an array of relevant global factors and accounting for structural shifts in the series. The results suggest that developed-market returns are positively related to the realized variance proxy across various market conditions, while emerging-market returns are positively (negatively) correlated with realized variance during bear (normal and bull) market periods. The upside (downside) component of realized variance has a negative (positive) influence on returns of either market category, and the dependence structure is highly asymmetric across the return distribution. Additionally, we document that developed and emerging markets are more sensitive to downside volatility than to upside volatility when they enter tranquil or bull territory. Our results offer practical implications for policymakers and investors.     

Gross rents and market values: Testing the implications of Tiebout's hypothesis

In this paper, we propose a new empirical test of the implications of the Tiebout hypothesis. The test we advance uses gross rent rather than market value as the dependent variable in the estimating equation; we argue that this improves upon the previous studies in several respects. We then explore the determinants of gross rent using a large sample of single-family dwellings in San Mateo County, California.