Macau Metropolis and Mental Life: Interior Urbanism and the Chinese Imaginary

This article investigates the tendency towards an interiorized and encapsulated urbanity in Macau and the functional role of this phenomenon in the ‘mental life’ of Chinese consumers. A Portuguese territory for half a millennium, Macau was returned to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1999; the postcolonial, semi‐autonomous Macau Special Administrative Region has subsequently become the most lucrative casino gaming site in the world, far surpassing casino revenues earned in Las Vegas. This article investigates the manner in which the local government of the city‐state and the central government of the PRC have colluded with transnational capital to effect a remarkable enclosure of the urban commons in Macau. The entire city today may be understood as a biopolitical laboratory of consumption, where the PRC uses a preferential exit visa policy to allow tourists from select, relatively affluent provinces access to Macau. The new built environment of the city naturalizes a radical urban imaginary and corresponding post‐socialist ‘quality’ consumer subject; that subject is crucial to the macroeconomic goals of the PRC and the sustainability of global capitalism.     

Do stable strategic time periods exist? Towards new methodological and theoretical insights

This paper investigates a fundamental issue in the current research on strategic groups: the existence or non‐existence of the so‐called ‘stable strategic time periods’ (SSTPs). Our study provides new evidence by adding new methodological and theoretical insights. The research setting is the Spanish banking industry over a 15‐year period, 1983–1997. Unlike all prior longitudinal research that found SSTPs, the multi‐method procedure that we used in this study (i.e. equality of variance and covariance matrix and mean vector of strategic variables and a subsequent grouping analysis performed through the MCLUST) has led us to reject the existence of SSTPs in the industry under study. Based on these original findings, we conclude by suggesting a proposition which should be corroborated in future empirical studies on strategic groups. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The performance of heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation robust tests: a Monte Carlo study with an application to the three‐factor Fama–French asset‐pricing model

This paper illustrates the pitfalls of the conventional heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation robust (HAR) Wald test and the advantages of new HAR tests developed by Kiefer and Vogelsang in 2005 and by Phillips, Sun and Jin in 2003 and 2006. The illustrations use the 1993 Fama–French three‐factor model. The null that the intercepts are zero is tested for 5‐year, 10‐year and longer sub‐periods. The conventional HAR test with asymptotic P‐values rejects the null for most 5‐year and 10‐year sub‐periods. By contrast, the null is not rejected by the new HAR tests. This conflict is explained by showing that inferences based on the conventional HAR test are misleading for the sample sizes used in this application. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managing Harassment

Survey says: Sexual harassment complaints went up about 10% each year between 1995 and 1998! And even worse, 2 out of 3 complaints had some merit! Clearly, organizations need to learn how to manage this issue, not just be compliant with the law. This article provides interpretations of recent Supreme Court decisions for HR practitioners and new methods for managing harassment in workplaces. It may stimulate those who are reading the article to “step outside the box” and be more innovative in their approach to managing harassment in their organizations so as to create self‐sustaining environments where harassment is unwelcome. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Transforming New Ideas into Practice: An Activity Based Perspective on the Institutionalization of Practices

We develop an activity‐focused process model of how new ideas can be transformed into front line practice by reviving attention to the importance of habitualization as a key component of institutionalization. In contrast to established models that explain how ideas diffuse or spread from one organization to another, we employ a micro‐level perspective to study the subsequent intra‐organizational processes through which these ideas are transformed into new workplace practices. We followed efforts to transform the organizationally accepted idea of ‘interdisciplinary teamwork’ into new everyday practices in four cases over a six year time period. We contribute to the literature by focusing on de‐habitualizing and re‐habitualizing behaviours that connect micro‐level actions with organizational level theorizing. Our model illuminates three phases that we propose are essential to creating and sustaining this connection: micro‐level theorizing, encouraging trying the new practices, and facilitating collective meaning‐making.     

Modeling the effects of grade retention in high school

A dynamic discrete‐choice model is set up to estimate the effects of grade retention in high school, both in the short run (end‐of‐year evaluation) and in the long run (drop‐out and delay). In contrast to other evaluation approaches, this model captures essential treatment heterogeneity and controls for grade‐varying unobservable determinants. In addition, forced track downgrading is considered as an alternative remedial measure. Our results indicate that grade retention has a neutral effect on academic achievement in the short run. In the long run, grade retention, just like forced downgrading, has adverse effects on schooling outcomes and, more so, for less able pupils.     

Small‐sample bias in synthetic cohort models of labor supply

This paper investigates small‐sample biases in synthetic cohort models (repeated cross‐sectional data grouped at the cohort and year level) in the context of a female labor supply model. I use the Current Population Survey to compare estimates when group sizes are extremely large to those that arise from randomly drawing subsamples of observations from the large groups. I augment this approach with Monte Carlo analysis so as to precisely quantify biases and coverage rates. In this particular application, thousands of observations per group are required before small‐sample issues can be ignored in estimation and sampling error leads to large downward biases in the estimated income elasticity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Following in Partners’ Footsteps: An Uncertainty‐Reduction Perspective on Firms’ Choice of New Markets

In this paper, we develop a new perspective on what determines firms’ choice of new markets for entry. First, drawing on the open‐system theoretical tradition and literature on inter‐organizational networks, we advance and empirically test the proposition that firms tend to enter new markets to which they are connected by partnership ties. We then show that this network influence is filtered through the structure of firms’ network connections to new markets and firms’ experience. Specifically, we find that multiplicity of connections to new markets, as well as the extensiveness of firms’ experience and its relevance to new markets weaken the effect of network ties on firms’ choice of new markets. The results of this study indicate that firms’ choice of new markets for entry is a nuanced process that is affected by the interplay of firms’ collaborative ties, the structure of their network, and firms’ internal capabilities. We test our hypotheses in the empirical context of the U.S. venture capital (VC) industry using panel data over a 23‐year period and find broad support for them.     

Peripheries well able to cope with wider bond spreads

• While a four‐year golden period for many peripheral Eurozone governments of rising GDP growth and falling global bond yields may be coming to an end, we doubt that we will see a sharp widening of Eurozone bond spreads in 2017.
• Although higher yields are clearly not positive news for heavily indebted peripheral governments, our view is that the pace of increase in risk‐free long‐term yields will be fairly gradual this year – we expect ten‐year Bund yields to climb to just 0.6% or so by the end of 2017. Such a development is unlikely to prompt markets to demand far higher compensation for the higher risk associated with holding peripheral debt.
• Indeed, both the Italian and Spanish governments should be able to borrow at long maturities and at rates comfortably below their average rate on their outstanding stock of debt of 3% or so, throughout this year and probably beyond, even if spreads rise.
• Meanwhile, a key factor behind the rise in bond yields – the prospect of higher inflation – will have some positive effects. Higher inflation will erode the real value of outstanding debt and make it easier for intra‐Eurozone imbalances to be resolved. At the margin, a steeper yield curve will also help to boost banks' profits on lending.
• Finally, although populists support has grown, the risk of populist governments taking power in the periphery are fairly low. Italy and Spain may hold early elections, but it is not a given that elections will be held this year. And in the event of an election, we do not attach a high chance to the election of populist parties in either economy.
• Overall, while 2017 may be a bumpy one for spreads, particularly in Italy, we see only a modest widening from their current levels, reflecting improvements in the debt sustainability positions of the peripheral governments. But even these modest gains will mean Bunds would still outperform Italian and Spanish government bonds over the next year on a total returns basis.

     

2014 – a year of widening monetary divergence

The Fed's December decision marks a change in active monetary policies. It is a natural consequence of the divergence in global growth that was one of the key developments of 2013. Over the course of the year, US and UK activity strengthened, remarkably so in the case of the UK where at the beginning of the year the talk was of a triple‐dip recession. Chinese activity held up, if below the stellar growth rates of the pre‐crisis years. Japan is beginning to see some dividend from Abenomics, but rather less than expected; while the Eurozone economy is slowing again after showing some brief strength in Q2, and may fall back into recession. Diverging growth was clearly signalled by diverging broad money growth earlier in the year…     

Brexit and world growth – what are the risks?

• The initial global market reaction to the UK Brexit vote was very negative and in our view overdone. Nevertheless, we expect the uncertainty to linger for a while, with the vote having refocused investors on existing vulnerabilities in the world economy. Our new forecasts see the main negative impacts on growth being in the UK, the Eurozone and Japan. Risks to our new forecasts remain skewed to the downside, with a significant danger of world growth dropping below 2% this year.
• Our new forecasts see UK growth dropping to 1.4% a year in 2017–18, down from 2.2–2.3% a year before. In the Eurozone, growth will be around 0.2% a year weaker in 2017–18 and Japan is also a loser as a result of the risk aversion‐driven stronger yen, with growth at just 0.3% in 2017 from 0.5%.
• The size of the initial global market sell‐off makes no sense in the context of the likely impact from a weaker UK. In part, it seems to have reflected the pricing in of very negative scenarios in the Eurozone. But investors may also be worrying about other global problems glossed over in recent months.
• One risk to our forecast is that confidence effects on businesses and consumers are larger than we expect – but such effects are often overstated. Another danger is that more of the recent financial market weakness will ‘stick’ than our new baseline forecasts assume.
• Our world recession indicator is already at elevated levels and suggests a significant danger of world growth slipping below 2% this year; not a recession, but it might feel like one. Global policymakers need to act quickly to head off the risks.

     

The Engineer and The Plumber: Mediating Mumbai's Conflicting Infrastructural Imaginaries

Two decades ago, the rules governing the provision of piped municipal water supply in Mumbai became linked to the policy frameworks governing eligibility for a property titling scheme. This article outlines the ideological basis and practical implications of the shift, as well as the contradictions of the new regulatory regime. The article demonstrates how these contradictions have been mediated by the material and practical knowledge, embodied expertise, local authority and wide‐ranging socio‐political work of two sets of actors: municipal water engineers and a cast of characters known locally as ‘plumbers’. The social, political and hydraulic imaginaries animating the work of ‘plumbing’ are bound up with a temporal and spatial imaginary distinctly at odds with the network‐flow conception of hydraulic engineering within which the work of water supply planning and distribution in Mumbai is conceptualized, materialized and institutionalized. The hydraulic and legal contradictions of these clashing infrastructural idioms––of flow and event––have rendered the regulatory framework highly unstable. These contradictions eventually erupted in Mumbai's waterscape, leaving the city's water infrastructures suspended in a highly politicized state of limbo between dueling infrastructural imaginaries.     

Forecast in detail

Government borrowing in 2018–19 fell to a 17‐year low. But extra public spending and tax cuts announced since last October mean that 2019–20 is set to deliver the first year‐on‐year rise in the deficit since 2012–13. And a change in how student loans are classified and likely ‘giveaways’ under a new Prime Minister are set to push up the deficit further compared to recent forecasts.     

Crowding Out Reciprocity between Working Parents and Companies with Corporate Childcare

When the government and companies invest in childcare, both do it with good intentions. While politicians have the intention of enhancing fertility and well‐being of families, employers expect positive responses from working parents based on the norm of reciprocity. Since industrialized countries increase public family support year by year, the question arises as to whether this may trigger unanticipated consequences. If both the state and companies invest in substitutive services, they might unintentionally spark competition. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine whether public childcare may “crowd out” the reciprocity effects of corporate childcare on working parents. In Switzerland, state family policies vary among the 26 cantons, so we are able to compare cantons with a high and low number of cantonal childcare services. Using survey data taken from 414 working parents living in different Swiss cantons, we examined whether public childcare affects organizational‐related responses of working parents. First, our results support the expected level of reciprocity: working parents in companies with their own childcare services show higher organizational commitment than parents in companies without this support. Second, we find evidence for a crowding‐out effect: in family‐supportive cantons with numerous public childcare services, working parents’ commitment to companies with their own childcare services is lower than in less family‐friendly cantons. This finding reignites an old economic debate on the crowding out of voluntary private investments due to governmental policies. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Small business responsibility in developing countries: a threat or an opportunity?

Many developing country small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that are exporters see themselves facing a dilemma. They do not know how to respond to the rising social and environmental requirements of global buyers and supply chains and fear that were they to do so they would lose their competitive edge. However, they are aware that if they do not meet these requirements, they will not be able to access new foreign markets and may lose the contracts they already have. To investigate whether practical methods exist for resolving this dilemma, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) carried out a one year project with 22 SMEs in four Asian countries. The results suggest that well targeted, enterprise‐specific efforts to meet corporate social responsibility (CSR) requirements can make a positive contribution to both short‐term profitability and longer‐term competitiveness. The ‘business case’ for CSR appears strongest in the environmental area, but measures in that area can act as a ‘starter motor’ for tackling more systemic ‘social’ problems. Furthermore, tackling social issues at the workplace can feed back positively to improve the sustainability of the environmental improvement measures. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Japan

The immediate post‐Brexit volatility has diminished with the Topix index regaining all the 8% it lost on the day of the referendum result. In addition, the yen has fallen back from a 30‐month high of ¥101 to the US dollar, but at around ¥105 it has still risen by some 12% so far this year. Meanwhile, a snap poll in the immediate aftermath of the UK referendum vote to leave the EU showed almost half of Japanese businesses expecting a deterioration in business conditions.     

Necrotecture: Lifeless Dwellings and London's Super‐Rich

This article problematizes the relationship between the global super‐rich and processes of property development that have generated large volumes of underused residential space. Evidence is presented to show that much of London's new skyline is underused or lies entirely empty, so that one interpretation of this new landscape of super‐prime residential development is that it is a kind of dead residential space or necrotecture. These relatively lifeless spaces can be interpreted as the particularly wasteful result of continuing rounds of international capital investment in the built environment and the overconsumption of housing and other resources by the super‐rich. Necrotectural forms, seen in new towers and spectacular homes, appear to index a massive misdirection of development capacity, even as the city experiences a massive social crisis that continues to be played out in the wider housing market.     

Santiago Calatrava and the ‘Power of Faith’: Global Imaginaries in Valencia

The focus of this article is on the importance of collective imaginaries for urban policy mobility, and on the agents and modes of power through which imaginaries are translated, mobilized and become materialized in specific places. Through the case study of the monumental complex of the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, designed by Valencian global architect Santiago Calatrava, I discuss Calatrava's mobilization of ideas of modernity, tradition, democratization and self‐esteem already present in the collective imaginary of the people and the politicians of post‐Franco's Spain to promote his global architecture. In this process, I argue, global imaginaries were translated into local imaginaries and vice versa as they became embodied in persons and objects, represented in this case by Calatrava's figure as a local/global architect and by the architecture of the City of Arts and Sciences. Particularly, I analyse Calatrava's use of the power of seduction, persuasion and coercion to mobilize such imaginaries in order to build his ubiquitous signature architecture in Valencia.     

World Economic Prospects Monthly

Overview: Growth resilient to protectionist concerns

• ? Despite the mounting threat of more protectionist trade measures, we expect the impact on global growth and trade to be mild. Given this, and the still fairly solid underlying economic picture, we have left our global GDP growth forecasts for 2018 and 2019 unchanged at 3.2% and 3.0% respectively.
• ? Although economic data in Q1 painted a pretty solid picture, there are signs that the global expansion may lose momentum in Q2. Most notably, the global PMI fell sharply in March, more than offsetting the gains of the previous three quarters or so. Some of the decline may reflect an over‐reaction to recent trade threats and could be reversed in April and despite the drop, the surveys still point to strong growth. But the fall highlights the risk that lingering trade tensions could damage confidence and prompt firms and consumers to delay investment and major spending plans.
• ? On a more positive note, China's economic growth picked up markedly in early 2018, which could provide a fillip to global trade growth in the near term. Given the betterthan‐expected start to the year, we have made no change to our 2018 China GDP growth forecast (of 6.4%) despite the probable negative effects of trade measures.
• ? Meanwhile, most advanced economies remain in the late expansionary stage of the cycle. And those that show signs of slowing, such as the Eurozone, are doing so from multi‐year highs. While we have nudged down our 2018 Eurozone GDP growth forecast slightly to 2.2%, the pace is expected to remain well above trend. We judge the impact of US tariffs and counter‐measures on the US economy to be subdued and have lowered our GDP growth forecasts for 2018 and 2019 by just 0.1pp.
• ? For now, we see further solid growth for the world economy this year even in the environment of rising protectionism. While there is a risk that a further escalation of trade tensions could trigger a sharper slowdown in global GDP growth, we still see the risks of a full‐blown and damaging trade war as limited and the chances of protectionism leading to recessions as smaller still.