Harsanyi’s theorem without the sure-thing principle: On the consistent aggregation of Monotonic Bernoullian and Archimedean preferences

This paper studies the extension of Harsanyi’s theorem (Harsanyi, 1955) in a framework involving uncertainty. It seeks to extend the aggregation result to a wide class of Monotonic Bernoullian and Archimedean preferences (Cerreia-Vioglio et al., 2011) that subsumes many models of choice under uncertainty proposed in the literature. An impossibility result is obtained, unless we are in the specific framework where all individuals and the social observer are subjective expected utility maximizers sharing the same beliefs. This implies that non-expected utility preferences cannot be aggregated consistently.     

Modeling and simulation of the quality’s entropy

The aim of the present study is to define quality entropy as well as to illustrate some of its properties. The simulation of the mathematical model for quality entropy shall be performed by means of specialized software for mathematical problem simulation, such as Microsoft Excel that we have employed for this particular study. Our aim is to prove that quality entropy may be expanded to the notions of Markov source of quality and Bernoulli source of quality, by analogy with the Markov and Bernoulli sources employed in information theory. Likewise, the present study delineates some aspects regarding tolerance to quality entropy. The subject of entropy and its application of the management of quality has been approached by other authors as well (Dinu and Vod?, Revista Calitatea-acces la succes, anul 8(4): 60–61, 2007; Dinu, Revista Calitatea-acces la succes, anul 8(5): 62–63, 2007; Georgescu-Roegen, Legea Entropiei ?i Procesul Economic, 1979; Stamatiu, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Quality, Reability and Maintainabilty, 2000; Stamatiu, Proceeding of the 18th International Conference on Quality, Reliability and Maintainability, 2002). Through our transdisciplinary approach, we would like to contribute to the development of this subject.     

Economic growth,volatility and their interaction: What’s the role of finance?

This paper examines the relation between financial depth and the interaction of economic growth and its volatility. We use a sample of 52 countries for the period 1980–2011, and our main finding is that, at moderate levels of financial depth, further deepening increases the ratio of average growth to volatility; however, as financial depth increases, this relation reverts, and the rise in volatility overcomes that of economic growth. This result is obtained both in the medium and long run; however, the peak of the relation seems to be lower in the medium run (around 40%–55% of domestic credit/GDP) than in the long run (around 75%–99%). This suggests that increasing the level of domestic credit may intensify relative volatility in the medium term, but still raise relative long-term growth before the long-run threshold is achieved.     

Productivity,efficiency and technical change: measuring the performance of China’s transforming agriculture

As China enters the twenty-first century the health of the agricultural economy will increasingly rely, not on the growth of inputs, but on the growth of total factor productivity (TFP). However, the tremendous changes in the sector—sometimes back and sometimes forwards—as well as evolving institutions make it difficult to gauge from casual observation if the sector is healthy or not. Research spending has waxed and waned. Policies to encourage the import of foreign technologies have been applied unevenly. Structural adjustment policies also triggered wrenching changes in the sector. Horticulture and livestock production has boomed; while the output of other crops, such as rice, wheat and soybeans, has stagnated or fallen. At a time when China’s millions of producers are faced with complex decisions, the extension system is crumbling and farmer professional associations remain in their infancy. In short, there are just as many reasons to be optimistic about the productivity trends in agriculture as to be pessimistic. In this paper, we pursue one overall goal: to better understand the productivity trends in China’s agricultural sector during the reform era—with an emphasis on the 1990–2004 period. To do so, we pursue three specific objectives. First, relying on the National Cost of Production Data Set—China’s most complete set of farm input and output data—we chart the input and output trends for 23 of China’s main farm commodities. Second, using a stochastic production frontier function approach we estimate the rate of change in TFP for each commodity. Finally, we decompose the changes in TFP into two components: changes in efficiency and changes in technical change. Our findings—especially after the early 1990s are remarkably consistent. China’s agricultural TFP has grown at a healthy rate for all 23 commodities. TFP growth for the staple commodities generally rose around 2% annually; TFP growth for most horticulture and livestock commodities was even higher (between 3 and 5%). Equally consistent, we find that most of the change is accounted for by technical change. The analysis is consistent with the conclusion that new technologies have pushed out the production functions, since technical change accounts for most of the rise in TFP. In the case of many of the commodities, however, the efficiency of producers—that is, the average distance of producers from the production frontier—has fallen. In other words, China’s TFP growth would have been even higher had the efficiency of production not eroded the gains of technical change. Although we do not pinpoint the source of rising inefficiency, the results are consistent with a story that there is considerable disequilibrium in the farm economy during this period of rapid structural change and farmers are getting little help in making these adjustments from the extension system.     

High-performance human resource practices and firm performance: the mediating role of employees’ competencies and the moderating role of climate for creativity

Drawing on the resource- and competency-based view, this paper examines the relationship between high-performance human resource (HR) practices and firm performance. Using a sample of 189 firms in mainland China, a positive relationship between high-performance HR practices and firm performance was found that was partially mediated by employees’ competencies. We also found the organisational climate for creativity to strengthen such relationship. The implications and future directions of these findings are discussed.     

Growth of born globals: the role of the entrepreneur’s personal factors and venture capital

This paper examines to what extent the human capital of entrepreneurs and the receipt of venture capital (VC) financing affect the growth of born globals (BGs). The study analyzes a sample of 242 BGs resulting from a survey on high-tech start-ups operating in the ICT and electronics sectors, located in different countries throughout the world. A multivariate explorative analysis controlling for the endogenous nature of VC is conducted. The results indicate that the experience of the entrepreneur in having previously established another entrepreneurial firm positively affects the growth of BGs. A negative effect is associated with the presence of heterogeneity in the management team in terms of education background. With regard to the linkage between financial capital and growth, it is found that both VC financing and the number of founders (a proxy for the availability internal capital) positively influence the growth of BGs.     

French multinational companies’ strategies and co-ordination mechanisms: the role of human resource management in Europe and Nigeria

The everchanging European context may well lead to the evolution of MNCs’ strategies in Europe and to the evolution of the control mechanisms within their subsidiaries. The author analyses the issue from the angle of human resources management, considered as an informal control tool that is widely recognized by both scholars and managers. This research therefore aims at analysing whether or not and how HRM systems embody a possible integration process in the European economic space. The methodology is based on a case study from a French multinational company belonging to the automobile industry while the investigation, a comparative analysis of the headquarters-subsidiaries relationships in England, Spain and Nigeria, points out the specificity of the European context regarding corporate strategy orientations, subsidiary roles and personnel transfer policies. The major conclusions from such an analysis suggest a framework that gives prominence to the differentiation of the management process between Europe and Nigeria.

These results confirm previous literature on co-ordination mechanisms in complex business organizations.     

Estimation of the regression slope by means of Gini’s cograduation index

The simple linear model \(Y_i = \alpha + \beta \, x_i + \epsilon _i\) \((i=1,2, \ldots ,N \ge 2)\) is considered, where the \(x_i\)’s are given constants and \(\epsilon _1, \epsilon _2 , \ldots , \epsilon _N\) are independent identically distributed (iid) with continuous distribution function F. An estimator \(\tilde{\beta }\) of the slope parameter is proposed, based on a stochastic process which makes use of Gini’s cograduation index. The properties of \(\tilde{\beta }\) and of the related confidence interval are studied. Some comparisons are given, in terms of asymptotic relative efficiency, with other estimators of \(\beta \) including that obtained with the method of least squares.     

Correction to: Inside Buchanan’s Samaritan’s Dilemma: altruism,strategic courage and ethics of responsibility

Economics of Governance - The Samaritan’s Dilemma has largely been investigated, frequently by assuming that Samaritans help recipients out of altruism. Yet, Buchanan did not make any...     

Aggression and Bullying in the Workplace: It’s the Position of the Perpetrator that Influences Employees’ Reactions and Sanctioning Ratings

While research has identified the causes and consequences of workplace aggression and bullying, little research has examined the factors that shape employee responses to aggression and bullying. In the present paper two studies are conducted in a healthcare setting to determine the factors that shape perceptions of aggression and bullying and how those perceptions subsequently influence employee reactions and sanctioning ratings. Empowerment, well-being, and communication satisfaction are examined to determine their moderating influence on reactions and sanctioning ratings to the incidents of aggression and bullying. The findings indicate that perpetrator type influences perceptions of aggression, that employees address incidents of aggression differently than incidents of bullying, and that empowerment and well-being moderate the relationship between perceptions of aggression and bullying and the subsequent reactions and sanctioning recommendations employees make.     

Correction to: Socio-legal systems and implementation of the Nash solution in Debreu–Hurwicz equilibrium

Review of Economic Design -     

The effect of human resource practices on perceived organizational support in the People’s Republic of China

Using a sample of workers and managers employed by a hotel located in Southeastern People’s Republic of China, we investigated the relationship between various human resource management practices and the perceived organizational support (POS) experienced by the employees. We then investigated the effects of POS on employee satisfaction. Our data suggest that hiring practices, training, and compensation practices predict POS. These results are consistent with previous research. We also found that POS influences worker satisfaction and acts as a mediator between select HR practices and satisfaction. This study contributes to the literature by replicating Western-based findings with a Chinese sample and illustrating that the attitudes of Chinese employees can be influenced through the use of HR practices.     

Changes in women’s and men’s child care time in China, 2004–2011: the contributions of cohort replacement and intra-cohort change

With the rapid social and economic changes in China, increasing attention has been paid to issues related to child care, such as maternal work and child care, child care support sources, and work-family conflict. But the change in women’s and men’s child care time in the last decade remains under-researched. I use cross-sectional data from the 2004–2011 China Health and Nutrition Survey and linear decomposition regression techniques to examine the mechanisms generating structural change in child care time for men and women. I find that overall women’s child care time is slightly decreasing because the contributions of intra-cohort change and cohort replacement are offsetting one another. However, men’s childcare time is increasing during the same time period because of processes of intra-cohort change. Trends in women’s childcare time indicate a positive but small cohort replacement effect, whereas men’s childcare time is largely impacted by a positive intra-cohort change effect. These results highlight the mechanisms through which the gendered division of childcare time inside Chinese families has been shifting in the direction of increasing egalitarianism from 2004 to 2011.     

Dynamic interaction of risk–return trade-offs between oil market and China’s stock market: An analysis from the risk preferences perspective

The risk–return trade-off refers to the compensation required by investors for bearing risks, which can be viewed as the risk preference of investors in a market. The current study investigates the dynamic interdependence of risk–return trade-offs between China’s stock market and the crude oil market from the perspective of risk preference of investors, which is designed to explore the transmission process of investors’ risk preference in both markets. Specifically, this study applies the time-varying parameter GARCH-M model, namely TVP-GARCH-M model, to characterize the time-dependent risk–return trade-offs (investors’ risk preferences) in the crude oil and China’s stock markets, then examines their relationship through Granger causality tests. Results show that a variation in risk preferences of the oil market investors can dramatically cause a variation in risk preferences of the Chinese stock market investors, while the risk preference of investors in the Chinese stock market does not lead to that in the crude oil market, which is in accordance with expectations. The dynamic effect of investors’ risk appetite in the crude oil market is further examined by the TVP-VAR model. The findings of this work suggest that there generally exists a positive impact of investors’ risk preference in the oil market and that the effect is time-varying to a greater degree during the short and medium term. Moreover, responses of the Chinese stock market investors’ risk preference were more significant during the 2008 financial crisis. Additionally, the empirical results remain robust when applying alternative crude oil prices and China’s stock prices.     

High-performance work practices and nurses’ intention to leave: the mediating role of organizational cynicism and the moderating role of human resource management-related educational background

Recently, an increasing stream of research has examined high-performance work practices in the health care context. In this vein, high-performance work practices have been shown to be related to various employees’ attitudes and behaviors including intention to leave. This study attempted to improve our understanding of the relationship between high-performance work practices and intention to leave by jointly examining mediating and moderating mechanisms. Results from a sample of 299 private nurses supported our moderated mediation model thus demonstrating that organizational cynicism mediated the relationship between high-performance work practices and intention to leave and further that this indirect effect is dependent on nurses’ human resource management-related educational background.     

Employer preferences,collective agreements and the Australian resources sector: a paradox of limited commodification?

There is a commonly held view that firms in high‐wage/skill‐intensive sectors will tend to provide wages and working conditions that are above market‐clearing levels. This article empirically examines this claim by analysing the content of all collective agreements concluded in the resource sector in Australia after the enactment in 2006 of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Workchoices) Act. This legislation gave employers unprecedented ability to place downwards pressure on employee entitlements. In the resource sector, however, the quantitative results indicate that firms maintained, in the main, substantive standards but used extensively key regulatory provisions to gain an unprecedented level of control over both functional and numerical flexibility.