比利时的财富

“请注册为‘D.E.Koninck＇的直升机的主人到咨询台前来好吗？”在首届富世生活比利时峰荟举办地科特赖克展览中心的现场．喇叭里传来这样紧急但礼貌的询问。原来，展览中心的停车场停满了兰博基尼，宾利等名车，但一位直升机的主人不慌不忙地将其两人位的飞机停在了车辆旁边。显然．这位主人宁可被罚也一心想要参加世界顶级奢侈品盛会，毫无疑问，他是对的。     

Understanding the trend to mobile-only internet connections:A decomposition analysis

A growing portion of internet users rely solely on mobile devices such as smartphones for their online access. The percentage of “mobile-only” households increased from 9% in 2011 to 20% in 2015, more than doubling in only four years. As this shift continues, it leads to the question of what factors are driving the rise in mobile-only adoption. Using nationally representative data, this study uses logistic regressions and a decomposition technique to understand the trend. The decomposition reveals that a significant portion (65%) of the growth was due to an increase in the download speeds of mobile networks. An increased acceptance of mobile-only access by households aged 55 and older was also partly responsible. Understanding (and developing a response to) the trend towards mobile-only adoption will be important as organizations and governments continue to work to close the digital divide.     

Local Democracy Ltd

Abstract

A number of European countries have witnessed a proliferation of local government enterprises in recent years. Norwegian local councillors are seemingly particularly exposed to this ‘enterprise fever’. Our article explores local governments' approaches to the political control of such companies. We observe a reluctance to intervene directly in the affairs of an enterprise, but there is a last-resort preparedness to take more resolute action. Lastly, in contrast to what the prototypical agency model postulates, we find that those who attach strong aspirations of increased capacity to the establishment of companies appear to lack trust in the same companies' performance capability.     

Product variety and the demographic transition

Why does the rate of population growth decline in the face of economic growth? We show that growing product variety may induce a permanent reduction in the demand for children and a continuous rise in income and consumption.     

Disruptive Innovation in the Nordic Countries＇ Healthcare Systems

The Nordic healtheare model is recognized to be one of the most innovative in the world. Here billions of USD are annually invested in developing new treatments, drugs, robots etc. to diagnose and cure diseases. Nevertheless, this study establishes that there is a fundamental shortcoming in the system that supports healthcare innovation： It is strongly biased towards micro-level innovation projects focusing on new products, alternative processes, and new financial solutions. The problem with this approach to support new projects is that the results are created as inventions within the system thus lacking holistic perspectives. This has consequently contributed with increasing costs that are out of proportion with existing budgets. Therefore this study seeks to analyze the current understanding of the Nordic healthcare system from a business model perspective. Here other aspects of the healthcare system are explored to determine if they could be redesigned to promote new types of innovation projects. The purpose of undertaking this task is to challenge the established patterns of the current healthcare innovation support practices. Here the vertical innovation process （VIP） framework, which is a systematic radical innovation model that seeks macro-level outcomes based on standalone inventions （see more below）, is applied to analyze the current state-of-the-art in Nordic healthcare innovation projects. The results determine that very little attention is given to rethink and redesign the healthcare system at a macro-level, and it is discussed that stand-alone inventions ought to be rethought into the entire healthcare system to create a larger impact. Finally, it is argued that existing performance measures are inappropriate to foster projects that innovate the existing system： New measuring points should be developed to promote macro-level projects and to avoid the current rapid increase of costs in the Nordic healthcare system.     

In search of stars: Network formation among heterogeneous agents

This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment on network formation among heterogeneous agents. The experimental design extends the Bala–Goyal [Bala, V., Goyal, S., 2000. A non-cooperative model of network formation, Econometrica 68, 1131–1230] model of network formation with decay and two-way flow of benefits by introducing agents with lower linking costs or higher benefits to others. Furthermore, agents' types may be common knowledge or private information. In all treatments, the (efficient) equilibrium network has a “star” structure. While equilibrium predictions fail completely with homogeneous agents, star networks frequently occur with heterogeneous agents. Stars are not born but rather develop: with a high-value agent, the network's centrality, stability, and efficiency all increase over time. A structural econometric model based on best response dynamics and other-regarding preferences is used to analyze individual linking behavior. Maximum-likelihood estimates of the underlying structural parameters, obtained by pooling data from several treatments, allow us to explain the main treatment effects.     

Information acquisition, dissemination, and transparency of monetary policy

Abstract.  This paper examines the role of transparency in a benevolent monetary authority's policies. Each firm's payoff depends on unobservable macroeconomic conditions and firms may incur a cost to acquire private information about macroeconomic conditions. The policy authority attempts to infer the underlying macroeconomic conditions from a noisy measure of aggregate actions and makes a public announcement to inform firms of this inference. High-quality announcements provide firms the incentive not to gather private information and base actions solely on information contained in policy announcements. However, this makes the observed actions of firms less informative to the policy authority.     

Earnings management by firms announcing earnings after SEC filing

This study examines motivation and stock market reactions of firms announcing earnings in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) after filing with the Security Exchange Commission (SEC). Most firms announce earnings in the WSJ before SEC filing. Firms that reverse this sequence are voluntarily delaying public earnings announcements. The authors find that these firms are not only poor financial performers but also engage in earnings managements. They are delaying their WSJ announcements to postpone announcing bad news. The authors find significant stock price reactions to both the SEC filing and the WSJ announcement. The price reaction to earnings is incomplete at the SEC filings. The market continues reacting to firms' subsequent WSJ announcements as if the SEC filing fails to communicate earnings information to some investors.     

Network ties and entrepreneurial orientation: Innovative performance of SMEs in a developing country

This study investigates the role of intra-cluster ties, extra-cluster ties, and entrepreneurial orientation in shaping firms’ innovative performance. We conduct our analysis on a primary data set of 120 small and medium enterprises located in the Cibaduyut footwear-manufacturing cluster, Indonesia. We explore the effectiveness of knowledge acquisition through intra-cluster ties and extra-cluster ties on innovative performance. We find that extra-cluster ties mediate the relationship between proactiveness and innovative performance. Also, a combination of high extra-cluster ties and risk taking exert a positive impact on innovative performance. Surprisingly, we find that risk taking negatively moderates the influence of intra-cluster ties on innovative performance. Over-reliance on within-cluster knowledge sharing may result in the diffusion of redundant knowledge rather than making new knowledge available to the firm. Overall, our findings point to the synergistic effects of entrepreneurial orientation and extra-cluster ties on innovative performance.