The impact of Clean Spark Spread expectations on storage hydropower generation

Decisions in Economics and Finance - Storage hydropower generation plays a crucial role in the electric power system and energy transition because it is the most widespread power generation with...     

TMT strategic consensus in Mexican companies

Scholars show continuing interest in top management teams (TMT). This line of research emphasizes their importance for organizational success. This study reveals a clear challenge for researchers; to better understand the relationships between TMT characteristics and firm performance, researchers should consider the firm's environment. Results suggest that environmental complexity moderates the relationship between TMT strategic consensus and performance in Mexican companies. Interestingly, the results contradict initial expectations; lower levels of consensus correlate with higher performance in simple, more than in complex environments. Higher levels of consensus correlate with higher performance, in complex environments.     

The organization of Eastern merchant empires

In the sixteenth century, European countries engaged in long-distance trade with the East. Despite sharing the same objectives and technology, Portugal opted for a crown monopoly, England, the Netherlands, and Sweden franchised trade to private merchants, whereas in Denmark and France, king and merchants shared control. The financial condition of the crown appears to have been relevant for the monarchs' decision. I provide an economic mechanism to illuminate the historical variation in terms of the differences in relative endowments of king and merchants within each country. I also explore the implications of control allocation using archival data on labor compensation and shipping technology. Differences in the long run performance of merchant empires suggest a major impact of organization.     

The Precautionary Principle as a Framework for a Sustainable Information Society

The precautionary principle (PP) aims to anticipate and minimize potentially serious or irreversible risks under conditions of scientific uncertainty. Thus it preserves the potential for future developments. It has been incorporated into many international treaties and pieces of national legislation for environmental protection and sustainable development. In this article, we outline an interpretation of the PP as a framework of orientation for a sustainable information society. Since the risks induced by future information and communication technologies (ICT) are social risks for the most part, we propose to extend the PP from mainly environmental to social subjects of protection. From an ethical point of view, the PP and sustainability share the principle of intergenerational justice, which can be used as an argument to preserve free space for the decisions of future generations. Applied to technical innovation and to ICT issues in particular, the extended PP can serve as a framework of orientation to avoid socio-economically irreversible developments. We conclude that the PP is a useful approach for: (i) policy makers to reconcile information society and sustainability policies and (ii) ICT companies to formulate sustainability strategies.     

Structural convergence of European countries

We investigate the development of economic structures of Western European countries over the last three decades using employment data. We test for structural convergence on the aggregate level as well as specifically for manufacturing and service industries. For this we implement both time-series and panel data methods. Our results indicate strong and persistent intersectoral convergence patterns as lagging countries shift from industrialized to service economies. In contrast, the results regarding inter-industry convergence are mixed: due to one-country specialization effects, increasing divergence is dominant in technology-intensive manufacturing industries, which are characterized by economies of scale, path-dependency and strong economic growth. In less technology-intensive industries both convergence and divergence trends are found, depending on the existence of economies of scale. In traditional service branches, country-specific differences do not change to a significant extent, whereas in some industries with potential for rationalization, σ-convergence prevails.     

Capital mobility and EU enlargement

Capital Mobility and EU Enlargement. — The membership of the Eastern European transition economies in the EU would require inter alia the full liberalization of their capital flows. Using the correlation between domestic saving and investment, this paper provides empirical evidence of the openness with respect to foreign capital that the accession states have attained so far. A comparison with the southern members of the EU shows that the countries under review have reached a similar degree of integration in quantitative terms. Yet, further adjustment in qualitative terms, i.e., in the structure of capital flows, can be expected as the process of accession proceeds.     

Large banks' efficiency in the single European market

This paper examines cost and profit efficiency of large banking firms by defining a common European frontier over the period immediately following the completion of the Single Market Programme in 1992. Despite a slight increase in cost efficiency, country-specific characteristics appear to play important roles in the explanation of cost efficiency scores and significant differences, including varying competitive conditions, seem to exist across European banking markets. In contrast, results derived from the estimation of an alternative profit function seem to suggest that the efficiency gap among countries decreased substantially over the years under study.     

Volatile multinationals? Evidence from the labor demand of German firms

Does more FDI make the world a riskier place for workers? We analyze whether an increase in multinational firms' activities is associated with an increase in firm-level employment volatility. We use a firm-level dataset for Germany which allows us to distinguish between purely domestic firms, exporters, domestic multinationals and foreign multinationals. Employment in multinationals could be more volatile than employment in domestic firms if multinationals were facing more volatile demand or if they react more to aggregate developments. We therefore decompose the labor demand of firms into their reaction and their exposure to aggregate developments. We find no above-average wage and output elasticities for multinational firms.