Decentralization Effects in Ecological Fiscal Transfers: A Bayesian Structural Time Series Analysis for Portugal

Portugal has a unitary system in which the central government transfers funds to lower government levels for their public functions. In 2007, Portugal introduced Ecological Fiscal Transfers (EFT), where municipalities receive transfers for hosting protected areas (PA). We study whether introducing EFT in Portugal incentivized municipalities to designate PA and has led to a decentralization of conservation decisions. We employ a Bayesian structural time series approach to estimate the effect of introducing EFT in comparison to a simulated counterfactual time series. Quantitative results show a significant increase in the ratio of municipal and national PA designations following Portugal’s EFT introduction—which we infer to be a causal consequence. The analysis furthermore places emphasis on the importance of relevant municipal conservation competencies for the functioning of the instrument. Results have important implications for conservation policy-making in terms of allocating budgets and competencies in multi-level governments.     

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New insights on earnings trends across skill groups and industries in West Germany

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the structure of earnings in West Germany across skill groups and industries. Our analysis is based on data from the German Socioeconomic Panel for the period 1984 to 1994. We estimate quantile regressions, both for the entire sample period and for each year separately, in order to obtain a finer picture of the earnings structure compared to conventional least squares methods. For robust standard error estimation, this study uses a block bootstrap procedure taking account of heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation in the error term. We also suggest a simple procedure to obtain a consistent estimate of inter-industry earnings variability. Our main findings are: first, pooled estimation comprising a uniform time trend is not rejected by the data, and second, the effects of human capital variables and industry dummies on earnings differ considerably across quantiles. First version: May 1998/Final version: April 2002 RID="*" ID="*"  We are grateful to an anonymous referee as well as to Thiess Büttner, Christian Dustmann, Wolfgang Franz, John Haisken-DeNew, Costas Meghir, Werner Smolny, Peter Winker, Volker Zimmermann, and seminar participants in Heidelberg, Kassel, Konstanz, and Paris for helpful comments. However, all errors are our sole responsibility. RID="*" ID="*"  We are grateful to an anonymous referee as well as to Thiess Büttner, Christian Dustmann, Wolfgang Franz, John Haisken-DeNew, Costas Meghir, Werner Smolny, Peter Winker, Volker Zimmermann, and seminar participants in Heidelberg, Kassel, Konstanz, and Paris for helpful comments. However, all errors are our sole responsibility.     

Ethical Values of Executive Search Consultants

The present research was designed to investigate the absolute and relative levels of ethical convictions of executive search consultants, or "headhunters", in regard of their search practices. Executive search consultants were defined as trained specialists who helped client organizations identify and evaluate the suitability of job candidates for top, senior, and middle-level management and executive positions. Despite frequent reports of unethical search practices in the media, results based on a sample of 184 headhunters and non-headhunter executives showed that headhunters were inclined to adhere stringently to a selected set of ethical values, both in absolute terms and in comparison with the expectations of non-headhunter executives. The differences had implications not only for the integrity and continued existence of the headhunting profession, but also for the ethical development of new executive search consultants. Future research directions were suggested.     

Developmental constraints on ethical behavior in business

Ethical behavior — the conscious attempt to act in accordance with an individually-owned morality — is the product of an advanced stage of the maturing process. Three models of ethical growth derived from research in human development are applied to issues of business ethics.Claudia Harris is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Scranton. She was formerly a financial analyst in the chemical industry.William Brown is a Professor of English at the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science. The genesis of this paper was the authors' experience in using fiction to teach business management, and they have published papers on this topic in Organizational Behavior Teaching Review.     

Business-to-Business communication in a dynamic environment: A systematic adductive analysis referring to ramp-up management

ABSTRACT

The aim of this research note is to take stock of existing knowledge on the topic of Business-to-Business (B-to-B) communication and to conceptualize the exchange of information between buyers and suppliers in a dynamic environment. The dynamic business environment is referring to new product ramp-ups. Ramp-up, defined as the period between the completion of development and a stabile serial production, is of high importance for the success of manufacturing companies. During ramp-up, product specification, production machinery, and the number of finished products change over time. It is assumed that improved B-to-B communication is beneficial to achieve a high ramp-up performance. For the purpose of this research note a systematic review of the literature is used to analyze the status quo of existing communication concepts in ramp-up management. The article conducts a content analysis of a sample of 86 subject-relevant articles from academic journals. These preliminary findings suggest that, although B-to-B communication plays a central role in the management of (ramp-up) dynamics, the stock of knowledge in this peculiar area is limited to few specific findings. Communication is often mentioned as relevant, but further guidance on details, e.g. communication channels, roles, behavior, or communication content, is lacking. This research note identifies research gaps in the B-to-B communication literature regarding buyer-supplier communication in dynamic business situations and proposes several directions for future research. Managers should acknowledge that B-to-B communication is repeatedly mentioned in the literature as a source for improving competitiveness. Proper communication in buyer-supplier relationships becomes more important but also more challenging in dynamic business environments. This research note is addressing dynamic business environments and is focusing the role of B-to-B communication in production ramp-ups. Knowledge on the topic is consolidated, e.g. influence factors on communication, what provides a number of implications for practice and future research.     

Some European Attitudes on the Advertising Transference Question: A Research Note

This article reports a portion of the findings of research conducted to determine the attitudes of select French and Dutch advertising agency leaders and German marketing executives regarding specific standardized advertising issues. These findings are compared with results obtained in earlier studies of U.S. advertising agency and corporate executives and the differences are highlighted.     

Bayesian Value-at-Risk with product partition models

In this paper we propose a novel Bayesian methodology for Value-at-Risk computation based on parametric Product Partition Models. Value-at-Risk is a standard tool for measuring and controlling the market risk of an asset or portfolio, and is also required for regulatory purposes. Its popularity is partly due to the fact that it is an easily understood measure of risk. The use of Product Partition Models allows us to remain in a Normal setting even in the presence of outlying points, and to obtain a closed-form expression for Value-at-Risk computation. We present and compare two different scenarios: a product partition structure on the vector of means and a product partition structure on the vector of variances. We apply our methodology to an Italian stock market data set from Mib30. The numerical results clearly show that Product Partition Models can be successfully exploited in order to quantify market risk exposure. The obtained Value-at-Risk estimates are in full agreement with Maximum Likelihood approaches, but our methodology provides richer information about the clustering structure of the data and the presence of outlying points.