The chief executive officer as corporate champion of technological innovation: aii empirical investigation

Research on innovation has engoged the attention of many scientific disciplines over the past few decades. But while some categories of determining factors (mainly organizational and environmental) are at the centre of this research, others, such as the role and significance of strategic leadership, seem to have received much less empirical attention. Using evidence from a sample of 97 manufacturing enterprises, the present study tests a model of the impact of strategic leadership and corporate context on technological innovatin (TT). The personality and demographic characteristics of chief executive officers (CEis') are used to measure strategic leadership. A number of environmental and internal organizational variables measure the broader context. Four dimensions of TI are measured. Results suggest that CEO characteristics significantly influence TI, but the structural and environmental context is on aggregate more influential. Interestingly though, in new product introductions, CEIs' characteristics outweight environmental and internal organizational factors.     

Assessing the impact of liberalisation policies on the Greek labour market: an insider–experts' view from the perspective of the varieties of liberalisation

During the recent Great Recession (2008–2018), Greece has become the prototype example of the implementation of austerity policies in Europe. Contrary to public discourse, these austerity policies were complemented by substantial labour market reforms that promoted employment and wage flexibility. This article aims to present a theory-driven understanding of the implementation and the effects of these reforms. For this purpose, we employ a qualitative study consisting of semi-structured interviews with 50 labour market experts—government officials and labour lawyers, academics, labour union representatives and employer association representatives. Using Thelen's framework on the Varieties of Liberalization, we conclude that, contrary to the initial aims of the reforms, Greece followed a trajectory of direct deregulation, reducing considerably the level of both coordination between employers and workers, and coverage of employment protection. The interviews show that the dismantling of collective bargaining system was the most decisive move in this path.     

Empirical size and power of some diagnostic tests applied to a distributed lag model

We produce Monte Carlo evidence on the size and power of the RESET, a heteroscedasticity test, and a test for autocorrelation applied to realistic distributed-lag models. We find that the autocorrelation test has the correct size and high power to detect not only autocorrelation (given a correct model), but also the erroneous omission of several lags of an explanatory variable, whereas the RESET and heteroscedasticity tests are oversized in the presence of positive disturbance autocorrelation, especially when the regressors are also positively autocorrelated, and have no power to detect such misspecification errors. In large samples, size distortion may be avoided by using autocorrelation-robust methods.

Firm efficiency and stock returns

In this paper, we investigate the role of firm efficiency in asset pricing using a sample of US publicly listed companies for the period 1988–2007. We employ non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) on various input/output combinations, focusing on sales and market value as output measures in the construction of the frontier technologies. Using these performance measures, we examine whether efficient firms perform differently from inefficient firms following standard financial analysis procedures. First, we employ performance attribution regressions, by forming portfolios based on efficiency scores and tracking the performance of the various portfolios over time. Second, we perform cross-sectional/panel regressions to determine whether firm efficiency indeed has explanatory power for the cross-section of stock returns. Our results suggest that firm efficiency plays an important role in asset pricing and that efficient firms significantly outperform inefficient firms even after controlling for known risk factors.     

Composition versus decomposition in two-stage network DEA: a reverse approach

A two-stage production process assumes that the first stage transforms external inputs to a number of intermediate measures, which then are used as inputs to the second stage that produces the final outputs. The fundamental approaches to two-stage network data envelopment analysis are the multiplicative and the additive efficiency-decomposition approaches. Both they assume a series relationship between the two stages but they differ in the definition of the overall system efficiency as well as in the way they conceptualize the decomposition of the overall efficiency to the efficiencies of the individual stages. In this paper, we first show that the efficiency estimates obtained by the additive decomposition method are biased, by unduly favouring one stage against the other, while those obtained by the multiplicative method are not unique. Then, we present a novel approach to estimate unique and unbiased efficiency scores for the individual stages, which are then composed to obtain the efficiency of the overall system, by selecting the aggregation method a posteriori. Within the particularity of two-stage processes emerging from the conflicting role of the intermediate measures, we develop an envelopment model to locate the efficient frontier whose derivation from our primal multiplier efficiency assessment model is effectively justified. The results derived from our approach are compared with those obtained by the aforementioned basic methods on experimental data as well as on test data drawn from the literature. Similarities and dissimilarities in the results are rigorously justified.     

UK macroeconomic forecasting with many predictors: Which models forecast best and when do they do so?

Block factor methods offer an attractive approach to forecasting with many predictors. These extract the information in these predictors into factors reflecting different blocks of variables (e.g. a price block, a housing block, a financial block, etc.). However, a forecasting model which simply includes all blocks as predictors risks being over-parameterized. Thus, it is desirable to use a methodology which allows for different parsimonious forecasting models to hold at different points in time. In this paper, we use dynamic model averaging and dynamic model selection to achieve this goal. These methods automatically alter the weights attached to different forecasting models as evidence comes in about which has forecast well in the recent past. In an empirical study involving forecasting output growth and inflation using 139 UK monthly time series variables, we find that the set of predictors changes substantially over time. Furthermore, our results show that dynamic model averaging and model selection can greatly improve forecast performance relative to traditional forecasting methods.     

On Regional Unemployment: An Empirical Examination of the Determinants of Geographical Differentials in the UK

In this paper we consider the determinants of regional disparities in unemployment rates for the UK regions at NUTS‐II level. We use a mixture panel data model to describe unemployment differentials between heterogeneous groups of regions. The results indicate the existence of two clusters of regions in the UK economy, characterized by high and low unemployment rates, respectively. A major source of heterogeneity appears to be caused by the varying effect (between the two clusters) of the share of employment in the service sector, and we trace its origin to the fact that the high unemployment cluster is characterized by a higher degree of urbanization.     

Rebalancing the Euro Area: The Costs of Internal Devaluation

This paper investigates the economic costs of rebalancing current account positions in the Euro area by means of internal devaluation. Internal devaluation relies on wage suppression in the deficit countries. Based on an old Keynesian model we estimate a current account equation, a wage-Phillips curve and an Okun's Law equation. All estimations are carried out for a panel of twelve Euro area members. From the estimation results we calculate the output costs of reducing current account deficits. Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain (GIIPS) had, on average, current account deficits of 8.4% of GDP in 2007. To eliminate these current account deficits, a reduction of GPD by some 47% would be necessary. Trade imbalances can be resolved in two ways: deflationary adjustment in the deficit countries or inflationary adjustment in the surplus countries. The economic costs of deflationary adjustment to those countries are equivalent to the output loss of the Great Depression. An adjustment of the surplus countries would increase growth and it would come with higher inflation, but it would allow rebalancing without a Great Depression in parts of Europe.     

Economic efficiency of Greek retail SMEs in a period of high fluctuations in economic activity: a DEA approach

This study aims to analyse the economic efficiency of Greek small and medium retail enterprises before and after the crisis that started in 2008. Based on the Accounting Equation, we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate variable returns of scale efficiency scores and to conclude on specific characteristics that efficient companies have, for example, on capital structure. Our results from the DEA application show a high degree of inefficiency. We found that SMEs on the islands are more efficient than those on the mainland and that SMEs in the cities are the least efficient. Size seems to be important, more so on the islands and on the mainland than in the cities. We conclude that companies should act more conservatively in terms of operating cost when the first signs of a recession appear. In addition, during a recession period, companies that have evidences that their operations will continue positively should strengthen their operations by raising more own capital. Finally, our study clarifies four issues: the efficiency of retail companies in a period of growth and a period of recession, focusing on SMEs that operate in different regions, connecting Accounting Equation and DEA and adding acid ratio as an output in our model.     

Approximate basket option valuation for a simplified jump process

This study proposes the use of a simplified jump process, namely the Bernoulli jump process, to develop approximate basket option valuation formulas. The proposed model is based on a more realistic stochastic process—relative to the standard geometric Brownian motion—without introducing additional intractability. Typical approximations, necessary for the development of the closed form formulas, are validated on the basis of a Monte Carlo experiment. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:819–837, 2007