Individual,Organizational, and Institutional Determinants of Formal and Informal Inter‐Firm Cooperation in SMEs

Inter‐firm cooperation has been considered an important strategy for SMEs to overcome competitive difficulties. Despite the relevance of this strategy there are no studies that jointly consider how entrepreneurs' characteristics, organizational factors, and institutional features influence SMEs to establish cooperative agreements. In order to bridge this gap, we analyze what factors at these three levels explain inter‐firm cooperation and whether formal and informal inter‐firm agreements are explained by different factors. Our research is based on a survey of 1,587 Spanish SMEs and the results show that individual, organizational, and institutional factors contribute to jointly shape the decisions concerning inter‐firm cooperation.     

Facing up to Trump administration mercantilism: The 2018 WTO trade policy review of the United States

As one of the largest trading economies in the WTO system, US trade policy is reviewed regularly by WTO members, informed by a Trade Policy Review (TPR) report. This paper discusses the 2018 TPR of the United States, the 14th such review undertaken since the entry into force of the WTO in 1995. It is the first review of trade policy under the Trump administration. While the TPR documents the significant changes in US trade policy, it does not engage with the mercantilist vision that motivates trade policy under President Trump or the apparent desire to engage in trade wars with its major trading partners. The lack of discussion of the existential threat to the liberal trading system implied by the drastic changes to US trade policy reduces the salience of the TPR and makes it unclear exactly what purpose it serves.     

不确定性世界的企业领导

我们存在于一个动态变迁的世界之中,这决定了企业在决策时面临着大量的不确定性,企业要在这样的情况下获得持续生存,就必须认清环境演变的意义,建立一套具有适应性效率的制度结构,将不确定性融入到决策的制定过程中去。     

Local bias in venture capital investments

This paper examines local bias in the context of venture capital (VC) investments. Based on a sample of U.S. VC investments between 1980 and June 2009, we find more reputable VCs (older, larger, more experienced, and with stronger IPO track record) and VCs with broader networks exhibit less local bias. Staging and specialization in technology industries increase VCs' local bias. We also find that the VC exhibits stronger local bias when it acts as the lead VC and when it is investing alone. Finally, we show that distance matters for the eventual performance of VC investments.     

Federal policy and economic growth

I am quite concerned about the high and rising levels of federal debt we will have in the long term unless our policies are changed. But as I look out to the next several years, I am much more worried about the prospect of sharp cuts in federal spending that would be damaging to the country’s long-term growth prospects. We are on track to significantly cut federal investment in infrastructure relative to the historical pattern, and this would be a terrible mistake. There is no evidence that this administration’s policies will lead to faster economic growth, on balance, and setting expectations of 3 or 4% growth does not advance the national discussion. As we make changes in government policies, we should give distributional concerns significant weight. If we continue to support policies that are good for the economy as a whole but bad for lower- or middle-income people, we need to step up with practical policies to compensate those people for their losses.     

Issue-Contingent Effects on Ethical Decision Making: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

This experiment examined the effects of three elements comprising Jones' (1991) moral intensity construct, (social consensus, personal proximity, and magnitude of consequences) in a cross-cultural comparison of ethical decision making within a human resource management (HRM) context. Results indicated social consensus had the most potent effect on judgments of moral concern and judgments of immorality. An analysis of American, Eastern European, and Indonesian responses also indicted socio-cultural differences were moderated by the type of HRM ethical issue. In addition, individual differences in personal ethical ideology (relativism and idealism) varied reliably with moral judgments after controlling for issue characteristics and socio-cultural background.     

Strategic distortions in analyst forecasts in the presence of short-term institutional investors

We document that analysts cater to short-term investors by issuing optimistic target prices. Catering dominates among analysts at brokers without an investment banking arm as they face lower reputational cost. The market does not see through the analyst catering activity and their forecasts lead to temporary stock overpricing that short-term institutional investors exploit to offload their holdings to retail traders. We also report evidence consistent with catering brokers being rewarded with more future trades channelled through them. Our study identifies a new source of conflicts of interest in analyst research originating from the ownership composition of a stock.