WHICH AGGLOMERATION EXTERNALITIES MATTER MOST AND WHY?

This paper revisits the ongoing discussion on the importance of agglomeration externalities – specifically specialization, diversity and competition effects – that may contribute to innovation, productivity and urban employment growth. Previous meta‐analyses suggested that the evidence on agglomeration externalities is strongly context‐specific. Expanding an earlier analysis of 31 articles, we seek to draw in this paper more robust conclusions by means of the statistical evidence for agglomeration externalities presented in 73 scientific articles, all building on the seminal work of Glaeser et al. (1992). Our results confirm that the heterogeneity among studies is huge and can only be partially accounted for by means of an ordered probit analysis. Additionally, some evidence of publication bias is found. We conclude that the conventional lines of inquiry in this literature may now have reached strongly diminishing returns. New lines of inquiry, using rich micro‐level data on firms and workers, dynamic general equilibrium models at the macro level, more attention for spatial and temporal variation in the impacts of agglomeration, and further investigations into the spatial scope of externalities are promising avenues for further research that can enhance our understanding of how agglomeration externalities continue to fuel our increasingly urbanized world.     

Modern Slavery Disclosure Regulation and Global Supply Chains: Insights from Stakeholder Narratives on the UK Modern Slavery Act

Journal of Business Ethics - The purpose of this article is to problematise a particular social transparency and disclosure regulation in the UK, that transcend national boundaries in order to...     

Ethical Codes in Sports Organizations: Classification Framework,Content Analysis,and the Influence of Content on Code Effectiveness

Although there is a growing body of research on social media, only few studies have considered organic products. Therefore, this study mapped the diffusion path of the social media resources for organic products in Mexico and South Korea through Twitter and compared the contents of tweets about organic products in terms of their semantic and hyperlink networks using webometric methods. The results indicate that for organic products, Koreans sent tweets much more frequently than Mexicans. Mexican tweets focused on basic food products in street markets, whereas Korean tweets highlighted promotions and firms, revealing the corporatist structure of its economy. In both cases, the findings support Twitter as a useful tool for Word-of-Mouth Communication on the online environment, among product consumers, and between consumers and enterprises.     

Forecasting interest rates with shifting endpoints

We consider forecasting the term structure of interest rates with the assumption that factors driving the yield curve are stationary around a slowly time‐varying mean or ‘shifting endpoint’. The shifting endpoints are captured using either (i) time series methods (exponential smoothing) or (ii) long‐range survey forecasts of either interest rates or inflation and output growth, or (iii) exponentially smoothed realizations of these macro variables. Allowing for shifting endpoints in yield curve factors provides substantial and significant gains in out‐of‐sample predictive accuracy, relative to stationary and random walk benchmarks. Forecast improvements are largest for long‐maturity interest rates and for long‐horizon forecasts. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Differential Effects of European Patents

Since the invention of the European Patent System, national patent systems have continued to co-exist, although they did lose appeal. How have the different national systems been affected in view of their characteristics? In order to answer this question a constant-market-share (CMS) analysis is carried out. While on a theoretical level, the different elements adding to the appeal of each patent system are discussed, the CMS-analysis reveals the importance of country size in that the national systems of smaller countries lose.     

Cities and cyberspace: new entrepreneurial strategies

E-commerce is increasingly influencing business operations, as a major supportive medium for different strategies or as a strategy on its own. This paper seeks to identify impacts from concomitant changes on the development of cities. To this purpose, emerging time-based strategies are analysed in manufacturing and customer-services strategies are analysed in the services sector. The focus of the study is on proximity needs and what these needs imply for elimination of physical segments from value chains and insertion of virtual segments into these chains. The findings are then linked with trends for agglomeration or spread of urban activity. The conclusion is that the future of cities is far from clear. Trends for agglomeration go hand in hand with trends for spread on different spatial levels. In addition, there are huge knowledge gaps. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research to fill these gaps.     

Measuring Harmonisation of Financial Reporting Practice

Many organisations are currently engaged in the process of national and international harmonisation of financial reporting. This paper examines the nature of the harmonisation problem and the possibility of developing a method to quantify the degree of harmony of financial reporting practice. This quantification can be useful in determining problem areas where the degree of harmony is low, and the impact of standards on financial reporting harmony and spontaneous harmonisation, i.e. harmonisation that cannot be attributed to laws, standards or guidelines. Standard setters might use the method to set goals in respect of the required degree of harmony when issuing a standard, guideline or opinion.     

LEGAL KNOWLEDGE AND AGILITY IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

To address agility in public administration, we have developed a knowledge acquisition infrastructure for legal knowledge, based on an implementation‐oriented conceptualization of the legal system. Our objective is to reframe legal knowledge as a knowledge source in a design‐oriented task ontology, building on insights from the CommonKADS methodology for intelligent system design. The main result is to make case law and legal expert knowledge of critical incidents in organizations, two diagnostic knowledge sources underutilized in modern management and engineering, more accessible as a resource for design of agile organizational structures and intelligent systems. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.