Linking customisation of ERP systems to support effort: an empirical study

The amount of customisation to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system has always been a major concern in the context of the implementation. This article focuses on the phase of maintenance and presents an empirical study about the relationship between the amount of customising and the resulting support effort. We establish a structural equation modelling model that explains support effort using customisation effort, organisational characteristics and scope of implementation. The findings using data from an ERP provider show that there is a statistically significant effect: with an increasing amount of customisation, the quantity of telephone calls to support increases, as well as the duration of each call.     

‘DUAL’ GRAVITY: USING SPATIAL ECONOMETRICS TO CONTROL FOR MULTILATERAL RESISTANCE

We derive a quantity‐based structural gravity equation system in which both trade flows and error terms are cross‐sectionally correlated. This system can be estimated using techniques borrowed from the spatial econometrics literature. To illustrate our methodology, we apply it to a well‐known Canada–US trade dataset. We find that border effects between the USA and Canada are smaller than suggested by previous studies: about 7.5 for Canadian provinces and about 1.3 for US states. Hence controlling directly for cross‐sectional interdependence among both trade flows and error terms reduces measured border effects by capturing ‘multilateral resistance’. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Board Determinants in Banking Industry. An International Perspective

This paper explores the factors influencing the board composition of an international sample of commercial banks over the period 1996–2006. After considering the dual role of the board as monitor and advisor, our analysis shows that no one board composition is optimal for the banking industry and that any such recommendation could harm bank governance. Our results suggest that more complex banks that have a low ownership concentration and are headquartered in a civil law country should have larger and more independent boards. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recursive utility with unbounded aggregators

A new framework is presented for the study of the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the Koopmans’ equation in the unbounded case, that is based on the contraction mapping approach. In the bounded below case with bounded consumption streams, uniqueness of the solution in the whole class of weak-star continuous utility functions is obtained. When the aggregator is unbounded below and/or consumption streams are unbounded, existence of a weak-star continuous solution is shown, and a simple criterium to check the sufficient conditions for existence is provided. Juan Pablo Rincón-Zapatero and Carlos Rodríguez-Palmero gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and FEDER funds under Research Projects MTM2005-06534 and SEJ2005-08709/ECON, respectively, and by Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León under Research Projects VA99/04 and VA017B05, respectively. This paper has substantially benefited from the comments of an anonymous referee. Particular and special thanks are due to Robert Becker for his very helpful comments and valuable suggestions.     

Likelihood evaluation of models with occasionally binding constraints

Applied researchers interested in estimating key parameters of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models face an array of choices regarding numerical solution and estimation methods. We focus on the likelihood evaluation of models with occasionally binding constraints. We document how solution approximation errors and likelihood misspecification, related to the treatment of measurement errors, can interact and compound each other.     

Career Tournaments

This paper studies a model of career concerns where (besides agents having different ability levels) principals are heterogeneous. Two types of heterogeneity are considered: principals can differ in their productivities, and in the visibility of the agents working for them. Productivity differences result in convex wage profiles and generate assortative matching between principals and agents. Visibility differences, on the other hand, affect the mobility and career prospects of agents, and can generate nonassortative matching. We characterize the equilibrium in this market, derive implications for the behavior of agents, and examine the incentives to invest in increasing productivity and visibility.     

Distinctive Features of Environmental Innovators: An Econometric Analysis

This paper analyzes the main determinants influencing environmental innovators (i.e. firms developing or adopting environmental innovations) in Spain with respect to non‐environmental innovators. Similarly to other contributions in the literature, our results show that Spanish environmental innovators respond to regulatory stimulus in the form of demand‐pull and technology‐push instruments. They have a high internal technological capability and combine internal and external information sources, mostly in cooperation with knowledge institutions. Environmental innovators are more concentrated in mature, traditionally highly polluting sectors, but new firms are not more environmentally innovative than incumbents. Most importantly, in contrast to other environmental innovation studies, mostly carried out in a German context, we have not found evidence of a market pull from either the domestic or international markets. Furthermore, cost savings are not found to be a distinctive driver for environmental innovators. These differential results are possibly related to the special features of Spain regarding its national innovation system and the degree of stringency of environmental regulation and environmental consciousness of its consumers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Modelling Electricity Prices: International Evidence*

This article analyses the evolution of electricity prices in deregulated markets. We present a general class of models that simultaneously takes into account several factors: seasonality, mean reversion, GARCH behaviour and time‐dependent jumps. The models are applied to daily equilibrium spot prices of eight electricity markets. Eight different nested models were estimated to compare the relative importance of each factor in each of the eight markets. We find strong evidence that electricity equilibrium prices are mean‐reverting, with volatility clustering (GARCH) and with jumps of time‐dependent intensity, even after adjusting for seasonality.     

The Institutional Foundations of Public Policy: A Transactions Approach with Application to Argentina

Public policies are the outcomes of complex intertemporal exchangesamong politicians. The political institutions of a country constitutethe framework within which these transactions are accomplished.We develop a transactions theory to understand the ways in whichpolitical institutions affect the transactions that politicalactors are able to undertake, and hence the quality of the policiesthat emerge. We argue that Argentina is a case in which thefunctioning of political institutions has inhibited the capacityto undertake efficient intertemporal political exchanges. Weuse positive political theory and transaction cost economicsto explain the workings of Argentine political institutionsand to show how their operation gives rise to low-quality policies.