Involving suppliers in product development: Insights from R&D directors and project managers

While there is increasing evidence that involving suppliers in new product development (NPD) is important, and for many firms even inevitable, there is also evidence that not all such efforts are successful. Firms aiming at implementing this strategy effectively have to pay close attention to several contingency factors on the organizational level and properly manage supplier involvement on the project level. The exploratory case study research underlying this article explores key issues to be considered when involving suppliers in NPD and the counter measures they can take. Our research shows that companies differentiate between so-called “know-how” and “capacity” projects, and that they manage them differently. Furthermore, this research shows that firms outside the automotive and high-tech manufacturing industries are likely to intensify supplier involvement in the future.     

Mean–variance and mean–semivariance portfolio selection: a multivariate nonparametric approach

While univariate nonparametric estimation methods have been developed for estimating returns in mean-downside risk portfolio optimization, the problem of handling possible cross-correlations in a vector of asset returns has not been addressed in portfolio selection. We present a novel multivariate nonparametric portfolio optimization procedure using kernel-based estimators of the conditional mean and the conditional median. The method accounts for the covariance structure information from the full set of returns. We also provide two computational algorithms to implement the estimators. Via the analysis of 24 French stock market returns, we evaluate the in-sample and out-of-sample performance of both portfolio selection algorithms against optimal portfolios selected by classical and univariate nonparametric methods for three highly different time periods and different levels of expected return. By allowing for cross-correlations among returns, our results suggest that the proposed multivariate nonparametric method is a useful extension of standard univariate nonparametric portfolio selection approaches.     

A comprehensive look at luxury brand marketing research from 2000 to 2016: a bibliometric study and content analysis

The purpose of this study is to examine how scholarly research on luxury brand marketing has evolved in the twenty-first century. This literature review focuses on 242 articles related to luxury marketing. The contributions of these articles are thoroughly analyzed, combining qualitative interpretations with bibliometric citation analysis that uses a social network of referrals. This study identifies the most influential universities, research outlets, and scholars in the recent evolution of luxury marketing research. The study also identifies current and future research streams, geographic scope, and underlying research methodologies, and it reveals the most frequently used theories and prominent constructs in luxury marketing research. There are few studies that have examined the literature review of the luxury marketing discipline. No previous research has investigated luxury branding by means of a bibliometric analysis and qualitative assessment within such a large scope. Building on the results of this analysis, researchers can target their studies precisely and, thus, increase the contributions of their empirical research.

     

Overcoming localization of knowledge — the role of professional service firms

The literature on organizational learning asserts that external learning is often limited geographically and technologically. We scrutinize to what extent organizations acquire external knowledge by accessing external knowledge repositories. We argue that professional service firms (PSFs) grant access to nonlocalized knowledge repositories and thereby not only facilitate external learning but also help to overcome localization. Focusing on patent law firms, we test our predictions using a unique dataset of 544,820 pairs of European patent applications. Analyzing patterns of knowledge flows captured in patent citations, we find that accessing a PSF's repository facilitates the acquisition of external knowledge. As the effect is more pronounced for knowledge that is distant to a focal organization, we conclude that having access to a knowledge repository compensates for localization disadvantages. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distance-sensitivity of German exports: first evidence from firm-product level data

This article uses a tailor-made new data set of 7 580 251 observations for German exports at the firm-product-destination level to estimate a gravity equation and to investigate the link between the amount of firms’ exports and the distance to destination countries. It is shown that, in line with stylized facts based on aggregate data, the quantity of exports declines significantly with distance within a firm for a given product.     

Identifying thresholds in aid effectiveness

In this paper, the author focuses on the nonlinear nature of the aid to growth relationship to show that the “Big Push” hypothesis is consistent with capacity constraints in the understanding of aid effectiveness. The Big Push hypothesis proposes the existence of one threshold below which aid is not effective, whereas the constraints inferred by the concept of absorptive capacity suggest the existence of a second threshold above which aid is no longer effective. This paper addresses the issue of these thresholds which characterize the aid to growth relationship. Using a semi-parametric econometric method, the author finds that aid becomes effective only above a critical level, but what is more it becomes detrimental to growth at high aid flows. The author also investigates how the quality of institutions and economic vulnerability modify the level of these two thresholds. He finds that economic vulnerability is a key factor conditioning aid effectiveness.     

Reversible Environmental Catastrophes with Disconnected Generations

De Economist - We study environmental policy in a stylized economy–ecology model featuring multiple deterministic stable steady-state ecological equilibria. The economy–ecology does not...     

Inflation and the Exchange Rate: The Role of Aggregate Demand Elasticity

This paper examines the effect of aggregate demand elasticity on the exchange rate when inflation occurs. We discover that both the source of the inflation, whether demand-pull or cost-push, and the elasticity of aggregate demand with respect to the price level, are of consequence for the exchange rate. We obtain two primary conclusions. First, the effect on the exchange rate of cost push inflation is ambiguous and is partially determined by the price level elasticity of aggregate demand. In particular, and assuming that the two examined countries have equivalent aggregate supply elasticities, we conclude that the nation with the less elastic aggregate demand function will see its currency appreciate relative to the other. Second, demand-pull inflation results in an unambiguous increase in the exchange rate but the size of that increase is partially a function of aggregate demand elasticity. Assuming again that two countries have equivalent aggregate supply elasticities, that country with the more elastic aggregate demand will experience currency appreciation.     

Saddlepoint approximations to the mean and variance of the extended hypergeometric distribution

Conditional inference on 2 x 2 tables with fixed margins and unequal probabilities is based on the extended hypergeometric distribution. If the support of the distribution is large, exact calculation of the conditional mean and variance of the table entry may be computationally demanding. This paper proposes a single‐saddlepoint approximation to the mean and variance. While the approximation achieves acceptable accuracy for ordinary practical purposes, an alternative saddlepoint approximation is provided that gives much closer to exact results. It improves the accuracy of current approximations to up to more than four powers of ten.