Employability as a compass for career success: development and initial validation of a new multidimensional measure

This article reports the development and initial validation of a multidimensional measure of employability based on the theoretical model of Lo Presti and Pluviano (2016). Four different studies were designed and implemented. Study 1 was a qualitative study that involved a group of 15 labour market experts and aimed at developing the items pool. In Study 2, an exploratory factor analysis of 526 employees was carried out to examine the structure of the employability measure as previously obtained. Study 3 aimed at verifying the employability measure that had emerged from Study 2 through confirmatory factor analysis of 699 employees, resulting in a 28‐item shortened version encompassing the original four employability dimensions. Finally, in Study 4, concurrent and predictive validity of the definitive version of the employability measure were tested on a sample of 712 employees. Implications for vocational guidance and human resource management, as well as future employability research, are discussed.     

Audit Publicity and Tax Compliance: A Natural Experiment

We use confidential data on value-added tax payments at the sector level, in two large Italian cities, to estimate the effect of audit publicity on the tax compliance of local sellers. By employing a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we find that such publicity has a positive effect on fiscal declarations made shortly thereafter. The results suggest that increasing awareness on future audits via the media can be an important instrument in the hands of tax authorities.     

Dynamic factor model with infinite‐dimensional factor space: Forecasting

The paper compares the pseudo real‐time forecasting performance of three dynamic factor models: (i) the standard principal component model introduced by Stock and Watson in 2002; (ii) the model based on generalized principal components, introduced by Forni, Hallin, Lippi, and Reichlin in 2005; (iii) the model recently proposed by Forni, Hallin, Lippi, and Zaffaroni in 2015. We employ a large monthly dataset of macroeconomic and financial time series for the US economy, which includes the Great Moderation, the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery (an update of the so‐called Stock and Watson dataset). Using a rolling window for estimation and prediction, we find that model (iii) significantly outperforms models (i) and (ii) in the Great Moderation period for both industrial production and inflation, and that model (iii) is also the best method for inflation over the full sample. However, model (iii) is outperformed by models (ii) and (i) over the full sample for industrial production.     

Financing technology-based small firms in Europe: what do we know?

This paper reviews the evidence on financing technology-based small firms (TBSFs) in Europe. European TBSFs finance new investments by relying primarily on internal funds, due to capital market failures induced by asymmetric information. European venture capital has caught up with US venture capital, but this is mainly because of the growth in UK venture investments. It is unclear whether European venture capital has been able to certify the quality and enhance the growth of funded companies. Compared with the NASDAQ, there is little development of trading in high-tech stocks in Europe: the so-called New Markets established in the 1990s collapsed in the wake of the Internet bubble crash. Public venture capital and research and development (R&D) tax incentives seem to have positively affected high-tech firms.     

Who times the foreign exchange market? Corporate speculation and CEO characteristics

This paper shows that managers' personal beliefs and individual characteristics explain a large share of the substantial time-variation of derivative use beyond firm, industry, and market fundamentals. We construct a panel data set of foreign currency derivative holdings and currency exposures for U.S. non-financial firms. We use a novel approach to build a firm-specific foreign exchange return. We find that managers adjust derivatives notional amounts in response to past foreign exchange returns, as if they were forming views on future currency prices. We then construct an empirical measure of speculative behavior for each firm to investigate the profile of the speculator. Firms where the CEO holds an MBA degree, is younger, and has less previous working experience speculate more. These results are consistent with overconfident managers taking more risk.     

Corporate Sustainable Development: is ‘Integrated Reporting’ a Legitimation Strategy?

In the field of sustainability reporting (SR), the so‐called ‘integrated report’ (IR) is gaining momentum. In spite of its voluntary nature, a growing number of firms are adopting IR by participating in the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) Pilot Programme. Stimulated by concerns on the use of SR as a legitimation strategy, the paper investigates whether the decision to adopt an IR stems from the need to repair legitimacy threats. By showing that IR adopters have significantly higher Bloomberg ESG disclosure ratings relative to non‐adopters, we reject the hypothesis of firms adopting IR as a response to a poor rating. Additionally, we show that other proxies of legitimacy pressures (size, leverage, profitability, industry) do not play a role in explaining IR adoption. Overall, our evidence suggests that corporate engagement in IR is not a matter of strategic legitimation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Do Not Trash the Incentive! Monetary Incentives and Waste Sorting

In this paper, we examine whether combining non‐monetary and monetary incentives increases municipal solid waste sorting. We empirically investigate this issue, exploiting the exogenous variation in waste management policies experienced during the years 1999–2008 by the 95 municipalities in the district of Treviso (Italy). Using a panel regression analysis, we estimate that pay‐as‐you‐throw (PAYT) incentive schemes increase the sorted‐to‐total waste ratio by 17 percent, and that their effect reinforces that of a door‐to‐door (DtD) collection system, which is equal to 15.7 percent. Moreover, the panel structure of our dataset allows us to find learning and spatial effects associated with both PAYT and DtD.