Dynamics of currency crises with asset market frictions

This paper presents a dynamic model of currency crises with frictions. By construction, a speculative attack is not an instantaneous event but takes a little time to deplete the country's reserves and, in the event of an attack, agents are uncertain about whether they will be able to act before the devaluation comes. The currency will be overvalued (‘ripe for attack’) for a long time before an attack takes place. A discrete and sizable devaluation will occur. Small changes in fundamentals may trigger an attack. The model brings insights about the dynamics of currency crises and the effects of some key policy variables.     

When eWOM becomes cynical

Nowadays, it is common practice for corporations to communicate with consumers through social network sites (SNSs), such as YouTube, which allow consumers to share and comment on companies’ sponsored videos communicating their marketing campaigns. The authors conducted a qualitative assessment of posts written on the official YouTube site of Coca Cola, where the brand asks consumers to join in a brigade against obesity. Results extend the current knowledge about consumers’ negative electronic word of mouth (eWOM), identifying three forms of cynical consumer communication styles in response to corporate campaigns on SNSs: skeptical, passive‐aggressive and warrior eWOM. Managerial implications, limitations and some avenues for future research are indicated.     

Dietary vs. transport: an analysis of environmental burdens pertaining to a typical workday

This article deals with an evaluation of some environmental impacts of a normal workday. The aim is to compare the environmental load associated to different standard meals provided by a canteen, and a series of transport options from home to the workplace, adopting the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. LCA is a holistic methodology that evaluates the environmental burdens associated to industrial productions or anthropic activities, over the whole life cycle of a product. The environmental load associated to a service is characterized by a number of impact indicators internationally accepted, such as gross energy requirement, global warming potential (GWP), ozone layer depletion and others. The present paper shows the environmental impacts, calculated with the environmental product declaration and the cumulative energy demand methods, associated to some typical food courses and means of transportation. The present analysis considers as subject a generic worker who lives and works in a European urban area. The results highlight how often environmental impacts coming from the lunch, in particular when the menus contain meat, are higher than the ones attributable to the transport. Taking into account the GWP as example, this study assesses how the contribution for producing a single beef steak (120 g) is equivalent to drive a car for ca. 30 km.     

Participation in Workplace Pension Schemes and the Effect of Provision: Evidence from the United Kingdom*

This study investigates the effect of public policies enforcing workplace pension plan provision on participation rates. Using British data covering almost two decades (1992–2009), I identify the potential opt‐in rate among private sector workers who have not been offered a workplace pension plan, had they been offered the opportunity to join such a saving scheme. I find that universal provision of workplace pension schemes alone could generate a major impact on pension coverage.     

The Effects of Extrinsic Cues on Olive Oil Price in Brazil

Over the past two decades, world olive oil consumption registered an impressive growth. Although olive oil consumption remains concentrated in the main producer countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea (“traditional” markets), it is also growing rapidly in many other countries all over the world, where olive oil is still largely perceived as a novelty food (“nontraditional” markets). This study focuses on the Brazilian market of olive oil, which is one of the most important nontraditional markets in terms of both its dimension and growth rates. A hedonic price model has been used to evaluate whether, and to what extent, extrinsic cues impact on the retail price of olive oil. Data were collected via direct observation of several e-shops where Brazilian consumers could purchase olive oil. Results show that the retail price of olive oil is highly influenced by extrinsic cues such as branding, labeling, and packaging.     

Modelling non-performing loans probability in the commercial banking system: efficiency and effectiveness related to credit risk in Italy

In this article, we model the effect of the non-performing loans on the cost structure of the commercial banking system. With this aim, we comment on an increase in the non-performing loans by studying the consequences of such a change on the cost function and compute the probability of failure of maintaining a performing loan as such. In doing so, we are convinced that geography does matter and evaluate the risk propensity of the bank towards the non-performing loans accordingly. We finally stress that traditional efficiency indicators of cost elasticity do not fit properly with such a problem and propose a measure based on the costs for managing and monitoring the loans which, according to the related density function, will reveal effectively as non performing.     

Challenges to open innovation in traditional SMEs: an analysis of pre-competitive projects in university-industry-government collaboration

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Governments are increasingly focusing their efforts on stimulating innovation within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As a result,...