Green and competitive? An empirical test of the mediating role of environmental innovation strategy

This study examines links between the adoption of an environmental innovation strategy and firms’ business performance. It illustrates ways in which an environmental innovation strategy is itself influenced by significant environmental pressures, including government environmental regulation, perceived importance of stakeholder pressures, and managerial environmental concerns. Survey data from the chemical industry in Jordan show that (1) environmental innovation strategy is associated with improved perceived firms’ business performance; (2) the adoption of an environmental innovation strategy is influenced by certain environmental pressure forces, and (3) environmental innovation strategy fully mediates between certain environmental pressure forces and firms’ business performance.     

Less of a puzzle: a new look at the forward forex market

The two-country monetary model is extended to include a consumption externality with habit persistence. The model is simulated using the artificial economy methodology. The ‘puzzles’ in the forward market are re-examined. The model is able to account for: (a) the low volatility of the forward discount; (b) the higher volatility of expected forward speculative profit; (c) the even higher volatility of the spot return; (d) the persistence in the forward discount; (e) the martingale behavior of spot exchange rates; and (f) the negative covariance between the expected spot return and expected forward speculative profit. It is unable to account for the forward market bias because the volatility of the expected spot return is too large relative to the volatility of the expected forward speculative profit.     

Millennials and the Gender Wage Gap in the U.S.: A Cross-Cohort Comparison of Young Workers Born in the 1960s and the 1980s

Using two cohorts of young workers born in the early 1960s and early 1980s, this paper analyzes the temporal change in the U.S. gender wage gap and its determinants, which persists for both explained and unexplained reasons. Results suggest that the gender wage gap closed four (seven) percentage points at the mean (median) between cohorts. It finds cross-cohort evidence that young females’ increasing returns to marriage and a changing occupational wage structure contributed to a narrowing of the gap. Nonetheless, the majority of this convergence remains unexplained due to relative improvements in unobservable institutional factors or heterogeneity for females. Compared to the previous generation, millennials likely entered a more progressive, female-friendly labor market. It is also possible that female millennials are more ambitious and competitive in their early years of work experience relative to females born in the 1960s.     

Improvisers,Incrementalists and Strategists: How and Why Organizations Adopt ADR Innovations

This article identifies three ways in which alternative dispute resolution (ADR) innovations are adopted by organizations in Ireland: improvisation, incrementalism and strategy, and examines how external and internal influences shape different patterns of ADR innovation. The article contributes to the literature in three ways. First, it highlights the limitations of typologies of innovation based on simple dichotomies, such as reactive/proactive and of prevailing understandings of how ADR may interact with strategy. Second, the article develops an integrated framework for the analysis of influences on patterns of innovation that distinguishes between the features of markets and commercial strategies, organizations, stakeholders and champions and institutions, laws and public policies. Third, the article questions the central premise underlying the literature that a strategic approach to ADR equates with the adoption of conflict management systems.     

Stabilizing non-fundamental asset price movements under discretion and limited information

Inflation, output and interest rate stabilization are all potential central bank objectives. We explore whether monetary policy should respond to asset price fluctuations when they are driven by irrational expectational shocks to the future returns to capital. In our model, an optimistic shock to future returns generates both an increase in equity prices and physical investment. The increased investment is inefficient and, thus, a central bank optimally responds to this expectations shocks. This induces a trade-off between stabilizing nominal prices and non-fundamental asset price movements. We compare the optimal policy under different assumptions: full versus limited information and commitment versus discretion. If the central bank has limited information about whether an asset price movement has a fundamental or non-fundamental origin, then the central bank responds less aggressively to the non-fundamental exuberance shocks than under full information. Without commitment, a central bank responds more aggressively to non-fundamental exuberance shocks.