Human and organizational capital: typologies among Spanish firms

This paper uses survey data on 965 Spanish manufacturing firms to examine the implementation of innovative management practices and the relationship of this with the organization of work and human resource management. The paper takes into account transformations in technology, quality management and the organization of work. Using cluster analysis, we identify the different paths that firms are following in order to improve their performance, finding that simultaneous transformations in several dimensions lead to greater success than partial transformation, or none at all.     

Why do firms train? Empirical evidence on the relationship between training and technological and organizational change

We explore the relationship between training and innovation using key insights from the resource‐based approach, organizational learning and labour studies. By using data from 304 large enterprises in Italy, the study highlights a twofold role of training in favouring technological and organizational changes. First, training plays a role in allowing the acquisition and the assimilation of new knowledge. Consequently, firms in which the provision of training is part of a bundle of high‐performance management practices are more likely to undertake technological and organizational changes and to develop new competencies internally. Second, training supports firms in the assimilation of technological and organizational changes. Consequently, firms that undertake these changes exhibit a superior participation rate for employees and greater time intensity of their training programmes. Firms' inclination to develop new competencies internally does not affect, however, the intensity of training, thereby suggesting that organizational learning processes do not start by a broad involvement of employees in formalized training programmes.     

Carbon Sequestration with Reforestations and Biodiversity-scenic Values

This paper presents an optimal control model to analyze reforestations with two different species, including commercial values, carbon sequestration and biodiversity or scenic values. We discuss the implications of partial or total internalization of environmental values, showing that internalizing only carbon sequestration may have negative impacts on biodiversity-scenic values. To evaluate the practical relevance, we compare reforestations in the South-west of Spain with cork-oaks (a slow-growing native species) and with eucalyptus (a fast-growing alien species). We do the analysis with two different carbon crediting methods: the Carbon Flow Method and the Ton Year Accounting Method. With the first method, the forest surface increases more, but using mainly eucalyptus. With the second, additional reforestations are done mainly using cork-oaks. We value the impact on visitors of these reforestations using stated preferences methods showing that, when these values are internalized, cork-oaks are favored.     

Environmental Impact,Export Intensity,and Productivity Interactions: An Empirical Index Analysis of the Agri‐Food Industry in Spain

Recent studies have focused on how exports affect environmental performance or vice versa, while others have concentrated on the productivity of export‐oriented firms. The objective of the present paper is to provide a simultaneous analysis on the aforementioned relationships. The approach followed is a composite equation model in which export performance and productivity components, including an environmental indicator, are endogenously determined, taking as reference exporting firms of the food industry in Southeast Spain, for the period 1994–2006. The results show positive interactions among export intensity, firm efficiency, and environmental productivity, also suggesting that the consideration of endogeneity may enhance the findings of analyses on these issues. Des études récentes se sont concentrées sur les effets des exportations sur la performance environnementale ou vice‐versa, tandis que d’autres se sont concentrées sur la productivité des entreprises à vocation exportatrice. Le présent article vise à fournir une analyse simultanée des liens précités. Nous avons utilisé un modèle àéquations multiples dans lequel les éléments liés à la performance des exportations et à la productivité, y compris un indicateur environnemental, sont déterminés de façon endogène, en prenant comme référence des entreprises agroalimentaires à vocation exportatrice situées dans le sud‐est de l’Espagne, durant la période de 1994 à 2006. Les résultats montrent des interactions positives entre l’intensité des exportations, l’efficacité des entreprises et la productivité environnementale, ce qui autorise à penser que l’endogénéité pourrait améliorer les résultats des analyses sur ces points.     

DISTRIBUTIONS OF INDEMNITIES FOR CROP-INSURANCE PLANS: WITH APPLICATION TO GRAIN CROPS IN NEW SOUTH WALES

A review of crop-insurance schemes is followed by a discussion of a guaranteed-yield, crop-insurance plan. General formulae for the distribution function and mathematical expectation of indemnities for the insurance plan are presented in terms of the distribution of crop yields. Three special cases are considered in which the original yields, the square root of yields, and the logarithm of yields are normally distributed. The insurance plan is applied on a regional basis for wheat and sorghum production in N.S.W. Given distributional information on the crops obtained from a simulation model, expected indemnities are calculated for four different insurance plans.     

Landfill Construction and Capacity Expansion

We study the optimal capacity and lifetime of landfills taking into account their sequential nature. Such an optimal capacity is characterized by the so-called Optimal Capacity Condition. Particular versions of this condition are obtained for two alternative settings: first, if all the landfills are to have the same capacity, and second, if each of them is allowed to have a different capacity. In the second case we obtain an optimal control problem, with mixed elements of both continuous and discrete time. The resulting optimization problems involve dividing a time horizon of planning into several subintervals of endogenously decided length. The results obtained may be useful to address other economic problems such as private and public investments, consumption decisions on durable goods, etc.     

Foreign trade,concentration and profitability in open economies

In this article a model is developed which integrates the impact of international factors, such as the degree of foreign competition, exporting opportunities, and multi-national activity with the more traditional elements of market structure in explaining cross industry differentials in price-cost margins in the industrial sector of the European Economic Community. Utilizing a simultaneous estimation procedure we conclude that the foreign factors are an important addition to domestic structural variables in the structure-profitability relationship.     

Learning non-rational expectations equilibria

A hyperinflation model is analyzed under bounded rationality learning. Agents believe in a misspecified model which is correctly specified at theRational Expectations Equilibrium of the model and they adjust their beliefs by means of theLeast Mean Squares algorithm. Convergence of the bounded rationality learning activity to anon-Rational Expectations Equilibrium point is obtained for any set of parameters of the model.

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Sommario In questo lavoro gli autori analizzano il modello di iperinflazioneà la Cagan sotto l'ipotesi di razionalità limitata. Gli agenti non formano le loro aspettative coerentemente con la struttura completa del modello economico, essi si basano su un modello lineare non correttamente specificato che risulta essere corretto soltanto in corrispondenza dell'equilibrio con aspettative razionali. Si ipotizza che i soggetti aggiornino le loro aspettative tramite un algoritmo di apprendimento. Nel caso specifico, l'algoritmo adottato è ilLeast Mean Squares. Il principale risultato del lavoro è che l'apprendimento con razionalità limitata da parte dei soggetti economici può convergere ad un punto che non è un equilibrio con aspettative razionali. Il risultato è particolarmente interessante poiché la maggior parte degli studi noti in questa letteratura, nonostante non assicurino la convergenza ad un equilibrio con aspettative razionali, assicurano la non convergenza ad un equilibrio che non sia di aspecttative razionali. La convergenza ad un equilibrio non di aspettative razionali è dovuta ad una non corretta specificazione del modello secondo cui i soggetti formano le loro aspettative. In particolare, la convergenza ad un equilibrio non di aspettative razionali si verifica allorché i soggetti non tengono conto nel loro apprendimento di una variabile rilevante che essi classificano come rumore bianco.

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Authors would like to thank an anonymous referee and all of those who gave comments and suggestions at theSociety of Economic Dynamics and Control Conference (SEDC) '94 (Los Angeles, CA-USA);International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN) '94 (Salerno, Italy);World Conference on Neural Networks (WCNN) '94 (San Diego, CA-USA);AMASES '94 Conference (Modena, Italy). The usual disclaimers apply.     

Ex ante loss control by insurers: Public interest for higher profit

This article examines the incentives of an insurer to modify loss distributions prior to the sale of insurance. While actions such as lobbying Congress for mandatory airbags in automobiles are undertaken by insurers for the stated purpose of reducing the aggregate loss in society, they also change the nature of the risk being insured and, hence, affect the profitability of insurance sales. For the case of loss prevention (reducing the probabilty of a loss), insurers do not always have an incentive to invest in loss control. For loss reduction (reducing the severity of any loss that does occur), the incentive is to reduce the size of small losses while simultaneously increasing the size of large losses. Venezian Associates