Prioritising land to be preserved for agriculture: A context-specific value tree

In Belgium as in many other countries, agricultural land is under pressure for development of other land uses. This paper presents a method for setting priorities for preservation of land for agriculture. The method is based on a participatory approach through which a value tree is formulated. This results in a list of criteria to define farmland value, which is explicitly linked to the objectives for farmland preservation. The value tree allows the list of criteria to be determined in a structured and consistent way. The participatory process contributes to the development of a shared vision on farmland preservation. The approach also incorporates context specificity, as shown by its application for farmland preservation in Flanders.     

Does it pay off for museums to foster creativity? The complementary effect of innovative visitor experiences

This paper aims to explore the link between creativity orientation, investment in visitors’ experience and operating and funding performance in tourist attractions, taking museums as a case study. The empirical work is based on an analysis of the information provided by a sample of Spanish, French, German, British and American museums. The findings highlight the positive impact of creativity orientation on museums’ operating performance, but show a curvilinear effect on funding performance. The use of new technologies and adaptation to the audience proves positive when seeking to attract visitors.     

Utility of university curricula in contemporary times: Perspectives of employers in the Cape Coast Metropolis

The majority of studies and reports on university education in Africa have focused mainly on issues related to access, quality, teaching and learning environment, and so on. Although these issues are undoubtedly critical, even more germane to the discourse is the desired utility of university education to society. The authors present the perspective of employers on their expectations from university graduates. The authors employed the qualitative research approach. Four financial institutions from the Cape Coast Metropolis were purposively sampled. An in-depth interview guide was employed for data collection, which was analyzed using thematic content analysis. The authors found that graduates are strong in theory but deficient in application of knowledge.     

Rent Sharing and the Compensation of Head Coaches in Power Five College Football

The monopoly and monopsony power of intercollegiate sports create significant rents, but previous studies of intercollegiate football coaches’ salaries implicitly assume that coaches are paid their marginal revenue products. In a two-stage estimation, we show that coaches share in these rents. The first stage shows that several common measures of coaches’ productivity do not affect an athletic department’s variable revenue. When we include these measures in the second-stage salary equation, their impact on pay reflects bargaining power, not productivity. We also find that several measures of fixed revenue, which are independent of the coach’s performance, increase the coach’s pay.     

A push to cycling—exploring the e-bike's role in overcoming barriers to bicycle use with a survey and an intervention study

In Norway, as in many countries, there is a political goal to increase bicycle use. The electric bicycle (e-bike) is a promising tool for achieving this goal, given the hilliness of the country. However, little is yet known about the deterrents of cycling in Norway in general, and in particular how the purchase of an e-bike could be stimulated.

In the current study, 5500 respondents from a convenience sample among car owners were asked about their perceptions of bicycling in general, and of e-bikes in particular as well as their willingness to pay (WTP) for an e-bike. Randomly selected participants (N = 66) were given access to an e-bike for a limited time (2 or 4 weeks). A second questionnaire captured the same perceptions and WTP post-intervention. The results were compared with a control group (N = 214).

The results showed that those who cycle the least were most interested in buying an e-bike and that prior knowledge of the e-bike corresponded with a higher desire to buy one. Pro-environmental values did not predict interest in e-bikes, neither did norms and attitudes toward cycling. The WTP for an e-bike increased after having experienced the benefits for those who used an e-bike compared to those who did not. Price reduction of the e-bike (e.g. VAT exemption), spread of knowledge among the wider population, and actions to offer an e-bike experience may therefore be effective strategies for further expansion of the e-bike in the transport system and thereby to increase bicycle use in Norway.     

Credit Support for Export: Robust Evidence from the Czech Republic

The topic of this paper is quite a novel one – it is one of few empirical academic papers dealing with export credit. Moreover, it is the first analysis of this kind which focuses on transition economies. The paper deals with export credit promotion in the Czech Republic. The development and structure of Czech trade and export support is presented first, followed by an econometric analysis of the gravity model of Czech Republic trade. A panel of 160 countries in 1996–2008 is analysed and two gravity models of exports for the Czech Republic are estimated, the static model by fixed effects (LSDV estimator) and the dynamic model by System GMM. Due to ambiguous conclusions we assume that the behaviour of our explanatory variables is not uniform and our data set behaves as a mixture of countries with heterogeneous behaviour. This means that traditional techniques of estimation which include all observations into one model do not give significant results. Thus, we use robust techniques of estimation that solve the problem of heterogeneous patterns in data sets. Out of several possibilities we use the Least Trimmed Squares estimator (LTS) with a leverage point. We show that guarantees are a significant factor that influences positively the volume of exports in the Czech Republic. Moreover, there exist more variables that affect the size of exports in the Czech Republic. Market forces described by GDP, distance, political risk or gross fix capital formation are significant in our econometric model. We find that higher GDP, shorter distance or lower political risk have a positive impact on Czech exports.     

What determines stock option contract design?

We analyze the factors that drive exercise price policy for executive option plans (ESOPs) and their scope in a country where firms are not subject to the tax and accounting considerations that seem to have led to the dominance of at-the-money options in the US Our “unbounded” data for Finland provide us with an excellent opportunity to investigate whether contract design is consistent with compensation theory. Our findings are largely consistent with predictions from the optimal contracting literature. The size of the plan is negatively related to Tobin's Q and firm size and positively related to proxies for monitoring costs, which also influence the probability of launching premium ESOPs. Our results also show that the premium (out-of-the-moneyness) is negatively related to prior stock returns and cash flow-to-assets, which may be an indication of high-water mark contracting, or alternatively, of managerial power. Finally, we also find some support for a positive relation between the premium and the length of the vesting period when maturity is fixed, which indicates an effort to keep the incentives for management from falling over time.     

What is the meaning of ‘talent’ in the world of work?

The ongoing confusion about the meaning of ‘talent’ within the world of work is hindering the establishment of widely accepted talent management theories and practices. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature on talent management by offering an in-depth review of the talent concept within the specific context of the world of work, and proposing a framework for its conceptualization. We group different theoretical approaches to talent into ‘object’ (i.e., talent as natural ability; talent as mastery; talent as commitment; talent as fit) versus ‘subject’ approaches (i.e., talent as all people; talent as some people) and identify dynamics existing within and between them, as well as implications for talent management theory and practice. Finally, we discuss different avenues for further research aimed at developing the talent—and consequently, the talent management—construct further.     

Median‐voter Equilibria in the Neoclassical Growth Model under Aggregation*

We study a dynamic version of Meltzer and Richard's median‐voter model where agents differ in wealth. Taxes are proportional to income and are redistributed as equal lump‐sum transfers. Voting occurs every period and each consumer votes for the tax that maximizes his welfare. We characterize time‐consistent Markov‐perfect equilibria twofold. First, restricting utility classes, we show that the economy's aggregate state is mean and median wealth. Second, we derive the median‐voter's first‐order condition interpreting it as a tradeoff between distortions and net wealth transfers. Our method for solving the steady state relies on a polynomial expansion around the steady state.