Debt Sustainability Analyses for Italy,Spain and Portugal: Assessment and Recommendations

Despite the broad upswing in the euro area, it cannot be precluded that high public debts in some countries could spiral out of control if interest rates increase again. To analyse the relevance of this danger, a debt sustainability analysis is carried out using a narrow range of relatively realistic assumptions through 2022. While public debts will remain high for an extended period, reasonable fiscal primary surpluses will be sufficient to stabilise debt ratios, even if a moderate recession occurs.     

How to brand your private labels

Private labels have become ever-more important and are slowly turning into brands of their own. Retailers increasingly offer three-level ‘good, better, best’ private-label programs that include economy, standard, and premium private-label tier goods. For each of these tiers, retailers must decide under what name to brand their private label. They can either assign their store banner name to a private-label tier or go for a unique brand name that is separate from the retailer banner. The purpose of this article is to outline the advantages and limitations of these two branding strategies: store-banner branding versus stand-alone branding. Herein, we also provide a series of recommendations regarding when to use each brand strategy, based on characteristics of the retailer and the environment in which it operates.     

Consumer power and choice deferral: The role of anticipated regret

This paper examines the influence of social power on consumers' propensity to defer choice. Based on the notion that elevated power reduces regret anticipation—the fear of making a wrong choice—it is proposed that power influences the extent of choice deferral by reducing consumers' susceptibility to anticipated regret. Because of the regret-based mechanism, power can increase or decrease consumers' propensity to defer choice, depending upon the situational factors that are associated with anticipated regret, such as salience of regret, outcome reversibility (e.g., return policy), and locus-of-regret (postponing vs. choosing now). Using different manipulations of power, seven studies provide consistent support for the proposed effects and show that situational factors and marketing strategies can induce, turn off, or even reverse the effect of power on deferral. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.     

Reverse Knowledge Transfer on Emerging Market Multinationals: A Case Study of the Largest Private Bank in Latin America

Knowledge transfer between headquarters and subsidiaries and the study of emerging market multinationals (EMMNE) are two important and rapidly growing research topics in International Business (IB) studies. This research analyzes, through an in-depth single case study, the Reverse Knowledge Transfer (RKT) processes of an emerging market multinational, more specifically the largest private bank in LATAM—Banco Itaú Unibanco S.A.—to understand how emerging market parent companies benefit from their subsidiaries’ knowledge. Our findings validate important concepts in the IB and RKT literature, contribute with valuable insights to theory generation, and indicate possible avenues for future research.     

Me,my family or the public good? Do inter‐role conflicts of consumer–citizens reduce their ethical consumption behaviour?

This article examines role stress, especially inter‐role conflicts (IRC), against the background of the consumer–citizen duality. It tests whether consumer–citizen conflicts impair the purchase of ethical food in terms of the ethical intention–behaviour gap. Furthermore, this study examines the potential of eustress arising from citizen–consumer conflicts to enhance actual ethical purchases. Additionally, determinants and moderating conditions of both IRC are tested. A combination of observations of actual purchase behaviour and survey data in a field setting is used to gain insights into role conflict formation and manifestation, arising from the desire to fulfil the demands of two opposing roles: consumer and citizen. The quantitative data are analysed with structural equation modelling to test the hypothesized coherencies simultaneously. Results indicate that stress arises similarly from both IRC. While a positive impact of eustress on purchase behaviour was absent, consumer–citizen role conflicts impede the actual purchase of ethical groceries. The data show that this role conflict derives, for example, from economic demands sent by the consumer role set when a person has ethical buying intentions. Additionally, the identification with the consumer role further amplifies this conflict. The data indicate that consumers instead of citizens should be empowered by marketing practitioners and policy makers, for example by reducing the perception of stress by communicating positive outcomes referring to relevant consumer role set members (e.g., added value for children from purchasing ethically) to stimulate problem–focused coping.     

Beyond ‘know-what’ and ‘know-how’ to ‘know-who’: enhancing human capital with social capital in an Australian start-up accelerator

Abstract

This study investigates the enhancement of human capital with social capital in a start-up accelerator and how this integration affects the entrepreneurial learning experience. In particular, it examines the relative importance of the three components ‘know-what’, ‘know-how’ and ‘know-who’. The study involved thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with participants in an Australian start-up accelerator that is delivered using ideas such as Design Thinking, the Business Model Canvas and Lean Start-up methodology. We find that although the programme emphasised ‘know-what’ and ‘know-how’, ‘know-who’ was most significant for participant learning. The results indicate that mentors and experts were especially helpful in shaping learning and in developing entrepreneurial networks. Moreover, our results show that the processes of ‘know-what’, ‘know-how’ and ‘know-who’ are interrelated – by knowing ‘who’, participants learnt ‘what’ and ‘how to’ through social learning. The research contributes to entrepreneurial learning theory and application particularly in the Asia Pacific context, by providing evidence that ‘know-who’ closes the learning loop for ‘know-what’ and ‘know-how’ as ‘know-who’ can actually provide entrepreneurs with the means to enhance their entrepreneurial self-efficacy.     

Economic development and inflation: a theoretical and empirical analysis

This paper studies the relation between inflation and economic development. The literature is largely silent regarding both the theoretical and empirical perspectives that undeveloped countries endure higher average inflation than developed economies. We present a simple theoretical model linking the inflation phenomenon to the tradition of development economics. Empirical evidence is garnered to test the hypothesis that economic development engenders a downward bias to inflation rates. Through the feasible-GLS estimator in a panel of 65 countries from 2001 to 2011, we aim at listing a number of variables most commonly used to explain differences in the stage of economic development across countries and identifying the most statistically relevant ones to account for differences in inflationary patterns. While our results show that inflation is inversely correlated with the level of the technological content of the economy (measured by share of high-tech exports), human capital and cyclical unemployment, it is directly related to the degree of inflation persistence and terms of trade growth. However, our findings still present an inverse and low correlation between inflation persistence and economic development, implying that development-sensitive variables allowed into the model can only partially account for the differences in inflation at different levels of economic development.     

An alternative approach for portfolio performance evaluation: enabling fund evaluation relative to peer group via Malkiel’s monkey

We propose an implementable portfolio performance evaluation procedure that compares a portfolio with respect to the portfolios constructed by an infinite number of Malkiel’s blindfolded monkeys, or equivalently the whole enumeration of all possible portfolios. We argue that this approach exhibits two main advantages. First, it does not require any benchmark portfolios because a portfolio is being compared to an infinite number of portfolios. Second, it is market condition invariant. Since the market conditions are already reflected in the portfolio performances of an infinite blindfolded monkeys, our measure of portfolio performances is invariant to volatile market conditions.     

Hypercongestion in production correspondences: an empirical exploration

This empirical contribution reviews the rather limited existing literature measuring congestion in production. It first compares current ways to measure congestion using nonparametric specifications of technologies. In particular, it focuses on the magnitude and incidence of the congestion detected in empirical studies using traditional radial efficiency measures. Thereafter, it shows the limitations of this radial measurement and how alternative measurement schemes may reveal higher amounts of congestion. Then, the new, more general methodology of measuring S-congestion is presented. In particular, we first present a numerical example to illustrate the way the S-disposable technologies allow to capture more extreme forms of congestion by setting empirically determined upper bounds to the wasting of inputs. Then, an empirical illustration is presented based on an existing sample of data. A final section concludes.