Detecting Hidden Sorting and Alignment Effects of Entrepreneurship Education

Recently, scholars are confronted with only small positive, non‐existing, or even negative average effects of entrepreneurship education. We draw on two largely neglected and hidden effects of entrepreneurship education, namely the alignment and the sorting effect, in order to explain previous inconsistent evaluation outcomes. Making use of ex ante and ex post student‐surveys in a quasi‐experimental setting, we provide insights into how these effects emerge and are further amplified by course‐induced updates in personal attitudes and perceived behavioral control. Our study shows that relying on average measures is often not effective in evaluating entrepreneurship courses and highlights the need for new outcomes measures.     

Price dynamics in the Belarusian black market for foreign exchange

Using unique data from an internet-based foreign-exchange trading platform, we show that the black market efficiently incorporated public information on the state of the Belarusian economy during the Balance of Payments crisis of 2011. Between May and October 2011, the government repeatedly devalued the Belarusian ruble and eventually abandoned its fixed exchange rate regime. Measures derived from black market transaction data have significant predictive power for these devaluations. The significance of these black market measures survives even when we include standard macroeconomic indicators in our forecasting model. In line with standard economic theory, activity in the black market has dried up subsequently.     

A weekly diary study on the buffering role of social support in the relationship between job insecurity and employee performance

In this article, the authors used a within‐person design to examine the relationship between job insecurity and employee in‐role and extra‐role performance, and the buffering role of time‐varying work‐based support (i.e., supervisor and colleague support) in this relationship. Weekly diary data gathered over the course of three weeks from 56 employees confronted with organizational restructuring and analyzed with a hierarchical linear modeling approach showed that weekly fluctuations in job insecurity negatively predicted week‐level in‐role performance. As predicted, supervisor support moderated the intra‐individual relationship between job insecurity and in‐role performance, so that employees' in‐role performance suffered less from feeling job insecurity during weeks in which they received more support from their supervisor. No relationship between job insecurity and extra‐role performance was observed. This within‐person study contributes to research on job insecurity that has primarily focused on inter‐individual differences in job insecurity and their associations with job performance. Theoretical and practical implications for human resource management are discussed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Firm-specific forward-looking effective tax rates

This paper computes effective (marginal and average) tax rates that account for bilateral aspects of taxation and, therefore, vary across country-pairs and years. These tax rates serve to estimate the impact of corporate taxation on outbound stocks of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) among OECD countries between 1991 and 2002. The findings indicate that outbound FDI is positively related to the parent and host country tax burden and negatively associated with bilateral effective tax rates. Relying only on unilateral (country and time variant) rather than on both unilateral and bilateral (country-pair and time variant) effective tax rates leads to biased estimates of the impact of corporate taxation on FDI.     

Ökonometrische Inflationsanalyse für Österreich 1960/1975

Summary The following econometric study analyses the inflationary process in Austria since 1960. Price equations are estimated for the period 1960/1973 and several subperiods with quarterly and yearly data, forecasts of the development of the GNP-deflator and the consumer price index are made for 1974 and 1975. In this way it is possible to quantify the relative importance of inflationary factors and to test the stability of the price determination structures. Special emphasis is laid on the rôle of monetary variables and of price expectations in the process of price determination.The conclusion of the study is that accelerating inflation in the 70ies can be explained by the same factors than creeping inflation of the 50ies and 60ies. Inflation has always been of a mixed type, though the relative weight of cost, demand, monetary and expectational variables changed during the observation period. There is no sign that a new type of inflation with new behaviour patterns was emerging in the last years. Even the extraordinary (externally influenced) price rise in 1974 can be explained by price functions of traditional structure. Forecasts for 1975 show no substantial diminuation of inflationary pressures.     

Die Messung von „Earnings“-Qualität

This paper presents the commonly used measures for earnings quality. It critically analyzes the measures within a theoretical framework and presents empirical results for Austrian listed corporations over a period of ten years. The analysis shows strengths and weaknesses of the measures, their conceptual relationship and empirical association. The knowledge of associations is also important to judge the robustness of empirical results based on a single aggregate earnings quality measure. The paper contributes to the understanding of opportunities and potential weaknesses of empirical research on earnings quality, and shows avenues for further research.