Are loyalty shares an effective antidote against short‐termism? Empirical evidence from Italy

Corporate short‐termism is arguably one of the main causes of economic, social, and environmental unsustainability. This paper studies the effectiveness of loyalty shares—shares granting extra dividends or voting rights to shareholders holding them for a specified period of time—in limiting short‐termism. Although there are arguments both supporting (antidote view) and opposing (poison view) loyalty shares' effectiveness, empirical evidence on the theme is scant. By employing earnings management as a proxy for corporate short‐termism and by relying on a hand‐collected database of Italian firms, we find that loyalty shares can serve as an effective antidote against short‐termism. This study contributes to academic literature on corporate governance and accounting and informs the debate among policymakers on loyalty shares' effectiveness.     

Endogenous debt maturity and rollover risk

We empirically study the nature of rollover risk and show how banks manage it. Having to roll over debt does not lead to higher default risk per se. Only banks that lose significant access to new funding while having to roll over debt display higher default risk. We identify a factor that determines this buildup of risk: specifically, debt maturity shortening (forcing debt to be more frequently rolled over) and reduced access to new funding are both driven by market pessimism about banks’ future performance. We also provide evidence consistent with dynamic coordination risk.     

Patent citations reexamined

Many studies rely on patent citations to measure intellectual heritage and impact. In this article, we show that the nature of patent citations has changed dramatically in recent years. Today, a small minority of patent applications are generating a large majority of patent citations, and the mean technological similarity between citing and cited patents has fallen considerably. We replicate several well-known studies in industrial organization and innovation economics and demonstrate how generalized assumptions about the nature of patent citations have misled the field.     

Charting service ecosystems flexibility: A museum setting

The service ecosystems perspective has rarely been applied in literature tackling the nonprofit and voluntary sectors. Service ecosystems are defined as self-adjusting systems of resource-integrating actors connected by shared institutional arrangements and mutual value creation. By addressing service ecosystems flexibility (i.e., the ability of service ecosystems to adjust to changes), this article seeks to provide a framework that charts service ecosystems flexibility and explains its pillars, as well as the ways in which new technologies affect visitors and arts. The study focuses on service ecosystems changes initiated by technology, visitors, and organizers, aimed at increasing the level of museum visitors' experience. The study is performed in a service ecosystem comprising a sculpture arts exhibition and its online extensions in the form of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Collected data consist of interviews with the exhibition visitors and organizers, participative observations performed in the exhibition context, and online posts and media coverage related to the exhibition. The research process is iterative and abductive, continuously combining insights that emerge from the literature and the analyzed data through triangulation. The main findings emphasize organizers' pivotal role as the actor that orchestrates value cocreation in the service ecosystem by steering this process based on emerging changes. Additionally, the findings flesh out the role of technology in a service ecosystem and offer a more comprehensive view of service ecosystems flexibility.     

Productivity growth,Smith effects and Ricardo effects in Euro Area's manufacturing industries

We analyse the determinants of labour productivity across (a sample of) EA member states. We focus on the divergent dynamics before and after the financial crisis, and of core countries relative to peripheral countries. We ground our empirical analysis in Paolo Sylos-Labini's productivity equations. We test different models, including a Panel 2S-LS model and a Panel vector autoregression model. Our preliminary findings confirm and strengthen Sylos-Labini's main insights. Labour productivity in manufacturing industries is strongly and positively correlated with the market size (Smith effect), the relative cost of labour (Ricardo effect), the absolute cost of labour (organization effect) and past investment, whereas it is negatively correlated with current investment. Furthermore, we find evidence that the crisis has affected the size of these effects. Focusing on the core periphery dichotomy, the signs of the effects are the same for both groups of countries, although the Smith, Ricardo and long-run investment effects are usually stronger for core countries compared to peripheral countries. The opposite holds for the organization effect, while investment effects are less clear.     

Students’ perception of CSR and its influence on business performance. A multiple mediation analysis

Firm managers play an important role in the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions. Education is emerging as the key factor in developing a sense of moral responsibility amongst the business students who will eventually become company managers and decision makers. The aim of this research is, thus, twofold. First, to analyze the existence of a direct positive correlation between university students’ perception of CSR and its impact on business performance; and second, to examine the extent to which two factors (advantages brought by CSR and responsibilities toward stakeholders) act as mediation variables in the aforementioned correlation. The analysis was performed with a sample of 390 business‐related university students. Amongst the potential contributions made by this study we can highlight the possibility of knowing future managers’ way of thinking and of knowing the aspects where educational centers might improve their CSR teaching.     

Network valuation in financial systems

We introduce a general model for the balance‐sheet consistent valuation of interbank claims within an interconnected financial system. Our model represents an extension of clearing models of interdependent liabilities to account for the presence of uncertainty on banks' external assets. At the same time, it also provides a natural extension of classic structural credit risk models to the case of an interconnected system. We characterize the existence and uniqueness of a valuation that maximizes individual and total equity values for all banks. We apply our model to the assessment of systemic risk and in particular for the case of stress testing. Further, we provide a fixed‐point algorithm to carry out the network valuation and the conditions for its convergence.     

Convergence clustering in the Chinese provinces: New evidence from several macroeconomic indicators

In this paper, the convergence clustering in 31 Chinese provinces regarding several important economic indicators over the period 1952 to 2016 was empirically investigated. Several provincial clusters were identified in the per capita (real) gross domestic product (GDP), consumption–income ratio, retail price, and consumer price inflation rates, using a club convergence and clustering procedure. The empirical findings are as follows. First, it was found that all series of the original data contain a significant nonlinear component. Second, it was observed that there are five significant clusters for the per capita income in China. Third, it was found that there are four significant clusters for the consumption–income ratio. Fourth, it was observed that there are four significant clusters for the retail inflation rates and two significant clusters for the consumer inflation rates in China. These results will enable local and central planners to implement economic growth, savings and price adjustment policies for different groups of provinces.     

Manufacturing growth accelerations in developing countries

This paper investigates the factors driving manufacturing growth accelerations in a sample of 134 developing countries over the period 1970 to 2014. We first identify growth acceleration episodes of manufacturing value added (MVA) by their year of initiation and according to a country’s income classification. We then estimate a probit model to explain what factors predict these MVA growth accelerations. Our results show that human capital and institutions represent contextual factors that favor the growth of manufacturing, together with macroeconomic policies related to investment, and openness to foreign trade and capital. We also find that most of these factors not only foster episodic accelerations of industry, but they contribute as well to a sustained process of industrialization that characterized the process of economic growth of a few successful countries over the period 1970 to 2014.     

Plague and long‐term development: the lasting effects of the 1629–30 epidemic on the Italian cities

This article aims to analyse the effects of plague on the long‐term development of Italian cities, with particular attention to the 1629–30 epidemic. By using a new dataset on plague mortality rates in 56 cities covering the period c. 1575–1700, an economic geography model verifying the existence of multiple equilibria is estimated. It is found that cities severely affected by the 1629–30 plague were displaced to a lower growth path. It is also found that plague caused long‐lasting damage to the size of Italian urban populations and to urbanization rates. These findings support the hypothesis that seventeenth‐century plagues played a fundamental role in triggering the process of relative decline of the Italian economies.