The role of satisfaction in labor diaspora dynamics: An analysis of BREXIT effects

In diaspora research, people's international mobility is often understood as a response to pull-push forces on an economic macro-level or as part of diasporic waves. However, labor diaspora formations are also influenced by micro-level (i.e., individual perceptions) drivers related to work per se, such as satisfaction. This explorative qualitative study takes a novel angle and focuses on the role of Portuguese nurses’ satisfaction with the evaluation of the Brexit scenario and its effects on this labor diaspora's mobility and stability. The findings illustrate that satisfaction, although affected by uncertainty, mainly relates to perceived working conditions and legislation and the possibilities to communicate with locals and other diasporans. This paper provides suggestions for future research and contributes to the development of theory on staying and human stickiness, explaining the dynamics of exit and entry in (re-)migration decision making.     

Local banking and local economic growth in Italy: some panel evidence

This article provides new evidence on the contribution of local banking to local economic growth (i.e. at county level – the Italian ‘province’) in Italy. A comprehensive data set is used, which includes control variables for social capital and human capital as well as indicators of the quality of local infrastructures and the production structure of the local economy. A linear within-estimator technique with fixed effects is applied to a modified version of the so-called Barro regression in order to address the well-known econometric issues of reverse causality and estimation bias resulting from unobserved district-specific influences.     

Environmental Innovations and Internationalization: Theory and Practices

Based on original data on Italian firms specializing in medium‐ and low‐tech industries, we study the relationship between firms’ upstream and downstream internationalization and their propensity to introduce products or processes that reduce environmental impact. Preliminary evidence suggests that geography plays an important role in green firms’ activities and supply chains. More precisely, results suggest that firms that outsource to and rely on non‐local suppliers are less likely to engage in environmental innovations. Moreover, we verify that firms engaged in export activities play a similar and negative role, regardless of the export intensity and typology of foreign markets (i.e. developed versus emerging). Tapping global flows of knowledge by being a part of a multinational group positively spurs the development of green innovations, as for FDIs. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Integrated bio-economic models as tools to support land-use decision making: a review of potential and limitations

Bio-economic modelling has become a useful tool for anticipating the outcomes of policies and technologies before their implementation. Advances in mathematical programming have made it possible to build more comprehensive models. In an overview of recent studies about bio-economic models applied to land-use problems in agriculture and forestry, we evaluated how aspects such as uncertainty, multiple objective functions, system dynamics and time have been incorporated into models. We found that single objective models were more frequently applied at the farm level, while multiple objective modelling has been applied to meet concerns at the landscape level. Among the objectives, social aspects are seldom represented in all models, when being compared to economic and environmental aspects. The integration of uncertainty is occasionally a topic, while stochastic approaches are more frequently applied than non-stochastic robust methods. Most multiple-objective models do not integrate uncertainty or sequential decision making. Static approaches continue to be more recurrent than truly dynamic models. Even though integrating multiple aspects may enhance our understanding of a system; it involves a tradeoff between complexity and robustness of the results obtained. Land-use models have to address this balance between complexity and robustness in order to evolve towards robust multiple-objective spatial optimization as a prerequisite to achieve sustainability goals.     

Sustainable Power Generation in Europe: A Panel Data Analysis of the Effects of Market and Environmental Regulations

Environmental and Resource Economics - Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions have become increasingly more pressing environmental concerns in European policy agenda. Environmental energy...     

An analytical study of participating policies with minimum rate guarantee and surrender option

Finance and Stochastics - We perform a detailed theoretical study of the value of a class of participating policies with four key features: (i) the policyholder is guaranteed a minimum interest...     

Crafting customer insight: What we can learn from the revival of the vinyl record

The recent resurgence of the vinyl record and the proliferation of so-called craft and artisanal products offer unique opportunities to observe ongoing shifts in the contemporary consumer’s values and attitudes. In this article, we explore such thought-provoking market developments and their implications by contrasting them with the conventional understanding of markets and consumers. This understanding can lead to marketing myopia as it works from the utility-oriented assumption that what ultimately matters for both the company and the customer is cost efficiency and convenience. Against this backdrop, in this article, we discuss how market developments representing the contemporary consumer’s mindset prove valuable in creating customer insight that highlights aspects often obscured by an exaggerated focus on cost efficiency and convenience. We provide an alternative approach to evaluating markets and consumers that encourages companies to build their customer-centric market strategies around questions of context, authenticity, story, and resonance. This will help them narrow the gap between their market offerings and the actual wants and needs of their customer, and consequently allow them to revitalize their market.     

The impact of prudential toolkits on loan growth in Central and Eastern European banking systems

This paper examines the effects of prudential policy on loan growth in 11 Central and Eastern European banking systems, spanning the period from 2000 to 2015. Based on the measures taken by the authorities of our sample countries, we build several prudential indices. Additionally, we control for the effects of several country-specific factors and bank-specific characteristics. Finally, we test the homogeneity of these effects, accounting for cycle, ownership, and bank effects. Generally, the empirical findings reveal a negative correlation between prudential toolkits and credit growth, with a conspicuous impact for tools targeting lending activity. We see that the effects of a change in the lending framework on loan growth are heterogeneous when we account for crisis and cycle patterns. Furthermore, the interaction between ownership and crisis reveals that, in normal times, foreign banks recorded higher loan growth compared to domestic banks. The opposite is true in turbulent times. The analysis of interactions between credit-based measures and bank-specific variables show that the effects of prudential actions depend on the bank size and leverage.     

The influence of managers' awareness of climate change,perceived climate risk exposure and risk tolerance on the adoption of corporate responses to climate change

Uncertainties posed by climate change limit companies' ability to understand implications of global warming on business and society at large, hampering the adoption of tangible organizational responses to climate change. Understanding climate action thus requires to investigate influential factors of decision-making under uncertainty, which implies acknowledging managerial interpretations and perceptions about climate issues. Drawing insights from the literature on climate inaction and from corporate sustainability literature, the present study examines awareness of climate change and perceived exposure to climate risks as antecedents of corporate responses to climate change, drawing on a survey of managers of Italian manufacturing companies. In addition, the study tests the moderation of risk tolerance on the relation between perceived climate risk exposure and climate action, suggesting that risk attitudes are a significant factor of decision-making under climate uncertainty. The results support the hypothesis of the model and thus provide several contributions to the literature on business and climate change. Managerial implications and avenues for future research are also discussed.