Optimal Self-Reporting Schemes with Multiple Stages and Option Values

We consider a model of optimal law enforcement where sanctions can be reduced for self-reporting individuals. We distinguish between a first self-reporting stage before the case is investigated and a second one where the criminal is detected, but not yet convicted. Since we assume that violators have private information in both stages, fine reductions for self-reporting individuals lead ceteris paribus to a higher violation frequency. Nevertheless, we show that fine reductions should be granted in both stages. We characterize the connection between the two fine reductions in the optimal policy and relate our results to self-reporting schemes observed in reality.     

An information-based adaptive strategy for resource exploitation in competitive scenarios

Given an exploitation problem, in which a number of agents compete for a limited renewable resource, the optimal harvesting strategy depends on the ratio between resource availability and exploitation effort. For scarce resource a purely competitive, greedy strategy outperforms a more collaborative approach based on the Collective Intelligence, while for more abundant resource the opposite holds. The rationale for this behaviour lies in the amount of information each strategy is able to provide and a combined strategy is possible according to which agents choose dynamically the most informative strategy according to a minimum entropy criterion. This approach, which provides best performance for both under and over-exploited scenarios, can be used to monitor the resource status for management purposes and is effective in both centralised and decentralised decision making.     

An interest rate peg might be better than you think

Active interest rate policy is frequently recommended based on its merits in reducing macroeconomic volatility and being a simple device. Yet, it might be outperformed by an even simpler policy. A peg can be welfare-enhancing and can uniquely be implemented.     

Coming attraction

Francesca Cornelli, Richard D'Aveni, Andrew Kakabadse, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Markus Reitzig, Fons Trompenaars and Kim Warren share their latest research.     

Variable reduction,sample selection bias and bank retail credit scoring

This paper investigates the effect of including the customer loan approval process to the estimation of loan performance and explores the influence of sample selection bias in predicting the probability of default. The bootstrap variable reduction technique is applied to reduce the variable dimension for a large data-set drawn from a major UK retail bank. The results show a statistically significant correlation between the loan approval and performance processes. We further demonstrate an economically significant improvement in forecasting performance when taking into account sample selection bias. We conclude that financial institutions can obtain benefits by correcting for sample selection bias in their credit scoring models.     

Service Delivery Networks and Employment Relations at German Airports: Jeopardizing Industrial Peace on the Ground?

In this article, we ask how organizational restructuring towards a network form of service delivery challenges an established form of employment relations in Germany, that is labour–management collaboration. Building on a theoretical discussion of the marketization hypothesis, we develop a structuration perspective on the relationship between network restructuring and labour–management collaboration, which highlights the political economy of inter-firm networks. Empirically, we focus on two major airport authorities in Germany. Our findings show how these authorities at the core of service delivery networks face a strategic trade-off between short-term labour cost reductions and more adversarial employment relations. Apart from coinciding with a deterioration in working conditions for service workers, the handling of this trade-off depends on managers’ and worker representatives’ commitment to collaboration across the network. While unions and works councils initially continued with social partnership-type practices, the more adversarial management practices for enacting the network restructuring cause a fragmentation on the workers’ side and increase the conflict potential. We conclude that the agency of management and worker representatives in the enactment of inter-firm networks oscillates between more partnership-like and more conflictive practices, which turn the network restructuring into a political process with divergent outcomes for employment relations.     

Adaptation and inertia in dynamic environments

Research summary : We address conflicting claims and mixed empirical findings about adaptation as a response to increased environmental dynamism. We disentangle distinct dimensions of environmental dynamism—the direction, magnitude, and frequency of change—and identify how selection shapes adaptive responses to these dimensions. Our results show how frequent directional changes undermine the value of exploration and decisively shift performance advantages to inert organizations that restrict exploration. In contrast, increased environmental variance rewards exploration. Our results also show that, in dynamic environments, the best‐performing organizations are generally more inert than less successful organizations. Managerial summary : Our research helps managers to understand under what business conditions investments into exploration and strategic flexibility are more likely to pay off. Dynamic business environments characterized by persistent trends and by large, infrequently occurring structural shocks reward strategic pursuit of temporary advantage. Thus, exploration and strategic flexibility are preferred strategies. In contrast, the challenge in frequently changing environments with fleeting opportunities is to identify and to focus on strategic actions whose payoffs on average are high, independent of environmental volatility. Low levels of exploration and long‐term strategic focus are preferred strategies in these circumstances. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

PanelWhiz and the Australian Longitudinal Data Infrastructure in Economics

PanelWhiz is a graphical user interface that was written for the statistical software, Stata SE/MP Version 11 (Win/Mac/Linux) or later, which allows users to extract data from complicated multi‐level longitudinal datasets in an easy and efficient manner. Specifically, Australian datasets, such as Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life, Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, Footprints in Time—The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children and Consumer Attitudes, Sentiments & Expectations in Australia, have already been integrated into the common platform of the PanelWhiz system.