The behaviour of relative prices in the European Union: A sectoral analysis

Using multivariate unit root test methods, this paper investigates the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) hypothesis at the sectoral level across six European countries over the last 17 years. Evidence of mean reversion towards PPP is found for the relative prices of some sectors and countries. Mean reversion in relative prices is explained by cross-country and cross-sectoral characteristics such as the distance between countries, nominal exchange rate volatility, differences in GDP per capita, non-tariff barriers, research and development, advertising, industrial concentration and tradeability of the products.     

Introducing Marketing Letters’ data policy

Marketing Letters - This issue introduces Marketing Letters’ data policy, formulated by our data policy board, comprised of Dina Mayzlin, Darren Dahl, Anirban Mukhopadhyay, and Joachim...     

Latin America: Trade objectives beyond U.S.—Mexico negotiations

Countries in Latin America are realizing that the best way to promote economic growth is to create regional trading blocs. Since the announcement of the Americas Initiative last June, several nations have been at work developing trade and investment opportunities.     

CORRELATION UNDER STRESS IN NORMAL VARIANCE MIXTURE MODELS

We investigate correlations of asset returns in stress scenarios where a common risk factor is truncated. Our analysis is performed in the class of normal variance mixture (NVM) models, which encompasses many distributions commonly used in financial modeling. For the special cases of jointly normally and t‐distributed asset returns we derive closed formulas for the correlation under stress. For the NVM distribution, we calculate the asymptotic limit of the correlation under stress, which depends on whether the variables are in the maximum domain of attraction of the Fréchet or Gumbel distribution. It turns out that correlations in heavy‐tailed NVM models are less sensitive to stress than in medium‐ or light‐tailed models. Our analysis sheds light on the suitability of this model class to serve as a quantitative framework for stress testing, and as such provides valuable information for risk and capital management in financial institutions, where NVM models are frequently used for assessing capital adequacy. We also demonstrate how our results can be applied for more prudent stress testing.     

Management training for women: International experiences and lessons for Canada

In Canada, there is growing recognition that women play an increasingly important role in the working world. Management training programs for women have been considered as a route to prepare women to be more effective managers. This paper highlights some of the major issues and concerns being discussed outside Canada by those engaged in management education and training for women — objectives and content of programs, nature of participants, training methods, choice of trainers, organization and evaluation of programs. References are made to a few international programs to illustrate how some of these concerns have been addressed. Implications for training programs in Canada, from both practical as well as research points of view, are discussed.Natalie Lam teaches organizational behaviour, human resources management, and organizational communication at the University of Ottawa. Research interests in cross-cultural management, women in management, and inter-disciplinary research (e.g. organizational issues of physical distribution and materials management). Consultant for private and public sector organizations, such as the Canadian International Development Agency, Bell Northern Research, Institute of Canadian Bankers, and the Canadian Police College.     

A new approach to assess the normalization of differential rates of protest participation

Quality & Quantity - Research that compares those who do and do not participate in protest over time purports that protesters are becoming increasingly similar to the non-protesting population....     

Beyond ‘chalk and talk’: educator perspectives on design immersion programs for rural and regional schools

Twenty-first century education needs to be re-envisioned to equip citizens for a lifetime of rapid change and complexity. Design has been proposed as a pedagogical framework that develops the required foundational literacies, competencies and character qualities citizens need to thrive in this new creative knowledge economy. However, widespread adoption will require systemic transformation of practice, and recognition of the value of formal and informal ‘connected’ learning environments and experiences. This paper explores the potential of design immersion outreach efforts in fostering design capabilities and building educators’ pedagogical repertoires to support twenty-first century learning. It documents educators’ experiences of goDesign, the first three-day place-based travelling design immersion experience for regional and rural Australian high school students and teachers. Drawing on observational data, and in-depth interviews with participating principals (n?=?3) and teachers (n?=?14) from six regional schools, educators believed goDesign provided new ideas for their classroom practice. They felt it broadened horizons for both themselves and their students, through: personally inspiring experiences and career aspiration; engagement in design thinking process, skills and mindset; and providing a valuable opportunity for community building. As educators in regional and rural areas often experience geographical, social and professional isolation, this paper argues that place-based informal design immersion programs might be an innovative way to engage and educate both students and teachers with design, thus building the competencies required for successful twenty-first century futures.

     

Extrinsic motivation as a determinant of knowledge exchange in sales teams: A social network approach

This paper investigates extrinsic motivation as a determinant of knowledge exchange among employees in sales teams. Applying a social network approach, we study different forms of knowledge-exchange behaviors from the perspective of a focal employee and from the perspective of the dyad. From the focal employees' perspective, we disentangle knowledge seeking from knowledge providing, and argue that these two behaviors are affected differently by employees' extrinsic motivation. From the dyad perspective, we take similarity in motivation of tied-to employees and reciprocity of exchange ties into account. To test our hypotheses, we apply exponential random graph models to data gathered from 138 employees in five different sales teams distributed across three companies in Central Europe. The results of our analysis from the focal employees' perspective show that extrinsically motivated employees generally engage in less knowledge exchange. The dyad perspective further highlights that sales employees proceed purposefully when they exchange knowledge with coworkers. For instance, two employees' relative levels of extrinsic motivation determine their willingness to engage in reciprocal knowledge exchange. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on the microfoundations of organizational knowledge management and draw conclusions concerning HRM practices used to foster extrinsic motivation, thereby affecting knowledge exchange.     

Multivariate Small Area Estimation of Multidimensional Latent Economic Well-being Indicators

Factor analysis models are used in data dimensionality reduction problems where the variability among observed variables can be described through a smaller number of unobserved latent variables. This approach is often used to estimate the multidimensionality of well-being. We employ factor analysis models and use multivariate empirical best linear unbiased predictor (EBLUP) under a unit-level small area estimation approach to predict a vector of means of factor scores representing well-being for small areas. We compare this approach with the standard approach whereby we use small area estimation (univariate and multivariate) to estimate a dashboard of EBLUPs of the means of the original variables and then averaged. Our simulation study shows that the use of factor scores provides estimates with lower variability than weighted and simple averages of standardised multivariate EBLUPs and univariate EBLUPs. Moreover, we find that when the correlation in the observed data is taken into account before small area estimates are computed, multivariate modelling does not provide large improvements in the precision of the estimates over the univariate modelling. We close with an application using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions data.