BEYOND THE STARS

It is frequent to hear in economic seminars or read in academic papers that an effect is economically significant or economically important. Yet, the economic literature is vague on what economic importance means and how it should be measured. In this paper, I show that existing measures of economic importance are flawed and misused. I derive a new metric that measures, in percentage terms, the contribution of each explanatory variable to deviations in the dependent variable, ceteris paribus. As an illustration, the method is applied to study the determinants of migration and the determinants of fertility.     

Search query formation by strategic consumers

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - Submitting queries to search engines has become a major way for consumers to search for information and products. The massive amount of search query data...     

Small business owners and health

Small Business Economics - The present article identifies a societal and scholarly neglect for the field of small business ownership and health. We address health capital and its spillover effects...     

The relevance of political affinity for the initial acquisition premium in cross‐border acquisitions

Research summary : In the context of economic nationalism, we investigate the relevance of political affinity between countries to the initial acquisition premium offered in cross‐border acquisitions. Political affinity is defined as the similarity of national interests in global affairs. We argue that political affinity affects how foreign acquirers anticipate their bargaining position in their negotiations with domestic target firms. With decreasing political affinity, the host government becomes increasingly likely to intervene against foreign firms in an acquisition deal. Consequently, foreign acquirers need to provide a more lucrative initial offer to dissuade target firms from leveraging government intervention to oppose the acquisition. Our prediction is supported by strong evidence that political affinity, as revealed by UN general assembly voting patterns, leads to lower initial acquisition premiums. Managerial summary : Media reports suggest that politics plays an important role in international business transactions. However, we still know very little about how bilateral political relations affect corporate decision‐making. In this article, we analyze the influence of the quality of bilateral political relations on the bidding behavior of foreign acquirers in cross‐border acquisitions. We argue that the host government is more likely to intervene against the foreign acquirer during deal negotiations if the quality of bilateral political relations is poor. A lower political affinity between countries therefore decreases the bargaining power of the acquirer and pushes up the initial bid premium the acquirer has to offer to the local target. Our empirical results confirm our argument. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structural Changes in the Labor Market and the Rise of Early Retirement in France and Germany

The rise of early retirement in Europe is typically attributed to the European system of taxes and transfers. A model with an imperfectly competitive labor market allows us to consider also the effects of bargaining power and of matching efficiency on pre‐retirement. We find that lower bargaining power of workers and declining matching efficiency have been important determinants of early retirement in France and Germany. These structural changes, combined with early retirement transfers and population aging, are also consistent with the employment and unemployment rates, labor share and seniority premia.     

Portfolio performance gauging in discrete time using a Luenberger productivity indicator

This paper proposes a pragmatic, discrete time indicator to gauge the performance of portfolios over time. Integrating the shortage function (Luenberger, 1995) into a Luenberger portfolio productivity indicator (Chambers, 2002), this study estimates the changes in the relative positions of portfolios with respect to the traditional Markowitz mean-variance efficient frontier, as well as the eventual shifts of this frontier over time. Based on the analysis of local changes relative to these mean-variance and higher moment (in casu, mean-variance-skewness and mean-variance-skewness-kurtosis) frontiers, this methodology allows to neatly separate between on the one hand performance changes due to portfolio strategies and on the other hand performance changes due to the market evolution. This methodology is empirically illustrated using a mimicking portfolio approach (22 and 23) using US monthly data from January 1931 to August 2007.     

A framework for innovative service design

Drawing on research from design science, marketing, and service science, our paper provides an integrated framework for evaluating and directing innovative service design. The main goal of our review is to highlight the strengths of existing frameworks and to suggest how they can be enhanced in combination with design science principles. Based on our review, we propose a new framework for the design of innovative services that integrates several key paradigmatic approaches and identifies fundamental open research questions. Our approach is unique as it combines three service disciplines, namely services marketing, service science, and design science, and provides a new framework that describes step by step the procedure that needs to be taken and the conditions that need to be met for developing innovative services. We believe that providing such a framework is a valuable addition to the literature.     

全球复苏能否持续仍是未定之数（上）

【IMF《金融与发展》10月29日】在正常的经济衰退中,无论商业和就业遭受的打击何等严重,形势的好转总是可以预期的。然而,本次全球衰退绝非正常的衰退。     

Managers’ Citizenship Behaviors for the Environment: A Developmental Perspective

The objective of this longitudinal study is to analyze the intrinsic drivers and values underlying managers’ organizational citizenship behaviors for the environment (OCBEs) from a developmental psychology perspective based on measuring the stages of consciousness that shape the meaning-making systems of individuals. At time 1, the stages of consciousness of 138 managers were qualitatively assessed using the Leader Development Profile test. At time 2, a quantitative survey measured the environmental beliefs and OCBEs of these managers. The links between stages of consciousness, environmental beliefs, and OCBEs were analyzed using hierarchical regressions. The main findings show that managers’ stages of consciousness positively influence two types of OCBEs, namely eco-initiatives and eco-helping, while environmental beliefs influence eco-helping and eco-civic engagement but do not appear to be connected with the stage of consciousness development. This paper first contributes to the literature on corporate greening by shedding more light on the aspects of behavioral and developmental psychology that underlie environmental leadership. Second, it bridges the gap between theories that have developed separately by showing the interconnectedness between the managers’ stage of consciousness and the more concrete environmental behaviors in the workplace that could have emulative effects throughout the organization.     

Heteroscedasticity of deviations in market bubble moments – how the goods and bads lead to the ugly

We conjecture that market bubbles may be the results of the interplay of Goods and Bads (toxic products) which develop through three interlocking moments – herding, swarming and stampeding, with deviations marked by heteroscedasticity. We use our stylized model of financial predation, the Consolidated Model of Financial Predation, and data we have accumulated through in-the-field eight-year research and the study of 30 years of U.S. market history in order to explore the foundations of market crises. We find that blind trust (or the positivity bias) and of the fear to miss out on an opportunity to enter/exit a market impacts the investors’ decisions to invest or retract. We show how markets are driven towards a make-or-break predatory dynamic that creates winners and losers due in part to weak regulations and identify a constant k that permeates market behaviours.