What you don't know about making decisions

Most executives think of decision making as a singular event that occurs at a particular point in time. In reality, though, decision making is a process fraught with power plays, politics, personal nuances, and institutional history. Leaders who recognize this make far better decisions than those who persevere in the fantasy that decisions are events they alone control. That said, some decision-making processes are far more effective than others. Most often, participants use an advocacy process, possibly the least productive way to get things done. They view decision making as a contest, arguing passionately for their preferred solutions, presenting information selectively, withholding relevant conflicting data so they can make a convincing case, and standing firm against opposition. Much more powerful is an inquiry process, in which people consider a variety of options and work together to discover the best solution. Moving from advocacy to inquiry requires careful attention to three critical factors: fostering constructive, rather than personal, conflict; making sure everyone knows that their viewpoints are given serious consideration even if they are not ultimately accepted; and knowing when to bring deliberations to a close. The authors discuss in detail strategies for moving from an advocacy to an inquiry process, as well as for fostering productive conflict, true consideration, and timely closure. And they offer a framework for assessing the effectiveness of your process while you're still in the middle of it. Decision making is a job that lies at the very heart of leadership and one that requires a genius for balance: the ability to embrace the divergence that may characterize early discussions and to forge the unity needed for effective implementation.     

Stochastic Technical Change and Procyclical TFP The Case of Italian Agriculture

The paper questionsthe use of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) measures as a proxyfor the technological level in Italian agriculture. TFP growthreveals a cyclical behaviour and a short-run component due toshocks on both the demand and supply sides. In order to identifyreal long-run technological change, a Kalman filter procedureis applied to a stochastic process depicting the generation oftechnical change induced by R&D and Extension expenditure.The empirical evidence reveals that short-term shocks greatlyaffect the traditional measure of productivity. A better indicatorof technological progress can be obtained by estimating the long-runcomponent of productivity, which seems to be significantly inducedby R&D-Extension public expenditure.     

Cross-section instability in financial markets: impatience,extrapolation, and switching

Decisions in Economics and Finance - This paper presents a stylized model of interaction among boundedly rational heterogeneous agents in a multi-asset financial market to examine how agents’...     

Switching costs in local credit markets

Switching costs are a key determinant of market performance. This paper tests their existence in the corporate loan market in which they are likely to play a central role because of the complexity of contracts and the relevance of informational problems. Using very detailed data at bank-firm level on four Italian local credit markets we empirically show that firms tend to iterate their choice of the main bank over time. This inertia is not related to unobserved and time invariant firms' preferences across banks and can be attributed to the existence of switching costs. Moreover these costs are higher for single-bank firms. We also offer evidence that banks price discriminate between new and old borrowers by charging lower interest rates to the former in order to cover part of the switching costs. The discount amounts to about 44 basis points and is equal to 7% of the average interest rate. These results prove robust to a number of other potential identification drawbacks.     

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE,SKILL FORMATION,HUMAN CAPITAL MEASUREMENT: EVIDENCE FROM ITALIAN MANUFACTURING FIRMS

Abstract This paper emphasizes the role of labour demand as a determinant of human capital formation. After a section in which the alternative conceptions on the functioning of labour markets are presented and different ways of measuring human capital are compared, an applied analysis is carried out in which we provide a labour‐demand‐oriented measure of human capital, as defined by the amount of specific skills firms generate through work‐based training (WBT) activities. By merging three rich firm‐level datasets, we estimate the impact of a set of variables supposed to affect both the propensity to invest in WBT and the intensity of training within the Italian manufacturing industry over the period 2001–2005. Special attention is devoted to the variables characterizing within‐firm organization of knowledge, organizational change and the formation of competence pipelines: among them, innovation, internationalization commitment, out‐sourcing and new hirings. The estimates show that the effect of innovation on WBT is higher when the introduction of new technologies is supported by organizational innovations. When looking at the nature of WBT, we investigate the different determinants of the firms' propensity to provide both in‐house and outside training. We measure training intensity in terms, respectively, of the number of provided training activities, private and total training costs and share of trainees.     

基于Solanum模型的云贵高原大春马铃薯潜在产量研究

[目的]计算云贵高原地区大春马铃薯潜在产量及产量差,分析产生巨大产量差的原因及解决措施。[方法]文章采用由国际马铃薯中心开发的新型植物生长模拟模型Solanum模型与田间试验相结合的方法,更精确地评估马铃薯潜在产量。[结果]云贵高原地区大春马铃薯的产量潜力巨大。云薯401潜在产量为138 t/hm~2,云薯505潜在产量为147 t/hm~2,合作88潜在产量为91.9 t/hm~2,与实际产量之间的产量差(YGM)最大的为云薯505,为117 t/hm~2,与基于FAO农业生态区域法的光温产量潜在模型算法得出的结果相符。与世界范围内已知的马铃薯潜在产量数据相比,云贵高原地区大春马铃薯的潜在产量全球最高。[结论]云贵高原地区大春马铃薯的发展潜力巨大,不同品种的潜在产量存在差异。防控晚疫病,延长生育期以充分利用太阳辐射,提高光合辐射有效利用率(RUE)是提高产量,缩小产量差的关键。     

How do Markets Manage Water Resources? An Experiment

We experimentally test how a private monopoly, a duopoly and a public utility allocate water of differing qualities to households and farmers. Most of our results are in line with the theoretical predictions. Overexploitation of the resources is observed independently of the market structure. Stock depletion for the public utility is the fastest, followed by the private duopoly and private monopoly. On the positive aspects of centralized public management, we find that the average quality to price ratio offered by the public monopoly is substantially higher than that offered by the private monopoly or duopoly.