The importance of informal professional networks in developing a proactive organizational culture: a public value perspective

Public value theory was used by the authors to investigate informal professional networks, perceived discretionary power, and the organizational culture that forms in physical asset management organizations. The results, from a structural equation model, indicated that informal professional networks are positively associated with higher discretionary power and a proactive asset maintenance organizational culture. In the absence of public managers promoting public value, professionals use their informal networks as a source of power to be proactive and contribute to asset reliability and public safety (public value).     

Werbeanzeigen von Versicherungsunternehmen zur Aufklärung über Gesundheitsrisiken

Insurers offering health-related services as accident insurance, health insurance coverage or nursing insurance for instance have a legitimate interest in reducing costs of ill insured. Information about health-conscious behavior and health risks provided by advertisement may contribute this impact. In an experimental study, we analyze the effect of credibility of advertisement and independent third-party trustmark on health risk perception and health behavior intentions. Results demonstrate significant influence of credibility of advertisement on health risk perception and higher credibility for advertisement with independent trustmark. Furthermore, higher health risk perception conducts to healthier behavior intentions.     

Survival expectations,subjective health and smoking: evidence from SHARE

This article aims to assess how the risk perceptions of smokers affect survival expectations and subjective health. Data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, which include a numerical measure of subjective survival probability, are used to estimate a joint recursive system of equations that describe the relationships among survival expectations, subjective health status and smoking duration. A finite mixture model is used to address endogeneity and unobservable heterogeneity. This approach allows for two types of individuals with different observable characteristics to be identified in the examined population. We find that only in the population of the first type, current and former smokers incorporate the effects of smoking duration into their assessments of survival probabilities. For both types, quitting smoking affects current perceptions of smoking risks, causing the overestimation of both survival probability and subjective health.     

THE DEPENDENCE STRUCTURE OF RUNNING MAXIMA AND MINIMA: RESULTS AND OPTION PRICING APPLICATIONS

We provide general results for the dependence structure of running maxima (minima) of sets of variables in a model based on (i) Markov dynamics; (ii) no Granger causality; (iii) cross-section dependence. At the time series level, we derive recursive formulas for running minima and maxima. These formulas enable to use a "bootstrapping" technique to recursively recover the pricing kernels of barrier options from those of the corresponding European options. We also show that the dependence formulas for running maxima (minima) are completely defined from the copula function representing dependence among levels at the terminal date. The result is applied to multivariate discrete barrier digital products. Barrier Altiplanos are simply priced by (i) bootstrapping the price of univariate barrier products; (ii) evaluating a European Altiplano with these values.     

Relative Intragenerational Economic Mobility: A Cross-Period Analysis from 1968 to 2009

Recent debate about income inequality has occurred with good reason, as changes in income inequality are critically important for long-term economic prosperity, business profitability, and particularly for the quality and accessibility of labor in the market today. However, what is equally important and less discussed is economic mobility, or the capacity of an individual or a family to improve their financial standing, specifically as it relates to income and wealth. In this paper, we examine statistics on economic mobility in the United States. Our findings suggest that while economic mobility still exists, the likelihood of a household making a large jump out of poverty and into wealth declined from 1999 to 2009. The message of our findings to policymakers is that, rather than a redistribution of wealth from the top of the income distribution to the bottom, what is really needed is broader access to affordable education, better essential nutrition, more stable early childhood development experiences, and basic financial literacy training for all income groups.     

East–West European Integration: A General-Equilibrium Analysis of Alternative Agricultural Policies

This paper studies the budgetary and trade implications of European Union (EU) membership of Eastern European countries under various agricultural policy scenarios. The author uses a six-region, 13-sector general-equilibrium model with many explicitly modeled agricultural and trade policies. It is found that EU membership of Eastern European countries, including their adoption of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), leads to a surge in Eastern Europe's agricultural exports. Moreover, the EU's agricultural expenditure increases by 26%. A reform of the CAP following the Agenda 2000 proposal does not reduce the cost of enlargement if Eastern European farmers receive compensation payments.     

Are yield-curve/monetary cycles’ approaches enough to predict recessions?

Business Economics - This paper proposes a new framework that identifies a threshold between the fed funds rate and the 10-year Treasury yield and, when the threshold is breached, the risk of a...