The New Globalisation: From Too Big to Fail to Too Intertwined to Decouple

Intereconomics - Going forward, international elites should instead strive for the application of one of the most liberal-minded principles of this current world order: self-determination.     

Implementing on‐the‐job training: critical success factors

Post Offices Inc. in The Netherlands has developed and implemented a new instruction model for the training of desk employees. The quality of the new instruction model was assessed by means of the evaluation model of Jacobs and Jones for on‐the‐job training. It is concluded that the implementation of the training model has not been completely successful. Critical success factors, such as the performance of the mentors as well as the quality of the self‐study material, have to be improved. Mentors are expected to serve as a behavioural model, to provide feedback, arrange an adequate environment for self‐study, motivate trainees for self‐study and evaluate trainees’ progress on a regular basis. This study shows that mentors must be fully convinced of the benefit of a new instructional model, if not, the implementation will not be successful. Besides, the study shows that the quality of the self‐study material depends very much on the similarity between the knowledge needed in work and the knowledge presented in the self‐study material.     

Does Aid Cause Trade? Evidence from an Asymmetric Gravity Model

Anderson and vanWincoop developed what has become the standard framework for framing and interpreting empirical work using the gravity model. Their framework relies heavily on an assumption of symmetry among countries. For issues related to North‐South trade, this assumption is problematic. In this paper, we develop an asymmetric extension of the Anderson–vanWincoop framework appropriate to the analysis of North‐South trade, where Northern countries produce differentiated goods and Southern countries homogenous ones. In addition, we use an appropriately extended version of Baier and Bergtrand and Taylor linear expansion – thus permitting its estimation using (good old) OLS. The result is an empirical model that (i) is better suited to the analysis of North‐South trade, (ii) is easy to estimate and compute comparative statics, not requiring a customised NLS routine and, given the way the South is included, (iii) provides a simple explanation of zero trade flows between some country pairs, a fact still not fully explained in the literature. As an illustration of its use, we examine the empirical link between foreign aid and trade.     

A hybrid information approach to predict corporate credit risk

This study proposes a hybrid information approach to predict corporate credit risk. In contrast to the previous literature that debates which credit risk model is the best, we pool information from a diverse set of structural and reduced‐form models to produce a model combination based on credit risk prediction. Compared with each single model, the pooled strategies yield consistently lower average risk prediction errors over time. We also find that while the reduced‐form models contribute more in the pooled strategies for speculative‐grade names and longer maturities, the structural models have higher weights for shorter maturities and investment grade names.     

Monotonicity of indices of “Revealed“ comparative advantage: Empirical evidence on Hillman’s condition

Conclusions The necessary and sufficient condition suggested by Hillman [1980] for the index of RCA, when used in cross-country comparisons, to provide a one-to-one relationship between pre-trade comparative advantage and revealed comparative advantage is fulfilled for the great majority of the “commodities” traded in 1985 by 118 developing economies. Given the low level of data aggregation (the lowest for which statistical information is currently available), the large sample of countries and the high percentage of developing economies’ total exports captured in this research, we can conclude that Balassa’s export-performance index, for cross-country comparisons, is a good indicator of comparative advantage as reflected by pre-trade prices. In other words, Hillman’s condition is a useful indicator of the presence of monotonicity in indices of RCA: we have observed that at a 5-digit level of commodity aggregation, increases in Balassa’s export performance index of RCA are likely to correspond to increases in export levels. Aggregation of commodities at a 3-digit and at a 1-digit level suggests that Hillman’s condition is unlikely to be violated if the cause for values of the Hillman’s Index less than one is due to export specialization; on the contrary, the number of cases of a Hillman Index smaller than one due to a large share of world markets is expected to be negatively related to the level of aggregation. Our results suggest that Hillman’s index should be calculated in any empirical investigation trying to assess the long-term implications of trade liberalization negotiations using an export-performance index of RCA. There is evidence that, if used at a disaggregated level, the HI is a tool that may help flag cases in which the RCA index can be a misleading indicator of countries’ comparative advantage, even in cross-country comparisons. It may also help reduce disagreements regarding the most appropriate coefficient of RCA. Further research should be directed toward enlarging the sample of countries to include the entire world and to incorporate at least three years of trade so as to be able to eliminate the possible influence of cycles.     

Evaluating training programs: development and correlates of the Questionnaire for Professional Training Evaluation

Psychometrically sound evaluation measures are vital for examining the contribution of professional training to organizational success in a reliable manner. As training evaluations tend to be both time‐consuming and labor‐intensive, there is an increasing demand for economic evaluation inventories. Simultaneously, evaluation measures have to meet psychometric standards. The present paper develops a time‐efficient training evaluation questionnaire that (1) has psychometrically sound properties; (2) measures more than the participants’ reactions; and (3) is widely applicable across different training contents, thus allowing for comparisons of training programs within and between organizations. The Questionnaire for Professional Training Evaluation is primarily developed for use in practice but is also applicable to field research and covers short‐term as well as long‐term training outcomes. Analyses based on a total of n = 1134 employees show the stability of the factor structure and hint at the questionnaire's differential and discriminant validity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Dynamics of intraday serial correlation in the Italian futures market

The serial correlation of high‐frequency intraday returns on the Italian stock index futures (FIB30) in the period 2000–2002 is studied. It is found that intraday autocorrelation is mostly negative for time scales lower than 20 minutes, mainly due to the bid–ask bounce effect. Although this supports the efficiency of the Italian futures market, evidence that intraday serial correlation becomes positive in high‐volatility regimes is also provided. Moreover, it is found that it is mainly unexpected volatility that makes serial correlation rise, and not its predictable part. The results are supportive of the K. Chan (1993) model. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:61–84, 2006     

Chancen und Herausforderungen der Rückversicherung in der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung

In 2009 a so-called morbidity orientated risk structure equalization scheme was installed for the German statutory health insurance in order to minimize structural differences between different providers with respect to revenue and expenditures. Even with this mechanism some risks to the individual health insurance providers remain. Reinsurance could be a way to mitigate these risks, but so far only very few contracts have been signed. Moreover the existing reinsurance contracts only focus on the periphery of the statutory health insurance system such as travel health insurance. In this article we therefore analyse existing risks for individual health insurance providers and evaluate their (re-)insurability. Hereafter the potential for reinsurance solutions in the German statutory health insurance itself as well as in newer forms of healthcare provision (e.g. integrated health care and managed care) is discussed. We find that reinsurance may be a reasonable solution for many of the risks in the statutory health insurance scheme. But as research in this area is very young further analysis of the nature of risks is necessary.     

Resources, innovation and growth in the global economy

The relative performance of open economies is analyzed in an endogenous growth model with asymmetric trade. A resource-rich country trades resource-based intermediates for final goods produced by a resource-poor economy. The effects of an increase in the resource endowment depend on the elasticity of substitution between resources and labor in intermediates' production. Under substitution (complementarity), the resource boom generates higher (lower) income, lower (higher) employment in the primary sector and faster (slower) growth in the resource-rich economy. In the resource-poor economy, the shock induces a higher (lower) relative wage and positive (negative) growth effects that are exclusively due to trade.