Creating an Environment for Economic Growth: Creativity,Entrepreneurship or Human Capital?

Scholars and policymakers interested in the growth and prosperity of regions have long recognized that talent and knowledge are fundamental. Yet the question is what types of talent are needed in a growing twenty‐first‐century economy: human capital, creativity and innovation, or entrepreneurship? The latter we define broadly to include any type of risk taking, and not only radical innovation. The literature does not clearly point to one factor as being the most essential. This study assesses this question separately for rural and urban United States (US) counties. We find that human capital––measured by educational attainment––is considerably more conducive to employment growth than the share of creative occupations. Likewise, the share of small and medium businesses is also very conducive to local growth, although this does not apply to the self‐employment share. Rural and urban areas experience similar patterns, although the magnitude thereof tends to be larger for urban counties, whereas high‐technology employment share has had a positive effect in rural areas. Policy conclusions suggest that enhancing small business development and increasing educational attainment are the two strategies that are most likely to succeed.     

Labor Income Taxation,Human Capital,and Growth: The Role of Childcare*

In this paper, we examine the effects of labor income taxation on growth in an overlapping generations model in which schooling and childcare play a role in the production of human capital. We compare such effects with those obtained in a model in which only schooling matters for skill formation. We show that the omission of childcare from the technology of skill formation can bias the results related to the impact of labor income taxation on growth.     

A stochastic dominance approach to the measurement of discrimination

This note suggests a bridge between stochastic dominance (Rothschild and Stiglitz, 1970 [17], 1973 [18]), inequality measurement (Atkinson, 1970 [1]) and discrimination measurement (Gastwirth, 1975 [10]). Discrimination orderings are defined and illustrated through discrimination curves, in the same spirit as stochastic dominance analysis. The main result, which links the second order discrimination curve and the Gastwirth discrimination index, also generalizes the equivalence between Generalized Lorenz dominance and second order stochastic dominance.     

Agglomeration dynamics of innovative start-ups in Italy beyond the industrial district era

Building on the literature on agglomeration economies, this study examines how urbanization, industry-diversification, district economics and incubating initiatives are associated to the creation of innovative start-ups in Italy. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 6018 innovative start-ups distributed across 104 Italian NUTS 3 regions. Our findings show that incubating initiative and industrial districts play a major role for new venture creation and provide support to the positive role of urbanization economies and industry specialization over diversification. Finally, we discuss future research directions grounded on the empirical evidence provided by our study.

     

Trends and Drivers in CSR Disclosure: A Focus on Reporting Practices in the Automotive Industry

This work focuses on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure practices of multinational corporations. Based on a longitudinal study of CSR reports of companies operating in the automotive industry, the paper offers a detailed study of how disclosure practices are changing and which principles and approaches influence and drive the development of such disclosure. Based on a four-year report-based study, the findings enable us to identify three main trends in the CSR disclosure strategy of automotive firms. First, in line with the mainstream CSR literature, the present study confirms the trend towards the increasing environmental and social accountability. Second, it adds evidence to the emerging debate regarding the harmonization and standardization of reporting and discusses this aspect by mentioning the standards as exerting some normative pressures within the sector. Finally, it provides evidence on specific links emerging between issues and actors. The implications of this evidence contribute to opening up the debate on CSR disclosure to the possibility of combining the institutional lens with a strategic approach that captures the materiality considerations of CSR disclosure.     

Customers’ Perception of Fish Fast-Casual Restaurants

The objective of the research is to explore Italian customers’ perceptions of fish and seafood fast-casual foodservice restaurants, so to identify expected food, environmental, and organizational attributes’ importance. The sample includes 600 fish and seafood customers interviewed face to face. Data elaboration included an exploratory factor analysis on fast-casual food and restaurant attributes, followed by chi-square and ANOVA to profile customers’ perception towards the level of importance of the factors. Hygiene, personnel, and sensorial attributes are the three most important factors for all groups of customers. Gender and age are the most differentiating socio-economic characteristics. This study is a pioneering research on a restaurant format expanding in European countries and validated an attribute assessment scale for fast-casual restaurants. Results suggest the following managerial implications useful to define investment strategies: guaranteeing high hygiene standards, investing on personnel quality, offering tasty and good food, and targeting strategies focused on customers’ lifestyle.     

Alternative Investment Market: A Way to Promote Entrepreneurship

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between firm performance after the IPO and its entrepreneurial orientation (EO). In our work we want to test if entrepreneurial oriented firms show a better market performance signalling that investors valuate it positively. To this purpose, we focus on a particular sample of entrepreneurial firms, i.e. companies that went public on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) through IPO during the period from 1995 to 2006. Along the lines of Miller (Manage Sci 29:770–791, 1983), Covin and Slevin (Entrep Theory Pract 16:7–25, 1991) and Lumpkin and Dess (Acad Manage Rev 21:135–172, 1996), firms’ entrepreneurial orientation is measured in terms of risk taking, innovation and proactivity. Following the literature in management on investor valuation we use the percent price premium as dependent variable of our model. Our findings confirm a positive impact of entrepreneurial orientation on investors’ valuation. The results of this work underline the relevance of secondary markets, such as the AIM, as a valuable alternative to traditional financial institutions in providing capital to small and entrepreneurial companies.     

The relationships between CEO characteristics and strategic risk-taking in family firms

Abstract

We examine the influences of chief executive officer (CEO) personal characteristics on family firms’ strategic risk-taking. Building on upper echelons theory, we investigate the influences of CEO family relationships, the CEO professional education, other career experiences, tenure, and career horizon have on the risk level a company takes. By analyzing a sample of 107 Italian family firms listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, we find that company’s risk-taking significantly and negatively relates to CEO family relationship and professional education, but positively to CEO career horizon. This provides support to the argument that such CEO personal characteristics are key factors in explaining differences in risk-taking among family firms. Further, our analysis of control variables shows that family firms’ risk-taking relates positively to board size and negatively to company size. These results suggest that company and board characteristics also significantly influence the risk levels taken by a company.     

Cash flow,investment, and investment opportunities: New tests using UK panel data

The interpretation of the correlation between cash flow and investment is controversial. Some argue that it is caused by financial constraints, others by the correlation between cash flow and investment opportunities that are not properly measured by Tobin’s Q. This paper uses UK firms’ contracted capital expenditure to capture information about opportunities available only to insiders and thus not included in Q. When this variable is added to investment regressions, the explanatory power of cash flow falls for large firms, but remains unchanged for small firms. This suggests that the significance of cash flow stems from its role in capturing the effects of credit frictions.