The Effects of Institutional Distance and Headquarters’ Financial Performance on the Generation of Environmental Standards in Multinational Companies

This article combines institutional and resources’ arguments to show that the institutional distance between the home and the host country, and the headquarters’ financial performance have a relevant impact on the environmental standardization decision in multinational companies. Using a sample of 135 multinational companies in three different industries with headquarters and subsidiaries based in the USA, Canada, Mexico, France, and Spain, we find that a high environmental institutional distance between headquarters’ and subsidiaries’ countries deters the standardization of environmental practices. On the other hand, high-profit headquarters are willing to standardize their environmental practices, rather than taking advantage of countries with lax environmental protection to undertake more pollution-intensive activities. Finally, we show that headquarters’ financial performance also imposes a moderating effect on the relationship between environmental institutional distance between countries and environmental standardization within the multinational company.     

The productivity payoff of information technology in multimarket SMEs

This paper examines the effects of information technology (IT) adoption on the productivity of multimarket small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The main hypothesis is that IT usage increases efficiency to a higher degree in diversified and internationalized firms compared with single-market SMEs. This hypothesis is tested using a large sample of more than 2,000 Spanish SMEs. Overall, intensive use of IT in operations processes is found to be associated with substantial increases in productivity of firms following both related and unrelated diversification. Also, exporting firms with more intensive use of IT have higher productivity. These results are consistent with previous theoretical arguments on the relationship between IT and efficiency of firms and open future research directions related to the role played by IT in the management control systems of both diversified and exporting firms.     

A Case Study of Group Decision Method for Environmental Foresight and Water Resources Planning Using a Fuzzy Approach

Group decision-making (i.e., multi-expert) is an important subject in planning water resources. The inherent complexity and uncertainty of real world urge many experts to be involved in decision-making processes. This paper presents an application of the linguistic-label aggregation method in a real-life case study. The case was taken from a foresight exercise in Colombia (South America) concerning environmental and water resources planning in a river basin. The group decision-making problem is solved using a four-step approach based on (i) the evaluation of experts’ opinions, (ii) the aggregation of opinions for each alternative, (iii) fuzzy ranking, and (iv) final assessment. Two main issues that are new in our work is that we consider temporal linguistic labels and a fuzzy ranking procedure that is able to include the mean, the standard deviation, the fuzzy membership function and the frequency of experts’ opinions for each alternative. The approach is developed and implemented on a computational tool. Results show an efficient decision-making process, that is, the tool demonstrated to deal with shortest time frames and to increase the efficiency of the planning resources, mainly because allows the decision manager to focus on the establishment of criteria. The latter also leads to objectivity and eases the identification and discussion of elements of consensus in decisions that otherwise may be embedded in individuals’ interests.     

Factor analysis of the Big Five Questionnaire using polychoric correlations in children

Although the Big Five Questionnaire for children (BFQ-C) (C. Barbaranelli et al., Manuale del BFQ-C. Big Five Questionnaire Children, O.S. Organizazioni, Firenze, 1998) is an ordinal scale, its dimensionality has often been studied using factor analysis with Pearson correlations. In contrast, the present study takes this ordinal metric into account and examines the dimensionality of the scale using factor analysis based on a matrix of polychoric correlations. The sample comprised 852 subjects (40.90% boys and 59.10% girls). As in previous studies the results obtained through exploratory factor analysis revealed a five-factor structure (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional instability and openness). However, the results of the confirmatory factor analysis were consistent with both a four and five-factor structure, the former showing a slightly better fit and adequate theoretical interpretation. These data confirm the need for further research as to whether the factor ‘Openness’ should be maintained as an independent factor (five-factor model), or whether it would be best to omit it and distribute its items among the factors ‘Extraversion’ and ‘Conscientiousness’ (four-factor model).     

Do bad borrowers hurt good borrowers? A model of biased banking competition

Portuguese Economic Journal - This paper explores a two-bank model in which, first, one bank correctly estimates the probability of low-quality loan repayment while the other overestimates it, and...     

Time,uncertainty and trade flows

This paper quantifies the impact of international transport time on bilateral trade flows in goods using previously unexploited information drawn from a large data set on international parcel delivery times. In line with previous work, we find that an extra day spent in international transit reduces bilateral trade by just under 1% at the sample median. In addition, and for the first time in the literature, we examine the impact of time-related uncertainty, which requires traders to hold costly inventories or build costly redundancies into supply chains. We find that a one day increase in international transport time uncertainty reduces bilateral trade flows by just over 1%. Splitting the sample into developing and developed countries shows that international transit time matters primarily for south–south trade, whereas uncertainty is relatively more important for north–north trade. Using new data on trade in intermediate versus final goods, we also find some evidence that time and uncertainty both matter more for movements of intermediates of the type that takes place within global value chains.     

Empathic cultural consumers: Pay what you want in the theater

Pay what you want (PWYW) is an increasingly popular sales strategy in which consumers voluntarily decide how much to pay for a product or service. PWYW has often been described as an exercise in the “empathy economy,” where consumers' payment choices might be seen as empowered expressions of their tastes and preferences, and sellers have a stronger incentive for empathizing with them. Beyond their economic interest, PWYW experiences also deserve significant attention in the social sciences given that they challenge several key assumptions of rational choice and neoclassical economic theory, as well as conventional consumer behavior and pricing theories. This paper analyzes three plays performed at the Beckett Theater in Barcelona using PWYW with very profitable outcomes. Our analysis shows that socio-psychological factors, such as payments attributed to others and satisfaction with the play, are the best predictors of customer payments.     

Assessing the sustainability of external imbalances in the European Union

We assess the sustainability of the current account (CA) balance, net international investment position (NIIP) and net external debt (NED) in a sample of 22 EU countries using two complementary approaches. First, we employ time‐series stationarity tests of current account balance‐to‐GDP ratios as well as cointegration tests of exports and imports of goods and services. Second, we assess the level of trade balance that stabilises the NIIP and the NED. We find that there is sustainability of the CA balance in eight countries, NIIP in five countries and NED in 10 countries, whereas there is evidence of a lack of sustainability in five debtor nations and three creditor nations. Both approaches are consistent with each other given the relationship between flows and stocks, the existence of structural breaks, and valuation effects via exchange rate and interest rate changes.