Total efficient risk priority number (TERPN): a new method for risk assessment

Safety is one of the most important issues in modern industrial plants and industrial activities. The Safety Engineering role is to ensure acceptable safety levels of production systems, not only to respect local laws and regulations, but also to improve production efficiency and to reduce manufacturing costs. For these reasons, the choice of a proper model for risk assessment is crucial. In this context, the present research aims to propose a new method, called Total Efficient Risk Priority Number (TERPN), able to classify risks and identify corrective actions in order to obtain the highest risk reduction with the lowest cost. The main scope is to suggest a simple, but suitable model for ranking risks in a company, to reach the maximum effectiveness of prevention and protection strategies. The TERPN method is an integration of the popular Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) with other important factors in risk assessment.     

Public Employment and the Business Cycle*

We add a public employment sector to the basic search and matching model in order to study the business cycle impact of public wage and employment policies. The government is assumed to follow exogenous rules for public wages and employment calibrated to match some cyclical features of US policies. These features include a positive public wage premium and mildly procyclical public wages and employment. We find that the presence of the public sector increases the volatility of employment and output.     

The Role of Migration in the Variety and Quality of Trade: Evidence from Germany

We explore the migration‐trade nexus in the case of Germany over the period 2000–09, disentangling the two dimensions of intra‐industry trade (vertical and horizontal). We find that immigration is positively and significantly related to intra‐industry trade. However, the magnitude and statistical significance of migration's impact on trade are considerably higher for horizontal intra‐industry trade and increase with the difference in the level of development between Germany and the partner countries. This pattern is consistent with the view that information flows between migrant communities and their country of origin may be more important for consumer goods (where trade in varieties prevails) and that this information effect is more important if trading countries are very different.     

The dynamics of public opinion under majority rules

This note explains the process of public opinion formation via a locally interactive, space-time analysis. The model we use is a special case of the general framework for modelling social interaction proposed in Blume and Durlauf (2001). In the reduced form of the model we study how each individual, when faced with the choice of one, out of two, opinions, tends to conform to the opinion held by the majority of her neighbours. We consider different, symmetric and asymmetric, majority rules. Depending on the specific behavioral rule, the aggregate process of opinion formation may display contagion on one specific opinion, or consensus among all individuals in the population, or co-existence of both opinions. Whenever consensus obtains, we observe the formation of homogeneous areas ( clusters) that seem almost stationary along the dynamics. The authors wish to thank A. Postelwaite and two anonymous referees for very helpful suggestions.     

Trade liberalization and the wage gap: the role of vertical linkages and fixed costs

This paper studies the labor market impacts of trade liberalization, and specifically tariff reductions, with a focus on the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers in presence of vertical linkages in the fixed costs of production. To that purpose, we develop and empirically test a monopolistic competition model with variable elasticity of substitution and labor differentiated by skill level, where skilled workers are the residual claimants of savings on imported inputs. Consistently with the model predictions, we find that a 10% reduction in tariffs implies on average a 3.8% increase in the wage gap. In addition, the same level of tariff reduction is expected to lower unskilled employment in domestic production by 3.3%, which is partially offset by an expansion of unskilled employment in the export segment of production. These results are obtained matching detailed international trade data with World Input–Output Tables and EU KLEMS data on country-sector wage by skill level on 17 OECD countries from 1996 to 2005.     

Selection,Market Size and International Integration: Do Vertical Linkages Play a Role?

We analyze how increases in the market size and in the level of international integration affect the process of selection among firms with heterogeneous productivity levels when they are interconnected by vertical linkages. We show that when vertical linkages among firms are relatively weak (strong), an increase in the market size softens (toughens) the competition facing firms in this market and more firms of a lower (higher) efficiency survive, increasing (decreasing) the welfare level. Moreover, an increase in the level of economic integration softens competition only for intermediate vertical linkages, worsening the welfare level only for strong linkages.     

Unionization,international integration,and selection

Abstract We study how unionization affects competitive selection between heterogeneous firms when wage negotiations can occur at the firm or at the profit‐centre level. With productivity specific wages, an increase in union power has: (i) a selection‐softening; (ii) a counter‐competitive; (iii) a wage‐inequality; and (iv) a variety effect. In a two‐country asymmetric setting, stronger unions soften competition for domestic firms and toughen it for exporters. With profit‐centre bargaining, we show how trade liberalization can affect wage inequality among identical workers both across firms (via its effects on competitive selection) and within firms (via wage discrimination across destination markets).     

Technological and Organizational Tools for Knowledge Management: In Search of Configurations

Knowledge Management (KM) is becoming a growing concern in management research and practice because of its role in determining firm innovation capability and in enhancing working life quality of knowledge workers. This requires, even for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) the creation of a sustainable work organization in terms of configuration of organizational and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools. With a particular emphasis in the area of Product Innovation (PI) and on the basis of a survey on 127 Italian SMEs, this paper aims at analysing the emergent technological and organizational approaches to managing knowledge in the PI process. Three different KM Configurations emerge: the `technical', the `relational' and the `advanced' approach.     

BRAND ACTIVISM: A Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

Brand activism is a new and fragmented phenomenon that has been attracting growing attention from scholars. Research on this topic is still at an exploratory stage and in need of advancement and conceptualization. The aim of this study is to systematize the extant literature on brand activism by attempting an in-depth exploration of the antecedents that identify the construct along with the influencing and consequence factors that will need to be tested and validated by future research. This study adopts the guidelines provided by the SPAR-4-SLR protocol and considers 76 papers with no time limitation. To the best of our knowledge, this seems to be the first scientific systematization of brand activism. From the in-depth analysis of the extant literature, two conceptual frameworks were constructed that can guide both researchers, in their understanding and investigation of the phenomenon, and practitioners in their implementation strategies of brand activism. The no time restriction of the analysis has allowed an investigation of the phenomenon from its prodromes until recent years, also highlighting important gaps that will have to be filled by future research.     

Does economic policy uncertainty matter for financial reporting quality? Evidence from the United States

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We examine the effect of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the financial reporting quality of US firms over 1999–2015. We use accruals-based...