Futures research and global change

Futures research must be carried out on the basis of people having the right to choose their own future. There is thus a need, particularly in the developing countries, for the spread of training in futures to those who will themselves be shaping their own future, and this places responsibilities on futures specialists in the developed North. The global value changes underway must also be confronted if futures research is to retain its relevance. A ‘project approach’ is preferred, which embraces both extrapolative and normative futures methodologies.     

China’s Outward FDI: An Industry-Level Analysis of Host-Country Determinants

We use disaggregated data by country and industry to empirically analyze the host country determinants of Chinese outward foreign direct investment (FDI) for the years 2003 to 2011. Our results suggest that the host-country determinants of Chinese FDI differ between high- and low-income countries. While all Chinese FDI is invariably market seeking, other motivations stand out for differing sectors in specific country groups. The resource seeking motivation is relevant for manufacturing FDI to high-income countries with relatively high fuel abundance, and to low-income countries with primary resource abundance (other than fuels). Differently, the strategic-asset seeking motivation, measured by the level of R&D spending on GDP, only positively and significantly affects Chinese manufacturing and service FDI to OECD countries, while higher education levels are an attraction factor for all investing firms. Natural resource is an important attraction factor for Chinese FDI, not only in resource-related sectors, but also in manufacturing and service sectors. Finally, Chinese FDI tends to follow exports (rather than foster them), especially in service sectors.     

The Short Period and the Long Period in Macroeconomics: An Awkward Distinction

The aim of this paper is to show that the meaning of the well-known concepts of short period and long period is often unclear and may be seriously misleading when applied to macroeconomic analysis. Evidence of this confusion emerges through reappraisal of the interpretative debate of the 1980s and 1990s, which aimed to establish whether Keynes's General Theory should be considered a short- or long-period analysis of the aggregate level of production. Further evidence is provided by the ambiguous use that seems to be made of this distinction in macroeconomics textbooks, as will be shown in the paper. Having explored some possible explanations for the difficulties in defining and applying these methodological tools at a ‘macro’ level, the conclusion is drawn that it would be preferable to abandon this terminology in classifying different aggregate models and simply to make explicit the given factors and the independent and dependent variables in each model, exactly as Keynes did in Chapter 18 of his major work.     

Risk Sharing: A Long Run Issue?

We suggest, by means of integration and cointegration tools, and error correction model regressions, that international risk sharing is predominantly a short run concern. This finding has been obtained by using some new variants of the standard consumption insurance tests, and runs counter to some other recent empirical evidence. Moreover, we find mixed evidence as to the fact that the recent surge in international financial liberalization has improved on risk sharing, at least in the long run.     

The Persistence of Profits,Sectoral Heterogeneity and Firms’ Characteristics

The analysis of the persistence of profits has long been a controversial issue within empirical industrial organisation literature. The aim of our paper is to provide new empirical findings that may account for patterns of both sectoral and firm profit persistence. The distinctive feature of our study is that we analyse a number of firms’ ergodic distribution in each sector according to their profit level; we then calculate the difference between such a distribution and that prevailing in manufacturing as a whole. Finally, we break down this distribution; the resulting breakdown highlights the impact of each transition probability on inter‐sectoral differences clearly, and it also emphasises the role of intra‐sectoral dynamics in determining different persistence patterns. We then apply this methodology to both innovating and non‐innovating firms, and conclude that among surviving firms innovation is indeed crucial to the persistence of profits. In addition, we set up an econometric test which enables us to estimate the impact of firm and sectoral characteristics on a firm’s profit condition.     

Determinants and Performance Effects of Social Performance Measurement Systems

This study investigates the performance measurement systems adopted by companies to manage their social responsibility activities, a theme that remains under-researched despite the important role that these mechanisms may play in helping firms control and improve their social performance. An integrative model is developed to examine how the three fundamental drivers of corporate social strategies, i.e., business motivations, perceived stakeholder pressures, and top management’s social commitment, influence the use of social performance indicators for internal decision-making and control and how such use impacts companies’ social and economic performance. The results from a survey of 97 Italian companies suggest that economic motivations and top management’s commitment are associated with a more intensive use of social performance indicators for decision-making and control, whereas perceived pressures from stakeholders do not represent a significant determinant of such use. The use of social performance indicators, in turn, is found to directly influence a firm’s social performance and, indirectly, its bottom line.     

Understanding China's move into Africa: an empirical analysis

An important new issue on the international scene is the upsurge in market and non-market South–South relations. The aim of this paper is to understand the dynamics that lie behind the recent Chinese move into Africa by empirically exploring the determinants of Sino-African relationships. In order to have a comprehensive picture, the analysis takes into consideration the main channels of commercial and political interactions: outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), trade and aid (international economic cooperation). The empirical analysis utilises a panel data set, from 1998 to 2005, for 43 African countries. The econometric estimates for three simultaneous equations are based on an instrumental variables method. Results show that the Chinese move into Africa is driven by strategic interaction among the three channels (FDI, trade and economic cooperation) as well as by pull factors, i.e. the characteristics of the receiving countries in terms of natural resource endowments and their market potential.