Intention and Stochastic Outcomes: An Experimental study

Do people care about intentions – even when good intentions do not produce good results? In our experiments we find that rates of punishment and reward react strongly to intentions (the wage a firm decides to pay) and more modestly to distributional outcomes (the higher or lower wage actually received including the stochastic component). For example, workers who end up receiving medium wages respond much more positively when this resulted from the firm offering a high wage but bad luck lowered the worker's pay than when this resulted from the firm offering a low wage and good luck raised the pay.     

Regional, national, and spatially explicit scenarios of demographic and economic change based on SRES

We report here spatially explicit scenario interpretations for population and economic activity (GDP) for the time period 1990 to 2100 based on three scenarios (A2, B1, and B2) from the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). At the highest degree of spatial detail, the scenario indicators are calculated at a 0.5 by 0.5 degree resolution. All three scenarios follow the qualitative scenario characteristics, as outlined in the original SRES scenarios. Two scenarios (B1 and B2) also follow (with minor adjustments due to scenario improvements) the original SRES quantifications at the level of 4 and 11 world regions respectively. The quantification of the original SRES A2 scenario has been revised to reflect recent changing perceptions on the demographic outlook of world population growth. In this revised “high population growth” scenario, A2r world population reaches some 12 billion by 2100 (as opposed to some 15 billion in the original SRES A2 scenario) and is characterized by a “delayed fertility transition” that is also mirrored in a delayed (economic) development catch-up, resulting in an initially stagnating and subsequently only very slow reduction in income disparities. The spatially explicit scenario interpretation proceeds via two steps. Through a combination of decomposition and optimization methods, world regional scenario results are first disaggregated to the level of 185 countries. In a subsequent second step, national results are further disaggregated to a grid cell level, taking urbanization and regional (rural–urban) income disparities explicitly into account. A distinguishing feature of the spatially explicit scenario results reported here is that both methodologies, as well as numerical assumptions underlying the “downscaling” exercise, are scenario-dependent, leading to distinctly different spatial patterns of population and economic activities across the three scenarios examined.     

Country Differences in Material Deprivation in Europe

This paper assesses to what extent differences in the characteristics of individuals (micro‐level perspective) and country‐specific factors (macro‐level perspective) can explain country differences with respect to material deprivation levels. Thus, our work aims to simultaneously consider the macro dimension and the predominantly individually‐oriented study field of material deprivation using multilevel techniques. We make use of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. Our results show that country‐specific factors seem to be much more relevant than individual effects in explaining country differences in material deprivation. We estimate that the introduction of country‐specific factors reduces the proportion of total variance due to between‐country differences in deprivation by 72.7 percent, while individual‐level variables reduce this proportion by only 9.4 percent. We also show, through interaction variables, that the effect of sociodemographic characteristics can be shaped by institutional and structural factors, especially by the level of GDP.     

Some comparative-statics results for nonlinear input-output models of a multisectored economy,and related results for nonlinear price-demand relations

For a nonlinear version of the linear input-output model of Leontief, we consider the effect, on the vector x of total gross outputs, of changes in the components of the final-demand vector c. For example, it is shown that, for a certain important class of models, the “large-change elasticity” of any component of x, with respect to any component of c, is less than or equal to unity. Some similar results are proved concerning properties of nonlinear price-demand relations for the case in which all goods are weak gross substitutes. Unlike earlier work in this general area, we do not introduce hypotheses concerning the indecomposability or homogeneity of certain mappings. For that reason, the results are valid for the price-demand relation for a single firm, or for any collection of firms.     

Loan commitments and the management of uncertain credit demand

We provide an explanation for loan commitments unrelated to borrower creditworthiness. In our model, banks can use loan commitments to reduce uncertainty regarding their own future funding needs. Given a cost advantage to banks that can acquire such information, there exists an equilibrium demand for commitments by riskneutral firms. The purchase of the loan commitment and the choice of contract terms reveals the buyer's private information regarding future credit needs. In order to ensure the sorting of the a priori indistinguishable applicants according to their private information, we show that a usage fee applied to the commitment holder's unused credit line is necessary.     

An empirical database for a general equilibrium model of the European Communities

We document the main features of a database that has been constructed for use in an applied general equilibrium model. The model is designed to evaluate policies of the European Community (EC), including membership. The database includes each of the major members of the EC in the 1970's: Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland. It also includes three further trading regions: the United States, Japan and a residual Rest of World. Four aspects of our database are documented. The first is the collection and use of “raw data” from a number of sources for 1975. The second aspect is the generation of a multi-year database, with 1975 serving as a “reference year” for temporal updates to more recent years. The third aspect is the application of the database to the calibration of a “generic” general-equilibrium trade model. The final aspect is the use of the database to study the historical accession of the United Kingdom to the EC.     

Visual displays: analytical study and applications to graphs and real data

Principal axis methods such as principal component analysis (PCA) and correspondence analysis (CA) are useful for identifying structures in data through interesting planar graphic displays. However, some kinds of data sets can be dealt alternatively with PCA or CA. This paper focuses on methods, such as PCA and CA, and on visual displays. Our aim is to illustrate the implications for a potential user of selecting either method, and its advantages and disadvantages, from an applied point of view. This is a matter covered broadly in textbooks and elsewhere considering theoretical arguments. Our purpose is to contribute to the comparison between these methods, over the same data set, in order to illustrate them for the practitioner. In the first part of this paper we present a novel analytical study of a binary matrix associated with a non-oriented axis-symmetric graph and show that CA outperforms standardized PCA for the reconstitution and visualization of such kind of graphs. In the second part we present a case using real data dealing with the distribution of employees in different economic sectors for the countries of the European Union, analyzed by means of standardized PCA and two-way CA, in order to see the differences between the two methods in practice.     

Effects of Collaborative Communication on NPD Collaboration Results: Two Routes of Influence

Although NPD collaboration with external partners has become the next generation in NPD practice, the discussion concerning how to organize collaboration so as to obtain better results is far from over. Since communication is the most important element in successful interfirm exchange, this study focuses on the impact of collaborative communication and its facets—frequency, formality, reciprocal feedback, and rationality—on NPD collaboration results. In order to explain how collaborative communication can best be managed to enhance NPD collaboration results, this research combines the relational and resource‐based views, proposing the existence of two routes of influence: the direct resource‐based route and the indirect relational route mediated by trust. Using a sample of 207 NPD collaboration projects of innovative firms, empirical findings indicate that reciprocal feedback–rationality and frequency play an important role in product quality and adherence to budget and schedule, respectively, even without trust. Moreover, the trust between partners substantially reinforces the positive influence of reciprocal feedback–rationality on NPD collaboration results and makes the effect of formality significant. Therefore, the two alternative routes are confirmed as important paths to new product success, which provides relevant managerial implications.     

What is (or should be) the difference between competency modeling and traditional job analysis?

We argue that Competency Modeling (CM) has the potential to fill an important void in Traditional Job Analysis (TJA), specifically the infusion of strategic concerns in day-to-day employee behavior. Moreover TJA and CM pursue fundamentally different goals, which those who argue for and against either of these human resource methods at times may overlook. To buttress this point we compare TJA and CM along six dimensions: purpose (describe versus influence behavior), view of the job (an object to be described versus a role to be enacted), focus (job versus organization), time orientation (past versus future), performance level (typical versus maximum), and measurement approach (latent trait versus clinical judgment). We conclude with a series of recommendations regarding ways in which TJA can be joined with CM so that an organization may achieve, among other outcomes, the critical purpose of directing employee behavior toward the accomplishment of its strategic objectives.     

Diversity in organizations: Where are we now and where are we going?

A great deal of research has focused on workforce diversity. Despite an increasing number of studies, few consistent conclusions have yet to be reached about the antecedents and outcomes of diversity. Likewise, research on different dimensions of diversity (e.g., age, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and culture) has mostly evolved independently. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to examine each of these dimensions of diversity to describe common themes across dimensions and to develop an integrative model of diversity.