CAP MTR versus environmentally targeted agricultural policy in marginal arable areas: impact analysis combining simulation and survey data

On June 2003 the final version of the Common Agricultural Policy Mid‐Term Review (CAP MTR) was published. The driving forces of this policy change include inter alia the compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations' requirements, improvement of social support for agricultural policy, adjustment to budget constraints and adaptation of agricultural practices to environmental requirements. This article reviews how this policy performs in marginal areas regarding one of those objectives: the provision of environmental outputs related to agricultural activity. As an alternative to this reform, a policy based on agri‐environmental measures designed to maximize environmental outputs, is proposed. Both options are evaluated from a cost‐effectiveness point of view. Data from a farm survey and a positive mathematical programming model for a cereal steppes agro‐system in Spain are combined in order to simulate the effects of this reform and our alternative instrument on several environmental indicators. Results show that in marginal areas, where land abandonment is a clear threat, more environmental output can be achieved for the same cost, while maintaining, if not increasing, the levels of achievement for the other goals.     

The Need for Comprehensive Climate Change Mitigation Policies in European Agriculture

During the last decade the European Union has shown a firm determination to move to a low carbon economy. Since 2008 the agricultural sector has been part of this strategy and is included in the EU effort sharing decision. Introducing specific GHG mitigation obligations for agriculture could be one option to achieve an overall GHG emission reduction target. One argument for this strategy would be that the agricultural sector is the main contributor of non‐CO₂ greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, a comprehensive EU mitigation policy would most likely have to take into account the particularities of its diverse agricultural sector, reflected by different trends in historical GHG emission reductions, and a varied mitigation cost structure between farming systems. Consequently, using targeted but flexible policy instruments may more equitably distribute the mitigation efforts across Member States and reduce cost inefficiencies. The increased uptake of technological and management emission mitigation measures would be crucial to keep mitigation costs for EU farmers at a minimum. However, while unilateral action would initially signal the EU's commitment to serious GHG mitigation effort in the sector, ultimately a multilateral agreement is needed to minimise emission leakage and to reduce global GHG emissions effectively.     

Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility on Loyalty and Valuation of Services

The study of corporate social responsibility has been the object of much research in recent decades, although there is a need to continue investigating its benefits as a marketing tool. In the current work we adopt a multi-dimensional perspective of social responsibility, and we carry out market research to determine the perceptions of users of mobile telephone services about economic, legal, ethical and social aspects of their operating companies. With these data we determine the structure and components of the concept of social responsibility. Subsequently, this is related with the overall evaluation of the service and loyalty by means of a model of structural equations, in order to determine the influence of corporate social responsibility on these concepts, and hence its benefits as a commercial tool. Dr. Ma del Mar García de los Salmones is Professor of Marketing at the University of Cantabria (Spain). Her current research interests include corporate social responsibility, brand image and consumer behaviour. She received her Ph.D. in Business Administration in 2002 with her work “Corporate Image as a Key Variable in Firm Choice: Identity and Positioning of Mobile Phone Business”. Dr. ángel Herrero is Professor of Marketing at the University of Cantabria (Spain). His current research interests include consumer behaviour, e-commerce and corporate social responsibility. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cantabria in 2002 for his work on “The Process of Adoption of a New Sales System: An Application to B2C e-commerce”. Dr. Ignacio Rodríguez del Bosque Rodríguez is Professor of Marketing at the University of Cantabria (Spain). His areas of research include business communication, relationship marketing and distribution channels. His works have previously been published in the several international journals, like Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Tourism Management and Industrial Marketing Management.     

Power laws in EU country exports

International trade flows are highly concentrated in the top units of analysis. In this paper, we study the size distribution of exports at the product level, using Comext data for the 28 EU countries over the period 2002–2014. We fit power law relationships running log rank–log size regressions. The estimated Pareto exponent may be interpreted as a single measure of the inequality between the top products; it thus constitutes an alternative to other measures of export diversification. The Pareto exponent estimates are quite stable for most EU countries between 2002 and 2014. However, some countries stand out for their increase or decrease in the Pareto exponent. Some preliminary evidence suggesting negative correlation between volatility in EU country exports and export diversification at the product level is also provided.     

Deconstructing the Tower of Babel: a design method to improve empathy and teamwork competences of informatics students

The competence-based education recently launched in Spanish universities presents a set of abilities and skills that are difficult to teach to students in higher and more technologically-oriented grades. In this paper, a teaching intervention that is based on design methodologies is proposed, to upgrade the competitive capacities of computer engineering students. In particular, this intervention targets those aspects relating to working in multidisciplinary teams and to defining requirements based on the user’s empathy and knowledge. The main idea inspiring this technique is that the underlying challenge is a communication problem. As Brooks (1995) states in his book The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, even a project having all of the prerequisites for success (a clear mission, manpower, materials, time and adequate technology) could fail as a Tower of Babel. The proposed technique through mixed methods has been evaluated with students enrolled in different courses, confirming the repeatability and validity of this method from quantitative measurement, from observation of the results, and from ascertaining the value perceived by students and their attitudes.     

Classifying the degree of cooperative multinationality: Case study of a French multinational cooperative

In recent decades, the largest European worker cooperatives, and those that are the most emblematic in their countries, have been transformed into multinational companies. This article examines workers’-cooperative multinationality by providing a classifying tool based on the interaction between control rights and return rights held by foreign employees in the subsidiaries of multinational cooperatives. We illustrate our matrix of cooperative multinationality by classifying an internationalized historical cooperative, Up Group (formerly Chèque Déjeuner, SCOP). In the last few decades, the French cooperative Up has become a hybrid multinational player in the employee benefits industry by setting up capitalist subsidiaries both in France and overseas. The case study also reports on Up's innovative attempt to produce a global cooperative or a more democratic multinational enterprise through converting subsidiaries’ employees into associates.     

Social entrepreneurs: making sense of tensions through the application of alternative strategies of hybrid organizations

Through the use of qualitative analysis, this paper examines the diverse tensions that social entrepreneurs have to deal with in their daily business activity. By using paradox theory and the hybrid organization model as a framework for analysis, we have found three principle causes of tension among social entrepreneurs: social vs economic sustainability; work vs family life; and resistance to change vs innovation. The results show the way in which social entrepreneurs in hybrid organizations resolve these conflicting tensions, usually through a selective coupling strategy, which is eventually complemented with alternative approaches such as compromising or decoupling. Social entrepreneurs tend to focus on one aspect of the tension and deal with it individually, which makes it more manageable. Change and innovation are the triggers for using strategies other than selective coupling, such as compromising or decoupling. When the level of tension rises further, compromising is then used. Decoupling is the last option chosen by social entrepreneurs, and is used only in cases where resolution is not possible with the other two strategies mentioned.

     

Platform Price Parity Clauses and Consumer Obfuscation*

Several antitrust authorities have investigated platform price parity clauses around the world. I analyze the impact of these clauses when platforms design a search environment for sellers and buyers to interact. In a model where platforms choose the unit search cost faced by consumers, I show when platforms can profitably obfuscate consumers through high search costs. Then, I show that price parity clauses, when exogenously given, can increase or reduce obfuscation, prices, and consumer surplus. Finally, when price parity clauses are endogenous, they are only observed in equilibrium if they hurt consumers.     

Neural networks for estimating Macro Asset Pricing model in football clubs

The recent crisis caused by COVID-19 directly affected consumption habits and the stability sof financial markets. In particular, the football industry has been hit hard by this pandemic and therefore has more volatile stock prices. Given this new scenario, further research is needed to accurately estimate the value of the shares of football clubs. In this paper, we estimate an asset pricing model in football clubs with different compositions of risk nature using non-linear techniques of artificial neural networks. Usually, asset pricing models have been estimated with linear methods such as ordinary least squares. Our results show a precision higher than 90% for all the estimated models, which far exceeds those shown by linear methods in the previous literature. We find that the residual represents about 40% of the variance of the price-dividend ratio. Long-term risks follow in importance, and above all, the habit component and its behaviour in the face of changes. The importance of the residual component exists due to a low correlation between the asset price and consumer behaviour, but to a much lesser extent than that shown in previous studies. The estimation carried out with artificial neural networks, both the Deep Learning methods and especially the Quantum Neural Network, opens up new possibilities to estimate more efficiently the pricing of financial assets in the football industry.