A simultaneous model for regional labor supply, incorporating labor force participation, commuting and migration

Simultaneous relations between various components of the regional supply of labor and the situation on the regional labor market are developed. There is a distinction between migration, participation and commuting. Conventional research only devotes attention towards the partial relation between one of these components and the regional labor market situation. However, many decisions people make, involve a simultaneous approach towards participation, commuting and migration. This approach is operationalized at a macro-level by constructing a simultaneous supply model. For the specifications we go back to standard literature. In each of the equations, apart from variables that are specific for the particular function, special attention is given to the interrelation between the three supply variables. An overall simultaneity is described by a fourth endogenous variable: unemployment; this variable is explained by employment, participation, netmigration and netcommuting. A combined time-series/cross-section-analysis is used to estimate the model.

Surprisingly it appears that in comparison with OLS parameter- and t-values of the supply-equations are not affected by the use of simultaneous estimation techniques. Only for the unemployment-equation there are significant changes.     

Cultural determinants of human capital accumulation: Evidence from the European Social Survey

Although economists commonly view the accumulation of human capital as a key driver of economic development, what drives cross-country differences in human capital accumulation remains poorly understood. I use an epidemiological approach involving second-generation migrants to test for a possible cultural gradient in individuals’ propensity towards human capital accumulation. Results indicate a strong relationship between country-of-origin culture and human capital accumulation and are robust to using years of education instead of individuals’ engagement in human capital accumulation as the dependent variable. Drawing on dimensions of cultural differences identified in culture frameworks developed by cross-cultural researchers, results further suggest that cultural emphasis on intellectual autonomy helps explain part of the observed differences in human capital accumulation. However, further work is needed to complete our understanding of the cultural roots of individuals’ propensity towards human capital accumulation.     

Cybersecurity: Stakeholder incentives,externalities, and policy options

Information security breaches are increasingly motivated by fraudulent and criminal motives. Reducing their considerable costs has become a pressing issue. Although cybersecurity has strong public good characteristics, most information security decisions are made by individual stakeholders. Due to the interconnectedness of cyberspace, these decentralized decisions are afflicted with externalities that can result in sub-optimal security levels. Devising effective solutions to this problem is complicated by the global nature of cyberspace, the interdependence of stakeholders, as well as the diversity and heterogeneity of players. The paper develops a framework for studying the co-evolution of the markets for cybercrime and cybersecurity. It examines the incentives of stakeholders to provide for security and their implications for the ICT ecosystem. The findings show that market and non-market relations in the information infrastructure generate many security-enhancing incentives. However, pervasive externalities remain that can only be corrected by voluntary or government-led collective measures.     

EXPERIMENTAL AND SELF‐REPORTED MEASURES OF RISK TAKING AND DIGIT RATIO (2D:4D): EVIDENCE FROM A LARGE,SYSTEMATIC STUDY

We systematically investigate the links between the digit ratio (2D:4D)—a biomarker for prenatal testosterone exposure—and two measures of individual risk taking: (i) risk preferences (RP) over lotteries with real monetary incentives and (ii) self‐reported risk attitude (RA). We find that both the right‐hand and the left‐hand digit ratio are significantly associated with RP: Subjects with lower digit ratios tend to choose riskier lotteries. Neither digit ratio, however, is associated with self‐reported RA.     

Integrating ecosystem services into conservation assessments: A review

A call has been made for conservation planners to include ecosystem services into their assessments of conservation priority areas. The need to develop an integrated approach to meeting different conservation objectives and a shift in focus towards human wellbeing are some of the motivations behind this call. There is currently no widely accepted approach to planning for ecosystem services. This study contributes towards the development of this approach through a review of conservation assessments and the extent to which they include ecosystem services. Of the 476 conservation assessments identified by a set of search terms on the Web of Science, 100 were randomly selected for this review. Of these only seven had included ecosystem services, while another 13 had referred to ecosystem services as a rationale for conservation without including them in the assessment. The majority of assessments were based on biodiversity pattern data while 19 used data on ecological processes. A total of 11 of these 19 assessments used processes, which could be linked to services. Ecosystem services have witnessed an increase in attention received in conservation assessments since the year 2000, however trends were not apparent beyond this date. In order to assess which types of ecosystem services and how they have been accounted for in conservation assessments, we extended our review to include an additional nine conservation assessments which included ecosystem services. The majority included cultural ecosystem services, followed by regulatory, provisioning and supporting services respectively. We conclude with an analysis of the constraints and opportunities for the integration of ecosystem services into conservation assessments and highlight the urgent need for an appropriate framework for planning for ecosystem services.     

Retirement Expectations and Satisfaction with Retirement Provisions

This paper investigates the relationship between subjective expectations regarding the replacement rate of income at retirement and several measures of pension satisfaction. We use panel data on Dutch employees, analyzed with fixed effects models, allowing for correlation between unobserved heterogeneity in satisfaction and optimism or pessimism in expectations. The level of the expected replacement rate is found to be positively related to satisfaction: respondents who revise their expectations of the level of their replacement rate upwards tend to become more satisfied with their pension provisions, in particular with the level of the expected benefits. We do not find robust evidence for a relationship between uncertainty and pension satisfaction.     

A macroeconomic two-country model with price-discriminating monopolists

I am indebted to J. Frijns, R. de Groof, S. Kuipers, F. van der Ploeg, V. Okker, A. van Schaik and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer of course applies.     

Connecting strategic orientation,innovation strategy,and corporate sustainability: A model for sustainable development through stakeholder engagement

This paper aims to enhance our understanding of the relationship between organizations' strategic orientation (i.e., instrumental, equidistant, and stewardship) and their innovational strategy (i.e., organizational ambidexterity and open innovation), and this relationship's influence on their sustainability performance. We expected organizations' strategic orientation to influence their innovational strategy and exhibit better corporate sustainability. We focused on 12 different multinational organizations in the Eurozone and found that inbound open innovation acts as a driver for corporate sustainability while simultaneously positively enabling organizations to pursue both financial and social initiatives. After suggesting open innovation as a new corporate sustainability antecedent, we only found empirical evidence of inbound open innovation. However, we would suggest that if organizations incorporated outbound open innovation in their strategy, they could likely improve their corporate sustainability. Also, we found that achieving an equidistant or stewardship orientation paves the way for sustainability to become an integral part of an organization's innovational culture and actualizes the organization's strategic behavior. Our findings further contribute to a deeper understanding of organizations' characteristics as their sustainability commitment grows and as they move from an instrumental to a stewardship orientation and implement an open innovational strategy.     

MACROECONOMIC STABILIZATION POLICIES IN THE EMU: SPILLOVERS, ASYMMETRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

This paper studies the institutional design of the coordination of macroeconomic stabilization policies within a monetary union in the framework of linear quadratic differential games. A central role in the analysis plays the partitioned game approach of the endogenous coalition formation literature. The specific policy recommendations in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) context depend on the particular characteristics of the shocks and the economic structure. In the case of a common shock, fiscal coordination or full policy coordination is desirable. When anti‐symmetric shocks are considered, fiscal coordination improves the performance but full policy coordination does not produce further gains in policymakers' welfare.