Assessing Organizational Adoption of Information Systems Outsourcing

The information systems outsourcing (ISO) field continues to grow, as organizations consistently seek improvements in IT activities. The global scope of outsourcing participation and growth leads to gaps of knowledge related to the contextual factors that influence ISO adoption. Using the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework, this study identifies and contextualizes the determinants of ISO adoption. Data collected from 261 firms suggest that relative advantage, firm size, top management support, and competitive pressure are the main determinants of ISO. This study highlights the importance of assessing ISO using the TOE theoretical lens, and offers replication of prior results, the lack of which is a growing concern in social science research.     

Is Petrobras Options Market Efficient? A Study Using the Delta-Gamma Neutral Strategy

This study aims to verify if the Petrobras options market is efficient in its weak form. For this purpose, this work tries to make profits on a systematic basis through delta-gamma neutral strategies using the firm’s stocks and options. In order to simulate the strategy as it would be used in the real world, we built order books every five minutes considering all buy and sell orders sent for both the underlying asset and its options. We apply the strategy when we observe distortions between implied volatilities extracted from the options. The results show evidence that the Petrobras options market is not efficient, since in 371 day-trade transactions (with an average investment of R$81,000 and an average holding time of one hour and thirteen minutes), 85% of the options strategies were profitable and the average return was 0.49%, which corresponds to more than 1600% of the highest interbank interest rate for the period.     

Empirical Evidence on the Impact of Reserve Prices in English Auctions

We study the impact of reserve prices on the revenue of English auctions using a unique hand‐collected database of virtual football players from the online football management game Hattrick. As theoretically predicted, setting a reserve price entails a trade‐off between the cost of setting it too high and having the good go unsold, and the benefit associated with a higher revenue should the reserve price successfully extract surplus from the highest bidder. Overall, we find the net benefit of setting a higher reserve price to be negative, regardless of the value of the reserve price. This is a novel result insofar as previous literature has generally found an insignificant or positive effect of the reserve price on unconditional auction revenue.     

Is business saving really none of our business?

This paper revisits the role of business saving in the economy by critically scrutinizing the existing macroeoconomic and corporate finance literatures. We assemble and exploit a broad international, unbalanced panel of 47 countries over 1995–2013 on saving and investment by institutional sector to shed new light on the relevance of business saving for private saving and investment around the world. We show that businesses contribute on average more than 50% of national saving around the world. Using this unique dataset, we find evidence of partial piercing of the corporate veil: a $1 increase in business saving gives rise to a decrease of approximately $0.40 in household saving–thereby raising private saving by as much as $0.60. We also find that a $1 increase in business saving increases private investment by as much as $0.20 in countries where limited financing is a binding constraint on firms’ investment. The evidence suggests that business saving and external financing are complementary sources of financing for investment.     

Money and capital as competing media of exchange

We construct a model where capital competes with fiat money as a medium of exchange, and establish conditions on fundamentals under which fiat money can be both valued and socially beneficial. When the socially efficient stock of capital is too low to provide the liquidity agents need, they overaccumulate productive assets to use as media of exchange. When this is the case, there exists a monetary equilibrium that dominates the nonmonetary one in terms of welfare. Under the Friedman Rule, fiat money provides just enough liquidity so that agents choose to accumulate the same capital stock a social planner would.     

Organizational culture and post-acquisition changes in management control systems: An analysis of a successful Brazilian case

This paper analyzes the effect of organizational culture on the post-acquisition management control system (MCS) of the Brazilian company Extrativa Metalquímica Inc. after its acquisition by the FASA Participações Group. The results herein reported add to discussions of the subject and contribute to reducing the research gap in this area in Brazil. The analysis supports two major conclusions: (1) changes in the acquired company's MCS were derived from the new financial results-oriented culture introduced by the acquirer; and (2) the implementation of this culture implied modifications in production, financial and quality controls.     

The Impact of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills on Professional Salaries in An Emerging Economy,Chile

Professional salaries in Chile are here explained on the basis not only of traditional human capital variables but also of variables indicative of other cognitive and noncognitive skills. As might be expected, college entrance scores (SAT), our measure of advanced cognitive skills, are found to impact strongly and nonlinearly on salaries. More surprisingly, ranking in one's high school graduation class raises one's salary 10 years later by the equivalent of one year of additional experience, suggesting that ranking stands for a more permanent noncognitive skill such as effort or self‐discipline. As is typically found, women earn less than men, but, to our surprise, they also have lower asking salaries than men.     

Machine learning advances for time series forecasting

In this paper, we survey the most recent advances in supervised machine learning (ML) and high-dimensional models for time-series forecasting. We consider both linear and nonlinear alternatives. Among the linear methods, we pay special attention to penalized regressions and ensemble of models. The nonlinear methods considered in the paper include shallow and deep neural networks, in their feedforward and recurrent versions, and tree-based methods, such as random forests and boosted trees. We also consider ensemble and hybrid models by combining ingredients from different alternatives. Tests for superior predictive ability are briefly reviewed. Finally, we discuss application of ML in economics and finance and provide an illustration with high-frequency financial data.     

BLOCOS URBANISM: Capitalism and Modularity in the Making of Contemporary Luanda

In this article we portray and unpack the fabric of urban expansion in contemporary Luanda. In doing so, we examine interdependencies and complementarities between the organization of oil extraction off the coast of Angola, the emergence of particular modalities of modernist city planning for the expansion of its capital city, and the proliferation of cement blocks in the making of new urban forms throughout its burgeoning peripheries. By showing how urban development has unfolded through the interconnected realization of multiple kinds of systematizing blocks—namely oil blocks, city blocks and cement blocks—we analyse key material components in the production of new markets and urban spaces in the Angolan capital. By tracing forms of capitalism and modularity in the making of contemporary Luanda, we develop the concept of blocos urbanism to draw attention to modes of standardization and the production of legibility in contemporary processes of urbanization. Through this study, we aim to contribute to the conceptual apparatus for deciphering our global urban condition.     

Focus on cash transfer programs: assessing the eligibility of the Bolsa Família program in Brazil

Quality & Quantity - Income transfer programs are important public policies in fighting poverty and reducing inequality. However, such a strategy is often criticised as being ineffective, as...