From the blogosphere into the parliament: The role of digital technologies in organizing social movements

In this paper, we present a process model exploring the roles played by digital technologies (DTs) in the organization of collective action (CA) of social movements (SMs) at different points in their lifecycles. The process model, which is based on an exploratory case study of the Italian Five Star Movement, relates the environmental conditions to the working logic, structure and use of DTs at three different stages of the SMs. We explain how these choices are adopted at each stage to address internal and environmental challenges and how they create further challenges to be addressed to pass to the next stage. We further explore the dynamics between the logic of connective and collective action and reflect on the growing need for structures and control. By so doing, our work addresses the need for a better understanding of the coevolution between DTs and organizational structures and of the ways in which DTs are used to mobilize people to sustain CA along the SM lifecycle.     

ON THE PRICE EFFECTS OF HORIZONTAL MERGERS: A THEORETICAL INTERPRETATION

Horizontal mergers are usually under the scrutiny of antitrust authorities due to their potential undesirable effects on prices and consumer surplus. Ex‐post evidence, however, suggests that these effects do not always take place and even relevant mergers may end up having negligible price effects. The analysis of mergers in the context of non‐localized spatial competition may offer a further interpretation to the ones proposed in the literature: in this framework both positive and zero price effects are possible outcomes of the merger activity.     

Private equity characteristics and performance: An analysis of North American venture capital and buyout funds

The paper investigates the relationship between fund performance and fund characteristics of North American private equity (PE) funds, by analyzing the interactions of fund size, fund sequence, and past fund performance on traditional fund return measures. The empirical evidence is based on both linear and polynomial regressions, on a sample of 345 venture capital (VC) and 411 buyout (BO) funds with vintage year over the period 1995–2010. We document a concave relationship between fund size and performance, persistence in PE performance, as well as a convex relationship between fund sequence and performance. We suggest both the optimal fund size and the optimal fund sequence number. Economic implications for investors and general partners are discussed as well.     

The impact of shadow banking on the implementation of Chinese monetary policy

This paper empirically analyses the relationship between the shadow banking system and implementation of monetary policy in China using the VECM methodology. We show that an increase in the size of shadow banking sector increases the independence of bank lending from the policies of the People Bank of China. We also find that Shadow Banking works in an asymmetric fashion in that it amplifies increases in the money supply but weakens the effects of restrictive interest rate-based monetary policy decisions.     

Assessing the Fiscal Costs and Benefits of A8 Migration to the UK*

This paper assesses the fiscal consequences of migration to the UK from the Central and Eastern European countries that joined the European Union in May 2004 (A8 countries). We show that A8 immigrants who arrived after EU enlargement in 2004 and who have at least one year of residence, and are therefore legally eligible to claim benefits, are 59 per cent less likely than natives to receive state benefits or tax credits and 57 per cent less likely to live in social housing. Furthermore, even if A8 immigrants had the same demographic characteristics as natives, they would still be 13 per cent less likely to receive benefits and 29 per cent less likely to live in social housing. We go on to compare the net fiscal contribution of A8 immigrants with that of individuals born in the UK, and find that in each fiscal year since enlargement in 2004, irrespective of the way that the net fiscal contribution is defined, A8 immigrants made a positive contribution to the public finances despite the fact that the UK has been running a budget deficit over the last few years. This is because they have a higher labour force participation rate, pay proportionately more in indirect taxes and make much less use of benefits and public services.     

What money buys: clients of street sex workers in the US

The article presents a review of current theoretical and empirical approaches to sex work, followed by the presentation of an original theoretical framework (Della Giusta et al., 2006), which is tested with an econometric model of the characteristics of demand for sex services by a sample of clients of street sex workers in the US. We present findings in relation to stigma and the relationship between paid and unpaid sex that corroborate our model's hypotheses and are in line with findings from other empirical studies. Furthermore, we identify in our sample two diametrically opposite profiles: one for clients whom we label ‘experimenters’, and one for more experienced ones that we name ‘regulars’, we also estimate attitudes toward risk, and draw implications in terms of both policy and future theoretical and empirical research.     

Managing Organizational Culture for Effective Internal Control. From Practice to Theory

Previous studies (see, for example, Carslaw, 1988; Thomas, 1989; Niskanen and Keloharju, 2000; Kinnunen and Koskela, 2002; Van Caneghem, 2002) clearly suggest that public companies' managers tend to round up the first digit of reported earnings (i.e. for companies reporting profits). Based on a sample of listed UK companies and employing earnings rounding-up behaviour (henceforth ERUB) as an indication of earnings management, I attempt to determine the impact of differences in audit quality on earnings management. When I rely on the very popular brand-name proxy (i.e. BigFive versus non-BigFive auditors) to capture differences in audit quality, findings are inconsistent with BigFive auditors constraining earnings management practices (i.e. findings suggest ERUB for both BigFive and non-BigFive clients). Employing an alternative proxy (i.e. based on auditors' industry expertise), findings are only weakly consistent with specialist BigFive auditors constraining earnings management (i.e. ERUB) practices.     

Minimum Quality Standards Under Cournot Competition

I study the consequences of imposing a minimum quality standard on an industry in which firms first incur fixed quality development costs and subsequently compete over quantity. I find that a mildly restrictive minimum quality standard unambiguously reduces total welfare, in contrast to previous findings derived in the literature where it is assumed that firms compete over prices.