The Employment Interview: A Review of Recent Research and Recommendations for Future Research

The past decade has seen continued interest in the employment interview, with several changes in research emphasis. The present review is a comprehensive examination of interview research conducted since Harris last reviewed this literature. We begin with a review of the traditional areas of interview research: reliability, validity, structured interviews, interviewer differences, equal employment opportunity issues, impression management, and decision-making processes. Next, we review and discuss more recent developments in interview research such as the use of the interview as a means of assessing person–organization (P–O) fit and applicant reactions to the employment interview. Throughout the review, suggested topics for future research are discussed.     

Shifting Trends in Semiconductor Prices and the Pace of Technological Progress

Business Economics - This paper examines three questions motivated by previous research on semiconductors and productivity growth: Why did semiconductor prices fall so rapidly in the second half of...     

RARE SHOCKS,GREAT RECESSIONS

We estimate a DSGE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) model where rare large shocks can occur, by replacing the commonly used Gaussian assumption with a Student's t‐distribution. Results from the Smets and Wouters (American Economic Review 2007; 97 : 586–606) model estimated on the usual set of macroeconomic time series over the 1964–2011 period indicate that (i) the Student's t specification is strongly favored by the data even when we allow for low‐frequency variation in the volatility of the shocks, and (ii)) the estimated degrees of freedom are quite low for several shocks that drive US business cycles, implying an important role for rare large shocks. This result holds even if we exclude the Great Recession period from the sample. We also show that inference about low‐frequency changes in volatility—and, in particular, inference about the magnitude of Great Moderation—is different once we allow for fat tails. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Heritage tourism clusters along the borders of Mexico

This article seeks to find potential heritage tourism clusters in border areas. Literature about tourism destinations is essentially focused on administrative-bound areas, while little attention has been paid to functional regions. The research is based on a methodological exercise to contribute to this debate by analyzing the case of three border regions between Mexico, the USA, Guatemala and Belize, respectively. These borders have never been static but have changed throughout history, to the present day situation. It is argued that these changes have implications for the potential development of heritage tourism. The results identify a number of cross-border clusters and corridors in these areas with different levels of tourism underdevelopment, mainly because of political or legal restrictions. The results of this study contribute to an improved understanding of borderland heritages and cross-border regional clusters in the context of tourism.     

Ambiguity and perceived coordination in a global game

In a global game, larger ambiguity is shown to decrease the amount of coordination each player perceives. Consequently, small uncertainty tends to select the Pareto dominated equilibrium of the game without uncertainty. Implications for models of financial crises are drawn.     

Dissecting Between-Plant and Within-Plant Wage Dispersion: Evidence from Germany

Using rich linked employer–employee data for (West) Germany between 1996 and 2014, we conduct a decomposition analysis based on recentered influence function (RIF) regressions to analyze the relative contributions of various plant and worker characteristics to the rise in German wage dispersion. Moreover, we separately investigate the sources of between-plant and within-plant wage dispersion. We find that industry effects and the collective bargaining regime contribute the most to rising wage inequality. In the case of collective bargaining, both the decline in collective bargaining coverage and the increase in wage dispersion among the group of covered plants have played important roles.     

Does it really pay to be good,everywhere? A first step to understand the corporate social and financial performance link in Latin American controversial industries

Most research studying the corporate social performance (CSP)–corporate financial performance (CFP) link has utilized developed country samples. Also, this literature has generally focused on a wide variety of industries, ignoring the fact that certain sectors – such as controversial industries – have graver social and environmental issues. Hence, a gap exists in this tradition when it comes to emerging markets and controversial industries. This paper attempts to fill this void by providing preliminary evidence and insight on the matter. Based on an exploration in six Latin American countries and five controversial industries, we find a negative bidirectional association (or a non‐significant one at best) between CSP and CFP. These results tend to contradict the mainstream conclusion of a positive bidirectional link, suggesting that institutional and market‐level forces play a major role in shaping this relationship.     

Performance feedback in competitive product development

Performance feedback is ubiquitous in competitive settings where new products are developed. This article introduces a fundamental tension between incentives and improvement in the provision of feedback. Using a sample of 4294 commercial logo design tournaments, I show that feedback reduces participation but improves the quality of subsequent submissions, with an ambiguous effect on high‐quality output. To evaluate this trade‐off, I develop a procedure to estimate agents' effort costs and simulate counterfactuals under alternative feedback policies. The results suggest that feedback on net increases the number of high‐quality ideas produced and is thus desirable for a principal seeking innovation.