How Can Behavioural Insights Be Used to Improve EU Policy?

The introduction of behavioural insights into policy-making is welcome, because they challenge traditional assumptions in policy-making which are largely inspired by neoclassical economic thinking. In line with good evidence-based policy-making, they make us question and test how people behave instead of assuming we already know the answer.     

An integrative model of the role of knowledge in the internationalization process

Knowledge is considered an essential resource in a company’s internationalization process, both from the sequential point of view and from the perspective of International Entrepreneurship. This paper proposes a model to integrate the influence of knowledge on international behavior based on proposals taken from the literature on organizational learning in multinational companies. The model comprises several phases: prior knowledge; acquisition of new knowledge; integration of both sets of knowledge; action and feedback. Using the proposed model, different courses of action are identified for further research into the process of company internationalization.     

Exporting and Economic Performance: Firm‐level Evidence of Spanish Manufacturing

In a previous paper, Delgado, Fariñas and Ruano (2002) report TFP differences between exporters and non‐exporters on the basis of a sample of Spanish manufacturing firms. In this paper, we extend the previous analysis in three directions using a similar data set. First, we investigate additional economic performance differences between exporters and non‐exporters. Second, we measure TFP differences estimating production functions that control for unobserved heterogeneity and simultaneity bias. Third, we explore the self‐selection and learning‐by‐exporting hypothesis as explanations for the greater performance of exporters. With respect to the results, we confirm that many indicators of economic performance such as productivity, size, wages and innovation are greater in exporting firms. Furthermore, TFP differences between exporters and non‐exporters estimated with parametric methods are remarkably similar to those estimated using index numbers. Finally, performance differences and transition patterns between the export market and the domestic market indicate higher performance for entering exporters with respect to non‐exporters at the moment of entry. We find evidence of selection in the entry and the exit side of the export market. One of the basic results that we obtain indicates that after controlling for self‐selection, the productivity growth of entering exporters does not significantly change with respect to non‐exporters. As the evidence we find indicates no systematic changes in performance between non‐exporters and exporters after entry takes place, we do not confirm the learning‐by‐exporting hypothesis.     

Workers or Employers: Who is Shaping Wage Inequality?

An extensive micro data set matching firms, establishments and their employees, is used to study the determinants of earnings inequality in Portugal and its evolution from 1983 to 1992, with the Theil index, its decomposition, and the decomposition of its change as tools of analysis. The relevance of both worker and employer attributes in shaping earnings inequality and its trend is quantified. The impact of the firm on wage inequality in a European country is compared to the situation in the USA, and the results suggest that a more regulated and centralized European bargaining system might reduce the scope for firm action. A profile of an economy undergoing modernization, where rising labour market inequality signalled the lack of an adequate labour force, can be drawn, with the minimum wage having nonetheless a certain narrowing effect on the earnings distribution.     

Measurement of Advertising Effectiveness： How Different Theories About the Relative Importance of Sales vs. Recall/Recognition vs. Emotion Were Popular

The aim of this chapter is to run through the history of marketing research applied to measuring the effectiveness of advertising and deepen in all those theories that have shed light on this aspect and have influenced subsequent theories and models. This historical review offers the opportunity of knowing the past and understanding better the present of market research applied to advertising. It is a chronological analysis to present day, which introduces the development of the explanatory models for the functioning of advertising and the theoretical and empirical contributions in this area.