Money,Prices and the Silver Industry during the Price Revolution

The discovery of American silver has been commonly viewed in the literature as the moving force behind the sustained rise of prices experienced by Western Europe from the early 16th to the mid-17th century. However, the mechanical connection between the money supply and the general price level implied by the Quantity Theory oversimplifies the analysis of a period characterized by different trends, some of which cannot be easily explained by the monetarist story: (i) Central Europe silver mining boomed between 1451 and 1540 following a phase of scarcity of money that was especially severe between the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century; (ii) European prices started to rise before American silver was significantly imported to the Continent; (iii) the rapid expansion of American mining coincided with the decline of the European silver industry (1540–1618); and finally (iv) Mexican and Peruvian bullion production evidenced a downward course during the period 1628–1697, but no alteration in the rising trend of European prices occurred in response. It is argued instead that the classical theory of value and distribution, emphasizing costs of production as determinants of the ‘natural’ value of commodities including precious metals, can accommodate the facts in a more consistent manner than the monetarist view.     

The relationship between high performance work systems and employee proactive behaviour: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation as mediating mechanisms

Drawing on the contextual perspective, this study provides novel empirical evidence on how the organisational context (specifically, the firm's human resource strategy) has an effect on employee proactivity. We use matched data from managers and employees in 102 Spanish professional service firms to examine how high performance work systems contribute to enhance employee proactive behaviours through two motivational variables: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation. Results of a multilevel study demonstrate that role breadth self‐efficacy mediates between HPWS and employee proactivity, but flexible role orientation does not mediate this relationship.     

An algorithm for panel ANOVA with grouped data

In this paper, we present an algorithm suitable for analysing the variance of panel data when some observations are either given in grouped form or are missed. The analysis is carried out from the perspective of ANOVA panel data models with general errors. The classification intervals of the grouped observations may vary from one to another, thus the missing observations are in fact a particular case of grouping. The proposed Algorithm (1) estimates the parameters of the panel data models; (2) evaluates the covariance matrices of the asymptotic distribution of the time-dependent parameters assuming that the number of time periods, T, is fixed and the number of individuals, N, tends to infinity and similarly, of the individual parameters when T → ∞ and N is fixed; and, finally, (3) uses these asymptotic covariance matrix estimations to analyse the variance of the panel data.     

Social capital effects on the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities

Social capital refers to social networks and the norms of reciprocity, cooperation and trust associated with them. It can be studied at different levels of analysis. As previous literature suggests, social capital has aspects at both the individual and collective levels. However, theory development and empirical research have focused on separate, sometimes diverging levels. In an attempt to address this, this research examines the simultaneous influence of individual and regional social capital on the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities using individual-level data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor linked with regional-level data on social capital. The results show that individuals from regions with higher social capital are more likely to discover and to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. Moreover, individuals having networks with other entrepreneurs are also more likely to identify a business opportunity and to become an entrepreneur. Also, we found that social capital at individual level had a greater effect than social capital at regional level in the two stages of the entrepreneurial process.     

From goulash communism to goulash populism: the unwanted legacy of Hungarian reform socialism

The systemic change of 1989/1990 is usually identified as the critical juncture in the modern economic history of post-communist economies. While the change itself was indeed a remarkable moment in time, a branching point from which a multitude of new paths originated in most of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe, this was only partially true in the case of Hungary. If a critical juncture is sought for Hungary, it is more likely to be 1968, the year the New Economic Mechanism was launched. By applying the conceptual framework of historical institutionalism, the article argues that what made Hungary unique during the communist era and what rendered its position as a (one-time) frontrunner proved to be a serious constraint after the systemic change. The legacy of a pre-born welfare state, the constant need for compensating potential losers of any economic reform, along with short-sighted decision-making, have together generated specific path dependencies in the Hungarian trajectory of economic development.     

Making use of Internet interactivity to propose a dynamic presentation of web questionnaires

Quality & Quantity - New methodologies that aim to collect data in innovative ways (e.g. big data) are putting pressure on the traditional surveys based on questionnaires. In order to obtain...     

Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Reinterpreting the fundamental contradiction of capitalism

At a theoretical level this article discusses Piketty’s hypothesis that the distribution of income and wealth tends to become more concentrated over time when the rate of return on capital is greater than the growth rate of real output. We develop a post Keynesian model of growth and distribution showing that once capital is differentiated from wealth, the increase in income and wealth concentration actually occurs when the rate of valorization of financial and real estate assets is greater than the growth rate of real output, and that this situation may be triggered by financial liberalization.     

Heterogeneity in Production Structures and Efficiency: An Analysis of the Czech Food Processing Industry

The present study analyses firm heterogeneity and sector‐specific technology. The theoretical model stands on the assumption of maximizing the return on capital and overcomes problems involved in simple profit maximization. The results show that a random parameter model with sector dummies and heteroscedasticity is the most appropriate model specification for distinguishing firm‐level and sector‐level efficiency and heterogeneity. The heterogeneity among firms as well as among sectors was found to be an important characteristic in Czech food processing. This holds for production technology as well as for technical efficiency. Moreover, the decomposition of total variance shows that intrasectoral differences in technologies are much more pronounced than the intersectoral differences. The differences in intrasector heterogeneity also suggest that the food processing industry will be subject to accelerated structural change in the coming years. Moreover, we found that on average the companies highly exploit their production possibilities. However, some companies cannot keep pace with competitors. Because leapfrogging does not appear to be present in selected industries (except for Milling), structural change is expected to occur in such a way that the most successful companies will strengthen their position.