UNIONS' RELATIVE CONCERNS AND STRIKES IN WAGE BARGAINING

We consider a model of wage determination with private information in an oligopoly. We investigate the effects of unions having relative concerns on the negotiated wage and the strike activity. We show that an increase of unions’ relative concerns has an ambiguous effect on the strike activity.     

The advantage of being first and competition between firms

It is frequently suggested that the first brand in a product market enjoys a price advantage over its imitators due to imperfect information about product quality. This article considers the effect of this advantage on prices and market shares in a dominant firm price leadership model. An established firm with a price advantage faces free entry by firms producing unbranded products (generics). In equilibrium, the first brand enjoys a market share advantage over entrants in entry and post entry periods. If the initial price disadvantage is large, entry will not occur.     

Knowledge Spillovers,ICT and Productivity Growth

This paper looks at the channels through which intangible assets affect productivity growth. The econometric analysis exploits a new data set on intangible investment (INTAN‐Invest) in conjunction with EUKLEMS productivity estimates for 10 EU member states from 1998 to 2007. We find that (a) the output elasticity of intangible capital depends upon ICT intensity, consistent with complementarities between ICT and intangible capital; (b) non‐R&D intangible capital has a higher estimated output elasticity than its factor share, as does (c) an index of labour composition. The last two findings are consistent with growth spillovers from investments in knowledge‐based/intangible capital and skills.     

Nutrition and the Mediterranean diet. A historical and sociological analysis of the concept of a “healthy diet” in Spanish society

In this paper our aim is to analyse the way the relationship between health and food has been changing at the same time as Spanish society itself. From the beginnings of the consumer society until the present day the modernization process has made its imprint on the guidelines public bodies have issued to the public on caring for their health and diet. Beginning in the sixties with a welfare idea of a healthy diet, very typical of the decade, and meant for a population with nutritional problems, today we have guidelines for an overfed population. The social trends dominant in each historical moment are shown throughout this transformation process and the dietary recommendations have been part of the social change. However, the perceptions of the administration itself on what constitutes a healthy diet have also made their mark on the criteria. The modernizing nature of the paternalistic administration of the sixties can be easily seen in contrast with the public bodies of the eighties competing with the messages from the food and agricultural businesses. As the 20th century drew to a close, dietary advice was in keeping with a background dominated by considerations on the nature of social change and in which both public bodies and citizens trusted in the truths of science as a reference point for correct action. At the beginning of the 21st century reflexivity and questioning of scientific power appear and also an increase in public preoccupation with food risks. Each stage is analysed relating historical background and dietary recommendations.     

A SPECIALIST'S QUOTED DEPTH AS A STRATEGIC CHOICE VARIABLE: AN APPLICATION TO SPREAD DECOMPOSITION MODELS

Although there is a sizable literature demonstrating that liquidity and transaction costs are multidimensional, researchers continue to estimate adverse‐selection costs using only prices. We present a model of a profit‐maximizing specialist who posts prices and depths. The model is simulated to measure changes in the adverse‐selection component of the spread that result under different levels of informed trading. We find that spread decompositions fail to capture the full extent of adverse‐selection risk when specialists choose depth. We recommend that researchers use adverse‐selection measures that account for depth as well as spread to mitigate this problem.     

The copycat CMO: firms’ imitative behavior as an explanation for CMO presence

The present study adds to the CMO literature the perspective of firms’ imitative behavior on why firms have CMOs in their TMT. We propose that a firm’s decision to have a CMO on its TMT is driven not only by contingency-reated considerations but also by social ones, as the decision is significantly influenced by industry peers. Empirical findings based on 505 large US firms from 2000 to 2012 indicate that firms’ imitative behavior is a significant driver of CMO presence, especially when firm uncertainty is strong and inference uncertainty is low. Post hoc analyses indicate that this imitation behavior tends to be performance neutral at best.     

The Turnover Intention–Behaviour Link: A Culture-Moderated Meta-Analysis

Turnover intention is widely regarded as a direct antecedent to and proxy for actual voluntary turnover behaviour. However, previous studies have found the turnover intention-behaviour link to be highly heterogeneous and not necessarily strong. This study adopts a cross-cultural perspective, examining how the link varies as a function of Hofstede’s four work-related cultural dimensions. Data from 152 independent samples were meta-analysed, representing the testing of 216,093 employees from 18 nations across 9 geographical regions. The multilevel meta-analytic results reveal significantly stronger turnover intention-behaviour links for countries higher in power distance, higher in individualism, and lower in masculinity.     

Threshold estimation of Markov models with jumps and interest rate modeling

We reconstruct the level-dependent diffusion coefficient of a univariate semimartingale with jumps which is observed discretely. The consistency and asymptotic normality of our estimator are provided in the presence of both finite and infinite activity (finite variation) jumps. Our results rely on kernel estimation, using the properties of the local time of the data generating process, and the fact that it is possible to disentangle the discontinuous part of the state variable through those squared increments between observations not exceeding a suitable threshold function. We also reconstruct the drift and the jump intensity coefficients when they are level-dependent and jumps have finite activity, through consistent and asymptotically normal estimators. Simulated experiments show that the newly proposed estimators perform better in finite samples than alternative estimators, and this allows us to reexamine the estimation of a univariate model for the short term interest rate, for which we find fewer jumps and more variance due to the diffusion part than previous studies.     

FOOD TRADE AND BIODIVERSITY EFFECTS

Pests create biodiversity effects that increase food production risks and decrease productivity when agricultural production is specialized. Pesticides contain these effects, but damage the environment and human health. When opening to trade, governments are tempted to restrict pesticide use because, with more food being imported, less pesticide is needed for domestic consumption. However, pesticide restrictions hinder the competitiveness of their agricultural sector on international markets. We show that restrictions on pesticides are more stringent under free trade than under autarky, which reduces the gains from trade, and that trade increases food price volatility.