Post-Soviet Pension Systems,Retirement, and Elderly Poverty: Findings from the Kyrgyz Republic

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

Managing Dispersed Knowledge: Organizational Problems,Managerial Strategies,and Their Effectiveness

While there has been much progress in understanding organizational knowledge and knowledge management practices, some questions still remain unresolved. This paper argues that at least one important driver of knowledge‐related organizational problems has been rather neglected so far: that is, the dispersed nature of organizational knowledge. The paper analyses the organizational problems and managerial responses arising from dispersed knowledge. It identifies three drivers by which the dispersedness of knowledge leads to management problems: namely, it creates large numbers, asymmetries, and uncertainty. A number of managerial strategies for dealing with the different components of the problems created by the dispersedness of knowledge are identified and their effectiveness analysed, thereby informing managers as to how best to deal with dispersed knowledge. The analysis of uncertainty‐related implications of dispersed knowledge uncovers an overlooked distinction that is helpful for understanding dispersed knowledge and its managerial implications. This is the distinction between uncertainty and ambiguity, i.e. a strong form of uncertainty that cannot be remedied by the standard strategy of increasing the information available.     

Globalization, Financial Volatility and Monetary Policy

Recently it has often been claimed that globalization eases the job of central banks as it helps to tame inflation. This is used to argue that central banks (particularly the ECB, referring to the objectives as laid down in the EU Treaty) could or should reduce their efforts in the fight against inflation in favor of supporting the general economic policies of the governments. This paper takes a critical look at this argument, pointing to the structural changes associated with globalization and to the corresponding increase in uncertainty by which the central banks are affected. As an example of this, the increase in financial volatility is analyzed and explained as the result of optimal portfolio allocation, and its implications for monetary policy are discussed.     

Practical Problems with Reduced‐rank ML Estimators for Cointegration Parameters and a Simple Alternative*

Johansen's reduced‐rank maximum likelihood (ML) estimator for cointegration parameters in vector error correction models is known to produce occasional extreme outliers. Using a small monetary system and German data we illustrate the practical importance of this problem. We also consider an alternative generalized least squares (GLS) system estimator which has better properties in this respect. The two estimators are compared in a small simulation study. It is found that the GLS estimator can indeed be an attractive alternative to ML estimation of cointegration parameters.