Growth Effects of Free Trade under Increasing Returns

This paper addresses the long-term sustainability of the growth effects from trade, within the context of a dynamic optimization model where the investment sector exhibits an initial phase of increasing returns. It is proved that the qualitative properties of trade and growth remain valid, even for decreasing, rather than constant, returns to scale in the consumption sector. That is, trade enables an economy to escape a "poverty trap" and enjoy unbounded growth. Moreover, the asymptotic long-run growth rate of the optimal consumption levels with trade is determined, establishing that trade has a beneficial effect on long-run growth.
JEL Classification Numbers: O41, F12.     

RISK MEASURES ON AND VALUE AT RISK WITH PROBABILITY/LOSS FUNCTION

We propose a generalization of the classical notion of the V@R_λ that takes into account not only the probability of the losses, but the balance between such probability and the amount of the loss. This is obtained by defining a new class of law invariant risk measures based on an appropriate family of acceptance sets. The V@R_λ and other known law invariant risk measures turn out to be special cases of our proposal. We further prove the dual representation of Risk Measures on .     

Family ownership and stockholder reactions to environmental performance disclosure: A test of secondary agency relationships

Using the first ever Newsweek “Green Rankings” of the 500 largest U. S. firms in 2009 as a significant historical event, we test for the stockholder reaction to ratings of corporate environmental performance. Both the conventional null hypothesis significance testing and Bayesian approaches show that stockholders react significantly more positively to corporations with higher ratings of corporate environmental performance and that this effect is stronger in family owned firms. Our findings suggest that majority shareholders do not necessarily appropriate minority stockholders' rents when investing in environmental activities, as would be the case in the presence of “Type II” agency conflicts between majority family owners and minority stockholders. The family ownership effect is also found to be stronger in dirty (heavy polluting) industries as well as in more competitive and more opaque industry contexts.     

The propagation of liquidity imbalances in manufacturing supply chains: evidence from a spatial auto-regressive approach

The number of distressed firms increased sharply during the last recessionary phase. The scope of the paper is to analyze determinants of distress by focusing the attention on trade-credit chains as the key source of contagion effects in 2009–2013. Financial and liquidity imbalances propagate along the supply chain: firms respond to late payments from customers by defaulting on payments to suppliers. The novelty of our approach consists of applying spatial econometric techniques to assess spillover effects of trade debt. We employ a representative sample of around 12,000 Italian manufacturing firms that combines balance sheet items with information collected in the Credit Register of the Italian central bank. Our proxy for supply-chain interconnections is a matrix of firm-to firm transactions which mirrors the networked structure of the industrial system. Estimates show that trade debt has been affected by spillover effects during the great crisis of 2009–2013. Moreover, trade debt and financial indebtedness exerted an impact of almost identical magnitude on firms' distress likelihoods. This evidence sheds light on the importance to move away from a static view of the trade-credit phenomenon, and to integrate solvency models with detailed information on firm-to-firm transactions which is increasingly available through big data collection.     

‘Networks of practice’ in the Italian motorsport industry

The purpose of this paper is to advance research on inter-organisational networks by proposing a practice-based view of network formation and development in technology intensive environments. The research followed an exploratory, qualitative research design based on interviews, observation and documentary evidence to examine the recursive practices that have been enacted by racing car manufacturers and suppliers in the Italian motorsport industry in their efforts to develop increasing levels of collaboration and participation in product development activities. The results show how motorsport actors acted strategically and reflexively in negotiating their roles and the level of involvement in joint activities moving towards increased interpenetration and promoting legitimisation. However, in contrast to other studies of strategic network management, the leading actors have not imposed themselves unilaterally in structuring the network and knowledge flows. Rather lead firms have acted to encourage collaboration, participation and promote a shared sense of identity amongst network members.     

How to cope with dissonant heritage: a way towards sustainable tourism development

The UNESCO World Summit at Johannesburg in 2002, can be considered a watershed moment for promoting cultural diversity and defining cultural sustainability. Involving community residents is often regarded as best practice when fostering sustainability, though dissonant heritage problems may arise. We connect the issue of dissonance with contrasting interpretations of the past, specifically in the context of promoting heritage places linked to ideologies that are contrary to the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We focus on buildings constructed during the interwar years in Predappio and Forlì, which are closely tied to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and now represent an “ambivalent and largely unwanted past”. Using a LISREL (Linear Structural Relations) model to analyse residents’ attitude towards tourism around these dissonant heritage sites, we show that without a proper cultural policy as the creation of the European cultural route named ATRIUM (Architecture of Totalitarian Regimes of the 20th Century in Europe's Urban Memory Route), residents view tourism unfavourably, rendering it unsustainable.     

The use of network analysis to handle semantic differential data

The aim of this paper is to propose a method to transform semantic differential data into a network whose graph representation is interpreted as an empirical network of adjectives. The graph is constituted by the adjectives of the semantic differential task. Two adjectives are linked depending on the scoring assigned by a set of respondents. The proposed approach aims at using concepts and methods of Social Network Analysis to explore the network structure and study roles and positions of dominant adjectives. A simulation design has been realized to assess the stability of results under different conditions, i.e. in order to set the optimal threshold in presence of different data generator processes. A case study carried out on real data shows how the emerging network of adjectives can be effectively used to define the concept arising from a semantic differential task.     

How digital user innovators become entrepreneurs: a sociomaterial analysis

ABSTRACT

Digital entrepreneurship has received growing interest from academics and practitioners. Another form of entrepreneurship in which interest has been greatly boosted, thanks to digital technologies, is user entrepreneurship. Drawing on the sociomaterial perspective of digital entrepreneurship, the present article contributes to this body of knowledge by exploring how user entrepreneurs frame and implement the process to create new firms to commercialise their own digital innovations. Our qualitative study reports a single case study about the process of digital entrepreneurship implemented by a patient innovator that launched a new firm to commercialise his healthcare innovative solution. Various theoretical propositions about the sociomateriality of the entrepreneurial process of digital user innovators are offered.     

Efficiency and equilibrium when preferences are time-inconsistent

We consider an exchange economy with time-inconsistent consumers whose preferences are additively separable. If consumers have identical discount factors, then allocations that are Pareto efficient at the initial date are also renegotiation-proof. In an economy with a sequence of markets, competitive equilibria are Pareto efficient in this sense, and for generic endowments, only if preferences are locally homothetic.