On the Sources of Inflation in Kenya: A Model‐Based Approach

We develop a semi‐structural new‐Keynesian open‐economy model – with separate food and non‐food inflation dynamics to study the sources of inflation in Kenya in recent years. To do so, we filter international and Kenyan data (on output, inflation and its components, exchange rates and interest rates) through the model to recover a model‐based decomposition of most variables into trends (or potential values) and temporary movements (or gaps) – including for the international and domestic relative price of food. We use the filtration exercise to recover the sequence of domestic and foreign macroeconomic shocks that account for business cycle dynamics in Kenya over the last few years, with a special emphasis on the various factors (international food prices, monetary policy) driving inflation. We find that while imported food price shocks have been an important source of inflation, both in 2008 and more recently, accommodating monetary policy has also played a role, most notably through its effect on the nominal exchange rate. We also discuss the implications of this exercise for the use of model‐based monetary policy analysis in sub‐Saharan African countries.     

Product Unbundling in the Travel Industry: The Economics of Airline Bag Fees

This paper provides theory and evidence on airline bag fees, offering insights into a real‐world case of product unbundling. The theory predicts that an airline's fares should fall when it introduces a bag fee, but that the full‐trip price (the bag fee plus the new fare) could either rise or fall. The empirical evidence presented in the paper provides strong confirmation of the first prediction. The data also suggest that the average fare falls by less than the bag fee itself so that the full price of a trip rises for passengers who choose to check bags.     

Venture Capital Valuation,Partial Adjustment,and Underpricing: Behavioral Bias or Information Production?

Using a sample of venture capital (VC)‐backed initial public offerings (IPOs), we analyze the role played by perceived valuation changes on IPO underpricing. We find that perceived valuation change from the last pre‐IPO VC round to the IPO affects IPO underpricing in a nonlinear way. Further analysis indicates that information‐based theories, not behavioral biases, explain this nonlinearity. We also find that the previously documented partial adjustment effect and its nonlinear impact on IPO underpricing are related to the trajectory of the perceived valuation changes, which stands in stark contrast to prior evidence of the importance of behavioral biases.     

Dealing With Uncertainties When Governing CSR Policies

As corporate social responsibility involves a voluntary business endeavour to address social and environmental issues beyond legal compliance, governments cannot fall back on hierarchical command-and-control policies to support it. As such, it is complementary with the increasing popularity of public policies known as New Governance policies, where the government is engaged in a horizontal inter-organizational network of societal actors and where public policy is both formed and executed by the interacting and voluntary efforts from a multitude of stakeholders. However, such policies are known to generate substantive uncertainty about the content of CSR and its related issues, strategic uncertainty regarding the behavior of the actors involved and institutional uncertainty related to the interaction process involved in the institutional change. We explore New Governance policy instruments to address these uncertainties in the context CSR and discuss the experiences with these methods in the European Union. Jan Lepoutre is a Ph.D. candidate in Applied Economics at Ghent University, Belgium. In his dissertation, he focuses on the competences associated with small business social responsibility and networks as governmental means to build competences among small businesses. Nikolay A. Dentchev is an independent research fellow at Ghent University, Belgium, and a project coordinator at the corporate venturing department of Fortis Group (Fortis Venturing). He holds a Ph.D. in business economics from Ghent University. His current research is related to entrepreneurship, instrumental stakeholder theory, and management challenges of corporate social responsibility. Aimé Heene is a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Ghent University, Belgium. He teaches strategic management for private and public organizations and currently focuses his research on (competencebased) management in public and social profit organizations.     

Organizational identification as a determinant of customer orientation in service organizations

The marketing literature suggests that frontline employees are the central determinant of how customer-oriented a service organization is perceived to be by its customers. However, little is known about the contingencies of employees’ customer orientation (CO) beyond personality traits and broadly construed work attitudes. Based on the social identity approach, the present article develops a multilevel model whereby CO is the result of identity-based management of frontline employees. Two empirical studies in the travel industry show that employees’ CO depends on employees’ organizational identification and their leaders’ acting as role models of CO.     

Das Finanzierungssystem der EU und die Nettozahlerdebatte

Die deutsche Nettozahlerposition innerhalb der EU wird in der ?ffentlichen Meinung h?ufig kritisch beurteilt. Wie funktioniert das Finanzierungssystem der EU? Worauf l?sst sich die Auszahlungsstruktur zurückführen? Ist der Nutzen der EU-Mitgliedschaft allein anhand der Zahlungsstr?me zu messen? Prof. Dr. Lars P. Feld, 40, ist Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Finanzwissenschaft am Alfred-Weber-Institut für Wirtschaftswissenschaften der Ruprecht-Karls-Universit?t Heidelberg und Mitglied des wissenschaftlichen Beirats des Bundesministeriums der Finanzen; Dr. Jan Schnellenbach, 33, ist wissenschaftlicher Assistent am Alfred-Weber-Institut.     

Themes of social responsibility: A survey of three professional schools

Criteria distinguishing the professions from ordinary occupations have traditionally stressed the notion of commitment to a service ethic which implies social responsibility. In this survey of 223 students and faculty of three university professional schools in Canada (Business, Engineering, and Forestry), the extent to which students exhibit awareness of the ethical component in their future work is examined. Particular attention is paid to the structural contradictions inherent in the work context of the salaried professions, especially the ethical dilemmas that arise out of bureaucratic demands to serve organizational goals rather than broader social ends. Jan Mayer (Ph.D. Carleton University, Ottawa Ontario) has taught Sociology at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario since 1980, and has conducted extensive empirical research on whitecollar work since 1978. Recent publications include Schooling Never Ends: A Study of Job Promotion among Corporate Office Workers (with Randle Nelsen), in Human Affairs, Vol. 10, 1986.     

Work in the Platform Economy: Beyond Lower Transaction Costs

Work on platforms is part of a wider trend towards the increasing fragmentation of work. It takes different forms, ranging from short spells of employment with the same employer to moving between different work arrangements to juggling multiple jobs at the same time. In all its forms, it signals an increasing job instability and is often fuelled by insufficient income from one job to cover the cost of living.