Nonparametric tests of collectively rational consumption behavior: An integer programming procedure

We present an IP-based nonparametric (revealed preference) testing procedure for rational consumption behavior in terms of a general collective model, which includes consumption externalities and public consumption. An empirical application to data drawn from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) demonstrates the practical usefulness of the procedure. Finally, we present extensions of the testing procedure to evaluate the goodness-of-fit (accounting for optimization error as well as measurement error) of the collective model subject to testing.     

An Eye for an Eye Will Make the Whole World Blind: Conflict Escalation into Workplace Bullying and the Role of Distributive Conflict Behavior

The current study investigated how work-related disagreements—coined as conflicts—relate to workplace bullying, from the perspective of the target as well as the perpetrator. We hypothesized a positive indirect association between task conflicts and bullying through relationship conflicts. This process accounted for both for targets and perpetrators of bullying. Targets are distinguished from perpetrators in our assumption that this indirect effect is boosted by distributive conflict behavior, being yielding for targets and forcing for perpetrators. Results in a large representative sample of the Flemish working population (N = 2,029) confirmed our hypotheses. Additionally, our study also revealed a direct effect from task conflicts to bullying in the analyses regarding the indirect as well as the conditional indirect effects. For perpetrators, both the indirect and direct relationships are moderated by forcing, underlining the importance of distributive conflict behavior particularly for the enactment of bullying behaviors.     

A state‐level analysis of the economic impacts of medical tourism in Malaysia

In Malaysia, a country that ranks among the world's most recognised medical tourism destinations, medical tourism is identified as a potential economic growth engine for both medical and non‐medical sectors. A state‐level analysis of economic impacts is important, given differences between states in economic profiles and numbers, origins, and expenditure of medical tourists. We applied input–output (I–O) analysis, based on state‐specific I–O data and disaggregated foreign patient data. The analysis includes nine of Malaysia's states. In 2007, these states were visited by 341,288 foreign patients, who generated MYR1,313.4 m ($372.3 m) output, MYR468.6 m ($132.8 m) in value added, and over 19,000 jobs. Impacts related to non‐medical expenditure are more substantial than impacts related to medical expenditure, and indirect impacts are a substantial part of total impacts. We discuss management and policy responses and formulate recommendations for data collection.     

Improving operational performance by influencing shopfloor behavior via performance management practices

It is generally believed that companies applying performance management practices outperform those that do not measure and manage their performance. Studies examining the link between performance management and performance improvement implicitly assume that performance management affects behavior of individuals in an organization, which then facilitates the achievement of organizational goals. This study takes a step towards understanding this implicit assumption. We investigate how performance management practices relate to improvement in performance by influencing behavior of individuals. We focus on operational performance management, i.e. the definition and use of performance measures on the shopfloor in production and distribution. We use a survey among 102 companies to identify the relations between performance management practices, shopfloor behavior and improvement in performance. We identified three independent clusters of operator behavior that positively correlate with performance improvement: “Understanding”, “Motivation” and “Focus on Improvement”. We show that 17 out of the 20 performance management practices found in literature have a significant and positive relation with one or more clusters of operator behavior. We furthermore found that there is a positive correlation between the number of performance management practices applied and performance improvement, suggesting that it is not only which practices are applied but also how many. Recommendations emerging from this study enable managers to identify which behavioral changes are desired to improve performance and to select those performance management practices that positively influence the desired behavior.     

Education Signalling with Preemptive Offers

We analyse a version of Spence's job market signalling model in which firms can make job offers before workers complete their education. Workers cannot commit to turning down such offers. Offers are private, so that workers are unable to use one firm's offer in an attempt to elicit better offers from other firms. In the unique sequential equilibrium outcome of the model with unproductive education, there is no wasteful education. When education is productive, the standard model predicts that more able individuals become overeducated to separate themselves from less able workers. In our model, less able workers become overeducated to (partially) pool with more able workers. The pooling mutes the incentives of high ability workers, who in consequence actually choose to become undereducated. We examine the robustness of our result to modifications to the basic model.     

Stocks or Options? Moral Hazard, Firm Viability, and the Design of Compensation Contracts

We consider the choice between stocks and options to provideeffort incentives to a risk-averse manager. We show that stockscan dominate options as a means of motivation only if nonviabilityrisk is substantial, as in financially distressed firms or start-ups.Options dominate stocks for other firms. These results holdregardless of the existing portfolio of the manager. We provideempirical evidence that higher bankruptcy risk is indeed correlatedwith more use of stock.     

Multilevel assessment of diversity,innovation and selection in the solar photovoltaic industry

We undertake an empirical study of the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry using evolutionary-economic concepts. Experts regard solar energy as a realistic option for sustainable energy provision in the long run. We identify the innovation and selection forces that drive the changes in the solar PV industry. In addition, a quantitative analysis using diversity indexes is performed at four levels of the solar PV industry: countries, technologies, applications and companies. Richness (number of alternatives) and evenness are calculated in order to describe and identify the changes that have occurred over time at each level. Most remarkable is that evenness has increased at the company level and decreased at the other three levels. We draw a number of policy conclusions.     

Development Regimes,Scales and State Spatial Restructuring: Change and Continuity in the Production of Urban Space in Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro,Brazil

Using the experience of metropolitan Rio de Janeiro, this article contributes to the broader debate on development regimes, rescaling and state spatial restructuring in Brazil, and its specificities in relation to the international discussion on the transformations in Atlantic Fordism. I argue that the transition from a (peripheral) development state to a competitive and rescaled regime has been accompanied by important continuities. Legitimized through discourses around development poles and trickle‐down effects, the national‐developmental regime has systematically promoted some spaces as opposed to others, without much emphasis on the social and environmental dimensions of spatial policies. The emerging competitive state spatial regime, whether in its neoliberalized, or its more recent ‘rolled‐out’ national‐developmental version, is merely expected to aggravate the historical socio‐environmental contradictions in the production of space. Moreover, scale has proven contested and strategic‐relational, both molding and being influenced by actors that seek to use scalar politics to reach their interests. My analysis suggests that, within this scenario, neither economic growth, nor regulatory and institutional strengthening, nor financial resources are likely to produce structural transformation in the inherited spaces of Greater Rio de Janeiro.     

Knowledge flows,changing firms’ competences and patent citations: an analysis of the trajectory of IBM

We show for a widely-used class of models for strategic R&D that optimally subsidizing cooperative R&D or noncooperative R&D leads to the same level of private R&D investments. We then highlight the limitations of the framework that are responsible for this finding and conclude that policy recommendations based on the type of model used here should be treated as highly tentative.     

Climate change,weather shocks,and violent conflict: a critical look at the evidence

We use cross‐country data to explore whether temperature and rainfall shocks trigger violent conflict, or not. We include a wide range of country and time samples, and explore whether the impact of weather shocks is conditional on income or political regimes. Our overall conclusion is sobering. Notwithstanding the attention this topic has attracted from the media and policy makers, we find little robust evidence linking weather shocks to the onset of conflict.