Export activity,persistence and mark-ups

This article addresses the differences in margins across exporting and nonexporting firms. We jointly estimate a translog cost function, a variable factor share equation and price-cost margin equations to analyse the effect of persistence in export activity on margins. Results indicate that nonexporters have smaller margins than persistent exporters and firms that entered foreign markets during the nineties. However, larger export ratio is negatively associated with margins for persistent exporters. It suggests that efficiency advantages for exporters are partially compensated by higher competitive pressure in international markets. These results are in accordance with the predictions of Melitz and Ottaviano (2005 Melitz, MJ and Ottaviano, GIP. 2005. Market size trade, and productivity, NBER Working Paper Series No. 11393 (forthcoming in The Review of Economic Studies) [Google Scholar]).     

Real option value and random jumps: application of a simulation model

This article studies how sensitive real option valuations are to incorrect assumptions about the stochastic process followed by the state variables. We design a valuation model which combines Monte Carlo simulation and dynamic programming and provides an appropriate framework to evaluate the effect of estimation errors on both the value of real options and their critical frontier. Although the model is flexible enough to value American-type options contingent on a wide range of stochastic processes, we focus on the analysis of the effect of stochastic jumps. We apply our model to the valuation of an investment in the car parts industry documented in previous literature. Our results clearly show that underestimating this type of jumps might lead to substantial misjudgements in a firm's decision-making processes. For instance, it may lead to profitable projects being rejected when jump diffusion is low, or negative expanded net present value projects being accepted.     

The effect of innovation efficiency management on performance: Differences according to organizational size

The efficiency associated with innovation has been a frequently considered element in the literature. However, the conceptualization of this efficiency and its management is an underexplored factor. We study the way in which the different elements that conform to this efficiency are managed over time. From a dynamic efficiency analysis using data envelope analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist productivity index, we evaluate changes in efficiency and if there are differences according to firm size. Our results confirm the relevance of size in the way that firms manage their innovation efficiency and how small firms differ from larger ones in terms of efficiency management.     

‘ARE WE JUST KILLING PEOPLE?’: Centering Racial Capitalism in the Green Gentrification of the Atlanta BeltLine

In this article I argue that any analyses of the manifestations of urban natures within urban political ecology must center racial capitalism as a theoretical framework and account for how these manifestations, which rely upon the co-constitutive workings of race and nature, reproduce anti-Blackness and unequal productions of space. I engage urban frontier imaginative geographies as a lens through which to view the ongoing regimes of dispossession within the historical context of the founding of what is today known as Atlanta and the contemporary greening project of the Atlanta BeltLine. Race and nature intersect to function as instruments of power and converge in the spaces of the Atlanta BeltLine to (re)produce an urban green frontier.     

The Entry‐Deterring Effects of Inflexible Regulation

This paper investigates the signalling role of tax policy in promoting, or hindering, the ability of a monopolist to practise entry deterrence. We show that environmental policy can facilitate the incumbent firm's concealment of information from potential entrants, thus deterring entry, and yet entail welfare improvements. Furthermore, we demonstrate that entry deterrence is more likely to arise when environmental regulation cannot be rapidly revised across time if market conditions change (inflexible regimes) than when regulatory agencies can adjust environmental policy over time.     

Deprivation and Subjective Well‐Being: Evidence from Panel Data

This paper uses data from the 2000–08 waves of the German Socio‐Economic Panel dataset (SOEP) to assess the impact of deprivation in various life domains upon individual well‐being. Unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for by means of a random effects model extended to include a Mundlak term and explicit controls for the respondents' personality traits. The paper shows that people care about social comparison information in a number of domains, not just income. Using an equivalent income approach, the estimates suggest that a one standard deviation deterioration of the individual position in the income distribution is as important as a 33.5 percent decrease in own income. This monetary equivalent amounts to an income variation of between 25 and 43 percent when it comes to other deprivation domains, including durables, accommodation, health, and social relations. These results recommend that in the fight against deprivation more emphasis should be directed to these non‐monetary relevant dimensions.     

The impact of socio-economic background on satisfaction: evidence for policy-makers

Consumer satisfaction with utility services has received increased attention from firms, consumer associations, regulators and governments since the 1990s. Evidence is mounting that consumers in specific socio-economic groups express lower satisfaction levels than their peers, at least, in some utility markets. Seeing this as part of their remit to protect consumer welfare, governments and international organizations are exploring possible demand-side policy responses with the intention of ameliorating lower satisfaction levels of these groups of consumers. However, more information on the precise relationships between satisfaction and consumers’ socio-economic background is required if policy is to be proportional and effective. This paper provides new empirical knowledge on this topic by contrasting consumers’ stated and revealed preferences for five utility services (electricity, gas, fixed and cellular telephony and Internet) across twelve European countries. We find strong evidence that consumers’ socio-economic characteristics matter: consumers with lower levels of education, the elderly and those not employed exhibit particular expenditure patterns on, and lower satisfaction levels with, some utility services. However, this relationship is uneven and depends on the socio-economic category and service in question. We conclude by highlighting five findings which may be of use to policy-makers when considering whether demand-side regulatory policies are required     

Intentionality and the emergence of complexity: an analytical approach

Emergence is a generic property that makes economies become complex. The simultaneous carrying out of agents’ intentional action plans within an economic system generates processes that are at the base of structural change and the emergence of adaptive complex systems. This paper argues that goals and intentionality are key elements of the structure of rational human action and are the origin of emergent properties such as innovation within economic complex systems. To deal with the locus and role of goals and intentionality in relation to the emergence of complexity we propose an analytical approach based on agents’ action plans. Action plans are open representations of the action projected by agents (as individuals or organizations), where the means (actions) and objectives (or goals) are not necessarily given, but produced by agents themselves.     

Evaluating FOMC forecast ranges: an interval data approach

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the U.S. Federal Reserve publishes the range of members’ forecasts for key macroeconomic variables, but not the distribution of forecasts within this range. To evaluate these projections, previous papers compare the midpoint of the range with the realized outcome. This paper proposes an alternative approach to forecast evaluation that takes account of the interval nature of projections. It is shown that using the conventional Mincer–Zarnowitz approach to evaluate FOMC forecasts misses important information contained in the width of the forecast interval. This additional information plays a minor role at short forecast horizons but turns out to be of sometimes crucial importance for longer-horizon forecasts. For 18-month-ahead forecasts, the variation of members’ projections contains information that is more relevant for explaining future inflation than information embodied in the midpoint. Likewise, when longer-range forecasts for real GDP growth and the unemployment rate are considered, the width of the forecast interval comprises information over and above the one given by the midpoint alone.     

The strategic sincerity of Approval voting

We show that Approval voting need not trigger sincere behavior in equilibrium of Poisson voting games and hence might lead a strategic voter to skip a candidate preferred to his worst preferred approved candidate. We identify two main rationales for these violations of sincerity. First, if a candidate has no votes, a voter might skip him. Notwithstanding, we provide sufficient conditions on the voters’ preference intensities to remove this sort of insincerity. On the contrary, if the candidate gets a positive share of the votes, a voter might skip him solely on the basis of his ordinal preferences. This second type of insincerity is a consequence of the correlation of the candidates’ scores. The incentives for sincerity of rank scoring rules are also discussed.