Foreign inflows and economic growth: An emiprical study of the SAARC region

The study examines and highlights the impact of selected foreign inflows (aid, trade, FDI, debt and remittances) on the economic growth of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries. The existent literature lacks a comprehensive analysis of the SAARC countries as countries like Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives have largely been ignored due to the shorter time periods of available data. The study is empirical in nature and utilizes panel data techniques on macroeconomic data for the period 2008–2015. Foreign aid and foreign direct investment are found to impact economic growth positively. Foreign debt and trade flows are found to adversely affect economic growth. No relationship is established between the flow of remittances and the economic growth of these countries. The obtained results are robust to different proxy variables and the addition of macroeconomic variables. For the first time, the study provides policy implications based on the data of all SAARC countries. The study recommends focusing on increasing the inflows of resources in the form of aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) from the developed world to achieve higher economic growth.     

Microfoundations of companies' dynamic capabilities for environmentally sustainable innovation: Case study insights from high‐tech innovation in science‐based companies

To achieve sustainable development, companies are increasingly putting an emphasis on the creation and the promotion of environmentally sustainable innovations. Environmentally sustainable innovation often involves a significant shift in a new strategic direction. This paper studies this shift from a dynamic capabilities perspective and aims to identify the microfoundations of science‐based companies' dynamic capabilities for high‐tech environmentally sustainable innovations. It investigates the development of high‐tech environmentally sustainable innovations in two distinctive science‐based companies. To scholars, this study provides an in‐depth process analysis, over time, of how and why microfoundations of dynamic capabilities influence the development of a science‐based company's high‐tech environmentally sustainable innovations. To practitioners in science‐based firms, this process study can function as a frame of reference, enabling the tailoring of a strategy for high‐tech environmentally sustainable innovation.     

Obstacles and solutions on the ladder of citizen participation: a systematic review

This article presents a systematic review of the English-language empirical literature about citizen participation to identify the obstacles to its implementation and the most successful ways to address them. Three sets of variables seem to impact effectiveness: contextual factors, including information asymmetries and public officials’ attitude; organizational arrangements, including community representation criteria and process design; and process management patterns, including group dynamics and collaboration quality. Two recommendations stem from our analysis: internalize decisions in organizational procedures, and establish ongoing interactions between government bodies and their stakeholders. We conclude that half-hearted engagement is unlikely to lead to successful citizen participation.     

A systematic mapping study on enterprise architecture mining

Enterprise architecture allows companies to deal with digital transformation through the proactive presentation and alignment of business and IT in a holistic manner. One important challenge is EA modelling since it is time-consuming (thus expensive), error-prone, and biased owing to experts’ subjective opinions. This challenge might consequently be addressed through automatic EA modelling. We conducted a systematic mapping study to classify and evaluate the research concerning EA mining proposals developed specifically for TOGAF and Archimate. After analysing results, we concluded that the research field is not sufficiently mature and further research on EA mining is necessary.     

A model of Chinese central government

Why was the Chinese State able to promote economic growth during the reform era, yet has been unable to do so over the previous 30 years? In this article, we focus on a specific aspect of the question, which will contribute to the development of a more comprehensive explanation: the specific institutional arrangement that may induce the autocratic government to adopt growth‐enhancing policies. We consider a standard political‐agency model (Besley, 2006) where the incumbent leader may or may not be congruent, and where, to maintain power, both leader types need the support of the selectorate, an elite group having a say in selecting the leader, as well as associated access to special privileges. Primarily, we find that in autocracies, without electoral discipline to restrain the opportunistic behaviour of a leader, the size of the selectorate should be intermediate; if it is too small, the selectorate is captured by the leader and has no disciplinary role, but if too big, the leader's incentives are diluted.     

PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT IN SOLIDARITY ECONOMY ORGANIZATIONS: THE CASE OF FAIR TRADE SHOPS IN ITALY

ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to introduce a multidimensional assessment model for organizations that have multiple goals and are not driven exclusively by profit. Therefore, it is an assessment method particularly suitable for social enterprises. In order to measure the efficiency of production units in each dimension, the Data Envelopment Analysis non‐parametric method is applied. Our case study is concerned with Fair Trade shops and members of the consortium Altromercato for which we collected variables that could be associated with input and output for the economic, socio‐cultural and organizational dimensions. The results of the analysis confirm the presence of economies of scale in the economic dimension but not in the socio‐cultural dimension. Moreover, our organizational analysis confirmed a low general professionalization. Our results also confirm, on the one hand, the more pronounced capacity of cooperatives to sell Fair Trade products compared to associations, which, on the other hand, have the tendency to achieve proportionately better results in the socio‐cultural dimension.     

Does the Welfare State Destroy the Family? Evidence from OECD Member Countries

We study the effect of the size of the welfare state on demographic trends in OECD member countries. Exploiting exogenous variation in public social spending, due to varying degrees of political fractionalization (i.e., the number of relevant parties involved in the legislative process), we show that an expansion in the welfare state increases fertility, marriage, and divorce rates with a quantitatively stronger effect on the marriage rate. We conclude that the welfare state supports family formation in the aggregate. Further, we find that the welfare state decouples marriage and fertility, and therefore alters the organization of the average family.     

Whom to send to Doha? The shortsighted ones!

Analyses of the effects of trade policies focus on comparisons of two different steady states, restricting the investigation to the long run. In order to account for the adjustments and to capture the relevant transmission mechanisms of changes in trade costs, such as market size, entry and exit, as well as productivity changes of firms, we base our trade policy analysis on a dynamic new trade theory model. This approach has two advantages. (i) It allows us to take account of the transitional process after a change in tariffs. (ii) It allows us to take account of the shortsightedness of policy makers. We show that Nash-equilibrium tariffs based on a dynamic trade model are lower than Nash-equilibrium tariffs based on a static model. We also show that shortsighted politicians tend to set lower tariffs than politicians with a longer planning horizon.     

Expropriation risk and discounting

This paper focuses on time preference and individual measures of expropriation risk. We use survey data on Italian households and on the 50+ population in eleven European countries. The surveys provide measures of discount rate and proxies for expropriation due to criminal offenses. We show that impatience increases with expropriation risk.