How organisational image affects employee attitudes

Organisational image has mostly been studied using an external perspective focused on strategy and marketing issues. Given its salience in employees' symbolic environment, however, image may also have internal as well as external consequences. Yet, the potential impact of image on internal HR aspects has received only pminimal interest from researchers. This article presents the results of a study that explored the impact of perceived external prestige (PEP) on three individual outcomes: job satisfaction, affective organisational commitment and affective well‐being at work. It is based on a survey of 527 French managers. The findings show that all individual outcomes are related to PEP. Moreover, it was found that the impact of corporate image on some of the outcomes was stronger for individuals working in sales/marketing than for other employees.     

Financing decisions of firms and central bank policy

This paper aims to explain why unhedged foreign borrowing by South East Asian corporations rose sharply during the few years prior to the crisis despite little change in fundamentals. We show that decisions of firms and decisions of the central bank are complementary. Consequently, a small shock to fundamentals may have a large and permanent impact on the equilibrium composition of firms’ borrowing.     

Unanticipated vs. Anticipated Tax Reforms in a Two-Sector Open Economy

We use a two-sector neoclassical open economy model with traded and non-traded goods to investigate the effects of unanticipated and anticipated tax reforms. First, an unanticipated tax reform produces an expansion of GDP, labor, and investment, while an anticipated tax reform has opposite effects before the implementation of the labor tax cut. Quantitatively, if the traded sector is more capital intensive, GDP increases by 1.6 percentage points or declines by 2.7 percentage points after three years, depending on whether the tax cut is unanticipated or anticipated. Second, we find that GDP change masks a wide dispersion in sectoral output responses. As long as investment is both traded and non traded, a tax reform substantially raises the relative size of the non-traded sector after three years while traded output always drops. Third, a tax reform improves welfare in all scenarios, more so if the markup is endogenous, but less so if the shock is anticipated. Importantly, we find that welfare gains in a two-sector economy with capital accumulation and perfect access to external borrowing are between 39 % and 89 % higher than those in an economy without physical capital.     

Do flexible exchange rates facilitate external adjustment? A dynamic approach with time-varying and asymmetric volatility

This paper revisits the claim that flexible exchange rates facilitate external adjustment. While previous studies have used exchange rate regime as a proxy for exchange rate flexibility, in this study there is evidence of ARCH effects in exchange rate, and thus GARCH models are employed to estimate volatility. A dynamic panel data model is then specified, and the Arellano-Bond estimator and the Blundell-Bond estimator are employed to estimate the effect of exchange rate flexibility on the speed of adjustment of current account in a panel of 28 emerging and developing economies. There is robust evidence that flexible exchange rates indeed facilitate smoother adjustment of current account imbalances.     

Brain Drain in Developing Countries

An original data set on international migration by educationalattainment for 1990 and 2000 is used to analyze the determinantsof brain drain from developing countries. The analysis startswith a simple decomposition of the brain drain in two multiplicativecomponents, the degree of openness of sending countries (measuredby the average emigration rate) and the schooling gap (measuredby the education level of emigrants compared with natives).Regression models are used to identify the determinants of thesecomponents and explain cross-country differences in the migrationof skilled workers. Unsurprisingly, the brain drain is strongin small countries that are close to major Organisation forEconomic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regions, that sharecolonial links with OECD countries, and that send most of theirmigrants to countries with quality-selective immigration programs.Interestingly, the brain drain increases with political instabilityand the degree of fractionalization at origin and decreaseswith natives' human capital.     

Are exports a monotonic function of exchange rate volatility? Evidence from disaggregated pork exports

Abstract.  Production and marketing lags in agri-food supply chains often force agricultural producers and food processors to commit to output targets before prices and exchange rates are realized. A theoretical model illustrates how the processor's degree of risk aversion and domestic sales may cause the relationship between volatility of the exchange rate and exports to be non-monotonic. The relationship between exchange rate volatility and Quebec pork exports to the United States and Japan is investigated using linear and non-linear estimation methods. The results support the hypothesis that the relationship between exports and volatility is non-monotonic.     

Gradualism in Bargaining and Contribution Games

This paper identifies a source of gradualism in bargaining and contribution games. In the bargaining games we examine, each party can opt out at any time, and the outside option outcome is assumed to depend on the offers made in the negotiation phase. Specifically, we assume that (1) making a concession in the negotiation phase increases the other party's outside option pay-off and (2) the outside option outcome induces an efficiency loss as compared with a negotiated agreement. The main finding is that the mere presence of such history-dependent outside options forces equilibrium concessions in the negotiation phase to be gradual, and the degree of gradualism is characterized. The model also applies to contribution games in which the outside option may be interpreted as the option to implement a partial project using the total contributions made so far.     

A stylized model of home buyers’ and bankers’ behaviours during the 2007-2009 US subprime mortgage crisis: a predatory perspective

We examine the behaviour of market agents during the years leading to the 2008 US subprime mortgage crisis using a stylized capital asset pricing model model. In our study, an average investor eager to make money by flipping houses meets a banker who offers him subprime mortgage deals. We refer to recent research that shows the mechanics of the psychological and behavioural components of these two market agents. In particular, much in line with the famous Stanford experiment, it is assumed that investors adopt a predator or a prey position. Our analysis shows that, given a historical tendency towards financial predatory acts on the part of market agents (including buyers), government regulations should be adapted and strengthened to face this dooming reality.     

Organizational Agility of Family Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Evidence from the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

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