House prices and immovable property tax: Evidence from OECD countries

This paper studies the impact of changes in immovable property tax revenues on the growth rate of house prices by analysing a panel of 34 OECD countries over the period 1970–2014. Starting from the annual series of immovable property tax revenues, we isolate years of significant shifts in the property tax regime and study their impact on house prices. We find a strong negative relationship between increases in immovable property tax revenues and house prices. This relationship is robust to the inclusion of cyclical determinants of house prices, country and year fixed effects, and country‐specific linear trends. We also propose an instrumental variable strategy based on countries’ legal origins that confirms a statistically significant negative impact of such taxes in the short run.     

Defining spending reviews: a proposal for a taxonomy,with applications to Italy and the UK

After the 2008 global financial crisis, many governments introduced spending reviews (SRs). The paper provides a valuable definition of the concept of the SR by proposing a taxonomy of the main organizational and methodological aspects involved in the SR process. The paper identifies two different SR models, which feature alternative approaches to cutting back spending. The authors highlight some important considerations when looking to make sustainable and sensible cuts in spending.     

Life‐Cycle Flexibility: How to Measure and Improve the Innovative Capability in Turbulent Environments*

Managing innovation in rapidly moving environments, such as Interned‐based services, is a major challenge for the consolidated theories on product and service development. The innovation management literature identifies flexibility as the right way for coping with these challenges. By increasing the development process flexibility, it is possible to reduce the development time as well as the time and cost needed for last‐minute concept changes. But this is not enough. The product or service must also be flexible after it has been released: A life‐cycle flexibility (LCF) must be pursued. Focused on the Italian on‐line discount brokers industry, this article is a result of a two‐staged research process that started with a qualitative explorative phase (i.e., case‐study methodology) and ended with a quantitative explorative one (i.e., questionnaire methodology). It identifies three different LCF dimensions—frequency of adaptation, rapidity of adaptation, and quality of adaptation—and it defines a metric for each of them. Subsequently, it identifies five managerial and organizational practices that increase at least one of the three LCF dimensions: (1) to manage the back‐end technological competences; (2) to share the front‐end technological competences with external suppliers; (3) to utilize open and standard technologies; (4) to have a low formalization of the new service development (NSD) procedures; and (5) to have high formalization of the NSD organization.     

Direct and iterated multistep AR methods for difference stationary processes

The paper focuses on a comparison between the direct and iterated AR predictors for difference stationary processes. In particular, it provides new methods for comparing the efficiency of the two predictors. The methods are based on an encompassing representation for the two predictors, which enables us to derive their properties quite easily under a maintained model. The paper provides an analytical expression for the mean square forecast error of the two predictors and derives useful recursive formulae for computing the direct and iterated coefficients. From an empirical standpoint, we propose estimators of the AR coefficients based on the tapered Yule-Walker estimates; we also provide a test of equal forecast accuracy which is very simple to implement and whose critical values are obtained using the bootstrap method.     

Vertical Integration and Exclusivity Contracts when Consumers Have Switching Costs

This article extends the literature on switching costs by considering what happens when retailers and manufacturers are separate entities and some customers are locked in with retailers. This separation introduces a dynamic inconsistency problem as manufacturers face the problem of extracting too much surplus from the retailer in which case the retailer has no incentive to build a subscriber base. It is shown that different trading relationships arise according to the nature and magnitude of switching costs. When switching costs are high, then integrated structures are always predicted (or exclusive dealerships in case vertical integration is banned). Vertical integration should be allowed as it provides high-powered incentives to acquire market shares.     

The theory of access pricing and its linkage with investment incentives

The paper reviews how the question of access pricing has been fully investigated by the theoretical literature in a static context. On the other hand, there is no developed analysis of the linkage between access pricing and incentives to invest. This paper argues that some useful literature in related areas can be brought to bear on the issue of “races” to build infrastructures, on the relationship between infrastructure and service competition, and on two-way network competition.     

Disrupting the Disruptors or Enhancing Them? How Blockchain Reshapes Two-Sided Platforms

The importance of platform-based businesses in the modern economy is growing continuously and becoming increasingly relevant. Specifically, the deployment of digital technologies has enhanced the applicability of two-sided business models, enabling companies to act not just as builders and owners of assets, but also as orchestrators of external resources. Management research has, therefore, focused increasingly on the unique aspects of this model. At the center of a two-sided platform there is a platform provider that enables a transaction between the sides, reducing the relative transaction costs. However, in recent years, a new technology emerged that challenges some of the underlying assumptions of this model: the blockchain. Blockchain enables the creation of a peer-to-peer network that is able to authenticate transactions, upon which applications and services may be built. It allows users to conduct transactions without the need for a central platform. We explore how blockchain technology reshapes two-sided platforms, focusing in particular on the role of the platform provider. The research is based upon multiple case studies, using an inductive approach to explore this emerging phenomenon. Our findings show there is a significant shift in the role of the central player that links the two sides of a transaction using blockchain. We frame this as a shift from a “platform provider” to a “service provider,” leveraging the blockchain as a Platform-as-a-Service. Our work examines the peculiarities of this model, unveiling new dynamics in these businesses. Specifically, we show that different variables must be considered to classify two-sided platforms using blockchain. Furthermore, the essential characteristics of two-sided platforms must also be enlarged. For example, traditional platform theories emphasize the importance of cross-side network externalities in creating value. In blockchain-enabled platforms however, we show the use of “tokens” play a key role in creating different types of externalities between the two sides.     

Corporate Entrepreneurship and Family Business: Learning Across Domains

Research at the interface of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) and family firms’ domains has grown steadily based on the premise that family firms’ specific elements uniquely affect CE antecedents, strategies, and outcomes. However, much remains to be uncovered. In this article, we offer a theoretical advancement of a corporate entrepreneurship process model for the case of family firms organized around the categories of ontology (i.e., domain redefinition), epiphany (i.e., new components and mechanisms), and heterogeneity (i.e., family firm variety and contingencies). This development paves the way for an agenda for future research and for possible generalizations to non‐family firms.     

Using regression tree ensembles to model interaction effects: a graphical approach

Multiplicative interaction terms are widely used in economics to identify heterogeneous effects and to tailor policy recommendations. The execution of these models is often flawed due to specification and interpretation errors. This article introduces regression trees and regression tree ensembles to model and visualize interaction effects. Tree-based methods include interactions by construction and in a nonlinear manner. Visualizing nonlinear interaction effects in a way that can be easily read overcomes common interpretation errors. We apply the proposed approach to two different datasets to illustrate its usefulness.     

Employment Effects of Product and Process Innovation in Europe

This paper develops a model of the employment impact of innovation considering, on the one hand, the interactions with demand and labour costs and, on the other, the variety of patterns of technological change. Different technological strategies are considered. First, a search for technological competitiveness is based on product innovation and productivity rooted in quality advantages; second a strategy of active price competitiveness has productivity growth rooted in process innovation-based restructuring; third a passive price competitiveness strategy is pursued by non-innovators relying on cost-cutting. The new European innovation database drawn from the Community Innovation Survey 1994-96, merged with structural and macroeconomic data 1994-99 drawn from the OECD are analysed at a sectoral level across eight European countries: Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, the UK, and Sweden. The innovation survey data provide information on several quantitative and qualitative aspects of firms' innovative activities. A comparison of the results from the first (1990-92) and second (1994-96) Community innovation survey data is also carried out. The results show that, in the last decade, technological change has had a major impact on employment in manufacturing industry, associated with the dominance of an active price competitiveness strategy.