The financial accelerator and monetary policy rules

Comparing Bernanke et al.’s (1999) financial accelerator model to a comparable model without an operational financial accelerator mechanism, we find that financial acceleration is reduced when monetary policy reacts to the output gap and when firm-specific volatility rises.     

Trade Performances, Product Quality Perceptions, and the Estimation of Trade Price Elasticities

Traditional trade models ignoring the dimension of product quality generally lead to excessively low trade price elasticities. This paper estimates import market share equations including a quality image proxy derived from survey data. The estimation results, based on panel data for the four main EU member states, confirm the part played by product quality perceptions in the estimation of trade price elasticities, at least for highly differentiated products. Introducing the quality image proxy into the models leads to a significant increase in the price elasticities, which thus become superior to unity, in conformity with theoretical elasticities of substitution.     

On the efficient use of the informational content of estimating equations: Implied probabilities and Euclidean empirical likelihood

A number of information-theoretic alternatives to GMM have recently been proposed in the literature. For practical use and general interpretation, the main drawback of these alternatives, particularly in the case of conditional moment restrictions, is that they give up the computational and interpretational simplicity of quadratic optimization. The main contribution of this paper is to analyze the informational content of estimating equations within the unified framework of Chi-square distance. Improved inference by control variables, closed form formulae for implied probabilities and information-theoretic interpretations of continuously updated GMM are discussed in the two cases of unconditional and conditional moment restrictions.     

Comparison of randomization techniques for low-discrepancy sequences in finance

This paper deals with comparisons of low-discrepancy sequences in terms of actual performance through numerical computation for option pricing. For that purpose, we construct a variety of randomized low-discrepancy sequences based on classical low-discrepancy sequences. A randomization structure by coordinate-wise and digit-wise permutations proves to give excellent results regardless of the classical low-discrepancy sequences. This paper represents only the author’s personal opinion, and has absolutely nothing to do with his affiliation.     

The Relationship Between Paternalistic Leadership and Organizational Commitment: Investigating the Role of Climate Regarding Ethics

One of the important factors influencing perceptions of the existence of an ethical climate is leader behaviors. It is argued that paternalistic leadership behaviors are developed to humanize and remoralize the workplace. In various studies, leadership behaviors and climate regarding ethics were evaluated as antecedents of organizational commitment. In this sense, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between paternalistic leadership behaviors, climate regarding ethics and organizational commitment. Data were obtained from 142 individuals. Results indicated that benevolent paternalistic leadership had a moderate effect on affective commitment and strong effect on continuance commitment. Moreover, it was found that paternalistic leadership had an effect on the perception of an ethical climate. Strong relationship was found between climate regarding ethics and affective commitment; moderate relationship was found between climate regarding ethics and continuance commitment. Finally, results indicated that climate regarding ethics had a mediating effect between benevolent paternalistic leadership and affective commitment. Gül Selin Erben holds MA degree on Human Resources Management. She is a Phd candidate on Organizational Behavior field. She works as a research assistant at the Maltepe University. Ayşe Begüm Güneşer holds MA degree on Human Resources Management and she holds Phd degree on Organizational Behavior.     

How Likely are Employers to Rehire Older Workers After Mandatory Retirement? A Vignette Study Among Managers

With a vignette experiment among Dutch managers we examine employers’ considerations in the decision to rehire employees after mandatory retirement. We specifically focus on the effects of the employee’s downward wage flexibility (i.e., the willingness to accept a lower wage) and contract flexibility (i.e., preference for a contract which allows flexible hours or employment). The results show that employers are strongly affected by employees who offer to work for a significantly lower wage, but not by the employees’ preference for a particular labor contract. Employers are overall quite disinclined to rehire employees after mandatory retirement, although large differences exist between employees. Part of these differences can be explained by employers having higher retirement age norms (i.e., the maximum age at which employers consider employees suited for work in their organization).