On modeling the determinants of TFP growth

We investigate the determinants of TFP growth of Italian manufacturing firms. Using stochastic frontier techniques, we consider three approaches for taking into account the influence of external factors, i.e., the determinants or drivers of growth. First, in our novel approach external factors may influence the technological progress, that is the shift of the frontier. To model this possible unexplored effect, we extend the standard time trend model to make it a function of the external factors. Then, following more standard approaches, we model external factors as either influencing the distance from the frontier, i.e., inefficiency, or the shape of the technology. Using a sample of manufacturing firms in 1998–2003, we find that technological investments and spillovers, human capital and regional banking inefficiency all have a significant effect on TFP growth.     

A review and discussion of management control in inter-firm relationships: Achievements and future directions

Several years have passed since Hopwood (Hopwood, A. G. (1996). Looking across rather than up and down: on the need to explore the lateral processing of information. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 21, 589–590) proclaimed the need to explore the lateral processing of information, transcending legal organizational boundaries. Since then, many contributions in the management accounting literature have been published in an effort to overcoming this shortage. The aim of this work is to investigate whether these contributions have brought the possibilities of that powerful intuition to its full potential development. To this end, the paper provides a review of the theoretical and empirical literature on management control in inter-firm contexts by organizing contributions according to the breadth of the control solutions they investigated, i.e., control archetypes, management control mechanisms, and cost and accounting controls. Our objective is not only to present the state of the art in this field, but also to evaluate critically the corresponding achievements and to assist in developing new research questions. To address the limitations of the extant literature, we propose the prominence of control problems (cooperation, coordination, appropriation concerns) as a way to integrate the different streams of research, and we highlight some important variables (structure of interests, component and cognitional complexity of tasks) that have been neglected so far by management accounting contributors but, as has been suggested in the organizational literature, may influence control choices. We also identify several areas ripe for future research.     

The implementation of SNB monetary policy

We use a regime-switching approach to model the implementation of SNB monetary policy. The regime-switching technique is crucial for assessing the flexibility inherent in the SNB’s monetary policy strategy. The empirical findings support the idea that repo operations are instrumental in smoothing the implementation of monetary policy in normal times, while changes in the official operational target, accompanied by the accommodating use of repo operations, produce the intended effects in periods of distress. Another significant contribution also comes from some new measures designed to improve liquidity in the Swiss franc money market during the financial crisis of 2007–2008.     

Realized bond—stock correlation: Macroeconomic announcement effects

The authors investigate the effects of macroeconomic announcements on the realized correlation between bond and stock returns. It was found that it is not so much the surprise component of the announcement, but the mere fact that an announcement occurs that influences the realized bond—stock correlation. The impact of macroeconomic announcements varies across the business cycle. Announcement effects are highly dependent on the sign of the realized bond—stock correlation, which has recently gone from positive to negative. Macroeconomic announcement effects on realized bond and stock volatilities are also investigated. Our results are robust across 8:30 A.M. and 10:00 A.M. announcements. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:439—469, 2007     

The Role of the Independent Director: Evidence from a Survey of Independent Directors in Australia

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a survey of independent directors on a range of issues relating to the execution of their role including the independent directors' perceptions relating to board effectiveness, board interactions, information sources, and performance and evaluation. A survey was forwarded to independent directors of the top 200 Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed companies. The paper aims to provide the perceptions of independent directors themselves and so contribute to the literature through a better understanding of the nature of the work performed by Australian company independent directors and the environment in which it occurs. Findings suggest that the fundamental role of the independent director has not changed as a result of the corporate governance reforms.     

Emission permits and the dynamics of clean and dirty firms in an evolutionary competition model

Emission Trading Systems (ETSs) are today regarded as the pillar of market‐based environmental policies in many countries. This paper studies the impact of an ETS on the dynamics of the market made up of two types of firms: clean and dirty. Using an evolutionary context, we study how the share of clean firms evolves at different parameter values, such as increasing values of the permits’ price floor, and show that an ETS can have positive effects on the diffusion of the clean technology. However, numerical simulations show that under specific parameter values the opposite result may emerge with clean firms leaving the market.     

Willingness to use mobile application for smartphone for improving road safety

In the last few years mobile devices have reached a large amount of consumers in both developed and high-growth world economies. In 2013, 97% of the Italian population owns a mobile phone, and 62% owns a smartphone. Application software for mobile devices is largely proposed to consumers, and several mobile applications were oriented toward the improvement of road safety and road accident risk reduction. In this paper, we describe the results of a survey oriented to preventively investigate on the willingness to receive and/or to give information about road condition by means of mobile devices. Road users were informed about the characteristics of a mobile application, and then they were invited to complete a questionnaire. Experimental data were used for capturing road user attitudes toward the use of the smartphone to improve road safety, and to establish the preferences for the different features of the proposed mobile application. To this end, we choose to use the ordered probit model methodology. We demonstrate that the adopted methodology accounts for the differential impacts of the willingness to receive and/or to give information about road conditions on the overall willingness to receive and/or to give information through an application software for mobile devices.