Government Size,the Role of Commitments*

We explore the hypothesis that long‐term commitments affect the dynamics of government expenditure. With the aid of a simple median‐voter model we interpret the pattern of increasing‐then‐constant tax rates observed in OECD countries in the second half of the last century: persistence of public expenditure and a lower bound on new interventions will push government size upward, and preferences of the electorate put a halt to this growth at some point. In this view, the fiscal policy variable is seen to consist of only a part of the total expenditure, the rest being predetermined by its past level.     

Internal and external factors in innovation persistence

This paper contributes to the analysis of the persistence of innovation activities, as measured by total factor productivity (TFP), and explores its internal and external determinants stressing its path-dependent characteristics. The external conditions, namely the quality of local knowledge pools and the strength of the Schumpeterian rivalry, along with the internal conditions (the actual levels of dynamic capabilities, as proxied by wage levels and firm size) exert a specific and localised effect upon the persistent introduction of innovations. A multiple transition probability matrixes (MTPMs) approach has been implemented to capture the contingent effects of external factors on long-term innovation persistence. The empirical analysis of the dynamics of firm-level TFP for a sample of approximately 7000 Italian manufacturing companies observed during the years 1996–2005 is based on both the comparison of different transition probability matrixes and on dynamic discrete choice panel data models. The evidence provided by the test of MTPMs in sub-periods suggests that innovation persistence is path-dependent, as opposed to past-dependent.     

AHP-based approaches for supplier evaluation: Problems and perspectives

Supplier evaluation has assumed a strategic role in determining competitiveness of large manufacturing companies. An increasing number of researches have been devoted to the development of different kind of methodologies to cope with this problem. Nevertheless, while the number of applications is growing, there is little empirical evidence of the practical usefulness of such tools with a dichotomy between theoretical approaches and empirical applications. Considering this evidence, the goal of this paper is to contribute to understand the above dichotomy by implementing, in a corporate environment, a model for supplier evaluation based on the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), one of the most prominent methodologies used to address the problem. The analysis of the implementation process of the methodology allows the identification of strengths and weaknesses of using formalized supplier selection models to tackle the supplier evaluation problem, also highlighting potential barriers preventing firms to adopt such methods. Relevant issues arising from the application and managerial implications for both customer and suppliers are discussed.     

Services Provision and Temporary Mobility: Freedoms and Regulation in the EU

International posting of workers and mobility of self‐employed service suppliers lie between outright migration and trade in goods: their regulation, for both distributional and market‐correcting purposes, is not as difficult to harmonise as that of labour markets, but personal mobility is more visible and socially intrusive than product market interactions. This paper analyses economic and legal tensions between national regulatory frameworks and international competition in these areas, in both the intra‐EU and global contexts, highlighting how interactions between the external and internal roles of the European Commission may foster efficient integration of markets and policies in this and other fields.     

Parents’ performance in entrepreneurship as a “double-edged sword” for the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship

We investigate how perceived parents’ performance in entrepreneurship (PPE) affects the entrepreneurial career intentions of offspring. We argue that while perceived PPE enhances offspring’s perceived entrepreneurial desirability and feasibility because of exposure mechanisms, it inhibits the translation of both desirability and feasibility perceptions into entrepreneurial career intentions due to upward social comparison mechanisms. Thus, perceived PPE acts as a double-edged sword for the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship. Our predictions are tested and confirmed on a sample of 21,895 individuals from 33 countries. This study advances the literature on intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship by providing a foundation for understanding the social psychological conditions necessary for such transmission to occur.     

Unfair credit allocations

This article investigates the impact of credit allocation on heterogeneous wealth entrepreneurs. We show that with decreasing risk aversion and unobservable wealth, poorer borrowers exert more effort. As a consequence of endogenous adverse selection, they are either excluded from the market or necessarily subsidize richer borrowers in a pooling equilibrium resulting in a paradoxical and inequitable redistribution. Alternatively, a less likely separating equilibrium may occur, in which poor types bear the entire weight of separation in the form of excess risk taking.     

Power,Intergroup Conflicts and Social Stratification in the United States: What has the Global Crisis Taught us?

Abstract

Drawing on early sociological analyses of how power and intergroup conflicts can affect the development of modern economies, this paper investigates how the recent Global Crisis (GC) has affected the stratification of the US society. The paper argues that the consumerist society has reinforced the historical stratification of social identities with white men in high-paid, high-social status managerial and financial occupations at the top, and black women in low-paid, low-status service occupations at the bottom. This paper calls for a deconstruction of the neoliberal individual into a unique combination of identities in a stratified capitalist society in order to reveal how social stratification has evolved during the GC. The paper finally concludes on the importance of heterogeneous identities in reflecting the diversity of societal and economic interests in order to address the issues of financial stability and sustainability at the corporate and societal levels.     

Expectations,network effects and timing of technology adoption: some empirical evidence from a sample of SMEs in Italy

We provide evidence on the influence of expectations and network effects on the timing of technological adoption. By considering a sample of SMEs operating in Italy, we focus on the determinants of their decision to adopt Fast Ethernet, a communication standard for Local Area Networks (LANs). We find that both expectations and network effects significantly affect the timing of adoption. In particular, price expectations generally tend to delay adoption and (indirect) network effects in the form of backward compatibility as well as informational spillovers tend to foster adoption. Firm size also matters.