Are Ethical Banks Different? A Comparative Analysis Using the Radical Affinity Index

This article studies the differences between traditional financial intermediaries (commercial banks, savings banks and cooperative banks) and ethical banks based on property rights, in which the owner decides the ideology, principles, standards and objectives of the organisation. In ethical banking, affinity centres on positive social and ethical values. The article consequently focuses on an index proposed both to differentiate ethical banks from other types of banks, and also to pinpoint the differences between the various ethical banks themselves. This is the Radical Affinity Index (RAI), which groups banks together in terms of their stance on ethical commitment, concentrating on ethical ideology and principles (information transparency, placement of assets, guarantees and participation) and using a sample of 114 European banks. The evidence shows that transparency of information and placement of assets are factors that differentiate ethical banks from other financial intermediaries. Guarantees and participation are characteristics specific to ethical banks; these variables, however, do not offer clear evidence to our analysis.     

Understanding the intellectual structure and evolution of Competitive Intelligence: a bibliometric analysis from 1984 to 2017

ABSTRACT

Competitive Intelligence (CI) is a relatively novel discipline that is generating a growing interest in the field of strategic management. Its novelty, approach and origin have meant that the definition of the CI entails different interpretations and utilities depending on the audience. This research develops a conceptual analysis of CI in literature by quantifying the bibliometric performance indicators, identifying the main authors, countries, journals and research areas and evaluating the intellectual structure and evolution of the discipline using SciMAT as bibliometric analysis software. The bibliometric performance analysis is focused on the citation-based impact of the scientific output, while the science mapping illustrates the evolution of the research themes that build the discipline through the use of bibliometric network analysis techniques. To this purpose, the publications related to CI from 1984 to 2017 available at Scopus have been retrieved (5,275 publications). Finally, it offers a framework to support future researches.     

Trade liberalization,tariff redundancy and inflation: A methodological exploration applied to Argentina

Zusammenfassung Handelsliberalisierung, Zollredundanz und Inflation: Eine auf Argentinien angewandte methodologische Untersuchung. — Der Hauptzweck dieser Arbeit besteht darin, einen einfachen Rahmen für die Analyse der Auswirkungen verschiedener Ma\nahmen der Importliberalisierung auf die Wettbewerbsf?higkeit des gewerblichen Sektors zu entwickeln. Im Fall von Argentinien wird gezeigt, da\ das Hauptinstrument zur Beseitigung der Zollredundanz die Wechselkurspolitik der Regierung war. Zollsenkungen waren von zweitrangiger Bedeutung. Die Zollredundanz scheint bis Anfang 1979 beseitigt gewesen zu sein, zu einer Zeit, in der die Beh?rden begannen, diskriminierende Zollsenkungen vorzunehmen. Aus der Redundanzanalyse ergeben sich Hinweise auf das Ausmaβ der m?glichen Abschw?chung der Preissteigerungsrate, die bei langfristiger Konvergenz der in- und ausl?ndischen Preise erwartet werden kann. Konvergenzberechnungen, die auf der Kaufkraftparit?ten-these basieren, k?nnen anscheinend nur dann korrekt verwendet werden, wenn die Preise einzelner Produkte auf den in- und ausl?ndischen M?rkten verglichen werden. Die dargestellten Methoden k?nnen zwar verbessert werden, aber die wichtigsten Folgerungen für die Politik dürften sich bereits aus der durchgefìhrten Analyse klar ergeben.

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Résumé La libéralisation du commerce, l’excédent tarifaire, et l’inflation: une exploration méthodologique appliquée à l’Argentine. — Le but principal de cet article est présenter un cadre simple pour analyser l’impacte des plusieurs mesures de libéralisation d’importation sur la capacité de concurrence potentielle du secteur industriel. Pour l’Argentine, les auteurs démontrent que l’instrument clef pour éliminer l’excédent tarifaire était la politique de taux de change des autorités. Les réductions des tarifs externes étaient moins importantes. Il semble clair que les autorités avaient éliminé l’excédent tarifaire au début de 1979, au moment où ils commen?aient à réduire les tarifs d’une manière discriminatoire. L’analyse de l’excédent indique la mesure possible de la décélération de prix qui peut être attendue sous la condition d’une convergence de prix à long terme. Actuellement il para?t que les calculs de convergence qui basent sur la thèse de PPA peuvent être appliqués correctement seulement si les prix des biens individuels sur les marchés internationaux et locaux sont comparés. En effet la méthodologie présentée ici peut être perfectionnée, mais cette analyse devrait déjà avoir montré les principales implications politiques.

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Resumen Liberalization del comercio, redundancia tarifaria e inflación: una exploration metodológica aplicada a la Argentina. — El propósito principal de este artículo es presentar un marco simple para analizar el impacto de varias medidas de liberalización de importaciones sobre la competitividad potencial del sector industrial. En el caso de Argentina se demuestra que el instrumenta clave al eliminar la redundancia tarifaria fue la política cambiaria de las autoridades. Las reducciones en las tarifas extemas fueron de importancia secundaria. Parece claro que la redundancia tarifaria había sido eliminada ya a principios de 1979, en una época en que las autoridades comenzaron a aplicar reducciones tarifarias discriminatorias. El análisis de redundancia indica el posible monte de desaceleracion de precios que puede esperarse bajo una convergencia de precios de largo plazo. En verdad pareciera que los cálculos de convergencia basados en la tesis PPP pueden ser utilizados correctamente solo cuando se comparan precios de productos individuates en los mercados international y doméstico. La metodología presentada aquí puede ser refinada de varias maneras, pero las principales implicaciones de política deberian quedar claras de acuerdo al análisis precedente.

     

Country Risk,Regulation, and Liquidity Transformation in Palestine and Neighboring Countries

This study analyzes the impact of economic, financial, and political instability on the liquidity transformation of banks operating in unstable environments. Our main goal is to assess the relationship between overall risk in a country and liquidity transformation. With this goal in mind, we use a sample of five Middle Eastern countries during the period 2005–2010. Our results showed that the high-risk environment has a significant and negative impact on both liquidity transformation and the extension of credit. In addition, we conclude that high capital requirements may reduce further lending, while imposing liquidity requirements seems to be a better strategy for enhancing liquidity transformation.     

Barriers to innovation and public policy in Catalonia

The present paper analyses the link between firms’ decisions to innovate and the barriers that prevent them from being innovative. The aim is twofold. First, it analyses three groups of barriers to innovation: the cost of innovation projects, lack of knowledge and market conditions. Second, it presents the main steps taken by Catalan Government to promote the creation of new firms and to reduce barriers to innovation. The data set used is based on the 2004 official innovation survey of Catalonia which was taken from the Spanish CIS4 sample. This sample includes individual information on 2,954 Catalan firms in manufacturing industries and knowledge-intensive services (KIS). The empirical analysis reveals pronounced differences regarding a firm’s propensity to innovate and its perception of barriers. Moreover, the results show that cost and knowledge barriers seem to be the most important and that there are substantial sectoral differences in the way that firms react to barriers. The results of this paper have important implications for the design of future public policy to promote entrepreneurship and innovation together.

Productivity and efficiency with discrete variables and quadratic cost function

We propose an index of productivity based on a quadratic cost function and developed for discrete data including technical and allocative inefficiency, jointly with technical change and returns to scale, as determinants of Total Factor Productivity. This new index is applied to Spanish stevedoring industry so as to identify the sources of change in the productivity of a multiproductive activity, where some companies do not produce some of the outputs. In this context, the functional quadratic form and the productivity index proposed prove particularly useful.     

Extreme events: a study of small oil and gas firms

The oil and gas industry is subject to different types of risks, many of which have the potential to generate extreme results. Classifying extreme events as global, industry specific and firm specific, we use a Bayesian probability model and the Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) model to evaluate the impact of disclosure of extreme events on returns and return volatilities. The results suggest political events have more of a pronounced effect compared to those classified as economic events. The overall effects are more pronounced at the global and firm‐level classifications. At the firm level, extreme economic events have a more significant impact than political extreme events.