Spatio-temporal determinants of the structural and productive transformation of regions in Central and East European countries

This paper investigates the determinants of the structural (between-sectoral) and productive (within-sectoral) transformation of 56 NUTS2 regions in Central and East European (CEE) countries over the 2008–2014 period. Over the analysed period, a transformation of the analysed regions has taken place towards the tertiary sector and high value-added activities. The results from a spatial panel Durbin analysis reveal the existence of product-space linkages and point to a productive transformation towards high technology-intensive activities as an important driver of industrial development. Equal access to digital infrastructure in urban and rural areas and transfer of skills, knowledge and resources through the inflow of foreign investment and imports of production inputs increase the contribution of manufacturing to regional employment. The effect of profit tax reductions on the share of manufacturing employment is about five times larger than the effect of government subsidies to production.     

The impact of the stapled security structure on the quality of financial disclosure: Evidence from Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts and Listed Infrastructure Funds

This paper is the first study to explore whether the stapled structure influences firms’ activities in earnings management (EM). Trusts and firms under stapled securities are exposed to various managerial opportunities and activities that can provide the flexibility of using EM approaches. Therefore, the stapled structure is expected to induce increased EM behavior and signal a lower level of financial disclosure quality than the unstapled structure. This empirical research analyzes a panel dataset that contains information of Australian REITs (A-REITs) and Listed Infrastructure Funds (LIFs) from the year of 2000–2017. Evidence shows that stapled A-REITs and LIFs use a greater magnitude of EM approaches than unstapled entities. The results imply that the stapled security structure may signal lower-quality of financial disclosure for firms than the unstapled security structure. This study provides additional insight into the understanding of how the security structure may impact firms’ financial disclosure behavior.     

The effects of tariff increases on supply base complexity: A conceptual framework

Recent protectionist trends around the world have raised interest in newly enforced or increased tariffs and their effects on global supply chains. For firms sourcing globally, tariff introductions or increases significantly affect importing costs, which ultimately affect product costs. Such tariff changes may incentivize firms to adjust their supply base to mitigate these cost increases, thus altering the structure and complexity of firms' supply bases. In this paper, we first characterize the U.S. tariff landscape from 1997 to 2017. We then develop a conceptual model to explain how the severity and timing uncertainty of expected tariff increases influence a firm's speed of adapting to the changing tariff environment. Specifically, we explore firms' propensity to form or delete ties to suppliers, which influences supply base complexity. Moreover, we consider factors that moderate the relationship between severity, timing uncertainty, and supply base complexity, including a tariff's geographical scope, a firm's relative purchase spend, and supply risk. Our conceptual model offers both research and managerial implications.     

To tell the truth or the perceived truth: Structural estimation of peer effects in China’s macroeconomic forecast

This study investigates the strategic interactions among China’s professional macroeconomic forecasters in the context of a static game with incomplete information. Professional forecasters attempt to be more precise than their peers when they are uncertain about others’ ability to forecast, given their own ability to forecast macroeconomy. We then empirically estimate the peer effects using the two-step method proposed by Bajari et al. (2010). The results identify a pronounced peer effect among professional forecasters and specify the asymmetric peer effect exerted by prominent professional forecasters. The results remain valid through several robustness checks. The forecast customers must thus address the peer effects due to competition among professional forecasters when they use forecasting reports.     

Relocation of second degree: Moving towards a new place or returning home?

We study the “Relocations of Second Degree” (RSDs), i.e., the location decisions that modify the country of destination of a previous offshoring investment. Specifically, we distinguish between two types of RSDs, i.e., “Relocation to the Home Country (RHC)”, also known as back-reshoring, and “Relocation to a Third Country (RTC)”, i.e., the choice to move to a second host country.Specifically, we explore how the location advantages underlying the previous offshoring decision affect the probability to undertake an RHC, rather than an RTC. Location advantages reflect the favourable conditions that a foreign country offers with respect to the home one, in terms of market-seeking, asset-seeking and efficiency-seeking (i.e., cost-saving and productivity-enhancing) opportunities. Using data from the European Restructuring Monitor, we focus on the RSDs regarding manufacturing activities, implemented across European countries between 2002 and 2015. We find that, on the one hand, when a previous offshoring investment is driven by market-seeking location advantage, firms undertaking the RSD are more likely to opt for an RHC, except during the economic crisis where market-seeking European firms seem to prefer RTCs. On the other hand, RTC is a preferred choice when the location advantage is of efficiency-seeking type. In addition to offering a broader characterization of RSDs, our study provides empirical evidence of the relationship between the offshoring and relocation decisions. Managers should be aware of this connection when designing their manufacturing internationalization strategies.     

The IB/ IHRM interface: Exploring the potential of intersectional theorizing

Although the core concepts underlying IB and IHRM provide a common lexicon and epistemology, this commonality is often more implicit than explicit. We highlight not only the common ground but also the lack of critical dialogue between the two fields. This paper asks: What can each field learn from the other? What do scholars from IB learn from IHRM and vice versa? We identify a possible agenda and concerns regarding theory building as a basis for dialogue between the two fields.     

Remaining focus increases task evaluation and future task perseverance

Across six studies, the present research explores the effect of task progress focus—that is, attending to the distance of one's present state from either the beginning of a task (i.e., accumulated focus) or the end of it (i.e., remaining focus)—on task evaluation and subsequently on future task perseverance (i.e., willingness to perform the task again upon finishing it). The results show that relative to accumulated focus, remaining focus increases people's feelings of productivity on the task, which increases their task evaluation and subsequently their perseverance intentions toward the task. Moreover, we find that remaining (vs. accumulated) focus increases task evaluation regardless of whether people are in the early stage of the task or near the end. However, it decreases people's motivation to complete the task in the former stage but increases their motivation in the latter stage. Alternative interpretations in terms of task duration, self-efficacy beliefs, and task quantity are evaluated and ruled out.     

Terrain ruggedness and limits of political repression: Evidence from China’s Great Leap Forward and Famine (1959-61)

Chairman Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward development plan strongly affected food security in rural China at the time, given that many of the associated policies exploited rural labor and extracted resources. A few months after the plan’s initial implementation in August 1958, food shortages were reported; by the spring of 1961, more than 30 million citizens had died of starvation and famine-related illnesses. However, as the national plan was rolled out and then upheld over three years, on-the-ground implementation was nonuniform. Using georeferenced terrain ruggedness data which captures small-scale topological irregularities and information on provincial leadership attitudes towards Mao’s plan, I provide evidence on forces underlying the famine’s intensity and distribution. The analysis is based on a differential effect, in which a fear-based incentive structure characterizing the plan’s implementation is implicitly embedded. The baseline results indicate that rugged terrain protected more than 4.6 million rural Chinese from dying in the famine. By identifying an additional benefit of ruggedness to health and well-being in some rural communities, I show that not only does a causal relationship exist at a local level between Great Leap policies and famine mortality, but also that the lethality of the policies varied per state power at the time.     

A model of product compatibility introduction with consumer recognition

Firms recognizing consumers often use behavior-based pricing (BBP), i.e., condition prices on purchase history. Prior research studies the framework with independent product offerings and shows that BBP leads to poaching and decreases each firm's profits. In this paper, we investigate the efficacy of BBP in a two-period duopoly where firms provide compatible product categories and endogenously determine the levels of cross-compatibility. We first revisit the impact of behavior-based pricing in the traditional framework with independent offerings and verify the competition-increasing effect of BBP. We then examine how the impact of BBP differs when firms introduce product compatibility. Interestingly, we find that firms can benefit from BBP when firms introduce product compatibility. More specifically, when the value consumers obtain from perfect compatibility is moderate, implementing BBP is more profitable than without consumer recognition. The intuition is that when the value of perfect compatibility is medium, consumers do not expect good switching deals in the second period and firms can charge higher prices in the first period. Our findings not only complement the BBP literature but also shed light on the firms' strategic decisions on product compatibility.