Export Sophistication: A Dynamic Panel Data Approach

In this article, we analyze export sophistication based on a large panel dataset (2001–2015; 101 countries) and using various estimation algorithms. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we evaluate the bias properties of estimators and show that GMM-type estimators outperform instrumental-variable and fixed-effects estimators. Based on our analysis we document that GDP per capita and the size of the economy exhibit significant and positive effects on export sophistication; weak institutional quality exhibits negative effect. We also show that export sophistication is path-dependent and stable even during a major economic crisis, which is especially important for emerging and developing economies.     

The Role of Total Factor Productivity Growth in Middle-Income Countries

We examine the importance of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in middle-income countries (MICs) based on cross-country panel data for the period of 1975–2014. We find that TFP growth contributed significantly to a country’s upward transition from middle-income to high-income country group. The TFP growth model reveals that the catch-up effect, human capital, smaller population, weak currency, and research and development growth are significant sources of TFP growth. We do not find a systematic difference in the TFP growth models for MICs. In analyzing the role of factors influencing TFP growth at different income stages, strengthening innovative activities and building innovative capacities are important in overcoming the challenges that MICs face when transitioning to the high-income group. Governments of upper MICs need to initiate reform to motivate innovation by optimizing national R&D systems, and redesigning the educational system to target promoting innovation.     

中国经济波动的产出和通胀效应 ——基于供求冲击相关的SVAR模型分析

本文结合产出缺口-通胀形式的菲利普斯曲线（AS曲线）,构建了产出缺口和通 胀率的SVAR模型,并将识别结果同B-Q约束条件下的识别结果进行比较,以此来探究我国近 三十多年来宏观经济系统中需求冲击和供给冲击对产出和通胀动态的效应。主要得出以下结 论：第一,供求冲击之间高度相关;第二,需求冲击是我国通胀波动的决定性因素,并且存在 持久稳定的效应。第三,供给冲击是我国经济增长的绝对主导力量。第四,我国存在相对陡峭 的菲利普斯曲线（AS曲线）。第五,产出缺口与同比CPI对我国经济状况的拟合效果最好。     

“丝路经济带”九省市经济金融竞争力评价

深入剖析丝绸之路沿线国内段九省市的综合发展实力,探索不同发展战略定位下省 区市竞合协同发展路径,对全面发展丝绸之路经济带具有重要意义。本文从经济发展竞争力、 环境设施与可持续发展竞争力、科技创新与财富竞争力、金融发展竞争力、对外开放竞争力五 个维度建立指标评价体系,运用分类主成分分析法全面衡量九个省市经济金融发展的分项和综 合竞争力,将九省市分为三个发展梯度,形成资源聚集与要素流动的直观剖析。在此基础上,利 用聚类分析法得出丝绸之路经济带区域经济关联的着力点与经济发展的增长极,并最终得出处 于不同梯度省区市间开展基于优势竞争力的产业间合作的三大有效路径。     

Optimizing the credit term decisions in supply chain finance

We study a credit term determination problem in the context of a supplier-buyer supply chain. The supplier's credit term decision is simultaneously made with its production and inventory decisions, and most importantly, it is impacted by the buyer's order quantity. We present a new game-theoretic framework to model this problem, which captures the interaction between the supplier's credit term decision and the buyer's order decision in a multi-period setting. An exact method based on nonlinear programming is implemented to obtain the optimal solutions. We apply our methodologies on a real world case. The computational results show that our approach significantly outperforms the heuristics with fixed credit terms, and either a short or a long credit term can be sub-optimal for the supplier in profitability. Our work offers the first data-driven model and solution approach that assists purchasing and supply managers to make optimal dynamic credit term decision in conjunction with production, ordering and inventory decisions in a game-theoretic setting.     

Do monetary subjective well-being evaluations vary across space? Comparing continuous and discrete spatial heterogeneity

Using subjective well-being estimations, this study analyzes whether compensating variations vary across space using a cross-sectional data set from Chile. To achieve this goal, it describes and compares two econometric ways of modelling unobserved spatial heterogeneity. Both approaches allow compensating variations to vary across spatial units by assuming some distribution a priori. One method assumes that the spatial heterogeneity can be represented by a discrete distribution (a group of regions that share the same coefficient) and the other that the preferences can be represented by a continuous distribution (each region has a different coefficient). The results show that focusing just on the average estimates of compensating variations, as the applied studies have done so far, masks useful local variation. More empirical studies are needed to assess the advantages and disadvantages of both econometric approaches and how their results compare across a wide range of conditions and samples.     

Can employee ownership and human resource management policies clash in worker cooperatives? Lessons from a defunct cooperative

The article analyzes the interaction between employee ownership, HRM policies and practices, and HRM outcomes in what was the world's biggest industrial worker cooperative for decades, and now defunct, Fagor Electrodomésticos. Using longitudinal internal data and detailed interviews with key stakeholders, this paper sheds light on how employee ownership conditioned HRM policies. HRM outcomes—such as job satisfaction and absenteeism—are also analyzed over a long period of time. Chronic nepotism when recruiting new members, failures in the training policy, impoverished and Taylorist working systems, and reverse dominance hierarchies are analyzed as factors that increased free riding and caused low satisfaction and the disengagement of working members. This case study contributes to the literature on HRM and worker cooperatives as it provides some insights that are rarely found in that literature. It also provides guidance to worker cooperatives about increasing the fit between employee ownership and HRM policies and outcomes.     

Examining the relationship between strategic HRM and hospital employees’ work attitudes: an analysis across occupational groups in public and private hospitals

Abstract

As human resource challenges have increased, strategic human resource management (SHRM) in hospitals has evolved into an important management task. Accompanying its growing relevance, there is an evolving research stream on the impact of SHRM on organizational and individual-level outcomes in the hospital context. We aim to address two remaining research gaps by investigating variations in the use of SHRM across organizations (public vs. private ownership types) and differences in the relationship between SHRM and employee attitudes within organizations (for the occupational groups of nurses and physicians). This study is based on a sample of 179 German acute care hospitals. We employ ANOVA and logistic regression analyses, and our results corroborate previous research findings showing that SHRM has positive effects on employee attitudes. However, the effects vary in significance and magnitude, depending on whether nurses or physicians are targets. Further, we reveal significant SHRM differences in public- vs. private-sector organizations.     

Good geography,good institutions? Historical evidence from nineteenth-century British colonies

This paper uses a historical natural experiment – the opening of the Suez Canal – to investigate the relationship between geography and the formation of institutions. While the conventional view is that good geography (commodity endowment) inevitably favours the creation of extractive institutions, we discover that a second aspect of geography – location – may in fact encourage the establishment of non-extractive institutions when rent extraction by elites depends on the productivity of non-elites. Specifically, we find that entrepôt colonies (Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements) received larger public investments in the post-Suez period than resource colonies (British India, Ceylon, and West Africa), after accounting for year effects and permanent differences across colonies. We demonstrate, using supplementary data, that the entrepôt colonies' locational advantage, coupled with their lack of extractable resources, plays a key role in explaining our empirical findings.