Learning‐by‐Exporting Revisited: The Role of Intensity and Persistence*

Two non‐mutually exclusive hypotheses can explain the empirically established export premium: self‐selection of more productive firms into export markets and learning‐by‐exporting. This paper focuses on how the temporal dimension of firms' exporting activities and the intensity of exports influence the scope of learning effects. Using a panel of Swedish firms and dynamic generalized method of moments estimation, we find a learning effect among persistent exporters with high export intensity, but not among temporary exporters or persistent exporters with low export intensity. For small firms, exports boost productivity among persistent exporters with both high and low export intensity, but the effect is stronger for persistent export‐intensive small firms.     

Can An 'Estimation Factor' Help Explain Cross-Sectional Returns?

Abstract:  We show in a theoretical model that the expected excess return on any asset depends on its covariance not only with the market portfolio, but also with changes in the representative agent's estimate. We test our model using GMM and compare it to the CAPM. The results suggest that adding an 'estimation factor' to the CAPM helps explain cross-sectional returns and that, unconditionally, this estimation factor carries a negative risk premium.     

The Effect of Implicit Moral Attitudes on Managerial Decision-Making: An Implicit Social Cognition Approach

This article concerns itself with the relationship between implicit moral cognitions and decisions in the realm of business ethics. Traditionally, business ethics research emphasized the effects of overt or␣explicit attitudes on ethical decision-making and neglected intuitive or implicit attitudes. Therefore, based on an implicit social cognition approach it is important to␣know whether implicit moral attitudes may have a substantial impact on managerial ethical decision-making processes. To test this thesis, a study with 50 participants was conducted. In this study the participants were asked to work on a deliberative managerial ethical decision-making task, in which they had to decide on one of two options. Implicit moral attitudes towards the two options were measured using the implicit association test (IAT). A semantic differential scale was used to diagnose explicit moral attitudes towards the two options. Each step taken within the deliberative decision-making process, as well the decision itself, was assessed using a scoring model-based decision analysis and a decision-making questionnaire. The results of this study show that implicit moral attitude has a great influence on the deliberative ethical decision-making process. The derived conclusion is that complex and deliberative decision-making processes in the context of business ethics can be affected by implicit social cognitions such as implicit moral attitudes.     

The distributive effects of institutional quality when government stability is endogenous

Redistribution is the strategic response of the incumbent to a decrease in its survival probability resulting from weak institutions and growing income inequalities. The purpose of the paper is to test empirically the validity of this conjecture. System and single equation estimations provide a consistent picture: (i) bad institutions increase income inequality, while more redistribution reduces income inequality; (ii) greater inequality increases the probability of government termination; and (iii) a higher probability of termination increases the extent of redistribution. Overall, there is strong evidence in support of the proposed conjecture.     

Balancing Civil Rights With Safety at Work: Workplace Violence and the ADA

Workplace violence has become an increasingly common occurrence in recent years. During the years 1992–1996, there were over 5,000 job-related homicides in the United States, and in 1996 alone there were 1,364 nonfatal assaults committed by coworkers or former coworkers. Although it would be both inaccurate and inappropriate to suggest that these acts have generally been committed by persons suffering from severe emotional and mental disorders, this is clearly one of the possible explanations. In light of these facts and given the recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's Guidance on the Americans with Disabilities Act and Psychiatric Disabilities, the obligations and prerogatives of employers in terms of hiring and posthiring actions need to be discussed. This paper examines the legal issues, the EEOC's Guidance, and offers specific suggestions for developing an effective hiring process, as well as methods to use when dealing with current employees who pose a threat of violence because of mental and emotional disorders.     

Comparing Ranking and Contingent Valuation for Valuing Human Lives, Applying Nested and Non-Nested Logit Models

The aim of this paper is to investigate whetherrespondents perceive a discrete-choice contingentvaluation (DC-CVM) question differently from a rankingquestion. We combine the two approaches to valuepublic projects that try to prevent people from dyingprematurely. The combined valuation procedure enablesus to investigate the internal consistency of theutility structure between choices, applying nested andnon-nested logit models. If the preference structureis allowed to shift, the relative utility weights ofthe attributes differ between the valuation questions,and the willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimate from thecombined procedure changes.     

Environmental sustainability, nonlinear dynamics and chaos

Summary. This paper studies the possibility of nonlinear dynamics in a simple overlapping generations model with the environment – the John-Pecchenino (1994) model. We show that if people's concerns towards greener preferences and the maintenance efficiency relative to degradation are not sufficiently high, cyclically or chaotically fluctuating equilibria are more likely to exist; moreover, under a specific condition, a complicated topological structure might emerge. Our short-run analysis complements John and Pecchenino's long-run analysis and our findings suggest that the associated transition towards an environmentally sustainable state is not trivial. Received: September 10, 1996; revised version: October 2, 1997     

Convergence of stochastic approximation algorithms under irregular conditions

We consider a class of stochastic approximation (SA) algorithms for solving a system of estimating equations. The standard condition for the convergence of the SA algorithms is that the estimating functions are locally Lipschitz continuous. Here, we show that this condition can be relaxed to the extent that the estimating functions are bounded and continuous almost everywhere. As a consequence, the use of the SA algorithm can be extended to some problems with irregular estimating functions. Our theoretical results are illustrated by solving an estimation problem for exponential power mixture models.     

A Globalized Conflict: European Anti-Jewish Violence during the Second Intifada

The globalization of the Arab–Israeli conflict during the period of the second intifada against Israel (from the autumn 2000 through at least the spring of 2005) has fostered anti-Jewish violence in Europe and throughout the world. With this globalized conflict as a context, this paper explores the effects of four explanatory factors on counts of anti-Jewish violence in 10 European countries. These factors are the relative sizes of a country’s Jewish and Muslim populations; how interpretations of the events in the Middle East mobilize the perpetrators; the unresponsiveness of bystanders; and the ambivalence of ordinary Europeans. Poisson multilevel models of the effects of these social structural and attitudinal variables suggest that all four factors contribute to violence. The violence counts include major attacks like shootings, knifings, bombings, and arson; and major violent incidents like vandalism and physical aggression without the use of a weapon. The views expressed in this paper are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of any organization to which I may be affiliated. I wish to thank Greg Maney and other reviewers of earlier versions of this paper for their helpful comments and Philip Gibbs of the SAS Institute for clarifying aspects of GLIMMIX.     

From ecological footprint to ecological rent: An economic indicator for resource constraints

This paper takes as a starting point a combination of an input-output model with a national Ecological Footprint account for Germany in the spirit of Wiedmann et al. [Wiedmann, T., Minx, J., Barrett, J., Wackernagel, M., 2006. Allocating ecological footprints to final consumption categories with input-output analysis. Ecological Economics. 56, 28-48]. Footprint as well as Biocapacity is dealt with at the industry level. Gross output of each industry and final demand for each industry can then be split up into a share that is reconcilable with Biocapacity and another share that corresponds to the ‘Ecological Deficit’. The Ecological Footprint concept is extended in this study by introducing the additional biocapacity necessary for sustaining the given level of economic activity. It is assumed that each industry had to rent the corresponding areas and to apply a given technology in order to make this additional land biophysically productive. That results in an additional technology for each industry leading to an increase in costs and prices. The new price level is directly linked to the share of output that corresponds to Biocapacity overshooting, which is defined by the ‘Ecological Deficit’. Economic indicators can be derived by measuring the income difference brought about by the price increase. This difference corresponds to a Ricardian rent which is due to resource constraints on output growth.