Cooperative conversion and communalization: Closely observed interactions between the material and the mental

Various authors, including Elinor Ostrom, have shown that the legal form of a cooperative has many of the characteristics of a Common. Here we focus on cooperative conversion, through which conventional enterprises become labor‐managed firms (LMFs), viewing it dynamically as a communalization process. These processes are addressed in the light of a field survey carried out in France, looking at six firms involved in cooperative conversion. The changes entailed are two‐dimensional, both material and mental. This is visible, for example, when finding the capital to mount an LMF: members of the workforce must draw on their own funds; they must also believe in the project. Through our empirical observations we highlight the obstacles in the way of forming an LMF. In particular participants must undertake a work of negotiation hinging on stakes marked by the two, largely inseparable dimensions. Ultimately we query the ethic brought into play in the collective action of constituting a Common. Specifically, individuals must contribute to a collective action underpinned by principles of self‐governance, or commoning, the rock on which the Common rests. A key finding of our study is to demonstrate that a Common can only be successfully created if the constituent processes are consistent with the overall goal. In other words the manner in which we travel is inseparable from our final destination; otherwise we shall surely lose our way.     

Social capital and well-being in the Italian provinces

Recent years witnessed a growing interest in the concept of well-being and quality of life, as alternative to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The determinants of well-being, especially at the regional and provincial levels, is understudied in a macro perspective, as opposed to a micro perspective (individuals, survey data) that has been the dominant approach until recently. In this paper, we estimate an empirical model for the Italian NUTS-3 provinces to evaluate the role of social capital on well-being by using aggregated (provincial) data. Our findings suggest that social capital, social security programs, income, and grant-making activities by Bank Foundations, even though not uniformly distributed across Italy, positively affect well-being, thus contributing to explain the persistent dualism that characterizes the Italian economy.     

Token entrepreneurs: a review of gender,capital, and context in technology entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT

This article reviews the literature on gender and entrepreneurship in technology to explore individual and contextual factors maintaining the token status of women in this field. It examines how the intersection of gender and context influences participation rates in entrepreneurship, and suggests that the deeply embedded cultural and cognitive associations that frame both technology and entrepreneurship as masculine concepts create barriers for women when these contexts overlap. It offers a framework for research and practice that aids in the analysis of complex multi-level barriers that control access to the forms of capital necessary for initial and continued participation in technology entrepreneurship. Given calls for women to participate more fully in high-growth technology ventures, it highlights the need for research to incorporate broader analytical perspectives that simultaneously examine both the barriers faced by women in these contexts and the factors that systemically sustain them.     

Alternative balanced scorecards built from paradigm models in strategic HRM and employment/industrial relations and used to measure the state of employment relations and HR system performance across U.S. workplaces

This paper constructs alternative balanced scorecards based on high‐performance work system (HPWS) and employment relations system (ERS) models. The models are depicted and compared in diagrams and used as framework skeletons for building separate HPWS and ERS scorecards, intended to provide a detailed data picture of the operational health and performance of an organization's employment/HR system and its operations, processes, and inputs/outputs. The scorecards are filled in with nationally representative data from 2,000+ U.S. workplaces using more than 50 employment/HR indicators, as reported by separate panels of managers and employees. The indicators for each workplace are aggregated into an overall HR/employment system score, ranked from low‐to‐high, and graphed as frequency distributions. These distributions provide a unique snapshot picture of the mean and dispersion of the state of employment relations and HR system performance for companies across the United State. They also reveal that “models matter” since the HPWS and ERS scorecards provide distinctly different evaluation assessments.     

Testing the asymmetric effects of exchange rate pass‐through in BRICS countries: Does the state of the economy matter?

This paper investigates not only the question of whether there is exchange rate pass‐through (ERPT) but also the extent to which the pass‐through is asymmetric or state‐dependent in the BRICS countries. Using monthly data from 1999:M1 to 2019:M12 and non‐linear smooth transition vector autoregressive (STVAR) model, our results provide evidence of period‐specific ERPT between the upper and lower regime periods, governed by the selected transition variables. The results further suggest that the pass‐through of exchange rate is higher when the economy is experiencing large appreciations and expansions as well as large depreciations and recessions. Theimplication for these findings is that ERPT is strongly affected by the state of the economy.     

Macroeconomic consequences of state fragility in sub‐Saharan Africa

Are poor macroeconomic outcomes primarily the result of economic policies, or of deeper underlying state fragility problems in sub‐Saharan Africa? We attempt to answer this question by using carefully specified dynamic panel regression techniques to show how state fragility conditions help to explain the differences in the macroeconomic performance of sub‐Saharan African economies, and to identify the most plausible mechanisms of transmission. We find that countries with greater fragility suffer higher macroeconomic volatility and crisis; they also experience weaker growth. When we disaggregate state fragility into its various components, we find that it is the security and social components that have the strongest causal impact on macroeconomic outcomes, while the political component is, at best, weak. Therefore, we conclude that it is state fragility conditions, and not necessarily macroeconomic policies, that are of first‐order importance in explaining the differences in macroeconomic performance for African countries. The knock‐on effects are mostly mediated through the fiscal channel, the aid channel, and the finance channel. Accordingly, we recommend that interventions in fragile states should best focus on exploiting the potential for using fiscal policy, aid, and finance as instruments to improve macroeconomic outcomes in sub‐Saharan Africa.     

MODELING SOVEREIGN RISKS: FROM A HYBRID MODEL TO THE GENERALIZED DENSITY APPROACH

Motivated by the European sovereign debt crisis, we propose a hybrid sovereign default model that combines an accessible part taking into account the evolution of the sovereign solvency and the impact of critical political events, and a totally inaccessible part for the idiosyncratic credit risk. We obtain closed‐form formulas for the probability that the default occurs at critical political dates in a Markovian setting. Moreover, we introduce a generalized density framework for the hybrid default time and deduce the compensator process of default. Finally, we apply the hybrid model and the generalized density to the valuation of sovereign bonds and explain the significant jumps in long‐term government bond yields during the sovereign crisis.     

A Statistical Model to Investigate the Reproducibility Rate Based on Replication Experiments

The reproducibility crisis, that is, the fact that many scientific results are difficult to replicate, pointing to their unreliability or falsehood, is a hot topic in the recent scientific literature, and statistical methodologies, testing procedures and p‐values, in particular, are at the centre of the debate. Assessment of the extent of the problem–the reproducibility rate or the false discovery rate–and the role of contributing factors are still an open problem. Replication experiments, that is, systematic replications of existing results, may offer relevant information on these issues. We propose a statistical model to deal with such information, in particular to estimate the reproducibility rate and the effect of some study characteristics on its reliability. We analyse data from a recent replication experiment in psychology finding a reproducibility rate broadly coherent with other assessments from the same experiment. Our results also confirm the expected role of some contributing factor (unexpectedness of the result and room for bias) while they suggest that the similarity between original study and the replica is not so relevant, thus mitigating some criticism directed to replication experiments.     

Personal Income Tax Reform in China in 2018 and Its Impact on Income Distribution

In the context of personal income tax (PIT) reform in China in 2018, this paper examines some of the major issues of concern regarding the reform and income distribution. Using the China Personal Income Tax Micro‐simulation model, the paper compares the differences between the 2011 and 2018 PIT systems, and finds that residents relying on different income sources may face a large degree of real tax rate change. Once the tax system is altered to PIT 2018, the coverage of PIT for wage earners will decrease from 46.9 to 23.4 percent, the income redistributive effect will drop from 1.95 to 1.22 percent and the PIT's role in fiscal revenue will also be negatively affected. Nevertheless, if individual income continues to grow, the share of PIT in fiscal revenue is expected to return to the 2018 level in 2022, but its income redistribution function is difficult to recover in the short term. The paper finds that the effect of PIT on income distribution depends on the tax structure. Gradual transition to an “entirely comprehensive” tax system when conditions are appropriate will achieve better income redistribution results at a lower average tax rate.     

Does studying abroad enhance employability?

Over 200,000 European students study abroad under the Erasmus programme. It appears that studying abroad may impart skills which are helpful for professional careers after graduation. Approximately, 54% of European students report that participation in the Erasmus exchange programme helped them to obtain a first job; however, interestingly, those from Central and Eastern European countries report it much more often—in 73% of cases. The aim of this paper is to find out whether studying abroad enhances the employability of higher education graduates in Poland. Using the propensity score matching method and data from a nationwide tracer survey of Polish graduates, we find that Polish students who completed at least one semester of their studies abroad do not benefit in terms of a higher employment rate after graduation.