Disruptive framing in value creation and price setting: Transforming value with strategic frames of reference

Framing in business is frequently found in the digital economy with dramatic and innovative new products and disruptive value propositions. However, framing in business is not an exclusively digital economic strategy. Creating or revising frames of reference, value propositions, and pricing based on either new or newly framed offerings is a basic strategy skill that brings new differential value creation to customers and new price-setting models to firms. In this article, I define framing and explain its influence on managerial cognition as well as its application to value-based marketing and price setting. Using economic value theory and behavioral economics, I propose steps managers and decision makers can take in an effort to achieve framing innovation as a way to leverage the disruptive competitive advantages that flow from strategic frames of reference in the marketplace.     

Broadband׳s contribution to economic growth in rural areas: Moving towards a causal relationship

This paper uses recent data on both broadband availability and adoption to empirically gauge the contribution of broadband to the economic growth of rural areas of the United States over the past decade. Availability data from the National Broadband Map aggregated to county level is used in conjunction with county-level adoption data from Federal Communication Commission. Economic variables of interest include median household income, number of firms with paid employees, total employed, percentage in poverty, and the percentage of employees classified as either creative class or non-farm proprietors. A propensity score matching technique (between a “treated” group associated with various broadband thresholds and a control group) is used to make preliminary causal statements regarding broadband and economic health. Growth rates between 2001 and 2010 for different economic measures are tested for statistical differences between the treated and non-treated groups, restricting the analysis to non-metropolitan counties. Results suggest that high levels of broadband adoption in rural areas positively (and potentially causally) impacted income growth between 2001 and 2010, and negatively influenced unemployment growth. Similarly, low levels of broadband adoption in rural areas lead to declines in the number of firms and total employment numbers in the county. Broadband availability measures (as opposed to adoption) demonstrate only limited impacts, suggesting that future broadband policies should be more demand-oriented.     

Identifying and addressing land governance constraints to support intensification and land market operation: Evidence from 10 African countries

Beyond concerns about agricultural productivity growth, issues of land governance have attracted global interest as demand for land acquisition by outsiders has increased rapidly but most of the transfers failed to live up to expectations and instead disrupted local livelihoods. We use the land governance assessment framework to identify key conceptual issues and identify how land governance in 10 African countries compares to global good practice. Results point towards weak protection of rights in practice, large gaps in female land access, and limited outreach and effectiveness of institutions to record rights and adjudicate disputes. We note that programs to improve performance along these lines had significant impact in other contexts, suggesting that efforts to improve land governance will be warranted and should be closely monitored and evaluated in an effort to identify models suited to African conditions and assess their impact and interaction with other factor markets.     

The effect of within-country inequality on international trade and investment agreements

There is anecdotal evidence suggesting that those losing from globalization influence policy makers to decrease the openness of their countries to globalization, as evidenced by signing international trade and investment agreements. Surprisingly, this influence has never been examined empirically. This study provides novel empirical evidence demonstrating that greater within-country inequality, our proxy for 'perceived losses' from globalization, decreases countries' propensity to sign regional trade and investment agreements. Our findings support the argument that the existence of 'losers' from globalization can be detrimental for continued globalization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first extensive econometric empirical evidence of the influence of within-country inequality on countries' willingness to sign international trade and investment agreements, as means to increase their global economic integration.     

金融资源配置、技术进步与经济高质量发展

随着我国发展阶段及内外部条件的变化,科技创新已成为新时代引领我国经济高质量发展的核心驱动力。本文以金融驱动技术进步的视角,构建内生增长DSGE模型,分析金融资源配置、技术进步和经济增长之间的关系。研究佐证了我国技术创新的逆周期性,并发现金融资源在企业生产性投资与创新投资之间的分配,可以通过改变生产要素投入规模和技术进步率两种途径影响经济增长,且这两种影响之间存在“跷跷板”关系,但后者更具主导性。在此基础上,诠释了金融、技术与经济的动态传导机制:经济扩张期,企业生产规模扩张,金融资源对生产性投资的支持增加,对创新的投入相对减少,技术进步率放缓;经济收缩期,企业缩减生产规模,金融资源对生产性投资的支持减少,对创新的投入相对增加,技术进步率提升。本研究的政策启示为,面对当前发展新矛盾、新挑战,应把握发展新格局、新机遇,进一步深化金融改革,优化金融资源配置机制,鼓励创新投资,充分发挥股权市场对企业研发创新的支持作用,并辅以稳健适度的宏观调控政策,为企业创新提供良性的宏观环境,激活企业创新需求,促进技术进步,推动经济高质量发展。     

Economic policy uncertainty and analysts’ forecast characteristics

We examine the influence of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the characteristics of analysts’ earnings forecasts over a thirty-year period, spanning a wide variety of political and economic conditions. Motivated by both theory and empirical evidence that suggest a decline in the quality of the information environment for firms as EPU increases, we establish that analysts’ forecast errors increase with EPU, as does the degree of forecast dispersion. Increased error and dispersion persist after controlling for several competing sources of economy-wide uncertainty. Cross sectional analysis exploring heterogeneity in forecast quality across both analyst and firm characteristics establishes that forecast error and dispersion increase with EPU across a broad spectrum of firms and levels of analyst expertise. We control for analysts’ experience overall and the years spent covering a particular industry and firm. Five alternative methods for classifying firms as policy sensitive versus policy neutral provide consistent evidence that analyst forecast errors and dispersion increase with EPU, even for firms not deemed to be particularly sensitive to policy.     

环境规制科技政策对科技进步与经济增长的影响

基于事件系统理论构建系统性、多层次性和综合性的政策量化分析框架，从政策属性、政策目标和政策工具3个维度对我国1985—2015年制定的198条环境规制科技政策进行量化研究。基于政策评估中的工具理性和价值理性两个层面，从环保科技进步效果和经济增长效应两个维度对环境规制科技政策有效性进行评估。研究发现，我国环境规制科技政策工具及政策工具协同对环保科技进步和经济增长的影响存在显著方向性差异。为此，进一步讨论了我国环境规制科技政策工具及工具协同的政策有效性评估结果，可为我国环境规制科技政策的完善和有效实施提供决策依据。     

Insolvency regimes and firms' default risk under economic uncertainty and shocks

One of the arguments often advanced for implementing a stronger insolvency and bankruptcy framework is that it enhances credit discipline among firms. Using a large cross-country firm-level dataset, we empirically test whether a stronger insolvency regime reduces firms' likelihood of defaulting on their debt. In particular, we examine whether it reduces default risk during increased economic uncertainty and various external shocks. Our results confirm that a stronger insolvency regime moderates the adverse effects of economic shocks on firms' default risk. The effects are more pronounced for firms in the top half of the size distribution. We also explore channels through which improved creditor rights influence firms' default risk, including dependence on external finance, corporate leverage, and managerial ethics. Our main results are robust to an alternative measure of default risk, inclusion of currency and sovereign debt crisis episodes, and alternative estimations.     

High accruals momentum

We examine the information content of high accruals momentum defined as a string of high discretionary accruals for four consecutive years. We find that firms that consistently report high levels of discretionary accruals experience low subsequent returns. The results are robust after we control for annual levels of discretionary accruals for the estimation period of high accruals momentum. Furthermore, the predictive power of the high accruals momentum for future returns is strongly persistent even after the existing accruals anomaly disappears. Our results also show that the high accruals momentum impact is more pronounced for low growth firms, suggesting that the overpricing of stocks with high accruals momentum is driven by managerial discretion to manage earnings.     

Residential mobility and the local context: Comparing long-term and short-term spatial trends of population movements in Greece

Residential mobility is a key dimension of population dynamics shaping urban growth and rural development at different spatio-temporal scales. Assuming spatial mobility as increasingly dependent on the intrinsic characteristics of local contexts, the present study investigates long-term and short-term population movements in a European country (Greece), in light of regional urbanization processes and socioeconomic development. A multidimensional analysis of indicators of residential stability and background variables was carried out with the aim at evaluating the influence of local contexts on more general processes of population mobility. Different typologies of spatial mobility associated to factors (directly or indirectly) dependent on demographic dynamics, economic performances and urban cycles were identified. The empirical findings of this study evidence (more or less traditional) paths of internal migration and a latent process of population relocation across metropolitan regions, together with more recent international migrations at both working and retirement age. While short-range population movements were the ultimate result of late suburbanization in Greece, medium- and broad-range mobility consolidated the country's divide in urban and rural areas, evidencing the attractive role of Athens. Spatial direction and intensity of population movements reflect complex socioeconomic transformations, whose knowledge provides innovative visions for a better understanding of future demographic dynamics in Mediterranean Europe.