Bank Competition with Financing and Savings Substitutes

This paper models the banking competition in loan and deposit markets on two levels. We measure the competition among different banks and among banks and non-bank financing and saving alternatives. We estimate a model of demand, cost, and market equilibrium equations for differentiated products by using data from the confidential reports that Spanish banks provide to the Bank of Spain during the period from 1988 to 2003. This database contains information on the effective interest rates on new loans and deposits, and the expected loan losses obtained from the Spanish Credit Register. The estimated price elasticities show that the products offered by different banks are close substitutes, which puts pressure on the banks’ profits margins. However, the substitutability between bank and non-bank products is much lower than the substitutability among products offered by different banks. The results also show that Spain’s entrance into the Eurozone did not cause a structural change in the demand and cost conditions of Spanish banks. The banks financed most of the imbalances between bank loans and domestic deposits before the crisis through the interbank market.     

The Trade Consequences of Maritime Insecurity: Evidence from Somali Piracy

In the past decade (2000–2010), pirates from Somalia have carried out thousands of attacks on cargo ships sailing through the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, causing what others have identified as significant damage to maritime trade. In this paper, we use variations in the spread and intensity of Somali piracy to estimate its effect on the volume of international trade. By comparing trade volume changes along shipping routes located in pirate waters to those that are not, we estimate that Somali piracy reduced bulk commodities trade passing through the Gulf of Aden by 4.1% per year from 2000 to 2010. We find smaller reductions in total trade, consistent with the fact that not all goods are shipped by sea or are targets of pirate attacks. While our estimates suggest that the trade costs of piracy are much lower than what has been suggested in the existing literature, we find that they remain significant and unevenly distributed, with five countries and the EU shouldering 70% of the total costs.     

Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation in family SMEs: Unveiling the (actual) impact of the Board of Directors

Drawing on stewardship and resource dependence theories, we examine how the board of directors (BoD) influences the link between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and ambidextrous innovation in small and medium sized family firms (family SMEs). Our analysis of 230 Spanish family SMEs shows that family involvement in the BoD has a negative effect on their ability to turn EO into innovation. Moreover, we show that the BoD's strategic involvement in service and control tasks and the provision of knowledge and skills have positive effects, whereas the intensity of BoD activity has a surprisingly negative effect. These findings underscore that the effects of the BoD on the entrepreneurship-innovation link are more complex than previously thought, pointing to the important role of both BoD composition and BoD functioning for enabling innovation in family SMEs.     

How to identify the canaries that might save the organizations: Mapping the most curiosity-oriented in Brazil

This study explores the effectiveness of international instruments for identifying the curious and alerts us to the relative ineffectiveness of foreign instruments to map the curious in Brazil. We used indirect questions to better map the most curious collaborators at Brazilian organizations. We believe our instrument eludes the Brazilian bias for impression management. Our sample covered 384 respondents in Brazil and identified that there are more curious professionals in small and medium-sized enterprises than in large and multinational companies, and that team members are more curious than those in managerial positions. Furthermore, our study reveals that the most curious perceive to be penalized when offering their perceptions regarding weak signals. This study points the need to invest in developing and protecting a more curiosity-oriented staff. In addition to contributing to the literature on curiosity at work, this study provides insights for companies that want to develop their teams to perceive business weak signals.     

The Visible Hand of corporate entrepreneurship in state-owned enterprises: a longitudinal study of the Spanish National Postal Operator

This study explores how the corporate entrepreneurship (CE) of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) evolves under varying conditions of state ownership and control, laws and norms, and competence in the market. For this purpose, we present a longitudinal case study focused on the Spanish postal operator Correos using qualitative archival data and interviews. Our results indicate that the willingness and capacity of an SOE to act entrepreneurially depends critically on its degree of autonomy from the state and on the extent to which its legal and market environments increase its dynamism, complexity, and hostility. We also show that the development of CE in an SOE may lead to improved service quality, operational efficiency, and business specialization; facilitate its market positioning; and foster its sustainability through the exploration and exploitation of strategic alliances that can increase its business scope.

     

Rental prices in Germany: A comparison between migrants and natives

This paper deals with the question of whether migrants pay a rent premium for apartments of comparable quality and neighborhood characteristics. We use a two-step selection-correction model augmented by a control function to account for nonrandom neighborhood choice. The estimation sample is a uniquely assembled panel comprising the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), information on household and apartment characteristics, as well as georeferenced data describing neighborhood quality. Our estimates reveal that people with migration backgrounds are not penalized in the German local rental market in terms of higher rental payments.     

Do global CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel consumption exhibit long memory? a fractional-integration analysis

In this article we use an autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average approach to measure the degree of fractional integration of aggregate world CO₂ emissions and its five components – coal, oil, gas, cement, and gas flaring. We find that all variables are stationary and mean reverting, but exhibit long-term memory. Our results suggest that both coal and oil combustion emissions have the weakest degree of long-range dependence, while emissions from gas and gas flaring have the strongest. With evidence of long memory, we conclude that transitory policy shocks are likely to have long-lasting effects, but not permanent effects. Accordingly, permanent effects on CO₂ emissions require a more permanent policy stance. In this context, if one were to rely only on testing for stationarity and non-stationarity, one would likely conclude in favour of non-stationarity, and therefore that even transitory policy shocks have permanent effects. Our fractional-integration analysis highlights that this is not the case.     

A Note on Family Influence and the Adoption of Discontinuous Technologies in Family Firms

The 4Cs model of command, continuity, community, and connections is useful for examining the effect of family influence on the adoption of discontinuous technologies. However, assuming that family influence differs only in degree rather than kind is naive because such an assumption ignores the likelihood of heterogeneous behaviors among family firms. In this conceptual note, we extend prior work and explain how heterogeneity in the family's relative emphasis on command, continuity, community, and connections requires that the multifaceted and potentially nonlinear nature of family influence be considered when analyzing strategic decisions concerning family firm innovation.