An empirical note about estimation and forecasting Latin American Forex returns volatility: the role of long memory and random level shifts components

Portuguese Economic Journal - A set of RLS-type models with ARMA and ARFIMA dynamics is estimated and compared in a forecasting exercise with ARFIMA, GARCH and FIGARCH models. It is an extension of...     

Coordination in a skeptical two-group population

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - This paper explores a situation in which a population split into two groups attempts to achieve the socially efficient outcome of a coordination...     

Family firm’s management composition: the role played by family members’ age in TMT and supervisor levels

Quality & Quantity - Family firms (FFs) are the backbone of entrepreneurial fabric in many countries. Management of such businesses is complex because of their features: the overlap between...     

Social capital effects on the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities

Social capital refers to social networks and the norms of reciprocity, cooperation and trust associated with them. It can be studied at different levels of analysis. As previous literature suggests, social capital has aspects at both the individual and collective levels. However, theory development and empirical research have focused on separate, sometimes diverging levels. In an attempt to address this, this research examines the simultaneous influence of individual and regional social capital on the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities using individual-level data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor linked with regional-level data on social capital. The results show that individuals from regions with higher social capital are more likely to discover and to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. Moreover, individuals having networks with other entrepreneurs are also more likely to identify a business opportunity and to become an entrepreneur. Also, we found that social capital at individual level had a greater effect than social capital at regional level in the two stages of the entrepreneurial process.     

Influence of Ecuadorian Homosexual Subculture in Consumption Culture: Study about Information Consumption on Twitter

Abstract

This qualitative research examines the Ecuadorian homosexual subculture and determines how gender, images, texts, and objects are referred to consumption culture. The netnography method was used to collect data from Twitter conversations. Categorization and classification of the conversations showed how the information was created, the purpose of the message, and the target audience. Results reveal common subjects in relation to news, human rights, and gender equality. Subjects were conceptualized based on the consumption of information in social, cultural, and political environments. It was concluded that images, texts, and objects included in the conversations provide significant information about the homosexual subculture consumption behavior.     

Back to the future. Is industry 4.0 a new tecno-organizational paradigm? Implications for Latin American countries

ABSTRACT

The objective of this article is to establish a dialogue between the recent ‘Industry 4.0’ (I4.0) literature and evolutionary neo-Schumpeterean studies about techno-organizational paradigms. In that direction, we wonder whether I4.0 constitutes a new paradigm, as it is assumed by the first group of literature, or it represents – until the moment – an intensification of key features of the information and communication technology (ICT) paradigm, following the second group of studies. Some questions are raised about the implications of I4.0 for developing countries (DEC), afterwards. Specifically, we reflect on the possibilities of these countries to identify and take advantage of new windows of opportunity, opened by the development and diffusion of these technologies. In this regard, the review of recent Latin American experience raises strong concerns regarding I4.0 as a new source of intra- and international heterogeneity, linked to the severe difficulties these countries have in appropriating these technologies in the form of productivity gains and quasi-rents. It seems that this is partially derived from weak technological, organizational, and connectivity capabilities paths of accumulation between institutions and actors.     

Merger policy in innovative industries

We analyze optimal merger policy in R&D-intensive industries with product innovation aiming to improve the quality of products. Our results suggest that a permissive merger policy is rarely optimal in high-tech industries when the antitrust authority considers a welfare standard that balances the impact of mergers on consumers’ surplus and firms’ profits. In particular, relative to a benchmark where the effects from R&D are absent, we show that the optimal merger policy should not be substantially more permissive in the presence of those effects from R&D.     

Effects of hiring former employees of multinationals in the absorptive capacity of local firms

The attraction of foreign direct investment seeks, among other things, to increase the productivity of local companies through knowledge spillovers. However, the empirical evidence in this regard is contradictory. One influential factor is the absorptive capacity of the local companies. This article analyzes the effect of the presence of former employees of multinational corporations as employees of local companies, on the absorptive capacity of said companies. The study was done in Costa Rica, a country known for its successful strategy in the subject matter. The data come from a survey applied to 1167 companies by the Observatorio Costarricense de las Pymes in 2011. It was found that the hiring of former employees of multinational corporations by local companies has a positive effect on the index of absorptive capacity of companies in all productive sectors. Specifically, this hiring of former employees increases the index of absorptive capacity by nine percentage points, with differences by sector and the size of the company.     

International automotive production networks: how the web comes together

This paper aims to provide empirical evidence for the connections between new trade theory and the spatial distribution of economic activities, considering the results obtained by the literature on New Economic Geography as a starting point. To do this, we apply Social Network Analysis specifically to the World Automotive Trade Network. We explore the structural features of the auto network for the years 1996 and 2009 using data on trade flows for 172 countries. Our findings suggest that the auto network has become denser, more extensive and more integrated over time, depicting a center-periphery structure in which regional clusters play a prominent role. In this configuration, strong agglomeration forces generated by companies’ desire for large and rich market access with minimum transportation costs are balanced by the search for new high-potential markets.     

Identifying micro-destinations and providing statistical information: a pilot study in the Canary Islands

Municipalities and regions are often used as an object of tourism analysis at the subnational level. This occurs because administrative borders are used to implement tourism policies and collect statistical information. However, administrative boundaries may not always be suitable for studying tourism destinations at a local level. Sometimes, particularly in high-density tourism destinations, several differentiated tourism areas occupy a single municipality; tourism areas may, and often do, extend beyond municipal boundaries and tourism destinations may not occupy the whole of the municipal area. As such, a new level of analysis is often required: the micro-destination. There are few tourism concepts as imprecise as that of the destination. Therefore, the process of identifying and establishing the boundaries of a micro-destination is by no means a straightforward one. This paper presents six criteria for establishing the boundaries of this type of tourism area. Of these six, the two primary criteria used are: the concentration of tourism establishments; and tourism typologies and supply characteristics. These criteria have been applied as part of a pilot study in the Canary Islands. Statistical information for nine micro-destinations is generated using the geolocation of tourism establishments together with information obtained from both supply-side and demand-side surveys.