Evolution of the practices of human resource management in France towards a strategic model: rhetoric or reality?

This article analyses the evolution of the human resources management in France. The study attempts to understand the transformation of administrative practices of HRM towards strategic practices of HRM (SHRM) in the French context. It also shows the factors responsible for this change. The results of this study support the development in France of SHRM and the regression of administrative practices of HRM, although a third hybrid model of HRM seems to appear between both practices. This tendency towards SHRM is accentuated in large firms, quoted on the stock exchange, in services and finance sectors with international activities. This study confirms that the SHRM in France is reality rather than rhetoric.     

Wichtige betriebswirtschaftliche Fachkonferenzen

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Mobile Termination: What is the “Right” Charge?*

The regulation of fixed-to-mobile (F2M) termination charges has become increasingly important in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand under the Calling Party Pays principle. In the absence of any regulation, mobile operators have an incentive to set F2M termination charges “too high”. We show that the setting of the optimal F2M termination charges depends on the significance of network externalities, the intensity of competition in the mobile sector, and the distribution of customer preferences. We also discuss the merits of possible remedies which are not very intrusive. Tommaso Valletti has advised the European Commission and the UK regulator (OFCOM) on mobile termination and Frontier Economics has acted as advisor to a number of mobile operators on the same issue. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone. We thank Carlo Cambini, Yulia Kossykh, participants to the 15th Biennial International Telecommunications Society Conference, the 3rd International Conference on Applied Infrastructure Research in Berlin, for their comments. We also thank the editor Michael Crew and two anonymous referees for many suggestions that have greatly improved the paper.     

Asset pricing models with errors-in-variables

This paper revisits Fama and French [Fama, Eugene F., French, Kenneth R., (1993) Common risk factors in the returns on stock and bonds. Journal of Financial Economics 33 (1), 3–56] and Carhart [Carhart, Mark M., 1997. On persistence in mutual fund performance. Journal of Finance 52 (1), 57–82] multifactor model taking into account the possibility of errors-in-variables. In their well known paper, Fama and French [Fama, Eugene F., French, Kenneth R., 1997. Industry costs of equity. Journal of Financial Economic 43 (2), 153–193] concluded that estimates of the cost of equity for the three-factor model of FF (1993) were imprecise. We argue that this imprecision is even more severe because of the pervasive effects of measurement errors. We propose Dagenais and Dagenais [Dagenais, Marcel G., Dagenais, Denyse L., 1997. Higher moment estimators for linear regression models with errors in the variables. Journal of Econometrics 76 (1–2), 193–221] higher moments estimator as a solution. Our results show that estimates of the cost of equity obtained with Dagenais and Dagenais estimator differ sharply from popular OLS estimates and shed a new light on performance attribution and abnormal performance (α). Adapting the Generalized Treynor Ratio, recently developed by Hübner [Hübner, Georges, 2005. The generalized treynor ratio. Review of Finance 9 (3), 415–435], we show that the performance of managed portfolios with multi-index models should be revisited in presence of errors-in-variables.     

Energiesparen: Warum wird Beratung gefördert?

Home renovation is generally asserted to be a highly effective means to increase residential energy efficiency and thereby contribute to climate protection from reduced energy consumption. As part of a larger package of measures in the residential sector, the German government is consequently providing financial support for home audits from recognized energy experts who provide advice on retrofitting options. To date, the question concerning the effectiveness these home audits has largely escaped empirical scrutiny. The present paper fills this void by providing evidence for considerable free-rider effects within the home audit program, yielding serious reservations with respect to both the effectiveness of the program and its fiscal costs. Moreover, given the substantial differences between the gross- and net effects of home audits that are revealed by this analysis, the program’s contribution to climate protection and thereby the central justification for the associated government outlays is called into question. The social benefit of the program emerges only from those retrofits that would not have been undertaken in the absence of the home audit.     

Publikationen deutschsprachiger Forscher in Top-Journals (2. Quartal 2005)

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