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...     

All work intensity is not created equal: Effort motives,job satisfaction and quit intentions at a grocery chain

Prior research has shown that the well-being of employees engaged in intensive work can vary with the discretion their jobs afford regarding how and when to carry out the work. This article explores a different avenue. It argues that well-being also varies with employees’ individual motives for working intensively. The article introduces self-determination theory to the domain of work intensity and focuses on two hypotheses. The first is whether intensive work driven by explicit or implicit incentives is more positively associated with an employee's job satisfaction than intensive work driven by job demands. The second is whether intensive work driven by intrinsic motives is more positively associated with job satisfaction than that driven by explicit or implicit incentives. In both these cases, the article also examines whether equivalent effects exist on (reduced) quit intentions. Original data from a major Greek grocery chain provide corroborative evidence that is robust to a rich set of covariates, including increasingly demanding adjustments for job discretion. The findings contribute to a more complete understanding of why differences in well-being exist among employees performing intensive work, with implications for workers and employers.     

The scope and scale of the informal food economy of South African urban residential townships: Results of a small-area micro-enterprise census

Growing urbanisation in South Africa is reflected in burgeoning Working class and informal township settlements on the fringes of its major towns and cities. Paired with this is an increasing reliance on cash as the primary means of economic transaction, which has in turn stimulated the growth of micro-enterprise business activities within the township context. This article discusses the findings of an eight-township small-area census which occurred between 2010 and 2013 in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Durban townships representing 250 000 residents. The researchers were able to establish the scope and scale of informal food and drink retailing in these localities. Of the 10 049 micro-enterprises located in the study, some 3966 (or 39% of the total) trade in food. These include enterprises in primary production, fresh produce retailing, grocery retailing from house and spaza shops, and informal foodservice enterprises. Food is the basis for much township informal business and plays an important role in making food increasingly affordable and locally accessible, and in creating cash employment. The article builds on the knowledge base of the township informal economy role in bolstering food security needs for the marginalised.     

Can investors time their exposure to private equity?

Private equity performance, both for buyouts and venture capital, has been highly cyclical: periods of high fundraising have been followed by periods of low performance. Despite this seemingly predictable variation, we find modest gains, at best, to pursuing realistic, investable strategies that time capital commitments to private equity. This occurs, in part, because investors can only time their commitments to funds; they cannot time when commitments are called or when investments are exited. There is a high degree of time-series correlation in net cash flows even across commitment strategies that allocate capital in a very different manner over time.     

Entry limiting agreements: First‐mover advantage,authorized generics,and pay‐for‐delay deals

During patent litigation, pay‐for‐delay (P4D) deals involve a payment from a patent holder of a branded drug to a generic drug manufacturer to delay entry and withdraw the patent challenge. In return for staying out of the market, the generic firm receives a payment, and/or an authorized licensed entry at a later date, but before the patent expiration. We examine why such deals are stable when there are multiple potential entrants. We combine the first‐mover advantage for the first generic with the ability of the branded manufacturer to launch an authorized generic (AG) to show when P4D deals are an equilibrium outcome. We further show that limiting a branded firm's ability to launch an AG before entry by a successful challenger will deter such deals. However, removing exclusivity period for the first generic challenger will not.     

Information flows and crashes in dynamic social networks

We develop a dynamic model of information transmission and aggregation in social networks in which continued membership in the network is contingent on the accuracy of opinions. Agents have opinions about a state of the world and form links to others in a directed fashion probabilistically. Agents update their opinions by averaging those of their connections, weighted by how long their connections have been in the system. Agents survive or die based on how far their opinions are from the true state. In contrast to the results in the extant literature on DeGroot learning, we show through simulations that for some parameterizations the model cycles stochastically between periods of high connectivity, in which agents arrive at a consensus opinion close to the state, and periods of low connectivity, in which agents’ opinions are widely dispersed.

     

Interorganisational project dynamics: A longitudinal study of perceptual distance and client-contractor collaborative relationships

Despite the importance of good collaborative relationships in interorganisational projects, clients and contractors often develop adversarial relationships due to perceptual distance about key project issues. In this case study research, we investigated how perceptual distance emerges and changes over time, and how the collaborative relationship between client and contractor develops alongside these dynamics. In this exploration, we built upon agency theory and stewardship theory as complementary perspectives for understanding client-contractor collaborative relationships. We gathered quantitative and qualitative data in two projects, conducting three assessments in about one year. We found that perceptual distance increased and decreased over time, and that a reduction was typically associated with the collaborative relationship being characterized by stewardship rather than agency. These findings suggest that a regular assessment and evaluation of partners’ perceptions of critical project issues is warranted to timely detect and counteract perceptual distance. Moreover, partners would best adopt a stewardship orientation to reduce perceptual distance, although this may take considerable effort given the distributive nature of many pre-project negotiations.     

Missing the Popular Vote: Pitfalls in US Democracy and Reform Proposals

Intereconomics - Only a few years ago, it was a widespread belief that globalisation would trigger processes of democratisation worldwide. However, even old and established democracies such as the...