A welfare analysis of social security in a dynastic framework*

In this article, we study the welfare effects of unfunded social security in a general equilibrium model populated with overlapping generations of altruistic individuals that differ in lifetime expectancy and earnings ability. Contrary to previous research, our results indicate that steady‐state welfare increases with social security for most households, although by very different amounts. This result is mainly due to two factors. First, the presence of two‐sided altruism significantly mitigates the crowding out effect of unfunded social security. Second, ability shocks and uncertain lifetimes generate significant heterogeneity among households to yield different induced preferences for social security.     

Towards a Theory of Organizational Improvisation: Looking Beyond the Jazz Metaphor

abstract This paper calls for research on organizational improvisation to go beyond the currently dominant jazz metaphor in theory development. We recognize the important contribution that jazz improvisation has made and will no doubt continue to make in understanding the nature and complexity of organizational improvisation. This article therefore presents some key lessons from the jazz metaphor and then proceeds to identify the possible dangers of building scientific inquiry upon a single metaphor. We then present three alternative models – Indian music, music therapy and role theory. We explore their nature and seek to identify ways in which the insights they generate complement those from jazz. This leads us to a better understanding of the challenges of building a theory of organizational improvisation.     

Measurement of organizational investments in social capital: The service employee perspective

This paper describes the development and validation of a measure of organizational investments in social capital (OISC). The scale development process is carried out over three stages (item generation, scale purification, scale validation), with two separate data collection phases involving a total of 735 working adults from multiple and diverse service-related workplace settings. As such, the data provide evidence for the face, content, discriminant, convergent and nomological validity, dimensionality and reliability of the OISC measure. The OISC measure is a concise, unidimensional scale that has the potential for significant usage in the development and testing of theory, as well as practical application in retail and other service provision contexts.     

建设生态文明的实践与探索——林业生态建设30年回眸

改革开放30年来,林业生态建设以生态文明为目标,坚持走建设生态、改善生态之路,在生态文明建设上进行了不懈的探索和实践,取得了令人瞩目的成绩。三北防护林建设工程为生态文明建设首开先河;开展全民义务植树运动谱写了生态文明建设新篇章;造林灭荒行动掀起生态文明建设新高潮;六大林业重点工程成为新世纪生态文明建设新壮举。中国可持续发展林业战略研究为生态文明建设提供了新理论,其核心是生态建设、生态安全、生态文明。发展现代林业掀起生态文明建设新高潮,推进生态文明建设走上新的里程。     

What is not beautiful should match: how attractiveness similarity affects consumer responses to advertising

This study introduces the concept of attractiveness similarity, empirically examines its main effect and whether it moderates the effect of endorser attractiveness on consumer responses to advertising. The results show a positive main effect of attractiveness similarity over and above the mere effect of endorser attractiveness. In addition, a consistent moderating effect of attractiveness similarity on the effect of endorser attractiveness emerges: attractiveness similarity buffers against the less positive effects of lower levels of endorser attractiveness (i.e., it compensates for lower levels of endorser attractiveness). Overall, these findings reveal attractiveness similarity as a new variable in endorser advertising, which has important managerial implications. Advertising campaigns employing averagely attractive endorsers should pay special attention to attractiveness similarity.     

Exporting status and success in innovation: evidence from CIS micro data for EU countries

Using a large sample of micro data from four waves of Community Innovation Survey for EU member states, we investigate the relationship between firms’ export status and different sorts of innovation activities. We find systematically positive relationship between the two, whereby the strongest correlation is found in case of product innovation and the weakest in case of organizational innovations. While aggregate data show that innovation success is increasing in firm size, we find that exporting has the strongest effect on innovation in the medium-sized firms. We also explore cross-country differences in the impact of export status on innovation. Countries with a higher share of exports in GDP and greater share of spending on research and development generally display a stronger correlation between exporting status and innovation.     

河南小麦产业链各环节成本收益研究

本文通过对河南省小麦产业链各环节的深入、细致调研,利用调研的第一手数据全面剖析了小麦生产、收购、加工、销售各环节的成本收益情况.研究发现,粮食涨价是由于成本推动的,小麦制品的价格上涨主要是农业之外的因素引起的.控制粮食价格上涨的重点不在于小麦生产、收购环节,而是要限制投入品价格的不合理上涨、降低流通环节的费用、适当压缩销售环节小麦制品过大的利润空间.最后针对调研中发现的问题提出了相应政策建议.     

WELFARE ENHANCING COORDINATION IN CONSUMER COOPERATIVES UNDER MIXED OLIGOPOLY

The recent globalization of world economies has led the retail markets of developed countries towards increasing levels of integration and strategic interdependence. A non negligible share of retail and food markets is currently served by co‐operative societies. Consistently with this trend, the consumer cooperatives have recently experienced increasing levels of integration. The main aim of this paper is to study the welfare effects of coordination among consumer cooperatives competing in quantities in a mixed oligopoly against profit‐maximizing firms. We show that, in absence of agency problems, under increasing or constant returns to scale a higher output coordination of the consumer cooperatives does not affect the total welfare as long as a nonnegative profit constraint holds in these firms. On the other hand, under decreasing returns to scale, the consumer cooperatives contribute more to social welfare when acting on behalf of all consumers. This is because, by coordinating consumers’ preferences, these firms can reduce their market output, thus helping the market to come closer to the first best. All together these results seem to provide an argument in favour of the recent process of integration involving consumer cooperatives in many developed countries.     

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...