A new perspective on the exporter productivity premium: online trade

We use a unique firm-level data set including 9000 companies from 26 European Union countries covering four different sectors to take a close look at the relationship between online exports and productivity. The online exporter productivity premium is estimated using different techniques (ordinary least squares, quantile regressions and robust estimation). Results consistently indicate that the estimated online exporter productivity premium is statistically different from zero, positive and significant from an economic point of view. European online exporters, according to these results, are approximately 2% more productive than non-online exporters. Productivity differences between firms could be related to variables that are not included in the empirical model. More research would be needed to address this issue in the future.     

Concentration behavior of the penalized least squares estimator

Consider the standard nonparametric regression model and take as estimator the penalized least squares function. In this article, we study the trade‐off between closeness to the true function and complexity penalization of the estimator, where complexity is described by a seminorm on a class of functions. First, we present an exponential concentration inequality revealing the concentration behavior of the trade‐off of the penalized least squares estimator around a nonrandom quantity, where such quantity depends on the problem under consideration. Then, under some conditions and for the proper choice of the tuning parameter, we obtain bounds for this nonrandom quantity. We illustrate our results with some examples that include the smoothing splines estimator.     

Bouncing Back from Extreme Weather Events: Some Preliminary Findings on Resilience Barriers Facing Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises

Extreme weather events (EWEs) pose unprecedented threats to modern societies and represent a much‐debated issue strongly interlinked with current development policies. Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), which constitute a driving force of economic growth, employment and total value added, remain highly vulnerable to and ill prepared for such environmental perturbations. This study investigates barriers to SMEs’ resilience to EWEs in an attempt to shed light on enabling factors that can define effective organizational responses to non‐linear environmental stimuli. Relying on structural equation modeling and data gathered from 109 SMEs that recently experienced EWE impacts, we link the general concept of SMEs’ resilience barriers to EWEs with a series of elements to determine specific internal and external factors that contribute the most to EWE resilience. In particular, external barriers of institutional conditions and mechanisms of support and guidance as well as internal barriers of resources and managerial perceptions are found to be the most critical ones in determining resilience. The assessment offers essential research evidence for practitioners on SME management and sets forth linkages with current mechanisms for policy interventions towards an appropriate resilience agenda for SMEs. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Does educational diversity of managers matter for the performance of team‐managed funds?

We study the effect of the educational diversity of managers on the performance of team‐managed mutual funds using a large sample of U.S. equity funds from 1994 to 2013. We consider diversity in terms of both final educational degree and field of educational specialisation. We find that, in general, both types of diversity have a positive impact on fund performance, and our results are robust over a wide range of performance metrics and changes in market conditions.     

Investor behaviour and reaching for yield: Evidence from the sterling corporate bond market

We provide evidence on how corporate bond investors react to a change in yields, and how this behaviour differs in times of market‐wide stress. We also investigate ‘reaching for yield’ across investor types, as well as providing insights into the structure of the corporate bond market. Using proprietary sterling corporate bond transaction data, we show that insurance companies, hedge funds and asset managers are typically net buyers when corporate bond yields rise. Dealer banks clear the market by being net sellers. However, we find evidence for this behaviour reversing in times of stress for some investors. During the 2013 ‘taper tantrum’, asset managers were net sellers of corporate bonds in response to a sharp rise in yields, potentially amplifying price changes. At the same time, dealer banks were net buyers. Finally, we provide evidence that insurers, hedge funds and asset managers tilt their portfolios towards higher risk bonds, consistent with ‘reaching for yield’ behaviour.     

Cooperative conversion and communalization: Closely observed interactions between the material and the mental

Various authors, including Elinor Ostrom, have shown that the legal form of a cooperative has many of the characteristics of a Common. Here we focus on cooperative conversion, through which conventional enterprises become labor‐managed firms (LMFs), viewing it dynamically as a communalization process. These processes are addressed in the light of a field survey carried out in France, looking at six firms involved in cooperative conversion. The changes entailed are two‐dimensional, both material and mental. This is visible, for example, when finding the capital to mount an LMF: members of the workforce must draw on their own funds; they must also believe in the project. Through our empirical observations we highlight the obstacles in the way of forming an LMF. In particular participants must undertake a work of negotiation hinging on stakes marked by the two, largely inseparable dimensions. Ultimately we query the ethic brought into play in the collective action of constituting a Common. Specifically, individuals must contribute to a collective action underpinned by principles of self‐governance, or commoning, the rock on which the Common rests. A key finding of our study is to demonstrate that a Common can only be successfully created if the constituent processes are consistent with the overall goal. In other words the manner in which we travel is inseparable from our final destination; otherwise we shall surely lose our way.     

Alternative balanced scorecards built from paradigm models in strategic HRM and employment/industrial relations and used to measure the state of employment relations and HR system performance across U.S. workplaces

This paper constructs alternative balanced scorecards based on high‐performance work system (HPWS) and employment relations system (ERS) models. The models are depicted and compared in diagrams and used as framework skeletons for building separate HPWS and ERS scorecards, intended to provide a detailed data picture of the operational health and performance of an organization's employment/HR system and its operations, processes, and inputs/outputs. The scorecards are filled in with nationally representative data from 2,000+ U.S. workplaces using more than 50 employment/HR indicators, as reported by separate panels of managers and employees. The indicators for each workplace are aggregated into an overall HR/employment system score, ranked from low‐to‐high, and graphed as frequency distributions. These distributions provide a unique snapshot picture of the mean and dispersion of the state of employment relations and HR system performance for companies across the United State. They also reveal that “models matter” since the HPWS and ERS scorecards provide distinctly different evaluation assessments.     

Testing the asymmetric effects of exchange rate pass‐through in BRICS countries: Does the state of the economy matter?

This paper investigates not only the question of whether there is exchange rate pass‐through (ERPT) but also the extent to which the pass‐through is asymmetric or state‐dependent in the BRICS countries. Using monthly data from 1999:M1 to 2019:M12 and non‐linear smooth transition vector autoregressive (STVAR) model, our results provide evidence of period‐specific ERPT between the upper and lower regime periods, governed by the selected transition variables. The results further suggest that the pass‐through of exchange rate is higher when the economy is experiencing large appreciations and expansions as well as large depreciations and recessions. Theimplication for these findings is that ERPT is strongly affected by the state of the economy.