Coercive, Normative, and Mimetic Influences on the Assimilation of BCM in Outsourcing Relationships

Today many business processes are based on IT systems. These systems are exposed to different threats, which may lead to failures of critical business pro-cesses. Thus, enterprises prepare themselves against threats and failures of critical IT systems by means of Business Continuity Management (BCM). The phe-nomenon of outsourcing introduces a new dimension to BCM. In an outsourcing relationship the client organization is still responsible for the continuity of its processes but does not have full control over the implemented business continuity measures. In this paper we build a research model based on institutional and assimilation theories to describe and explain how and why BCM is assimilated in outsourcing relationships. In our case studies we found evidence that primarily coercive and normative pressures influence the assimilation of BCM in outsourcing relationships and support the explanation of variation across enterprises. Mimetic pressures seem to influence the assimilation but do not explain variations.

Performance Evaluation of the New Connecticut Leading Employment Index Using Lead Profiles and BVAR Models

Dua and Miller (1996) created leading and coincident employment indexes for the state of Connecticut, following Moore's (1981) work at the national level. The performance of the Dua-Miller indexes following the recession of the early 1990s fell short of expectations. This paper performs two tasks. First, it describes the process of revising the Connecticut Coincident and Leading Employment Indexes. Second, it analyzes the statistical properties and performance of the new indexes by comparing the lead profiles of the new and old indexes as well as their out-of-sample forecasting performance, using the Bayesian Vector Autoregressive (BVAR) method. The new indexes show improved performance in dating employment cycle chronologies. The lead profile test demonstrates that superiority in a rigorous, non-parametric statistic fashion. The mixed evidence on the BVAR forecasting experiments illustrates the truth in the Granger and Newbold (1986) caution that leading indexes properly predict cycle turning points and do not necessarily provide accurate forecasts except at turning points, a view that our results support.

Consumption asymmetry and the stock market: New evidence through a threshold adjustment model

This paper investigates whether stock market wealth affects real consumption asymmetrically through a threshold adjustment model. The empirical findings for the US show that wealth produces an asymmetric effect on real consumption, with negative 'news' affecting consumption less than positive 'news.' Thus, policy makers may want to focus more attention on preventing asset 'bubbles' than on responding to negative asset shocks.

A Brief History of Affordable Housing Cooperatives in the United States

For over 75 years housing cooperatives have been a source of affordable housing. Currently, the 376,000 dwelling units of affordable cooperatives is equivalent to seventeen percent of the rent reduction units owned by publichousing authorities. Understanding that affordable cooperatives have been developed under varying historical circumstances provides insights on how they could play a role in the future supply of affordable housing. The history of affordable co-ops starts during the 1920s and after World War II with the ethnic, union, and New York government financed co-ops. Through the 1960s and the early 1970s cooperatives were financed by various federal direct assistance programs. Since the late 1970s co-ops have been sponsored by nonprofit organizations and by federal and municipal government privatization programs. A workable institutional structure for affordable cooperatives has developed as a result of this historical evolution.

A New Economic Analysis of the American Revolution

We offer an analysis of the American Revolution in which actors are modeled as choosing the sovereign organization that maximizes their net expected benefits. Benefits of secession derive from satisfaction of greed and settlement of grievance. Costs derive from the cost of civil war and lost benefit of Empire membership. When expected net benefits are positive for both secessionists and the Empire civil war ensues, otherwise it is settled or never begins in the first place. The novelty of our discussion is to show how diverse economic and non-economic factors (such as pamphleteering by Thomas Paine and the morale of the Revolutionary forces) can be integrated into a single economic model.

The Effects of Credit Risk on Dynamic Portfolio Management: A New Computational Approach

The study investigates the role of credit risk in a continuous time stochastic asset allocation model, since the traditional dynamic framework does not provide credit risk flexibility. The general model of the study extends the traditional dynamic efficiency framework by explicitly deriving the optimal value function for the infinite horizon stochastic control problem via a weighted volatility measure of market and credit risk. The model's optimal strategy was then compared to that obtained from a benchmark Markowitz-type dynamic optimization framework to determine which specification adequately reflects the optimal terminal investment returns and strategy under credit and market risks. The paper shows that an investor's optimal terminal return is lower than typically indicated under the traditional mean-variance framework during periods of elevated credit risk. Hence I conclude that, while the traditional dynamic mean-variance approach may indicate the ideal, in the presence of credit-risk it does not accurately reflect the observed optimal returns, terminal wealth and portfolio selection strategies.

Institutional Infrastructure to Support 'Super Growth' in Kenya: Governance Thresholds, Reversion Rates and Economic Development

Kenya Growth Vision 2030 proposes policy and institutional reforms that make it possible for the country to achieve development status of a middle income country by 2030. This paper outlines the institutional framework necessary to achieve ÈSuper Growth,É which describes the character of growth required to meet targets stipulated in the Vision. The paper provides evidence confirming the importance of improving the quality of governance to the achievement of the Vision. The paper also demonstrates that the country is characterized by a high probability of reverting to poor governance. It is argued that, to achieve super growth, the country must attain an institutional tipping point which associates with low reversion rates to weaker institutions. The paper provides suggestions for institutional reforms that result in the achievement of an institutional tipping point and super growth.

Stagnation and Change in Islamic History

There appear to be two seemingly contradictory images of economic change in the Islamic World and mixed evidence on whether Islamic societies have been open or conservative against modern ideas, technological advancements, and legal developments. Whereas a conservative attitude has been dominant in some societies and time periods, Muslims were at the forefront of scientific, technological, and legal developments in others. Rather than rely on ad hoc assumptions about the attitudes and characteristics of societies or the inherent qualities of new developments, this paper explains attitudes towards change by studying the political economy of the relationship between the rulers and the legal community. I extend recent theories of endogenous institutional change to develop a framework based on how rulers and legal community reacted to new developments immediately and how their strategic interaction unleashed an endogenous process toward change in the long run. Using this framework, I identify conditions under which new ideas, technologies, and legal developments have resulted in immediate change in Islamic societies. I also examine the process of change in the long run, whether and how immediate outcomes could be sustained over time as strategic interaction continued repeatedly.

Mexico: A new heavy weight in a global world

In the last three decades, obesity has been gaining recognition as a serious public health problem in Mexico. This epidemic developed insidiously in a country that was still focused on chronic under-nutrition in the population. During that same period, macro-economic reforms projected Mexico into the global economic arena. Foreign investments, trade in goods and services, and technological transfers were promoted through participation in numerous trade agreements between Mexico and other countries. The North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed in 1994, promised an integrated market between the three North American countries: Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Although these trade policies were likely to have effects on the available food supply in Mexico, this association has not been elucidated. In this case study, we examine how these trade liberalization policies may have influenced the food supply in Mexico.^ Information on the trade of food commodities between the United States and Mexico and the nature of foreign investment in Mexico was compiled using public data available through American, Mexican, and other international published reports for 1986 through 2011. After the implementation of NAFTA, an increase in trade and investments was observed between Mexico and its two North American partners, but most of the trade increase occurred between the US and Mexico. Since the liberalization of trade policies between these counties, exports of fruit and vegetables into the U.S. from Mexico have increased, while exports of cereals, fats, vegetable oils, meat, dairy products and processed foods from the U.S. into Mexico have increased. During this same time period, there has been an increase in the foreign direct investment in the food industry in Mexico, as well as changes in the types and amounts of dietary energy available on a population level. Specifically, between 1990 to 2006, the dietary energy supply per person has increased 6.1% available animal protein has increased 35.8%, and available fat has increased 18.9%.^ Thus, this case study suggests that the recent changes in food-related industries through foreign direct investment and market liberalization may be likely contributors to the obesogenic food environment in Mexico. Although this initial case study provides interesting data, whether trade liberalization policies should be considered hazardous for health as a distal determinant of the obesity epidemic needs to be further examined using a more stringent study design or further follow up of the US Mexico trade data.^

Tensiones entre educación institucional y redes sociales

La irrupción masiva de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Conectividad (TICs) está produciendo cambios radicales en la configuración de las prácticas sociales en ámbitos tan variados como la política, la economía y la cultura. Una de las dimensiones de cambio que están produciendo las TICs es una reformulación de las concepciones de tiempo y espacio, que se traducen en una creciente tendencia a la deslocalización y la desterritorialización. En el ámbito de la educación, esas tendencias se reflejan en la aparición de nuevas prácticas de enseñanza-aprendizaje como las denominadas “Comunidades de práctica" o el “Aprendizaje Ubicuo". A la luz de algunas dimensiones de la experiencia latinoamericana y argentina, en este último caso sumergida en un amplio proceso de reforma curricular del nivel Primario y Secundario, vistas a partir de la elaboración de un marco teórico pertinente, este trabajo busca sumariar los principales problemas que se presentan a la hora de introducir las TICs en los sistemas educativos nacionales en general partiendo de la tensión que se surge las nuevas formas de transmisión del conocimiento que ellas proponen frente a una concepción institucionalizada del saber y el poder transmitida a través de un rol docente bien definido que, ahora, ha entrado en un creciente cuestionamiento.

Estructuración espacial en la modernidad capitalista : Debates y perspectivas recientes

Este trabajo tiene por objetivo indagar el lugar que ocupa -y la forma en que está constituida- la dimensión espacial en distintos enfoques que nutrieron o se desarrollaron como teorías de la geografía económica. Se inicia la discusión partiendo de la economía convencional (neoclásica o keynesiana) y se sigue con los enfoques institucionalistas del desarrollo regional. Con respecto a estos últimos, se estudia los conceptos básicos tomados del giro relacional de la geografía humana, sobre todo al momento de definir sus objetos de análisis y su espacialidad inherente. Se intenta así caracterizar el tratamiento del espacio descubriendo sus límites y dificultades, poniéndose de manifiesto el piso común que estos enfoques comparten con las perspectivas convencionales de la geografía económica. Finalmente, se recuperan los aportes de geógrafos críticos dedicados al estudio de la estructuración espacio-temporal de la "moderna sociedad burguesa", entablando un diálogo fructífero con el giro relacional que sirvió de fundamento al pensamiento institucionalista

Estructuración espacial en la modernidad capitalista : Debates y perspectivas recientes

Este trabajo tiene por objetivo indagar el lugar que ocupa -y la forma en que está constituida- la dimensión espacial en distintos enfoques que nutrieron o se desarrollaron como teorías de la geografía económica. Se inicia la discusión partiendo de la economía convencional (neoclásica o keynesiana) y se sigue con los enfoques institucionalistas del desarrollo regional. Con respecto a estos últimos, se estudia los conceptos básicos tomados del giro relacional de la geografía humana, sobre todo al momento de definir sus objetos de análisis y su espacialidad inherente. Se intenta así caracterizar el tratamiento del espacio descubriendo sus límites y dificultades, poniéndose de manifiesto el piso común que estos enfoques comparten con las perspectivas convencionales de la geografía económica. Finalmente, se recuperan los aportes de geógrafos críticos dedicados al estudio de la estructuración espacio-temporal de la "moderna sociedad burguesa", entablando un diálogo fructífero con el giro relacional que sirvió de fundamento al pensamiento institucionalista

Estructuración espacial en la modernidad capitalista : Debates y perspectivas recientes

Este trabajo tiene por objetivo indagar el lugar que ocupa -y la forma en que está constituida- la dimensión espacial en distintos enfoques que nutrieron o se desarrollaron como teorías de la geografía económica. Se inicia la discusión partiendo de la economía convencional (neoclásica o keynesiana) y se sigue con los enfoques institucionalistas del desarrollo regional. Con respecto a estos últimos, se estudia los conceptos básicos tomados del giro relacional de la geografía humana, sobre todo al momento de definir sus objetos de análisis y su espacialidad inherente. Se intenta así caracterizar el tratamiento del espacio descubriendo sus límites y dificultades, poniéndose de manifiesto el piso común que estos enfoques comparten con las perspectivas convencionales de la geografía económica. Finalmente, se recuperan los aportes de geógrafos críticos dedicados al estudio de la estructuración espacio-temporal de la "moderna sociedad burguesa", entablando un diálogo fructífero con el giro relacional que sirvió de fundamento al pensamiento institucionalista