Institutional constraints on organizations: The case of Spanish car dealerships

We study the effect of organizational choice and institutions on the performance ofSpanish car dealerships. Using outlet-level data from 1994, we find that verticallyintegrateddealerships showed substantially lower labor productivity, higher labor costs andlower profitability than franchised ones. Despite these gaps in performance, no verticallyintegratedoutlet was separated until 1994, yet the few outlets that were eventuallyseparated systematically improved their performance. We argue that the conversion ofintegrated outlets into franchised ones involved significant transaction costs, due to aninstitutional environment favoring permanent, highly-unionized employment relations. Inline with this argument, we find that the observed separations occurred in distributionnetworks that underwent marked reductions in worker unionization rates, following thelegalization of temporary labor contracts.

International Entrepreneurship in Bottom of the Pyramid Markets – Overcoming institutional constraints

Bottom of the pyramid (BoP) markets are an underserved market of approximately four billion people living on under $5 a day in four regional areas: Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. According to estimations, the BoP market forms a $5 trillion global consumer market. Despite the potential of BoP markets, companies have traditionally focused on serving the markets of developed countries and ignored the large customer group at the bottom of the pyramid. The BoP approach as first developed by Prahalad and Hart in 2002 has focused on multinational corporations (MNCs), which were thought of as the ones who should take responsibility in serving the customers at the bottom of the pyramid. This study challenges this proposition and gives evidence that also smaller international new ventures – entrepreneurial firms that are international from their birth, can be successful in BoP markets. BoP markets are characterized by a number of deficiencies in the institutional environment such as strong reliance on informal sector, lack of infrastructure and lack of skilled labor. The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of international entrepreneurship in BoP markets by analyzing how international new ventures overcome institutional constraints in BoP markets and how institutional uncertainty can be exploited by solving institutional problems. The main objective is divided into four sub objectives. • To describe the opportunities and challenges BoP markets present • To analyze the internationalization of INVs to BoP markets • To examine what kinds of strategies international entrepreneurs use to overcome institutional constraints • To explore the opportunities institutional uncertainty offers for INVs Qualitative approach was used to conduct this study and multiple-case study was chosen as a research strategy in order to allow cross-case analysis. The empirical data was collected through four interviews with the companies Fuzu, Mifuko, Palmroth Consulting and Sibesonke. The results indicated that understanding of the wider institutional environment improves the survival prospects of INVs in BoP markets and that it is indeed possible to exploit institutional uncertainty by solving institutional problems. The main findings were that first-hand experience of the markets and grassroots levels of information are the best assets in internationalization to BoP markets. This study highlights that international entrepreneurs with limited resources can improve the lives of people at the BoP with their business operations and act as small-scale institutional entrepreneurs contributing to the development of the institutional environment of BoP markets.

Institutional constraints on alternative water for energy : a guidebook for regional assessments /

"DOE/EV/10180-01."

Partial Equal Treatment in Wage Offers

We analyse a labour matching model with wage posting, where- refl ecting institutional constraints-fi rms cannot dfferentiate their wage offers within certain subsets of workers. Inter alia, we find that the presence of impersonal wage offers leads to wage compression, which propagates to the wages for high productivity workers who receive personalised offers.

Spillovers of Equal Treatment in Wage Offers

We analyse a labour matching model with wage posting, where re flecting institutional constraints firms cannot differentiate their wage offers within certain subsets of workers. Inter alia, we find that the presence of impersonal wage offers leads to wage compression, which propagates to the wages for high productivity workers who receive personalised offers.

Republicanismo, servidumbre y servicio doméstico

En este trabajo se exploran los condicionantes sociológicos e institucionales del mercado del servicio doméstico en Europa. Para ello se trabajó, básicamente, en tres líneas de investigación que aun están en curso. La primera, consiste en una exploración filosófica republicana, histórica y jurídica de la familia y la empresa capitalistas como instituciones que tienen una raigambre histórica común –la antigua domus, donde se desarrollaban todas las actividades productivas y reproductivas y que se caracterizaba constitutivamente por relaciones de dominación entre el propietario de los medios de producción y todos aquéllos que dependían de éste para subsistir-. Bajo el capitalismo, la familia –entendida ya como el hombre, su mujer e hijos legítimos- se constituyó en una institución eminentemente privada y las actividades desarrolladas en su seno quedaron fuera de lo que se consideró trabajo susceptible de reconocimiento económico. En este sentido, la normativa que regula al servicio doméstico como una relación laboral de carácter “especial” es un reflejo de la desvalorización socioeconómica de que ha sido objeto el trabajo reproductivo y la asociación conceptual entre la “improductividad” del ama de casa y la empleada doméstica. En la segunda línea del trabajo se exploraron las variaciones cuantitativas del mercado del servicio doméstico en Europa, cuya trayectoria presenta una forma de U entre la década de 1880 y mediados de la década de 1990. También mediante el análisis de fuentes secundarias de datos se pudieron establecer las profundas diferencias regionales que ha comportado este resurgimiento del empleo en servicios domésticos y su peso dentro de la estructura de empleo de cada sociedad. Por último, en la tercera se indagó la fluctuación histórica y geográfica de la oferta de trabajadoras domésticas en Europa, que pasó de las migraciones internas a las internacionales, coincidiendo con periodos de fuerte desigualdad económica entre las zonas expulsoras y receptoras.

Policy Diffusion: An Agent-Based Approach

Methods like Event History Analysis can show the existence of diffusion and part of its nature, but do not study the process itself. Nowadays, thanks to the increasing performance of computers, processes can be studied using computational modeling. This thesis presents an agent-based model of policy diffusion mainly inspired from the model developed by Braun and Gilardi (2006). I first start by developing a theoretical framework of policy diffusion that presents the main internal drivers of policy diffusion - such as the preference for the policy, the effectiveness of the policy, the institutional constraints, and the ideology - and its main mechanisms, namely learning, competition, emulation, and coercion. Therefore diffusion, expressed by these interdependencies, is a complex process that needs to be studied with computational agent-based modeling. In a second step, computational agent-based modeling is defined along with its most significant concepts: complexity and emergence. Using computational agent-based modeling implies the development of an algorithm and its programming. When this latter has been developed, we let the different agents interact. Consequently, a phenomenon of diffusion, derived from learning, emerges, meaning that the choice made by an agent is conditional to that made by its neighbors. As a result, learning follows an inverted S-curve, which leads to partial convergence - global divergence and local convergence - that triggers the emergence of political clusters; i.e. the creation of regions with the same policy. Furthermore, the average effectiveness in this computational world tends to follow a J-shaped curve, meaning that not only time is needed for a policy to deploy its effects, but that it also takes time for a country to find the best-suited policy. To conclude, diffusion is an emergent phenomenon from complex interactions and its outcomes as ensued from my model are in line with the theoretical expectations and the empirical evidence.Les méthodes d'analyse de biographie (event history analysis) permettent de mettre en évidence l'existence de phénomènes de diffusion et de les décrire, mais ne permettent pas d'en étudier le processus. Les simulations informatiques, grâce aux performances croissantes des ordinateurs, rendent possible l'étude des processus en tant que tels. Cette thèse, basée sur le modèle théorique développé par Braun et Gilardi (2006), présente une simulation centrée sur les agents des phénomènes de diffusion des politiques. Le point de départ de ce travail met en lumière, au niveau théorique, les principaux facteurs de changement internes à un pays : la préférence pour une politique donnée, l'efficacité de cette dernière, les contraintes institutionnelles, l'idéologie, et les principaux mécanismes de diffusion que sont l'apprentissage, la compétition, l'émulation et la coercition. La diffusion, définie par l'interdépendance des différents acteurs, est un système complexe dont l'étude est rendue possible par les simulations centrées sur les agents. Au niveau méthodologique, nous présenterons également les principaux concepts sous-jacents aux simulations, notamment la complexité et l'émergence. De plus, l'utilisation de simulations informatiques implique le développement d'un algorithme et sa programmation. Cette dernière réalisée, les agents peuvent interagir, avec comme résultat l'émergence d'un phénomène de diffusion, dérivé de l'apprentissage, où le choix d'un agent dépend en grande partie de ceux faits par ses voisins. De plus, ce phénomène suit une courbe en S caractéristique, poussant à la création de régions politiquement identiques, mais divergentes au niveau globale. Enfin, l'efficacité moyenne, dans ce monde simulé, suit une courbe en J, ce qui signifie qu'il faut du temps, non seulement pour que la politique montre ses effets, mais également pour qu'un pays introduise la politique la plus efficace. En conclusion, la diffusion est un phénomène émergent résultant d'interactions complexes dont les résultats du processus tel que développé dans ce modèle correspondent tant aux attentes théoriques qu'aux résultats pratiques.

Quasi-integration in less-than-truckload trucking

This work studies the organization of less-than-truckload trucking from a contractual point of view. We show that the huge number of owner-operators working in the industry hides a much less fragmented reality. Most of those owner-operators are quasi-integrated in higher organizational structures. This hybrid form is generally more efficient than vertical integration because, in the Spanish institutional environment, it lessens serious moral hazard problems, related mainly to the use of the vehicles, and makes it possible to reach economies of scale and density. Empirical evidence suggests that what leads organizations to vertically integrate is not the presence of such economies but hold-up problems, related to the existence of specific assets. Finally, an international comparison hints that institutional constraints are able to explain differences in the evolution of vertical integration across countries.

Cape Verde - Diagnostic Trade Inttegration study Update - 2013

This Report is an update of the Cape Verde Diagnostic Trade Integration Study, titled Cape Verde’s Insertion into the Global Economy, produced and validated by the Government of Cape Verde in December 2008. Like the previous 2008 study, this Cape Verde Diagnostic Trade Integration Study Update provides a critical examination of the major institutional and production constraints that hinder Cape Verde’s ability to capitalize fully on the growth and welfare gains from its integration into the world economy. As a policy report, this study offers a set of priority policies and measures that can be implemented by both the public and private sectors to mitigate and surmount these supply side and institutional constraints. These recommendations are summarized in an Action Matrix. The Report is fruit of the generous support of the multi-donor program the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF). In every crisis there is an opportunity. Four years after the validation of the country’s first Diagnostic Trade Integration Study in 2008, Cape Verde finds itself in a drastically altered external environment. Cape Verde faces a worsened external environment than four years ago, when it was also traversing years of crisis as global food and energy prices escalated. Just as the country was validating its first trade study in late 2008, and celebrating its graduation from the list of Least Developed Countries, the onset of the deepest global recession in recent memory triggered an even worse external situation as the country’s principal source of markets, investments, remittances and aid, the Eurozone, unraveled economically and politically. As the Eurozone crisis spread, it was Cape Verde’s misfortune that the crisis contaminated precisely its biggest Eurozone partners and donors, such as Portugal, Spain and Italy. For such a highly dependent and exposed economy like that of Cape Verde, the deteriorating external sector has had a substantial negative impact on its macroeconomic performance. At the time of the validation workshop and graduation in 2008, no one could have foreseen or predicted the severity of the global crisis that followed. Despite traversing these years of adversity and external shocks, and suffering palpable setbacks, Cape Verde’s economy had proven surprisingly resilient, especially its principal sector, tourism. To its great credit, the country’s economic fundamentals are solid, and have been carefully and prudently managed over the years. For this reason alone, the country has thus far weathered the global and Eurozone crisis. Yet the near and medium term future remains uncertain. The country’s margin for maneuver has narrowed, its options far more limited, and hard choices lie ahead. Thus, there is no better time than now to analyze Cape Verde’s position in the global economy, and to examine the many challenges and opportunities it faces. The first diagnostic trade study outlined an ambitious agenda and set of policy strategies to enhance Cape Verde’s participation in the global economy. Written prior to the global crisis, the study did not, and could not, anticipate the scope and depth of the subsequent global and Eurozone crises. A few short months before the validation of the first DTIS Cape Verde joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). It has spent these four years adjusting to this status and implementing its commitments. At the same time, the country seeks greater economic integration with the European Union. Since 2008 the government has been investing heavily in the country’s economic infrastructure, focusing especially on fostering transformation in key sectors like agriculture, fisheries, tourism and creative industries. For these and many other reasons, it is both timely and urgent to review the road traveled since 2008. It is an opportune moment to reassess the country’s options, to rethink strategies, and to chart a new way forward that it is practical, implementable, and that builds on the country’s competitive advantages and current successes.

La programmation informatique dans la recherche et la formation en mathématiques au niveau universitaire

Une étude récente auprès de 302 mathématiciens canadiens révèle un écart intriguant : tandis que 43% des sondés utilisent la programmation informatique dans leur recherche, seulement 18% indiquent qu'ils emploient cette technologie dans leur enseignement (Buteau et coll., 2014). La première donnée reflète le potentiel énorme qu'a la programmation pour faire et apprendre des mathématiques. La deuxième donnée a inspiré ce mémoire : pourquoi existe-t-il un tel écart ? Pour répondre à cette question, nous avons mené une étude exploratoire qui cherche à mieux comprendre la place de la programmation dans la recherche et la formation en mathématiques au niveau universitaire. Des entrevues semi-dirigées ont été conduites avec 14 mathématiciens travaillant dans des domaines variés et à différentes universités à travers le pays. Notre analyse qualitative nous permet de décrire les façons dont ces mathématiciens construisent des programmes informatiques afin d'accomplir plusieurs tâches (p.e., simuler des phénomènes réels, faire des mathématiques « expérimentales », développer de nouveaux outils puissants). Elle nous permet également d'identifier des moments où les mathématiciens exposent leurs étudiants à certains éléments de ces pratiques en recherche. Nous notons toutefois que les étudiants sont rarement invités à concevoir et à écrire leurs propres programmes. Enfin, nos participants évoquent plusieurs contraintes institutionnelles : le curriculum, la culture départementale, les ressources humaines, les traditions en mathématiques, etc. Quelques-unes de ces contraintes, qui semblent limiter l'expérience mathématique des étudiants de premier cycle, pourraient être revues.

“Financial alchemy” or a zero sum game? Real estate finance, securitisation and the UK property market

Following the US model, the UK has seen considerable innovation in the funding, finance and procurement of real estate in the last decade. In the growing CMBS market asset backed securitisations have included $2.25billion secured on the Broadgate office development and issues secured on Canary Wharf and the Trafford Centre regional mall. Major occupiers (retailer Sainsbury’s, retail bank Abbey National) have engaged in innovative sale & leaseback and outsourcing schemes. Strong claims are made concerning the benefits of such schemes – e.g. British Land were reported to have reduced their weighted cost of debt by 150bp as a result of the Broadgate issue. The paper reports preliminary findings from a project funded by the Corporation of London and the RICS Research Foundation examining a number of innovative schemes to identify, within a formal finance framework, sources of added value and hidden costs. The analysis indicates that many of the gains claimed conceal costs – in terms of market value of debt or flexibility of management – while others result from unusual firm or market conditions (for example utilising the UK long lease and the unusual shape of the yield curve). Nonetheless, there are real gains resulting from the innovations, reflecting arbitrage and institutional constraints in the direct (private) real estate market

Private or public? a taxonomy of optimal ownership and management regimes

We develop a theory of public versus private ownership based on value diversion by managers. Government is assumed to face stronger institutional constraints than has been assumed in previous literature. The model which emerges from these assumptions is fexible and has wide application. We provide amapping between the qualitative characteristics of an asset, its main use - including public goods characteristics, and spillovers toother assets values - and the optimal ownership and management regime. The model is applied to single and multiple related assets. We address questions such as; when is it optimal to have one of a pair ofr elated assets public and the other private; when is joint management desirable; and when should a public asset be managed by the owner of a related private asset? We show that while private ownership can be judged optimal in some cases solely on the basis of qualitative information, the optimality of any other ownership and management regimes relies on quantitative analysis. Our results reveal the situations in which policy makers will have difficulty in determining the opimal regime.

Ideas and Policy: The European Union considers social policy futures. ACES Cases No. 2010.2

The European Union’s social policy perspectives have changed quite dramatically over the last several decades. Now EU’s social policy discourse often promises to “invest in people,” sometimes “to invest in children,” and always to pay particular attention to youth. This paper argues that the tools of historical institutionalism can lead to understanding the ideational roots of this social investment perspective so distant from the “European social model.” Coming out of social movements, and with collective identities shaped both by those movement roots and national experiences, activists have effectively focused their practices on altering the social representations of European social solidarity through their interest group interventions, their participation in policy forums, and their mobilization within civil society at the European and sub-European levels. They have been able to make common cause with several epistemic communities that themselves revamped their ideas in the face of new institutional constraints, in order to advance their interests in promoting particular directions for social policy. The paper documents that “ideas” are not a variable and discourse “sometimes important” but that the ideas carried by movements and in epistemic communities are integral to the very definition of their interests that they promote within and with institutions.

A költségvetési hiány politikai gazdaságtana (The political economy of budgetary deficit)

A fejlett ipari országokra a hetvenes évektől mind inkább jellemző tartós költségvetési hiányt sem a keynesi, sem pedig a neoklasszikus elmélet nem tudta kielégítően magyarázni. Az új politikai gazdaságtan azonban, úgy tűnik, sikerrel tárta fel nemcsak a tartós hiány és a növekvő eladósodottság okait, hanem a fiskális politikai teljesítményben országok között és időben mutatkozó jelentős eltérések forrásait is. A siker elsősorban annak köszönhető, hogy az új politikai gazdaságtan a költségvetési politika alakításának politikai és intézményi korlátai felé fordult, azzal a nem titkolt szándékkal, hogy kiterjessze a főáramú közgazdaságtan határait, és beépítse modelljeibe a gazdaságpolitikai döntéshozatal folyamatát. Tanulmányunkban négy átfogó magyarázatot tekintünk át - ezek: 1. az adósságállomány stratégiai használata, 2. a stabilizáció elodázása, 3. a politikai és választási rendszerek különbözősége és 4. a gyenge vagy széttöredezett végrehajtói hatalom -, azzal az egyértelmű igénnyel, hogy a szokásos pozitív elemzést normatív vizsgálódással egészítsük ki. / === / Neither Keynesian nor Neoclassical theory managed to explain adequately the increasingly typical state of chronic budgetary deficit found in developed industrial countries since the 1970s. But the new political economy seems to have revealed the causes of the chronic deficit and mounting indebtedness and of the reasons for the marked differences in fiscal-policy performance between countries and periods. The success can be ascribed primarily to the fact that the new political economy turned to the political and institutional constraints on the formation of budgetary policy, with the unconcealed aim of broadening the bounds of mainstream economics and building the policy-making process into it. The study examines four comprehensive explanations: 1. strategic use of debt stock, 2. postponement of stabilization, 3. differences of political and electoral systems, and 4. weak or fragmented executive power, with the clear intention of complementing the customary positive analysis with a normative examination.