DO WOMEN PAY MORE FOR CREDIT? EVIDENCE FROM ITALY

By using a unique and large data set on loan contracts between banks and microfirms, we find robust evidence that women in Italy pay more for credit than men, although we do not find any evidence that women borrowers are riskier than men. The male/female differential remains even after controlling for a large number of characteristics of the type of business, the borrower, and the structure of the credit market. The result is not driven by lack of credit history, nor by women using a different type of bank than men, since the same bank charges different rates to male and female borrowers.     

The Role of Society in Engineering Risk Analysis: A Capabilities-Based Approach

This article proposes a new conceptual framework in engineering risk analysis to account for the net impact of hazards on individuals in a society. It analyzes four limitations of prevailing approaches to risk analysis and suggests a way to overcome them. These limitations are a result of how societal impacts are characteristically accounted for and valued. Prevailing approaches typically focus too narrowly on the consequences of natural or man-made hazards, not accounting for the broader societal impacts of such hazards. Such approaches lack a uniform and consistent metric for accounting for the impact of the nonquantifiable consequences (like psychological trauma or societal impacts) and rely upon implicit and potentially inaccurate value judgments when evaluating risks. To overcome these limitations, we propose an alternative, Capabilities-Based Approach to the treatment of society in risk analysis. A similar approach is currently used by the United Nations to quantitatively measure the degree of development in countries around the world. In a Capabilities-Based Approach, the potential benefits and losses due to a hazard are measured and compared in a uniform way by using individual capabilities (functionings individuals are able, still able, or unable to achieve) as a metric. This Capabilities-Based Approach provides a foundation for identifying and quantifying the broader, complex societal consequences of hazards and is based on explicit, value judgments. The Capabilities-Based Approach can accommodate different methods or techniques for risk determination and for risk evaluation and can be used in assessing risk in diverse types of hazards (natural or man-made) and different magnitudes that range from minor to catastrophic. In addition, implementing a Capabilities-Based Approach contributes to the development of a single standard for public policy decision making, since a Capabilities-Based Approach is already in use in development economics and policy.     

The role of the drift in I(2) systems

Summary This paper discussed the role of the drift in vector autoregressive processes allowing for integrated components up to order 2. It is shown how the drift can generate linear and quadratic deterministic trends. A two-stage statistical analysis of the system in the presence of quadratic trends is proposed. The analysis of the system allows to define a consistent sequence of tests on the numbers of common components integrated of a given order, called the integration indices of the system. The relevant asymptotic distributions are non-standard, belong to the Limiting Gaussian Functional family and are tabulated by simulation. The proposed procedure can also be consistently combined with other procedures proposed by the author for the cases of a linear trend and of no deterministic trends in the system. Invited paper at the Conference held in Bologna, Italy, 27–28 May 1993, on “Statistical Tests: Methodology and Econometric Applications”. Partial financial support is acknowledged from Italian MURST grants 40% and 60%.     

Understanding dynamism and complexity factors in engineer-to-order and their influence on lean implementation strategy

Complexity and dynamism are considered intrinsic features of engineer-to-order (ETO) business environment; it is, therefore, important to understand and manage them better. Based on empirical investigation into two case companies, this paper expands the existing literature on how and why complexity and dynamism context factors constitute not only external business environment issues but also subfactors within the boundary of the firm. It argues that most of the subfactors for complexity and dynamism identified for repetitive manufacturing are relevant for the high uncertainty capital goods manufacturing ETO with some exceptions such as short product life cycle and technological turbulence. A framework of configuration (on implementation of lean practices), and moderation (on the lean-operations performance relation) forms of influence from dynamism and complexity is proposed. Further arguments to be verified in future large-scale research include: (1) dynamism bears challenges, and complexity provides opportunities to foster implementation of relevant lean practices in ETO, (2) both complexity and dynamism positively mediate better operations performance and enriched value from implemented lean practices.     

Robust confidence intervals for log-location-scale models with right censored data

In this paper, we combine empirical likelihood and estimating functions for censored data to obtain robust confidence regions for the parameters and more generally for functions of the parameters of distributions used in lifetime data analysis. The proposed method works with type I, type II or randomly censored data. It is illustrated by considering inference for log-location-scale models. In particular, we focus on the log-normal and the Weibull models and we tackle the problem of constructing robust confidence regions (or intervals) for the parameters of the model, as well as for quantiles and values of the survival function. The usefulness of the method is demonstrated through a Monte Carlo study and by examples on two lifetime data sets.     

Unemployment, Wage Pressure and Sectoral Shifts: Permanent and Temporary Consequences of Intersectoral Shocks

The main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of allocative disturbances using Italian labour market data and a VECM (vector error correction model). In order to measure sectoral shifts in labour demand, we use Neumann-Topel's [Neumann, G.R., & Topel, R.H. (1991). Employment risk, diversification, and unemployment. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106:1341–1365] employment-based dispersion index. In searching for a restricted cointegration space, we set down, and identify a stylized version of the battle of the mark-ups model. Lilien [Lilien, D. (1982). Sectoral shifts and cyclical unemployment. Journal of Political Economy 90:777–793] argued that an important part of cyclical unemployment comes from permanent shifts in the composition of labour demand. Our findings emphasize that an important source of the persistence of unemployment comes from sectoral shifts.     

Some Critical Reflections on the Principles and Instruments of the Welfare State

ABSTRACT: The crisis of the welfare state continues to be associated with the ‘hypertrophic‘ growth of social expenditure in public sector budgets and with the fiscal crisis of the state. This approach is refuted in this paper and preference is given to an explanation of the problems of the welfare state which attributes them to a complex set of (interrelated) causes, among which the most salient are: the crisis of principles and objectives; the inability to combine social principles and objectives with those of the market; and the limits of a system which, although capable of enormous ‘churning‘, only succeeds in producing, in most circumstances, zero-sum games. In order to corroborate these theses, a number of reflections are developed on six themes which can be regarded as illustrative of the main ailments afflicting current social policy systems in industrialized countries. If every individual were reared in conditions as favourable to health as science can make them, received an equally thorough and stimulating education up to sixteen, and knew on reaching manhood that, given a reasonable measure of hard work and good fortune, he and his family could face the risks of life without being crushed by them, the most shocking of existing inequalities would be on the way to disappear. Sharp contrasts of pecuniary income might indeed remain, as long as society were too imperfectly civilized to put an end to them. But the range of life corrupted by their influence would be narrower than today. It would cease to be the rule for the rich to be rewarded, not only with riches, but with a preferential share of health and life, and for the penalty of the poor to be not merely poverty, but ignorance, sickness and premature death (K.H. Tawney) ^1.     

Relational Ownership and CEO Continuity: A Property Rights Perspective

Inspired by agency theory, research on Chief Executive Officer (CEO) succession often focuses on turnovers as a mechanism to discipline CEOs in the event of poor firm performance. Recent research extends this view by showing that CEO turnovers can also lead to substantial disruption in a firm's management. Less is known, however, about the antecedents of disruption and continuity in the context of CEO turnovers. Drawing on modern property rights theory, we investigate how CEO continuity varies across different types of firms. Using a sample of Swiss publicly traded firms, we find that relational ownership enhances the likelihood of CEOs staying in office or moving to the position of board chair. Firms with little relational ownership, in contrast, display a high degree of CEO continuity only when capital intensity is high. Provided that a CEO turnover occurs, relational ownership and capital intensity reduce the likelihood of interim CEO successions. These findings highlight the importance of a nuanced view of CEO continuity, taking into account owner types as well as contextual factors.     

Job strain in different types of employment affects the immune response

The immune system, in cooperation with neuroendocrine functions, defends from cancer and infections mainly by the activity of blood natural killer (NK) cells. Blood NK activity may be influenced by the type of employment since work is the central part of life; moreover, job stress is a situation affecting both neuroendocrine and immune systems. This study examines anxiety (by STAI 1 and 2), job strain (by the Karasek's JCQ) and blood NK activity (by an in vitro radio-isotopic method) of 134 male workers. These men, over 38 years old with stable employment, were working in factories, in construction yards, in offices, as hospital attendants or as self-employed craftsmen. Workers in factories and in construction yards, with high job strain, showed lower NK activity, while office employees, with low job demand, and craftsmen with low anxiety and elevated decision latitude, showed higher NK activity; the level of NK activity of the hospital attendants was between the other groups. In conclusion, this study confirms that the type of employment, related to job stress, affects blood NK activity. Moreover, blood NK activity may be used in the bio-monitoring of workers at high risk.