Mergers and acquisitions matching for performance improvement: a DEA-based approach

This article proposes a new data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based approach to deal with mergers and acquisitions (M&As) matching. To derive reliable matching degrees between bidder and target firms, we consider both technical efficiency and scale efficiency. Specifically, an inverse DEA model is developed for measuring the technical efficiency, while a conventional DEA model is employed to identify the return of scale of the merged decision-making units (DMUs). Then, an optimization model is formulated to generate matching results to improve DMUs’ performance. An empirical study of M&As matching Turkish energy firms is examined to illustrate the proposed approach. This study shows that both technical efficiency and scale efficiency have impacts on M&As matching practices

Does Culture Affect Unemployment? Evidence from the Röstigraben

This paper studies the role of culture in shaping unemployment outcomes. The empirical analysis is based on local comparisons across a language barrier in Switzerland. This Röstigraben separates cultural groups, but neither labor markets nor political jurisdictions. Local contrasts across the language border identify the role of culture for unemployment. Our findings indicate that differences in culture explain differences in unemployment duration on the order of 20 %. Moreover, we find that horizontal transmission of culture is more important than vertical transmission of culture and that culture is about as important as strong changes to the benefit duration.culture, cultural transmission, unemployment duration, regional unemployment

The Role of Financial Services Advertising on Investors\u27 Decision-Making

The present study assesses the effect of financial services advertising on investors’ decision-making by adopting a two-sided approach: a stimulus-side analysis to document the nature and prevalence of advertising strategies and advertising disclosures being used and a response-side investigation to examine the investors’ processing of and receptiveness to financial services advertising. By performing a content analysis of recently published financial services magazine advertisements, this study provides a contemporary look at whether and how financial services companies inform, persuade, and communicate with average investors. Results from this content analysis method is also used as a foundation to help design realistic test ads in the subsequent experimental design as a response-side approach. Combined with stimulus-side data, a between-group experimental design allows an empirical test of how the interaction between investors’ exposures to different advertising practices (i.e., advertising strategies and advertising disclosures) and individual regulatory focus might affect the ways investors perceive and evaluate the advertised financial product. In this stage, the likely processing and persuasive differences between advertising strategies and advertising disclosures and the potential moderating role of investors’ regulatory focus form the basis of the response-side approach to complement the content analysis phase. Results from the content analysis show that financial services companies increased informational advertising strategies and presented more advertising information during the three-year (2007-2009) period of interest. Findings indicate that financial services companies might play a role in enhancing the role of communication, information, and advertising in the marketplace for financial literacy. However, in order to adequately evaluate the range of investor’s response to advertising strategies and advertising disclosures, this study employs a two advertising strategies (information versus transformational) x two advertising disclosures (complete disclosure versus non-disclosure) x two regulatory focus (promotion-focused versus prevention-focused) between-subject, randomized, experimental design. Findings from the experimental design reveal that investors’ financial decision-making may be affected by internal characteristics (i.e., regulatory focus) as well as external information (i.e., advertising strategies and advertising disclosures). Especially, regulatory focus was found to be function as a moderating variable that can influence the direction and strength of relationship between different financial services advertising practices and the outcome variables of financial decision-making such as risk perceptions, product attitudes, and purchase intentions. Finally, theoretical, managerial, and policy implications are discussed and opportunities for the future research are identified

Evaluating flood control and drainage management systems from a productive efficiency perspective : a case study of the southwest coastal zone of Bangladesh

PhD ThesisPerformance evaluation of flood defence systems is invariably carried out from an engineering perspective overlooking the productivity perspective, thereby leaving a gap in the literature of performance evaluation in the water resources management sector. Two competing flood control and drainage management (FCDM) systems, namely, the ‘silt-dredging and regulative-drainage management (SRM)’ and the ‘tidal river-basin management (TRM)’ systems were implemented in the Southwest coastal zone of Bangladesh as safeguards to protect agricultural production. There is a longstanding debate over the appropriateness of these systems in terms of providing conditions for sustainable agriculture. The lead executing agency, Bangladesh Water Development Board, was adamant to implement the hard engineering structural system, the SRM, while the stakeholders (i.e., the farmers and the fisher folk) insisted on the non-structural system, the TRM. However, this work evaluates these two contrasting and competing FCDM systems in terms of productive efficiency, in order to address primarily the gap in the literature of performance evaluation. The study develops separate econometric models for paddy production and fisheries production with each of the FCDM systems and estimates these models using stochastic frontier analysis to obtain technical efficiency (TE), yield-gap and potential yield increment (PYI) for paddy production, and cost efficiency (CE), cost-gap and potential cost saving (PCS) for fisheries production. The study results reveal that mean TE, CE, yield-gap and cost-gap are respectively 0.782, 0.807, 719.181 (kg) and 12542.71 (tk) with the SRM system, while these estimates are 0.769, 0.762, 807.324 (kg) and 14440.39 (tk) with the TRM in order. These findings indicate that SRM system marginally outperforms TRM system in terms of agricultural productivity. This is despite the SRM being more expensive to deliver, as well as the fact that, due to rise of relative sea-level with the SRM system, it is likely to become increasingly more expensive in the future. In contrast, the TRM system benefits from counteracting the rise of relative sea-level through land accretion by sedimentation in the floodplains in an environmentally friendly way, keeping the maintenance costs low

Labor Flexibility, Legal Reform and Economic Development

The current global financial crisis has provoked intense criticism of the regulatory framework for financial markets. Financial market flexibility, once considered the key to successful financial institutions and economic growth, has now come under intense scrutiny. In contrast, labor market flexibility is still promoted by scholars and international policymakers as an essential part of the recipe for economic development. This Article argues that the predominant understanding of labor flexibility is misguided and needs to be revised. To illustrate why, the Article undertakes a critical examination of labor flexibility as developed by a leading World Bank project, called “Doing Business.” It argues that the project mischaracterizes countries’ labor regulations by failing to consider the full range of legal sources, surveying only the law in the books, and remaining blind to the realities of lack of enforcement and rampant economic informality. More importantly, the project promotes a binary understanding of flexibility that fails to capture the relational character of legal entitlements. Proposed legal reforms in the direction of “flexibilization” can therefore be both costly and ineffective. As an alternative, this Article develops a framework which, incorporating insights from comparative law and legal theory, proceeds in two steps. First, it undertakes a doctrinal assessment of the respective rights, duties, and privileges of employers and employees in the labor market, and asks whose flexibility is enhanced. Second, it pays attention to the link between the formal and informal economic sectors. Using the examples of the United States and Mexico, the Article illustrates how this new framework can lead to a better sense of the relationship between labor law and a country’s economy, and can be used as a better map for regulatory reforms

Afektiivsete individuaalsete erinevuste psühholoogiliste mehhanismide uurimine EEG korrelaatidega

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneAfektiivsed individuaalsed erinevused on võrdlemisi stabiilsed kalduvused kogeda teatud afektiivseid seisundeid. Afektiivsete individuaalsete erinevuste psühholoogiliste mehhanismide kaardistamine võib anda väärtuslikku infot nende seostest vaimse tervisega. Käesolev väitekiri pakub varasemale kirjandusele tuginedes välja teoreetilise mudeli antud mehhanismide mõtestamiseks ja uurimiseks. Konstrukti-Protsessi-Konteksti (KPK) mudeli kohaselt avalduvad psühholoogilised mehhanismid uuritava individuaalse erinevuse konstrukti, seda iseloomustava afektiivse protsessi eripära ning viimase avaldumist mõjutavate kontekstuaalsete tegurite kokkupuutealal. Väitekirja empiirilised tööd rakendavad KPK mudelit erinevate afektiivsete individuaalsete erinevuste mehhanismide uurimiseks elektroentsefalograafia (EEG) abil. Töid ühendab keskendumine mehhanismidele, mis seisnevad lähenemis- ja vältimismotivatsiooni või motivatsioonilise tähelepanu eripärades. Uuringud I ja III täpsustavad antud protsesside hindamise metodoloogilisi aspekte. Uuringu II tulemused osutavad sellele, et kõrge Neurootilisusega (negatiivse afektiivsuse ja psüühikahäirete riskiga seotud isiksuseomadus) inimesi iseloomustab vältimismotivatsiooni kogemine vastusena pilkkontaktiga mudeldatud neutraalsele sotsiaalsele tähelepanule. Uuring IV demonstreerib, kuidas hõivatus kehakaalust ja välimusest (oluline söömishäirete riskitegur) on seotud ülemäärase tähelepanuga enda kehasuuruse muutustele ja puuduliku tähelepanuga kellegi teise kehasuuruse muutustele. Uuring V näitab, et teadvelolekut (arendatav kalduvus käesoleva kogemuse hinnanguvabaks teadvustamiseks, mis on seotud madalama emotsionaalse reaktiivsuse ja parema vaimse tervisega) iseloomustab kiirem negatiivse informatsiooni eelistöötluse vähenemine ehk tõhusam afektiivne adaptatsioon. Väitekirja uuringutest järeldub, et KPK mudeli rakendamine võib aidata tuvastada väga erinevate afektiivsete individuaalsete erinevuste võimalikke psühholoogilisi mehhanisme.Affective individual differences are relatively stable tendencies to experience certain patterns of affective states. Clarifying the psychological mechanisms of affective individual differences can offer valuable insights into mental health and illness. Building on previous work, the current dissertation proposed the Construct-Process-Context (CPC) framework as a conceptual tool for studying these mechanisms. The CPC framework suggests that affective individual differences involve biases in specific affective processes that arise in specific contexts. The empirical studies of the dissertation applied the CPC framework to electroencephalography (EEG) based investigation of the mechanisms of affective individual differences that involve either approach-avoidance motivation or motivated attention. Studies I and III clarified open methodological questions to inform the design and interpretation of individual difference studies. Study II demonstrated that high levels of Neuroticism, a personality dimension that is characterized by negative affectivity and elevated risk for psychopathology, may be related to the activation of avoidance tendencies in response to another person’s directed attention (i.e., eye contact) during a neutral social encounter. Study IV demonstrated that high preoccupation with body image, which is a risk factor for eating disorders, may involve attentional over-prioritization of own body size and under-prioritization of peer body size. Finally, Study V demonstrated that cultivated mindfulness, a trainable tendency to be aware of and nonjudgmental toward one’s experiences that has been related to reduced affective reactivity and better mental health, is characterized by improved affective adaptation as indicated by initial increase and subsequent decrease in the salience of negative stimuli. It was concluded that the CPC framework may be helpful for clarifying the psychological mechanisms of very different affective individual difference constructs

Fairness enactment as response to higher level unfairness: the roles of self-construal and spatial distance

In contrast to the abundance of evidence on employee reactions to manager unfairness, we know very little about factors that predict whether managers will act fairly or not. This article explores the effect of procedural unfairness that emanates from higher level managers on procedural fairness enactment at lower levels in the organization. We argue that lower level managers can enact both more and less fair procedures in response to higher level unfairness and that this depends on the extent to which lower level managers define the self in terms of their relation with their higher level manager (i.e., relational-interdependent self-construal). We study both the moderating role of self-construal and how it is embedded in the physical environment of the organization. We pay particular attention to how spatial distance between higher and lower management affects self-construal at lower levels and—because of this relationship—the enactment of fair procedures within the organization. We conduct four studies (in two of which we study spatial distance as an antecedent for self-construal) and show that relatively high levels of relational-interdependent self-construal lead to assimilation in terms of procedural fairness enactment, whereas relatively low levels lead to contrast

Do Economic Policymakers Practice what they Preach? The Case of Pension Decisions

This paper examines whether policymakers, economists at the Israeli Finance Ministry, act in their personal pension decisions in accordance with the rational behaviour assumptions underlying the pension policies they advance. We find that while economists' decisions regarding three other important decisions such as buying an apartment, a car and a large appliance, are largely in line with rational models, pension decisions deviate significantly from these models. A large share of these policymakers hardly search for relevant information regarding their chosen pension fund, do not know the most necessary information and consider only one option before choosing the preferred pension fund. A significant difference was found between specialized policymakers (economists in the Pension Division) and general policymakers (economists in all other Divisions) showing that specialized policymakers are significantly less biased.policymaking, pension decisions, expert, rational choice

Essays zu sozialem Zusammenhalt, Ungleichheit, Umverteilungspräferenzen und prosozialem Verhalten

The dissertation consists of five self-containing chapters in the realm of social cohesion. The first two chapters deal with preferences for redistribution, the first in an analysis of survey data from several countries and the second in an experimental investigation of work effort in the presence of redistribution in a simplified version of a welfare state. The third chapter tests the gift exchange hypothesis with wage inequality in a natural field experiment in Colombia. The fourth chapter analyzes whether racial attitudes are explained by prosocial and discriminating behavior in economic games and how these behavioral measures interact with the effect of protests on support for the Black Lives Matter movement and racial prejudice. Finally, the fifth chapter examines the interactions of political polarization and prosocial behavior with protective behavior and assessments of the governmental response regarding the COVID-19 pandemic at the state and national level, using data from a large-scale survey run in the first summer of the pandemic on a representative sample of the U.S. population