Corporate Hierarchies and the Size of Nations: Theory and Evidence

Corporate organization varies within a country and across countries with country size. The paper starts by establishing some facts about corporate organization based on unique data of 660 Austrian and German corporations. The larger country (Germany) has larger firms with flatter more decentral corporate hierarchies compared to the smaller country (Austria). Firms in the larger country change their organization less fast than firms in the smaller country. Over time firms have been introducing less hierarchical organizations by delegating power to lower levels of the corporation. We develop a theory which explains these facts and which links these features to the trade environment that countries and firms face. We introduce firms with internal hierarchies in a Krugman (1980) model of trade. We show that international trade and the toughness of competition in international markets induce a power struggle in firms which eventually leads to decentralized corporate hierarchies. We offer econometric evidence which is consistent with the models predictions

A generalized nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation as model for turbulence, collapse, and inverse cascade

A two-dimensional generalized cubic nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation with complex coefficients for the group dispersion and nonlinear terms is used to investigate the evolution of a finite-amplitude localized initial perturbation. It is found that modulation of the latter can lead to side-band formation, wave condensation, collapse, turbulence, and inverse cascade, although not all together nor in that order.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Domestic Rivalry and Export Performance: Theory and Evidence from International Airline Markets

The much-studied relationship between domestic rivalry and export performance consists of those supporting a national-champion rationale, and those supporting a rivalry rationale. While the empirical literature generally supports the positive effects of domestic rivalry, the national-champion rationale actually rests on firmer theoretical ground. We address this inconsistency by providing a theoretical framework that illustrates three paths via which domestic rivalry translates into enhanced international exports. Furthermore, empirical tests on the world airline industry elicit the existence of one particular path - an enhanced firm performance effect - that connects domestic rivalry with improved international exports

Cultural and economic complementarities of spatial agglomeration in the British television broadcasting industry: Some explorations.

This paper considers the processes supporting agglomeration in the British television broadcasting industry. It compares and contrasts the insights offered by the cultural turn in geography and more conventionally economic approaches. It finds that culture and institutions are fundamental to the constitution of production and exchange relationships and also that they solve fundamental economic problems of coordinating resources under conditions of uncertainty and limited information. Processes at a range of spatial scales are important, from highly local to global, and conventional economics casts some light on which firms are most active and successful

Worldwide spreading of economic crisis

We model the spreading of a crisis by constructing a global economic network and applying the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) epidemic model with a variable probability of infection. The probability of infection depends on the strength of economic relations between the pair of countries, and the strength of the target country. It is expected that a crisis which originates in a large country, such as the USA, has the potential to spread globally, like the recent crisis. Surprisingly we show that also countries with much lower GDP, such as Belgium, are able to initiate a global crisis. Using the {\it k}-shell decomposition method to quantify the spreading power (of a node), we obtain a measure of ``centrality'' as a spreader of each country in the economic network. We thus rank the different countries according to the shell they belong to, and find the 12 most central countries. These countries are the most likely to spread a crisis globally. Of these 12 only six are large economies, while the other six are medium/small ones, a result that could not have been otherwise anticipated. Furthermore, we use our model to predict the crisis spreading potential of countries belonging to different shells according to the crisis magnitude.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures and Supplementary Materia

Sport development programmes for Indigenous Australians: innovation, inclusion and development, or a product of 'white guilt'?

Under the legacy of neoliberalism, it is important to consider how the indigenous people, in this case of Australia, are to advance, develop and achieve some approximation of parity with broader societies in terms of health, educational outcomes and economic participation. In this paper, we explore the relationships between welfare dependency, individualism, responsibility, rights, liberty and the role of the state in the provision of Government-funded programmes of sport to Indigenous communities. We consider whether such programmes are a product of 'white guilt' and therefore encourage dependency and weaken the capacity for independence within communities and individuals, or whether programmes to increase rates of participation in sport are better viewed as good investments to bring about changes in physical activity as (albeit a small) part of a broader social policy aimed at reducing the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in health, education and employment