the differential regional effects of monetary policy this paper examines whether monetary policy has similar effects across regions in the united states impulse response functions from an estimated structural vector autoregression reveal a core of regions new england mideast plains southeast and the far west that respond to monetary policy changes in ways that closely approximate the u s average response of the three noncore regions one great lakes is noticeably more sensitive to monetary policy changes and two southwest and rocky mountains are found to be much less sensitive a state level version of the model is estimated and used to provide evidence on the channels for monetary policy

the relative forecasting performance of the divisia and simple sum monetary aggregates this paper provides direct evidence on the forecasting performance of the divisia monetary aggregates relative to the traditional simple sum monetary aggregates it is shown that forecasts of u s real gdp from a four variable vector autoregression var are most accurate when a divisia aggregate is used rather than a simple sum aggregate particularly at broad levels of aggregation further the two m1 aggregates relative to the broader aggregates are superior predictors of the gdp deflator with a slight edge going to divisia m1 over simple sum m1

comparing capitalisms and taking institutional context seriously a major limitation of existing international business ib research remains the rather thin view of institutional context in this retrospective we reflect upon and highlight different strategies for overcoming de contextualized perspectives and developing thicker conceptions of institutions drawing on comparative research institutions shape firm behavior not only through their direct or additive effects but have more complex influences by moderating relationships between firm level variables or having interactive or configurational effects related to wider sets of institutions these views can each be extended by adopting a dynamic perspective examining how multinational enterprise mne agency contributes to processes of institutional change ultimately a large gap remains in taking institutions seriously that ib scholars could fill by developing middle range theories that link and compare how particular kinds of institutions or institutional configurations influence particular kinds of mne activities

converging or diverging a comparative analysis of trends in contingent employment practice in europe over a decade this paper makes a unique contribution to the hrm convergence divergence debate by examining whether organisations operating in europe over the 10 year time period preceding 2000 are converging in their adoption of contingent employment practice the susceptibility of contingent employment practice to both convergent and divergent pressures acts as a useful analytical lens data are drawn from organisations operating in germany spain sweden the netherlands and the uk in 1991 2918 organisations 1995 2048 organisations and 2000 1555 organisations the results suggest that convergence is limited by the institutional embeddedness of organisations

yield spreads as predictors of industrial production expectations on short rates or term premia this paper reconsiders information in the us t bill term structure for predicting movements in real monthly industrial production it is shown that although t bill spreads contain little or no predictive content increases in term premia estimated from a garch m model of the term structure do since these estimated premia are linear functions of the conditional variance of excess returns the implication is that increases in interest rate variability are associated with reductions in industrial production this evidence is robust to the inclusion of the spread between the 10 year tbond yield and one month t bill yields the t bill term structure therefore contains information which is independent of the long end of the term structure

institutional theory and mnc subsidiary hrm practices evidence from a three country study this study sets out to explore human resource management hrm practices in multinational corporation mnc subsidiaries within an institutional theory framework based on a sample of 158 subsidiaries of mncs operating in the united states russia and finland the paper examines factors hypothesised to influence the hrm practices adapted in us japanese and european mnc subsidiaries located in russia finland and the us the results indicate significant differences in hrm practices used across host countries both the status of the subsidiary human resource department and the degree to which the subsidiary was involved in knowledge transfer with other parts of the mnc had a significant impact on the selection of hrm practices

an architectural framework for global talent management a unique characteristic of the multinational corporation is that it comprises a geographically dispersed and culturally differentiated workforce that embodies both firm specific and location specific human capital this article takes an architectural approach to describe how different types of human capital develop from the individual level to the unit level and then to the firm level in order to build a talent portfolio for the multinational corporation depending on the company s strategy multidomestic meganational transnational different configurations of the talent portfolio tend to be emphasized and integrated to achieve competitive advantage implications for theory and practice are discussed and a research agenda is introduced

predicting u s recessions financial variables as leading indicators this paper examines the out of sample performance of various financial variables as predictors of u s recessions series such as interest rates and spreads stock prices and monetary aggregates are evaluated individually and in comparison with other financial and nonfinancial indicators the analysis focuses on out of sample performance from one to eight quarters ahead results show that stock prices are useful with one to three quarter horizons as are some well known macroeconomic indicators beyond one quarter however the slope of the yield curve emerges as the clear individual choice and typically performs better by itself out of sample than in conjunction with other variables

human resource management practices in the multinational company a test of system societal and dominance effects does the use of hrm practices by multinational companies mncs reflect their national origins or are practices similar regardless of context to the extent that practices are similar is there any evidence of global best standards the authors use the system societal and dominance framework to address these questions through analysis of 1 100 mnc subsidiaries in canada ireland spain and the united kingdom they argue that this framework offers a richer account than alternatives such as varieties of capitalism the study moves beyond previous research by differentiating between system effects at the global level and dominance effects arising from the diffusion of practices from a dominant economy it shows that both effects are present as are some differences at the societal level results suggest that mncs configure their hrm practices in response to all three forces rather than to some uniform global best practices or to their national institutional contexts

business cycles and the relationship between concentration and price cost margins using a newly constructed panel data base we examine changes in price cost margins in 284 manufacturing industries between 1958 and 1981 a key finding is a dramatic narrowing of the spread between the margins of concentrated and unconcentrated industries over this period we provide evidence that this narrowing is a result of the greater sensitivity of price cost margins in more concentrated industries to demand fluctuations this finding is robust to the inclusion of other industry variables and to measures of import competition the results indicate that cross sectional estimates of the concentration margins relationship are likely to be both biased and misleading

convergence in industrial relations institutions the emerging anglo american model at the outset of the thatcher reagan era the employment and labor law systems across six anglo american countries could be divided into three pairings the wagner act model of the united states and canada the voluntarist system of collective bargaining and strong unions in the united kingdom and ireland and the highly centralized legalistic award systems of australia and new zealand the authors argue that there has been growing convergence in two major areas first of labor law toward a private ordering of employment relations in which terms and conditions of work and employment are primarily determined at the level of the enterprise and second of individual employment rights toward a basket of minimum standards that can then be improved upon by the parties the greatest similarity is found in canada the united kingdom new zealand and australia ireland retains a greater degree of public ordering while the united states diverges in favoring the interests of employers over those of employees and organized labor the authors explore reasons for the convergence

probability predictions of rising real gdp growth and inflation the usefulness of monetary indicators several recent studies have focused on the predictive power of the yield spread for future economic activity the current paper reformulates the work of estrella and mishkin 1998 by focusing on the usefulness of monetary variables for generating probability predictions of rising or falling real gdp growth and inflation besides redefining the dependent variables the independent monetary variables are allowed to include lagged information also the current paper considers the usefulness of the divisia monetary aggregates in the context of probit models for predicting the probability that real gdp growth or inflation will be increasing

comparing capitalisms understanding institutional diversity and its implications for international business this paper examines the role of institutional analysis within the field of international business ib studies within ib institutions matter but the view of institutions tends to be thin utilizing summary indicators rather than detailed description and thus approaches institutions as unidimensional variables that impact on particular facets of business activity this paper argues that ib research would be usefully advanced by greater attention to comparing the topography of institutional landscapes and understanding their diversity a number of alternative case based approaches are outlined that draw on a growing comparative capitalisms literature in sociology and political science the paper develops a number of empirical examples to show the utility and limits of these approaches for ib scholars

a multi country study of the information in the shorter maturity term structure about future inflation abstract empirical analysis of data from ten oecd countries indicates that except for france the united kingdom and germany the shorter maturity term structure does not contain a great deal of information about the future path of inflation on the other hand except for the united kingdom there is a great deal of information in the term structure of nominal interest rates at shorter maturities about the term structure of real interest rates these results are explained by differences in the relative variability of expected future inflation changes and real term structure slopes for the different countries

the decentralization of collective bargaining a literature review and comparative analysis the author reviews evidence that the bargaining structure is becoming more decentralized in sweden australia the former west germany italy the united kingdom and the united states although in

global standardization or national differentiation of hrm practices in multinational companies a comparison of multinationals in five countries drawing on a dataset constructed from a parallel series of nationally representative surveys of multinational companies mncs we compare the performance management pm practices of mncs in the uk ireland canada spain denmark and norway in each country we analyze data relating to mncs from that country and of the foreign affiliates of us mncs we argue that there is evidence of standardization in the nature of practices across countries particularly evident in the analysis of us mncs standardization of practices among mncs is also evident in the rather limited variation in practices between us and indigenous mncs within each country moreover even where there is evidence of variation across and within countries this cannot be fully explained by adaptation to local institutional constraints but rather can be seen as the product of how distinct national contexts can promote the take up of practices

human resource management in us subsidiaries in europe and australia centralisation or autonomy we explore determinants of subsidiary autonomy in setting human resource management hrm practices within us parented multinational enterprises mnes in europe and australia we examine both the effect of strategic context and the effect of the institutional location of the subsidiary we find that us mnes show greater centralisation of control over hrm where the subsidiary faces global markets in coordinated market economies vs liberal market economies and where union density is low

high performance work systems in foreign subsidiaries of american multinationals an institutional model this study examines the implementation of high performance work systems hpwss in 217 subsidiaries of american based multinational enterprises operating in 14 countries in asia africa and europe specifically this paper explores the effect of host country institutional factors on the extent of hpws implementation in subsidiaries and focuses on strong agency influences and dominance effects the proposed model was more successful in explaining the effect of hpwss on rank and file employees than on managers of particular interest is the strong positive association between host country economic growth and hpws implementation which suggests a possible cyclical sensitivity of subsidiaries regarding human resource management strategy

a re examination of the predictability of economic activity using the yield spread this paper revisits the yield spread s usefulness for predicting future real gdp growth we show that the contribution of the spread can be decomposed into the effect of expected future changes in short rates and the effect of the term premium we find that both factors are relevant for predicting real gdp growth but the respective contributions differ we investigate whether the cyclical behavior of interest rate volatility could account for either or both effects we find that while volatility displays important correlations with both the term structure of interest rates and gdp it does not appear to account for the yield spread s usefulness for predicting gdp growth

patterns of convergence and divergence among industrialized nations 1960 1988 increased communication trade and travel between countries act to bring them together in many respects the present study examines similarities in macro environmental characteristics of eighteen industrialized nations over a twenty eight year period contrary to the initial research proposition countries were found to be diverging especially in the latter part of the time period in spite of the increased communications travel and trade between countries physical distance remains an important determinant of macro environmental similarity two measures of national culture power distance and individualism were found to be related to change in macro environmental factors

influences on human resource management practices in multinational corporations a study of human resource management practices in 249 u s affiliates of foreign based multinational corporations mncs shows that in general affiliate hrm practices closely follow local practices with differences among specific practices the degree of similarity of local practices is significantly influenced by the method of founding dependence on local inputs the presence of expatriates and the extent of communication with the parent in addition sharp differences are revealed among affiliates of canadian japanese and european mncs suggesting strong country effects together these findings support the view of mncs as composed of differentiated practices which in turn are shaped by forces for local isomorphism and for internal consistency

financialization of the global economy the instability of the world financial system starkly revealed in the recent debacle is not the only problem it poses its secularly increasing dominance over the real economy is in itself a phenomenon that needs examining the article traces the source of this increasing dominance not just to the increasingly leveraged and increasingly incomprehensible forms of intermediation between savers and those in the real economy who need credit and insurance but also to the increasingly universal doctrine that maximizing shareholder value is the sole raison d etre of the firm and the promotion by governments of an equity culture some of the social consequences of financialization are exacerbating inequalities greater insecurity misdirection of talent and the erosion of trust copyright 2008 oxford university press

the effects of market economy type and foreign mne subsidiaries on the convergence and divergence of hrm this study explores patterns of human resource management hrm practices across market economies and between indigenous firms and foreign mne subsidiary operations offering a novel perspective on convergence and divergence applying institutional theorizing to improve our understanding of convergence divergence as a process and an outcome data collected from nine countries at three points in time over a decade confirm that convergence and divergence occur to different extents in a nonlinear fashion and vary depending on the area of hrm practice observed patterns of adoption and convergence divergence are explained through the effect of institutional constraints which vary between liberal and coordinated market economies and between indigenous firms and foreign mne subsidiaries specifically we expected and largely found supporting evidence confirming that compensation and wage bargaining level practices show more evidence of being institutionally constrained and hence were less likely to converge than contingent employment training and direct information provision practices the study contributes a more graded conceptualization of convergence divergence from constant no difference through robust convergence non robust convergence non robust divergence and robust divergence to constant difference allowing us to tease out the subtle manifestations of the process that can incorporate the complex dynamic reality of international business

what does the term structure tell us about future inflation abstract this empirical analysis indicates that for maturities of six months or less the term structure of nominal interest rates provides almost no information about the future path of inflation but does provide information about the term structure of real interest rates however as maturities lengthen to nine and twelve months the nominal term structure begins to contain information about future inflation but ceases to provide information about the real term structure these results are explained by differences in the relative variability of expected future inflation changes and real term structure slopes at different points in the term structure

how stable is the predictive power of the yield curve evidence from germany and the united states empirical research over the last decade has uncovered predictive relationships between the slope of the yield curve and subsequent real activity and inflation some of these relationships are highly significant but their theoretical motivations suggest that they may not be stable over time we use recent econometric techniques for break testing to examine whether the empirical relationships are in fact stable we consider continuous models which predict either economic growth or inflation and binary models which predict either recessions or inflationary pressure in each case we draw on evidence from germany and the united states models that predict real activity are somewhat more stable than those that predict inflation and binary models are more stable than continuous models the model that predicts recessions is stable over our full sample period in both germany and the united states