online and official price indexes measuring argentina s inflation abstract prices collected from online retailers can be used to construct daily price indexes that complement official statistics this paper studies their ability to match official inflation estimates in five latin american countries with a focus on argentina where official statistics have been heavily criticized in recent years the data were collected between october 2007 and march 2011 from the largest supermarket in each country in brazil chile colombia and venezuela online price indexes approximate both the level and main dynamics of official inflation by contrast argentina s online inflation rate is nearly three times higher than the official estimate

optimal discretionary monetary policy in a model of asymmetric central bank preferences this paper considers optimal monetary policy in the context of the central bank adopting an asymmetric objective function our results show that under asymmetric preferences many of the extant results on the time consistency problem need no longer hold

measuring the time inconsistency of us monetary policy this paper offers an alternative explanation for the great inflation of the 1970s by measuring a novel source of monetary policy time inconsistency in the presence of asymmetric preferences the monetary authorities generate a systematic inflation bias through the private sector expectations of a larger policy response in recessions than in booms the estimated fed s implicit target for inflation has declined from the pre to the post volcker regime the average inflation bias was about 1 before 1979 but this has disappeared over the last two decades because the preferences on output stabilization were large and asymmetric only in the former period

corporate socially responsible initiatives and their effects on consumption of green products corporate social responsibility csr research has focused often on the business returns of corporate social initiatives but less on their possible social returns we study an actual company consumer partnership csr initiative promoting ecologically correct and conscious consumption of bottled mineral water we conduct a survey on adult consumers to test the hypotheses that consumer skepticism toward the company consumer partnership csr initiative and the moral emotion of elevation mediate the relationship between company csr motives perceived by consumers and consumer behavioral responses following this csr initiative favorable consumer behavioral responses in turn relate positively to consumer support of other green products the results provide scholars and managers with means of improving their understanding and handling of company consumer partnership csr initiatives

rebuilding trust ireland s csr plan in the light of caritas in veritate this paper seeks to contribute to the discussion on national corporate social responsibility csr plans from the perspectives of the three logics as articulated in caritas in veritate by using the irish national csr plan as an example good for business good for the community ireland s national plan on corporate social responsibility 2014 2016 maintains that csr activities can enable organisations to build relationships and trust with communities one of the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis was the decrease in trust in banking systems and in business more broadly it is well recognised that relationships of trust are essential to the life of the market the state and civil society pope emeritus benedict xvi s caritas in veritate contends that corresponding to the life of the market the state and civil society are three logics the logic of exchange i e giving to acquire the logic of public obligation i e giving through duty and the logic of gift i e giving due to solidarity this paper proposes that the normative framework of the three logics of caritas in veritate can be read into the irish national csr plan this paper argues that the examples of csr initiatives proffered by the plan could point organisations in the direction of the logic of gift and therefore enable the rebuilding of relationships of trust with citizens and communities

on the loss function of the bank of canada a note abstract based on the approach advanced by elliott et al elliott g komunjer i timmermann a 2005 estimation and testing of forecast rationality under flexible loss review of economic studies 72 1107 1125 we studied whether the inflation and output growth projections published by the bank of canada are consistent with an asymmetric loss function current year projections provide no signs of asymmetry but next year projections do the hypothesis of rationality of the projections can be rejected under symmetric loss but not under asymmetric loss

survey forecasts in brazil a prismatic assessment of epidemiology performance and determinants abstract this paper assesses the behavior of survey forecasts in brazil during the inflation targeting regime when managing expectations is one of the cornerstones of the conduct of monetary policy the distinctive database of the survey conducted by the central bank of brazil bcb among professional forecasters allows for a thorough investigation of the epidemiology determinants and performance of forecasts the main results are i top performing forecasters are influential to other forecasters ii survey forecasts perform better than vector autoregressive model based forecasts iii common forecast errors prevail over idiosyncratic components across respondents iv inflation targets play an important role in inflation expectations and v agents perceive the bcb as following a taylor rule consistent with inflation targeting the last two suggest high credibility of the monetary authority

e pluribus unum legitimacy issues and multi stakeholder codes of conduct regulatory schema has shifted from government to governance based systems one particular form that has emerged at the international level is the multi stakeholder voluntary code of conduct msvc we argue that such codes are not only simply mechanisms by which various stakeholders attempt to govern the action of the corporation but also systems by which each stakeholder attempts to gain or retain some legitimacy goal each stakeholder is motivated by strategic legitimacy goal to join the code and once a member is also required to assist in maintaining the institutional legitimacy of the code resulting in networked legitimacy we begin our analysis of these systems by first exploring the growth and structure of such msvcs and then building an analytical framework using strategic and institutional legitimacy as they apply to such msvcs we contribute to the codes of conduct literature by developing the construct of networked legitimacy from strategic and institutional legitimacy we then apply our framework to the united nations global compact one of the predominant msvcs today in doing so we 1 demonstrate how different stakeholders are pursuing different types of legitimacy through their participation in the code 2 examine the specific opportunities and risks in terms of what we have called networked legitimacy posed by the institutional design of actual msvcs and 3 create an argument for three pillars supporting the legitimacy of msvcs

central banks inflation forecasts under asymmetric loss evidence from four latin american countries we study the rationality of the inflation forecasts of the central banks of argentina brazil chile and mexico we reject rationality under a symmetric chile is an exception but not under an asymmetric loss function an overprediction implies a larger loss than an underprediction we also analyze alternative rationality tests growth forecasts and private sector forecasts

leveraging reputational risk sustainable sourcing campaigns for improving labour standards in production networks ethical or socially sustainable sourcing mechanisms mandating labour standards among the suppliers and subcontractors that organisations source goods and services from are becoming more common the issue of how labour activist groups such as trade unions can encourage organisations to adopt and strengthen these mechanisms within domestic production networks is largely unexplored using three cases of domestic sustainable sourcing campaigns developed by unions in britain the strategies used by labour activists the characteristics of the organisations targeted and the motivations of lead firms for improving sourcing practices are analysed the article makes a significant contribution by demonstrating that organisational susceptibility to reputational risk is a key factor influencing the capacity of activist groups to convince and compel their targets to improve sourcing practices it argues that different types of organisations are susceptible to reputational damage in different ways that risk events provide opportunities for unions to strengthen their leverage against target organisations and that the multidimensional nature of corporate reputation needs to be better considered for understanding how campaigns are framed and executed

evaluating federal reserve predictions of growth in consumer spending this study shows that federal reserve forecasts of growth in both total consumption and durable spending are generally rational under asymmetric loss and the forecasts of growth in nondurable services spending while unbiased biased fail to be rational yet these forecasts are all directionally accurate the forecasts of growth in total consumption durable and services spending are more less accurate in predicting the downward upward moves and are thus of value when policymakers assign more less cost to incorrect downward upward predictions the forecasts of growth in nondurable spending are equally accurate in predicting the downward and upward moves and are thus of value when policymakers assign similar cost to both incorrect downward and upward predictions utilizing survey data to measure the private forecasts we further provide partial support for the asymmetric information hypothesis that the federal reserve has useful information about the state of the economy that is not known by

rent seeking and market structure comment if the firms in an industry are to be successful in raising money to influence government two conditions must be met 1 there must be sufficient rents available from government decisions regarding that industry to make such expenditures worthwhile and 2 the industry must be sufficiently concentrated to avoid a free rider problem in fund raising this argument though seemingly intuitively appealing has been under recent empirical attack this paper seeks to restore the parapets

inflation targeting under asymmetric preferences this paper develops and estimates a game theoretical model of inflation targeting where the central banker s preferences are asymmetric around the targeted rate specifically positive deviations from the target can be weighted more or less severely than negative ones in the central banker s loss function it is shown that some of the previous results derived under the assumption of symmetry are not robust to this generalization of preferences estimates of the central banker s preference parameters for canada sweden and the uk are statistically different from the one implied by the commonly used quadratic loss function

bias in federal reserve inflation forecasts is the federal reserve irrational or just cautious abstract inflation forecasts of the federal reserve seem to have systematically under predicted inflation from the fourth quarter of 1968 until volcker s appointment as chairman and to systematically over predict it afterwards until the second quarter of 1998 furthermore under quadratic loss commercial forecasts seem to have information not contained in those forecasts to investigate the cause of this apparent irrationality this paper recovers the loss function implied by federal reserve s inflation forecasts the results suggest that the cost of having inflation above an implicit time varying target was larger than the cost of having inflation below it for the period since volcker and that the opposite was true for the pre volcker era once these asymmetries are taken into account the federal reserve s inflation forecasts are found to be rational

the effectiveness of the public support policies for the european industry financing as a contribution to sustainable development in recent years the debate about the role of the public institutions in the fields of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development has gained momentum nevertheless the ambiguity of the latter concepts makes it difficult both to measure them and to estimate the impact that the different public initiatives may have on them in this sense the present research has the aim to design a fuzzy logic based methodology applied to the evaluation of the above mentioned processes in relation to the state aid policies for the european industry regarding the study contour the european union state aids seems not to have introduced important changes leading to socially responsible results and therefore favourable for the sustainable development generated by the european manufacturing industry

can the fed predict the state of the economy abstract we show that systematic forecast errors reveal that the fed is surprised by real and inflationary cycles the fed knows the state of the economy for the current quarter but cannot predict it one quarter ahead

institutional environment managerial attitudes and environmental sustainability orientation of small firms this study examines the direct impact of three dimensions of the institutional environment on managerial attitudes toward the natural environment and the direct influence of the latter on the environmental sustainability orientation eso of small firms we contend that when the institutional environment is perceived by owner managers as supportive of sound natural environment management practices they are more likely to develop a positive attitude toward natural environment issues and concerns such owner manager attitudes are likely to lead to a positive and proactive orientation of their firms toward environmental sustainability the study uses survey data from 166 small manufacturing firms located in three philippine cities first the study develops and tests the measurement models to examine the validity of the constructs representing the firm s institutional environment managerial attitudes toward the natural environment and the eso of firms second the study develops and tests the structural models examining the institutional environment managerial attitudes eso linkages multi sample invariance structural model analysis shows the mediating role of managerial attitudes in the institutional environment eso nexus the findings show that eso is a construct comprising three dimensions knowledge of environmental issues sustainable practices and commitment toward environmental sustainability the cognitive regulatory and normative elements of the institutional environment are strongly linked to positive managerial attitudes toward environmental sustainability which in turn positively influences the firm s overall eso managerial attitudes play a mediating role in the institutional environment eso linkages the managerial practical research and policy implications of the research findings are discussed

from resistance to opportunity seeking strategic responses to institutional pressures for corporate social responsibility in the nordic fashion industry using survey responses from 400 fashion companies in denmark norway sweden finland and iceland we examine the diversity of strategic responses to institutional pressures for corporate social responsibility csr within the nordic fashion industry we also develop and test a new model of strategic responses to institutional pressures that encompasses both resistance and opportunity seeking behaviour our results suggest that it is inconsistent pressures within rather than between stakeholder groups that shape strategic responses to csr pressures and that increasing pressures stimulates opportunity seeking at the expense of compliance

evaluating rationality of level and growth rate forecasts of direct tax revenues under flexible loss function evidence from swiss cantons abstract we explore the rationality of tax revenue forecasts in swiss cantons under asymmetric loss functions we find evidence of asymmetric losses for the level forecasts but not for growth rates allowing for asymmetric losses alters the outcome of rationality tests for the level forecasts

biases in macroeconomic forecasts irrationality or asymmetric loss empirical studies using survey data on expectations have frequently observed that forecasts are biased and have concluded that agents are not rational we establish that existing rationality tests are not robust to even small deviations from symmetric loss and hence have little ability to tell whether the forecaster is irrational or the loss function is asymmetric we quantify the exact trade off between forecast inefficiency and asymmetric loss leading to identical outcomes of standard rationality tests and explore new and more general methods for testing forecast rationality jointly with flexible families of loss functions that embed quadratic loss as a special case an empirical application to survey data on forecasts of nominal output growth demonstrates the empirical significance of our results and finds that rejections of rationality may largely have been driven by the assumption of symmetric loss

public policies on corporate social responsibility the role of governments in europe over the last decade corporate social responsibility csr has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and second as a process by which companies manage their relationship with stakeholders european commission 2001 nowadays csr has become a priority issue on governments agendas this has changed governments capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies but has also affected the framework in which csr public policies are designed governments are incorporating multi stakeholder strategies this article analyzes the csr public policies in european advanced democracies and more specifically the eu 15 countries and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood designed and implemented their csr public policies the analysis has entailed the classification of csr public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments policies were addressed this approach to the analysis of csr public policies in the eu 15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed which has enabled us to propose a four ideal typology model for governmental action on csr in europe partnership business in the community sustainability and citizenship and agora the main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze csr public policies which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments businesses and civil society stakeholders and enable us to incorporate the analysis of csr public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance

the rationality of usda forecasts under multivariate asymmetric loss a large number of previous studies suggest that many usda forecasts are biased and or inefficient these findings however may be the result of the assumed loss function of usda forecasters we test the rationality of the usda net cash income forecasts and the wasde production and price forecasts between 1988 and 2018 using a flexible multivariate loss function that allows for asymmetric loss and non separable forecast errors our results provide robust evidence that usda forecasters are rational expected loss minimizers yet demonstrate a tendency to place a greater weight on under or overprediction as a result this study provides an alternate interpretation of previous findings of forecast irrationality

reconsidering the relevance of social license pressure and government regulation for environmental performance of european smes whereas social license pressure is held as a strong motive for the corporate social performance csp of large enterprises it is argued in literature that it will not sufficiently motivate small and medium sized enterprises smes in this view government regulation is the most effective way to improve the environmental performance of smes other studies argue that social license pressure is also important for smes because of the strong embeddedness of smes in their local communities a large scale empirical study into the effects of social license pressures and government regulation on the environmental performance of smes that could help solve this debate is however still lacking this paper contributes to the scientific literature by using structural equation modeling on a sample of 4929 smes from twelve european countries to test both views for micro small and medium sized enterprises another contribution to scientific literature is that our model includes direct as well as indirect effects from social license pressures on environmental performance the indirect effects are mediated by perceived market benefits of csr the estimation results show that social license pressures as perceived by smes significantly affect the environmental performance of micro small and medium sized enterprises directly as well as indirectly through mediation by perceived market benefits of csp in all cases the perceived social license pressure provides a stronger stimulus to improving environmental performance than the motive to comply with government regulation the policy implication is that governments should not rely on direct regulation of environmental performance only but also aim to improve the transparency of environmental performance by soft regulations that induce smes to publish key performance indicators on environmental issues

testing for asymmetries in the preferences of the euro area monetary policymaker this article tests for asymmetries in the preferences of the euro area monetary policymaker with 1995 1 2005 2 data from the latest update of the european central bank s ecb s area wide database following the relevant literature we distinguish between three types of asymmetry precautionary demand for expansions precautionary demand for price stability and interest rate smoothing asymmetry based on the joint generalized method of moments gmm estimation of the euler equation of optimal policy and the aggregate supply aggregate demand as ad structure of the macroeconomy we find evidence of precautionary demand for price stability in the preferences revealed by the monetary policymaker this type of asymmetry is consistent with the ecb s definition of price stability and with the priority of credibility building by a recently created monetary authority 1cempre centro de estudos macroeconomicos e previsao is a research centre supported by the fundacao para a ciencia e a tecnologia portugal whi

estimation and testing of forecast rationality under flexible loss in situations where a sequence of forecasts is observed a common strategy is to examine rationality conditional on a given loss function we examine this from a different perspective supposing that we have a family of loss functions indexed by unknown shape parameters then given the forecasts can we back out the loss function parameters consistent with the forecasts being rational even when we do not observe the underlying forecasting model we establish identification of the parameters of a general class of loss functions that nest popular loss functions as special cases and provide estimation methods and asymptotic distributional results for these parameters this allows us to construct new tests of forecast rationality that allow for asymmetric loss the methods are applied in an empirical analysis of imf and oecd forecasts of budget deficits for the g7 countries we find that allowing for asymmetric loss can significantly change the outcome of empirical tests of forecast rationality