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Mapping Entrepreneurial Inclusion Across US Neighborhoods: The Case of Low-Code E-commerce Entrepreneurship
Full text linkEntrepreneurship is presented as a path to prosper through commerce, yet there is evidence that certain communities are underrepresented in entrepreneurship. Technological developments such as low-code e-commerce tools have altered the barriers to launch commercial ventures. Do these tools alter entrepreneurial inclusion? We study an omnipresent low-code tool, Shopify, which has dramatically reduced the financial and technical barriers to e- commerce. We undertake an abductive analysis using unique data on the spatial distribution of Shopify-based activity for the entire US. We find evidence of entrepreneurial inclusion; neighborhoods with more Black residents, a group historically underrepresented in entrepreneurship, also have more low-code ventures. We interpret these results against traditional forms of startups: newly registered businesses and VC-backed e-commerce ventures. These benchmark analyses further support our findings
Who gains from corporate tax cuts?
No full textGoods producers increase their capital expenditure and employment in response to a cut in marginal corporate income tax rates or an increase in investment tax credits. In contrast, companies in the service sector mostly use any tax windfall to increase dividend payouts. We base our conclusions on a novel measure of U.S. firm-specific tax shocks that combines changes in statutory tax rates faced by each firm with narrative identified legislated U.S. federal tax changes between 1950 and 2006
Buildings as batteries
Full text linkAggregators are increasingly using portfolios of various end-user resources such as local renewable generation, batteries, EVs and demand-side management to participate in the electricity markets as virtual power plants. Whilst the smart control of energy within buildings is well established for cost optimisation, the prospect of an aggregator collaborating with the energy managers of buildings to trade electricity in the wholesale markets is under researched. This paper uses a state-of-the-art architectural simulator to model the thermal inertia of a typical high-rise building in London and represent the thermodynamics of its hourly occupancy and weather responses. The building is simulated as a virtual battery by manipulating the HVAC settings. Price arbitrage on the electricity wholesale market and contracting with the local distribution network for flexible reserve services are both feasible and profitable. It is concluded that aggregators can apparently use buildings as additional assets within their trading portfolios
A Bayesian model of later life mortality trends and implications for longevity
Full text linkUsing a novel, flexible, and easily interpretable dynamic Bayesian state space model, we analyse historic and future longevity trends across 18 high income countries over the last 100 years and 16 large population emerging markets from 1950. Our results show the key driver of global life expectancy is now late-life mortality whose importance is projected to increase further. We find no sign of any impending limit to average life expectancy but project a slowdown in future life expectancy gains despite continuing improvement in later-life mortality. Gains to later-life mortality are increasingly driven by the modal age of death with a slowdown in improvements in the speed of ageing and compressions of mortality. The consequence is a projection increase in the upper bound of age at death and a slowdown in lifespan equality improvements. Whereas the 20th century saw widespread cross-country convergence in longevity indicators the projections are for divergence both within high-income countries as well as large population emerging markets. A particular outlier is the U.S. where our model predicts substantial increases in the modal and upper bound for observed age at death but only small improvements in life expectancy and so an increase in lifespan inequality
The Click-based MNL Model: A Framework for Modeling Click Data in Assortment Optimization
No full textWe introduce the click-based MNL choice model, a framework for capturing customer purchasing decisions in e-commerce settings. Specifically, we augment the classical Multinomial Logit choice model by assuming that customers only consider the items they have clicked on before they proceed to compare their random utilities. In this context, we study the resulting assortment optimization problem, where the objective is to select a subset of products, made available for purchase, to maximize the expected revenue. Our main algorithmic contribution comes in the form of a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for this problem, showing that the optimal expected revenue can be efficiently approached within any degree of accuracy. To establish this result, we develop several technical ideas, including enumeration schemes and stochastic inequalities, which may be of broader interest. Using data from Alibaba’s online marketplace, we fit click-based MNL and latent class MNL models to historical sales and click data in a setting where the online platform recommends a personalized six-product display to each user. We propose an estimation methodology for the click-based MNL model that leverages clickstream data and machine learning classification algorithms. Our numerical results suggest that clickstream data are valuable for predicting choices and that the click-based MNL model can outperform standard logit-based models in certain settings
Physical Work Environments: An Integrative Review and Agenda for Future Research
Full text linkThis review examines the effect of physical work environments—the dedicated, tangible spaces where employees carry out their professional tasks—on organizational processes and outcomes. We synthesize decades of research across various disciplines using a conceptual framework that categorizes physical work environments into three key dimensions: ambience, spatial configuration, and aesthetics. These dimensions are analyzed for their effects on both internal stakeholders, such as employees, and external stakeholders, including clients, suppliers, and investors. Our analysis reveals two major themes in prior research: (1) task accomplishment, which focuses on how physical work environments influence physical and mental health, motivation and attitudes, as well as work processes; and (2) resource position, which explores how these environments impact a firm’s tangible resource position, its ability to attract and retain human resources, as well as shape intangible assets such as organizational culture and reputation. The study also highlights contradictory findings and methodological limitations in existing research and proposes future research agendas. By providing theoretical insights and practical guidelines, this work seeks to guide both scholars and managers in understanding how physical workspaces can be designed to improve organizational outcomes, particularly as firms adapt to evolving work arrangements following the COVID-19 pandemic
Perceptions of Knowledge Transferability and Entrepreneurial Entry: The Role of Firm-Initiated Turnover
Full text linkI examine the understudied effects of perceived non-transferable knowledge on labor market choices after firm-initiated turnover. Using a large, nationally representative dataset, I assess how workers’ perceptions of knowledge transferability, expectations to remain at a firm, and type of turnover experienced correlate with the decision to engage in entrepreneurship. I find that the release of workers with perceived non-transferable knowledge into the external environment through firm-initiated turnover reliably foreshadows entrepreneurship, especially as workers’ prior expectations to continue wage employment at a source firm increases. This finding indicates that beyond necessity, opportunity and financial resources, workers’ self-perceptions of their human capital and unfulfilled career expectations matter to the choice of entrepreneurship. It also suggests that firm-initiated turnover may be a form of knowledge divestiture with important ex-post implications when workers’ perceptions of transferability align with reality
Missing Financial Data
No full textWe document the widespread nature and structure of missing observations of firm fundamentals and show how to systematically handle them. Missing financial data affects more than 70% of firms that represent about half of the total market cap. Firm fundamentals have complex systematic missing patterns, invalidating traditional approaches to imputation. We propose a novel imputation method to obtain a fully observed panel of firm fundamentals that exploits both time-series and cross-sectional dependency of data to impute missing values and allows for general systematic patterns of missingness. We document important implications for risk premiums estimates, cross-sectional anomalies, and portfolio construction
The Impact of Tax Shields on Bankruptcy Risk and Resource Allocation
Full text linkThis paper investigates how tax loss carry forward (LCF) rules influence corporate bankruptcies and market-wide productivity. Analyzing data from 29 European countries, I find that stricter LCF deductibility limits significantly increase bankruptcy likelihoods. This is because stricter LCF deductibility limits lower the present value of net operating losses (NOLs) as tax assets, reducing the incentive to keep struggling firms alive. This effect is especially pronounced for business group firms, which can support struggling affiliates through internal capital markets to strategically exploit NOLs. My results suggest that lenient LCF deductibility limits can sustain unproductive firms, impacting market-wide resource allocation and productivity. These findings highlight the trade-off in tax policy between supporting firm survival and ensuring efficient resource allocation in the economy
A Contingency Model of Top Management Teams’ Task Conflict and Organizational-Level Outcomes: Evidence for a Curvilinear Relationship
Full text linkThe relationship between conflict and performance has been studied for decades, but little is known about how and under what conditions task conflict among top managers affects firm-level outcomes. In this study, we examine a curvilinear effect of task conflict in top management teams (TMTs) on both firm performance and TMT resilience efficacy, as moderated by behavioral integration. We argue and find that TMT task conflict can improve firm performance when behavioral integration is high, but the effect is not linear; rather it levels off. In contrast, we maintain and find that TMT task conflict can improve TMT resilience efficacy at an increasing rate when behavioral integration is low. We also find that behavioral integration itself is predicted by Chief Executive Officer relational leadership such that leaders with a more relationship-oriented style encourage more behavioral integration in their teams. Field data from 555 top managers from 111 organizations in South Korea provided support for our hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed