Fachbereich VWL / Department of Economics EconNewsletter Editorial Contact: Michael Paetz tel: +49 40 42838-5561; e-mail: [email protected] NOVEMBER 24 - NOVEMBER 28, 2014 NEWSLETTER 2014-25 SEMINAR CALENDAR HCHE Research Seminar Prof. Daniele Mascia, Università Cattolica del Saco Cuore: Exploring Professionals' Motivation to Lead: A Cross-level Study in the Healthcare Sector Monday November 24 16:30-18:00 R. 4011 (Esplanade 36) Forschungsseminar “Quantitative Wirtschaftsforschung“ Sandra Eickmeier, Deutsche Bundesbank: The Interest Rate Pass-Through in the Euro Area Before and During the Sovereign Debt Crisis Tuesday November 25 12:15–13:45 R. 0029 (VMP 5) Forschungsseminar “Environmental Economics and Management“ Felix Creutzig, Mercator Institute on Global Commons Research: Wednesday November 26 Ambiguity and optimal learning in clime mitigation scenarios 12:15–13:45 R. 0029 (VMP 5) Hamburg Lectures on Law & Economics Leonardo Baccini, London School of Economics: International Economic Agreements and the Activities of Heterogeneous Multinational Firms Wednesday November 26 18:15–19:45 R. 1083a (VMP 5) PhD Seminar Katharina Glass, University of Hamburg: Real-Time Information Content of Macroeconomic Data and Uncertainty: an Application to the Euro Area Thursday November 27 12:15–13:15 R. 0029 (VMP 5) Research Seminar “Microeconomics” - no seminar - -2- Research Seminar “Labour Economics” - no seminar - ABSTRACTS HCHE Research Seminar Prof. Daniele Mascia, Università Cattolica del Saco Cuore: Exploring Professionals' Motivation to Lead: A Cross-level Study in the Healthcare Sector Abstract: The extant leadership research has paid increasing attention to the concept of motivation to lead (MTL) as an individual construct that strongly affects leadership processes and behaviors. However, despite its importance, scant knowledge is available about how individual characteristics and organizational structural features interact in influencing MTL in professional-based organizations. This article contributes to this line of research by adopting a multilevel perspective to study the MTL among individual professionals in the healthcare sector. We collected data from a sample of 791 physicians nested in 44 departments belonging to 27 hospitals. Using the hierarchical linear model, we tested the impact of individual and organizational variables on the motivation of physicians to engage in managerial positions. Our findings demonstrate that the physicians' MTL was positively associated with their individual self-efficacy. Departmental decentralization interacted with this self-efficacy, such that the effect of self-efficacy on the MTL was significantly lower when decentralization was high. We discuss the implications of these findings for human resource management and organizational (re)design within professional organizations. Forschungsseminar “Quantitative Wirtschaftsforschung“ Sandra Eickmeier, Deutsche Bundesbank: The Interest Rate Pass-Through in the Euro Area Before and During the Sovereign Debt Crisis Abstract: We investigate the pass-through of monetary policy to bank lending rates (IP) in the euro area before and during the sovereign debt crisis and explore possible reasons for differences across periods and countries. We make the following contributions. First, we use a measure of the effective monetary policy stimulus (EMS) derived from a shadow/ZLB-Gaussian affine term structure model which consistently captures conventional and unconventional, actual and future monetary policy as expected by market participants over the entire sample. Second, we use the EMS in a factoraugmented vector autoregression, which accounts for nonstationarity and cointegration in the data and allows to assess the responses of a large number of country-specific interest rates and spreads. Third, we analyze the effects of monetary policy on the components of the IP, which reflect banks’ funding risk (including sovereign risk) and markups charged by banks over funding costs. Fourth, we explore to what extent changes in the conduct of monetary policy have altered the IP. We find that the transmission of monetary policy to bank lending rates weakened over time. Loose monetary policy did not lower -3banks’ markups, monetary policy shocks were less persistent, and expected future monetary policy was ineffective during the sovereign debt crisis. Hamburg Lectures on Law & Economics Leonardo Baccini, London School of Economics: International Economic Agreements and the Activities of Heterogeneous Multinational Firms Abstract: The proliferation of international institutions defines the current wave of globalization. In this paper we explore how international economic agreements influence the operations of the most salient actors in global trade: multinational corporations (MNCs). Building on the insights of the New New Trade Theory, we claim that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) increase firm supply chain activities through the reduction of trade costs. We argue that the largest, most productive firms are the principal beneficiaries of the global shift toward preferential trade agreements. Using firm-level data covering the near universe of U.S. multinationals and preferential tariff cuts at HS 6-digit level, we find that the effects of international economic institutions are sizable and skewed towards large firms. Further, we show that the increase in supply chain activities is driven by lower tariffs granted by the U.S. to its trade partners and vice versa. We also find that employment concentration among U.S. affiliates in host countries increases 12 percent on average after the formation of a PTA with the US. Our evidence indicates that PTAs between the U.S. and host countries increase vertical sales to the U.S. among the largest firms, whereas joining the WTO has no discernable effect on their vertical activities. Our paper sheds light on the stalled Doha Round of the WTO and global shift toward preferential liberalization. PhD Seminar Katharina Glass, University of Hamburg: Real-Time Information Content of Macroeconomic Data and Uncertainty: an Application to the Euro Area Abstract: Most macroeconomic data is continuously revised as additional information becomes available. We suggest that revisions of data is an important source of uncertainty about the state of the economy. This paper evaluates the quality of major real macroeconomic Euro area variables, published by Eurostat since 2001. The real time data set contains 159 vintages, covering the period of January 1991 until March 2014. The information content or informativeness of revision is measured using three methods: descriptive error statistics, signal-to-noise ratios and entropy measures. Our results document a trend of growing data uncertainty over the past decade for Euro area variables. As a robustness check, we reckon our results using US data and additionally show that uncertainty calculations are robust towards changes in final revision definition. Moreover, Euro area signal-noise-ratios and entropy measures are correlated with popular uncertainty proxies, Euro area news-based EPU and the -4VSTOXX. Our finding corresponds to the recent literature on increased macroeconomic uncertainty and especially economic policy uncertainty during and after the “Great Recession”. ACTIVITIES OF DEPARTMENT MEMBERS Miscellaneous Ivan Lozev (University Carlos III de Madrid & European Central Bank) will join Michael Funke´s team as a Research and Teaching Assistant on December 1 2014. On Thursday November 27, Prof. Michael Heinrich (HTW Berlin) gives a speech on "Marxsche Ökonomik" His presentation is part of a lecture series organised by the student's initiative "Arbeitskreis Plurale Ökonomik" and starts at 18:00 at Hörsaal C (Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1). For more information please click the link below: http://www.plurale-oekonomik-hamburg.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/flyer-web.pdf The next EconNewsletter will be published on Monday, December 1, 2014. Editorial deadline: Friday, November 28, 2014. EconNewsletter Department of Economics University of Hamburg Von-Melle-Park 5, 20146 Hamburg To un/subscribe from/to this newsletter, please send an e-mail to [email protected]