Papers by Thomas Bassetti
Academy of Management Proceedings
This article explores the role of business incubators on the innovation performance of start-ups;... more This article explores the role of business incubators on the innovation performance of start-ups; in addition, we also investigate how the incubation effect moderates other important factors drivin...
Environment and Development Economics, 2022
We present evidence that international trade may exacerbate the initial unequal distribution of h... more We present evidence that international trade may exacerbate the initial unequal distribution of hydric resources. This result is driven by the fact that countries exporting agricultural goods are relatively abundant (with respect to capital) in the combined availability of water and arable land but, in absolute terms, scarce in capital and not richer in water in comparison to more developed ones. Due to both the scarcity of capital and the lower relative price of natural resources with respect to capital, the total value of production in these developing countries is modest, implying that international trade can lead to a less even distribution of the water content of consumption. Policies sustaining water prices and, more generally, those of natural resources (or lower capital costs) may contribute to offsetting this effect and allow for trade to play a positive role in reducing the uneven distribution of water endowments.
This paper investigates the effects of individual and environmental determinants on physical and ... more This paper investigates the effects of individual and environmental determinants on physical and cognitive impairment of Europeans aged 50 and older using data drawn from the Survey of Health Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The aim is to understand the different paths that needrelated determinants of long-term care might take across individuals. As dependent variables, we consider several measures of physical and cognitive disability which are regressed on a list of covariates which includes biological, health, behavioral, socio-demographic and early-life conditions of individuals. We adopt a methodology that combines the structure of random effects models for longitudinal data with the flexibility of a tree regression method. We show the existence of clusters in the main determinants of functional decline (physical and cognitive). Our findings are in line with the existing literature, but, at the same time, we further characterize previous evidence: 1) cognitive impairment, measured by the results of a memory test, strongly depends on educational attainments, age and respondents' country of residence; 2) physical impairment, measured through the loss of handgrip strength, basic and instrumental activities of daily living (ADLs, IADLs) and mobility, strongly depends on health and behavioural factors.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
Narratives impact people's opinions on relevant policy issues, and their political context may in... more Narratives impact people's opinions on relevant policy issues, and their political context may influence these effects. Indeed, some specific contexts may be more easily swayed by certain stories that provide explanations for current social and economic phenomena. We explore this issue by considering the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment that creates the ideal conditions for existing narratives to gain momentum and spread. In particular, we run a survey experiment in the US by exposing subjects to two media-based popular explanations on the causes of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lab narrative attributes the upstart of the pandemic to human error and scientific misconduct in a laboratory in China, while the Nature narrative describes the genetic and biological causes of the virus. We find evidence that subjects' beliefs on the origins of the disease are influenced by the narrative they are presented with. Moreover, the Lab narrative leads subjects living in Republican leaning states to express less favorable opinions about trade openness and the relevance of climate change relative to those living in Democratic leaning states. Thus, our findings provide support for the idea that recalling stories that are part of larger narratives can lead to divergence of opinions on crucial issues leading to an increase in policy polarization. Finally, we explore the underlying features of social contexts associated with US states' political orientation, that moderate the impact of narratives on policy opinions.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
Social scientists have devoted considerable research effort to investigate the determinants of th... more Social scientists have devoted considerable research effort to investigate the determinants of the Partisan Gender Gap (PGG), whereby US women (men) tend to exhibit more liberal (conservative) political preferences over time. Results of a survey experiment run during the COVID-19 emergency and involving 3,086 US residents show that exposing subjects to alternative narratives on the causes of the pandemic increases the PGG: relative to a baseline treatment in which no narrative manipulation is implemented, exposing subjects to either the Lab narrative (claiming that COVID-19 was caused by a lab accident in Wuhan) or the Nature narrative (according to which COVID-19 originated in the wildlife) makes women more liberal. The polarization effect documented in our experiment is magnified by the political orientation of participants' state of residence: the largest PGG effect is between men residing in Republican-leaning states and women living in Democratic-leaning states. JEL Classif...
This paper investigates the role played by trade openness in the process of international technol... more This paper investigates the role played by trade openness in the process of international technology diffusion. Starting from the model provided by Benhabib and Spiegel (2005), here we show that the impact of trade openness on productivity growth is nonlinear. In particular, we will see how for low levels of trade openness a trade liberalization policy will reduce the rate of technology growth. On the other hand, we will see that the same policy will increase the rate of technology growth in more open economies. Therefore, our conclusion is that the lack of evidence in favour of a strong link between trade and productivity growth is due to the use of linear methods instead of nonlinear regression techniques.
Journal of Management and Governance, 2021
This article explores the complex relationship between family firms and talent management practic... more This article explores the complex relationship between family firms and talent management practices. We use an international sample of medium-sized manufacturing firms to show that the relationship between family-owned firms and investment in talent management practices is mediated by the firm's level of risk aversion, which is, in turn, moderated by industry competition. Risk-averse family-owned firms tend to invest less in talent management practices when industry competition is weak. In contrast, when competition increases, family-owned firms tend to invest in talent as much as non-family-owned firms do.
Business Strategy and the Environment, 2020
The literature on sustainable development has largely focused on investigating the relationship b... more The literature on sustainable development has largely focused on investigating the relationship between companies' environmental and economic performance. However, many aspects remain unexplored, and empirical studies are far from reaching a consensus due to the heterogeneity of the environmental and economic measures and methodologies used. This study contributes to the literature on sustainable development by considering a panel of 998 US companies observed over the period 2003-2017 using both traditional panel data methods and an unconditional quantile regression technique. The empirical evidence confirms that environmental performance, measured in terms of environmental orientation and environmental innovation, positively affects returns on assets and equity. It also demonstrates that these returns change across quantiles and depend on the capacity of green companies to generate the same streams of income as nongreen companies but with less capital. In other words, green firms tend to be more efficient in generating future wealth.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020
Governments redistribute by means of taxes, transfers, and public services. Relying on three suff... more Governments redistribute by means of taxes, transfers, and public services. Relying on three sufficient statistics, we characterize the conditions under which nonlinear income taxation is optimally combined with input public provision in two-class and multi-class economies, where individual wages are driven by households’ exogenous capabilities and input investments. A universal scheme, such that all households opt for a large and uniform level of publicly provided input, optimally compound with nonlinear income taxation, if higher-capability households demand less (publicly provided) input than the lower-capability do. Otherwise, pure nonlinear taxation is optimal. Calibrating our model with U.S. data, we find that the former case is empirically relevant.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020
C oncerns are loom ing that the healthcare system s in low-and m iddleincom e countries (LM IC s)... more C oncerns are loom ing that the healthcare system s in low-and m iddleincom e countries (LM IC s) are m ostly unprepared to com bat C O V ID-19 because of lim ited resources. T he problem s in LM IC s are exacerbated by the fact that citizens in these countries generally exhibit low trust in the healthcare system , w hich could trigger a num ber of uncooperative behaviors. In this paper, w e focus on one such behavior and investigate the relationship betw een trust in the healthcare system and the likelihood of potential treatm ent-seeking behavior upon the appearance of the first sym ptom s of C O V ID-19. First, w e provide m otivating evidence from a unique national on-line survey adm inistered in A rm enia-a post-Soviet LM IC country. W e then present results from a large-scale survey experim ent in A rm enia that provides causal evidence in support of the investigated relationship. O ur m ain finding is that a m ore trustw orthy healthcare system enhances the likelihood of potential treatm ent-seeking behavior w hen observing the initial sym ptom s.
Business Strategy and the Environment, 2020
Previous literature has found that listed family firms underperform their nonfamily counterparts ... more Previous literature has found that listed family firms underperform their nonfamily counterparts in terms of environmental performance, but has not explained why this occurs. We address this research gap by hypothesizing that training and development practices (i.e., managerial practices devoted to providing training and development for the workforce) mediate the relationship between family blockholders and environmental performance. Using a sample of 33,901 firm-year observations from 2002 to 2016 distributed across 56 countries and employing the structural equation model technique, we find that investment in training and development practices explains almost half of the negative relationship between family blockholders and environmental performance. Our study contributes to the agency theory debate on principal-principal problems by explaining why family blockholders could damage other blockholders and minority shareholders. K E Y W O R D S corporate sustainability, environmental behavior, environmental performance, family firms, principal-principal problem, training and development 1 | INTRODUCTION The recent increase in awareness of corporations' environmental, social, and ethical responsibilities has generated intense debate about corporate social responsibility in academic and political spheres (see Ioannou & Serafeim, 2017; Money & Schepers, 2007). Current research has focused on why some firms have better environmental performance than others (Ioannou & Serafeim, 2012). Ownership structure is one of the most relevant dimensions for explaining environmental performance differences among firms
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019
The measurement of Intellectual Capital (IC) constitutes a major challenge in managing intangible... more The measurement of Intellectual Capital (IC) constitutes a major challenge in managing intangible resources. Among the various models proposed in prior literature, many studies measure IC using the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC). Assuming a perfectly competitive market, this study decomposes the VAIC and demonstrates that it is not directly related to IC. Conversely, the VAIC main components are labor share, physical capital share, and interest rate. These results are extended to a non-perfectly competitive setting through a multivariate analysis on a crosscountry panel of 45,794 firm-year observations for 2000-2017. Results shows that the VAIC still largely depends on exogenous factors being negatively (positively) associated with the labor (physical capital) share. Nevertheless, in this non-perfectly competitive setting, the VAIC also captures the ability of a firm to generate profits, which may be attributable to multiple factors, including IC. To reduce potential measurement biases in empirical research using the VAIC, this study suggests controlling for a firm's interest rate, labor and capital shares. Adopting this suggestion, this study investigates the association between the VAIC and firm performance. Results show that such association is significantly weaker when including interest rate, labor and capital shares. Theoretical and empirical results prompt researchers to select the VAIC to measure IC after having conscientiously examined alternative models proposed in recent literature.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018
The original idea behind the virtual water (VW) concept is that water-abundant countries will bec... more The original idea behind the virtual water (VW) concept is that water-abundant countries will become producers of water-intensive goods and consequently net exporters of water, and this will alleviate the initial unequal distribution of hydric resources. We criticize this optimistic view by introducing empirical evidence that is consistent with the Heckscher-Ohlin model of international trade. We find that, though virtual water exports are increasing in the combined availability of water and arable land when comparing countries with a similar level of available water-land resources, those with higher (lower) levels of physical-human capital tend to be net importers (exporters) of water. This result relies on the intuition that high levels of capital accumulation lead water to become a relatively scarce factor in developed countries. Thus, while more developed countries shift away from agriculture, less developed countries that lack sufficient capital do not have this option and end up using water resources even if they are not abundant. Such a trade pattern could create immediate economic benefits for less developed countries, but also exerts pressure on their water resources. Therefore, prioritizing economic development in countries that have limited water availability, may be crucial to avoid excessive usage and depletion of global water resources.
Empirical Economics, 2017
The aim of this article is to highlight that some economic correlates of Islamist political viole... more The aim of this article is to highlight that some economic correlates of Islamist political violence matter differently when they are considered in a specific path. In order to show this, we use a Generalized Mixed Effects Regression Tree analysis. This methodology combines the structure of random effects models for longitudinal data with the flexibility of a tree regression method. The latter is a nonparametric method for estimating a regression function.
Journal of Family Business Strategy, 2015
This paper explores the relationship between the cost of corruption and market orientation of fam... more This paper explores the relationship between the cost of corruption and market orientation of family …rms in Eastern European countries. Using the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey and panel data methods, we obtained several results. First, in contrast to nonfamily …rms, family …rms are particularly sensitive to corruption. Second, informal payments aiming to facilitate business operations tend to support export-oriented …rms. Finally, family …rms that sell their product mostly in the domestic market tend to bribe public o¢ cials to secure government contracts. This study has important implications in terms of market e¢ ciency. Policies devoted to remove those ine¢ ciencies that hamper business operations would mainly increase the competitiveness of family …rms.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015
In most empirical studies on civil wars, causes and determinants of conflict have been hitherto e... more In most empirical studies on civil wars, causes and determinants of conflict have been hitherto explored assuming that actors involved were either unitary or stable. However, if this intra-group homogeneity assumption does not hold, empirical econometric estimates may be biased and policy prescriptions are less reliable. We use Fixed Effects Finite Mixture Model (FE-FMM) approach to address this issue. This methodology provides a natural representation of heterogeneity when data originate from different latent classes and the affiliation is unknown. It allows to identify sub-populations within a population as well as the determinants of their behaviors. By combining various data sources for the period 2000-2005, we apply this new technique to the Colombian conflict. Our results confirm a behavioral heterogeneity in guerrilla's armed groups and their distinct economic correlates so showing that different patterns of behavior exist. By contrast paramilitaries behave as a rather homogenous group.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014
Long-run Growth, Social Institutions and Living Standards, 2009
In this paper, we study the effect of education on economic growth. In particular, we show that e... more In this paper, we study the effect of education on economic growth. In particular, we show that education can generate nonlinearities in the process of human capital accumulation, which affects the economic growth path. In our model of human capital accumulation, a non constant human capital obsolescence rate can cause non constant returns to scale of education in the production of human capital. We identify the conditions for this to cause multiple equilibria in a Solow growth model. Furthermore, we calibrate our model to give reasonable values of parameters, to have multiple steady states. In the second part of this work, we will conduct some econometric analyses to prove that the returns to scale in producing human capital are non constant.
Review of European Studies, 2012
This article studies how parental education affects children's completed years of schooling. Usin... more This article studies how parental education affects children's completed years of schooling. Using a long-term survey, we test whether the intergenerational schooling mobility follows a linear or a nonlinear path. In line with some influential theoretical models, we find that the intergenerational link is clearly nonlinear. In particular, using a quantile regression technique and a generalized additive model, we conclude that this relationship has a logistic shape. This evidence suggests that works in which the intergenerational schooling mobility is estimated by using standard linear techniques do not capture salient nonlinearities.
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Papers by Thomas Bassetti