We show cash windfalls affect the real economy by spurring entrepreneurship. We identify these effects using the Spanish Christmas Lottery, which provides a unique setting as prizes are geographically concentrated and distributed among thousands of households. We find higher start-up entry, job creation, and self-employment in winning regions. Consistent with a financial constraints channel, results are strongest in sectors relying on external finance and regions with limited credit access. Newly created firms are larger, more profitable, and survive longer. For existing firms, however, growth and profitability do not respond to lottery awards, but wages increase due to tighter labor markets.

While the importance of innovation alliance for high-technological firms is well-documented, existing literature provides little guidance on the role of performance feedback in an alliance governance structure choice. Drawing on performance feedback theory, this study sheds light on the association between performance deviating (either above or below) from firms’ social aspirations and the governance structure choice of innovation alliances. Using an unbalanced panel of Chinese biopharmaceutical firms spanning from 2007 to 2020, we find that firms experiencing negative performance feedback prefer a non-equity innovation alliance structure, whereas those with positive performance feedback are more likely to adopt an equity one. The strength of these relationships is contingent on top management team average tenure and educational-level diversity. Our findings both provide theoretical and practical insights into guiding how firms under different states of performance feedback select alliance governance structures.

This article explores how the International Labour Organization (ILO) introduced management development programs in Argentina as a pilot project in developing countries in the late 1950s. By studying how the ILO worked together with actors at the national level, the article reveals how the ILO’s original idea to focus on top management development was reshaped through a dialogue with local actors within the context of tripartite cooperation between the government, business organizations, and unions. While the initiative was successful during the project period, it collapsed when Argentina’s government closed down the national productivity center with which the ILO was cooperating. While the tripartite principle was valuable for the first achievements, it was extremely vulnerable without the support of all partners.

Quinn Slobodian has established himself as a leading historian of neoliberalism. Crack-Up Capitalism continues where his Globalists left off, but shifts focus from visions of global ordering to the fragmentation of the world into special economic zones (SEZs). In Slobodian’s provocative analysis, SEZs become a late neoliberal solution to the entrenched problem of democracy at the nation-state level. We follow Slobodian into the zone, thinking with him about the spatial dimensions of contemporary political economy. Although we problematize the disjuncture between Crack-Up Capitalism’s group biography of market radicals and its analysis of zones as a global economic reality, our intent is not to critique Slobodian, but to use his new book as a jumping off point to foreground other possible frames for understanding the zone: a longue durée historical outlook that can help de-exceptionalize the zone as a phenomenon of late neoliberalism, a focus on the internal diversity and political possibility of the zone form, and an emphasis on the causal link between the recent proliferation of zones and the ascendance of export-oriented industrialization as a global development paradigm.

This article uses a prosopographical methodology and new dataset of 1,558 CEOs from Britain’s largest public companies between 1900 and 2009 to analyze how the role, social background, and career pathways of corporate leaders changed. We have four main findings. First, the designation of CEO only prevailed in the 1990s. Second, the proportion of socially elite CEOs was highest before 1940, but they were not dominant. Third, most CEOs did not have a degree before the 1980s, or professional qualification until the 1990s. Fourth, liberal market reforms in the 1980s were associated with an increase in the likelihood of CEO dismissal by a factor of three.

This article challenges the prevailing narrative surrounding the Japanese manufacturing industry in the post-World War II era, which predominantly centers on large corporations and male engineers. It sheds light on the vital role played by Japanese housewives in shaping product innovation. It argues that the exclusion of consumers, particularly women, from existing industrial models carries a gendered dimension. By presenting Japanese housewives as active stakeholders who defy stereotypes and enhance their lives by expressing their opinions, we aim to offer a fresh perspective on innovation and product development. The article specifically focuses on the electric appliance industry and draws upon a diverse range of sources, including women’s magazines and corporate archives, to uncover the hidden aspects of gender within the Japanese economic miracle. It shows that housewives have played an active role in product innovation and that women’s magazines have made this possible by acting as intermediaries between women and companies.

The provision of pensions for Civil Servants and other employees in public office, such as the police, as well as in large private businesses, became more widespread in the second half of the nineteenth century. Such pensions, and other non-pay benefits, including sick pay, not only helped with recruitment but also provided a means of managing the retirement of workers who were deemed to be incapable of performing their roles. The rules governing eligibility to receive a pension in the Metropolitan Police in London were closely linked to the certification of poor health. Police doctors restricted the certification of sickness as a reason for retirement because it impacted the size of the force, resulted in the loss of more experienced men, and added to the cost of the pension fund. This strategy generated conflict with the workforce, resulting in industrial unrest. Piecemeal reforms failed to address workers’ concerns until 1890, when the rights to receive a pension were improved. These reforms, rather than stricter vigilance by police doctors, were an effective way of retaining experienced officers in the police force.