Paying the price of sweetening your donation: Evidence from a natural field experiment

We add a gift in appreciation of the subject’s contribution to a social reference treatment successfully proven to trigger higher donations, and find that the share of people contributing decreases significantly, thereby eroding the original treatment’s capacity to increase donations.     

The competitiveness of the Portuguese wine sector

The world wine market is currently characterized by two principal wine suppliers: the European and the New World. Countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Portugal have witnessed a tremendous growth in the New World wine-makers (Australia, Chile, South Africa, etc.). Portugal is one of the Old World countries that presents several natural and technical constraints, which might currently be resulting in modest performance in terms of its position in the global wine market, competitiveness and dynamics required to overcome difficulties. The main objective of this study is to analyse the Portuguese performance for competing in external markets and its evolution from 1996 to 2003. This study is based on indices such as the trade intensity index, revealed comparative advantage, auto-sufficiency and market share relation ratios.     

Determinants of Net Trade Flows in the OECD: New Evidence with Special Emphasis on the Former Communist Members

This study estimates an econometric panel-data model, in order to explore the capacity of some of the hypotheses formulated in recent dynamic models of trade and economic growth to explain the bilateral trade of OECD countries. The study suggests that the larger a country's endowment of both tangible and intangible (human and technological) capital in relation to that of its trade partners, the higher the export/import ratio of its bilateral trade. It also shows that direct investment enhances the export/import ratio with the host country. The former communist countries reflect only minor differences from the other OECD members.     

Willingness to consume and produce transgenic bananas in Costa Rica

An exploratory study of the willingness to produce and consume transgenic bananas was carried out in Costa Rica. Transgenic crops are plants with novel genes incorporated into their genome through the use of genetic engineering techniques. Farm managers’ opinions were gathered using faxed questionnaires while final consumers’ opinions were obtained through personal intercept interviews. Consumers expressed a lack of knowledge about transgenic crops and had received non‐favour but also non‐negative information through the media about their adoption. The results of a probit regression model show that, other things being equal, younger, wealthier consumers, with higher levels of education, with smaller households are more likely to consume transgenic bananas. All producers included in the study consider they would adopt a new transgenic variety. Producers’ willingness to pay for such a variety would depend on its capacity to reduce pest management costs and is estimated to range between $500 and $999 per hectare. This study stresses the potential for development and adoption of a new transgenic variety that would alleviate the current issues faced by banana farmers. On the other hand, final consumers should be better informed on the nature of such products, their benefits and risks.     

A theory of the optimum age to import a durable good: With a reference to the Columbian case

This essay develops a model which determines the optimum age at which to import a durable good, the optimum period of time during which it should be used, and the welfare costs of nonoptimum import-use patterns. An estimation of such costs is made for the case of bus chassis imports in Colombia.     

Copyright piracy as prey–predator behavior

The economic analysis of the piracy of copyright products has used a variety of modeling assumptions, the majority of which use typical industrial organization settings. The results of such models are manyfold, but in general they are ambiguous as to the optimal protection strategy, and the effects of protection on the welfare of copyright holders, and on the existence of piracy. Concretely, little has been said about which types of protection mechanisms are most adequate for controlling piracy. In the present paper, we propose a new theoretical framework by drawing an analogy between copyright piracy and prey–predator behavior. This analogy gives us a new perspective to approach copyright issues and it provides the economic theory of copyright piracy with a new set of mathematical models. We consider a very simple model that can be used to show that publicly instigated and financed policies designed to deter piracy can have the effect of increasing the amount of piracy, while privately financed strategies (e.g. DRM) will always decrease piracy.     

International cooperation in a fractured global order

This article takes a fresh look at the context for international cooperation in science and technology. It sketches out some key changes that have taken place in the international scene over the last few years, speculates about what is likely to happen during the next decade, and derives some implications for international cooperation in science and technology.     

Executive Compensation： Pay-for-Performance in High-Technology Firms

This study examines the relationship between corporate performance and the Chief Executive Officer （CEO） compensation in high-technology firms in the S＆P 500. The total short- and long-term CEO compensation in high-technology was compared with other industrial sectors from standard classification codes and tested in terms of corporate performance. The ExecuComp database was used to find the variables and to create a sample of firms between 2004 and 2010. Important corporate performance variables are used in this work, such as assets, employees, sales, net income, and earnings per share （EPS）, as reported by the firms for each year. A panel data GLS with a fixed effect model for time is estimated that describes total compensation for the period between 2004 and 2010. The result was aligned with the theory of executive compensations to address agency problems and to examine CEO pay-for-performance. The main objective of this paper is to consistently demonstrate that the performance is determined for the total CEO compensation for short- and long-term periods and to examine whether the total remunergttion paid to CEOs in high-technology firms in the S＆P 500 is related to corporate finance. This work provides a better understanding of the relationship between compensation and performance in high-technology firms. Results suggest that high-tech firms tend to use more sophisticated performance measurements to determine CEO compensation.     

A study of determinant factors of stakeholder environmental pressure perceived by industrial companies

Although several articles have studied the effect that stakeholder pressure has on the environmental behavior of firms, little research has attempted to identify the contingencies that explain such pressure. This article investigates the effects of six relevant variables on stakeholder environmental pressure perceived by industrial companies: size, internationalization, location of manufacturing activities, position in the supply chain, industrial sector, and managerial values and attitudes. The effect is theoretically determined by distinguishing between pressure intensity and perception capacity and empirically tested with a sample of 186 Spanish manufacturers. The analyses reveal two dimensions of stakeholder pressure, governmental and nongovernmental, and show that variables such as environmental awareness among managers, internationalization, industrial sector and company size play important roles in determining both dimensions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.