Dynamic R&D Competition, Research Line Diversity, and Intellectual Property Rights

This paper develops a simple model of sequential innovations with a diversity of research lines. Competitive strategies of firms for R&D are analyzed at each stage in a sequence of innovations. We compare two alternative regimes of enforcing patent law, as a mechanism to provide adequate incentives for R&D at each stage. The regime that protects the research line gives monopoly rights to an entire line of research, hence limiting the utilization of the previous knowledge and retarding subsequent innovations. The other regime protects the product, which facilitates the use of previous knowledge at the expense of providing inadequate protection to the ideas embodied in the product, and results in underinvestment in the first stage.     

Macroeconomic stabilization through monetary and fiscal policy coordination: Implications for European Monetary Union

In a two-country model, we consider the implications of monetary and fiscal policy coordination for macroeconomic stabilization. We show that the optimal regime is one of monetary and fiscal policy coordination under flexible exchange rates. In the context of the European Community, this suggests that the desire to fix exchange rates may not be costless. In addition, we show that fiscal coordination requires a relatively high degree of flexibility in fiscal policy. This result suggests that limits on the flexibility of fiscal policies, as suggested in the Delors Report, may hinder macroeconomic stabilization.     

On the dynamic effects of monetary and fiscal policy under floating exchange rates: Simulations with an asset market model

Zusammenfassung Die dynamischen Wirkungen der Geld- und Finanzpolitik bei floatenden Wechselkursen: Simulationen mit einem verm?genstheoretischen Modell.-Der Autor fügt in ein von Dornbusch entwickeltes Modell verz?gerte Anpassungen bei der Produktion und bei den Handelsstr?men ein, um die dynamischen Wirkungen der Geld- und Finanzpolitik bei floatenden Wechselkursen zu untersuchen. Trotz der Tatsache, da\ eine monet?re Expansion anfangs die Zinss?tze senkt, kann der Wechselkurs das Niveau seines neuen langfristigen Gleichgewichts unterschreiten. Dieses Ergebnis widerspricht früheren Behauptungen von Dornbusch und Fischer. Au\erdem führt eine fiskalische Expansion immer dazu, da\ der Wechselkurs sein neues langfristiges Gleichgewichtsniveau überschreitet. Schlie\lich konvergiert das System unter Schwingungen, wenn die Anpassungsverz?gerungen bei der Produktion und bei den Handelsstr?men verh?ltnism?\ig lang sind.

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Résumé Les effets dynamiques de la politique monétaire et fiscale sous des taux de change flottants: Des simulations avec un modèle du marché financier. — Dans cette étude on a introduit la retardation de l’ajustement de la production et des échanges commerciaux dans un modèle développé par Dornbusch pour analyser les effets dynamiques de la politique monétaire et fiscale sous des taux de change flottants. Malgré du fait que l’expansion monétaire abaisse le taux d’intérêt au début, le taux de change peut passer par au-dessous du nouveau niveau d’équilibre à long terme. Ce résultat contredit aux affirmations faites par Dornbusch et Fischer. En plus l’expansion fiscale fait toujours le taux de change passer par au-dessus de son nouveau niveau d’équilibre à long terme. Finalement, le système converge avec des oscillations si la retardation de la production et des échanges commerciaux est relativement étendue.

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Resumen Sobre los efectos dinámicos de la política monetaria y fiscal bajo tipos de cambio flotantes: simulaciones con un modelo “asset market”. — En estre trabajo se introducen desfasajes en el ajuste del producto y en el intercambio comercial en un modelo desarrollado por Dornbusch para analizar los efectos dinámicos de la politica monetaria y fiscal bajo tipos de cambio flotantes. A pesar de que la expansion monetaria inicialmente reduce las tasas de interés, el tipo de cambio puede no alcanzar su nuevo nivel de equilibrio de largo plazo. Este resultado contradice resultados obtenidos anteriormente por Dornbusch y Fischer. Además, la expansión fiscal siempre induce al tipo de cambio a superar su nuevo nivel de equilibrio de largo plazo. Finalmente, el sistema converge con oscilaciones si los desfasajes de producto y de comercio son relativamente largos.

     

UK Executive Bonuses and Transparency — A Research Note

High levels of executive pay in the USA and the UK have attracted journalistic and academic criticism to the effect that they constitute rent extraction by self‐interested executives rather than rewards for raising shareholder returns. The focus of most criticism has been on salary, severance payments and various long‐term incentives (particularly share options). However, executive bonuses have attracted little attention and have been only lightly regulated. This raises important questions. Has lighter regulation been associated with significant levels of rent extraction through bonuses, that is, a weak relation between bonus pay and shareholder returns? Have more transparent performance conditions attached to bonuses strengthened the relation, making rent extraction more difficult, or have they acted as camouflage for rent extraction, associated with higher bonus pay but lower pay‐performance responsiveness? Are measures of CEO power associated with larger bonuses? This empirical note provides the first, preliminary answers to these questions.     

Willingness to Pay and the Cost of Commitment: An Empirical Specification and Test

In a static setting, willingness to pay for an environmental improvement is equal to compensating variation. In a dynamic setting, however, willingness to pay may also contain a commitment cost. In this paper we incorporate the dynamic nature of the value formation process into a stated preference study designed to test whether there is an important dynamic component (commitment cost) in stated preference values. The results clearly indicate that stated preference values can contain commitment costs and that these can be quite large: respondents offered the opportunity to delay their purchasing decisions until more information became available were willing to pay significantly less for improved water quality than those facing a now-or-never decision. These results have important consequences for the design and interpretation of stated preference data.     

外部环境影响小企业的成长速度

研究表明．小企业的成长跟它所处的环境和地理位置关系．所以有些地方的小企业成长得很快．而有些地方的许多企业却停滞不前。     

Examining differences in consumer reactions to partitioned prices with a variable number of price components

Partitioned pricing is a tactic in which a seller presents multiple prices for a single product or service instead of one, all-inclusive price. This research investigates effects of partitioned prices containing a variable number of price components, under varying levels of seller trustworthiness, and with or without the presentation of the total price. The results indicate that partitioning into a large number of price components, relative to a small number of price components, negatively affects perceived fairness and purchase intentions for less trustworthy, but not more trustworthy, sellers when the total price is not presented. However, partitioning into a large number of price components positively affects fairness and purchase intentions, regardless of seller trustworthiness, when the total price is presented. The research also examines effects of partitioning on price estimation and recall.     

Valuing high altitude spruce-fir forest improvements: importance of forest condition and recreation activity

High altitude spruce fir forests are typical around the world and are often subjected to multiple forms of recreational use. In this paper, we use household and recreation group data for a spruce fir forest high in the Appalachian Mountains of the U. S. to evaluate the benefits from forest protection (i. e., from improving the forest condition). Our benefits estimation procedures use the referendum-type, contingent valuation (CV) approach of Cameron (1988). We modify the usual practice of obtaining a single willingness-to-pay (WTP) value by using alternative questionnaire scenarios and conducting tests to examine i) household and recreation group value sensitivity to forest condition, and ii) recreation group differences in WTP for forest protection. A first sample of southeastern U. S. households was asked to value a forest protection program for a spruce-fir forest showing no impact from insect disturbance or atmospheric deposition. The second sample was asked to value a protection program for a forest already experiencing impact from insect infestation and air pollution. Logit analysis of the two samples revealed no statistically significant difference in household WTP between the two forest protection programs. Further analysis indicated that consumptive forest users (i. e., hunters and anglers) held forest protection values that were sensitive to a change forest condition, while nonconsumptive forest users (i. e., campers and hikers) held values that were insensitive to the same condition change. Recreation group comparisons revealed that consumptive forest users also held lower values for forest protection than nonconsumptive recreationists. These results demonstrate the importance of estimating public values for forest protection in terms of heterogeneous groups rather than as a homogeneous whole.     

The Effects of Advertising on Mutual Fund Flows: Results from a New Database

We examine 471,000 mutual fund company advertisements from 1997 to 2003 to study advertising's effect on fund inflows. We find advertising is generally ineffective in attracting inflows but was more effective during the bear market despite smaller advertising expenditures during this time. The top 10 advertisers in our sample were most successful in capturing inflows. These companies generated inflows with mutual fund ads; other companies succeeded when advertising their other products and their brand image. Within a fund family, advertising affects the flagship fund differently than the other funds. Sample firms appeared unable to choose correctly between print and TV ads.     

Capabilities, innovation and competitive advantage

This special issue was aimed at advancing the literature examining the role of capabilities in innovation-based competitive strategy. Whilst the innovation literature has over the years moved away from its ‘product innovation’ pre-occupation to capture the role of other forms of innovation in value creation, the capability view has progressed from its ‘rigid’ or ‘static’ view to a ‘dynamic’ view in an effort to capture market dynamism. Despite the recent theoretical advancements the dynamic capability view still lacks a strong empirical base. Contributors to the capability literature over the recent years have adopted multiple research methods to capture capabilities that include cross-sectional designs, case studies and longitudinal studies. Within this backdrop, the articles that were selected for this special issue covers both conceptual and empirical approaches to examine the relationship between capabilities and technical and non-technical innovations and performance outcomes. This essay provides a future research agenda to advance this promising research field. It highlights the need for clearer conceptualizations and development of measures of dynamic capabilities, environmental conditions that underpin the development of dynamic capabilities within the firm and research into the much debated relationship between dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage and organizational performance.