Second Best Redistributive Policies: The Case Of International Trade

The paper presents a brief review of recent work that focuses on the normative economics of international trade. In a Heckscher–Ohlin-like economy, with skilled and unskilled workers, the available redistributive tools (that include income taxation) are not powerful enough to allow the separation of efficiency and equity issues, and "production efficiency" is no longer desirable. At a social optimum that calls for redistribution toward the unskilled workers, the social value of the unskilled intensive good is necessarily smaller than its production price. This finding allows us to unify existing results and suggests conjectures.     

The Organization of Innovation Brokers: An International Review

Research on networks of innovation has typically focused on relationships of competition and collaboration between firms in the network, sometimes extending the analysis to sources of new ideas such as universities. More recently, attention has been paid to the activities of intermediaries in such networks, which facilitate the innovation process, which are positioned between the sources and users of innovations. This paper focuses on the organization of a distinctive type of intermediary, which we have defined as an innovation broker, by providing an analysis of 10 case studies of organizations dedicated to innovation broking from around the world. Innovation brokers in our definition are organizations that are founded especially to undertake an intermediary role, rather than performing that role as a by-product of their principal activities. The results of this analysis suggest that the key role played by innovation brokers in the innovation process is the independent validation of new ideas, thereby facilitating diffusion. In order to carry out this task, innovation brokers are organized on a not-for-profit basis, typically as a public-private partnership. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for innovation theory and research in networks of innovation.     

Creating market anticipation: An exploratory examination of the effect of preannouncement behavior on a new product’s launch

Preannouncements are strategic marketing communications directed at market participants including investors, suppliers, distributors, and buyers. Most empirical literature focuses on antecedents influencing a firm’s preannouncement behavior and on outcomes related to deleterious responses by competitors. This study differs and follows the large body of extant research that examines preannouncing behavior as a deliberate marketing communication process aimed at influencing market participants in the firm’s favor. The authors develop and test a model of preannouncement behavior that affects the success of a new product launch through market anticipation, competitive equity, and new product development resources. The findings indicate that preannouncement behavior engenders new product success through its positive effect on market anticipation—a favorable industry-wide bias in advance of new product introduction—and emphasizes the use of preannouncements as business-to-business marketing communications aimed at influencing current and prospective supply chain partners in the firm’s favor. Kim Schatzel (schatzel@umd.umich.edu) (PhD, Michigan State University) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. Her business experience includes more than 20 years of corporate and new venture work including tenure as the founder and CEO of a multinational $250 million automotive components firm and three start-up technology-based companies. She is interested in the study of new product development, business-to-business marketing communications, and firm reputation issues. She has published articles in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Business Research, and theJournal of Product Innovation Management. She is also highly committed to teaching excellence and has won several awards for undergraduate, graduate, and executive teaching. Roger Calantone (rogercal@msu.edu) holds the Eli Broad University Chair in Business at Michigan State University and is also the director of the Broad Information Technology Management Program (ITMP). He is interested in the study of new product innovation and technology decisions in industrial firms. Currently, his research is focused on new product decisions, industrial market segmentation, global logistics, and the use of neural network and autonomous learning models to valuate product components. He is the author of more than 200 refereed academic articles and proceedings and is coauthor of several books. His publications have appeared in journals such as theJournal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Management Science, Decision Sciences, and theStrategic Management Journal.     

Theoretical tests of the rational expectations hypothesis in economic dynamical models

This paper examines different theoretical stability tests of infinite-horizon rational expectations equilibria. These ‘tests’ have different status: two of them express that the considered equilibrium is ‘isolated’ [neither (non-sunspot) equilibria (test 1) nor (well-behaved) sunspot equilibria exist in a neighbourhood (test 2)] and two of them are learning criteria [either standard ‘evolutive learning’ (test 3) or game-theoretical ‘eductive’ learning (test 4)]. Surprisingly, these four tests select the same steady state equilibria in the class of one-dimensional one-step-forward looking economic models. The extension of this equivalence theorem to n-dimensional and then more complex systems is discussed.     

An Analysis of REIT CEO Stock-Based Compensation

Academic research findings on the determinants of executive compensation are mixed. Some researchers attribute this to the inclusion of stock-based compensation in the more recent studies. We study the determinants of stock-based compensation schemes in the REIT industry for the period 1997–2000. While previous research analyzes REIT CEOs' cash-based compensation, we concentrate on option compensation structures. Using the Tobit method, we study both the level of option awards and the mix of option awards to total compensation. We find that REIT CEOs receive larger option awards when they increase growth opportunities, funds from operation, earnings per share and when there is greater variability of returns. Thus, our results validate most of the theories on stock-based compensation.     

Entry strategies for ‘planned giving’ donor products adopted by British charities: An empirical investigation

In April 2000 the British Government legislated to provide UK citizens with a wide range of tax concessions on charitable donations, enabling registered UK charities to develop and launch new donor products similar in form to the ‘planned giving’ instruments that for many years have been available to supporters of US nonprofit organisations. This paper presents the outcomes to a study of the progress so far achieved by a sample of 89 British charities in their attempts to introduce planned giving products. The investigation explored the roles of certain market and other situational factors in motivating charities to establish planned giving instruments, the antecedents and consequences of heavy investment in the marketing of these new donor products, the main marketing methods employed; and the respondents' perceptions of the major problems involved and barriers to successful introduction.     

Serial Nonparticipation in Repeated Discrete Choice Models

We consider alternative econometric strategies for addressing serial nonparticipation, that is, repeated choice of the same alternative or same type of alternative across a series of choice occasions, in data typically analyzed within the repeated discrete choice framework. Single and double hurdle variants of the repeated discrete choice model are developed and applied to choice experiment and multisite seasonal recreation demand data. Our results suggest that hurdle models can generate significant improvements in statistical fit and qualitatively different policy implications, particularly in choice experiment applications where the proper treatment of serial nonparticipation is relatively more ambiguous.