Growth and Stability in the Indian Economy in Post Reform Era: A Macro Econometric Evaluation

Journal of Quantitative Economics - The reforms initiated in the Indian economy during the nineties have given rise to a lot of debate on the feasibility as well as the stability of high growth...     

Label performance and the willingness to pay for Fair Trade coffee: a cross‐national perspective

In this paper, we investigate how label information detailing the performance of the Fair Trade labelling programme with respect to coffee affect consumers' willingness to pay in the US and in Germany. We provide respondents (university students in the US and Germany) information regarding the hypothetical benefits of the Fair Trade coffee programme on its intended beneficiaries on the production side [the revenue gains to participating marginal farmers (scope of the programme)] and, using stated preference conjoint methods, test how this performance criterion relates to the willingness to pay for Fair Trade coffee. Our empirical results identify a ‘threshold’ property of performance‐based labels. In effect, the willingness‐to‐pay for performance‐based Fair Trade labelled coffee exhibits an inverted U shape in the sense that the willingness to pay is positively related to the scope of the programme, but only up to a critical level. Thereafter, the willingness to pay declines as the income gains to participating growers increase further. Interestingly, this inverted U property is exhibited by both the US and German respondents with different critical thresholds.     

Efficiency wages,unemployment and international factor movements

This paper examines the implications of unemployment resulting from efficiency wages for international factor movements in a standard Heckscher-Ohlin model where the relative size of the endowments of skilled and unskilled workers and the efficiency wage induced unemployment level in the unskilled labour market are simultaneously determined given the population, supply of capital and its distribution in the economy. Capital in the economy is used only to train individuals for the skilled labour market, where workers are fully employed. It is shown that the optimum labour inflow in the market with domestic distortion and the optimum capital inflow are always positive because they reduce the severity of distortion by raising employment and income for the residents. The income and employment of foreigners also increase. Under this situation the optimum labour or capital outflow on the other hand is always zero. These conclusions directly contradict the result obtained for international factor movements in the presence of exogenously determined unemployment.     

The relationship between earnings' yield,market value and return for NYSE common stocks: Further evidence

The empirical relationship between earnings' yield, firm size and returns on the common stock of NYSE firms is examined in this paper. The results confirm that the common stock of high E/P firms earn, on average, higher risk-adjusted returns than the common stock of low E/P firms and that this effect is clearly significant even if experimental control is exercised over differences in firm size. On the other hand, while the common stock of small NYSE firms appear to have earned substantially higher returns than the common stock of large NYSE firms, the size effect virtually disappears when returns are controlled for differences in risk and E/P ratios. The evidence presented here indicates that the E/P effect, however, is not entirely independent of firm size and that the effect of both variables on expected returns is considerably more complicated than previously documented in the literature.     

Trends in corporate diversification

This paper studies the diversification and refocusing strategies of firms in the last three decades. The 1980s were characterized by a trend towards greater focus. This trend slackens in the 1990s to be replaced by a surge in the number of newly listed single-segment firms. From 2000 to 2007 there is very little change in the proportion of diversified firms. Overall, the proportion of conglomerates declines from 40% to 17% from 1980 to 1997. In addition, about one third of the diversifying firms reverse the diversification decision within four years. The analysis of the statements made by these firms suggests that there is significant heterogeneity in the motivations behind diversification.     

Learning to learn in the accounting Principles course: Outcome assessment of an integrative business analysis project

This paper reports on an effort to integrate some of the Accounting Education Change Commission's recommendations for the Principles course. A project involving comprehensive analysis of a publicly traded company was introduced in the Managerial Accounting course as a vehicle to develop critical thinking, problem solving, ethical sensitivity, team-work, and communication skills among sophomore-level business majors. As a means of assessing outcomes, a follow-up questionnaire was administered to measure the effectiveness of the project, and results were analyzed. The project was found to have made positive impacts across several dimensions of the learning process. Implications for Accounting curricula are discussed.     

Does fundamental indexation lead to better risk‐adjusted returns? New evidence from Australian Securities Exchange

We investigate the claims of superiority of fundamental indexation strategy over capitalisation‐weighted indexation using data for Australian Securities Exchange listed stocks. While our results are in line with the outperformance observed in other geographical markets, we find that the excess returns from fundamental indexation in Australian market are much higher. On a rolling 5‐year basis, the fundamental index always outperforms the capitalisation‐weighted index. Our results suggest that superior performance of fundamental indexation could not be entirely attributed to value, size or momentum effects. The outperformance persists even after adjusting for slightly higher transaction costs related to turnover.     

Fuzzy revealed preference theory

Rationality has traditionally been defined as choice behaviour which can be explained in terms of some implicit binary preference. The point of departure of this paper lies in permitting the binary preference relation to be “fuzzy.” Concepts from fuzzy set theory are used to formalise different notions of rationality, including degrees of rationality. The relation between these and traditional concepts is formally explored. In welfare economics, quasi-orderings have often been used to capture the inherent imprecisions of human value judgements. It is argued here that, in many situations, a more appropriate tool for this may be fuzzy orderings.