Agricultural disaster payments in the southeastern US: do weather and climate variability matter?

Governments around the world are forced to react to disasters caused by weather. The agricultural sector is particularly susceptible to weather extremes and adverse climate conditions. In the US, agricultural disaster payments account for a significant part of total agricultural subsidies. The payments, and their distribution, are more important in the areas most affected by disastrous weather events, usually coinciding with areas of pronounced impact of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In this article, the impact of weather and climate, as well as some economic variables, on disaster payments is analysed using county level data from four states in the southeastern United States. The results suggest that weather and climate variables explain most of the crop disaster payments at the county level while socioeconomic variables do not, suggesting that advancements in weather and climate forecasts could be helpful in planning for disaster compensation.     

An Empirical Study of Service Quality Implementation

The strategic importance of quality management has grown in importance in recent years. However, although the competitive implications of adhering to a quality agenda have been much alluded to within the literature, the evidence from a review of published studies suggests that service quality and strategy issues have been addressed as separate concerns by researchers. This study examines the components which facilitate the quality implementation process. The factor analysis of data emphasises the importance of ‘senior managerial commitment’ and ‘employee resourcefulness’ in quality implementation initiatives and offers support to the growing implementation initiatives and offers support to the growing literature arguing for a greater consideration of the human dimension in quality implementation programmes. It is proposed that further research needs to be carried out to examine mangerial attiudes towards the service quality implementation process and to assess some of the practical issues involved in introducing quality initiatives in hotel organisations.     

Towards the dual economy and emancipation from employment

We are slaves to employment and its institutions—employers, trade unions, government—no less than medieval man was to church, baron, and manor. The apparent failure of technology to liberate us from full-time jobs is due to our dependence on the institutional economy and the use of employment for social control. Universal employment is not only a dubious privilege, but one we cannot afford. Today there is a physical and psychological flight from modern employment. The growth of the informal or free economy offers a way forward. It promises greater opportunities for women, those with manual skills, and the permanent resident, although there is not much in it for the mobile executive on the make.     

Patent Settlements as a Barrier to Entry

We formulate a model of entry with two incumbent firms—a patent holder and an infringer—and a potential entrant, with asymmetric information about the validity of the infringed patent (patent strength) between incumbent firms and the entrant. Within this framework we show that patent settlements between the incumbent firms can be mutually beneficial even when the cost of trial is zero and the settlement agreement takes the form of a simple fixed license fee. For patents of intermediate strength, settlements are a tool for entry deterrence. The two parties agree on a high settlement amount which sends a credible signal to “outsiders” that the patent is not weak and therefore entry will not be profitable. This provides a novel explanation for the role of settlements and to the recent observation of high license fees negotiated in settlement agreements. It suggests that firms should disclose the settlement amount if they want to keep out further entrants. We also show that even nonreverse settlements that entail only a fixed fee can be anticompetitive because they are used to block entry.     

ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT ACCOUNT POSITION OF FOUR ASIAN COUNTRIES BEFORE THE 1997 CRISIS

Abstract.  The current paper presents an empirical analysis of the current account positions during the pre Asian crisis period, in the four most crisis-hit countries (namely Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea and Indonesia). We have employed the procedures advocated by Husted for the presence of stationarity in current accounts by estimating a cointegration relationship between any country's exports and imports. The results do not substantiate the presence of cointegration between the series, implying that the macroeconomic fundamentals in these countries prior to the crisis were far from robust, at least from the perspective of current account sustainability.     

National telecommunications planning in Brazil

During the past 15 years Brazil has undergone a process of rapid modernization in its telecommunications. Starting from a chaotic situation, institutional foundations were established and an ambitious development programme carried out. A fundamental piece of this programme was a planning process that proved to be flexible and adequate to handle the social and economic disparities of the country. The policies that have emerged from the planning process were implemented and provided good economic results and satisfaction to customers.     

The use of Web sites as a disclosure platform for corporate performance

Adopting a stockholders' interests' perspective, we explore three related questions: (1) What are the scope and patterns of corporate performance disclosure on the Internet? (2) What are the determinants of the extent and scope of corporate performance disclosure on the Internet? (3) Is corporate performance disclosure on the Internet relevant for valuation of a firm's earnings? Corporate performance disclosure relates to corporate actions and initiatives that directly affect society and, ultimately, stockholders' wealth. We focus on Web (HTML) disclosure. Our sample comprises Canada's largest publicly-traded firms, many of which are also SEC registrants. The extent and scope of web disclosure by these firms is rated using a coding grid. Regarding the first question, three disclosure patterns emerge: (1) firms providing disclosure about innovation, development and growth also tend to report about customer value as well as maintaining a Web site with good capabilities (business-related disclosure), (2) disclosure about human/intellectual capital is linked to social responsibility disclosure (social-related disclosure) and, (3) the disclosure of financial performance and corporate governance practices are both closely linked together (financial-related disclosure). Regarding the second question, firms apparently take into account variables proxying for information costs and benefits accruing to stockholders when determining the extent of their Web disclosure. Finally, regarding the third question, a firm's web-based performance disclosure appears to affect its earnings valuation multiple, although in a differential manner according to the nature of the information being conveyed.     

On Jumps and ARCH Effects in Natural Resource Prices: An Application to Pacific Northwest Stumpage Prices

Continuous-time models of natural resource prices usually preclude the possibility of large changes (jumps) resulting from unexpected events. To test for the presence of jumps and/or ARCH effects, we combine bounds and the Monte Carlo test technique to obtain finite-sample, level-exact p -values. We apply this methodology to stumpage prices from the Pacific Northwest and find evidence of jumps and ARCH effects. To assess the impact of neglecting jumps on the decision to harvest old-growth timber, we develop an autonomous, infinite-horizon stopping model for which we provide a new method of resolution. Our numerical results show the importance of modeling jumps explicitly.     

Optimal consumption policies in illiquid markets

We investigate optimal consumption policies in the liquidity risk model introduced by Pham and Tankov (Math. Finance 18:613–627, 2008). Our main result is to derive smoothness C ¹ results for the value functions of the portfolio/consumption choice problem. As an important consequence, we can prove the existence of the optimal control (portfolio/consumption strategy) which we characterize both in feedback form in terms of the derivatives of the value functions and as the solution of a second-order ODE. Finally, numerical illustrations of the behavior of optimal consumption strategies between two trading dates are given.