Untangling the relationships among growth,profitability and survival in new firms

The performance of new firms is important for economic development but research has produced limited knowledge about the key relationships among growth, profitability, and survival for new firms. Based on evolutionary theory, we develop a model about how new firms resolve uncertainty about their ability to prosper in a market by monitoring changes in profitability. Our model predicts selection pressures to weed out underperforming firms and learning in order to allow survivors to improve performance and grow. We test our theory using a unique panel of knowledge-intensive new firms in Sweden. We find strong support for the notion that profitability enhances both survival and growth, and growth helps profitability but has a negative effect on survival. Implications are discussed.     

Trade Liberalization,Nature of Mergers and Employment

This paper investigates the roles of comparative advantage and market size in the international location of manufacturing production. Building on the conventional Helpman and Krugman (1985) general equilibrium framework, our analysis extends the present literature by incorporating both effects in the same model, while allowing trade costs to vary almost continuously from autarky to free trade. The main result of our exercise is that market size effects offset comparative advantage if countries have similar factor proportions. A large country with a slight comparative disadvantage in manufacturing production may thus be a net exporter of manufactures. A small country with the same comparative disadvantage would be a net importer of manufactures. When countries are very dissimilar in their relative factor endowments, land-abundant countries specialize in the production of food, irrespective of market size, if manufactures are a labour-intensive sector. Labour-rich countries of any size are manufacture cores. However, land-abundant countries with large markets can sustain a domestic manufacturing industry until trade costs are very low, and in some cases only specialize in agriculture at free trade.     

The “Emulator Effect” of the Uruguay Round on US Regionalism

Using a detailed data set at the tariff line level, we find an emulator effect of multilateralism on subsequent regional trade agreements (RTAs) involving the USA. We exploit the variation in the frequency with which the US grants immediate duty free access (IDA) to its RTA partners across tariff lines. A key finding is that the US grants IDA status especially on goods for which it has cut the multilateral most favored nation (MFN) tariff during the Uruguay Round the most. Our results suggest that the Uruguay Round multilateral “concessions” have elicited subsequent preferential trade liberalization.     

Fish Consumers: Environmental Attitudes and Purchasing Behavior

The objective of this study was to expand on the limited awareness of the U.S. fish consumer. Measures were tested through a Web-based national survey. The final survey consisted of 40 questions, including environmental awareness, food neophobia, fish consumption, reasons for consuming fish, and demographic variables. Correlations and t tests were used to analyze relationships between eating fish in restaurants and other variables. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to segment respondents into two groups based on their environmental awareness and neophylic/neophobic attitudes. EcoFish consumers were more likely to be male, eat fish for health and the environment, and eat fish at restaurants significantly more than the Indifferent Fish consumers. Restaurants can use these results to market to eco-friendly, health-conscious fish consumers.     

Urbanisation and Food Insecurity Risks: Assessing the Role of Human Development

The phenomenon of rapid urbanisation across the world has become a topic of increased scholarly inquiry. Yet, little attention has been paid to how urban growth affects countries’ food security and whether this association is modified by a country's level of development. The present study aims to fill this lacuna by examining the association between urbanisation and food security applying statistical modelling. The analysis uses country-level data, from the World Development Indicators and the United Nations’ World Urbanization Prospects. Using a Food Insecurity Risk Index (FIRI) as the outcome variable, the results confirm a significant negative impact of urban growth on food security at the country level. It further finds that rapidly urbanising countries with the lowest levels of human development are most at risk of food insecurity.     

Pleasure and the Control of Food Intake: An Embodied Cognition Approach to Consumer Self‐Regulation

Consumers try to avoid temptation when exposed to appetizing foods by diverting their attention away from their senses (e.g., sight, smell, mouthfeel) and bodily states (e.g., state of arousal, salivation) in order to focus on their longer term goals (e.g., eating healthily, achieving an ideal body weight). However, when not including sensations in their decision‐making processes, consumers risk depleting their self‐regulatory resources, potentially leading to unhealthy food choices. Conversely, based on the concept of “embodied self‐regulation,” the suggestion is made that considering bodily states may help consumers regulate their food choices more effectively. A new model is proposed that facilitates understanding observed consumer behavior and the success or failure of self‐control in food intake. It is argued that bodily states and sensory information should be considered when modeling consumer behavior and developing health‐related advocacy and communication campaigns. The model proposed here leads to new perspectives on consumer consumption behavior and health policy research and strategies.     

Rural women leaders

This research project was designed to study the determinants of leadership development in rural women. The first phase of the study involved individual interviews with women recognized as leaders within a rural community. Each of the 25 rural women leaders interviewed was raised on a farm or in a community with a population smaller than 2,000. The second phase of the study was administered via Survey Monkey to 133 women using a modified version of the Review of Personal Effectiveness with Locus of control (ROPELOC) instrument, which included the key domains of interest and was expanded to include additional questions focusing on unique challenges to leadership among women living in rural communities. The project used leadership‐related community groups as an entry point to identify women across rural Kansas for the survey. The results from these two methods identified six themes: lifelong learners, bias and discrimination, self‐efficacy and overcoming barriers, community influence and social capital, leadership mentors, and expression of leadership.     

Stakeholder views on issues to consider when assessing the sustainability of genetically modified potato

The importance of assessing socio-economic and sustainability aspects of genetically modified (GM) crops is increasingly recognized by policy-makers, both within the EU and internationally. Nevertheless, experience has shown that it is challenging to assess and implement these aspects in actual decision-making processes. This paper argues that stakeholder engagement may provide valuable insights when developing frameworks for sustainability assessment of GM crops. We organized two stakeholder workshops with the aim to gather perspectives on the sustainability of cultivating late blight resistant (LBR) GM potato in Norway. Sixteen Norwegian stakeholders involved in potato production and in agriculture in general took part in the workshops. Here, we present and discuss the outcomes of this participatory approach. The stakeholders identified several conditions that an LBR GM potato ought to satisfy in order to contribute to sustainable development. These conditions concerned environmental and health safety aspects of cultivating LBR GM potato, potential for fungicide reductions, durability of the LBR GM potato plant's resistance, farmers' profitability and consumer acceptance. In addition, the stakeholders considered issues such as maintenance of a diversity of potato cultivars, transparency during product development and risk assessment processes, ownership and control and opportunity for independent risk research as important considerations in a sustainability assessment. While focusing on a specific application of agricultural biotechnology, we believe that these findings are useful contributions to the ongoing efforts to develop frameworks and guidelines for assessing sustainability and socio-economic considerations of GM crops in general.