Innovation diffusion with generation substitution effects

Markets of high technology products and services, such as telecommunications, are described by fast technological changes and rapid generational substitutions. Since the conventional modeling approaches that are based on diffusion models do not usually incorporate this important aspect into their formulations, the accuracy of the provided forecasts is consequently affected. The work presented in this paper is concerned with the development of a methodology for describing innovation diffusion, in the context of generation substitution. For this purpose, a dynamic diffusion model is developed and evaluated, based on the assumption that the saturation level of the market does not remain constant throughout the diffusion process but is affected by the diffusion of its descendant generation, as soon as the latter is introduced into the market. In contradiction to the conventional diffusion models, which assume static saturation levels, the proposed approach incorporates the effects of generation substitution and develops a diffusion model with a dynamic ceiling. The importance of such an approach is especially significant for markets characterized by rapid technological and generational changes. Evaluation of the proposed methodology was performed over 2G and 3G historical data and for a number of European countries, providing quite accurate estimation and forecasting results, along with important information regarding the rate of generation substitution.     

The Role of Location as a Selection Criterion in FDI: The Case of SMEs in Greece

The study examines the internationalization of Greek SMEs in Western Europe and the Balkan area, focusing on the role of location as a selection criterion in their FDI decisions. Data aimed at capturing SMEs’ perceptions with regard to incentives affecting their FDI based on location criteria. We find that location plays a significant role with regard to the benefits that firms gain, highlighting OLI paradigm's theoretical relevance in the examination of FDI, while presenting internationalization trends in the global environment. Findings further contribute to the adaption of effective practices to enhance firms’ competitiveness through more rational and targeted investment decisions.     

An Integrated System Supporting Virtual Consortia in the Construction Sector

Work in today's economic organizations is either performed through the execution of continuous operations or through the implementation of one-off projects; hence one can distinguish between "operation-centric" and "project-centric" business environments. New information and communication technologies facilitate the introduction of innovative organizational structures in both environments. Based on the term "virtual organization," which is used for describing the new organizational structures in operation-centric environments, we introduce the term "virtual consortium" for project-centric environments and provide an analysis of the business processes of a virtual consortium. We concentrate on the construction sector, as one of the most suitable application domains to test the new concept and related systems. Focusing on one of the most critical processes of a virtual consortium, the bidding/tendering process, we review the existing information systems available on the Internet, which support this process for construction projects. Our results show that although there are a substantial number of systems that support searching for call for tenders, few of them provide support for other vital elements of the bidding/tendering process, such as robust collaboration facilities for the virtual consortium formation and for the management of the bid. We then present the SupplyPoint system, which has been developed in order to electronically support and automate the whole tendering/bidding process of virtual consortia. SupplyPoint provides-in addition to what existing systems already do-a collaboration platform that facilitates, in a virtual manner, the formation of consortia.     

Institutions and financial dollarization: Indirect effects based on a policy experiment

We provide evidence that institutional improvements lead to lower levels of financial dollarization through previously unidentified channels. These indirect channels operate in addition to the direct impact identified in the literature and further illustrate the importance of institutions for the extent of banking dollarization.     

Discrimination and job search theories for black British young men

The paper examines empirically the relationship between government revenues and expenditures in four European countries: Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal. In relative terms all four may be considered as the poorest members of the European Union. Yet, they present a fairly diverse picture as far as their macroeconomic performance and fiscal position is concerned. The empirical findings from cointegration and causality tests that are reported here indicate that in the case of Greece and Ireland tax and spending decisions are taken simultaneously by the fiscal authority, the tax-and-spend hypothesis is supported in the case of Spain, while absence of any causal ordering between government expenditure and tax revenues has been established for Portugal.     

Climate change: fiscal and international trade issues—introduction

The challenges to dealing with climate change are broad and complex. This special section reviews some of—but also brings new insights to—the challenges.     

Technical efficiency of alternative farming systems: the case of Greek organic and conventional olive-growing farms

Olive-growing is a major farming activity in Greek agriculture. This paper analyzes empirically the technical efficiency of organic and conventional olive-growing farms using a stochastic production frontier methodology and a translog functional specification. Findings indicate that the organic olive-growing farms examined exhibit a higher degree of technical efficiency (relative to their production frontier) than do conventional olive-growing farms. Reasons may include lower profit margins and restrictions on inputs permitted, thus forcing organic farmers to be more cautious with input use. However, both input- and output-oriented technical efficiency scores are still relatively low for both types of olive-farming. Thus there is considerable scope for cost reducing and farm income improvement in both farming modes. This could prove crucial for the long-run viability and the future course of the sector.     

Why do firms cross-list? International evidence from the US market

Using a modified international asset-pricing model we find strong evidence that publicly quoted firms cross-list when exhibiting strong performance in their domestic market and wish to take advantage of this situation. After cross-listing, this advantage disappears. Our sample consists of daily data for 1165 firms from 47 countries that have cross-listed on the US equity markets over the period 1976–2007. Within the context of this model we provide tests of the validity of the main hypotheses of capital market segmentation and investor protection, which provide explanations for equity cross-listing and investigate whether the nature of the market (regulated or unregulated) and the accompanying legal framework (common or civil law) can account for the impact of cross-listing on returns. Supporting the segmentation hypothesis, we report a decrease in local market risk after cross-listing. However, we find that the magnitude of such a decrease is diminishing over time as international markets become more integrated. On the other hand, we do not find any change in the global market risk after cross-listing, except for firms that cross-listed between 2001 and 2007, where their exposure to international market risk decreases. Furthermore, we find no evidence to support the investor protection hypothesis.     

On the Inconsistency of the Change-Point Estimator for the NE Family

Here, we provide a simple proof of the well-known classical result that the estimator of an unknown change-point is inconsistent. The proof utilizes only the law of large numbers in place of the usual random walk theory based arguments