Risk Aversion and Technology Portfolios

This paper analyzes the choice of a technology portfolio by risk-averse firms. Two technologies with random marginal costs are available to produce a homogeneous good. If the risks that are associated with the technologies are correlated, then the firms might invest in a technology with a negative expected return or, conversely, might not invest in a technology with a positive expected return. If the technology with the lower expected cost is riskier than the other technology, then this “low-cost” technology will be eliminated from the firm’s portfolio if the risks are highly correlated. With imperfect competition, the portfolios of firms are different, and the difference in risk tolerance can explain the full specialization of the industry: The less risk-averse firms use the low-cost technology, and the more risk-averse firms use the less risky, higher-cost technology.     

Integrated market and nonmarket strategies: Political campaign contributions around merger and acquisition events in the energy sector

We examine how firms use political strategies to protect economic rents created by mergers and acquisitions against dissipation by regulators. In regulated industries, regulators can impose costly merger conditions, for instance consumer rate reductions in the utilities sector, thereby reducing shareholder gains. We investigate empirically whether and how firms use election campaign contributions to politicians as a method of influencing regulatory merger approvals. In a statistical analysis of campaign contributions by all electric utilities from 1998 to 2006, we find that utilities increased their contributions in the year before they announced a merger and that merging utilities increased their contributions more in states with greater political party competition. Our findings contribute to political strategy research by providing novel evidence that firms integrate market and nonmarket strategies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Innovation and competitiveness: a review

Increasing interest has been shown by governments in maintaining the competitiveness of their economies by the use of policies designed to encourage advances in science and technohgy, and the adoption of new tachniques by industry. This paper is the result of a literature review and a sumvey of researchers on the concepts of innovation and competitiveness, the relationships between them and the efficiency ofpolicies to promote them. Those policies an considered in the context of alternative economic perspectives, as is the (rather limited) empirical euidence available. Conclusions are drawn on the current stab of the art of innovation policy research.     

Scottish visitor attractions: a collaborative future?

Although interorganisational collaboration is increasingly being accepted as a necessary, even desirable strategy for the tourism industry as a whole, there would appear to be a number of impediments to the implementation of collaborative initiatives among operators of visitor attractions. This paper focuses on the visitor attractions sector in Scotland, where such impediments are considered to be particularly serious. For a number of reasons, however, collaboration may represent a crucial strategy for visitor attractions in Scotland as they enter the new millennium. This paper sets out to assess the potential for intrasectoral, interorganisational collaborative strategies in enhancing the long‐term viability of the Scottish visitor attractions sector. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.