The Effect of Public Policies and Prices on Youth Smoking

This article empirically tests the effects of various tobacco control measures on youth cigarette demand using a 1996 nationally representative survey among U.S. high school students. Our measures of public policies allow more precise estimates of their impact compared to previous studies. The two-part model corrects for heteroscedasticity and features a novel approach to evaluating youth access laws based on actual compliance rates. This resolves the difficulty of measuring their active enforcement, the lack of which is frequently blamed for insignificant findings with respect to their effectiveness. We found youth access laws to have a negative effect on smoking probability. Relatively strong clean indoor air laws may also reduce the probability of smoking. The presence of all tobacco control policies combined and higher cigarette prices lower both smoking participation and smoking intensity. The teen-specific cigarette price has a larger impact on cigarette demand than commonly tested state average price.     

The impact of early imprinting on the evolution of new venture networks

Given the argued importance of networks to new ventures, this paper is intended to fill a noted gap in the literature pertaining to the factors that influence the evolution of new ventures' alliance networks. Drawing on the imprinting literature, we propose that one has to look beyond the first partner per se, and instead focus on the extant relationships the initial partner has with other firms. More specifically, we argue and find that the network size and centrality of a new venture's initial alliance partner influence the subsequent size of the new venture's network.     

Control and its role in the process of ensuring knowledge continuity

With the commencement of the 21st century, the information age, knowledge economy and integration of information and knowledge among production factors, organizations show increasing interest in knowledge management. Managers are trying not only to preserve knowledge and transfer it efficiently within their organization, but also to ensure that it is not lost when a knowledge employee leaves the organization. Therefore, it is indispensable for organizations to monitor, record, transfer and preserve their knowledge. In order to ensure efficient preservation of knowledge by the organization, it is essential to integrate the area of the so-called knowledge continuity into the general management and ensure its maximum value. The goal of the article is to identify the role of control in the transformation process and its impact on ensuring knowledge continuity within the organization. A partial goal lies in identifying output quality control by means of productivity One of the conclusions of the article is that in today＇s economic situation, ignoring the existence of knowledge continuity could result in a crisis of management of knowledge and its loss.     

Managing employee performance in an emerging economy: perceptions of Vietnamese managers

This qualitative study explores employee performance management (PM) in Vietnam from the perspectives of Vietnamese managers in three case study organizations: a state-owned enterprise, a joint venture and a private Vietnamese company. Findings suggest that western PM practices and techniques are being utilized in all three organizations and that PM is seen as an essential and strategic component of human resource management policy. These findings suggest an increasing awareness of PM in Vietnamese enterprises and a desire to improve competitiveness by developing a highly skilled and high-performing workforce.     

Household tax evasion

Household members share public goods and make intra-household transfers. We show how these features of the household interact with the tax evasion decision, and identify the dimensions in which household evasion differs from individual evasion. In the model we present two members of a household choose how much to contribute to a household public good and how much self-employment income to evade. We are interested in how different evasion possibilities interact with the contribution decisions to the household public good and the role of income transfers within the household. We show the household evasion decision differs from the individual decision because it affects the outcome of the household contribution game. When household members are taxed as individuals neutrality applies when choices are not constrained. If the evasion level of one household member is constrained then an income transfer can generate a Pareto improvement. When the household members are jointly taxed there is a couple constraint on strategies and corner solutions can emerge.     

Farmland conversion to non-agricultural uses in the US and Canada: current impacts and concerns for the future

Conversion of farmland to non-agricultural uses presents a challenge to future food production and ecosystem services in US and Canada. Expansions of housing, transportation, industry, retail sales, schools and other developments are driving land out of farming. In the US there is annual conversion of 500,000 ha away from food and fibre production systems. Coupled with 1% annual population increase, this will reduce today's 0.6 ha per person to 0.3 ha by 2050. Canada has more land and smaller population, but farmland losses are occurring in fertile areas near coasts and in level valleys where highest quality land is located. Current rates of increase in agricultural productivity will not compensate for this land loss. Compared to US, there are more specific tools and legislation at the provincial level in Canada that provide opportunities for controlling sprawl. Important in both countries is general lack of awareness and concern about loss of productive farmland, a situation that could be improved through education. Stimulating collective understanding of this growing problem and providing viable solutions could provide the basis for national policy strategies to promote and assure sustainable food systems for the future and enhance the capacity to maintain vital ecosystem services.     

The importance of the first relationship: The ongoing influence of initial network on future status

The current view of network emergence is predominantly influenced by path‐dependent mechanisms where immediately preceding network structures inform current network positions. However, less explored is the ongoing sensitivity of future network positions to the composition and structure of newcomers' first partnerships. Building on the social categorization literature, we develop a model of the ongoing direct and moderating effects of newcomers' first network partnership on their status. We test our model using a panel of 272 U.S. venture capital firms from the 1980 to 2004 period and show that the reputation of newcomers' first partners exerts a positive influence on their future status (over and above intermediate network conditions). We find that this positive influence is stronger for those newcomers whose first partners formed a cohesive network. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New Evidence on Youth Smoking Behavior based on Experimental Price Increases

The high youth smoking prevalence remains an important public policy challenge into the 21st century. This study applies a unique approach to analyzing the impact of cigarette prices on youth smoking cessation by evaluating reactions among high school students to several alternative hypothetical price increases. It concludes that many young smokers believe that they would quit smoking or decrease their smoking intensity in response to a cigarette price increase. The estimated price elasticity of cessation is between 0.930 and 0.895. The results indicate that youth expect to change their smoking behavior even when the price change is relatively small. However, the behavioral change is most dramatic among those exposed to the largest price increases, suggesting a sustained impact of higher price on cigarette consumption. (JEL I18 )