Cointegration and causal relationships among steel prices of Mainland China, Taiwan, and USA in the presence of multiple structural changes

Variation in the price of steel is an important factor to take into consideration when discussing cost control and management decisions in the construction industry. We employ various conventional and advanced econometrics methods to examine the interrelationships of steel prices in three related markets during the time period June 2002 to May 2010: Mainland China (CH), Taiwan (TW), and the United States (US). We adopt the Gregory and Hansen (GH) test and regime-switching (RS) model for cointegration, both of which accommodate endogenous structural break(s), to produce a more accurate analysis of a period in the presence of structural change(s). The empirical result of the RS cointegration test with respect to multiple structural breaks suggests a long-run equilibrium relationship among the three variables considered. This finding differs from the result of the GH test but confirms the result of the conventional Johansen test. Furthermore, the results of the Granger causality test indicate that both CH and US steel prices have great influence on the TW steel price; the Taiwanese steel market is closely linked with China and US steel markets in the long run.     

Japan's Post‐Fukushima Energy Policy Challenges

The Great East Japan Earthquake and the successive accidents at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station are stark reminders of the importance of energy, which is the basis of economic activity and national governance. Urgent responses have been conducted since March 11, 2011, including controlling the consequences of the nuclear accident, dealing with the short‐term power shortages, and a comprehensive review of Japan's long‐term national energy policy. Nationwide discussions and reviews of these issues are still continuing. Even today, more than 2 years after March 11, many problems remain unsolved and Japanese society has to face uncertainty and challenges about its energy future. In the current difficult situation, Japan needs to achieve “3Es (e nergy security, environmental protection, and economic efficiency)” plus “S” (safety) and “M” (macro economy protection) simultaneously, taking account of the new realities following the Fukushima accident. This paper tries to identify the energy‐related challenges that Japan has to face and tries to recommend the concept of the “energy best mix policy” for Japan, by describing the present status of energy issues in Japan and the national debate on energy policy.     

Firm ownership and productivity: a study of family and non-family SMEs

Motivated by a lack of consensus in the current literature, the objective of this paper is to reveal whether family firms are more or less productive than non-family firms. As a first step, this paper links family business research to the theoretical notion that family involvement has an effect on the factors of production from a productivity standpoint. Second, by using a Cobb–Douglas framework, we provide empirical evidence that family labour and capital indeed yield diverse output contributions compared with their non-family counterparts. In particular, family labour output contributions are significantly higher, and family capital output contributions significantly lower. Interestingly, differences in total factor productivity between family and non-family firms disappear when we allow for heterogeneous output contributions of family production inputs. These findings imply that the assumption of homogeneous labour and capital between family and non-family firms is inappropriate when estimating the production function.     

A Note on Allen’s Arc Elasticity with Arithmetic, Geometric and Harmonic Means

Discussion and debate on the application of Allen??s arc elasticity has continued into the 21st century. This note demonstrates three points. First, perceived differences between Allen??s geometric mean elasticity and a constant demand elasticity based on an assumed isoelastic demand curve are negligible for small changes in price and quantity, which comprise the vast majority of such changes. Second, in some cases of rapid security or commodity price movements, the harmonic mean may provide the most accurate elasticity estimates across measures of central tendency. Third, because the arithmetic and harmonic means serve as bounds for the geometric mean, an elasticity based on the geometric mean may be considered a prudent choice among these three on this basis alone.     

Residual Income Valuation Models and Inflation

Existing empirical evidence suggests that residual income valuation models based on historical cost accounting considerably underestimate equity values. One possible explanation is the use of historical cost accounting under inflationary conditions. In this paper, we use a residual income framework to explore theoretically how historical cost accounting numbers need to be adjusted for inflation in forecasting and valuation. We demonstrate that even in a simple setting where inflation is running at a relatively low level, residual income models are likely to produce severe under-valuations if inflation is not properly taken into account. We use simulated data to reinforce our theoretical findings and to illustrate the difficulties that empirical investigators face working within the confines imposed by real data.     

A note on the evaluation of long-run investment decisions using the sharpe ratio

This paper reexamines the use of the Sharpe ratio to measure the performance of large and small company stocks along with corporate bonds over different holding periods. It builds on previous research which cites the effects of serial correlation and non-normality in the creation of estimation error in the calculation of the Sharpe ratio. It finds that higher order moments such as skewness and kurtosis are a further source of error that must be accounted for when making inferences about asset performance.     

Social Marketing as Transformational Marketing in Public Services

Abstract

This article presents a case study of a social marketing intervention, developed as an innovative action research project for a Fire Service, to tackle the public service challenge of reducing the incidence of deliberate countryside fire-setting in certain communities. The case demonstrates the effectiveness of a social marketing approach to tackling an anti-social behaviour that had become a local social norm which conventional education-based campaigns had failed to change. The case also explores unexpected impacts that applying a social marketing approach had on the sponsoring Fire Service, acting to transform certain aspects of its operations and culture.     

The impact of entrepreneurial orientation on firm performance: the role of CEO position tenure and industry tenure

The relationship between Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) and firm performance, despite generating significant scholarly interest, has remained mixed. These results may be attributed, at least in part, to the failure to sufficiently examine the potential impact of top management characteristics. The present study investigates how CEO characteristics (i.e. CEO industry and position tenure), impact the relationship between EO and firm performance within a sample of 579 US banks. As predicted, some support for a positive EO to performance relationship was found. In addition, the results strongly support, as posited, that CEO industry tenure positively moderates, and CEO position tenure negatively moderates, the EO to performance relationship. We also report evidence supporting the effect of EO, configured with CEO position tenure and industry tenure on firm performance. Our study suggests the EO–performance relationship is more complex than previous studies indicate. Implications for future research and practice are provided.     

Treasury auctions: Uniform or discriminatory?

There has been much discussion of the relative merits of selling government bonds using a uniform-price auction rather than the traditional discriminatory-price auction. Arguments in favor of the former have won the day in respect of the newly instituted auctions of index-linked bonds in the USA and UK. This short paper assesses the evidence and concludes that the advantages of uniform-price auctions have been oversold. Received: 28 May 1999 / Accepted: 27 September 1999