Growing pains: Pre‐entry experience and the challenge of transition to incumbency

We examine how entrepreneurial entry by diversifying and de novo firms in new industries leads to different levels of performance. We propose that these types of firms differ in dynamic capabilities, which help them overcome growth impediments and transition to incumbency in the industry. Growth impediments arise at larger size, older tenure levels in industry, and after technological discontinuities. Because of their prior experience, diversifying firms are better equipped to handle the challenges of impediments to growth. Meanwhile, de novo firms, ostensibly tailor‐made for the targeted industry, are more likely to stumble over these growth challenges, and eventually lag behind diversifying firms. We find support for our hypotheses using a near census of firms in the U.S. wireless telecommunications industry over the 1983–2004 period. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global Navigation Satellite System based tolling: state-of-the-art

Road pricing or road user charging may be understood as an economic concept regarding direct charges applied for using roads. Different pricing paradigms may be distinguished mainly refering to pricing of congested, non-expandable urban networks as well as pricing of expandable, uncongested (principally, interurban) road infrastructure. Numerous technologies within Intelligent Transport Systems can provide support in efficiently applying various charging mechanisms. Recently, among others, tolling systems have been deployed that rely on the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the state-of-the-art of using GNSS technology in road user charging.     

Stochastic efficiency analysis with risk aversion bounds: a simplified approach

A method of stochastic dominance analysis with respect to a function (SDRF) is described and illustrated. The method, called stochastic efficiency with respect to a function (SERF), orders a set of risky alternatives in terms of certainty equivalents for a specified range of attitudes to risk. It can be applied for conforming utility functions with risk attitudes defined by corresponding ranges of absolute, relative or partial risk aversion coefficients. Unlike conventional SDRF, SERF involves comparing each alternative with all the other alternatives simultaneously, not pairwise, and hence can produce a smaller efficient set than that found by simple pairwise SDRF over the same range of risk attitudes. Moreover, the method can be implemented in a simple spreadsheet with no special software needed.     

Economic analysis of brain drain

"In this paper, we consider the brain drain problem arising from the possibility of signaling and individual's two-stage decision procedures within an asymmetric information framework. Where the ranking of the universities provides a signal to domestic employers, our results indicate that, at rational expectations equilibrium, there is an association between students of a particular quality and corresponding qualities of universities they will choose to attend to attain Ph.D.'s. Moreover, we can predict whether these graduating Ph.D.'s choose to return home or remain abroad."     

盯市风险下的期货套期保值

本文把盯市风险引入传统的期货套期保值框架，论证了在考虑盯市风险的情况下，一个关注每日最大亏损值的套期保值者会显著地减少他的期货头寸。在一个中期的套期保值期内，该套期保值者的期货套期保值头寸约为其现货头寸的80％。盯市风险的影响随着套期保值期的延长而缓慢减弱。如果套期保值者关注的是每日平均亏损值，在一个中期的套期保值期内盯市风险的影响极小。     

How much nominal rigidity is there in the US economy? Testing a new Keynesian DSGE model using indirect inference

We evaluate the Smets-Wouters New Keynesian model of the US postwar period, using indirect inference, the bootstrap and a VAR representation of the data. We find that the model is strongly rejected. While an alternative (New Classical) version of the model fares no better, adding limited nominal rigidity to it produces a ‘weighted’ model version closest to the data. But on data from 1984 onwards - the ‘great moderation’ - the best model version is one with a high degree of nominal rigidity, close to New Keynesian. Our results are robust to a variety of methodological and numerical issues.     

Futures Hedging Under Disappointment Aversion

This article considers optimal futures hedging decisions when the hedger is disappointment‐averse (Gul, 1991). When the futures contract is a perfect hedge instrument, a disappointment‐averse hedger always holds a position closer to the full hedge than a nondisappointment‐averse hedger. In the presence of basis risk, the optimal futures position is either a partial hedge or a full hedge. Neither Texas hedge nor overhedge could be optimal. The effects of different degrees of disappointment aversion on futures trading are also analyzed. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21:1029–1042, 2001     

Impacts of Norwegian Milk Quotas on Output Growth: A Modified Distance Function Approach

Quota regulations that prevent output expansion of farms and reallocation of output between farms can cause lower growth in output and productivity. The aim of this study was to explain the output growth rate of Norwegian dairy farms since 1976, and to decompose it into output, input, socioeconomic and technical change components. Instead of using the standard distance function approach for multi‐output technologies, we use a growth rate formulation, which automatically removes the farm‐specific effects. This formulation also helps to impose non‐negativity constraints on marginal products of inputs (input elasticities), which are often violated for many observations, especially when flexible functional forms are used. The farm‐level panel data cover three periods: before the quota scheme was introduced (1976–1982); the period with the most output‐restricting quota scheme (1983–1996); and the period with a more flexible quota scheme (from 1997 onwards). Results show that the milk quota regulations had a significant constraining effect on output growth, in particular on milk output in the period 1983–1996. Furthermore, the output mix has shifted towards meat production for the average farm. What emerges from this study is that output growth and technical change are negatively influenced by policy aims where productive performance has not been the primary objective, and that there is scope for increased farm growth if the quota regime is liberalised.     

Design and evaluation of road pricing: state-of-the-art and methodological advances

This article provides an in-depth review of the state-of-the-art and describes methodological advances in the design and evaluation of road network pricing schemes. A number of paradigm shifts from the two polar cases of the marginal social cost pricing of road traffic congestion and revenue-maximizing road toll pricing are analyzed, as induced by the need to address realistic design complexities and constraints. The crucial role of the joint consideration of pricing strategies with optimal capacity provision and several network management measures is manifested and an integrated evaluation framework is suggested to incorporate a wide range of road pricing impacts into the scheme design process.