Price dispersion and the stability of trade*

Research on trade relationships has documented a high rate of relationship breakup and churning. We use data on Norwegian exports to document two stylized facts about the stability of trade relationships. First, the probability of relationship breakup increases in the deviation of the relationship-specific price from a reference price. Second, relationship hazards follow Zipf's law. We propose a search model with limited information and search frictions to explain these facts. Reference prices provide information on outside trade options that inform optimal breakups, leading to the first stylized fact. Strong heterogeneity in breakup frictions across relationships can explain the Zipf's law hazards.     

Sovereign debt assistance and democratic decision-making

Organizational reforms stimulating democratic decision-making play a role in the economic effectiveness of concessional debt and debt relief. Effectiveness is defined as the increase in project approval produced by debt assistance. This claim is supported by a theoretic model illustrating the role of democratic decision-making in increasing lending as well as in determining the effectiveness of debt assistance. Using the framework of group decision-making in a fixed-size committee, we suggest a novel explanation to the advantage of conditioning debt assistance on organizational reforms that target the decision-making structure in organizations. The results imply that if the aid organization can affect the level of democratization in organizations, it can exploit its advantage and set the debt assistance that induces the maximal increase in project approval. We derive conditions under which organizational reforms that impose various forms of democratic norms in decision-making are important for increasing the effectiveness of debt assistance. We also point to the case where replacing an autocratic decision maker can cause debt assistance effectiveness to decline.     

Historical grounding,political contexts,material hurdles: Towards more in-depth understandings of ‘finance going farming’

Two recently published books—Fairbairn's Fields of Gold and Ouma's Farming as a Financial Asset—now provide the first extensive investigations into finance's engagement with farmland. Both books set out to understand finance's growing interest in farmland from the perspective of the financial actors involved, and inquire how, why, and with what kind of challenges ‘finance has been going farming.’ This review essay discusses the two books in the context of the ‘land rush’ literature. It outlines how they contribute to an advanced understanding of the financialization of farmland in three ways, by (i) embedding finance-farmland intersections historically; (ii) scrutinizing the role of the state within financial farmland investments; and (iii) exploring the hurdles involved in ‘marrying’ finance with farmland. I then critically reflect on the areas that have not been covered by the authors. Critical agrarian studies need to investigate how financialization intersects with the digitization of agriculture, examine life expectancies and afterlives of financialized farms, further ground financial investment in concrete rural spaces, and explore individual motivations and belief systems of its proponents more seriously.     

Reframing fundraising research: The challenges and opportunities of interpretivist research practices and practitioner researchers in fundraising studies

This paper examines interpretivism as an approach for researching fundraising practice as context and practice specific. In doing so, it highlights the agency of fundraisers and extends critical analysis of fundraising practice and its broader implications in ways that the dominant positivistic, functionalist literature does not. Building on previous comparisons of positivist and interpretivist approaches, we consider two fundraising studies, and benefits and challenges of using an interpretivist approach. These observations highlight both the complexity and messiness of interpretivist studies, and of the fundraising process. The paper concludes by discussing how these challenges can be managed through analytical iteration, adjustment, and pragmatism throughout the research process; while advocating for including more critical and dialectic approaches to research fundraising and fundraisers' broader practice.     

Applying a stakeholder management approach to ethics in charitable fundraising

While nonprofit accountability literature recognizes many stakeholders, even theoretically grounded approaches to fundraising ethics tend to focus more narrowly on donors, organizations, and their missions. This paper draws on business ethics scholarship by proposing a stakeholder management approach to ethics in fundraising. This approach foregrounds intentional examination of the multiple stakeholders in the fundraising process: the organization; its donors; current beneficiaries; the broader population within the issue; the fundraisers themselves; and the community. Following stakeholder theory, ethical fundraising activities must align with the charitable mission of the organization, and take into account the legitimate interests of those groups and individuals who can affect, or be affected by, its activities. The process of intentionally identifying, prioritizing, mapping claims, engaging with, and monitoring stakeholders offers fundraisers, nonprofit executives, and members of governing and advisory boards a pragmatic means of aligning fundraising efforts with the mission, values, and long-term strategy of their organizations.