FINANCING DECISIONS AND SIGNALING BY PARTIALLY ACQUIRED FIRMS

It is well documented that financing decisions by firms can signal valuable information about that firm. Our goal is to determine whether financing decisions by firms can signal valuable information about large stakeholders who have a substantial investment in those firms. In particular, we focus on financing decisions by firms after they had been partially acquired to determine whether these decisions signaled information that affected the values of their corresponding partial acquirers. We find that some financing policies by partially acquired firms may not only signal valuable information about themselves, but may also signal valuable information about their corresponding partial acquirers. We also find that the magnitude of the signal for the partially acquired firm that enacts a financing policy is dependent on the degree of monitoring imposed by the respective partial acquirer. JEL classification: G14, G34     

时不我待——赢在整合客户智能营销平台

媒体沟通渠道增多，产品和服务形成差异化的能力下降（商品化），新型交互式多媒体以客户为中心的营销策略的出现……随着营销复杂程度不断提高CMO急需更好的营销平台支持其更明智的决策，提高成功率。营销职责日益严格，CEO、CFO和利益相关方要求提高透明度并论证营销投入的投资回报。客户自主能力提高，左右营销组合要素并要求个性化对待（他们的满意度通过点击鼠标可影响数百万人）。这些因素是营销高管面临的挑战，需要围绕客户彻底改变运营模式。     

Valuing New South Wales rivers for use in benefit transfer

The results from seven choice modelling applications designed to value improved river health in New South Wales are reported. These applications were designed to provide value estimates that could be used, through benefit transfer, to value improvements in the health of other rivers within the state. Because of limitations on the number of rivers that could be valued and populations sampled, a pooled model for use in benefit transfer was also estimated. The results indicate that both use and non-use values were found to exist for all catchments. In addition, value estimates were found to differ across catchments when populations resident within catchments were sampled. However, when populations resident outside catchments were sampled for two of these catchments, value estimates were found to be statistically similar. This indicates the importance of valuing improved river health in specific catchments by sampling populations within catchments. Yet, it also indicates that it is less critical to conduct multiple surveys of residents outside catchments to value improved river health.     

The impact of audit penalty distributions on the detection and frequency of fraudulent reporting

We investigate how the distribution of the penalties incurred by auditors for failing to detect fraud influences their effort to detect fraud and auditees’ commission of fraud. We compare a probabilistic, skewed audit penalty to a penalty that automatically imposes the expected penalty of the probabilistic distribution (hereafter, a deterministic penalty). Our experiments show that a deterministic penalty with the same expected value of a probabilistic, skewed penalty increases audit effort to detect fraud and decreases fraudulent reporting by auditees and that these benefits hold in a game involving both auditee and auditor players.     

The impact of trust and contract on innovation performance: The moderating role of environmental uncertainty

Research into two important control mechanisms for managing the supply chain relationship - contracts and trust - is on the rise. However, our understanding of how they influence innovation in a firm remains rather unclear. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to examine the individual and interactive effects of contracts and trust on firms' innovation performance and the contingent effects of environmental uncertainty on those relationships in China. The empirical results from a survey of Chinese manufacturing firms indicate that there is a positive relationship between trust and firms' innovation performance, an inverted U-shaped relationship between the use of contracts and firms' innovation performance, and that contracts and trust are substitutes. Moreover, we find that environmental uncertainty enhances the effects of trust, but does not influence the impact of contracts on innovation performance.     

The relevance of personal characteristics in health care rationing: what the Australian public thinks and why

This article examines the preferences of the general public in Australia regarding health care resource allocation. While previous studies have revealed that the public is willing to give priority to particular groups of patients based on their personal characteristics, the present article goes beyond previous efforts in attempting to explain these results. In the present study, there was strong support among respondents for giving “equal priority” to people regardless of their personal characteristics. However, respondents did reveal a preference for married patients over single, for children over adults, for carers of children and the elderly, sole breadwinners, and good community contributors. Further, they would give a lower priority to those perceived as “self-harmers”—smokers, individuals with unhealthy diets, and those who rarely exercise. Variation in the answers according to broad economic and social beliefs across seven different categories (“factors”) influenced the pattern of the public's attitudes towards rationing. The Principal Components Analysis (PCA) indicated that most of the items in our survey are associated with seven factors that explain or capture much of the variation. These relate to a patient's avoidance of self-harm behaviors (Safe Living), their Life Style (diet, exercise, etc.), their contribution to the community through caring for others (Caring), their talents (Gifted), their sexual behavior (Sexuality), their age and marital status (Family), and whether they are an Australian citizen or employed (Citizen). The strength of social preferences—e.g., how strongly respondents would “discriminate” against a recreational drug user or preference a person with a healthy diet—is related to the particular class of preferences.     

Escalation effects and the player draft in the AFL

This study investigates escalation effects in the Australian Football League (AFL). We use a sample of players selected in the AFL player draft (National Draft) between 1986 and 2002, and test for escalation effects by examining whether a player's draft order affects his subsequent utilisation by the club to which he was drafted. Utilisation is represented with measures of games played and tenure. Limited evidence of an escalation effect is found. Any relation between a player's draft order and his games played and tenure at the club to which he was drafted is concentrated in the early years of his career, and this apparent relation can be explained by the information about a player's ability that is contained in the player's draft order and by incentives for clubs to provide greater playing experience to higher ability players. Escalation effects in the AFL competition are therefore much weaker than have been found in studies of the US National Basketball Association (NBA). It is suggested that differences in the structure of the competitions may explain why the escalation effect in the AFL would be weaker than in the NBA.     

The value of a story in organisation learning

Projects of Organisation Learning (OL) are designed to facilitate a change in an organisation's ability to engage or construct their futures. However, OL remains difficult to explain and operationalise. Traditional views of Organisational Learning, by relying on implicit views of individual learning, distort the importance of the social/cultural context of learning. A Communities of Practice perspective is used to focus on locally negotiated and situated meanings in the context of the practice of valued work. A narrative approach is employed to access the values of a group of advisers required to learn and change according to the requirements of a central government department. The findings show a pattern of values not entirely disconnected from the requirements for change. However, by relying on the assumption of the diffusion of change, a change agent was unable to gain the acceptance of advisers to the requirements. It is suggested that future thinking about OL and change need to examine how talk is used to make new realities with others.     

The Poverty of Politics: How Income Redistribution Hurts the Poor

In spite of the significant research literature identifying a tradeoff between income redistribution and economic growth, massive public programs have been implemented to help the poor by transferring income to them. Since Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty began in 1964, over 3.5 trillion dollars have been transferred. However, the possibility that everyone, including the poor, may in fact be made worse off by the transfer has largely been ignored. With a simple algebraic model, the authors demonstrate that, over time, both high and low-income groups are harmed by redistribution. In addition, social mobility, as well as political concerns with relative poverty and international income redistribution increases the damage to all income groups produced by redistribution.     

Estimating society's willingness to pay to maintain viable rural communities*

Declining populations in rural and regional areas have become a high political priority in Australia. Calls for measures to support rural communities have been prompted by substantial population declines in some country areas. In Europe and the USA, similar political pressures to halt population losses in rural and regional areas are also apparent; often as a component of the multifunctionality of agriculture. The question addressed in the present paper is whether or not the Australian tax‐paying public would be willing to pay to avoid losses of people from rural and regional areas that may result from environmental protection measures. As an integral component of two recent non‐market, environmental valuation exercises using Choice Modelling, the value of the benefits associated with the maintenance of rural populations has been estimated. The results demonstrate that a positive existence value is held primarily by urban dwellers for rural population levels.