Conditions for Asymmetric Information Solutions when Alliances Provide Acquisition Options and Due Diligence

One main problem with both acquisitions and alliances is separating the attractive partners from the rest. An additional problem with alliances is getting each partner to provide its best assets and efforts. One solution offered for the acquisition adverse selection problem is due diligence through a pre-acquisition alliance; however, none of the papers recommending such an approach analyze the alliance adverse selection and moral hazard problems. This paper presents the first formal model of joint venturing as acquisition due diligence, detailing how the joint solution works and under what conditions.revised version received October 20, 2003     

On the measurement of dynamic effects of integration

By allowing a freer interplay of market forces, the market liberalization involved in closer economic integration can improve the efficiency of productive factors. This permits greater output from the same inputs. A side effect of this improved efficiency is an improved investment climate in the integrating region. This in turn will result in a higher investment rate, thereby augmenting the initial output gains by providing the economy with more resources. The same sort of induced capital formation can also boost investment in human capital and knowledge capital. Primitive calculations of the size and timing of these induced capital formation can be made using an aggregate GDP function. A rough approximation of the adjustment path shows that the extra investment will stimulate growth for decades, although half of the total effect will occur in the first 10 to 50 years.     

Cost Heterogeneity and the Potential Savings from Market-Based Policies

Policy makers and analysts are often faced with situations where it is unclear whether market-based instruments hold real promise of reducing costs, relative to conventional uniform standards. We develop analytic expressions that can be employed with modest amounts of information to estimate the potential cost savings associated with market-based policies, with an application to the environmental policy realm. These simple formulae can identify instruments that merit more detailed investigation. We illustrate the use of these results with an application to nitrogen oxides control by electric utilities in the United States.     

THE SOCIAL ACCOUNTS FROM A CONSUMER'S POINT OF VIEW

After a short introduction, the first part of this paper (section 3 through 9) provides an outline of the revisions proposed to the System of National Accounts (SNA) of the United Nations which are now under discussion. These proposals were considered by an expert group at the end of 1964 and were accepted by the Statistical Commission of the United Nations in 1965 as the basis for further work on the extension and revision of the SNA. The aim of the revision is to provide a fully integrated system of accounts and balance sheets in which input-output, flows-of-funds and sector balance sheets are incorporated in a generalised accounting framework. Whereas the real side of the economy has been studied analytically in many countries (input-output analysis, demand analysis and so on) much less experience is available on modelling the financial side of the economy, apart from econometric work on saving behaviour, which is fairly widespread. Accordingly, the second part of the paper (sections 10 through 14) contains a discussion of financial model-building in which a number of possibilities are explored. The final topic discussed (section 15) is demographic accounting, by which is meant a framework for recording and analysing human, as opposed to economic, flows and stocks. The development of such a system arose out of the emphasis placed by the expert group on the integration of demographic and economic information.     

Competition in Payphones: State Regulations and Independent Providers' Shares

Independent payphone providers in 1995 held a 17.4 percent national share of payphones. Their shares and state regulators' policies vary greatly by state. We test the determinants of IPPs' shares in 1996, finding that they increase with the allowed local-call rate, with "dial-round compensation," and with the degree to which regulators have removed LEC competitors' incentives to carry inflated payphone investments. Weak evidence suggests that regulation of intrastate long-distance rates may help to solve the IPP's problem of committing not to overcharge. Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, states' policy differences and interstate differences in IPPs' shares will likely narrow.     

Does Exporting Increase Productivity? A Microeconometric Analysis of Matched Firms

Exporting involves sunk costs, so some firms export whilst others do not. This proposition derives from a number of models of firm behavior and has been exposed to microeconometric analysis. Evidence from the latter suggests that exporting firms are generally more productive than nonexporters. They self‐select, in that they are more productive before they enter export markets, but the evidence suggests that entry does not make them any more productive. This paper investigates exporting and firm performance for a large panel of UK manufacturing firms, applying matching techniques. The authors find that exporters are more productive and they do self‐select. In contrast to other evidence, however, exporting further increases firm productivity.     

Stated Preferences, Real Behaviour and Anchoring: Some Empirical Evidence

We compare different contingent valuation question formats with each other and with observed behaviour for a non-monetary estimation task, the expected number of kilometers travelled by automobile. Open-ended questions, open-ended follow-up questions, dichotomous choice (DC) questions, and double-bound DC questions are included. The single and double-bound DC questions result in an estimated mean about twice as high as the actual value and the open-ended mean. The DC question overestimation seems to be due to an anchoring effect leading to yea-saying behaviour. Our results about the difference between DC questions and open-ended questions is consistent with the pattern observed in contingent valuations studies of the willingness to pay. Our results indicates that DC questions seem to be associated with a general overestimation problem that is present even for simple non-monetary estimation tasks.     

Natural resources, capital accumulation and the resource curse

Early concern by economists for the effect of natural capital on economic growth gave way to complacency and neglect during the nineteenth century. Evidence has emerged, however, that since the 1960s the economic performance of low-income countries has been inversely related to their natural resource wealth. This relationship is not a deterministic one so policy counts. SEEA can help improve the policy and performance of resource-abundant low-income countries by reinforcing the rationale for the sound management of natural resources and also by providing an index of policy sustainability in the form of the net saving rate. This policy index, along with other measures such as a capital fund for sterilizing the rent, initiatives to increase the transparency of rent flows and the rigorous evaluation of alternative uses of additional public sector revenue can improve the efficiency by which natural resource rent is transformed into alternative forms of capital to sustain rising social welfare. Chad and Mauritania provide case studies to illustrate how SEEA and net saving can be used to diagnose policy failure and improve economic performance.     

Industrial revolution and mortality revolution: Two of a kind?

In little more than a century life expectancy has doubled in most parts of the world. Neither facts nor theory support the view that this Mortality Revolution is due to the Industrial Revolution and the era of rapid economic growth that ensued. Rather, both revolutions mark the onset of accelerated and sustained technological change in their respective areas. They occur largely independently of each other, the later occurrence of the Mortality Revolution being due to the later development of biomedical vis-a-vis physical knowledge. Comparative study of the two should prove fruitful. Although entrepreneurship is important in each, there appear to be differences in the underlying motivations and the role of private property and other institutions. Links between technological change, on the one hand, and scale of operation, capital inputs, and education, on the other, also offer promising possibilities for comparative study.The author is grateful to Donna Hokoda Ebata and Christine M. Schaeffer for excellent assistance, the University of Southern California for financial support, and to Eileen M. Crimmins, Samuel H. Preston, Morton O. Schapiro, Roger S. Schofield, and two referees for helpful comments.