Diversification Categories in Investment Real Estate

This paper continues previous work evaluating the benefits of diversification and analyzes the various dimensions within the commercial real estate opportunity set. The database is large and extends through the 1982 downturn in property values. Due to the low levels of systematic risk, current distinctions by region and property type make little sense in a world of costly diversification. More exacting categories combining property type, SMSA growth rate and lease maturity offer promise for more efficient diversification within the real estate portfolio.     

The Atkinson Inequality Measure and its Sampling Properties: Bayesian and Classical Approaches

This paper examines several Bayesian methods of obtaining posterior probability density functions of the Atkinson inequality measure and its associated social welfare function, in the context of grouped income distribution data. The methods are compared with asymptotic standard errors. The role of the number of income classes is investigated using a simulated distribution. If only a small number of groups is available in published data, there is a clear gain from generating the posterior probability density function when using an explicit income distribution assumption. Even with a small number of groups, the Bayesian approach gives results that are close to the sample values obtained using the corresponding individual observations.     

Learning-by-doing and input demand of a rate-of-return regulated firm

The significance of learning by doing to input demand of a cost-minimizing rate-of-return-regulated firm is examined. Using a panel data, the results indicate that the firm's cost and input demand decisions are both influenced by learning-by-doing. The firm's cost and the rate-base (capital) input requirements decline as learning-by-doing measured by cumulative production expands. However, LBD may have different effects on the non-rate-base inputs (labor and fuel) considered in this study. While LBD ambiguously reduces fuel usage, it moderately increases labor employment. In addition to changing input intensity, LBD also influences returns to scale and elasticity of substitution.     

Infrastructures and Societal Change. A View from the Large Technical Systems Field

Infrastructural and societal changes intertwine in multiple ways. This makes the societal implications of infrastructural projects difficult to assess and anticipate. Yet in present day network societies this task is particularly urgent. This paper first identifies two positions that tend to monopolize and deadlock debates. Next it examines two decades of research in the Large Technical System (LTS) research field for alternative approaches to this issue, before finally suggesting distinguishing between the four increasingly indirect moments of (co-) construction of infrastructures and societies. These may be related causally, but also add their own moments of contingency, agency, and choice.     

Potential Growth and Inflation: Estimates for Australia, the United States and Canada

Estimates of potential output growth for Australia, the United States and Canada are presented and analysed in this article. We define potential growth as that growth rate consistent with a steady (domestic component of the) inflation rate (SIRG). At around 4 per cent per annum, Australia's SIRG has been relatively stable for the past 30 years, which seems inconsistent with the view that wide‐ranging microeconomic reform in the 1990s raised growth potential. However, we show that the reduction in employment growth in Australia from the 1980s to the 1990s may account for the absence of a rise in potential growth. In Canada and the United States the SIRGs are closer to 3 per cent, and we explore the reasons why potential growth estimates are higher for Australia than for North America. We also discuss why Australia's growth averaged less than its potential in the 1980s and 1990s and the possible use of our estimates for monetary policy purposes.     

Standardization Process of Systems Technologies: Creating a Balance between Competition and Cooperation

Many firms are experimenting with how to standardize new technologies. They may use proprietary technologies for their products and services, and let them compete in the market selection. Alternatively, they can cooperate to jointly set a standard and experiment with combinations of market process and cooperation. If firms let the market decide, they can compete with technologies and need not invest time and effort in hammering out a standard. If they do incur the costs of negotiated standardization, they may enable end users to realize the benefits of standards. A hybrid standardization process combines the advantages of both market selection and negotiated decision making. This paper presents a contingency framework to identify conditions that will affect the preferred standardization process for vendors who introduce new technologies. A major contingency that this paper points to is the systemic nature of technologies in information and communication technology industries. The more systemic the technology is (in a way to be clarified), the less likely that firms will establish a hybrid standardization process. One advantage of decomposing technology systems in smaller components (modules) is that this approach enables firms to combine market selection with negotiated selection of standards.     

The Cost of Capital of Cross‐listed Firms

This paper analyses the cost of capital of firms with foreign equity listings. Our purpose is to shed light on the question whether international and domestic asset pricing models yield a different estimate of the cost of capital for cross‐listed stocks. We distinguish between (i) the multifactor ICAPM of Solnik (1979) and Sercu (1980) including both the global market portfolio and exchange rate risk premia and (ii) the single factor domestic CAPM. We test for the significance of the cost of capital differential in a sample of 336 cross‐listed stocks from nine countries in the period 1980–99. Our hypothesis is that the cost of capital differential is substantial for firms with international listings, as these are often large multinationals with a strong international orientation. We find that the asset pricing models yield a significantly different estimate of the cost of capital for only 12% of the cross‐listed companies. The size of the cost of capital differential is around 50 basis points for the US, 80 basis points for the UK and 100 basis points for France.     

Teams,Teamwork and Absence*

We argue that firms with interdependent worker productivity, team production, have a higher cost of absence and, as a consequence, spend additional resources on monitoring absence. As a result, firms with team production should have lower absence rates. We estimate the determinants of absence for blue‐collar workers using a sample of German manufacturing establishments. Workplace teams are used as a proxy for team production. The estimates reveal that firms with teams have lower absence rates, as do smaller establishments. The size effect, however, is unique to establishments with teams, which fits prior theoretical work that has not been previously tested.