Ordering,revenue and anchoring in art auctions

We estimate the effect of ordering by value on revenues in sequential art auctions held by Sotheby's and Christie's. We exploit a pre determined rotation of which of these two houses holds their auction first during auction week in New York City. When the house that goes first has relatively expensive paintings compared to the other house, we find that the sale premium for the week is around 21% higher relative to the mean sale premium, and the fraction of paintings sold during the week is around 11% higher. We provide evidence that this is due to an anchoring effect.     

Capital controls in Brazil – Stemming a tide with a signal?

Controls on capital inflows have been experiencing a renaissance since 2008, with several prominent emerging markets implementing them in recent years. We focus on Brazil, which instituted five changes in its capital account regime in 2008–2011. Using the synthetic control method, we construct counterfactuals (i.e., Brazil with no policy change) for each of these changes. We find no evidence that any tightening of controls was effective in reducing the magnitudes of capital inflows, but we observe some modest and short-lived success in preventing further declines in inflows when the capital controls were relaxed. We hypothesize that price-based capital controls’ only perceptible effect is to be found in the content of the signal they broadcast regarding the government’s larger intentions and sensibilities. In the case of Brazil, its left-of-center government’s willingness to remove controls was perceived as a noteworthy indication that the government was not as hostile to the international financial markets as many expected it to be.     

Managing micropolitical risk: A cross‐sector examination

This article stresses the need for today's multinational firms to adopt their own political risk‐assessment and risk‐mitigation strategies. A comparative study of the energy, financial, and automobile sectors illustrates the need for all companies in these sectors to undertake comprehensive risk‐assessment strategies. Risk‐assessment models established by leading multinationals like British Petroleum, Bank of America, and General Motors are examined as examples that other companies in these sectors can build upon. The consistent micropolitical risk variables then lead to a proposed practical framework for examining sector‐specific micropolitical risk. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Telecommuting: The employee's perspective

Available telecommunication technology enables the substitution of commuting by “telecommuting”, or working at home, for a wide range of white collar occupations. Research on the potential of this phenomenon along with some ongoing experiments point at an array of social and personal benefits that may be realized by this working arrangement. An assessment of the possible implications of work-at-home on the individual employee indicate that the burden on him or her may be greater than the benefits accrued and, therefore, the journey to work may be a more desirable act than traditionally perceived by transportation planners. This paper focuses on two aspects of the work-at-home arrangement. Previous research on the sociology of work as well as preliminary empirical results indicate that 1) social interaction at work and 2) the need to separate home and work roles are important elements for the individual worker. The fact that work-at-home will affect these attributes, is likely to discourage wide-scale transition to this arrangement, despite the availability of the technology. Most research published to date on the subject is qualitative in nature, as only little empirical evidence is available. The objective of this paper is to stress, based on a wide literature review, the need for a thorough behavioral evaluation of the available technology to provide a sound basis for decision making on implementation of the technology.     

Natural Disasters and Firms in Vietnam

We investigate the consequences of natural disasters on operating firms in Vietnam, and find evidence of adverse effects of disasters on retail sales accompanied by increases in firm investment of very similar magnitude. There are important spatial differences, with the post‐disaster increase in investment unique to the largest cities and provinces with large urban concentrations. We find that more remote rural areas, especially in the North, experience declines in firm sales without the mitigating boost to investment in the disasters’ aftermath. The decline in firms’ sales does not appear to be associated with declines in household incomes in those regions.     

Healthy targets? World Bank projects and targeted health programmes and policies in Costa Rica,Argentina, and Peru, 1980–2005

Despite its central role in diffusing neoliberal policies and its status as an important external funder of health, the World Bank’s effect on health policies in developing countries has been little explored. I examine how the World Bank framed and funded targeting in healthcare in Costa Rica, Argentina, and Peru. Results indicate that the World Bank and national governments pursue targeting and justify its implementation differently across countries. While both national government and the World Bank cite efficiency and equity concerns as a rationale for targeting, the World Bank is more likely to invoke efficiency and cost-cutting measures. Targeting also happens against the backdrop of very different policies across these countries: coexisting with universalism in Costa Rica, growing public insurance in Peru, and a federally managed health system in Argentina. Domestic factors associated with countries’ existing health systems, in particular coverage and segmentation in the health sector, helps account for variation in both the groups/areas targeted and the discourse and rationale in national and World Bank documents. I conclude by discussing the implications of these results for our understanding of the World Bank’s influence on health policies in developing countries.     

R&D intensity and export performance: A micro view

Zusammenfassung F & E-Intensit?t und Exportleistung: Eine mikro?konomische Betrachtung. — Der Aufsatz besch?ftigt sich mit Unternehmen, die technische Neuerungen betreiben, um exklusive Informationen über neue Produkte oder Verfahren zu erwerben, mit denen sich auf den M?rkten Renten absch?pfen lassen. Die Eigentumsrechte an ihrem Wissen veranlassen die Unternehmen, sich wie Monopolisten zu verhalten. Wie sich innovatorische und nichtinnovatorische Unternehmen auf den Exportm?rkten verhalten, wird in einem theoretischen Rahmen dargelegt. Daraus ergibt sich die Hypothese einer positiven Korrelation zwischen Innovationsintensit?t und Exportwachstum. Diese These wird mit Hilfe von Daten getestet, die aus einer Stichprobe von über hundert Firmen gewonnen wurden, die in Israel zwischen 1975 und 1981 im zivilen Bereich Forschung und Entwicklung betrieben.

---

Résumé Intensité de R&D et performance exportatrice: une micro-vue. - Cet article se concentre sur l’entreprise s’engageant à l’innovation technologique pour gagner l’information de propriétaire sur produit ou procédé de fabrication qu’on peut utiliser pour tirer des rentes du marché. Le savoir propriétaire incite les innovateurs de se comporter comme monopolistes. Les auteurs développent un cadre théorique qu’on applique pour comparer les politiques exportatrices des entreprises innovantes et non-innovantes et qui mène à l’hypothèse d’une positive correlation entre l’intensité d’innovation et la croissance exportatrice. Les auteurs testent cette thèse empiriquement en utilisant des données collectionnées d’un échantillon de plus que cent entreprises engagés à la recherche et le développement civile en Isra?l pendant la période 1975–1981.

---

Resumen Intensidad de investigatión y desarrollo y exportaciones: un enfoque microeconómico. — Este trabajo se concentra en la empresa innovadora que participa en la innovation tecnológica con el fin de adquirir informaciones exclusivas sobre productos y procesos con los cuales podrìan extraerse rentas del mercado. Estas informaciones permiten que los innovadores se comporten como monopolios. En este trabajo se desarrolla un marco teórico que es utilizado para comparar la política de exportaciones de empresas innovadoras y no innovadoras; se predice una correlatión positiva entre la intensidad de innovatión y el crecimiento de las exportaciones. Esta predictión es sometida a un test empírico con datos de una muestra de más de cien empresas isrealíes activas en investigatión y desarrollo pertenecientes al período 1975–1981.

     

Wage structure effects of international trade in a small open economy: the case of Belgium

This paper investigates the impact of international trade on wage dispersion in a small open economy, Belgium. It is one of the few to: (i) use detailed, matched employer-employee data to compute industry wage premia and disaggregated industry-level panel data to examine the impact of changes in international trade on changes in wage differentials, (ii) simultaneously analyse both imports and exports, and (iii) examine the impact of imports according to the country of origin. Looking at the export side, we find (on the basis of the system generalized method of moments estimator) a positive effect of exports on industry wage premia. The results also show that import penetration has a significant and negative impact on industry wage differentials. However, the detrimental effect of imports on wages is found to be significantly greater when imports originate from low- and middle-income countries than from high-income countries.     

International franchising in China with Kodak

According to Kodak, China poses unparalleled opportunities for low‐cost production and marketing of products to the world's largest nation. According to the company's estimate, China will become the largest market in the world for photographic products and services within the next ten years. This article reviews Kodak's operations in China and presents an interview with a local franchising manager in Shanghai—the largest city in China. It provides a unique glimpse into the inner working of the organization's franchising activities in China. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.