Parallel Consultant-Guided Search with Crossover

Consultant-guided search (CGS) is a recent metaheuristic method. This approach is an algorithm in which a virtual person called a client creates a solution based on consultation with a virtual person called a consultant. In this study, we propose a parallel CGS algorithm with a genetic algorithm’s crossover and selection, and calculate an approximation solution for the traveling salesman problem. We execute a computer experiment using the benchmark problems (TSPLIB). Our algorithm provides a solution with less than 3.3% error rate for problem instances using less than 6000 cities.     

The Performance of Development Banks: The Case of the Reconstruction Finance Bank

This paper analyzes the performance of the Reconstruction Finance Bank (RFB) in order to shed light on the role of development banks in fostering economic growth. The RFB played a large role in Japan′s transition from war-time command economy to a market economy in the early post-war period. We use individual firm level data on sales, profits, and loans from the RFB, and find that, initially, the RFB was making loans to firms with below-average performance. We then find that this was partly a result of political interventions into the loan policy of the RFB. In fact, we also find evidence of improvements in the performance of the RFB after its loan policy became more independent. Implications for developing economies are also discussed. J. Japan. Int. Econ., Dec. 1995, 9(4), pp. 486-504. Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 13, Japan.     

Endogenous timing in the switching of technology with Marshallian externalities

We analyze endogenous timing in the switching of technology. Each user chooses when to purchase a new product which embodies new technologies characterized by Marshallian externalities. The technological switch occurs when a large number of users purchase new products. Under complete information, multiple market equilibria exist, and one of the equilibria in which technological switching occurs is efficient. However, if we introduce even a small amount of uncertainty, the switch is delayed in the unique equilibrium under perfect competition, resulting in a loss of social welfare. The market power of a monopolistic supplier of new products alleviates this inefficiency.     

The quality effect: Does financial liberalization improve the allocation of capital?

We document evidence of a “quality effect” of financial liberalization on allocative efficiency, as measured by dispersion in Tobin's Q across firms. We predict that financial liberalization, by equalizing access to credit, is associated with reduced variation in expected marginal returns. We test this prediction using a new financial liberalization index and firm-level data for five emerging markets: India, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. We find robust evidence that financial liberalization, rather than financial deepening, is associated with improved allocative efficiency.     

Habit formation in an endogenous growth model with pollution abatement activities

This paper studies how habit formation in consumption affects pollution abatement activities and the steady-state growth rate, in the context of an endogenous growth model in which agents derive disutility from the habit stock and pollution. The paper also examines how the effect of technological change in abatement on the optimal growth rate is enhanced or weakened by habit formation. We show that if agents persist in and care about their habits, sustained growth is only possible with rapid technological progress.      

Value Relevance of Accounting Information for Intangible-Intensive Industries and the Impact of Scale: The US Evidence

Abstract

The structural shift in the USA from a tangible- to an intangible-intensive economy raises a concern that reporting based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) might have lost its usefulness to investors. Amir and Lev [(1996) Value relevance of nonfinancial information: the wireless communications industry, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 22(1–3), pp. 3–30] argue that accounting information is not useful for intangible-intensive firms. In contrast, Collins et al. [(1997) Changes in the value relevance of earnings and book values over the past forty years, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 24(1), pp. 39–67] find that the value relevance (measured by R-squared) of accounting information has increased over time and that value relevance for intangible-intensive industries is as high as that for tangible-intensive industries. In this article, we attempt to resolve the above discrepancy by examining the impact of scale on R-squared (Brown, S., Lo, K. and Lys, T. (1999) Use of R² in accounting research: measuring changes in value relevance over the last four decades, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 28(2), pp. 83–115). We find that, after controlling for scale, R-squared is lower for intangible-intensive industries than for non-intangible-intensive industries and has declined over time for intangible-intensive industries but remained stable for non-intangible-intensive industries. Interestingly, the declining trend ended with the demise of the ‘New Economy’ period (NEP) (Core, J. E., Guay, W. R. and Van Buskirk, A. (2003) Market valuations in the New Economy: an investigation of what has changed, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 34(2–3), pp. 43–67), and value relevance for both industry groups appears to be restored in the post-NEP to the pre-NEP level. We also find that R&D capitalisation increases value relevance for intangible-intensive industries, but does not completely eliminate the gap between the two groups.     

Agricultural Productivity Growth and Household Food Security Improvement in Nepal

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. Using the panel data of the Nepal Living Standard Measurement Survey (NLSS), the poverty rate in 1995–96 was estimated to be about 40%, while in 2003–04 it was estimated at roughly 30%. Political instability has prevented the development of industry and threatened the food security of poor people, but scholarship on the factors contributing to food security is incomplete; while the determinants of food security have been mentioned in past research, prior studies have analyzed cross‐sectional data and thus could not have omitted heterogeneity bias. This paper analyzes the change in agricultural productivity in real terms and the impact on household food security by using the panel data of NLSS in 1995–96 and 2003–04. This analysis reveals that growth is observed in real agricultural productivity in spite of land segmentation; the growth in agricultural productivity in real terms has a positive impact on household food security; and the lower a farmer's income becomes, the more positive its impact on food security. Therefore, advancements in agricultural productivity play a critical role in promoting food security at the individual and household levels.     

What Explains the Valuation Difference between Intangible‐intensive Profit and Loss Firms?

Prior research suggests that loss firms are valued based on their abandonment/adaptation option values, while profit firms are valued as going concerns. However, conservative accounting treatment of expensing of R&D leads many R&D‐intensive firms to report losses even though they are not in financial distress. In this paper we investigate the difference in valuation of profit and loss firms that invest in intangibles, either through internal development (R&D) or purchases. The accounting treatment for internally developed intangibles is conservative in that US GAAP requires immediate expensing. Yet, it allows recognition of purchased intangibles. We find that in valuation of firms with high recognized‐intangible assets, book value has more prominence in loss firms than profit firms, while that is not the case for firms with high R&D expenditures. This suggests that their abandonment/adaptation option explains the difference in valuation between profit and loss firms with high recognized‐intangibles, while conservative accounting explains the valuation difference between profit and loss firms with high R&D intensity. This result suggests that recognition of intangibles in financial statements might mitigate the conservative bias in accounting numbers.     

The role of innovation and quality change in Japanese economic growth

This paper explores the use of time series data to isolate quality change in the Japanese economy using a hedonic procedure. We argue that the traditional approach to hedonic estimation based upon panel data sets of different brands in a given product area is extremely resource intensive and, thus, unlikely to be adopted by official statistical bodies outside of key areas, such as computers. This paper adopts a “top-down” approach to see whether more traditional measures of technical change, such as patents, can be used to separate pure inflation from quality change. If this is possible, it offers a much simpler route to estimate the role of quality change in economic growth and performance. In practice, we extend the analysis not only to include patents, but other forms of intellectual property that might reflect technology and attribute changes, such as designs, utility models and trademarks. We begin by taking a longer-term historical perspective, exploring the development of indigenous inventive capacity in Japan during the early years when R&D data are not available. It is possible to show that the rise in utility models pre-dates the main growth in patenting activity, suggesting the development in more low-level indigenous creative work prior to higher level inventive activity. The principal aim of this paper, however, is to demonstrate that it is possible to develop robust models to explain changes in the producer price index in Japan, which can then be used to re-examine Japanese growth performance over the period from about 1960. If the official Japanese statistical body has fully accounted for quality change in the price indices (i.e. produced fully quality-constant price deflators), then the official estimates of growth will be correct. However, we provide strong evidence that this is not the case. Changes in quality, proxied by the IP variables, are important determinants of prices in Japan over the period 1960 to 1995 as a whole. Indeed, we provide evidence that the true rate of growth of the Japanese economy, taking into account the rate of quality change, is significantly higher than that suggested in official statistics.