When will the longest expansion end?

Business Economics - What might cause the current expansion to come to an end? Without a negative shock, expansions go on and on. The economy is now enjoying even faster growth due to the tax cuts,...     

Exploring the effect of buyer engagement on green product innovation: Empirical evidence from manufacturers

In this study, we are interested in how export firms organize knowledge management and increase product innovation performance. Prior studies have concluded that knowledge transfer from external actors leads to operational performance outcomes; others have questioned the positive influence of buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities on innovation performance. Drawing on absorptive capacity, we aim to offer a better understanding, how export firms as recipients of knowledge resources, organize their internal capabilities in order to realize firm-level product innovation. This empirical study examines the interplay of buyer-driven knowledge activities, resource acquisition and combining, and product innovation outcomes in the context of Pakistani export firms. Drawing on survey data from 239 export-manufacturing firms, we test hypotheses using structural equation modeling. Our findings show that buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities play a crucial role in enhancing export firms in absorbing and combining resources that lead to product innovation. The pragmatic suggestion of the research suggests that managers look closely at developing a culture of involvement with their buyers that promotes the development of knowledge resources. The results of this study have research, policy, and managerial implications.     

Perceptions of the benefits of the A3 planner in facilitating project-based learning in accounting education

This paper evaluates ways of instilling project management skills into accounting-based learning by the use of an iterative A3 planner to plan, monitor and review assignment progress. The application of an A3 planner to facilitate a project-based learning (PBL) group assignment in undergraduate accounting education has been critically evaluated in terms of both the student and tutor experience. The study uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data assisting exploration of perceptions were collected through 100 undergraduate students. A series of focus group discussions were carried out to investigate students’ engagement and tutors’ teaching experiences regarding the adoption of the A3 planner. The results suggest that the A3 planner promotes active planning and effective management of a PBL group assignment. It makes students’ thought processes more visible thereby facilitating and enhancing the tutoring/mentoring process. Moreover a more interactive and transparent approach by doing assignment via the use of an iterative A3 planner has ensured more feedback points and action based efficiency in the doing approach for learners.     

You say you want a (Rose) Revolution? The effects of Georgia's 2004 market reforms

After Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union, it experienced civil war and strife for more than a decade. In late 2003, the peaceful Rose Revolution installed a new government that began a series of radical market‐liberal reforms. However, the effectiveness of these reforms was controversial. We offer a rigorous evaluation of these reforms via the synthetic control method which creates a credible counterfactual. Compared to the synthetic controls, we find that the reforms enacted after the Rose Revolution led to significant improvements in Georgia's social and economic development, albeit with temporary side effects and argue that this case provides some support for the effectiveness of rapid, multidimensional reform.     

Equity and the environment: An application of the Berliant–Strauss vertical and horizontal equity framework to measuring the distributional effects of air quality regulation

The distributional effects of a major air regulation in the United State in 2015 were analyzed using Berliant and Strauss Index Numbers, a set of theoretical and empirical equity metrics, and reduced‐form models that estimate the mortality effects of air pollutant emissions and their source contributions. By viewing the effects of pollution on human mortality as an implicit tax, we found progressivity in 54% to 56% of vertical comparisons and inequity in 92% to 94% of horizontal comparisons. The introduction of the proposed policy made 58% of vertical comparisons more progressive and was equitable to 70% of horizontal comparisons.     

Cost analysis of plasma-derived factor VIII/von Willebrand factor versus recombinant factor VIII for treatment of previously untreated patients with severe hemophilia A in the United States

Background: Inhibitor development to factor VIII (FVIII) hemophilia therapy results in increased complications and substantial economic costs. The SIPPET study, the first randomized controlled trial to compare the immunogenicity of plasma-derived FVIII (pdFVIII)/von Willebrand factor (VWF) and recombinant-DNA-derived FVIII (rFVIII), demonstrated higher inhibitor rates in previously untreated patients (PUPs) treated with rFVIII than in PUPs treated with pdFVIII/VWF.

Objective: To quantify the economic impact of treating PUPs with pdFVIII/VWF vs rFVIII.

Methods: An Excel-based clinical and economic model was developed from a US healthcare payer perspective and run over a 5-year period. The analysis utilized a cohort approach to model patient treatment and outcomes over a monthly cycle to quantify differences in costs of FVIII, bypassing agents, and hospitalizations for serious bleeds. Rates of high-titer inhibitor development were obtained from the SIPPET study. Patients developing high-titer inhibitors were treated with immune tolerance induction (ITI). Patients who developed low-titer inhibitors and those who did not develop inhibitors continued their usual FVIII treatment. Patients who were successfully treated with ITI returned to FVIII treatment, while unsuccessfully treated patients received bypassing agents. Total costs per treated patient were estimated and a one-way sensitivity analysis was conducted to quantify the impact of parameter uncertainty on the model outcomes.

Results: Total cumulative costs per patient over 5 years were $834,621 for pdFVIII/VWF patients and $1,237,163 for rFVIII patients, representing a total saving of $402,542 per patient over the 5-year period, for an average annual saving of $80,508 per patient.

Conclusions: Based on data from the SIPPET study, this analysis found that initiating FVIII treatment in severe hemophilia A PUPs with pdFVIII/VWF has the potential to offer substantial cost savings to healthcare payers, amounting to a one-third reduction in costs.     

Volatility dynamics under an endogenous Markov-switching framework: a cross-market approach

This study uses an endogenous Markov-switching framework to examine the interrelatedness of the volatility dynamics of the US and Korean markets. Previous literature assumes that the US market implied volatility index is exogenous to the Korean implied volatility index. Here, we allow for correlations between the US and Korean variables and suggest two types of endogeneity, namely endogeneity in the regressors and in the regime-switching probabilities. The estimation results show that both types of endogeneity are present in the US variables and that the parameter estimates are quite different when endogeneity is considered, indicating a serious endogeneity bias in the parameter estimates. The results of the endogeneity test for the regressors show that the effects of global shocks are often persistent and may last for as long as six periods. Sub-period analyses indicate that the degrees of endogeneity were especially strong during the global financial crisis.     

MEGA‐EVENTS AND TOURISM: THE CASE OF BRAZIL

Mega‐sporting events such as the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup are expensive affairs. Host countries often justify the spending required to stage these events by predicting that mega‐events will draw large numbers of tourists. This paper analyzes monthly foreign tourist arrivals into Brazil between 2003 and 2015 and finds that the 2014 FIFA World Cup increased foreign tourism by roughly 1 million visitors. This number far exceeded expectations, but we show that roughly a quarter of this increase in foreign tourism was caused by the fortuitous advancement of Argentina's national team, and potential hosts should not count on the event to consistently produce out‐sized tourism figures. We conclude that on‐field results can greatly influence FIFA World Cup tourism. (JEL L83, F14)     

Cacao Capitalism and Extended Urbanization: On the Contradictory Origins of Bounded Urbanism in Nineteenth‐century Coastal Ecuador

This article challenges both contemporary and classic urban theory by analyzing the historical case of coastal Ecuador. Working from primary and secondary sources, I track the urbanization of coastal Ecuador during the long nineteenth century, when cacao exports determined not only the economic wellbeing of the city of Guayaquil, but of the entire tropical lowland region. I argue that this extended urban geography was both experienced and practiced as an unbounded economic and cultural region. As the value of cacao exports skyrocketed, capitalists in the city invested in infrastructural projects and financial instruments, divorcing money‐making from cacao production. After the Gran Incendio (great fire) of 1896, the city was rebuilt according to the ideals of modern liberal planning that further separated the city from the country symbolically, despite their continued material interconnection. This work suggests that long histories of capitalist urbanization provide material and theoretical support for critiquing bounded urban theory both past and present, by moving beyond the city and highlighting the processes undergirding spatial production under capitalist social relations. Likewise, this historical case study argues that city‐centrism, rather than being constituted epistemologically, was tied to liberal notions of the urban based on nineteenth‐century ideologies of modernization and progress.     

Islam-based legal language and state governance: democracy,strength of the judiciary and human rights

Constitutional Political Economy - States embracing Islam-based laws are frequently seen as struggling with establishing democratic institutions, jeopardizing human rights and encouraging executive...