Economic Methodology and Nobel Laureates: Confirmation of a Methodological Paradigm Shift

Meir Kohn ( 2004 ) argues that two methodologies, the “value paradigm” and the “exchange paradigm,” dominate modern economics with the equilibrium‐focused value paradigm increasingly replaced by the more successful exchange paradigm. This article examines the question of modern economic methodologies and seeks to determine if the shift described by Kohn can be seen in the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics (1969–2010). Trends in Nobel laureates suggest that Kohn's depiction of the two paradigms and their relationship appears accurate.     

PERIODIC SEQUENCES OF ARBITRAGE: A TALE OF FOUR CURRENCIES

This paper investigates arbitrage chains involving four currencies and four foreign exchange trader‐arbitrageurs. In contrast with the three‐currency case, we find that arbitrage operations when four currencies are present may appear periodic in nature, and not involve smooth convergence to a ‘balanced’ ensemble of exchange rates in which the law of one price holds. The goal of this article is to understand some interesting features of sequences of arbitrage operations, features which might well be relevant in other contexts in finance and economics.     

The Status of Econometrics in the Economics Major: A Survey

In this article, the authors describe the place of econometrics in undergraduate economics curricula in all American colleges and universities that offer economics majors as listed in the U.S. News & World Report “Best Colleges 2010” guide (U.S. News & World Report 2009). Data come from online catalogs, departmental Web sites, and online course syllabi. About one-third of the schools require econometrics of all students majoring in economics, about half require it of none, and a sixth require it of some, but not all, economics majors. Among universities with economics PhD programs and liberal arts colleges, almost all those ranked in the top 10 require it. Below the top 10, there is little correlation between ranking and econometrics requirements. Liberal arts econometrics classes are much more likely to require research projects than their counterparts in universities.     

Alternate signs of life: The growth of biotechnology industries in Shanghai and Bangalore

This paper explores the emergence of biotechnology centers in Shanghai and Bangalore by comparing their development to best practices in the literature for biotechnology cluster growth and development. Interviews with over fifty biotech companies and related institutions in China and India indicate that these regions are developing alternate models of low cost manufacturing and services that build on the current local base of knowledge and expertise. The ability to convert research into successful commercial activity was identified in both regions. The strong research capacity, private sector funding, and entrepreneurial environment deemed critical best practices were limited. New growth theory is used to explain these alternate approaches to technological and social change.     

A fresh look at the contribution of project management to organizational performance

A better understanding of organizational performance and the contribution that project management can make is the aim. The article adopts the “Competing Values Framework,” a rich framework that is well established both theoretically and empirically but is not well known in the field of project management. The framework is summarized and applied in an empirical investigation of the contribution of project management in general and project management offices (PMOs) in particular to organizational performance. The examination of 11 case studies revealed multiple concurrent and sometimes paradoxical perspectives. The criteria proposed by the framework have been further developed through the identification of a preliminary set of empirically grounded performance indicators. The empirical results contribute to a better understanding of the role of project management generally and PMOs specifically. They also demonstrate the usefulness of this framework for the study of project management's contribution to organizational performance.     

When do B2B brands influence the decision making of organizational buyers? An examination of the relationship between purchase risk and brand sensitivity

The dominant perspective on organizational buying behavior suggests that buyers tend to rely on objective criteria when making product choice decisions and that the potential influence of subjective cues, such as brands, on buyer decision making decreases with increasing risk. An alternative perspective, confirmed in this study by in-depth interviews with various managers, suggests that brands serve as a risk-reduction heuristic, whereby the influence of brands on decision making increases as a function of risk. Building on risk and information processing theories, this research builds on these complementary perspectives to propose that risk and brand sensitivity relate in a U-shaped manner, where brand sensitivity is highest in relatively low- or high-risk situations. The results of scenario- and survey-based field studies—involving 206 and 180 members of buying centers, respectively—suggest that both perspectives have merit and support the proposed nonlinear relationship. Moreover, the findings reveal that the risk-brand sensitivity relationship is moderated by competitive intensity, such that the linear (negative) and quadratic (positive) effects are stronger when competitive intensity is low.     

A review of the effect of cigarette advertising

Because of the inconsistency in the findings from past decades of research and the lack of consensus regarding the relationship between advertising exposure and cigarette consumption, the large body of extant research on the effectiveness of cigarette advertising has generated equivocal conclusions on this subject. Therefore, we conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis of cigarette advertising research to determine what impact, if any, cigarette advertising has on cigarette consumption. Unlike previous attempts to synthesize the cigarette advertising literature, this study examined three specific levels of the criterion (i.e., initiation, continuation, and brand behavior) rather than examining only aggregate consumption.