Price integration in the Australian rock lobster industry: implications for management and climate change adaptation

Rock lobster fisheries are Australia's most valuable wild fisheries in terms of both value of production and value of exports. Different states harvest and export different lobster species, with most of the landings being sent to the Hong Kong market. A perception in the Australian lobster industry is that the different species are independent on the export market, such that a change in landings of one species has no impact on the price of the others. This study investigates the market integration of Australian exports to Hong Kong for the four species and different exporting states. Our results indicate all four species and producers/export states are perceived to be substitutes for one another, so that, in the long run, prices paid to operators in the industry will move together. The integrated nature of the Hong Kong export market for Australian lobster suggests that the potential impacts of alternative fisheries management and development strategies at state and species levels cannot be considered in isolation, at least from an economic perspective. In addition, impacts of external shocks affecting production in one state (e.g. climate change) can be expected to affect all Australian lobster fisheries.     

Using users: When does external knowledge enhance corporate product innovation?

Prior research on corporate innovation highlights the importance of accessing external knowledge from other firms and universities. However, survey evidence indicates that product users are perhaps the most important source of external knowledge. We build on existing theory to identify the conditions under which user knowledge contributes to corporate innovation and when the benefits will be greatest. Using a panel dataset of medical device companies and their collaborative efforts with innovative physicians, we find evidence that inventive collaborations with users enhance corporate product innovation and that the benefits are greatest in new technology areas and in the generation of radical innovations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Curse of Being Landlocked: Institutions Rather than Trade

This article revisits the long‐term economic effects of being landlocked. The conventional wisdom, which also prevails in policy circles, is that landlockedness hurts development by reducing trade. Gravity models of bilateral trade seem to confirm this view. However, there is no evidence in cross‐country data of a systematic relationship between landlockedness and country's trade to GDP ratio. Drawing on this stylised fact, the paper explores the possibility that landlockedness might affect GDP independently from its effect on trade. Theoretical considerations suggest that institutional quality could be a relevant transmission mechanism. The estimation of a system of three equations confirms that landlockedness has a negative effect on GDP and that this negative effect is transmitted through institutions rather than trade. Moreover, after controlling for the transmission via institutions and trade, landlockedness has a further negative effect on GDP. These findings call for a review of the policy approach to the development of landlocked countries.     

An integrated competency‐based approach to management education: an Italian MBA case study

Several studies have analysed the impact of competency‐based methodologies on human resource management, with special emphasis on their applications to management education and development. As concerns management education, however, these studies have usually focused on one or few separate aspects, never proposing a consistent application of competency‐based methodologies throughout the entire educational process. This paper shows how it is possible to design, deliver and monitor a management education programme that uses, in an integrated manner, a multiplicity of competency‐based tools in all the stages of the process, and discusses the application of such an integrated approach to an Italian MBA programme. This study provides a multiple constituency framework that integrates educational institutions, students and the companies that hire them in the design, implementation and control of effective, competency‐based, management education.     

The emergence of the Big Five in Sweden

The accounting profession is dominated by the Big Five, which in 1999 and in order of revenue size were PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Arthur Andersen. A specific feature of the profession in Sweden is that three firms dominate the market –; PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG – while Arthur Andersen and Deloitte & Touche are of less relative importance compared with their standing in other countries. The objective of this paper is to explore the development of the auditing profession in Sweden 1912–99, in order to find the growth strategies that generated today's structure. Particular attention will be paid to the gradual emergence of the Big Five. The Big Three auditing firms in Sweden in 1999 engaged 55% (1,105 authorized public accountants) of the total population of authorized public accountants. However, the proportion of ‘sole practitioners’, i.e. firms with no more than one authorized public accountant, was 81% in the same year. An overwhelming part of the auditing firms in Sweden are thus very small. It seems quite obvious that the activities within these small firms in many important ways differ from the activities within the medium-sized and big firms. A common feature of the firms that subsequently became the Big Three in Sweden is that they were established at a very early stage. There seems to have been a first-mover advantage in the auditing profession. The Big Three firms have adopted different growth strategies. They have increased in size by organic growth, by establishing or buying branch offices in different parts of Sweden or by merging with large firms.     

SEMIPARAMETRIC VECTOR MEM

Financial time series are often non‐negative‐valued (volumes, trades, durations, realized volatility, daily range) and exhibit clustering. When joint dynamics is of interest, the vector multiplicative error model (vMEM; the element‐by‐element product of a vector of conditionally autoregressive scale factors and a multivariate i.i.d. innovation process) is a suitable strategy. Its parameters can be estimated by generalized method of moments, bypassing the problem of specifying a multivariate distribution for the errors. Simulated results show the gains in efficiency relative to an equation‐by‐equation approach. A vMEM on several measures of volatility justifies a joint approach revealing full interdependence. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Provincial business cycles and fiscal policy in China

We characterize the cyclical properties of fiscal policy in China along two related dimensions. First, we estimate the sign and size of the fiscal policy multiplier. Second, we assess whether fiscal policy is conducted pro‐ or counter‐cyclically. To account for the challenges posed by China's vast geography, we use data at the provincial level. We find that (i) fiscal policy generally has ‘Keynesian’ effects, and (ii) fiscal policy is mostly conducted pro‐cyclically. This means that fiscal policy is more an element of destabilization than a tool for stabilization.     

Forecasting inflation and tracking monetary policy in the euro area: does national information help?

The ECB target is set in terms of the year on year growth rate of the euro area Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices. Nonetheless, a good deal of attention is given to national data by market analysts when they try to anticipate monetary policy moves. In this paper we use the Generalized Dynamic Factor Model to develop a set of core inflation indicators that, combining national data with area wide information, allow us to answer two related questions. The first is whether country specific data actually bear any relevance for the future path of area wide price growth, over and above that already contained in area wide data. The second is whether to track ECB monetary policy decisions it is useful to take into account national information and not only area wide statistics. Within our empirical framework we find that once area wide information is properly taken into account the contribution of national idiosyncratic developments is negligible.     

China and Japan: Culture,economics, and geopolitics in the quest for a leading international role

The Western view of China and Japan is often based on a perception that they are both Confucian and, therefore, are more similar than is actually the case. Although both do share some fundamental characteristics of Asian culture, certain unique features of each, particularly at the level of social relationships and cultural landmarks, make them quite different. Analysing what these features are allows us to understand what influence they have on personal choices and on the decisions of leaders on important issues in these countries. The Asian financial crisis of 1997–99 can be taken as a useful acid test for evaluating the different decision‐making capacities of the Chinese and Japanese leaders. Currency devaluation, exchange rate intervention, banking system restructuring, economic reforms, and responses to international pressure were the main areas in which government action took place. Interpreting the decisions made in these areas from a geographical‐cultural perspective provides a solid basis for analysing geopolitical dynamics and the ‘global’ prospects of the two most important nations of the Far East.