Choosing governance modes for external technology sourcing

This study examines the effect of uncertainty on governance mode choice of interfirm relationships in new business development (NBD). We combine transaction cost economics and real options reasoning, arguing that in the early stages of NBD, where technological and market uncertainty are very high, companies are better off using governance modes that are reversible and involve a low level of commitment. When uncertainty has decreased as a result of prior R&D investments, transaction costs considerations become dominant and companies will shift towards governance modes that are less reversible and more hierarchical. We argue that technological distance leads to less hierarchical governance modes and prior cooperation between firms leads to subsequent choices for more hierarchical modes. Finally, we propose that higher exogenous uncertainty leads to less hierarchical governance modes.     

From conflict to crisis in collaborative NPD

While manufacturer–supplier co-development of projects can contribute shared knowledge and expertise, such commitment also presents managerial challenges, particularly where crisis threatens the entire project. This paper explores how crisis is manifested, amplified, handled, and its outcomes in two longitudinal case studies, one between a food manufacturer and its packaging supplier and another between a window manufacturer and its software supplier. The analysis, the first to focus on co-development crisis, results in a better understanding of crisis episodes and in propositions around the crisis management challenges in co-developing new product projects.     

The impact of transport costs on new venture internationalisation

This paper investigates the importance of transport costs in new venture internationalisation, i.e. of firms that start exporting before they are 3 years of age. It does so by merging two large international datasets, on the firm level (covering 49,584 firms) as well as on the country level (covering 154 countries). It is found that transport costs matter significantly for new venture internationalisation, for older firms’ decision to export, as well as the extent of the latter’s subsequent exports. Export costs, the quality of transport infrastructure and domestic logistics costs affect new venture internationalisation even when controlling for a range of standard determinants. New international ventures behave differently from older firms in two important ways: (1) Transport costs affect the probability that they will export but not the extent of their subsequent exports and (2) their probability of exporting is affected negatively by their networking, domestic success and ISO status, whilst in the case of older firms, these factors have a positive impact. Various recommendations for policy and further research are made.     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">β</Emphasis>-variance gamma model

Kuznetsov (Ann Appl Prob, 2009) introduces a 10-parameter family of Lévy processes for which the Wiener-Hopf factors and the distribution of the running supremum (infimum) can be determined semi-analytically. In this text we will examine the numerical performance of this so-called β-family, both in the equity world and in the field of credit risk. In order to do this, we will calibrate a particular member of this family to a vanilla option surface (by means of the Fast Fourier Transform-technique due to Carr and Madan (J Comput Fin 2(4):61–73, 1999) and use the resulting parameters to determine the prices of a digital down-and-out barrier (DDOB) option, written on the same underlying. In a second experiment, we will try and calibrate the model to some real-life credit default swap (CDS) term structures. The parameters of the model under investigation are chosen such that its Lévy density is approximately equal to that of the famous Variance Gamma (VG) process, which will serve as a benchmark. Hence, the former will be referred to as the β-VG model. The option prices will be determined both semi-analytically [using the formulas derived by Kuznetsov (Ann Appl Prob, 2009)] and through a Monte-Carlo simulation. However, the CDS spreads will only be determined semi-analytically, due to the very close relation between pricing DDOB options and determining the par spread of a CDS. Furthermore, in both cases, the results will be compared with the ones obtained using the VG model [Cf. Schoutens (Lévy processes in finance: pricing financial derivatives, Wiley , Chichester, 2003) and, Cariboni and Schoutens (Levy processes in credit risk, Wiley, Chichester, 2009)]. It will turn out that, w.r.t. vanilla option prices, the β-VG model performs almost identically as the VG model, whereas the semi-analytical expressions by Kuznetsov (Ann Appl Prob, 2009) lead to a (fast and) accurate pricing of DDOB options and CDSs.     

Effects of health insurance on labour supply: evidence from the health care fund for the poor in Vietnam

The expansion of health insurance in emerging countries raises concerns about the unintended negative effects of health insurance on labour supply. This article examines the labour supply effects of the Health Care Fund for the Poor (HCFP) in Vietnam in terms of the number of work hours per month and labour force participation (the probability of employment). Employing various matching methods combined with a Difference-in-Differences approach on the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys 2002–2006, we show that the HCFP, which aims to provide poor people and disadvantaged minority groups with free health insurance, has a negative effect on labour supply. This is manifested in both the average number of hours worked per month and the probability of employment, suggesting the income effect of the HCFP. Interestingly, the effects are mainly driven by the non-poor recipients living in rural areas, raising the question of the targeting strategy of the programme.     

Why married women's labor supply in the Netherlands has increased

Summary On the basis of cross-section data sets for 1979 and 1987 we determine: 1) the relative contribution of changes in participation and in hours of work to the increase in married women's labor supply; 2) how much of the change in participation and hours of work is determined by changes in preferences and in budget constraints; and 3) the causes of changes in market wages and reservation wages. The increase in the average unconditional hours of work is much more due to the rise in the participation rate than to the increase in conditional hours of work. Preference changes have contributed positively to the increase in married women's labor force participation over the period 1979–1987, whereas changes in market opportunities have contributed negatively. The change in the market wage and the reservation wage can be attributed mainly to changes in the population structure of married women. Changes in the model structure contributed negatively to the change in the real market and the reservation wage. The positive effect of the change in the population structure dominates the negative effect of the model structure. Finally, participants in the labor market have a comparative wage advantage over non-participants. Non-participants are a self-selecting group with a relatively high reservation wage.We like to thank Joop Hartog, Jules Theeuwes, Isolde Woittiez and two anonymous referees for their comments on a previous draft of this paper.