The role of speculation in international futures markets on commodity prices

The role of futures contracts on spot prices has been one of the key focus areas of research since the recent surge in commodity prices and increase in the volatility of commodity returns. However, no consensus arises from this literature, and hence it is difficult to link the use of futures contracts in agricultural commodities by non-hedgers and the growing food insecurity within developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to highlight causal relationships from futures contracts to spot prices of underlying assets, namely agricultural commodities. As research that focus on exchange-traded funds do not provide any clear conclusions, we focus on the imbalance between short- and long-open positions, this imbalance being caused by the exchange traded funds’ participation in futures markets. In this paper, we estimate relationships between financial variables including indicators for speculation in futures markets and the returns of cocoa, corn, soybean, wheat, coffee, rice, and sugar on a weekly basis from 1998 to 2013. Significant results lead to Granger-causality tests that in turn validate the hypothesis of a positive impact of speculation in futures markets to returns on the underlying commodities.     

Stock markets’ bubbles burst and volatility spillovers in agricultural commodity markets

Our paper focuses on commodity financialization and the gradual integration between commodity and financial markets, investigating to what extent shocks in stock markets impact commodity price volatility, and the persistency of the phenomenon. To this end, we estimate Volatility Impulse Response Function from stock markets to agricultural commodity markets over a symmetric window before and after two of the most important bubble bursts since the new millennium, the 2000 dot.com bubble and the 2008 financial crises. Results highlight that volatility spillover increased significantly after the 2008 financial crises, signalling a rising interconnection between financial and agricultural commodity markets.     

Live and let die: A survival analysis of foreign R&D units in Swedish MNEs

This paper develops and tests a set of hypotheses regarding factors that influenced the longevity of foreign research and development units in Swedish multinational enterprises over the period 1992–2012. The results reveal an underexplored aspect of the R&D internationalization—the volatility of foreign R&D laboratories. During the investigated period, more than 40% of the R&D units in the sample had been terminated. The results substantiate earlier research regarding the negative effects of mergers and acquisitions on R&D in acquired units but show that these effects are not immediate. They appear – if at all – with a time lag of several years. The hazard of closure for an individual unit seems to be more strongly related to its role and position within the MNE than to local country characteristics. It was smaller for strongly locally embedded units and units with global mandates, but – contrary to expectations – the hazard was greater for units highly integrated with the rest of the MNE.     

Is there a virtuous circle relationship between innovation activities and exports? A comparison of food and agricultural firms

This study examines the existence of an interrelationship between innovation decisions and exports for food and agricultural firms as such a relationship could be the source of competitive advantages. Thus, taking as a theoretical basis the focus provided by the Resource-Based-View, the innovation and export decisions taken from 2006 to 2011 by 165 agricultural firms and 783 food companies operating in Spain (Europe) are examined here. The results of the bivariate probit and matching models used indicate a bi-directional nature of these decisions in the case of food companies and a positive though not bidirectional one in the case of the agricultural firms. Furthermore, a certain persistence is seen in the use of these decisions in both types of firms. For food companies, capital intensity and size are also determinants of innovation and exports. From the viewpoint of the decisions taken by individual firms, the bidirectional relationship could involve significant pressure in terms of the larger volume of both technological and human resources required. Agricultural and food policy decisions should incentivize these decisions given that in order to operate successfully in the global market it is necessary to acquire these competitive advantages, which also favor the growth of the agriculture and food trades.     

Patterns of growth in Chinese cities: Implications of the land lease

A special feature of China’s housing market is land use rights in the form of land leasehold contracts granted by the government. We consider an equilibrium model in which a representative developer may choose to redevelop existing centrally located housing or to develop new housing at the periphery of the city. We show that as the city grows, the land leasehold system results in the city center being developed less intensely and more land being used on the outskirts of the city when compared to a fee simple environment. Thus, cities in China are likely to be relatively more spread out, with city centers relatively older than would be the case with “fee simple” ownership. Our model suggests that excess residential land use is about 6 percent. In addition, compared with the ownership case, housing supply will grow more quickly in the near future, but more slowly later on during the transition of the Chinese economy. Parallel to the supply growth pattern, equilibrium price grows relative slowly in the near future, but more quickly later on. While we focus on residential uses, we believe our model can be applied to other land uses.     

Strategy-proof preference aggregation: Possibilities and characterizations

An aggregation rule maps each profile of individual strict preference orderings over a set of alternatives into a social ordering over that set. We call such a rule strategy-proof if misreporting one's preference never produces a different social ordering that is between the original ordering and one's own preference. After describing two examples of manipulable rules, we study in some detail three classes of strategy-proof rules: (i) rules based on a monotonic alteration of the majority relation generated by the preference profile; (ii) rules improving upon a fixed status-quo; and (iii) rules generalizing the Condorcet–Kemeny aggregation method.     

产权管制放松博弈与中国农业生产危机——基于结构突变面板数据模型的实证分析

基于产权管制放松的分析视角，本文构建一个政治风险下农民和国家的动态博弈模型来解释中国两次农业生产危机。此外，本文利用1959—1961年与1970—1977年两次中国农业生产危机的省级面板数据对理论模型进行了实证检验。结构突变面板计量结果表明，国家不会主动削弱自己的谈判能力，除非政策失误或外部竞争压力造成的冲击才可能迫使它在产权管制放松的博弈谈判中让步。     

Advantageous redistribution with three smooth CES utility functions

We present a parametric example of three-country advantageous redistribution with two Cobb–Douglas utility functions and one CES utility function for which the elasticity of substitution is 1/2. This paper indicates that the possibility of advantageous redistribution strongly depends on the three countries’ taste patterns, endowment distributions, and the elasticity of substitution. In particular, we will show with specific examples that greater difference between the donor and recipient’s taste patterns and a lower elasticity of substitution can increase the chance of advantageous redistribution.     

Cultural embeddedness in supply networks

Recent studies on structural and relational embeddedness suggest that favorable position and connections in supply networks benefit a firm. While fruitful, this focus misses the motivations that prompt firms to take economic action in the first place. Understanding cultural embeddedness provides insight into why individuals and firms behave as they do and how their behavior can influence network structure. Contrary to the belief that firms act solely for profit and growth, we note that cultural contents such as values, social issues and political ideologies explain firms’ motives and guide their economic activities. We explore the role of cultural embeddedness through a grounded study of Country Natural Beef, a sustainability-oriented agricultural cooperative in the western United States. This supply network demonstrates strongly competing cultural claims among its members as well as a unique institutionalized culture. Cultural interactions at the node and network levels explain the functioning of and changes to the network. Through interviews, analysis of archival information and direct observation of pivotal events over a period of 5 years, we unpack cultural embeddedness and take an incremental step toward a theory of cultural embeddedness in cooperative supply networks.     

“嵌入性”约束下的产业转移制度安排——江苏省南北挂钩共建产业园区的经验借鉴

产业转移不仅是一种典型的经济行为,而且是一种社会行为。遵循经济学逻辑,当不同区域间的生产要素价格差距较大时,受市场信号指挥的企业就会自发采取适应性行为——向要素成本较低的区域进行梯度转移。现实中,尽管我国区域间的要素价格差距悬殊,但产业转移步伐远远落后于预期。从新经济社会学视角论证这种"经济悖论",发现嵌入本地的生产性、服务性、制度性、社会性网络制约着企业的异地转移行为,进一步提出产业转移是企业社会关系网络和协力合作网络"脱嵌-再嵌入"的过程,并以江苏省南北挂钩共建产业园区为例,验证了两地政府通力合作有利于降低"脱嵌"对企业异地生产的冲击,并能够帮助企业"再嵌入"异地社会关系网络和协力合作网络,从而有力地解释了我国区域间产业转移需要政府介入的新经济社会学逻辑。