WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR THE DECLINE IN CRIME?*

In this article we analyze recent trends in aggregate property crime rates in the United States. We propose a dynamic equilibrium model that guides our quantitative investigation of the major determinants of observed patterns of crime. Our main findings can be summarized as follows: First, the model is capable of reproducing the drop in crime between 1980 and 1996. Second, the most important factors that account for the observed decline in property crime are the higher apprehension probability, the stronger economy, and the aging of the population. Third, the effect of unemployment on crime is negligible. Fourth, the increased inequality prevented an even larger decline in crime. Overall, our analysis can account for the behavior of the time series of property crime rates over the past quarter century.     

Stakeholder Returns of Islamic Banks Versus Conventional Banks

Sharia principle shaping the Islamic banking model is most determinant on collection and deployment of funds with its ban on interest. This study aims to look at the results of funded activities in isolation for a healthier comparison between Islamic and conventional deposit banks with respect to their financial stakeholders. The differences are reflected as lower asset returns and lower returns for depositors of Islamic banks. These differences sustain throughout normal and crisis periods. Our findings show that despite differences in asset structures and returns, Islamic banks retain similar returns for shareholders to position themselves close to and in competition with their conventional counterparts.     

A HPC based cloud model for real-time energy optimisation

Recent research has emphasised that an increasing number of enterprises need computation environments for executing HPC (High Performance Computing) applications. Rather than paying the cost of ownership and possess physical, fixed capacity clusters, enterprises can reserve or rent resources for undertaking the required tasks. With the emergence of new computation paradigms such as cloud computing it has become possible to solve a wider range of problems due to their capability to handle and process massive amounts of data. On the other hand, given the pressing regulatory requirement to reduce the carbon footprint of our built environment, significant researching efforts have been recently directed towards simulation-based building energy optimisation with the overall objective of reducing energy consumption. Energy optimisation in buildings represents a class of problems that requires significant computation resources and generally is a time consuming process especially when undertaken with building simulation software, such as EnergyPlus. In this paper we present how a HPC based cloud model can be efficiently used for running and deploying EnergyPlus simulation-based optimisation in order to fulfil a number of objectives related to energy consumption. We describe and evaluate the establishment of such an application-based environment, and consider a cost perspective to determine the efficiency over several cases we explore. This study identifies the following contributions: (i) a comprehensive examination of issues relevant to the HPC community, including performance, cost, user perspectives and range of user activities, (ii) a comparison of two different execution environments such as HTCondor and CometCloud and determine their effectiveness in supporting simulation-based optimisation and (iii) a detailed performance analysis to locate the limiting factors of these execution environments.     

Examination of the effects of the relationship marketing orientation on the company performance

The research objective is to examine empirically the relationship marketing and its successful implementation in Turkish Beverage Companies. Three scales were used to generate the data. Relationship marketing scale, environmental factors scale and company performance scale. Some of the variables in questionnaire used as control variables that reflect company-specific characters namely, company size, business type and sales volume. First the main effect of relationship marketing orientation on company performance was assessed, and then the moderating effect of environmental factors on the relationship between relationship marketing orientation and company performance was estimated by using multivariate techniques.     

Determinants of state equity ownership,and its effect on value/performance: China's privatized firms

Evidence on the relationship between state ownership and performance in China's privatized firms is convex, concave and linear. Hence, the nature of this relationship is not resolved. This study examines this relationship for a larger, more recent sample of 4315 firm year observations of privatized Chinese firms during 1996–2003. Results support the hypothesis of a convex relationship between state ownership and performance showing benefits from strong privatization and state control. Not only is ownership structure found to affect performance, but also ownership concentration and balance of power jointly affect performance. Chinese firms with mixed control show significantly poorer performance than state or private controlled firms affirming the problem of ambiguity of ownership control, property rights, agency issues, profits and welfare objectives. New determinants of state ownership in China's firms are strategic importance, legal ownership, profitability, and market performance. Privatization benefits because there is a causal relation between ownership and performance.     

Informal Institutional Arrangements in Credit,Land Markets and Infrastructure Delivery in Trinidad

Informal institutional arrangements, permeating both formal and informal housing settlements, allow markets to function in developing countries. Yet their economic, social and policy impacts are largely unexamined. Insights from the new institutional economics literature are used to show the significance of informal institutional arrangements in credit, land markets and infrastructure delivery. The analysis is grounded in the experience of Trinidad and Tobago, with empirical information drawn from fieldwork research done in 1993 and 1997. Research findings show that informal institutions of cooperation (e.g. sou‐sou, CBOs) support transactions by reducing transaction costs, by lowering risk and by providing mechanisms to cope with uncertainty. They are therefore used instead of formal institutions. Policy‐makers should expect intense utilization of such locally designed institutions that use social capital in the process of land and housing market reform in developing countries. Ce sont les arrangements institutionnels informels, organisent l'habitat officiel et officieux, qui donnent aux marchés la possibilité de fonctionner dans les pays en voie de développement. Néanmoins leur impact économique, social et politique n'ont généralement pas été examinés. J'utilise des outils provenant des travaux sur l'économie neo‐institutionaliste pour démontrer la signification des arrangements institutionnels officieux pour le crédit, les marchés agraires et la distribution des infrastructures. L'analyse est basée sur l'expérience de Trinidad et Tobago, et l'information empirique provient d'une recherche de terrain faite entre 1993 et 1997. Les résultats montrent que les institutions officieuses de coopération (par exemple sou‐sou, CBOs) supportent les transactions en réduisant leurs coûts, en abaissant les risques, et en fournissant des mécanismes pour faire face à l'incertitude. Elles sont donc utilisées à la place des institutions officielles. Les politiciens peuvent s'attendre à une utilisation intense de telles institutions désignées localement et qui utilisent le capital social dans le processus de réformes du marché agraire et du logement dans les pays en voie de développement.     

Delineating Foreign Market Potential: A Tool for International Market Selection

International expansion is becoming more imperative in today's marketplace. However, determining which markets best suit a specific company is not a straightforward task. This study tackles the question of how managers should go about identifying, evaluating, and selecting foreign markets. For this purpose, we propose a practical, flexible, and forward‐looking three‐stage template for assessing foreign market opportunities and identifying the most promising international markets. The three stages include determining country responsiveness for a specific industry, estimating future industry growth, and incorporating an industry‐relevant aggregate measure. The study illustrates the tool for three companies from various industries and discusses the implications. The proposed tool offers insights on crucial dimensions for the industry‐specific market potential, and assists managers in identifying favorable foreign markets. This study also addresses the gap in the international market selection literature by developing a new empirical tool for foreign market analysis and selection using longitudinal secondary data. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Hedonic price estimation for the Turkish bread wheat characteristics

This research has been made to assess the effects of the characteristics of bread wheat quality on the prices in the Turkish bread wheat market. A hedonic price model was used to analyze factors affecting the variability in bread wheat prices. Results indicate that prices received by bread wheat producers reflect the presence of basic quality characteristics of bread wheat. According to the research consequences, the hectoliter and sedimentation are the major factors that have the greatest effect and influence on Turkish bread wheat market in respect to the quality aspects. The study shows that the five regions in Turkey, which have been chosen as the research area and are important in bread wheat production, have differences in terms of bread wheat quality characteristics.     

Indicators of Local Housing Affordability: Comparative and Spatial Approaches

This paper focuses on the measurement of local housing affordability problems. A number of different housing market indicators are offered that help identify the magnitude and nature of housing affordability problems and their geographic distribution. This interest is prompted by the predominance of housing affordability problems and the severity of the problems for many of the lowest income renter households. In addition, there is significant policy interest in "the national goal that every American family be able to afford a decent home in a suitable environment" (National Affordable Housing Act of 1990). This paper develops measures of the spatial distribution of affordability problems and implements measures of the mismatch between the demand and supply of housing affordable to the lowest income households.     

When Do Outsider CEOs Generate Strategic Change? The Enabling Role of Corporate Stability

When academic researchers, business commentators, and boards of directors have debated the merits of hiring new CEOs from outside the firm, the implicit or explicit assumption typically made is that outsider CEOs will provide an advantage in achieving strategic change. In this study, we challenge this assumption by employing a duality perspective on stability/change, and we provide an original conceptual framework to posit that it is the presence of corporate stability (ordinary succession, a long‐tenured predecessor CEO, and good firm performance) that allows outsider CEOs to generate a greater degree of post‐succession strategic change. We use extensive longitudinal data from US airline and chemical industries between 1972 and 2010 to test our hypotheses, and we discuss how our supportive findings challenge long‐standing assumptions regarding the outsider succession–strategic change relationship, and we advocate embracing the non‐intiutive notion that stable (unstable) conditions can be enablers (barriers) of strategic change for outsider CEOs.