Growth, Trade, and Government Policies of a Small Open Economy

Utilizing a linear endogenous growth model, the paper provides an economic rationale for two empirical findings: the positive correlation between export growth and income growth, and the association of rapid structural changes with fast income growth. In the benchmark case, the small open economy converges eventually to a balanced growth path along which exports and total output grow at the same constant rate as consumption. Government policies affect the pattern of specialization and trade since they change the autarky or foreign relative price. Only taxation on the capital goods sector can affect asymptotic growth rates.     

An Estimation of the Intergenerational Income Elasticity of China

Abstract:

Using 1989–2006 waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey data, we estimate the intergenerational income elasticity (IIE) of China. We find that the lower bound of the IIE is 0.491 using the son’s latest observed income and his father’s income averaged over three periods. We use the father’s number of years of education as an instrumental variable for his permanent income to derive the upper bound of the IIE, which is 0.556. We find that the intergenerational income mobility of rural China is higher than that in urban areas.     

The Hidden Value of Knowledge in New Products

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the impact that knowledge management has on new product success. In this study, two aspects of knowledge management—knowledge acquisition and knowledge dissemination—were examined relative to traditional determinant of new product success. Moderating effect of competitive intensity is also investigated. The results generally support the importance of knowledge management to new product success. These findings imply that if organizations fail to understand the subtle ways by which different features of KM influence new product success, they may fail to harvest the full value of KM.     

Income Uncertainty and Wealth Accumulation: How Precautionary are Taiwanese Households?*

To assess how recent job loss impacts wealth accumulation of Taiwanese households, the present study investigates the empirical relevance of the precautionary saving motive to explain measures of wealth during the past 2 decades. This study demonstrates that households facing increased transitory shock accumulate increased amounts of financial and housing wealth, whereas permanent shocks cause households to accumulate housing wealth only. Empirical results suggest an important policy implication: households in Taiwan will save less when social insurance policies are effective in reducing future transitory and permanent shocks to household income.     

Empires of the sky: determinants of global airlines' accounting-policy choices

This study quantifies the current level of diversity observed in airline accounting and examines possible determinants that explain accounting-policy choices by the global airline industry. Airlines' accounting-measurement policy for unrealized foreign-exchange differences and their disclosure of frequent-flyer information remains diverse. Inferential statistics shows that larger airlines tend to take unrealized foreign-exchange differences directly to equity and tend to disclose frequent-flyer accounting policy, while airlines with lower leverage tend to disclose frequent-flyer accounting.     

Futures Trading,Spot Price Volatility and Market Efficiency: Evidence from European Real Estate Securities Futures

In 2007 futures contracts were introduced based upon the listed real estate market in Europe. Following their launch they have received increasing attention from property investors, however, few studies have considered the impact their introduction has had. This study considers two key elements. Firstly, a traditional Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model, the approach of Bessembinder & Seguin (1992) and the Gray’s (1996) Markov-switching-GARCH model are used to examine the impact of futures trading on the European real estate securities market. The results show that futures trading did not destabilize the underlying listed market. Importantly, the results also reveal that the introduction of a futures market has improved the speed and quality of information flowing to the spot market. Secondly, we assess the hedging effectiveness of the contracts using two alternative strategies (naïve and Ordinary Least Squares models). The empirical results also show that the contracts are effective hedging instruments, leading to a reduction in risk of 64 %.     

Bargaining and Search with Incomplete Information about Outside Options

This paper considers a model of bargaining in which the seller makes offers and the buyer can search (at a cost) for an outside option; the outside option cannot be credibly communicated, and the seller's offer is recallable by the buyer for one period. There are essentially two equilibrium regimes. For sufficiently high search cost, the game ends immediately; otherwise the search occurs in equilibrium. Compared to the case where the buyer can communicate his outside option, the seller is worse off, and the game results in search for a smaller set of values of the search cost, i.e., less equilibrium delay.C72.     

Development of domestic markets and poverty reduction for poor developing economies

Constructing a model of structural change with household production, this paper finds two equilibrium paths: one path leads to a low-income steady state and the other to a high-income steady state. This paper shows that as long as the relative marginal productivity of manufactured goods in household production is high enough, a poor country may transform from a home-producing economy to a firm-producing one and eventually reaches a high standard of living. Is it empirically acceptable for us to claim that when a country starts with poorer pro-market infrastructures and institutions, she will be less likely to escape from poverty later on? This paper provides an empirical evidence of positive relationship between pro-market infrastructures and poverty reduction for poor developing countries.     

Synergy,learning and the changing industrial structure

In a set-up of two local firms and one foreign firm, we construct a model to capture the dynamics of local industrial structure induced by formation and breakdown of cross-border joint ventures (JVs). There is a synergic gain to the JV, and the partners learn from each other. Firms play a repeated game. We characterize the resulting industrial configurations under different scenarios as defined by the extent of cost saving. In particular, we show that when cost saving is moderate, an alliance formed between two firms in the first period, breaks up and a new alliance is formed in the second period, but again it breaks up; thereafter the market becomes an oligopoly of all three firms.     

Effects of Employee Support on Junior Accountants' Job Attitudes and Intention to Quit

This study examines the effects of four types of employee support on a sample of 231 junior accountants' organisational commitment, job involvement and intention to quit. The four types of support include organisational, supervisory, psycho-social and career development support. Results of path analysis suggest that only organisational support and psycho-social support influence organisational commitment which, in turn, increases job involvement and reduces intention to quit.