The Corporate Side of the Blogosphere: Examining the Variations of Design and Engagement Among Fortune 500 Blogs

Using design and communication principles, this study uses a content analysis design to evaluate all active blogs from the 2011 Fortune 500 list (n = 125). The results indicate that corporate America has only modestly incorporated the dialogic principles into their blogs. Current corporate blogs are well-designed as far as making them searchable and easy to navigate; however, the blogs are mostly being used to provide information in a one-way manner rather than creating an open dialogue with consumers. While blogging can enhance relationships with stakeholders, corporate communicators must strive to develop legitimate conversations with their blog readers.     

Determinants of South Asian Entrepreneurial Growth in Britain: A Multivariate Analysis

This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the factors influencing South Asian entrepreneurial growth in Britain. It develops a multivariate model along the lines of small business economics but includes cultural and social variables. The theoretical model specified assumes that cultural factors have an augmenting effect on socio-economic factors. A distinction is also drawn between initial entrepreneurial characteristics and later expansion strategies used. The empirical model, based on the general-to-specific approach, can explain almost 60 per cent of entrepreneurial growth. The results suggest that moving away from a style of management based on immigrant culture has a positive impact on growth. This requires greater delegation of responsibilities to non-family employees. At the same time, strengthening links with the country of origin has a positive impact on growth. While the commitment to work hard at start-up is essential, human capital factors like the entrepreneur's educational attainment and employee training appear to be more crucial than financial resources in contributing to growth.     

ASEAN‐5 bond market development: Where does it stand? Where is it going?

Since the late 1990s' Asian crisis, ASEAN‐5 countries have expended considerable effort in developing their bond markets. However, the size of these markets relative to GDP has hardly changed. Can we explain this? And does it mean that domestic markets have not, in fact, developed? The article argues that bond market growth has been held back by a sharp fall in business investment, which has left firms with little need for bond borrowing. Even so, markets have developed in other ways, to such an extent that substantial amounts of foreign portfolio investment have begun to flow into ASEAN‐5 bonds. These developments have important ramifications. With the investor base growing and infrastructure investment likely to rise, ASEAN‐5 bond markets could expand rapidly, holding out the prospect that the region could finally achieve ‘twin engine’ financial systems in the near future.     

Asset Maturity, Debt Covenants, and Debt Maturity Choice

The existing research on debt‐maturity under asymmetric information has focused on the impact of differential information regarding asset quality on the debt maturity decision. This research has generally indicated the optimality of short‐term debt financing as a vehicle of mitigating the adverse selection problem. In this paper, I consider the impact of information asymmetry regarding the maturity structure of cash flows on the debt maturity decision. In this context, long‐term debt is generally the form of debt financing most effective in alleviating the adverse selection problem. I also show that costs of adverse selection may induce some mismatching of debt maturity and asset maturity in the presence of significant transaction costs.     

An Endogenous Growth Model of a Financially Repressed Small Open Economy

The paper develops a monetary endogenous growth model of a financially repressed small open economy, characterized by curb markets, capital mobility, transaction costs in domestic and foreign capital markets, and a flexible exchange rate system, to analyze the impact of financial liberalization – interest rate deregulation and lower multiple reserve requirements – on growth and inflation. When the model is calibrated to match world figures, we find that interest rate deregulation enhances growth and reduces inflation in steady-state. For relatively smaller transaction costs in the curb market, the above result is, however, reversed. Under such circumstances, lowering the transaction costs in the foreign capital market tends to restore the growth-enhancing (inflation-reducing) capabilities of interest rate deregulation. Lower reserve requirements, though, always ensures lower (higher) steady-state inflation (growth).     

A disaggregated approach to test the J-Curve phenomenon: Japan versus her major trading partners

A limited number of studies have tested the J-Curve phenomenon using bilateral trade data between the United States and its major trading partners. In this paper, we test the J-Curve hypothesis by using quarterly bilateral data over the 1973–98 period between Japan and its nine major trading partners. We demonstrate that when aggregate data are used, there is no evidence of the J-Curve in the short run or any significant relation between trade balance and effective exchange rate in the long run. However, when bilateral data are employed, we find evidence of the J-Curve between Japan and Germany as well as between Japan and Italy. We also find that real depreciation of the yen has favorable long-run effects in the cases of Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.     

Pricing the US residential asset through the rent flow: A cross-sectional study

The paper explores how the standard consumption-CAPM fares in pricing housing returns and regional rental income streams in a cross-section of regions. In particular, we estimate the Euler equations associated with the gross housing returns inclusive of price appreciations and rents jointly for several metropolitan areas of the US. The representative agent has a Constant Relative Risk Aversion (CRRA) utility. The rent growth is allowed to depend on the business cycle. When biannual data from 1978 to 2007 is used, the parameter estimates are reasonable, and the model is not rejected. Large standard errors indicate uninformative estimates. The implied price rent ratio time series averages are similar to the data; however the model misses the boom-bust pattern in the prices. The model significantly understates the average and the variance of the price appreciations. Results are robust to allowing housing consumption directly in the utility function or using the Epstein–Zin–Weil utility.     

Is the urban Indian consumer ready for clothing with eco‐labels?

India has witnessed rapid strides of development at sustained growth rates of more than 8% and has seen a huge spurt in consumption. Consequently, it has been estimated that the increased consumption may result in the country becoming one of the leading offenders relating to environmental pollution. The textiles industry in India is traditionally one of the worst offenders of pollution, with its small units following outdated technology processes. One opportunity to reduce the environmental impact of clothing industry in India is to concentrate textile production within environmentally certified or eco‐labelled clothing. In the absence of existing research, this study investigates whether the urban Indian population would be interested in clothing with eco‐labels. The results suggest the existence of a segment of consumers who are positively motivated towards eco‐labelled garments. This segment profile is described in terms of demographic and psychographic variables. Managerial implications and future directions are suggested.     

Quality cut-offs in procurement auctions

Recently the Government of India used procurement auction mechanisms with endogenously determined minimum quality. We find these auctions have no equilibrium in continuous symmetric monotonic pure strategies. This may substantiate the use of auction mechanisms with exogenously determined minimum quality.     

Military spending and the black market premium in developing countries

Researchers who have been concerned with the economic implications of military spending have mostly concentrated on its impact on economic growth, corruption, real exchange rate and inflation. In this paper we investigate the impact of military spending on black market premium, an area that has not been tackled so far. After adding a measure of military spending to a well established model of black market premium form the literature, we estimate the model by pooling annual data over the 1985 – 1998 period across 61 developing countries. Results from five panel specifications provide considerable evidence that higher military spending leads to higher black market premium.