Credit Support for Export: Robust Evidence from the Czech Republic

The topic of this paper is quite a novel one – it is one of few empirical academic papers dealing with export credit. Moreover, it is the first analysis of this kind which focuses on transition economies. The paper deals with export credit promotion in the Czech Republic. The development and structure of Czech trade and export support is presented first, followed by an econometric analysis of the gravity model of Czech Republic trade. A panel of 160 countries in 1996–2008 is analysed and two gravity models of exports for the Czech Republic are estimated, the static model by fixed effects (LSDV estimator) and the dynamic model by System GMM. Due to ambiguous conclusions we assume that the behaviour of our explanatory variables is not uniform and our data set behaves as a mixture of countries with heterogeneous behaviour. This means that traditional techniques of estimation which include all observations into one model do not give significant results. Thus, we use robust techniques of estimation that solve the problem of heterogeneous patterns in data sets. Out of several possibilities we use the Least Trimmed Squares estimator (LTS) with a leverage point. We show that guarantees are a significant factor that influences positively the volume of exports in the Czech Republic. Moreover, there exist more variables that affect the size of exports in the Czech Republic. Market forces described by GDP, distance, political risk or gross fix capital formation are significant in our econometric model. We find that higher GDP, shorter distance or lower political risk have a positive impact on Czech exports.     

Asymptotic analysis for optimal investment and consumption with transaction costs

We consider an agent who invests in a stock and a money market and consumes in order to maximize the utility of consumption over an infinite planning horizon in the presence of a proportional transaction cost . The utility function is of the form U(c) = c^1-p/(1-p) for p > 0, . We provide a heuristic and a rigorous derivation of the asymptotic expansion of the value function in powers of , and we also obtain asymptotic results on the boundary of the no-trade region.Received: July 2003, Mathematics Subject Classification (1991): 90A09, 60H30, 60G44JEL Classification: G13Work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants DMS-0103814 and DMS-0139911.     

Identification of critical operational performance measures— a research note on a benchmarking study in the transportation and distribution sector

In this paper the results presented are of an empirical benchmarking study investigating which operational performance measures in the transportation and distribution sector are the most important for financial performance. In the existing literature, the selection of operational performance measures is mostly derived from strategy, using interviews and discussions with management. The main contribution of this paper is to show how an application of benchmarking can identify the relative importance of different operational performance measures and to set standards for those measures.$g0     

The dynamics of public opinion on nuclear power. Interpreting an experiment in the Netherlands

This paper aims at clarifying factors that played a role in the formation of public attitudes towards nuclear power generation in the 1970s and 1980s in the Netherlands. The paper especially focuses on the effects of a government initiated societal discussion on energy policy between 1980 and 1985. It thereby intends to draw lessons from the controversies of the past for discussions that might return as several groups are arguing in favor of a “nuclear renaissance”.The concept of ‘interpretive package’ is used as an intermediate concept to link the controversy on nuclear power to wider societal issues.First, the paper briefly describes the nuclear power controversy in the Netherlands. It then reconstructs public opinion on the nuclear power issue between 1974 and 2006. Finally, it analyzes how the media linked the nuclear power issue to wider issues in society.In its final analyses, the explanation of public opinion formation in terms of interpretive packages is compared to other explanatory models. The paper concludes that there is a strong indication that a main explanation for changes in the ‘nuclear public opinion’ in Western countries can be found in styles that governments apply in dealing with their citizens. The paper finally reflects upon possible consequences of these findings for future debates on nuclear power generation.     

Money is Power: Monetary Intelligence—Love of Money and Temptation of Materialism Among Czech University Students

In this study, we develop a theoretical model of monetary intelligence (MI), explore the extent to which individuals’ meaning of money is related to the pursuit of materialistic purposes, and test our model using the whole sample and across college major and gender. We select the 15-item love of money (LOM) construct—Factors Good, Evil (Affective), Budget (Behavioral), Achievement, and Power (Cognitive)—from the Money Ethic Scale and Factors Success and Centrality and two indicators—from the Materialism Scale. Based on our data collected from 330 university students in Czech Republic, we provide the following findings. First, our formative models are superior to our reflective models. Second, for the reflective model, money represents Power, Good, Achievement, and not Evil, in the context of materialism. Our formative model suggests that those who pursuit materialism cherish Achievement (vanity) but Budget their money poorly. Third, multi-group analyses illustrate that humanities students (62.4 % female) consider money as Evil and Budget their money poorly, while those in natural sciences (37.6 % female) do not. Further, men are obsessed with Achievement, whereas women do not Budget their money properly, suggesting reflective temptation for males and impulsive temptation for females. Our novel discoveries shed new lights on the relationships between LOM and materialism and offer practical implications to the field of consumer behavior and business ethics.     

Remittances and Competitiveness: The Case of the Philippines

The paper looks at the impact of migration and workers’ remittances on the competitiveness of the home economy. It extends existing research that concentrated on the exchange rate effects of remittances, the so-called Dutch disease effect, by adding labor market effects. The results show that the labor market effects of emigration and remittances have a significant impact on competitiveness that goes beyond the traditional exchange rate effect.     

A Fallen Idol? Japanese Management in the 1990s

The authors argue that the elevation of Japanese manufacturing management in the West rested on the idea that superior performance resulted from new productive techniques and different systems of management. The object of this article is to shift the balance of placing more weight on structural factors and less on management success or failure. Attention is drawn to the fact that Japanese industry operated in a favourable domestic environment. Output expansion at home and a favourable social settlement (wages, hours worked) operated to ensure that exports, sold in markets where quite different social settlements set higher prices, generated a great deal of cash for Japanese producers. It is argued that the erosion, if not disappearance, of these favourable conditions from the mid-1980s onward has contributed substantially to the recent difficulties of Japanese producers.