An application of the extended cross impact method to generating scenarios of social change in Japan

Scenarios of Japanese society in 2000 are obtained by applying an extended correlational cross impact analysis. Since the scope of the scenarios is extensive, a procedure is developed to generate the scenarios that consists of a preprocessing of the events of interest and a step-by-step application of a cross impact method. Three scenarios are described, based on a workshop where the procedure was applied.     

The emergence of new Islamic economic and business moralities

This article aims to explore the sources of the observed transformation in the embeddedness of economic, business, and financial practices of Muslim individuals in comparison to premodern period Muslims. It argues that the predomination of instrumental reasoning in modern times, as opposed to substantive morality in everyday practice, is one of the main reasons behind the transformation of embeddedness of Muslim individuals. Instrumental reasoning, being the dominant methodology, leads to diminished submergence in social relations; that is not limited to interpersonal relationships, but further extended to the core religious acts. How such an emergent economic and business morality is reconciled with the Islamic substantive morality is examined. It is argued that “transformation of exception into norm” is the main method used to reconcile instrumental reasoning with Islamic law in fulfilling religious obligations, at least in terms of fulfilling the form and in complying with the necessities of modern life. This has led to the emergence of new economic and business moralities.     

Entry and capital structure mimicking in concentrated markets: The role of incumbents’ financial disclosures

We examine whether the public availability of product market incumbents' financial disclosures leads to greater capital structure mimicking of incumbents by entrants. Exploiting a change in disclosure enforcement for German private firms in the mid-2000s, we find entrant-incumbent mimicking rises substantially in concentrated markets once incumbents' financial statements are publicly available. Additional tests exploring potential mechanisms are more consistent with interfirm learning underlying the effect than alternative channels. Our findings shed light on the effects of competitor financial statement disclosure on private firms’ initial financing decisions and highlight how capital structure dependencies among peer firms arise.     

The liability of foreignness reconsidered: New insights from the alternative research context of transforming economies

Institutional theory has been increasingly used to decipher implications of the liability of being a foreign firm. Earlier studies have argued that multinational corporations bear social costs arising from lack of legitimacy and thus need to engage in isomorphism to increase their likelihood of survival. Drawing on insights gained from transforming economies, this study reconsiders the espoused relationships among legitimacy, local isomorphism, and overcoming the liability of foreignness. We argue that idiosyncrasies of transforming economies could engender (1) varying levels of need for gaining legitimacy of local constituents and (2) alternative ways other than local isomorphism for gaining legitimacy from local institutional actors.     

Repeated signaling games

I analyze a class of repeated signaling games in which the informed player's type is persistent and the history of actions is perfectly observable. In this context, a large class of possibly complex sequences of signals can be supported as the separating equilibrium actions of the “strong type” of the informed player. I characterize the set of such sequences. I also characterize the sequences of signals in least cost separating equilibria (LCSE) of these games. In doing this, I introduce a state variable that can be interpreted as a measure of reputation. This gives the optimization problem characterizing the LCSE a recursive structure. I show that, in general, the equilibrium path sequences of signals have a simple structure. The shapes of the optimal sequences depend critically on the relative concavities of the payoff functions of different types, which measure the relative preferences towards payoff smoothing.     

Countries’ adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs) – early empirical evidence

The International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs) is increasingly being adopted in a number of jurisdictions. Despite the economic importance of non-publicly accountable entities, little is known about what factors influence countries' decisions to adopt IFRS for SMEs. In a unique sample of 128 countries, we find that countries that are not capable of developing their own local generally accepted accounting principles are more likely to adopt IFRS for SMEs. We also provide evidence that in jurisdictions where full IFRS have been applied to private firms, the likelihood of adoption of IFRS for SMEs increases, suggesting that jurisdictions reduce the financial reporting burden on SMEs. Moreover, in line with prior literature, there is evidence that countries with a relatively low quality of governance institutions are more likely to adopt this new set of accounting standards. The results also hold under alternative measures and different estimation approaches. Overall, our results are helpful in understanding the worldwide diffusion of IFRS for SMEs. Standard setters and regulators might consider our study in the future development of accounting harmonisation of non-publicly accountable entities.     

Understanding the institutional challenges and impacts of higher education reforms in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the academic literature on policy-making at the global level by empirically showing the nature and institutional challenges of higher education reforms under NPM principles. The authors explain the key strategies adopted by Indonesia’s government and the problems it faced in reforming its higher education system. The overall result was negative. The Indonesian reforms will not bring about meaningful outcomes unless the existing institutions, and the environment in which they operate, are also reformed.     

On the Segregation of Genetically Modified,Conventional and Organic Products in European Agriculture: A Multi‐market Equilibrium Analysis

Evaluating the possible benefits of the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops must address the issue of consumer resistance as well as the complex regulation that has ensued. In the European Union (EU), this regulation envisions the co‐existence of GM food with conventional and quality‐enhanced products, mandates the labelling and traceability of GM products and allows only a stringent adventitious presence of GM content in other products. All these elements are brought together within a partial equilibrium model of the EU agricultural food sector. The model comprises conventional, GM and organic food. Demand is modelled in a novel fashion, whereby organic and conventional products are treated as horizontally differentiated but GM products are vertically differentiated (weakly inferior) relative to conventional ones. Supply accounts explicitly for the land constraint at the sector level and for the need for additional resources to produce organic food. Model calibration and simulation allow insights into the qualitative and quantitative effects of the large‐scale introduction of GM products in the EU market. We find that the introduction of GM food reduces overall EU welfare, mostly because of the associated need for costly segregation of non‐GM products, but the producers of quality‐enhanced products actually benefit.     

Energy analysis of Japanese industries : A time series analysis

Characteristics of Japanese industries in the past 15 years have been investigated in terms of energy intensities, or energy directly and indirectly spent for production of a unit output in industries. The methodology of the analysis is similar to that by Herendern, that is an extension of input-output approach, but with various modifications. Data are seven input-output tables, of about 400 x 400 items published by the Japanese government. Changes in energy intensities with time are disaggregated into two factors, 1) changes in direct energy intensities and 2) changes in nonenergy resource use or in the ratios of value added taxes. Observation of these factors in the last 15 years reveals that the latter factor has been highly significant in energy conservation, especially in machine industries, the raw materials of which are mainly iron and steel. It is also observed that conventional energy conservation efforts have scarcely been dependent on nonenergy resource conservation.