Retailers’ Price Positioning and the Motivational Profiling of Store‐Brand Shoppers: The Case of Spain

In recent years, retailers have worked to advance store‐brand strategies, leading to greater success and higher congruence with the retailer's positioning. In this new competitive context, this research aims to characterize store‐brand shoppers in terms of motivation and benefits sought, as well as analyze, on the basis of congruence theory, the moderating role of a retailer's price positioning on store‐brand shopper characterizations. The empirical study combines survey and household panel information related to leading retailers in Spain; the findings reveal that store‐brand shoppers are motivated by their price sensitivity, whereas they are less sensitive to service quality and name brands. However, the retailer's price positioning exerts a moderating effect on shopper profiles: In less price‐oriented retail chains, store‐brand purchases seem motivated less by price and more by quality, brand awareness, and brand reputation.     

Growth Empirics in Panel Data Under Model Uncertainty and Weak Exogeneity

This paper considers panel growth regressions in the presence of model uncertainty and reverse causality concerns. For this purpose, my econometric framework combines Bayesian model averaging with a suitable likelihood function for dynamic panel models with weakly exogenous regressors and fixed effects. An application of this econometric methodology to a panel of countries over the 1960–2000 period highlights the difficulties in identifying the sources of economic growth by means of cross‐country regressions. In particular, none of the nine candidate regressors considered can be labeled as a robust determinant of economic growth. Moreover, the estimated rate of conditional convergence is indistinguishable from zero. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Export channel dynamics: an empirical investigation

We investigate the dynamics of export channel arrangements by modelling foreign operation method decisions as the interplay between factors that motivate switches and factors that deter them. Our model extends previous analyses by looking simultaneously at (1) no change of channel arrangement, (2) replacements of foreign intermediaries (within‐mode shifts), and (3) integration of the sales function abroad (between‐mode shifts). We use a multinomial logit model on longitudinal data from a sample of Danish exporters that had entered foreign markets through intermediaries. The results suggest that the decision to carry out within‐mode shifts (i.e. to replace an existing intermediary) is driven by a different set of factors than the decision to switch to another foreign operation mode (i.e. to in‐house operations). Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The costs of governance in international companies

Using foreign direct investment as a governance mechanism has a cost side that goes beyond mere production and input costs. The governance costs of foreign operations are often vague and underestimated, and sometimes even ignored by companies entering a foreign market. The effects of these costs have also largely been neglected in former empirical research. This study examines the governance cost effects on foreign subsidiary performance. Using data from a survey of 160 Norwegian multinational companies the study shows that there are significant and negative relationships between bargaining, monitoring, and maladaptation costs and subsidiary performance. Conversely, costs incurred due to bonding activities are positively associated with performance. Overall, this study indicates that governance costs play a significant role in explaining the performance of foreign subsidiaries: close to 40% of the variation in performance can be attributed to such costs. Dealing with such costs is hence of utmost importance for the management of multinational companies.     

Financial Pressure and Balance Sheet Adjustment by Firms*

This paper examines the financial policies and balance sheet adjustment of companies. Using a large panel of UK‐listed firms we consider how companies resolve pressures on their balance sheet, estimating models for dividends, new equity issuance and investment. The results indicate that companies resolve balance sheet pressures by each of these means. Financial policies, through dividends and new equity issuance, and real investment decisions, respond to the underlying level of debt and the borrowing cost of servicing that debt. Dividends are estimated to be slow to adjust in the short run.     

Property Enforcement as Organized Consent

This article develops and tests a theory of the institutionsthat make property rights viable, ensuring their enforcement,mobilizing the collateral value of assets, and promoting growth.In contrast to contractual rights, property rights are enforcedin rem, being affected only with the consent of the right holder.This ensures enforcement but is costly when multiple, potentiallycolliding rights are held in the same asset. Different institutionsreduce the cost of gathering consents to overcome this trade-offof enforcement benefits for consent costs: recording of deedswith title insurance, registration of rights, and even a regimenof purely private transactions. All three provide functionallysimilar services, but their relative performance varies withthe number of transactions, the risk of political opportunism,and regulatory consistency. The analysis also shows the rationalityof allowing competition in the preparation and support of privatecontracts while requiring territorial monopoly in recordingand registration activities, this to ensure independence andprotect third parties.     

Hard Times or Great Expectations? Dividend Omissions and Dividend Cuts by UK Firms*

This paper uncovers an increasing proportion of quoted UK companies omitting cash dividends. Using a large panel of quoted UK firms, we estimate panel data probit models for the incidence of dividend omissions and cuts as functions of financial characteristics including cash flow, leverage, investment opportunities, investment and company size. These variables account for most of the increase in omission since 1995. There is relatively little evidence to link this to the major tax reform of 1997 that abolished tax refunds on dividend income payable to tax‐exempt institutions. Significant persistence effects indicate companies are slow to adjust their balance sheets through their dividend.     

When your contract manufacturer becomes your competitor

PC maker Lenovo started out as a distributor of equipment made by IBM and other companies; now it has formed a joint venture with IBM and will eventually affix its own logo to its computers. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) started out manufacturing vehicles for Volkswagen and GM; now it's preparing to sell its own cars in China, Europe, and North America. Lenovo and SAIC represent a host of formerly anonymous makers of brand-name products that are breaking out of their defined roles and pushing the brands themselves aside. In this article, the authors explore the double-edged relationships original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) forge with their contract manufacturers (CMs). On the one hand, an OEM can reduce its labor costs, free up capital, and improve worker productivity by outsourcing all the manufacturing of a product. The company can then concentrate on value-adding activities--research and development, product design, and marketing, for instance. On the other hand, an OEM that retains a contract manufacturer may find itself immersed in a melodrama replete with promiscuity (the ambitious CM pursues liaisons with other OEMs), infidelity (the OEM's retailers and distributors shift their business to the upstart CM), and betrayal (the brazen CM transmits the OEM's intellectual property to the OEM's rivals or keeps it for itself when the contract is up). OEMs cannot simply terminate their outsourcing arrangements--they need contract manufacturers in order to keep specializing, adding value, and staying competitive. But OEMs can manage these relationships so that they don't become weak or the CMs too strong. Doing so requires modesty about revealing trade secrets; caution about whom one consorts with; and a judicious degree of intimacy, loyalty, and generosity toward partners and customers.     

Is infrastructure capital productive? A dynamic heterogeneous approach

This paper offers an evaluation of the output contribution of infrastructure. Using a panel time series approach and a large cross‐country dataset, the paper estimates a long‐run aggregate production function relating gross domestic product to human capital, physical capital, and a synthetic measure of infrastructure comprising transport, power and telecommunications. Tests of the cointegration rank allowing it to vary across countries reveal a common rank with a single cointegrating vector, which we interpret as the long‐run production function. Estimation of its parameters is performed using the pooled mean group (PMG) estimator, which allows for unrestricted short‐run parameter heterogeneity across countries while imposing the (testable) restriction of long‐run parameter homogeneity. The long‐run elasticity of output with respect to the synthetic infrastructure index ranges between 0.07 and 0.10. The estimates are highly significant, both statistically and economically, and robust to alternative dynamic specifications and infrastructure measures. Tests of parameter homogeneity fail to yield evidence that the long‐run parameters differ across countries. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deal-to-deal marginal efficiency dynamics of serial US banking acquirers

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - This study investigates the changes in the marginal cost, revenue, and profit efficiencies after a series of deals by US acquiring banks for the...