Factors Influencing Growth Potential of E‐Commerce in Emerging Economies: An Institution‐Based N‐OLI Framework and Research Propositions

Given the tremendous success of the Internet and e‐commerce in developed countries, emerging economies are quickly embracing information technology as well. The purpose of this study is to examine factors (both determinants and deterrents) influencing the growth potential of e‐commerce in emerging economies from a multitheoretical perspective (namely, institution‐based network‐ownership, location, and internalization, i.e., i‐based N‐OLI framework). Factors are identified at three levels. At the global level, we identify multilateral agreements, strategic behavior of multinational enterprises (MNEs), and technological innovation as the key factors. At the national level, institutional environment, infrastructure, and culture are identified. The transactional level examines the role of integrity of transactions, online intermediaries, and network externalities and value clustering as the key factors for growth of e‐commerce in emerging economies. Based on the multitheoretical framework, the study advances several propositions and highlights implications for MNEs, both from developed markets and emerging markets, operating in emerging economies. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Economies of Product Diversity in Collaborative Logistics

Collaborative logistics, also known as shipper collaboration, is a method of reducing the freight logistics cost of firms that produce and/or distribute tangible goods (shippers), which seeks to improve capacity utilizations of trucks. This study looks at this shipper collaboration problem in the U.S. truckload (TL) industry and proposes a new approach. Unlike other studies, which focused on reducing TL costs by utilizing economies of density, we present an approach that utilizes specific TL economies gained by mixing multiple products with different weight‐to‐volume ratios, which we call economies of product diversity. Using theoretical and empirical evidence, we show that the performance of shipper collaboration can be enhanced notably using this concept, economies of product diversity, which is currently overlooked in the literature.     

CSR development in post‐communist economies: employees' expectations regarding corporate socially responsible behaviour – the case of Romania

Drawing on stakeholder theory and the evolutionary approach to institutions, this paper investigates the channels through which corporate social responsibility (CSR) is developed in post‐communist economies by focusing on the employee background factors that shape the employees' expectations with regard to corporate socially responsible behaviour. We identify three channels through which exogenous and endogenous CSR are developed: employees with work experience in multinational enterprises (MNEs) (leading to exogenous CSR), employees with CSR knowledge (leading to exogenous CSR) and employees with experience of the socialist system (leading to endogenous CSR). Furthermore, we argue that the interactions between these channels lead to hybrid CSR in transition economies. We use a questionnaire‐based survey with employees of domestic and MNEs in Romania and we conduct regression analysis. We find that employees with work experience in MNEs act as channels for exogenous CSR, while employees with experience of the socialist system act as channels for endogenous CSR. Furthermore, employees with experience of the socialist system and CSR knowledge or work experience in an MNE act as channels for hybrid CSR in transition economies. Based on our results, we put forward implications for theory, managers and policy makers.     

Adjusting to BRICs in Glass Houses: Replacing Obsolete Institutions and Business Models

Global adjustment to the rise of the BRIC and other emerging economies is an important challenge for firms in the advanced economies. Emerging market firms increasingly trade and invest globally while monetary imbalances continue to rise and hobble advanced economy firms. Advanced country firms feel like they live in glass houses as the tectonic forces of technology, demographics, globalization, sustainability, and climate change force obsolescence in their business models. In this article, this overseas projection of economic power by the rising new economies is illustrated by the Indian and Chinese overseas economic expansion focused on Africa. This analysis shows that noneconomic state‐driven entities are likely to be a significant part of the rise of South‐South economic trade and investment flows and it poses theoretical and practical problems for existing market‐based economic and geopolitical institutions. Global adjustment to these new realities is also challenging as existing multilateral institutions seem to be inadequate. These changes in the global environment have significant implications for policy makers and managers of global companies. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Emerging‐Market Firms Venturing into Advanced Economies: The Role of Context

Sociocultural, economic, political, and institutional differences between countries increase uncertainty and complexity in today's highly competitive international business environment. Moreover, the “West‐Leads‐East” to “West‐Meets‐East” shift in the global economy requires firms in both advanced economies and emerging markets to seek sustainable solutions by collaborating across geographic boundaries. Such novel collaborative partnerships may help build a stable, resilient, and sustainable world economy by leveraging the resources and capabilities of firms from both advanced and emerging economies. This article has three general objectives. First, we seek to show that context has been a long‐standing issue in management, organization, and international business research and provide an overview of the puzzles that informed and motivated this special issue. Second, we highlight the key insights and contributions of the articles included in this special issue by reviewing their theoretical underpinnings, methodological approaches, and empirical findings. Finally, we outline a future research agenda on emerging‐market firms venturing into advanced economies that can help advance international business and management studies. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Trade Liberalisation,Exit, and Output and Employment Adjustments of Australian Manufacturing Establishments

This paper investigates three potential sources of Australia’s manufacturing productivity gains from trade liberalisation in the mid‐1990s: the exit of inefficient establishments, economies of scale, and the reduction in x‐inefficiency via employment reduction. We use manufacturing establishment level data and exploit the intersectoral variation in the effective rates of assistance (ERA) to see how businesses adjusted to trade liberalisation during the period. We find the documented productivity gains to be mostly accounted for by the reduction in x‐inefficiency through employment shedding in industries experiencing a high degree of trade liberalisation. We find little evidence that the exit of inefficient establishments in highly liberalised industries contributes to productivity gains. In fact, we find that the more productive establishments are more likely to exit, perhaps reflecting product switching by these businesses to make more profitable use of inputs. Similarly, there does not appear to be a strong relationship between the extent of trade liberalisation and output adjustments. However, we do find indicative evidence of an overall productivity‐enhancing effect through economies of scale. These findings suggest that, at least for the case of Australia, the ease of making employment adjustments can be crucial for policies such as trade liberalisation to have the desired effect. In addition, trade liberalisation may provide incentives for domestic producers to seek more profitable use of their inputs and to move further downward along their cost curves. We think further studies assessing the productivity gains from product switching and economies of scale effects in both liberalised and non‐liberalised industries and focusing on the interplay between labour market policy and firm adjustments would be valuable.     

What's the Point of Reciprocal Trade Negotiations? Exports,Imports, and Gains from Trade

This paper explains why trade‐policy makers may prefer reciprocal trade negotiations (RTN) to unilateral tariff reductions (UTR) for economic reasons. It answers puzzles like ‘Why WTO reciprocity?’ and strengthens the unnecessarily weak case made for the WTO by those who downplay or dismiss benefits from foreign tariff reductions (FTR). RTN is superior to UTR because it provides economic benefits that UTR cannot – namely, FTR benefits which are clearer than potentially important UTR benefits: Whereas each policy offers efficiency gains, any terms‐of‐trade effect of UTR generally detracts from these gains, while any terms‐of‐trade effect of FTR is typically beneficial (especially for a small price‐taking country) with this benefit augmenting FTR's efficiency gains. Moreover, benefits from reductions in foreign barriers may come from several sources; they are not solely the result of terms‐of‐trade improvement – or economies of scale (the two benefits already noted in the literature, though often dismissed). For example, with foreign NTB elimination, possible home benefits are shown even with rising costs and terms‐of‐trade deterioration. RTN is also superior to UTR because, by eliminating protection in either NTB or tariff form, RTN provides an escape from not only a terms‐of‐trade prisoners’ dilemma, but many other previously unrecognised prisoners’ dilemmas, including one in international rent transfers, and several others with no economies‐of‐scale or terms‐of‐trade motivation. Of course, if superior RTN is not an option, UTR may well be desirable. If reciprocity is an option, but only in a narrower CU or FTA form, such reciprocity may still be superior to UTR, or it may be inferior; theory cannot unambiguously rank these.     

Endogenous OCA Analysis and the Early Euro Experience

Some have argued that the endogenous responses to the formation of a currency area are so strong that one need not worry about optimum currency area conditions ex ante. We argue that this is much too strong a conclusion. We draw on a number of recent studies to evaluate the endogeneity experiences of the eurozone in three major areas; trade flows, business cycle synchronisation and structural reforms to improve labour and product market flexibility. Simple before‐and‐after comparisons are insufficient for analysis of endogeneity. The experiences of non‐euro Western European economies suggest that broader trends also had considerable influence on trade and business cycle patterns. While trade rose substantially within the eurozone, it also rose with and among other European economies. We argue that political economy considerations tend to dampen the magnitude of endogeneity efforts on structural reforms and that meeting conditions for entry may be a more powerful mechanism in this than are subsequent endogenous responses. We also discuss a number of areas for further research.     

Trade and Exchange Rate Policies in Formerly Centrally Planned Economies

This paper examines the international economic policies of the eastern European and Soviet Successes States in the early 1990s which provide one of those wide‐open windows of opportunity when powerful vested interests are not lobbying for retention of an existing tariff structure. Moreover, the simultaneous abandonment of central planning by over two dozen countries provided a natural experiment in which a range of differing policies might have been pursued. Policymakers in transition economies have generally ended up pursuing liberal non‐discriminatory trade and foreign exchange policies. There are exceptions and the majority may be wrong, but the presumption is that, perhaps after a learning or trial‐and‐error process, decision makers have found the rules of thumb suggested by economists to be their best guide to international economic policy. This paper notes that integration of transition economies into the global trading system has been surprisingly successful. Almost all the countries in transition from central planning have accepted the WTO rule‐based system in principle, even if there are variations in trade policies and performance, and have generally pursued multilateral non‐discriminatory trade policies. In particular, the potential danger of regionalism proving more attractive than multilateralism has not eventuated. The revealed behaviour of policymakers suggests that trade liberalisation is a good rule of thumb and regional groupings among transition economies have been insignificant. Despite a proliferation of new currencies, varying exchange rate regimes, and differing degrees of currency convertibility, the general pattern has been to accept convertibility for current account transdactions, and in many cases to extend this to a de jure commitment and to allow substantial capital account convertibility. A general policy conclusion in favour of more open and non‐discriminatory trade and exchange policies have passed the test of acceptability by policymakers in over two‐dozen countries in this category.     

Is the Chinese Currency Substantially Misaligned to Warrant Further Appreciation?

This study provides quarterly estimates of the misalignment in the real effective exchange rate (REER) of Renminbi (RMB) for the period 1999–2008. Starting from a commonly used economic approach, the estimates are obtained from an extensive application of econometric techniques on a carefully constructed database that covers 22 economies that account for roughly 70 per cent of China’s total foreign trade. Our estimates demonstrate that the RMB underwent a period of undervalued misalignment during the early to mid‐2000s, if measured vis‐à‐vis the REER of a multilateral currency basket of the 22 economies, but the misalignment margin has disappeared since 2008. However, if the RMB is only evaluated by a subpanel dataset including only the United States and the Euroland, the resulting misalignment estimates are much more pronounced and withstand the recent recession. The difference between the full‐panel dataset and subpanel dataset estimates suggests that the current misalignment problem lies more with overvalued USD and euro rather than with an undervalued RMB. The finding thus refutes the claim that the current global trade imbalance could be resolved mainly by further and greater appreciation of the RMB.     

On the Link Between Exchange‐rate Regimes,Capital Controls and Monetary Policy Autonomy in Small European Countries, 1979–2000

We investigate international monetary‐policy transmission under different exchange‐rate and capital‐account regimes in eleven small, open economies during the 1980s and 1990s. We find no systematic link between ex‐post monetary‐policy autonomy and exchange‐rate regimes. Capital controls appear to have provided a degree of temporal insulation from foreign monetary policy shocks, though not strict autonomy. The results are consistent both with short‐term autonomy for small countries even under fixed exchange rates and an open capital account, and with long‐term dependence under flexible exchange rates and an independent stability target. Results also indicate that euro‐area market interest rates are significantly more responsive to the development of the corresponding US rate than were the previous national rates.     

Industrial Specialization,Catching‐up and Labour Market Dynamics

This paper presents a dynamic model as a heuristic tool to discuss some issues of changing industrial specialization which arise in the context of catching‐up processes of (technologically) less advanced economies and the impact which various scenarios of such catching‐up processes might have on the labour market dynamics both in the advanced and in the catching‐up economies. In analysing the evolution of international specialization, we demonstrate the twin pressures exerted upon the industrial structures of “northern” economies: competition from “type‐A southern” economies, which maintain a comparative competitive strength in labour‐intensive and less skill‐intensive branches, and competition from “type‐B catching‐up” economies, whose catching‐up increasingly focuses upon branches in which the initial productivity gaps and hence the scope for catching‐up are the highest. The contrast between these two catching‐up scenarios allows the explicit analysis of the implications of “comparative advantage switchovers” between northern and southern (type B) economies for labour market dynamics.     

Malaysia – Trade Policy Review 2006

The Trade Policy Review (TPR) is an important document for small open economies like Malaysia. It provides an outsider perspective of its trade policies and implementation. In this paper we provide an update of the Malaysian economy emphasising the degree of competitiveness vis‐à‐vis other Asian counterparts. We also discuss the issue of regional and bilateral trading agreements involving Malaysia with a focus on the services sector. Finally, we briefly consider the issue of tariff protection – an issue raised by many commentators of the TPR.     

The International Effects of China’s Growth,Trade and Education Booms

China’s international trade flows have increased by 500 per cent since 1992, far outstripping GDP growth. Likewise tertiary education enrolments have increased by 300 per cent. We simulate these changes using a multi‐sector growth model of the Chinese and USA economies. A decade of trade biased growth in China is found to raise USA GDP by approximately 3–4.5 percentage points and has a large impact on the demand for tertiary education in China. Despite these positive effects of growth, the results suggest that the expansion of China’s education sector per se has practically no long‐run impact on the USA economy.     

How FTAs Affect Income Levels of Member Countries

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether FTAs cause the income levels of member economies to converge or diverge. Although existing studies predict the possibility of convergence among FTA members to a certain degree, they fail to provide definitive evidence. By using the concept of accelerating convergence, this study aims to estimate the pure convergence effects of FTAs, separate from the conventional notion of income convergence, so‐called β‐convergence. The neoclassical model of economic growth has been extended to incorporate varying steady states for an open‐economy framework. Applying the system GMM method to a dynamic panel of data consisting of major FTAs – comprising the European Union, NAFTA, Mercosur and AFTA, and encompassing the cases of launching an FTA, expanding membership or deepening FTA integration – we find considerable evidence for the income convergence effect of FTAs.     

Redistribution in a Neo‐Kaleckian Two‐country Model

We investigate the interaction between demand‐driven growth and income distribution in open economies, by combining expenditure‐switching and demand spillover effects in a neo‐Kaleckian two country model. First, we specify elasticities of wage share and real exchange rate to the money wage relative to labor productivity, in order to precisely describe the distributive pass‐through from money wages to the labor share and the real exchange rate. Second, we analyze the demand effects of an increase in the money wage for given labor productivity (a redistribution towards labor) in both Home and Foreign country, as well as globally. We derive closed form results for two identical countries. These results indicate that redistribution towards labor at Home: (i) always increases growth globally if Home is wage‐led, but can lead to lower growth at Home relative to Foreign; and (ii) will always imply lower growth at Home relative to Foreign if Home is profit‐led, but can still be growth‐enhancing at Home. Thus, to the extent that countries are concerned with their relative economic performance, a fallacy of composition can emerge. Numerical simulations suggest that these fallacies could indeed occur. As a consequence, ‘returns to coordination’ over international labor policies might be substantial.     

Convergence of optimal expected utility for a sequence of discrete‐time markets

We examine Kreps' conjecture that optimal expected utility in the classic Black–Scholes–Merton (BSM) economy is the limit of optimal expected utility for a sequence of discrete‐time economies that “approach” the BSM economy in a natural sense: The nth discrete‐time economy is generated by a scaled n‐step random walk, based on an unscaled random variable ζ with mean 0, variance 1, and bounded support. We confirm Kreps' conjecture if the consumer's utility function U has asymptotic elasticity strictly less than one, and we provide a counterexample to the conjecture for a utility function U with asymptotic elasticity equal to 1, for ζ such that .     

Solar Energy in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Challenges and Opportunities of Technological Leapfrogging

For decades, Africa was generally perceived as the dumping ground for obsolete technologies. In recent years, technological leapfrogging, which is associated with the newly industrialized economies in Asia, has transpired in some key industries. In this article, we present the solar photovoltaic industry as one such industry and an integrated model of scaling up solar technologies. We identified five unique models aimed at scaling up solar energy in Africa: state‐led, nongovernmental organization and other agency–led, emerging‐market multinational enterprises–led, Avon, and pay‐as‐you‐go models. Our analysis focused on four countries in particular (Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya) and Africa in general. Despite the promising opportunities of this industry, a number of factors such as high up‐front capital costs and limited end‐user financing schemes have limited the technological process. We conclude by outlining the implications of the findings for theory and practice. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Consumption smoothing,risk sharing and financial integration

Theories indicate that financial integration should allow economies to better share risk and thus improve consumption smoothing. We construct two widely used price‐based measures of financial integration (i.e., the standard correlation and the adjusted R‐squared) and test whether consumption volatility declines as international equity markets become more integrated. Pooled and panel estimates for three different groups of countries (i.e., G7, G20 and EU) provide no significant evidence of improved consumption smoothing as financial integration rises. This evidence is supported by a battery of robustness checks and holds over time. Taken together, our results suggest that convergence in international equity prices does not necessarily represent the channel through which risk‐sharing opportunities arise or consumption smoothing improves.     

How do Firms’ Outward FDI Strategies Relate to their Activity at Home? Empirical Evidence for the UK

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the relationship between the structure of firms’ overseas FDI and the performance and organisation of their home‐country operations in both manufacturing and business services. It addresses two questions. First, does sorting into multinational status on the basis of productivity extend to the scale of overseas activity? Second, is there evidence that off‐shoring to low‐wage countries has asymmetric effects on high and low‐skill activities in the home economy? The paper considers heterogeneity in firms’ outward FDI strategies and in their behaviour at home, distinguishing between low‐skill and high‐skill‐intensive activities. I differentiate between firms that invest in relatively low‐wage economies and hence might be engaged in vertical FDI, and those that only invest in high‐wage economies. I find that firms that invest in low‐wage economies simultaneously invest in a large number of high‐wage economies, employing complex FDI strategies. I add to existing evidence by demonstrating that selection into multinational status on productivity extends beyond the decision of whether or not to engage in FDI, to the geographic scope of overseas operations. This is consistent with the highest productivity firms being best able to overcome large fixed costs of establishing multiple overseas facilities. I find evidence consistent with differential effects of vertical FDI on firms’ high and low‐skill manufacturing activity in the UK. Relocating low‐skill activity to relatively low‐wage economies could enable a firm to expand output, with potential positive effects on investment, employment and output in complementary (high‐skill) activities at home. For firms investing in relatively low‐wage economies, I find that labour in these countries may substitute for relatively low‐skilled labour in the UK. In high‐skill manufacturing industries I find that multinationals that invest in low‐wage economies are larger, more capital intensive and more intensive in their use of intermediate inputs than other UK‐owned firms.