Executive compensation and the performance of the firm

A sample of large industrial corporations is examined to determine whether there is a relationship between the levels of compensation received by the senior executives of those firms and the firms' economic performances. We find consistent evidence of such a relationship, with differences across firms in the total compensation of their three highest-paid officers being positively related to differences in both the common stock returns and operating profitability of the firms. The implication is that compensation packages are designed to reduce agency costs.     

The development of industrial clusters and public policy

This paper assesses the relationships between public policy and the development of industrial clusters. A conceptual model of the relationship between public policies and the development of industrial clusters is developed and tested using data from 43 European industrial clusters. The results indicate that most government policies have no significant impact on the growth of industrial clusters or for the development of co-operation within industrial clusters. There is limited evidence that packages of government policies that are specifically geared towards improving the local asset base are effective in overcoming obstacles to growth of industrial clusters. However, when age is used as a control variable the weak relationship between policy packages and growth of industrial clusters disappear. The results indicate that individual and packages of public policies are not strongly connected to either high levels of co-operation, or high growth in industrial clusters. Moreover, no clear evidence was found that high levels of co-operation were associated with growth in industrial districts. In the light of the failure to find clear-cut associations between public policies and the development of industrial clusters the paper outlines a research agenda to help to increase our understanding of these issues.     

Methods for Scalar‐on‐Function Regression

Recent years have seen an explosion of activity in the field of functional data analysis (FDA), in which curves, spectra, images and so on are considered as basic functional data units. A central problem in FDA is how to fit regression models with scalar responses and functional data points as predictors. We review some of the main approaches to this problem, categorising the basic model types as linear, non‐linear and non‐parametric. We discuss publicly available software packages and illustrate some of the procedures by application to a functional magnetic resonance imaging data set.     

Econometric software development: past, present and future

We give a short international history of econometric software development, with an emphasis on the origin of the main existing econometric packages. We provide a Dutch perspective on this development. We identify the characteristics of econometric software in comparison with mathematical and statistical software. Finally, a number of recent developments connected with the reuse of code across econometric softwares are discussed.     

计划排产在卷烟生产中的应用研究

文章针对卷烟厂混合型的卷烟生产,采用车间调度问题的方法,系统分析了卷烟生产中卷包和制丝不同生产环节的特点,得到了它们适用的计划模型以及相适应的算法。根据研究开发的计划排产信息系统,通过在武汉卷烟厂的实际应用表明,该计划排产信息系统具有优化排产、计划冲突避免的优点,取得了较好的应用效果。     

RFID技术在小件快递中的应用设计

通过介绍RFID技术特点和应用现状及对小件快递进行优劣分析，提出RFID在小件快递中应用的方案设计思路。以从事小件快递业务A公司的实际运作情况为例，对其现有的业务流程进行技术改造。针对小件快递应用所需的RFID技术，对相应设备进行选型并提出相关技术支持。设计RFID应用中可选择采用的增值开发业务以适应快递公司未来建设的需求。     

A mechanism for package allocation problems with gross substitutes

We consider a package allocation problem in which a seller owns many indivisible objects and the rest of the agents, buyers, are interested in packages of these objects. Buyers’ valuations satisfy monotonicity and the gross substitutes condition (Kelso and Crawford, 1982). The aim of this paper is to analyze the following mechanism: simultaneously, each buyer requests to the seller a package by announcing how much he would pay for it; once buyers have played, the seller decides the final assignment of packages and the prices, as long as this assignment makes no buyer worse off than with his initial request. The subgame perfect equilibrium outcomes of the mechanism correspond to the Vickrey outcome (Vickrey, 1961) of the market.     

Estimating predictions,prediction errors and their standard deviations using constructed variables

Increasing use has been made of predictive tests for assessing model adequacy, but it is sometimes difficult to generate predictions and their standard errors in dynamic or simultaneous equation models. Following earlier suggestions by Salkever and Fuller, this paper shows how the requisite information may be obtained by the use of specially constructed variables in a regression framework. The main use of the method will be in those situations where prediction information is not available as a standard option in econometric packages.     

Wages, Welfare Benefits and Migration

Differences in economic opportunities give rise to strong migration incentives, across regions within countries, and across countries. In this paper we focus on responses to differences in welfare benefits across States. We apply the model developed in Kennan and Walker (2008), which emphasizes that migration decisions are often reversed, and that many alternative locations must be considered. We model individual decisions to migrate as a job search problem. A worker starts the life-cycle in some home location and must determine the optimal sequence of moves before settling down. The model is sparsely parameterized. We estimate the model using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979). Our main finding is that income differences do help explain the migration decisions of young welfare-eligible women, but large differences in benefit levels provide surprisingly weak migration incentives.     

A DOUBLE LENGTH REGRESSION COMPUTATION METHOD FOR THE 2SGLS ESTIMATOR OF RATIONAL EXPECTATIONS MODELS

ABSTRACT This paper extends a matrix inverse result of Higgins and presents a new unified double length regression method to calculate the two-step generalised least squares estimators of two types of rational expectations model with current anticipated and unanticipated components. The estimator can be applied directly in most of the standard econometric computer packages such as PC-Give and Microfit.     

电信企业营销存在问题及对策研究

电信市场竞争日趋激烈,目前电信企业存在资费套餐的设计不合理,营销活动目标顾客知晓率低,对渠道的控制力弱,营销渠道缺乏有效整合等问题。电信企业应该改变营销理念,进行合理的市场细分,建设新型的代理体系,整合营销渠道,塑造强势品牌,提高顾客满意度,并制订整合营销传播计划,有针对性地加大市场促销的宣传力度,让目标顾客充分知晓了解。     

Testing for cointegration using the Johansen approach: are we using the correct critical values?

This paper presents Monte Carlo simulations for the Johansen cointegration test which indicate that the critical values applied in a number of econometrics software packages are inappropriate. This is due to confusion in the specification of the deterministic terms included in the vector error correction model (VECM). The result is a tendency to reject the null of no cointegration too often. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fiscal deficits and current account deficits

Recent fiscal stimulus packages depend for their effectiveness on the assumption of non-Ricardian savings behavior. We show that, under the same assumption, higher fiscal deficits can have problematic implications if they turn out to be permanent. First, if they occur in large countries they significantly raise the world real interest rate. Second, they cause a short run current account deterioration equal to around 50% of the fiscal deficit deterioration. Third, the longer run current account deterioration equals almost 75% for a large economy such as the United States, and almost 100% for a small open economy.     

Intra- and inter-group composite indicators using the BoD model

We extent the radial DEA model with a single constant input, often referred to as the Benefit-of-the-Doubt (BoD) model, to account for environmental or contextual differences. Based on this we estimate three types of composite indicators, namely the pooled that uses the entire sample of the evaluated units, the intra-group that accounts for within group differences, and the inter-group that reflects between group differences. In addition, we provide theoretically consistent aggregation rules for these types of composite indicators. We applied the proposed methodology to analyze the financial performance of public and private hospitals in Greece by means of financial ratios referring to their liquidity performance and to examine the extent of differences in the inter-group composite indicators between the two types of ownership both at the individual and the aggregate level.     

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Sovereign Bond Risk

Governments around the world are tackling the COVID-19 pandemic with a mix of public health, fiscal, macroprudential, monetary, and/or market-based policies. We assess the impact of the pandemic in Europe on sovereign CDS spreads using an event study methodology. We find that a higher number of cases and deaths and public health containment responses significantly increase the uncertainty among investors in European government bonds. Other governmental policies magnify the effect in the short run as supply chains are disrupted. Moreover, an increased debt-to-GDP ratio significantly boosts the cumulative abnormal change of CDS spreads, which indicates that investors are concerned about countries that are too indebted and thus have a limited capacity to intervene and provide fiscal stimuli and emergency fiscal packages to businesses and households.     

The Impact of Organizational and National Cultural Differences on Social Conflict and Knowledge Transfer in International Acquisitions

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the effects of organizational and national cultural differences on international acquisitions. We argue that cultural differences prompt social identity building that leads to ‘us versus them’ thinking and thereby creates the potential for social conflict. We also maintain that the same cultural differences can contribute to learning in terms of knowledge transfer. We develop a structural equation model to test these hypothesized effects on a sample of related international acquisitions. Our analysis shows that cultural differences at the organizational level are positively associated with social conflict, but that national cultural differences can decrease social conflict. Furthermore, both organizational and national cultural differences are positively associated with knowledge transfer. This analysis shows the importance of disentangling the various effects that cultural differences have on international acquisitions. It also suggests that national cultural differences are less of a problem in international acquisitions than is usually assumed.     

Automatic ARIMA modeling including interventions, using time series expert software

This article has three objectives: (a) to describe the method of automatic ARIMA modeling (AAM), with and without intervention analysis, that has been used in the analysis; (b) to comment on the results; and (c) to comment on the M3 Competition in general. Starting with a computer program for fitting an ARIMA model and a methodology for building univariate ARIMA models, an expert system has been built, while trying to avoid the pitfalls of most existing software packages. A software package called Time Series Expert TSE-AX is used to build a univariate ARIMA model with or without an intervention analysis. The characteristics of TSE-AX are summarized and, more especially, its automatic ARIMA modeling method. The motivation to take part in the M3-Competition is also outlined. The methodology is described mainly in three technical appendices: (Appendix A) choice of differences and of a transformation, use of intervention analysis; ( Appendix B) available specification procedures; ( Appendix C) adequacy, model checking and new specification. The problems raised by outliers are discussed, in particular how close they are from the forecast origin. Several series that are difficult to deal with from that point of view are mentioned and one of them is shown. In the last section, we comment on contextual information, the idea of an e−M Competition, prediction intervals and the possible use of other forecasting methods within Time Series Expert.     

Automatic selection of unobserved components models for supply chain forecasting

For many companies, automatic forecasting has come to be an essential part of business analytics applications. The large amounts of data available, the short life-cycle of the analysis and the acceleration of business operations make traditional manual data analysis unfeasible in such environments. In this paper, an automatic forecasting support system that comprises several methods and models is developed in a general state space framework built in the SSpace toolbox written for Matlab. Some of the models included are well-known, such as exponential smoothing and ARIMA, but we also propose a new model family that has been used only very rarely in this context, namely unobserved components models. Additional novelties include the use of unobserved components models in an automatic identification environment and the comparison of their forecasting performances with those of exponential smoothing and ARIMA models estimated using different software packages. The new system is tested empirically on a daily dataset of all of the products sold by a franchise chain in Spain (166 products over a period of 517 days). The system works well in practice and the proposed automatic unobserved components models compare very favorably with other methods and other well-known software packages in forecasting terms.     

The fundraiser's software dilemma: Packaged or do-it-yourself?

In May 1991 the IT Special Interest Croup of the ICFM met to debate the matter of packaged versus written-to-order software for fundraising. The speaker for packages advised: against reinventing the wheel when an 80 per cent degree of fit can be achieved from packages; taking advantage of the specialist supplies in the marketplace; the broad choice on offer and risk-reduction afforded by a substantial user base; known and containable costs. The speaker against packages advised: start by deJning simple and basic fundraising database structures; recognise the need to create simple and understandable systems without the unnecessary complexity and sophistication that often characterise packages; see the value in having flexibility to make amendments and changes to the database as circumstances change. Both speakers emphasised the need for carefid planning whatever system solution was chosen. In summing up, the chairman outlined how large, medium-sized and small charities took diyerent routes in acquiring their systems; highlighted the lack of low-cost shareware in the UK, the general unwillingness of supplies to release obsolete versions of software at low prices, and the difjiculty of adapting cheap ‘sales force-contact management’ systems efectively to firndraising. With software for fundraising and marketing there is a common dilemma that nonprofits have to confront — whether to write their own software or to buy a packaged system.