Jobs and agricultural policy: Impact of the common agricultural policy on EU agricultural employment

This paper investigates the relationship between EU agricultural subsidies and the outflow of labor from agriculture. We use more representative subsidy indicators and a wider coverage (panel data from 210 EU regions over the period 2004-2014) than has been used before. The data allow to better correct for sample selection bias than previous empirical studies. We find that, on average, CAP subsidies reduce the outflow of labor from agriculture, but the effect is almost entirely due to decoupled Pillar I payments. Coupled Pillar I payments have no impact on reducing labor outflow from agriculture, i.e. on preserving jobs in agriculture. The impact of Pillar II is mixed. Our estimates predict that an increase of 10 percent of the CAP budget would prevent an extra 16,000 people from leaving the EU agriculture sector each year. A 10 percent decoupling would save 13,000 agricultural jobs each year. However, the budgetary costs are large. The estimated cost is more than € 300,000 per year (or more than € 25,000 per month) per job saved in agriculture.     

Trade and dietary diversity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

In public and academic debates, the linkages between agricultural markets and nutrition across the world are vividly discussed. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate by analyzing the relationship between greater openness to trade and dietary diversity. It focuses on the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia where trade reforms triggered growth in trade flows and foreign direct investment, which in turn affected food systems in these countries. This shift provides a natural experiment for studying the effects of trade openness on agricultural markets and consumer behaviour. Reduction in trade barriers, for instance in the context of the accession to the WTO and the EU, and the gradual integration with world markets after 1991 had implications for diets through changes in production, prices and incomes. We utilize country-level panel data for 26 post-communist countries in the period 1996–2013 to assess the effects of trade costs, agricultural trade openness and incomes on dietary diversity measured by the Shannon entropy index. The results from fixed effects and instrumental variables estimation are consistent with previous findings that income growth affects dietary diversity positively. They also provide novel evidence that trade barriers reduce variety of products available in domestic markets, in particular fruits and vegetables.     

Determining the level of regulation in EU telecommunications. A preliminary assessment

The attention of the EU is currently focused on which aspects of telecommunications should be regulated at a national and which at a European level. The paper argues that in practice this is not an ‘either/or’ question, but a question of the degree of regulatory detail at the European level. The criteria for making choices on this dimension should be the standard ones of efficiency, equity, accountability and (in this case) consistency with the single market. The presence of externalities favours a central solution, while reliance on local information and a desire for political accountability favour decentralization. A number of possible regulatory frameworks are analysed, including the creation of an independent European regulator. In many contexts, some form of policy coordination is preferable to the creation of new centralized institutions.     

An assessment of the liberalization and the evolution of competition in the Moroccan mobile market

This paper analyses the liberalization process of the Moroccan mobile market since the beginning of the 21 st century. Our database ranges from 2004 to the end of 2020. First, operators’ market shares are presented and analysed. Second, we build concentration indexes and other indicators of competitiveness. Finally, we conduct an econometric analysis to determine the extent to which regulatory measures, privatization, market structure and the population dimension determine market shares. Overall, we can argue that, although concentration remains high, the market has become more competitive since the liberalization process began. The statistical analysis and the econometric assessment show that the entrance of the third operator made the market more competitive. Indeed, there is evidence that operator companies competed to capture customers from each other during the period under study. These features suggest that mobile operators did not follow anticompetitive practices in order to restrain competition.     

Strategy implementation: A comparison of face-to-face negotiations in the peoples republic of China and the United States

Crucial to every business alliance are the face-to-face negotiations that occur during the formulation and maintenance of the commercial relationship. Our study of American and Chinese businesspeople in simulated intracultural negotiations suggests both similarities and differences in style. For example, negotiators in both cultures were more successful when taking a problem-solving approach. Alternatively, the Chinese negotiators tended to ask many more questions and to interrupt one another more frequently than their American counterparts. Such subtle differences in style may cause problems in Sino-American negotiations, which may, in turn, sour otherwise fruitful commercial alliances.     

评《国际经济比较中量值统一的价值尺度——剖析联合国ICP方法的缺陷》一文需商榷或探讨之处

对《国际经济比较中量值统一的价值尺度——剖析联合国ICP方法的缺陷》一文中有关F法、GK法论述和推理的不妥之处作了评论，重点探讨了F法几何平均的意义及其可传递性的解决以及GK法的思想实质问题。此外，文章对丛文核心思想IVC法与ICP的GK法作了深入比较。     

Inequalities of opportunity in the access and use of telecommunication services in Togo

The liberalization of the telecommunications sector in Togo aimed at ensuring access to a better quality of telecommunication services at affordable prices to everyone. While the liberalization policy has increased competition in the sector and reduced significantly telecommunication services prices charged to costumers, statistics on the access and use of telecommunication services in Togo reveal disparities with respect to individuals' socio-economic characteristics which could be an indication of the existence of inequalities of opportunities in the access and use of these services.This paper investigates the inequalities of opportunity in the access and use of telecommunication services in Togo using a parametric approach. The results of estimations indicate that, inequalities of opportunities are larger for men and the elderly than respectively women and youths and are more pronounced in urban areas and regions such as the Plateaux and Savanna regions. Moreover, the circumstance variables such as the ‘place of residence’ and the ‘region’ are the key variables in explaining the inequalities of opportunities in the access and use of telecommunication services in Togo. So, policies toward reducing inequalities of opportunity in the access and use of telecommunication services in Togo should be designed with regards to men, the elderly, and people living in urban areas and regions such as the Plateaux and Savanna regions.     

Knowledge translation and exchange in the Canadian microbial food safety system: A quantitative assessment of researcher awareness,attitude, and activities with government policymakers

Knowledge translation and exchange (KTE) is a process through which research evidence can more effectively inform decision making in policy and practice environments. A telephone survey of Canadian microbial food safety researchers was conducted in 2009 to examine aspects of researcher KTE activities with government policymakers. Overall, researcher awareness of and engagement in KTE activities was high, although engagement was mainly through end-of-research dissemination activities rather than throughout the research process (integrated knowledge translation) and engagement in some high-quality KTE activities was low. Government researchers were significantly more likely to engage in KTE activities with federal policymakers and did so with greater frequency than non-government researchers.     

研发投入与企业业绩相关性研究——基于中国制造业上市公司的实证分析

研发投入是企业增强核心竞争力和实现可持续发展的关键因素。我国企业的研发投入主要集中在制造业。本文以制造业71家上市公司为研究对象,通过对样本公司R&D投入与企业业绩及企业价值的相关性分析,揭示企业R&D投入对企业业绩的影响作用及对公司价值提升的促进作用。研究结果表明,我国制造业上市公司的R&D投入强度偏低,R&D投入明显不足,但R&D投入强度在2007~2009年3年中逐年上升。企业当期R&D投入与企业当期营业毛利率有显著的正相关关系,滞后一期R&D投入与企业当期营业毛利率仍然存在较为显著的正相关关系,但滞后两期R&D投入与企业当期营业毛利率不存在显著的正相关关系。表明企业R&D投入对企业业绩有一定的影响,且存在一年的滞后性,滞后期较短。同时,企业的R&D投入与托宾Q值存在显著的正相关关系,说明企业的R&D投入与企业价值相关,R&D投入通过对企业业绩的影响来提升公司价值。     

经济环境与企业社会责任的协同演进研究

回顾了在中国经济改革的不同阶段企业社会责任的发展。1949年～1978年,由于实行高度集中的计划经济以及国有企业一只独秀,而国有企业作为政府的附属机构承担着各级政府指派的各种社会责任,因此在这个时期谈社会责任完全没有必要。即使在1978年～1992年间乡镇企业和私营企业迅速出现,国有企业的情形依然没有改变,而乡镇和私营企业在极端恶劣的社会环境中不得不“头戴红帽”,生存的艰辛远远超过了对社会责任的关注。1993年～2002年,市场经济导向正式确立,但中央“以经济建设为中心”的大政方针和政府系统内部“以经济增长”为核心的考评体系,导致企业社会责任在中国被忽视了。从2002年开始,企业社会责任开始受到了重视,但在现阶段显示三个特点：第一,企业社会责任仍处于起步阶段;第二,经济责任仍然是第一位的;第三,企业承担社会责任是政府导向的。     

A psychometric assessment of the Lennox and Wolfe self-monitoring scale in the sales force

In today's turbulent business environment, salespeople and sales managers must constantly adapt to changes. Self-monitoring, i.e., the cognitive ability to adapt one's own behavior in response to the behavior of others, may be a meta-KSA (knowledge, skill, or ability) that influences adaptive selling behavior. To assist researchers and practitioners seeking to identify and improve the self-monitoring skills of salespeople, this study investigates Lennox and Wolfe's (1984) self-monitoring scale with a sample of salespeople and one with sales managers. Although a hypothesized relationship between self-monitoring and job performance was supported partially, our results highlight potential problems with the measure. Further investigations are needed to determine whether or not the problems lie with the scale or the concept of self-monitoring in a selling context.     

Economic growth and the development of telecommunications infrastructure in the G-20 countries: A panel-VAR approach

This paper examines the linkages between the development of telecommunications infrastructure (DTI), economic growth, and four key indicators of operation of a modern economy: gross capital formation, foreign direct investment inflows, urbanization rates, and trade openness. By studying the G-20 countries over the period 1991–2012 and employing a panel vector auto-regressive model for detecting Granger causality, we find a network of long-run causal connections between these variables, including bidirectional causality between DTI and economic growth.     

经济增长与不平等对我国农村脱贫时间的影响

选择FGT贫困指数和脱贫时间指数,利用世界银行公布的我国农村贫困线和收入分配分组数据。对比分析了1981年-2005年以来的农村贫困变化趋势。研究发现,农村贫困状况虽然总体上呈缓解趋势,但在脱贫时间指数的构成中,由于不平等所延长的脱贫时间,无论从绝对量还是相对量上都明显提高,这说明收入分配的恶化已经成为反贫困的严重障碍,这种变化趋势值得高度关注。     

The impact of industry environment on early market entry decisions by B2B managers in the U.S. and Japan

Managers form simplified mental models to cope with market environment uncertainties and to process information. A critical decision is whether to enter a high-potential market early. Large innovation and development investments involved in this decision increase uncertainty. We examine the importance ascribed by U.S. and Japanese managers to competitive forces when making early market entry decisions. We expect that the competitive forces will have different effects on the likelihood of early market entry in the U.S. versus Japan due to cultural and business environment differences, and we thereby develop several propositions. We develop a decision-making exercise simulating early market entry decisions, and tested our propositions with managers in medium to large business-to-business (B2B) firms from both countries. We assessed impacts of the competitive market forces on entry strategy selection via relative weights, repeated-measures analysis of variance, and frequency analysis. Our findings revealed differences in the mental models of Japanese and U.S. managers. Buyer power had a larger effect on the decision to make an early market entry for Japanese managers, while threat of new firm entry had a larger effect for U.S. managers; these findings were consistent with our propositions. We also found several areas of agreement between U.S. and Japanese managers. We conclude with theoretical implications and recommendations to B2B management.     

Acquisition announcements and stock market valuations of acquiring firms' rivals: A test of the growth probability hypothesis in China

To examine the impact of acquisition announcements on the stock market returns of rivals of the acquiring firms, we propose a growth probability hypothesis: when an acquisition is announced, it signals the potential for future growth in the acquirer's industry to the market, resulting in positive stock market reactions to rivals of the acquiring firms. We test the growth probability hypothesis with a longitudinal sample of Chinese domestic and cross‐border acquisitions during 1993–2008. The results provide robust support for this hypothesis as a means to explain market reactions to rivals of acquiring firms. We also empirically test and negate alternative theoretical explanations advanced in prior literature to explain positive market reactions to rivals of the target firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Demand for ecolabeled seafood in the Japanese market: A conjoint analysis of the impact of information and interaction with other labels

The use of seafood ecolabels is expanding in the world marketplace, but so are labels indicating other product attributes, such as country of origin and wild vs. farmed. The interactive effects of these labels and attributes in evaluating consumers’ preferences for ecolabeled seafood are relatively unexplored. In this paper we investigate (1) the direct and interactive effects of seafood ecolabels with other common fish labels, and (2) how consumers’ perceptions about the state of marine stocks and the valuation of ecolabels may be affected by different information. We find moderate interactive effects between ecolabels and country of origin labels, whereas the valuation for seafood ecolabels is fairly high. In terms of information, we find that consumers’ perceptions about fish stock levels changed (negatively) after receiving information on declining stock levels, and more sensationalized information led to increased change. However, valuation for a seafood ecolabel increases only when the information was perceived positively (credible/interesting); whereas exaggerated information (which was also perceived less credible) had insignificant effects on WTP.     

Exploring the structural effects of the ICT sector in the Greek economy: A quantitative approach based on input-output and network analysis

The aim of this paper is to present a quantification approach for the calculation of the ICT sector's structural effects in the economy, focusing on the case of Greece. We construct a composite sector using a hypothetical extraction methodology based on the most recent Greek input-output table and structural business statistics at the national level. Our framework builds on the formal definition of the ICT sector provided by OECD and includes two distinct sub-components, ICT manufacturing and ICT services. In the second stage of this study, we explore the production linkages among ICT services, ICT manufacturing and the rest of the Greek industries using input-output-based and network analysis-based metrics that build on the intermediate transactions of an expanded input-output table of the Greek economy that includes the two sectors. Our empirical findings suggest that the total ICT sector has a major contribution to the Greek economy in terms of GDP and employment, but this is driven mainly by the ICT services component. We further identify that ICT services are more integrated in the Greek production network compared to ICT manufacturing, but their production linkages are underperforming in terms of meaningful contribution to the activity of the rest of the sectors. These results reflect the low integration of digital technologies and can be further embedded in a discussion on the ICT deficiencies of the Greek economy and the need for targeted regulatory and financial interventions.     

The relationship between cottage food laws and business outcomes: A quantitative study of cottage food producers in the United States

The increasing popularity of cottage foods in the United States requires that state laws regulating the industry be given careful consideration. However, little is known about cottage food producers or their businesses. This article discusses results from the first comprehensive survey of cottage food producers in the United States. Linear and logistic regression analyses of survey responses from 775 cottage food producers and aspects of state cottage food laws suggest restrictive state laws may hinder entrepreneurship in rural communities. These results suggest policymakers should consider reducing restrictions on the cottage food industry in order to promote small-business creation and growth, especially among women and rural populations.     

Differences in consumer loyalty and willingness to pay for service attributes across digital channels: A study of the Japanese digital content market

In this paper, the impact that the Internet access device has on consumer loyalty behaviors relative to Internet content was explored. To do so, a mixed logit demand function for mobile and PC subscribers to digital content was estimated and consumers’ willingness to pay for attributes related to specific content providers and their levels of service quality were measured. It was found that significant differences in loyalty and willingness to pay for service quality factors existed between mobile and PC Internet content subscribers, suggesting that while content may be developed as device independent, consumers interact differently with similar Internet content accessed through different devices. Specifically, the willingness to pay for more robust and more frequently updated content was on average higher in the mobile segment than in the PC segment. In addition, the overall switching costs consumers attributed to specific content providers via the mobile channel were far higher than through the PC channel. These results suggest that more robust content management systems must be developed to accommodate for such differences in consumer behavior.