The historical origins of the Philippine economy: a survey of recent research of the Spanish colonial era

This article surveys recent research of the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines since the late eighteenth century. While highlighting imperfections in our understanding, the article establishes the parameters with which the Philippine economy entered the twentieth century. It outlines the intensification of Spanish colonial rule through changes in the taxation system, particularly the expansion of forced tobacco cultivation until its abolition in 1882. Since then, the Spanish set out to further change and intensify colonial rule but contradictions in the system of colonial rule caused the effort to come to an abrupt end in 1898.     

E-Business Transformation via Alliance Clusters

The number of firms using alliances as part of their corporate venturing or market entry strategies has surged over the past decade. Three common reasons cited for pursuing alliances are technology convergence, market access and alliance partners' complementary resources. This paper contrasts the alliance strategies of HP and IBM, two major competitors in electronic services (i.e. Internet-based 'e- service') businesses, using the Familiarity Matrix as a display tool to portray the strategies. Whereas the HP strategy is to attempt to establish its technology infrastructure as the standard e-services infrastructure on the Internet, IBM aims to position its IBM Global Services, rather than its technology, at the center of this ecosystem.     

TRENDS IN RURAL WAGES,WEST JAVA, 1977–83

This paper examines monthly wage data collected by the Agro Economic Survey from seven villages in the Cimanuk River Basin of West Java, where data on agricultural and non-agricultural wages and prices of nine essential commodities were collected twice monthly between 1977 and 1983. Movements in money wages deflated by both the rice price and a weighted index of basic commodities are analysed in detail and differences between lowland and upland villages are discussed.     

How Does Size Affect Mutual Fund Behavior?

If actively managed mutual funds suffer from diminishing returns to scale, funds should alter investment behavior as assets under management increase. Although asset growth has little effect on the behavior of the typical fund, we find that large funds and small‐cap funds diversify their portfolios in response to growth. Greater diversification, especially for small‐cap funds, is associated with better performance. Fund family growth is related to the introduction of new funds that hold different stocks from their existing siblings. Funds with many siblings diversify less rapidly as they grow, suggesting that the fund family may influence a fund's portfolio strategy.     

Replacement Investment: Optimal Economic Life Under Uncertainty

Replacement investment is essentially a regenerative optimal stopping problem; that is, the key decision concerns when to terminate the life of existing plant – and hence when to start over again. This paper examines this optimisation problem within a continuous time framework and studies the qualitative and quantitative impact of uncertainty on the timing of new investment (and the criteria that should be used for terminating the life of existing plant).