Firm exit,technological progress and trade

The dynamics of export market exit and firm closure have found limited attention in the new heterogeneous-firms trade literature. In fact, several of the predictions on firm survival and exit stemming from this new class of models are at odds with the stylized facts. Empirically, higher productivity firms survive longer, most firm closures are young firms, higher productivity exporters are more likely to continue to export compared to less productive exporters and market exits as well as firm closures are typically preceded by periods of contracting market shares. The present paper shows that the simple inclusion of exogenous economy wide technological progress into the standard Melitz (2003) model generates a tractable dynamic framework that generates endogenous exit decisions of firms in line with the stylized facts. Furthermore, we derive the effects of faster technological progress and trade liberalization on export market exit and firm closure.     

Computer Technology Adoption by Agricultural Producers in Southern Alberta

A survey of farmers in Southern Alberta was developed to determine the importance of computer decision-making tools in the region. The survey provided approximately 300 useable responses. The results indicated that 78% of Southern Alberta farmers owned computers and 50% owned Pentium or Pentium II computers. The largest farm related uses for these computers were: 1) maintaining general farm account records, 2) tax preparation, 3) word processing, and 4) maintaining inventory records. Sixtyfour percent of respondents use computers for record-keeping and 58% use them for accounting. About 40% of respondents use the Internet to obtain price and weather information. Only 15% have ever used decision-making models .     

Future play: tourism,recreation and land use

Recent changes in land use for tourism and recreation have been driven by socio-demographic shifts, increases in disposable time and incomes, technological changes, transport developments, and emerging systems of policy and governance. Combined with changes in consumption preferences, these have led to general but differentiated increases in tourism and recreation. Outbound tourism has grown more rapidly than inbound, which has led to some displacement of land use demands. In the case of recreation, there are shifts between at home and outdoor recreation, and changes in the content and location of each. The resulting land use trends can be understood in regional, intra-regional (urban versus rural versus coastal) and temporal terms. Future trends are considered in terms of how this broad set of drivers and the relationships between them are being and are likely to be transformed.     

Always Leave Home Without It: A Further Investigation of the Credit-Card Effect on Willingness to Pay

In studies involving genuine transactions of potentially high value we show that willingness-to-pay can be increased when customers are instructed to use a credit card rather than cash. The effect may be large (up to 100%) and it appears unlikely that it arises due solely to liquidity constraints. In addition to demonstrating the effect, we provide a methodology for detecting it, and our findings suggest a source of variance to test alternative explanations.     

Mexico and the United States: Common border,common negotiating orientations

With a growing cadre of people conducting business across the U.S.–Mexico border, there is a need for information about the negotiation orientations they are likely to encounter. While information on negotiating orientations is available, it is often anecdotal, stereotyped, and contradictory. Empirical work that systematically compares Mexico and the United States across a range of negotiating dimensions is scarce. We have clarified, refined, and operationalized 12 negotiation dimensions in a comprehensive conceptual framework proposed over 20 years ago by Weiss and Stripp (1985). Our findings suggest that U.S. and Mexican negotiators may have more in common than they think and that negotiation orientations in both countries may run counter to conventional wisdom. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Employment and wage dynamics in Estonia, 1989-951

This study monitors the effects of economic transition on wages and employment in a former Soviet Republic. Estonia's case is of particular interest because of its early adoption of relatively free labour market policies. Relative wages for the highest educated groups rose for all age groups. There were also rapid increases in returns to job experience, particularly at young ages. Increasing wage dispersion across human capital groups was accompanied by narrowing wage dispersion within human capital groups. Relative wages rose in sectors which gained relative employment, while they fell in shrinking sectors. In addition, there were large flows of labour between shrinking and growing sectors, suggesting that labour market equilibrating mechanisms developed very rapidly in Estonia.     

Mutual Fund Performance: Evidence from the UK

This paper uses a large sample containing the complete return histories of 2300 UK open-ended mutual funds over a 23-year period to measure fund performance. We find some evidence of underperformance on a risk-adjusted basis by the average fund manager, persistence of performance and the existence of a substantial survivor bias. Similar findings have been reported for US equity mutual funds. New findings not previously documented for other markets include evidence that mutual fund performance varies substantially across different asset categories, especially foreign asset categories. We also identify some new patterns in performance related to the funds' distance from their inception and termination dates: underperformance intensifies as the fund termination date approaches, while, in contrast, there is some evidence that funds (weakly) outperform during their first year of existence.