Stock markets in transition: the Warsaw experiment1

This paper investigates the development from 1991 to 1994 of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, which opened on April 16th, 1991. An overview is presented focusing first on the deepening of the equity market, with a still limited but increasing number of listed companies, and then on the high trading activity and price dynamics with their impressive outburst in 1993. Three important dimensions are thereafter analyzed: the relevance of organizational and regulatory choices, the degree of market inefficiency and the origin of the discrepancy between IPO prices and first quoted market prices. Concluding remarks concentrate on the market's ability to fulfil its fundamental tasks.     

Heterogeneous Expectations,Short Sales Regulation,and the Risk-Return Relationship

This paper examines, in a Canadian context, the effect of short sales regulation on the risk-return relationship. It shows that, theoretically, the opportunity cost induced by short sales regulation is positively related to the dispersion of agents' beliefs and negatively related to the security's liquidity level. The model is tested over the sixty-month period from January 1985 through December 1989. All the 13,079 observations are pooled into a time series cross-sectional model. The results corroborate that a negative linear relationship links expected risky asset returns and the divergence of agents' beliefs. This negative relationship is consistent with the presence of opportunity costs resulting from short sales regulation when return beliefs are heterogeneous. However, the negative relationship between security returns and dispersion of beliefs is essentially confined to illiquid securities, that is, those monitored by a small number of analysts.     

A particular class of continuous-time stochastic growth models

This paper generalizes to uncertaintly the neoclassical one-sector model by transforming the basic differential equation on the capital labor ratio into a “stochastic” differential equation. The capital-labor ratio and related economic variables become random variables whose probability distributions vary with time, and the paper is focused on the existence of a steady state denfined by the (probabilistic) stationarity of these variables. An application of the results is given for a specific example with a Cobb-Douglas production function and uncertainty on the saving coefficient, the labor-force rate of growth, and the capital depreciation rate.     

Stability analysis of an effluent charge and the ‘polluters pay’ principle

In a pure exchange economy with two private commodities and one collective externality, a non-tâtonnement process is formulated, which yields a rule for adjusting an effluent charge of the Pigovian type from the level zero (at a laissez-faire equilibrium) up to a level that sustains an optimum. Besides convergence (Theorem 3) and monotonous decrease of the externality (Theorem 2) along a continuous path of price equilibria (Theorem 1), the paper analyses the distributional implications of alternative redistribution schemes for the proceeds of the charge. Various interpretations of the ‘polluters pay’ principle are discussed in conjunction with property rights.     

Modelling insurgent-incumbent dynamics: Vector autoregressions,multivariate Markov chains,and the nature of technological competition

The struggle between sail and steam is a long-standing theme in economic history. But this technological competition story has only partly tackled, since most studies have appreciated the rivalry between the two alternative modes of commercial sea carriage in the late 19th century while the early period has remained relatively under-analysed. This paper models the early dynamics between the two capital goods using a vector autoregression approach (VAR) and a Multivariate Markov Chain approach (MMC). We find evidence that the relationship was non-linear, with a strong indication of complementarities and cross-technology learning effects.     

The rise and fall of spatial inequalities in France: A long-run perspective

This paper studies the evolution and determinants of spatial inequalities in France. To this end, we use a unique database providing data on value-added, employment, and population over the entire set of French “Départements” in 1860, 1896, 1930, 1982, and 2000. These data cover three sectors: Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Services. Firstly, we confirm the existence of a bell-shaped process of spatial concentration in Manufacturing and Services over time. In contrast, labor productivity has been converging across departments. Secondly, we find considerable agglomeration economies over the whole period. The spatial distribution of these gains is determined mainly by market potential in the first sub-period, 1860–1930, and higher education in the second, 1930–2000.     

The Difficult but Necessary Task of Developing a Specific Project Team Research Agenda

Project teams are central to organizations everywhere; however, there is a knowledge gap between project management scholars on the one hand and organizational behavior and industrial–organizational (OB/IO) scholars on the other. This gap seriously impedes the advancement of knowledge, because scholars from both fields have not leveraged each other's considerable knowledge and might be relying on outdated models and evidence to study project team phenomena, manage project teams, or develop university curricula. A call is made for interdisciplinary research projects devoted specifically to developing a research agenda on project teams.