Spatial analysis of the U.S. lodging industry, 1963–1977

Data from the U.S. Department of Commerce Census of Business in 1963, 1972, and 1977 were compared on a state by state basis and by standard metropolitan statistical areas in order to analyze the spatial growth points of the U.S. lodging industry. The results point to major lodging growth areas in the Sunbelt states with central Florida, Las Vegas, Nevada and Hawaii as outstanding nodes of development. Metropolitan lodging growth has taken place in the Sunbelt cities with populations of 100,000 to one million, with above average growth in those cities located in the coastal zone.     

Securitization,Risk‐Taking and the Option to Change Strategy

This article models the riskiness of structured securitization deals. The deals are put together by “banks,” which can exercise strategic options over the risk put into the deals. The banks face a trade‐off between the benefits of risk‐taking now and future franchise benefits if the deal pays off. The key insight is a convex relationship between the value of the bank's equity position and the risk in the deal. Although there is a continuum of possible risk, banks choose either the highest or lowest levels of risk open to them. Changes in strategy are discontinuous and unpredictable; a history of low risk‐taking may be a prelude to increased risk‐taking later. Competition, to the extent of reducing franchise value, can lead to more risk‐taking, as can more information in the market. The model provides insights into the risk‐taking that led up to the Great Recession and to institutions that are “Too Big to Fail.”     

Why are REITS Currently So Expensive?

Over the last several years, the price of listed real estate stocks has been unusually high relative to dividends. I find that neither low interest rates nor low risk premia can account for the high valuation ratios. Lower interest rates have been offset by rising risk premia to keep expected returns close to average. Instead, the market has priced in future income growth on commercial properties far above the growth rates seen in the data. High implied growth rates are less extreme for nontraditional REIT sectors. Income growth expectations are also less extreme for international listed real estate.     

Spillovers in Space: Does Geography Matter?

Using U.S. firm level panel data we simultaneously assess the contributions to productivity of three potential sources of research and development spillovers: geographic, technological, and product market (“horizontal”). To do so, we construct new measures of geographic proximity based on the distribution of a firm's inventor locations as well as its headquarters. We find that geographic location is important for productivity, as are technology (but not product) spillovers, and that both intra and inter–regional (counties) spillovers matter. The geographic location of a firm's researchers is more important than its headquarters. These benefits may be the reason why local policy makers compete so hard for the location of local R&D labs and high tech workers.     

Portfolio performance gauging in discrete time using a Luenberger productivity indicator

This paper proposes a pragmatic, discrete time indicator to gauge the performance of portfolios over time. Integrating the shortage function (Luenberger, 1995) into a Luenberger portfolio productivity indicator (Chambers, 2002), this study estimates the changes in the relative positions of portfolios with respect to the traditional Markowitz mean-variance efficient frontier, as well as the eventual shifts of this frontier over time. Based on the analysis of local changes relative to these mean-variance and higher moment (in casu, mean-variance-skewness and mean-variance-skewness-kurtosis) frontiers, this methodology allows to neatly separate between on the one hand performance changes due to portfolio strategies and on the other hand performance changes due to the market evolution. This methodology is empirically illustrated using a mimicking portfolio approach (22 and 23) using US monthly data from January 1931 to August 2007.     

Foresight in the Brussels Capital Region

This paper presents results from the Iris Futures research project. The research was aimed at exploring the potential role of foresight in the development of the Brussels Capital Region and the identification of tools, capabilities and conditions for an improved application of foresight in Brussels. An overview was created of the characteristics of 60 future oriented activities and 120 organisations involved in such activities At the outset questions on organisational or institutional fragmentation and collaboration were not intended to be in the foreground of the research but over the course of the research this issue was observed to have a significant adverse impact on foresight capacity in Brussels. The case of the Brussels Capital Region demonstrates that institutional and organisational fragmentation need to be overcome for a futures oriented practice to have opportunity. De-fragmentation, bottom-up and institutionally, is both a condition for and an effect of the futures oriented practice underlying the foresight capacity of organisations.     

Inter-market competition for NYSE-listed securities under decimals

Blume and Goldstein (J Finance 52:221–244, 1997) suggest that quote competition between trading venues may diminish following tick size reductions. We test this suggestion by studying the competitive landscape in the NYSE-listed stocks before and after decimalization. We find that NBBO (National Best Bid and Offer) participation by non-NYSE venues declines following decimalization consistent with the prediction. At the same time, the importance of quote competitiveness in attracting order flow increases. In addition, although not as active in determining and maintaining the best quotes under decimals, non-NYSE venues become more active in price discovery. Finally, decimalization leads to lower trading costs and to smaller differences in trading costs across trading venues.     

Crisis Management Competencies

Since public networks became widespread, doubts have arisen over how to make them succeed. Scholars have traditionally addressed the issue in different ways, thus variously shedding light on the network structure, mechanisms, or managers as predictors of the network performance. The aim of our article is to explore the possibility of an interaction effect between the abovementioned factors. Our results show that there may be a relationship between network structure, mechanisms, and managers that jointly affects network performance. Therefore, important suggestions can be made about how to manage public networks successfully: (1) ensure that your network mechanisms and managerial abilities are coherent with the structure of your network; and (2) if you are in a well-established and integrated network, allow yourself some flexibility. Data were collected through a multiple case study that focused on collaboration for joint provision of home care services in Switzerland.     

Performance Implications of IJV Boards: A Contingency Perspective

This study draws from the corporate governance literature to investigate the implications of board involvement for international joint ventures (IJVs). We extend recent corporate governance research on the value of board involvement by investigating unique sources of complexity related to the nature of the IJV. We argue and find that board involvement can enhance the performance of IJVs, particularly for collaborations that are complex in nature due to their broad functional scope as well the level of market overlap between IJV parents. We complement recent research on joint venture control that has focused on the antecedents and types of control, as well as studies on formal (e.g. contractual safeguards and monitoring) and informal governance mechanisms (e.g. trust) by providing empirical evidence that IJV board involvement is valuable when directors undertake their control and coordination responsibilities. We advance corporate governance research by providing evidence that joint ventures possess several unique characteristics that shape the value of board involvement, thereby showing that applications of corporate governance theory to joint ventures are useful, but should be made with care.