Postwar Japanese Cotton Textile Investment in Brazil, 1955-1980

The literature suggests that cotton textiles should be unattractivefor foreign direct investment (FDI). The product is largelyundifferentiated; sellers need an intimate knowledge of localmarkets; and textiles use process technology, which multinationalfirms cannot monopolize. Indeed, since the 1970s, cotton textileshas been one of the few industries in Brazil in which localcapital dominates, joint ventures prevail, and American firmsare almost completely absent. Yet, between 1955 and the mid-1970s,Brazil saw significant foreign direct investment in textilesfrom Japanese firms. There were two successive waves of Japaneseinvestment in the Brazilian cotton textile industry. The firstran from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. The second took placefrom the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Four Japanese textilefirms participated in the first wave—Kanebo, Toyobo, Tsuzuki,and Unitika. Four more—Daiwa, Kurabo, Nisshinbo, and Omi—participatedin the second wave.     

Aggregate Matching Efficiency: A Stochastic Production Frontier Approach, France 1990–1994

We evaluate the determinants of aggregate matching efficiencychanges through a stochastic translog production frontiermodel. The efficiency coefficient is represented by a stochasticfunction of variables meant to capture workers and firmscharacteristics. The model is estimated on French data coveringtwenty-two regions from March 1990 till February 1995. Ourestimates suggest that aggregate matching efficiency has decreasedsteadily in the early nineties. There are also wide cross-regionaldifferences. On average, about 30% of the variations ofefficiency observed across time and regions can be related tochanges in the explanatory variables used in the model. The mostimportant explanatory variables are the proportion of youngsters,females and immigrants in the stock of job seekers. Long-termunemployment has a significant negative effect, population densitya significant positive one. The huge decline in the proportion ofpermanent job offers has apparently little effect on matchingefficiency.     

Partner selection and governance design in interfirm relationships

This paper develops a structural model to simultaneously analyze firms’ partner selection activities and governance design for managing interfirm relationships. The model predicts these choices to be influenced by appropriation concerns, coordination requirements, dependence and prior experiences with the exchange partner. An analysis of 817 information technology transactions shows that appropriation concerns, coordination requirements and dependence influence governance design, while buyers’ partner selection effort relates mainly to appropriation concerns. Partner experience developed during prior ties with the exchange partner is found to moderate the effects of these control problems. In addition, partner selection and formal governance are found to be used as complements instead of substitutes in coping with interfirm control problems.     

Risk taking in the domain of losses: experiments in several countries

This paper presents an experimental investigation of risk taking in the domain of losses. The experiments were conducted with students in several universities whilst introducing the rudiments of expected utility theory and risk behaviour. The results are partly compatible with expected utility theory, assuming an inflection point in the utility function over losses. They also show similarities in the risk perception of students across different countries, i.e. a useful validation of human behaviour in an international context.     

Structural differentiation and corporate venturing: The moderating role of formal and informal integration mechanisms

Research has suggested that corporate venturing is crucial to strategic renewal and firm performance, yet scholars still debate the appropriate organizational configurations to facilitate the creation of new businesses in existing organizations. Our study investigates the effectiveness of combining structural differentiation with formal and informal organizational as well as top management team integration mechanisms in establishing an appropriate context for venturing activities. Our findings suggest that structural differentiation has a positive effect on corporate venturing. In addition, our study indicates that a shared vision has a positive effect on venturing in a structurally differentiated context. Socially integrated senior teams and cross-functional interfaces, however, are ineffective integration mechanisms for establishing linkages across differentiated units and for successfully pursuing corporate venturing.     

What Does Behavioral Economics Mean for Policy? Challenges to Savings and Health Policies in the Netherlands

Key findings in behavioral economics are that people’s behavior (revealed preferences) is often not in line with their intentions (normative preferences), that they are sensitive to the way choices are presented to them, and that their cognitive abilities are limited. This is manifest in particular in areas of intertemporal choice, like personal finance and health-related behavior. Policy makers can develop policies that help citizens to make choices that are more in line with their normative preferences. In this paper we summarize the behavioral evidence, discuss the motivations for interventions, and show how recent behavioral insights can help to improve upon existing policies. These new policies could be described as libertarian paternalism, and include setting defaults thoughtfully and using unorthodox commitment mechanisms.     

The theory of rational random behavior and its application to demand analysis

The author's theory of rational random behavior is developed, which distinguishes between the planning and the implementation stage of the decision-maker. Under the assumption of a quadratic loss function and decision variables with an unrestricted range, that theory implies normally distributed disturbances of behavioral equations with a covariance matrix that is known up to a scalar multiple. Those results have to be extended asymptotically by Barbosa for restricted decision variables and a more general loss function. The approach is applied to both the Rotterdam and the linear expenditure demand models: using U.S. postwar data for the former, the author finds that a likelihood ratio test accepts the theory at the 10 percent significance level.     

International Evidence on the Value of Corporate Diversification

The valuation effect of diversification is examined for large samples of firms in Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom for 1992 and 1994. We find no significant diversification discount in Germany, but a significant diversification discount of 10 percent in Japan and 15 percent in the U.K. Concentrated ownership in the hands of insiders enhances the valuation effect of diversification in Germany, but not in Japan or the U.K. For Japan, only firms with strong links to an industrial group have a diversification discount. These findings suggest that international differences in corporate governance affect the impact of diversification on shareholder wealth.     

A differential approach to input-output analysis

The differential production theory approach is applied to input-output analysis under the assumption that each industrial sector behaves as a homothetic cost-minimizing firm. This yields substitution terms which take a simple form under input independence.     

Equicorrelated substitutes and Nasse's extension of the linear expenditure system

Nasse's (1970) model can be used to provide an easily implementable approximation of the equicorrelated-substitutes model. The preference independence transformation based on this approximation is also considered.