When an Importer's Protection of IPR Interacts with an Exporter's Level of Technology: Comparing the Impacts on the Exports of the North and South

Using bilateral trade data of countries from 2000 to 2007, this paper contributes to the empirical literature on the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in global trade. The existing literature has focused on how IPRs in the destination country affect exports from a source country. In this paper, we add an additional dimension: the level of technology of the exporting country (LT). This is quite important for distinguishing the impact of IPRs on the exports of developed and developing countries, since the technology levels vary across countries at different stages of development and intellectual property rights better protect exports that are technologically advanced than exports that are imitative and potentially infringing. By factoring in the level of technology (LT), our empirical analysis makes the case that IPRs can act as a barrier to the exports from the South, especially the rapidly catching‐up economies, and thus be a source for the middle‐income trap phenomenon.     

Upfront versus staged financing: the role of verifiability

We compare upfront and staged financing to see when and how one financing policy prevails over the other. In our model, there are two moral hazard problems that interact with each other. First, the entrepreneur may pursue his own private benefit out of the raised fund in the initial period. Second, the entrepreneur may shirk on project evaluation at the refinancing stage if the project is stage-financed. When the entrepreneur's effort for project evaluation is verifiable, the project may be stage-financed even if the cost of evaluating effort exceeds the value of information (over-evaluation). When such effort is unverifiable, the project may be financed upfront even if the value of information exceeds the cost of evaluating effort (under-evaluation).     

GRANTING AN EXIT OPTION TO CONDUCT AN AUDIT

We study a principal–agent relationship with auditing in which information from an audit is ‘soft’– by conducting an audit, the principal observes the agent's private information, but cannot obtain verifiable evidence on the information. Moreover, the principal's auditing effort is unverifiable in our model. Therefore, besides the agent's misreporting incentive, there is the principal's incentive to accuse the truthful agent even without auditing. If the principal's auditing effort is verifiable, granting no exit option to the agent is optimal although the principal can still accuse a truthful agent after the audit. We show that when the principal's auditing effort is unverifiable, granting an exit option to the agent and auditing are complementary. Without granting an exit option to the agent, no auditing is optimal, and the principal grants an exit option to conduct a sincere audit, which in turn mitigates the agent's misreporting incentive. Our analysis also reveals that, when the cost of auditing is sufficiently large, the principal conducts more sincere audits with a smaller amount of penalty.     

Advertising strategy for outbound travel services

When purchasing a travel service, consumers perform multiple information searches. Depending on the accessed information and the type of media for travel service advertisements, consumers make different evaluations on the travel service. Given this context, we propose a consumer persuasion model that reveals the most effective persuasion process for consumers to make purchasing decisions on travel services. For this study, we conducted a comparative analysis to discern effectiveness and limitations between newspapers and TV infomercials; the two major media for travel service advertisements. Based on the results from the analysis, we drew some meaningful managerial implications for travel service advertising strategy.     

A nonlinear panel data model of cross-sectional dependence

This paper proposes a nonlinear panel data model which can endogenously generate both ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ cross-sectional dependence. The model’s distinguishing characteristic is that a given agent’s behaviour is influenced by an aggregation of the views or actions of those around them. The model allows for considerable flexibility in terms of the genesis of this herding or clustering type behaviour. At an econometric level, the model is shown to nest various extant dynamic panel data models. These include panel AR models, spatial models, which accommodate weak dependence only, and panel models where cross-sectional averages or factors exogenously generate strong, but not weak, cross sectional dependence. An important implication is that the appropriate model for the aggregate series becomes intrinsically nonlinear, due to the clustering behaviour, and thus requires the disaggregates to be simultaneously considered with the aggregate. We provide the associated asymptotic theory for estimation and inference. This is supplemented with Monte Carlo studies and two empirical applications which indicate the utility of our proposed model as a vehicle to model different types of cross-sectional dependence.     

Proliferating Regional Trade Arrangements: Why and Whither?

This paper investigates why regional trade arrangements (RTAs) are proliferating extensively and how the effects of multiple RTAs, by interacting with each other, evolve over time. Our empirical analysis, based on an extended gravity model utilising a large panel dataset of 175 countries from 1948 to 1999, shows that RTAs on average increase global trade by raising intra‐bloc trade without damaging extra‐bloc trade. The net trade effects, however, heavily depend on the types of RTA strategic evolution over time, which we categorise as ‘expansionary’ RTAs, ‘duplicate’ RTAs or ‘overlapping’ RTAs. We find that countries excluded from an RTA can benefit more from duplicating a separate RTA than from joining an existing RTA. This result explains why the number of bilateral trade blocs, rather than the membership size of existing RTAs, is currently exploding. We also find that the net trade‐creating effects of RTAs are substantially lower for countries participating in overlapping RTAs. This result suggests that it is less likely that the currently proliferating RTAs will completely merge and lead the world economy to global free trade. Our empirical results are robust to controlling for the characteristics of countries that may influence the impact of RTAs.     

International and intranational business cycles

This paper surveys and analyses the international real businesscycle literature. We re-explore two international business cycleanomalies emphasized by Backus, Kehoe, and Kydland (1995) aswell as establishing the pattern of productivity growth betweenindustries and countries. We then compare these findings forthe international business cycle to those obtained for databetween regions within a country - the so-called 'intranationalbusiness cycle'. Importantly, the intranational business cycleis a natural environment for thinking about the interactionsbetween economies when there are no trade frictions and whenthere are not multiple currencies. We summarize our findingswith a comparison between the stylized facts for internationaland intranational business cycles and draw some policy conclusions.     

Internet Interconnection Economic Model and its Analysis: Peering and Settlement

Peering and transit are two types of Internet interconnection among ISPs. Peering has been a core concept to sustain Internet industry. However, for the past several years, many ISPs broke their peering arrangement because of asymmetric traffic pattern and asymmetric benefit and cost from the peering. Even though traffic flows are not a good indicator of the relative benefit of an Internet interconnection between the ISPs, it is needless to say that cost is a function of traffic and the only thing that we can know for certain is inbound/outbound traffic volumes between the ISPs. In this context, we suggest Max{inbound traffic volume, outbound traffic volume} as an alternative criterion to determine the Internet settlement between ISPs and we demonstrate this rule makes ISPs easier to make a peering arrangement. In our model, the traffic volume is a function of a market share. We will show the market share decides traffic volume, which is based on the settlement between ISPs. As a result, we address the current interconnection settlement problem with knowledge of inbound and outbound traffic flows and we develop an analytical framework to explain the Internet interconnection settlement.     

Differential Effects of Strong Corporate Governance on Both Professional and Voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility Activities of the Firm

ABSTRACT

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been of interest in the past decade, but prior studies have not investigated the relationship between strong corporate governance and types of CSR activities. This study introduces the concept of professional CSR activities (which means CSR activities pursued in a formal organizational structure over a long period) and voluntary CSR activities (which means CSR activities pursued tentatively and individually) and how strong corporate governance has differential effects on the two types of CSR activities. Our empirical results show that the stronger the corporate governance is, the more professional CSR activities are encouraged.     

基于创造共享价值的互益性非营利组织物流管理模式研究

为满足顾客的需求,互益性非营利组织的物流系统需要实现前端向顾客延伸、中端服务精细化、后期延长支持性活动,并需要在物流系统中增加新的功能。在创造共享价值理念指引下建立的物流管理模式在满足以上需求的同时还实现了在物流管理理念、物流功能、物流服务以及物流流程上的创新。该模式能有效提高互益性非营利组织员工、志愿者、物流联盟等利益相关者的社会责任感、积极性和主动性,进而提高物流系统的运营效果。