EXPLOITING AN ADVANTAGE--DECLINING AN ADVANTAGE

Within the context of the study, a firm is said to have an advantageover another if it obtains more customers given they both chargethe same price. Further, consumer switching costs imply thelarger the difference in the prices charged by the two firmsthe greater the proportion of consumers who switch from thehigher-priced firm to the lower-priced one. The Nash equilibriumto the price-posting game is characterized The firm with theadvantage charges a higher price Finally, it is shown that ifone firm can freely choose to have an advantage, it will rejectit. This follows as the greater the advantage, the smaller theequilibrium profits to both firms.     

An Experimental Study of Bond Market Pricing

An important feature of bond markets is the relationship between the initial public offering (IPO) price and the probability that the issuer defaults. On the one hand, the default probability affects the IPO price; on the other hand, the IPO price affects the default probability. It is a priori unclear whether agents can competitively price such assets. Our paper is the first to explore this question. To do so, we use laboratory experiments. We develop two flexible bond market models that are easily implemented in the laboratory. We find that subjects learn to price the bonds well after only a few repetitions.     

EXTREME VALUE AT RISK: A SCENARIO FOR RISK MANAGEMENT

This paper uses the generalised extreme value (GEV) distribution to model the extreme losses that are likely to occur during market crashes, in the case of an investor who has long positions in stocks and currencies. The null hypothesis – which tests for normality of asset returns – is rejected due to asymmetry of these returns. We assume that the asymmetric behaviour and volatility of the returns are captured by the shape and scale parameters, respectively, of a GEV distribution. The data set includes stock indices for the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and South Africa, and the South African rand exchange rates against the US dollar observed from 3 January 2005 to 30 December 2009. In addition, we divide this sample period into two periods: the pre‐crisis period, from 3 January 2005 to 31 December 2007 and the crisis period, from 1 January 2008 to 30 December 2009. We compared the estimates of value at risk (VaR) using an extreme value theory (EVT) model, with the estimates derived from the traditional variance–covariance method and found that during the crisis the 99% extreme VaR estimates are more reliable as they lie within the Basel II green zone. These results suggest that, at higher quintiles, the VaR estimates based on EVT are reliable and more accurate than estimates from the traditional method.     

Employment Opportunities for Consumer Affairs Professionals

This analysis of consumer affairs professionals in business and government describes what functions they perform, where they are employed, what education and experience is required and what their salaries are. Professional educators in the consumer field have generally ignored the career field of consumer affairs professional. Colleges and universities train consumer majors to be educators, researchers, or extension workers, but little attention is paid to the education of consumer affairs professionals for business and government. This article not only attempts to give educators in the consumer field a greater awareness of this relatively new career so that they can develop educational programs more intelligently but also attempts to make business and government more aware of what is being done in this area so they may be able to utilize the talents of consumer affairs professionals.     

Investor behaviour in a nascent capital market: Scottish bank shareholders in the nineteenth century

This article uses the records of nineteenth‐century Scottish banks in an attempt to understand investor behaviour in the early British capital market. It presents four main findings, some of which do not conform to the basic assumptions of standard asset pricing theories. First, in an era when efficient portfolio diversification was not possible, the intrinsic risk of an equity security was an important input into investor decision‐making. Second, our evidence suggests that businesspeople initially regarded bank stock as a consumption good, as being a stockholder gave them privileged access to bank finance. When bank lending practices changed in the middle of the century, this access‐to‐credit advantage associated with owning bank stock largely disappeared. Third, investors typically exhibited a bias towards banks that conducted business in the areas where they resided. Fourth, a sizeable proportion of investors were stockholders in more than one bank.     

Substitutes for legal protection: corporate governance and dividends in Victorian Britain1

Companies in Victorian Britain operated in a laissez‐faire legal environment from the perspective of outside investors, implying that such investors were not protected by the legal system. This article seeks to identify the alternative mechanisms that outside shareholders used to protect themselves by examining the dividend policy and governance of over 800 publicly traded companies at the beginning of the 1880s. We assess the importance of these mechanisms by estimating their impact on Tobin's Q. Our evidence suggests that dividends and well‐structured and incentivized boards of directors may have played a role in protecting the interests of outside investors.     

A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF THE COMPETITIVE POSITIONS AND ENTRY PATHS OF EUROPEAN FIRMS IN THE U.S. PHARMACEUTICAL MARKET

This paper combines the statistical insights of dynamic strategic group analysis with the qualitative richness of historical analysis to explore the modes of entry, expansion paths, and competitive postures of European firms in the U.S. pharmaceutical market. Patterns of entry and market development over a 20-year period are analyzed. The roles of strategic assets and competencies in determining both the entry strategy and the final competitive posture of these firms in the U.S. market are discussed.     

FOREIGN ENTRY,CULTURAL BARRIERS,AND LEARNING

This paper examines the longevity of foreign entries. Hypotheses are developed on the mode (start-ups vs. acquisitions) and ownership structure (wholly owned vs. joint ventures) in relation to cultural distance. The hypotheses are tested within a framework of organizational learning, using data on 225 entries that 13 Dutch firms carried out from 1966 onwards. Results show that the presence of cultural barriers punctuates an organization's learning. Cultural distance is a prominent factor in foreign entry whenever this involves another firm, requiring the firm to engage in ‘double layered acculturation.’ We also identify locational ‘paths of learning.’ The longevity of acquisitions is positively influenced by prior entries of the firm in the same country. Similarly, the longevity of foreign entries, in which the firm has a majority stake, improves whenever the expanding firm engaged in prior entries in the same country and in other countries in the same cultural block.