A Graphical Examination of an Importer/Exporter Oligopoly Trade Model

Market power considerations in international trade have income distribution effects among countries that can influence the position a country takes with respect to trade negotiations. Since models that examine a single country mask these distributional effects, it is important to consider more than one country in trade models. While the contribution of this paper is largely to the pedagogical foundation of agricultural economics in showing how models with two countries can be analyzed graphically — thereby opening this part of the literature up to a wider audience — the analysis also reinforces a point that is missed in models focusing on a single country. By showing under what conditions a country may prefer to use domestic policies even when this causes other countries to retaliate, the paper high-lights one of the factors likely to be important in determining the success of international trading arrangements such as GATT.     

Is There a Trade‐Off Between Inflation Variability and Output‐Gap Variability in the EMU Countries?

This paper examines the performance of monetary policy in eleven EMU countries for the whole period of the EMS. This is based on the trade‐off between inflation variability and output‐gap variability. To this end, we examine whether the introduction of an implicit inflation targeting by the EMU member countries after the Maastricht Treaty, changed the trade‐off between inflation variability and output‐gap variability. We employ a stochastic volatility model for two sub‐periods of the EMS (i.e. before and after the Maastricht Treaty). We find that the trade‐off varies amongst EMU countries. The implication of these findings is that there are asymmetries in the euro area, due to different economic structures among the member countries of the EMU.     

VaR without correlations for portfolios of derivative securities

We propose filtering historical simulation by GARCH processes to model the future distribution of assets and swap values. Options’ price changes are computed by full reevaluation on the changing prices of underlying assets. Our methodology takes implicitly into account assets’ correlations without restricting their values over time or computing them explicitly. VaR values for portfolios of derivative securities are obtained without linearising them. Historical simulation assigns equal probability to past returns, neglecting current market conditions. Our methodology is a refinement of historical simulation. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 583–602, 1999     

Effects of Non‐Farm Employment on Rural Income Inequality in Developing Countries: An Investment Perspective

This paper makes several points based on a review of household survey evidence from Africa, Asia and Latin America. (i) In contrast to conventional wisdom, the evidence is very mixed as to the effect of non‐farm employment on rural income inequality. The non‐farm employment and microenterprise programmes now in vogue will not necessarily resolve rural income inequality problems and attendant social tensions nor automatically benefit the poor. (ii) Policymakers should be worried by substantial evidence of poor people's inability to overcome important entry barriers to many non‐farm activities. (iii) The main determinants of unequal access to non‐farm activities are the distribution of capacity to make investments in non‐farm assets and the relative scarcity of low capital entry barrier activities. Therefore, it is crucial for public investments and policy to favour an increase in the access of the poor to assets that allow them to overcome non‐farm employment entry barriers, (iv) It would be an error to assume that one can address asset‐poverty and inequality in the non‐farm sector without addressing farm‐side problems and vice versa.     

Innovation and integration in the agri-food industry

We deal with the link between innovation and market structure using the empirical example of the Danish agri-food industry. Vertical integration may resolve hold-up problems and here we test for the importance of vertical integration and networks on innovation. We further examine the effects of network relationships on innovation behaviour. We use data from an extensive survey of 444 Danish firms over two years, 2000 and 2005 to estimate a bootstrapped zero-inflated Poisson regression model. The first and most significant result is that organization matters. Further we find that vertical integration as well as contractual arrangements are significant determinants for firms’ innovation behaviour. The direction of integration is important as well. Also, economies of size seem to play an important role. Similarly, the export orientation of the firm is a significant determinant of innovation whereas the sector the firm is operating in is not significant for its innovation behaviour.     

Adjusting to skill shortages in Australian SMEs

Skill shortages are often portrayed as a major problem for advanced economies, yet there is surprisingly little empirical evidence about how firms adjust to skill shortages and their associated effects on firm performance. This article provides new evidence from the Business Longitudinal Database, an Australian data set with unusually rich information on the causes and consequences of skill shortages in small- and medium-sized enterprises. We document the range of alternative strategies that firms adopt when responding to skill shortages and show that certain types of adaptation are used in some cases and not in others, depending on the type of shortage encountered and other attributes of the firm. Further, we show that certain types of skill shortage are more likely to be long-lasting and difficult to resolve, while others are alleviated relatively quickly with minimal adjustment. Our findings yield lessons for the skill utilization strategies of firms and for the labour market policies of governments.     

Volunteer tourism: at the crossroads of commercialisation and service?

Volunteer tourism as a phenomenon and as a market has come a long way since its ideologically driven early days. It is now an established and ever commercialised market that meets the demand for a different travel experience for the more morally conscious traveller, while at the same time it provides opportunities for economic gain for the organisations that act as brokers of such experiences. This interaction raises several ethical issues in terms of serving a mission while making economic gains. In general, there is an acceptable relationship between monetary gain and altruistic service, within the context of enlightened self-interest provided that the beneficiary of economic gains diverts profits into serving their mission. This paper examines the supply for volunteer tourism for evidence of commercialisation and profit-driven behaviour and investigates a relationship between monetary gain and serving a mission by creating public goods.     

Challenges and directions in knowledge asset trading

This paper addresses the area that is at the intersection of knowledge management and electronic commerce. This area refers to the exchange and trade of explicit and implicit knowledge at an inter‐organizational level. Electronic knowledge marketplaces are currently emerging to address the opportunities and risks found in the purchase and selling of knowledge in the business‐to‐business (B2B) environment, the need for supporting long‐lasting relationships of knowledge exchange and the requirement for facilitating virtual community contexts where knowledge seekers can find suitable knowledge providers and knowledge providers can advertise and sell their available knowledge. The paper describes the business challenges associated with the design of an Internet‐based knowledge marketplace. INKASS, a European IST project, has stimulated this work and has provided real‐life verification on the arguments raised and on the positions adopted herein. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.