On the regulation of spatial externalities: coexistence between GM and conventional crops in the EU and the ‘newcomer principle’*

Pollen‐mediated gene flow is one of the main concerns associated with the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops. Should a premium for non‐GM varieties emerge on the market, ‘contamination’ by GM pollen would generate a revenue loss for growers of non‐GM varieties. This paper analyses the problem of pollen‐mediated gene flow as a particular type of production externality. The model, although simple, provides useful insights into coexistence policies. Following on from this and taking GM herbicide‐tolerant oilseed rape (Brassica napus) as a model crop, a Monte Carlo simulation is used to generate data and then estimate the effect of several important policy variables (including width of buffer zones and spatial aggregation) on the magnitude of the externality associated with pollen‐mediated gene flow.     

Enhancing Arthur Andersen business ethics vignettes: Group discussions using cooperative/collaborative learning techniques

Arthur Anderson & Co. has made a significant contribution to assist and encourage the teaching of business ethics. They provided assistance initially through workshops and curriculum materials; currently they are using campus coordinators to disseminate information and materials. The curriculum materials can be used by the instructor to assist students in practicing their moral reasoning skills and cover four academic areas: Accounting, Finance, Marketing, and Management. These materials include business ethics video vignettes, suggestions on presentation methods, guidelines for implementing a stakeholders' analysis approach to ethical reasoning, and possible discussion questions. The vignettes present ethical dilemmas that persons may encounter in entry level positions. We have used the vignettes, the accompanying discussion questions, and the suggested stakeholder analysis in class presentations. This paper presents a discussion of the basic concepts associated with cooperative learning, an example of the implementation of cooperative learning techniques using the Arthur Andersen Accounting Ethics Vignettes, and empirical results of the influence of these particular group discussions on the students' ethical responses. We did not attempt to measure whether the individuals' moral levels changed, but whether the group discussions stimulated any changes in the students attitudes toward the particular ethical dilemma they viewed.Lucia E. Peek is Associate Professor of Accountancy at Western Illinois University. She has published articles inAuditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, Public Personnel Management, Management Accounting, Illinois Issues, The Accounting Instructor's Report, andThe Bulletin of the Association for Business Communication.George S. Peek is Associate Professor of Accountancy at Western Illinois University. He has published articles inManagement Accounting, Kent/Bentley Journal of Computers and Accounting, The Accounting Instructor's Report, The Bulletin of the Association for Business Communication, Journal of Education for Business, andComputers in Composition.Mary Horras is Instructor of Accountancy at Western Illinois University. In 1991 she was awarded the Arthur Andersen/Richard E. Claire Faculty Development Award for Outstanding Beta Alpha Psi Faculty Advisor. She has published an article in theCollege Student Journal.     

Does ICT adoption improve access to credit for small enterprises?

Using data at the bank–firm level collected through the 9th UniCredit Survey conducted in 2012 on a large sample of small businesses, we investigate the extent to which a large international bank offers better credit conditions to enterprises that use ICT more extensively. The results, which are robust to selection and endogeneity issues, show that banks tend to grant increasing volumes of credit to such enterprises. We interpret this evidence as the ceteris paribus effect of ICT adoption by small businesses on the quality of information transmitted to banks. Another possible interpretation is that banks consider ICT adoption as a signal of firms’ willingness to innovate. We also discuss implications concerning the key role that technology plays in changing the ‘arm’s length’ versus ‘relationship’ lending paradigms.     

Deregulated Wholesale Electricity Prices in Italy: An Empirical Analysis

In this paper we analyze a time series of daily average prices in the Italian electricity market, which started to operate as a Pool in April 2004. Our objective is to model the high degree of autocorrelation and the multiple seasonalities in electricity prices. We use periodic time series models with GARCH disturbances and leptokurtic distributions and compare their performance with more classical ARMA-GARCH processes. The within-year seasonal variation is modelled using the low-frequency components of physical quantities, which are very regular throughout the sample. Our results reveal that much of the variability in the price series is explained by the interactions between deterministic multiple seasonalities. Periodic AR-GARCH models seem to perform quite well in mimicking the features of the stochastic part of the price process.