Estimating household willingness to pay for water services in a rural economy: The case of Kanye in southern Botswana

This study uses the contingent valuation approach to examine the relationship between selected socio-economic characteristics of households and their willingness to pay for private water connection. An iterative bidding method was used to obtain survey data from 135 households randomly selected from Kanye in southern Botswana and the ordinary least-square regression technique was used to estimate the effects of selected exogenous variables on willingness to pay. The results show that household income, level of education and employment status of the head of the household and level of consumers' awareness are the principal factors influencing willingness. This suggests that any government policy that increases these factors will increase households' willingness. In addition, because consumers' income is associated with their willingness to pay, it is suggested that policies on connection and user fees recognise income inequalities when determining the amount that households should pay.     

Estimation of location of discontinuity in a density

Here we propose a few estimators of θ, in addition to those studied in Goria (1978), the point of discontinuity of the probability density $$f(x,\theta ) = \frac{1}{{2\Gamma (\alpha )}}e^{ - |x - \theta |} |x - \theta |^{\alpha - 1} ,$$ for $$0< \alpha< 1, - \infty< x< \infty , - \infty< \theta< \infty .$$ We establish the consistency and the optimality of the Bayes and the maximum probability estimators. Despite their nice properties, these estimators are not easy to compute in this case and their effective computation depends on the knowledge of the exponent α. Hence, we propose another class of estimators, dependent upon the spacings of the observations, computable without actual knowledge of the value of α as long as it is known that α < α₀ < 1: we show that these estimators converge at the best possible rate. We further demonstrate, using a modified version of the maximum probability estimator's technique, that the tails of the density do not substantially effect their efficiency. Finally a bivariate family of densities, having a ridge dependent on the parameter θ, is considered and it is shown that this family exhibits features similar to the univariate case, and thus, the necessary modifications of the arguments of the univariate case are utilized for the estimation of θ in this bivariate example.     

Enhancing Stock Market Return with New Product Preannouncements: The Role of Information Quality and Innovativeness

To advance development and application of signaling theory in the new product preannouncement literature while seeking to resolve ambiguity regarding the influence of innovativeness on stock market return, the role of information quality is examined. Specifically, this study investigates the effect of innovativeness across low and high levels of information quality. The results, ascertained using event study methodology on a sample of 243 new product preannouncements collected over a nine‐year period, indicate that higher information quality increases the strength of the positive relationship between innovativeness and stock market return. The findings offer managers insight into what role information quality plays in new product preannouncements that can help their firms generate higher stock market return.     

Bringing science to market: commercializing from NIH SBIR awards

We offer empirical information on the correlates of commercialization activity for research projects funded through the US National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award program. Based on this analysis we suggest possible recommendations for improving this aspect of the performance of NIH's SBIR program. Specifically, we estimate a model of the probability of commercialization as a function of the project's ability to attract additional developmental funding, along with other control variables. We find that additional developmental funding from non-SBIR federal sources and from own internal sources are important predictors of commercialization success, relatively more so than additional developmental funding from venture capitalists. We also find, among other things, that university involvement in the underlying research increases the probability of commercialization. Thus, these factors should be considered by NIH when making awards, if increased commercialization is an objective.     

创业板上市公司负债融资与过度投资的相互关系

本文以中国创业板公司为研究对象,依据企业代理理论,采用联立方程组模型研究了创业板公司在非效率投资和风险特征背景下过度投资与负债融资之间的双向关系。实证结果表明,过度投资增加了企业的负债融资,而负债的增加又对企业过度投资起到了抑制作用。本文的研究为规范创业板企业投资行为,完善企业内部治理与外部债权人治理机制,优化企业融资结构等提供了理论依据。     

Upstream horizontal mergers involving a vertically integrated firm

Journal of Economics - We study upstream horizontal mergers when one of the merging parties is vertically integrated. Under observable contracting in the pre-merger case, we show that such type of...     

A trade without collective bargaining

The contract cleaning industry has hitherto managed to avoid the establishment of collective bargaining machinery. Will this situation be remedied in the light of the N.B.P.I, report, pressure from the unions concerned and the T.U.C. ?     

Stay in school or start working? — The human capital investment decision under uncertainty and irreversibility

At any moment a student may decide to leave school and enter the labor market, or to stay in the education system. The timing of their departure determines their level of academic achievement and formal qualification. Education is a multi-stage process of investing in an accumulative human capital stock. How long can I expect to go to school? How much will I invest in my education? To answer these questions we apply the real option approach. We depart from recent literature by (1) adding accumulated education costs and determining the expected time of market entry, (2) considering complete earnings profiles including entry-level wages, sheepskin effects and earning dynamics, and (3) discussing the option value of schooling while introducing potential career opportunities or threats of unemployment modeled as major uncertain events connected with particular formal education achievements.