Leverage and investment under a state-owned bank lending environment: Evidence from China

This study examines the relations between leverage and investment in China's listed firms, where corporate debt is principally provided by state-owned banks. We obtain three major findings. First, there is a negative relation between leverage and investment. Second, the negative relation between leverage and investment is weaker in firms with low growth opportunities and poor operating performance than in firms with high growth opportunities and good operating performance. Third, the negative relation between leverage and investment is weaker in firms with a higher level of state shareholding than in firms with a lower level of state shareholding. Overall, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the state-owned banks in China impose fewer restrictions on the capital expenditures of low growth and poorly performing firms and also firms with greater state ownership. This creates an overinvestment bias in these firms.     

To Groupon or not to Groupon: The profitability of deep discounts

We examine the profitability and implications of online discount vouchers, a relatively new marketing tool that offers consumers large discounts when they prepay for participating firms’ goods and services. Within a model of repeat experience good purchase, we examine two mechanisms whereby a discount voucher service can benefit affiliated firms: price discrimination and advertising. For vouchers to provide successful price discrimination, the valuations of consumers with access to vouchers must generally be lower than those of consumers who do not have access to vouchers. Offering vouchers tends to be more profitable for firms that are patient or relatively unknown, and for firms with low marginal costs. Extensions to our model accommodate the possibilities of firm price reoptimization and multiple voucher purchases. We find potential benefits of online discount vouchers to certain firms in certain circumstances, but vouchers are likely to increase firm profits under relatively narrow conditions.     

Assessment of the public tools used to promote R&D investment in Spanish SMEs

In this paper, we identify the potential determinants of firm R&D to understand the effectiveness of public policies. Our results suggest a considerably low impact of tax credits and public grants on the R&D investment of the Spanish manufacturing firms. Tax credits are mainly considered by large firms that use them as a reduction in the tax burden in the corporate tax, while SMEs use public grants to alleviate financial constraints. This evidence leads to discuss alternatives to the current design of the public policies analyzed.     

An empirical analysis of assortative mating in India and the U.S.

This paper uses a conditional logit model to analyze empirically how individuals sort themselves through marriage into households in India and the U.S. The results support positive assortative mating of spouses with respect to age and schooling. We find no evidence in favor of Becker's theory of labor market specialization in couples. Moreover, while similarity in age is the strongest predictor of marital choice in India, education of a prospective spouse plays a more important role in the U.S. Finally, we find that while dowry increases the likelihood of women marrying men with characteristics dissimilar to their own, availability of a mate has a positive effect on the degree of stratification in India.     

ANTI-CORRUPTION STRATEGIES IN INDONESIA

During 19992000 Indonesia pursued many anti-corruption reforms but appeared to achieve little success in reducing the level of corruption, which remained a high profile problem in all branches of government. This article summarises the reform initiatives carried out since 1998 and offers an explanation for their very limited success. Obstacles to reducing corruption in Indonesia include the economic and political constraints facing the current government and the entrenched nature of corruption. The content of the reform program itself may also contribute to the persistence of the problem. The program consists primarily of moves to introduce monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms that are external to particular government organisations. Internal reforms that aim to improve organisational self-discipline have received much less attention. The reform program may thus be inherently incomplete.     

Inequality in healthcare R&D outcomes: a model of process disruption

ABSTRACT

The developing world has substantively different healthcare research and development (R&D) needs than the developed world. In this paper it is argued that healthcare inequality is primarily an outcome of the incentives of an innovation system that privileges wealthy markets. Given the difficulties inherent in challenging these incentive structures, it might be the R&D process itself (rather than its incentive structures) that, if disrupted, may ultimately improve access to R&D outcomes for poor populations. The objective of this paper is to spur novel thinking about the problem of healthcare inequality by developing a provocative conceptual model of healthcare R&D process disruption, based on the application of novel technologies to the research process itself, to radically lower the costs of R&D. The model developed here suggests that healthcare inequality might ultimately be mitigated by substantial reductions in time and cost in the biomedical R&D process made possible by novel technologies.     

Birth-spacing,fertility and neonatal mortality in India: Dynamics,frailty, and fecundity

Using microdata on 30,000 childbirths in India and dynamic panel data models, we analyse causal effects of birth-spacing on subsequent neonatal mortality and of mortality on subsequent birth intervals, controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. Right censoring is accounted for by jointly estimating a fertility equation, identified by using data on sterilization. We find evidence of frailty, fecundity, and causal effects in both directions. Birth intervals explain only a limited share of the correlation between neonatal mortality of successive children in a family. We predict that for every neonatal death, 0.37 additional children are born, of whom 0.30 survive.     

Toward a global low carbon fuel standard

A new policy instrument, known as a low carbon fuel standard (LCFS), is a promising approach to decarbonize transportation fuels. An LCFS has several important features: it applies a lifecycle carbon intensity standard, incorporates market mechanisms by allowing credit trading and targets all transport fuels. A harmonized international framework is needed that builds on newly enacted LCFS policies adopted in California and the European Union.     

Use of conceptual models in self‐evaluation of personal competences in learning and in planning for change*

This paper demonstrates the use of conceptual modelling to assist with the competence development of adult learners with interrupted occupational and learning careers. The research introduces a self‐evaluation approach used with a group of adult female students in the United Kingdom. The study aimed at increasing learners' awareness of the qualities and nature of their individual learning processes. The paper applies Kontiainen's dynamic concept analysis modelling method as a tool to assist individual students in the evaluation of their personal competences in learning. The findings of the current study suggest that providing adult learners with opportunities to evaluate their own competences may facilitate a process of making their skills visible to themselves as well as to their tutors and employers. This aims to increase their motivation to use and develop their competences. The paper provides an example and a demonstration of the self‐evaluation process in action illustrated by two case studies.     

Emerging technologies: quantitative identification and measurement

Emerging technologies present both challenges and opportunities for national technology strategies. National governments may therefore want to monitor the technological horizon on a systematic basis. This article outlines the quantitative approaches available for such monitoring. Among the standard types of bibliometric data, proposals and publications are most likely to be useful for this purpose since they capture information earlier in the cycle of technology development. Patents, in contrast, trail behind. Analysis can proceed with keywords or citations, and algorithms are available to use the information structure inherent in these kinds of data to identify and measure emerging areas. There are limitations, however, in all the available approaches and the authors therefore recommend using them in conjunction with expert methods by focusing the qualitative assessment in particular areas.