Theoretical motives of corporate cash holdings and political connections: firms level evidence from a developing economy

In this paper, we revisit the theoretical motives of corporate cash holdings while concentrating on the effect of political connections. In particular, we postulate two competing hypotheses for the effects that political connections can have on cash holdings: ‘substitution effect hypothesis’ and ‘complementary effect hypothesis’. Using the data on Pakistani firms over the period 2002–2010, we find that connected firms hold significantly larger cash reserves than their non-connected counterparts, thus confirming the ‘complementary hypothesis’, which suggests that agency problems lead connected firms to accumulate large amount of cash. Further, this effect is found to be more pronounced in dictatorial as opposed to democratic regimes indicating the presence of higher degrees of political patronage in that period. Finally, we also find differences in the complementary effect based on firm characteristics. Our results suggest that the firm size and leverage have increasing effects on the cash holdings of connected firms, contrary to the mainstream literature standpoint.     

Aquaculture imports from Asia: an analysis of U.S. consumer demand for select food quality attributes

The increasing share of imported food in the United States, coupled with highly publicized incidents of food contamination and adulteration in Asia, particularly China, is posing new challenges for consumers and food safety regulators. In this study, we focus on imported shrimp and tilapia, to evaluate consumer willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) for enhanced food safety, use of antibiotics, and eco‐friendly environmental practices. Results show that U.S. consumers were willing‐to‐pay more for enhanced food safety, followed by the use of no antibiotics and environmental friendly production practices. American consumers in our sample were found to have a higher WTP for domestic products and placed more trust on U.S. government verification of product attributes followed by third‐party certification.     

Comparative Research Productivity Measures for Economics Departments

The typical profit-maximization solution for the joint-production problem found in intermediate texts, managerial texts, and other texts concerned with optimal pricing is oversimplified and inconsistent with profit maximization, unless there is either no excess of any of the joint products or no costs associated with dumping. However, it is an inappropriate method of solution where excess does exist and the costs of dumping are explicitly recognized and, with respect to such cases, is at least nongeneral. The authors present a more realistic alternative method of solution, although more complex, as a substitute for the textbook method of solution typically offered.     

Tourism: The Use of Production Management Techniques

Manufacturing industry has over many decades achieved enormous improvements in productivity and the quality of goods through applying a wide range of techniques. Many of these techniques can find appropraite uses in a service industry like tourism and bring about the same beneficial effects as in manufacturing. Theresultsofa questionnaire survey to establish whether a selection of these techniques are used by hotels, travel agents and tour operators are presented. The findings indicate that the techniques listed are not generally in use, apparently mainly because of lack of knowledge.     

Managing the Managers: Japanese Management Strategies in the USA

One of the greatest difficulties Japanese multinationals have had is managing American managers in their US subsidiaries. The reason for this is fundamental and profound: Americans and Japanese conceive of management very differently and have strikingly different conceptions of themselves as managers and of correct management practice.
We do two things in this paper. First, borrowing from social psychology, we explore the idea of the 'management self'. Second, we report our research on management self-conception and style in Japanese-owned factories or 'transplants' in the USA.
The research reports the results of 34 interviews conducted with 19 US and Japanese managers in three electronics transplants. Each factory had adopted different combinations or 'hybridizations' of the management styles of the two countries. The three factories had very different characters. One was dominated by Japanese management practice, another by American practice, and the third was a hybrid of the two styles. We found four factors critical determinants of management style: the nationality of the general manager, a stated preference (or lack thereof) for bicultural management, control over the budget-setting process, and the strength of the Japanese assignees     

The Adoption of the Multi-divisional Form in Large Czech Enterprises: The Role of Economic, Institutional and Strategic Factors

In the Czech Republic and elsewhere in the region, researchers have noted the widespread adoption of the multi-divisional form (MDF) by the former state-owned enterprises. In contrast to the accepted explanations in western capitalist societies, the spread of the MDF in post-Communist economies has had little or nothing to do with growth strategies such as diversification. Developing ideas from the existing western literature, the paper examines the role of economic, institutional and strategic choice factors in three large, former state enterprises within the Czech post-Communist context. The findings suggest that all three factors are theoretically important, but neither equally nor independently so. In particular, economic factors acted as a major constraint on structural choice only under extreme conditions, while institutional factors and strategic choice are best understood as interdependent moments in a recursive process of structural enactment.     

Pattern and Determinants of United States' Intra-Industry Trade

This study identifies country and industry-level determinants of intra-industry trade and its components, vertical (VIIT) and horizontal (HIIT) intra-industry trade, in bilateral U.S. trade. Unlike studies for other countries, U.S. intra-industry trade is found to be dominated by HIIT rather than VIIT. This finding is important because HIIT tends to have relatively low factor adjustment costs relative to VIIT. Industry specialization takes place within, rather than across, product lines within the same industry. Two new variables contribute to our understanding of intra-industry trade. Country-level product differentiation and the interaction between technological innovation and foreign direct investment are found to be important determinants of both HIIT and VIIT. Distance, foreign direct investment flows, scale economies, and seller concentration affect HIIT but not VIIT. Other influences exert similar influences on components of intra-industry trade.