TO ADMIT OR NOT TO ADMIT: THE QUESTION OF RESEARCH PARK SIZE

A theoretical model is used to explore the determinants of the optimum size of a private research park and the effect of university affiliation on that optimum size. Parks are assumed to operate as cooperatives where costs are equally shared among the member firms, and optimality occurs when the firms’ average net benefits are maximized. To achieve this, existing members of a park will limit the park's size, denying entry to firms who wish to join and are willing to share the costs. University affiliation may either increase or decrease the optimum size of a park.     

The Scope and Limits of a Public–Private Hybrid: Dispute Settlement under NAFTA Chapter 19

Globalisation is often depicted as having led to an increase in private authority at the expense of that of the state. It is important to correctly specify the scope that private authority has achieved and the capacity of states to push back and limit that authority. This article grounds these theoretical issues in a discussion of the hybrid, public–private dispute settlement mechanism set up in the original Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (CUSTFA), and later extended into Chapter 19 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It finds that privatising the enforcement process did make a difference. Trade experts on panels saw things differently to judges and in ways that were more sympathetic to exporters. This favoured Canadian and Mexican interests. However, the arrangement lacked deep roots. It was a late-stage compromise in trade negotiations. This rendered it vulnerable to a US counterattack once panels began to rule in favour of Canadian and Mexican challenges to US trade determinations. The transfer of quasi-judicial authority to a public–private hybrid proved contingent, partly on the hegemonic state's ongoing level of comfort with the arrangement, as well as on a lack of business consensus within the United States.     

Self-selection and variations in the laboratory measurement of other-regarding preferences across subject pools: evidence from one college student and two adult samples

We measure the other-regarding behavior in samples from three related populations in the upper Midwest of the United States: college students, non-student adults from the community surrounding the college, and adult trainee truckers in a residential training program. The use of typical experimental economics recruitment procedures made the first two groups substantially self-selected. Because the context reduced the opportunity cost of participating dramatically, 91 % of the adult trainees solicited participated, leaving little scope for self-selection in this sample. We find no differences in the elicited other-regarding preferences between the self-selected adults and the adult trainees, suggesting that selection is unlikely to bias inferences about the prevalence of other-regarding preferences among non-student adult subjects. Our data also reject the more specific hypothesis that approval-seeking subjects are the ones most likely to select into experiments. Finally, we observe a large difference between self-selected college students and self-selected adults: the students appear considerably less pro-social.     

Sovereign Geopolitics? – Uncovering the “Sovereignty Paradox”

This paper reconsiders the importance of the sovereign state in contemporary geopolitics. The role of the state in an era of globalisation and devolution is a concern that has gained considerable attention in recent geographical scholarship. What has received less attention is how the state has historically functioned as a device that conflated the linked concerns of sovereignty and territoriality. The authors argue that there exist a number of “sovereignty paradoxes” that inhibit the interdisciplinary analysis of the interrelations between sovereignty, territoriality, and state power. Thus, reconsidering sovereignty and territoriality informs both how the state emerged as an important unit of geographical analysis historically, and why the state has become such a problematic concept in contemporary geopolitics. This work has implications for understanding popular struggles over civil liberties, foreign policy, and justice for indigenous peoples.     

Breeding incentive programmes and demand for California thoroughbred racing: is there a quality/quantity tradeoff?

Both quantity of horses and quality stimulate demand for horse race gambling. This paper addresses the potential for a quantity/quality tradeoff due to breeding incentives for California thoroughbreds. Econometric analysis is used to assess the demand for quality and quantity of horses, and results suggest the likely net benefit of breeding incentives on the industry at large.     

Body Image and Beliefs About Appearance: Constraints on the Leisure of College-Age and Middle-Age Women

Reducing adolescent substance use is important in South Africa, a developing nation with increasing adolescent substance use, lack of leisure/recreation opportunities, and high rates of adolescent discretionary time. Previous research suggests leisure boredom and adolescent substance use co-occur in this setting. Using longitudinal data from 2,580 South African adolescents as they progressed from the 8th to 11th grade, the current study disentangles the associations of trait and state leisure boredom with substance use, and examines how ability to restructure boring situations moderates those associations. On average, individuals with higher trait boredom used more substances, and on occasions when state boredom was high, the prototypical adolescent used more substances. Although restructuring did not moderate these associations, greater ability was associated with lower substance use independent of leisure boredom. Findings illustrated the importance of considering how trait and state aspects of leisure may contribute to adolescents’ risk behavior and addressed through preventive intervention.     

The role of corporates in creating sustainable Olympic legacies

Abstract

The Olympic Games is a major stimulus for increased tourism. In recent years, there have been greater calls for this and other mega-events to leave sustainable positive legacies for the host city, partly to offset the massive cost of hosting. To date, little consideration has been afforded to the role corporates might play in contributing to event legacies. This gap is compounded by the lack of research examining stakeholder engagement in legacy planning more generally. This paper adopts Holmes, Hughes, Mair and Carlsen’s (2015) sustainable event legacy timeline to conceptualise how corporates through the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives of sponsorship and employee volunteering can engage across the Olympic event planning cycle to generate volunteering legacies. Drawing upon a comparative study of the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olympic Games, tentative evidence of corporate engagement was noted but for the most part it was fragmented and CSR initiatives primarily focused on the immediate planning and delivery stages of the event cycle. The paper advances new knowledge of how volunteering legacies can be generated through the best practice engagement of corporates as key stakeholders involved in legacy planning and governance across the Olympic planning cycle.     

Institutional block-holdings of UK firms: do corporate governance mechanisms matter?

Using a sample of UK firms, we find that institutional block-holding is negatively associated with directors’ ownership and is positively associated with board composition, suggesting that institutional block-holders regard directors’ ownership and board composition as substitute and complementary control mechanisms, respectively. We also show that UK institutional block-holders prefer smaller firms and firms with a shorter listing history. The presence of institutional block-holders is associated with smaller boards and lower trading liquidity. Finally, our results indicate that the investment preference of UK institutional block-holders varies with the level of their shareholding.     

The changing and relative efficiency of European emerging stock markets

The martingale hypothesis is tested for 15 European emerging stock markets located in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Russia, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Turkey and the Ukraine. For comparative purposes, the developed stock markets in Greece, Portugal and the UK are also included. Rolling window variance ratio tests based on returns and signs and with wild bootstrapped p-values are used with daily data over the period beginning in February 2000 and ending in December 2009. The fixed-length rolling sub-period window captures changes in efficiency and is used to identify events which coincide with departures from weak-form efficiency and to rank markets by relative efficiency. Overall, return predictability varies widely. The most efficient are the Turkish, UK, Hungarian and Polish markets; the least efficient are the Ukrainian, Maltese and Estonian stock markets. The global financial market crisis of 2007–2008 coincides with return predictability in the Croatian, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovakian and UK stock markets. However, not all markets were affected: the crisis had little effect on weak-form efficiency in stock markets located in Greece, Latvia, Romania, Russia and Turkey.