The PPP debate: Multiple breaks and cross-sectional dependence

This study implements panel unit root PPP tests accommodating level and trend breaks and cross-sectional dependence. In the presence of breaks there is evidence of a currency and price index effect. Additionally accounting for cross-sectional dependence overturns support for PPP.     

Increasing the usability and accessibility of geodynamic modelling tools to the geoscience community: UnderworldGUI

Geoscientists are faced with a number of complexities that represent obstacles to the development of realistic simulation of deep earth processes. Realistic 4D thermo-mechanical simulation using software packages like Underworld and Gale, when combined appropriately with geoscientific expertise, can lead to novel insights into the deformation of geological structures at a wide range of time and spatial scales. The challenge for end-user geoscientists lies in applying their knowledge within the framework of the software’s input specification, including initial, internal, and boundary conditions and output visualization parameters. We have built a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to remove many of the difficulties related to editing the Extensible Markup Language (XML) encoded input files of Underworld/Gale geomodels and therefore, to greatly broaden the user base of these software packages. By helping Underworld/Gale to meet a large audience, we provide a tool to the geoscience community that helps to move from untested conceptual models to physically valid, properly scaled modelling. Furthermore, the UnderworldGUI offers a mechanism for storing and retrieving experimental models in a centralised database, thus providing the geoscience community with a means to share the outcomes of its experimental research. Further details of the UnderworldGUI are available at the web site http://www.wiki.vislab.usyd.edu.au/moinwiki/UnderworldGUI.     

Can corporate social responsibility resolve the sanitation question in developing Asian countries?

The existing state of sanitation in developing Asian countries fails to deliver a level of service that is adequate for meeting the human right to a standard of living consistent with dignity and health, or for sustaining the capacity for future generations to have access to clean water resources and healthy ecosystems. We argue that translating the current neo-centralised technologies and institutional arrangements mainstreamed by industrialised countries would not resolve the problem in the context of developing countries. Instead it is necessary to ‘leap frog’ to the emerging technological and institutional arrangements that are responsive to current needs and contexts and to potential risks. The sustainability focus and often decentralised technologies of this emergent stage in sanitation present many opportunities for new actors to enter the urban sanitation industry. At the same time, there are many barriers to entry, particularly from the perspective of conventional business management focused on increasing shareholder value.We propose that perspectives from the corporate social responsibility discourse have the potential to provide both the ‘pull’ for seizing the business opportunity for profit while serving social needs, and the ‘push’ to overcome the barriers in order to serve a wider social purpose for corporations. The wealth of nations, at least as reported in ubiquitous GDP terms, has greatly increased through the activities of corporations driven by a profit motive; but the increased poverty, injustice and ecosystem degradation that have resulted from economic activity suggest that corporations perhaps ought to have regard for broader concerns beyond shareholder value. We explore how the alternative relational view of a corporation, as a metaphorical person within society who adopts a moral code consistent with both Buddhist economics and Adam Smith's philosophy, may facilitate profitable corporations that provide better economic, ecological and social outcomes in serving the need for sustainable sanitation services in developing Asian countries.     

Economic natural selection in Bertrand and Cournot settings

We study economic natural selection in classical oligopoly settings. When underlying pure strategies consist of a finite number of prices, convex monotonic dynamics always converge under a weak condition to the smallest price in the support of the initial state that exceeds marginal cost. When underlying pure strategies consist of a finite number of quantities, monotonic dynamics always converge under a specific condition to a quantity equal or similar to classical Cournot equilibrium.     

The Role of Collateral in Entrepreneurial Finance

Abstract:  Previous research has suggested collateral has the role of sorting entrepreneurs either by observed risk or by private information. In order to test these roles, this paper develops a model which incorporates a signalling process (sorting by observed risk) into the design of an incentive-compatible menu of loan contracts which works as a self-selection mechanism (sorting by private information). It then tests this Sorting by Signalling and Self-Selection Model, using the 1998 US Survey of Small Business Finances. It reports for the first time that: high type entrepreneurs are more likely to pledge collateral and pay a lower interest rate; and entrepreneurs who transfer good signals enjoy better contracts than those transferring bad signals. These findings suggest that the Sorting by Signalling and Self-Selection Model sheds more light on entrepreneurial debt finance than either the sorting-by-observed-risk or the sorting-by-private information paradigms on their own.     

Reactions to unjust dismissal and third-party dispute resolution: A justice framework

Little previous research has examined why dismissed workers view their discharge as unjust and how they respond to third-party dispute resolution interventions. This exploratory field study relied upon a justice framework to understand complainant motivations for filing unjust dismissal disputes and their reactions to a voluntary conciliation program. Analysis of archival and interview data suggested that procedural justice principles dominated both motivations for filing claims and reactions to third-party intervention. These findings were consistent with previous justice and labor relations research. Implications for future research, management practice, and third-party dispute resolution are discussed.     

Loan commitments and the management of uncertain credit demand

We provide an explanation for loan commitments unrelated to borrower creditworthiness. In our model, banks can use loan commitments to reduce uncertainty regarding their own future funding needs. Given a cost advantage to banks that can acquire such information, there exists an equilibrium demand for commitments by riskneutral firms. The purchase of the loan commitment and the choice of contract terms reveals the buyer's private information regarding future credit needs. In order to ensure the sorting of the a priori indistinguishable applicants according to their private information, we show that a usage fee applied to the commitment holder's unused credit line is necessary.     

Combine harvesting

Mix the wisdom of internal and external networks and you might just come up with brilliant and unexpected solutions to apparently intractable problems. Julian Birkinshaw and Stuart Crainer report on how Roche Diagnostics is exploring an experimental approach to harvesting bright ideas.     

Wonderment in tourism land: three tales of innovation

ABSTRACT

The paper uses an unconventional story format to report on three cases of tourism innovation, using the literary genre of nonsense to also contemplate narrative expression in academic research. Case materials principally derive from open in-depth interviews. The analysis highlights the importance of knowledge in innovation, also illuminating an important relationship to entrepreneurial passion. Notably, passionate interest inspires a learning habit that builds enabling stocks of knowledge; these knowledge stocks render the necessary technical knowledge and situational awareness to see and seize innovation opportunity. By using their vast stock of knowledge, entrepreneurs can identify needed resources and know-how and ways to fill in the gaps. In prosaic terms, this ingrained learning habit depicts a story of incremental innovation at personal scale. Use of the literary nonsense genre overtly positions narrative as a rhetorical form, inviting contemplation of alternative forms of scholarly expression. In this respect, novel forms of expression open the way to new insight into social phenomena. Polyvocality enhances our knowledge of the social world.