Social Exchange in China: The Double-Edged Sword of Guanxi

We present two studies that examine the effects of guanxi on multiple social groups from the perspective of Chinese business people. Study 1 (N = 203) tests the difference in perceived effects of six guanxi contextualizations. Study 2 (N = 195) examines the duality of guanxi as either helpful or harmful to social groups, depending on the contextualization. Findings suggest guanxi may result in positive as well as negative outcomes for focal actors and the aggregate.     

The use of options theory to value research in the service sector

This paper examines the practicalities of applying real options theory to valuing research in the service sector, where the relationship between research and subsequent business benefit is less easily discerned than in most previous applications of options theory in, e.g. the pharmaceutical industry. The paper uses a compound options model, the Geske model, based on a three‐phase lifecycle consisting of research, development and deployment. This model was applied in a case study within the e‐commerce area to extract key messages for R&D managers relating to different value drivers. However, the case study emphasized the need to understand the relationship between the research activity and the subsequent revenue stream, and to be able to demonstrate the extent to which the former is necessary for the latter.     

Deriving utilities using the analytic hierarchy process

The analytic hierarchy process is used to derive the utilities of outcomes in a decision problem. Such utilities may be verifiable or adjusted by the familiar standard gamble procedure. For multiattribute outcomes, the methodology may be easier to employ than scoring rule procedures.     

The Influence of Financial Factors on Corporate Investment

Abstract
Recent theoretical developments have shown that cash flows and the structure of a firm's balance sheet may have an important influence on investment. Establishing a link between cash flows, leverage and investment provides insights into the way that monetary policy and cyclical factors more generally influence the corporate sector. If cash flows are an important determinant of investment then changes in monetary policy (by changing interest rates) will influence investment through a cash flow effect as well as through altering the rate at which the returns to investment are discounted. If this is the case, the higher leverage of the corporate sector implies, other things being equal, that monetary policy may have a larger impact on investment than in the past .
In this article we use panel-data analysis to examine the impact of financial factors on investment decisions of firms in the Australian corporate sector. We find strong support for the influence of financial factors on investment decisions. Leverage, internally generated cash flows, and the stock of cash and liquid financial assets are all important influences on investment behaviour, particularly for smaller firms, highly leveraged firms, and firms with high retention ratios .     

A model of banknote discounts

Prior to 1863, state-chartered banks in the United States issued notes—dollar-denominated promises to pay specie to the bearer on demand. Although these notes circulated at par locally, they usually were quoted at a discount outside the local area. These discounts varied by both the location of the bank and the location where the discount was being quoted. Further, these discounts were asymmetric across locations, meaning that the discounts quoted in location A on the notes of banks in location B generally differed from the discounts quoted in location B on the notes of banks in location A. Also, discounts generally increased when banks suspended payments on their notes. In this paper we construct a random matching model to qualitatively match these facts about banknote discounts. To attempt to account for locational differences, the model has agents that come from two distinct locations. Each location also has bankers that can issue notes. Banknotes are accepted in exchange because banks are required to produce when a banknote is presented for redemption and their past actions are public information. Overall, the model delivers predictions consistent with the behavior of discounts.     

The old versus the new institutionalism

Marianne Ferber, a 75 year old professor emerita at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has been a central figure in developing both the literature and the institutions of feminist economics. She was one of the first and most effective scholars to challenge Gary Becker's analysis of the economics of the family. Her textbook, The Economics of Women, Men and Work , co-authored with Francine Blau and Anne Winkler, is the standard for courses on women in the economy. Her 400 page annotated bibliography, Women and Work, Paid and Unpaid , published in 1987, is the definitive source on economic research on women's work published up to that point. Her anthology, Beyond Economic Man: feminist theory and economics , co-edited with Julie Nelson, is the first to pull together the exciting new work being done by people who have an explicitly feminist perspective on economics. She was a member of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession in the 1970s, a founding member of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and for 1995 and 1996 served as IAFFE's president. This interview was conducted in January 1998.     

The new views on demographic transition: a reassessment of Malthus's and Marx's approach to population

The purpose of this paper is to examine the divergence of views of Marx and Malthus regarding the family and the labour market. The paper analyses the divergences between them, as well as their common features. The main divergence is the way in which the two see the interaction between man and nature. We show that their divergence of views, and the specific difference in perception of the two thinkers regarding the place of children in the family over time, is related to the alternate ways of modelling demographic transition today. We analyse the debate between these two lines of reasoning by means of a formal model that differentiate between the two views.