A note on the “size” of determinacy and indeterminacy

Summary. It is shown in this note that in an incomplete markets economy with uncountably many states of the world there may be uncountably many isolated equilibria as well as uncountably many non-isolated equilibria. Moreover, both subsets can be simultaneously of second category. Therefore, none of the subsets can be considered negligible with respect to the other, neither from a cardinality point of view nor from a topological one. Unfortunately, this fact prevents from claiming that these economies may have “typically” determinate equilibria – even though uncountably many of them – as would have been desirable for comparative statics exercises. Received: May 19, 1995; revised version: March 24, 1997     

Rubinstein bargaining with two-sided outside options

Summary. In this note we show that if in the standard Rubinstein model both players are allowed to leave the negotiation after a rejection, in which case they obtain a payoff of zero, then there exist a continuum of subgame-perfect equilibrium outcomes, including some which involve significant delay. We also fully characterize the case in which, upon quitting, the players can take an outside option of positive value. Received: February 27, 1996; revised version: March 28, 1997     

The New Member States and the Process towards EMU

The authors apply two complementary empirical criteria to eight new member states (NMSs) of the European Union to assess how ready they are to adopt the euro. As a first step, they recover demand and supply shocks and calculate the social losses implied by the two relevant exchange rate regimes: flexible rates and currency board. As a second step, the authors calculate the real exchange rates variability that these countries are currently experiencing and compare it to that of three Mediterranean countries during a similar period before they joined the EMU. The combination of the results of both tests shows that Estonia and Slovenia are the only countries that seem ready to adopt the euro within the shortest period of time foreseen by the Maastricht criteria; that is, after the two mandatory years in the ERM2. The rest of the countries will probably still need some exchange rate flexibility to absorb external shocks in the coming years.     

Information acquisition and financial contagion

This paper incorporates costly voluntary acquisition of information à la Nikitin and Smith (2007) [Nikitin, M., Smith, R.T., 2007. Information acquisition, coordination, and fundamentals in a financial crisis. Journal of Banking and Finance, in press, doi:10.1016/j.jbankfin.2007.04.031], in a framework similar to Allen and Gale (2000) [Allen, F., Gale, D., 2000. Financial contagion. Journal of Political Economy 108, 1–33], without relying on any unexpected shock to model contagion. In this framework, contagion and financial crises are the result of information gathering by depositors, weak fundamentals and an incomplete market structure of banks. It also shows how financial systems entering a recession can affect others with apparently stronger economic conditions (contagion). Finally, this is the first paper to investigate the effectiveness of the Contingent Credit Line procedures, introduced by the IMF at the end of the nineties, as a mechanism to prevent the propagation of crises.     

The Third Policeman: ‘The true and fair view’, language and the habitus of accounting

This paper explores the role and context of the ‘true and fair view’ (‘TFV’) in accounting and auditing. Utilising the work of Bourdieu as a lens, the paper argues that the world of the TFV is a subjective world with which we think we are objectively familiar. Bourdieu's ‘practical theory’ of habitus suggests that the TFV is shaped by the practice of ‘native virtuosos’ who have a ‘feel for the game’. The paper argues that the conceptualisation of the TFV privileges practice and authenticates the accounting habitus. Hence, whilst language maintains and reinforces social structures, it is in turn created by the routines of practice. By dominating the declaration of the TFV, the auditor effectively reinforces the status quo and the constitution of hierarchy and inequity that exists in the accounting field: the TFV, in Bourdieu's terms, ‘becomes what they are’.     

Human resource systems as antecedents of hotel industry market orientation: An empirical study in the Canary Islands, Spain

This paper studies how the different dimensions determining the human resource management system (recruiting, training, evaluation and compensation) influence the market orientation of hotels. There is also an exploratory analysis of the differences in the human resource management systems according to the following hotel classification data: star rating, size, ownership, time-share offer, type of location, customer satisfaction and profitability.     

项目的成功与优秀的项目

维修管理已经经历了一系列的重大变革。这个典型的以知识为中心的方案把维修工作提高到战略水平。与以知识为中心的战略思想相比较，公司开展的合理化工作也更加受到重视。任务对外协作、技术的加速发展、由于故障或失效造成损失的最少化，以及维修活动复杂程度的增加，这些对于维修管理领域推广以项目为导向（Projict—Oriented）的方案都作出了重要贡献。维修项目的成功与否影响整个公司的成功。对于项目的成功将介绍几种不同的解释，并将探讨确定如何判断项目成功的方法。最后综合迄今为止的研究成果，提出优秀的维修模式。     

On Combining Partial and Incompatible Information in E-negotiation and E-arbitration

The complexity of the problems to be addressed in an e-democracy framework and the variety of involved stakeholders, with different backgrounds, views and access to information sources, lead us to consider the case in which an e-negotiation should be performed among subjects who have partial, sometimes incompatible, information and can hardly gather to discuss issues together, under the supervision of a facilitator. We propose a statistical method which addresses the issue of partial and incompatible information, merging it and then using it to get a final decision, possibly in an automatic way, through processes of e-negotiation and e-arbitration.      

DOES THE IMPACT OF INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY ON ECONOMIC GROWTH DEPEND ON INITIAL INCOME LEVEL?

The aim of this paper is to determine the most adequate institutional variables to introduce into a growth model, depending on the income levels of countries. The results show that, for rich countries, the rule of law is fundamental while, for poor countries, it is control of corruption. This has important implications for any agenda of institutional reform in either type of country.