Trade Credit Management and the Decision to Use Factoring: An Empirical Study

This paper examines the firm's decision to use factoring amongst a cross-sectional sample of 655 manufacturing companies using a rich firm-level database. The paper develops and tests hypotheses that explain this particular choice of credit and financial management policy. We find strong evidence of a 'financing demand' explanation for the use of factoring, and also some support for theories which relate the decision to use a factor to the firm's product characteristics, to market characteristics and to the preferences of the factor (supply constraints). The motivation to use factoring, however, appears to be related more to a demand for asset-based finance from small companies than to firm-level choices about organisational structure.     

Measuring the relative importances of social responsibility components: A decision modeling approach

In this study, a decision modeling approach is used to measure the relative importances of four social responsibility components. When given information concerning the economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic activities of 16 hypothetical organizations, 159 junior and senior management students judged the social responsibility of these firms. The study used two types of analysis: first, a within-subject regression, then a between-subject ANOVA. Results showed ethical behavior to be most important in judging social responsibility; legal behavior was second, discretionary behavior third, and economic behavior was least important. In addition, all but one rater consistently applied the social responsibility components. The implications of these results and suggestions for future research are discussed. Barbara A. Spencer is Assistant Professor of Management at Clemson University. Her current research interests include strategic management, social issues, and business ethics. She has published several articles on corporate social responsibility. John K. Butler is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Clemson University. He has published articles on job satisfaction, trust, group processes, political representation, and research methods in academic journals and proceedings.     

An Empirical Investigation of Trade Credit Demand

This paper investigates the motivations for a firm's demand for trade credit. Demand for credit is modelled as a function of transaction costs motivations, financing motivations, operational considerations, seller compliance issues and supplier marketing, whilst controlling for the firm's business environment and for firm characteristics such as size and industry. This paper builds on previous studies by considering a wider range of factors that can affect trade credit demand holistically on a single sample. It appears that the use of trade credit is widespread, and that it is generally perceived as an important short term financing option, although the availability of trade credit is not a major influence on supplier choice. The level of a firm's trade credit demand is found to be significantly influenced by transaction costs, financing, operational issues, marketing activities by suppliers, the firm's investment in trade debtors and firm size.     

Testing Alternative Hypotheses in Economic History

This paper employs a statistical technique comparing non-nested quantitative models in order to address an important problem in economic history, namely, the appropriate role of microeconomic models in historical analysis. Discussion proceeds by example. As described in the paper, three research groups have offered explantations of the shift from corn to cotton production in the post-bellum US South but because their research methods are different, it is difficult to evaluate them effectively. This paper suggests a method for comparing them. The method is based on the Neyman–Pearson likelihood ratio and proceeds by focusing on the three groups’ models of crop choice, in turn hypothesizing each model as ‘truth’, and testing all other against it. Though restrictive in its own right, this excercise suggests one data-oriented approach to all-too-common problem of model proliferation in economic history.     

Bedingungen einer neuen ökologischen Industriepolitik

Wirtschaftsdienst - Zur Erreichung der globalen Klimaziele ist eine drastische Emissionsminderung in allen Sektoren wie Energiewirtschaft, Gebäude, Verkehr und Landwirtschaft notwendig. Zudem...     

A Phillips curve interpretation of error-correction models of the wage and price dynamics

This paper presents a model of employment, distribution andinflation in which a modern error correction specification ofthe nominal wage and price dynamics (referring to claims onincome by workers and firms) occupies a prominent role. It isbrought out, explicitly, how this rather typical error-correctionsetting, which actually seems to capture the wage and pricedynamics of many large-scale econometric models quite well,is fully compatible with the notion of an old-fashioned Phillipscurve with finite slope. It is shown how the steady-state impactof various shocks to the model can be profitably conceived ofand interpreted in terms of (and to some extent even calculatedby means of) this long-run Phillips curve.