Markets for knowledge: problems,scope, and economic implications

This article aims at developing an analytical framework in order to highlight the significance of the markets for knowledge. The empirical evidence provides the basis for analysing diverse governance mechanisms in high tech sectors. Increasing specialisation of knowledge production is pointed out from biotechnology and semiconductor industry. Next, the running of the markets for knowledge leads to appreciate the role of KIBSF in traditional services and new-technology based services. Finally, the behaviours of knowledge producers is linked to various tradeoffs they encounter.     

Short note for paper published in Issue 2, Volume 9: ‘Characteristics and risk factors for accidental injury in Canada 1986-1996 …’

This paper addresses two observational studies, of the use of a blender and a chip pan, and a study of the accident statistics regarding these two types of products. The aim is to understand risk in product use and the process of risk perception as displayed by product users. Consideration is given to the way information from both observational studies and accident statistics can support design in order to improve the safety of product users.     

Strategic management of intangible assets and value drivers in R&D organizations

This paper takes a resource-based view of the R&D process. Based on the literature, we forward a theory that allows us to predict the dynamic interaction and transformation of five key resources, namely human, relational, organizational, monetary, and physical. Utilizing visualization tools allows us to test this theory on various levels in order to draw insights from the data. The output of the analysis improves the strategic understanding of an organization. In particular, it improves the understanding of how intangible resources drive the value creation in an R&D organization. Further analysis of the data allows us to identify resources that are either under utilized or over utilized, which might indicate inefficiencies in the organizational performance.     

Zooming in VS zooming out on value co-creation: Consequences for BtoB research

The concept of value co-creation is now taken for granted in the marketing community. It is the result of what we consider as a premature closure of this concept. The aim of this article is to prevent this premature closure by confronting what this discipline has produced thus far in order to highlight the breadth of situations that this concept presumes to encompass. To achieve this, we analyze a selection of articles published in special issues of marketing journals that were dedicated to value co-creation and/or service dominant logic. This sample enables us to point to the risks of being locked into a zoom-out approach to economic exchange: an arbitrary reduction of the vast heterogeneity of exchange phenomena and an inability to account for the complexity of these phenomena. Because value co-creation is a conception that is in conflict with the zoom-in approach to exchange phenomena, our intent is to conduct a healthy rebalancing of perspectives on economic exchange and thereby keep the controversy alive.     

The role of trading intensity estimating the implicit bid–ask spread and determining transitory effects

In this paper, we investigate the information content of trading intensity applying the Madhavan, Richardson and Roomans (1997) structural model to express trading intensity as trading momentum in duration and volume. Using both transactions and intraday data from the Helsinki Stock Exchange Limit Order Bookmarket, we find that momentum in duration and volume enhances the information effect. We reach this conclusion based on the parametric effect determined by the sign and the magnitude of the coefficients associated with the trading intensity variables, the trading effect determined by the ratio of transitory effects to permanent effects, and the economic effect determined by the size of the implicit bid–ask spread. While we find that the implicit bid–ask spread and transitory effects are decreasing toward the end of the trading day in consistency with information models in the literature, there is a surge of trades at the market close, most probably due to information uncertainty at market opening in New York.     

Modelling long-run equilibrium exchange rate in Botswana

The paper estimates the equilibrium real exchange rate for Botswana. It also reviews the country’s exchange rate regimes. Botswana operated a fixed exchange – without adjustable pegs from 1966 to 1976; with adjustable pegs from 1976 to 1980; and with a currency basket from 1980 to date. Using the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing procedure, the paper found terms of trade and trade openness to determine the equilibrium real exchange rate. The actual real exchange rate has deviated significantly from the equilibrium exchange rate. The estimated speed of adjustment is very slow, which calls for policies that could raise it in order to avoid excess misalignments.     

Risk bounds for factor models

Recent literature has investigated the risk aggregation of a portfolio \(X=(X_{i})_{1\leq i\leq n}\) under the sole assumption that the marginal distributions of the risks \(X_{i} \) are specified, but not their dependence structure. There exists a range of possible values for any risk measure of \(S=\sum_{i=1}^{n}X_{i}\), and the dependence uncertainty spread, as measured by the difference between the upper and the lower bound on these values, is typically very wide. Obtaining bounds that are more practically useful requires additional information on dependence.Here, we study a partially specified factor model in which each risk \(X_{i}\) has a known joint distribution with the common risk factor \(Z\), but we dispense with the conditional independence assumption that is typically made in fully specified factor models. We derive easy-to-compute bounds on risk measures such as Value-at-Risk (\(\mathrm{VaR}\)) and law-invariant convex risk measures (e.g. Tail Value-at-Risk (\(\mathrm{TVaR}\))) and demonstrate their asymptotic sharpness. We show that the dependence uncertainty spread is typically reduced substantially and that, contrary to the case in which only marginal information is used, it is not necessarily larger for \(\mathrm{VaR}\) than for \(\mathrm{TVaR}\).     

Revisiting the European Asset Management Industry

During the last decade, the European asset management industry has undergone a period of unprecedented change. Europe has witnessed ten years of financial integration, driven in particular by various regulatory initiatives. But Europe has also been transformed in the geopolitical sense, with 12 new Member States and millions of new citizens of the European Union. Add to that a decade of rapid globalization and one financial crisis of historical proportions. But while Europe and its financial markets have evolved and the asset management industry has transformed itself, academic research has not kept pace. During the last ten years or so, the lack of systematic research on the structural dimensions of the asset management industry is striking. This article fills this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of the European asset management industry at the end of the first decade of the 21^st century. We seek to provide explanations to the various differences observed between European countries. Using prior research as a basis, we also compare the characteristics of the industry to their standing at the turn of the century. This also includes assessing whether and to what extent the forecasts provided in prior research did materialize. We also try to find reasons for cases in which they did not. Finally, we ourselves offer a number of prognoses on the development of the European asset management over the coming years.     

Dynamic preferences for popular investment strategies in pension funds

In this paper, we characterize dynamic investment strategies that are consistent with the expected utility setting and more generally with the forward utility setting. Two popular dynamic strategies in the pension funds industry are used to illustrate our results: a constant proportion portfolio insurance (CPPI) strategy and a life-cycle strategy. For the CPPI strategy, we are able to infer preferences of the pension fund’s manager from her investment strategy, and to exhibit the specific expected utility maximization that makes this strategy optimal at any given time horizon. In the Black–Scholes market with deterministic parameters, we are able to show that traditional life-cycle funds are not optimal to any expected utility maximizers. We also prove that a CPPI strategy is optimal for a fund manager with HARA utility function, while an investor with a SAHARA utility function will choose a time-decreasing allocation to risky assets in the same spirit as the life-cycle funds strategy. Finally, we suggest how to modify these strategies if the financial market follows a more general diffusion process than in the Black–Scholes market.