Impacts of Market Reform on Spatial Volatility of Maize Prices in Tanzania

Maize is one of the major staples and cash crops for many Tanzanians. Excessive volatility of maize prices destabilises farm income in maize‐growing regions and is likely to jeopardise nutrition and investment in many poor rural communities. This study investigates whether market reform policies in Tanzania have increased the volatility of maize prices, and identifies regional characteristics that can be attributed to the spatial price volatility. To achieve the objectives, an autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity in mean (ARCH‐M) model is developed and estimated in this study. Results show that the reforms have increased farm‐gate prices and overall price volatility. Maize prices are lower in surplus and less developed regions than those in deficit and developed regions. Results also show that the developed and maize‐deficit regions, and regions bordering other countries have experienced less volatile prices than less developed, maize‐surplus and non‐bordering regions. Our findings indicate that investments in communication and transportation infrastructures from government and donor countries are likely to increase inter‐regional and international trade, thereby reducing the spatial price volatility in Tanzanian maize prices in the long run.     

Working time flexibility components and working time regimes in Europe: using company-level data across 21 countries

Working time flexibility comprises a wide variety of arrangements, from part-time, overtime, to long-term leaves. Theoretical approaches to grouping these arrangements have been developed, but empirical underpinnings are rare. This article investigates the bundles that can be found for various flexible working time arrangements, using the Establishment Survey on Working Time and Work–Life Balance, 2004/2005, covering 21 EU member states and 13 industries. The results from the factor analyses confirmed that working time arrangements can be grouped into two bundles, one for the employee-centred arrangements and second for the employer-centred arrangements, and that these two bundles are separate dimensions. We also tested the stability of the factor analysis outcome, showing that although we find some deviations from the pan-Europe and pan-industry outcome, the naming of the components as flexibility for employees and flexibility for employers can be considered rather stable. Lastly, we find three country clusters for the 21 European countries using the bundle approach. The first group includes the Northern European countries along side Poland and Czech Republic, the second group the continental European countries with UK and Ireland, and lastly, the southern European countries with Hungary and Slovenia.     

Markets, Culture and Institutions: The Emergence of Large Business Groups in Taiwan, 1950s–1970s

Business groups are a special type of enterprise system existing in almost every market economy. Member firms do not operate as isolated units in the markets but have institutionalized relationships with each other and work coherently as an entity. Groups play a central role in economies in which they operate. For Taiwan, the largest 100 groups produced one third of the GNP in the past 20 years. Why does this organizational form exist in the first place? This paper reviews three relevant theories, market‐centred theories, culturalist perspective, and the institutional approach, and employs the data of 150 Taiwanese groups for the answer. The market‐centred theories and the institutional arguments are examined statistically and the latter is supported by the data. Following this evidence, the Boolean comparison of group firms with non‐group firms confirms that lacking a coherent core in ownership and management makes firms unable to respond to institutional incentives promptly. Finally, the structure of family ownership network in business groups refutes the cultural perspective which argues that the equal inheritance pattern of family property drives entrepreneurs to establish separate firms rather than single hierarchies. While both markets and culture play a distinct part in the story, it is regulatory institutions that lead to group formation.     

The equivalence of supporting software delegation and sales delegation

This paper considers a duopoly market with horizontally differentiated system goods to examine system owners' behaviors under supporting software delegation, in which owners of system firms use varieties of supporting software, coupled with profit, to evaluate their managers' performance. Supporting software delegation seems to induce managers to act more aggressively in price competition than sales delegation does; however, we prove that if two systems are compatible and the varieties of supporting software are determined by hardware owners' overall expenditure amount on software, then supporting software delegation is equivalent to sales delegation. Owners of system firms induce their managers to act less aggressively in hardware price competition by offering contracts with a negative weight on varieties of supporting software under supporting software delegation. We find that stronger network externalities do not reverse system owners' contracting behaviors under supporting software delegation. Finally, it is worth mentioning that hardware technologies are static in this paper. In other words, dynamic changes such as hardware evolution are not considered in our analysis.     

American option valuation under stochastic interest rates

By applying Ho, Stapleton and Subrahmanyam's (1997, hereafter HSS) generalised Geske–Johnson (1984, hereafter GJ) method, this paper provides analytic solutions for the valuation and hedging of American options in a stochastic interest rate economy. The proposed method simplifies HSS's three-dimensional solution to a one-dimensional solution. The simulations verify that the proposed method is more efficient and accurate than the HSS (1997) method. We illustrate how the price, the delta, and the rho of an American option vary between the stochastic and non-stochastic interest rate models. The magnitude of this effect depends on the moneyness of the option, interest rates, volatilities of the underlying asset price and the bond price, as well as the correlation between them. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On the Existence of Stable Roommate Matchings

This paper identifies a condition called “no odd rings” that is sufficient for the existence of stable roommate matchings in the weak preferences case. It shows that the process of allowing randomly chosen blocking pairs to match converges to a stable roommate matching with probability one as long as there are no odd rings. This random-paths-to-stability result generalizes that of Roth and Vande Vate (1990, Econometrica58, 1475–1480) and may not hold if there are odd rings. The “no odd rings” condition can also be used to prove a number of other sufficient conditions that are more economically interpretable. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C78, D71.     

Culture and consumption expenditure patterns: comparison between Korean and United States households

Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify household consumption expenditure patterns in the US and to determine if these patterns are different from those of Korean households. Data were cluster analysed, and the results revealed four different consumption expenditure patterns for US and Korean households. Logit analysis showed that consumption expenditure patterns of households in both countries are likely to vary depending on socioeconomic factors. Similarities and differences in consumption expenditure patterns between cultures are discussed, and implications are provided.     

The pattern of non-tariff obstacles to international market access

Zusammenfassung Die Struktur nicht-tarif?rer Handelshemmnisse auf den Zutritt zum Weltmarkt. — Die Diskussionen über internationale Schutzzoll- und Handelspolitik nach der Kennedy-Runde besch?ftigen sich zunehmend mit der Bedeutung der Au\enhandelsverzerrungen, die nicht durch Z?lle verursacht werden. Der vorliegende Aufsatz versucht zwei grundlegende Fragen über die Anwendung nicht-tarif?rer Hemmnisse auf den Au\enhandel mit Fertig- und Halbfertigfabrikaten zu beantworten: I. Bis zu welchem Grad gibt es ?hnlichkeiten oder Un?hnlichlichkeiten in der Struktur oder dem Schema der nicht-tarif?ren Verzerrungen des Au\enhandels in den entwickelten Marktwirtschaften ? 2. Scheinen tarif?re und nichttarif?re Handelshemmnisse sich gegenseitig innerhalb nationaler protektionistischer Systeme zu erg?nzen oder zu ersetzen ? Obwohl die Ergebnisse ihrer Natur nach vorl?ufig sind, f?hren sie doch zu wichtigen Schlu\folgerungen in bezug auf die künftige Gestaltung der internationalen Handelspolitik.

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Résumé La structure des obstacles non-tarifaires à l’accès au marché international. — La discussion de la politique internationale protectionniste et commerciale d’après-Kennedy-Round tourne toujours d’avantage autour du r?le que jouent les distorsions du commerce qui ne proviennent pas des tarifs de douane. Cet article cherche à répondre à deux questions fondamentales qui concernent l’application d’obstacles non-tarifaires au commerce des produits finis et mi-finis: I. Jusqu’à quel point y a-t-il similitude ou dissimilitude dans la structure ou le schéma des distorsions non-tarifaires dans les différents pays à économie libre et développée ? 2. Para?t-il que, dans les systèmes nationaux protectionnistes, les obstacles tarifaires et non-tarifaires se suppléent, ou bien qu’ils se substituent les uns aux autres ? Quoique les résultats soient nécessairement préliminaires, ils permettent quand même quelques conclusions importantes en ce qui concerne le développement futur de la politique commerciale internationale.

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Resumen La estructura de barreras no arancelarias sobre el acceso al mercado mundial. — Las discusiones sobre la política comercial internacional se centra, desde la Ronda Kennedy, de forma creciente en la importancia de distorsiones en el comercio exterior, que no se deben a tarifas aduaneras. El presente artículo trata de contestar dos preguntas fundamentales relacionadas con la aplicación de medidas no arancelarias en el comercio exterior con productos semielaborados y acabados: I _- ^a ? Hasta qué punto existen parecidos o diferencias en la estructura o elesquema de distorsiones en el comercio exterior de economias de mercado desarrolladas, producidos por barreras no arancelarias ? 2 _- ^a ? Se complementan los obstáculos arancelarios y no arancelarios dentro de los sistemas nacionales de protección, o son los unos substituto de los otros ? A pesar de que los resultados de este estudio son provisionales, permiten importantes conclusiones acerca de la estructuración futura de la política comercial internacional.

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Riassunto La struttura di impedimenti commerciali non tariffari sull’accesso al mercato mondiale. — Le discussioni sulla politica protezionistica e commerciale dopo il ?Kennedy-Runde? si occupano in misura crescente del significato delle deformazioni del commercio estero che non sono causate da dazi. Il presente articolo cerca di dare una risposta a due questioni fondamentali sull’applicazione di impedimenti non tariffari sul commercio estero con prodotti finiti o semilavorati: 1. Fino a che grado ci sono somiglianze o dissomiglianze nella struttura o nello schema delle deformazioni non tariffarie del commercio ? 2. Impedimenti commerciali tariffari e non tariffari sembrano completarsi o sostituirsi reciprocamente all’interno di sistemi nazionali protezionistici? Sebbene i risultati della loro natura siano ancora prowisori, essi conducono, però, a importanti conclusioni in rapporto alla futura conformazione della politica commerciale internazionale.