Managerial foresight and attempted rent appropriation: insider trading on knowledge of imminent breakthroughs

In order to establish a competitive advantage, firms must acquire or create resources at a price below their value in use. Absent pure luck, this requires managers to exercise foresight about a resource's future value and/or complementarities with pre‐existing capabilities. This foresight grants managers the opportunity to exploit information asymmetries for personal gain as well as building organizational capabilities. Nevertheless, there is limited research on the extent of foresight or how managers use it. In our study of insider trading, we found that managers purchase stock well before breakthrough patents are filed. We argue for further research on the extent of managerial foresight and how it affects rent generation and appropriation. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structural homophily or social asymmetry? The formation of alliances by poorly embedded firms

Recent research shows that preexisting network structure constrains the formation of new interorganizational alliances. Firms that are poorly embedded in a network structure are less likely than richly embedded firms to form alliances, because they lack informational and reputational benefits. This study examines the types of ties that poorly embedded firms can form to overcome the constraints that their structural positions impose, in turn helping to explain how firms' actions can transform existing network structures. We argue that poorly embedded firms are more likely to participate in ties characterized by social asymmetry than in ties characterized by structural homophily. We analyze the terms of trade that socially asymmetric partners negotiate for alliance governance and discuss how such alliances influence network dynamics. To test our arguments, we use longitudinal data on the alliance activities of 97 global chemical firms from 1979 to 1991. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program on patient choice

This paper seeks to understand the impact of the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) Program on rural resident hospital choice. The program created a new class of hospital, the Critical Access Hospital (CAH), which receives more generous reimbursement in return for limiting its beds and services. The program's goal is to maintain access to hospital care. Estimates from a patient choice model show that patient utility from visiting a hospital was negatively affected by conversion. While the lower bed capacity appears to play a minor role, the reduction in services results in a 28% drop in admission rates.     

Entry and pricing in a differentiated products industry: evidence from the ATM market

We estimate a structural equilibrium model of the automatic teller machine market (ATM) to evaluate the implications of regulating ATM surcharges. We use data on bank characteristics, potential and actual ATM locations, and consumer locations; identify the model parameters with a regression discontinuity design; and develop methods to estimate the model without computing equilibria. A surcharge ban reduces ATM entry 12% and consumer welfare 24% but increases firm profits 27%. Total welfare under either regime is 4% lower than the surplus maximizing level. The article can help shed light on the implications of unregulated entry for differentiated products industries.     

Implied Volatility in the U.K. Commercial Property Market: Empirical Evidence Based on Transaction Data

The primary aim of this research is to compute implied volatility based on a stochastic contingent claim valuation model proposed by Dixit and Pindyck (1994). Over the sample period of 1984 to 1997, and with approximately 20,000 commercial property transactions in the United Kingdom, we find that implied volatility of rental returns is in the region of 24.83 percent. Over the same sample period, the historical and conditional standard deviations of the log returns of transaction-based rental series is estimated to be 15.60 percent and 35.64 percent, respectively. The tests of information content of these risk measures show that there is strong orthogonality in the information impounded in implied volatility estimates compared to that contained in historical standard deviations.     

An empirical investigation of consumers’ preferences about tourism services in indian context with special reference to state of Himachal Pradesh

The paper presents the results of a study in Himachal Pradesh, India that assesses the preferences of tourists with reference to the need for information, value for money, security, mode of access, choice offered, and responses to complaints. The results of a conjoint analysis show that tourists attributed the highest importance to security, value for money, and provision of information. Conversely they attribute less importance to complaint responses, choice offered and mode of access. Logistic regression analysis findings provide evidence that socio-demographic variables were important predictor variables for the dependent variable ’utility’. The sample comprised 847 respondents.     

Efficiency bounds for estimating linear functionals of nonparametric regression models with endogenous regressors

Let Y=μ^∗(X)+ε$Y={\mu }^{\ast }\left(X\right)+\epsilon$, where μ^∗${\mu }^{\ast }$ is unknown and E[ε|X]≠0$\mathbb{E}\left[\epsilon \right|X]\ne 0$ with positive probability but there exist instrumental variables W$W$ such that E[ε|W]=0$\mathbb{E}\left[\epsilon \right|W]=0$ w.p.1. It is well known that such nonparametric regression models are generally “ill-posed” in the sense that the map from the data to μ^∗${\mu }^{\ast }$ is not continuous. In this paper, we derive the efficiency bounds for estimating certain linear functionals of μ^∗${\mu }^{\ast }$ without assuming μ^∗${\mu }^{\ast }$ itself to be identified.     

Dynamic Equilibrium in the Hospital Industry

We present a dynamic model of the hospital industry in which nonprofit and for-profit hospitals coexist and compete and are differentiated by their objective functions, investment technologies, and taxation rates. In our model, patients differ by income and type of insurance coverage, and choose admission to their preferred hospital, while hospitals choose investment, entry, exit, and pricing strategies. We estimate the parameters of the model with aggregate data and a GMM procedure. We then use the model to examine the effects of changes in the Medicare reimbursement system, universal health-care coverage, and taxation of nonprofits.     

Investment,Uncertainty and Credit Market Imperfection in India

The paper attempts to make a timely contribution to the debate on the status of business fixed investments in Indian private manufacturing firms. There are two key issues on which the debate hinges: lower presence of formal credit and, procedural and contractual rigidities. Lower presence of formal credit restricts or makes it costlier for a group of firms to incur investment expenditure that they would have incurred otherwise. Such firms predominantly rely on their internal funds for investment. Procedural and contractual rigidities, on the other hand, make almost all the investment projects undertaken, partially or completely, irreversible. Firms respond to such irreversibilities by aligning their investment to a relatively favorable time which, in turn, depends on the way firms process future uncertainty. The analytical exercise endogenously distinguishes between two investment regimes based on the access to external credit and uses a set of characteristics, along with different measures of uncertainty, to explain fluctuations in investment. The results provide three important observations. First, in the post-reform period there has been an adverse shift in the investment financing policy. Second, firms with inferior access to external credit are smaller, younger, pay less dividend, export less and belong to an industry with inferior demand than others. Such firms invest by running down their available cash flows and selling assets. Third, macroeconomic uncertainty depresses investment whereas microeconomic uncertainty has no impact on investment.