Trademarks and British dominance in consumer goods, 1876–1914

Late Victorian Britain was very important in the development of British dominance in light consumer goods industries, such as fermented liquors and spirits; detergents and perfumery; bicycles and other carriages; paper, stationery, and bookbinding; and games of all kinds and sports goods. Firms developed technology‐based innovations and marketing‐based innovations, creating abnormal peaks of trademark registrations in certain industries. This article investigates those peaks and shows that factors usually pointed out as explaining British economic decline in heavy industries did not impact on the development of light consumer goods industries, and on the contrary encouraged their fast growth during this period. Trademark registrations are shown to provide new insights into the debate on British relative decline, when combined with other industry and firm‐level data.     

Technological regimes in m-commerce: Convergence as a barrier to diffusion and entrepreneurship?

During the dotcom-period, a commonly shared belief was that m-commerce and m-payment would become just as successful as GSM and SMS. Although the ICT industry has successfully recovered from the dotcom crisis, m-commerce has still not had much success: why has the diffusion of m-commerce and m-payment been so slow, almost absent in Europe and USA? The article suggests that the obstacles accounting for this are plausibly systemic and related to factors that hinder the establishment of a new technological regime for m-commerce. Diffusion of m-commerce will require convergence of numerous disparate and competing elements and systems that at present belong to, or are controlled by, different sectors. The article presents a case study of a dotcom firm fictitiously entitled PinkFish in order to demonstrate these factors. By embracing a strategy of convergence based on symbiosis and co-operation, m-commerce may enter a rapid diffusion process in the future.     

Risk and wealth in a model of self-fulfilling currency attacks

Market participants’ risk attitudes, wealth and portfolio composition influence their positions in a pegged foreign currency and, therefore, may have important effects on the sustainability of currency pegs. This paper analyzes such effects in a global game model of currency crises with continuous action choices, generating a rich set of theoretical comparative static predictions related to often discussed but rarely modelled accounts of currency attacks. The model can be solved in closed form and the methods could be used to study other economic issues in which coordination and risk aversion play important roles.     

Understanding liquidity shortages during severe economic downturns

One feature of economic recessions is the appearance of aggregate liquidity shortages that can exacerbate the economic downturn. We develop a model in which the demand for liquidity arises suddenly in response to continued funding needs of partially completed investment projects whose outcomes are subject to idiosyncratic shocks and moral hazard. When the economy experiences an adverse aggregate productivity shock, incentive constraints that underlie equity contracts may bind, provided the shock is severe enough. In this case, credit-rationing appears, and the heightened demand for liquidity coincides with a greater reluctance to take on equity positions or deepen investments in on-going investment projects. The consequence is a reduction in new investment and termination of on-going projects due to a lack of liquidity, thereby worsening the economic slowdown.     

Quality assessment in a turbulent environment: The case of the stockfish industry

Quality assessment is frequently applied in business-to-business marketing. It is usually assumed that quality assessment builds on the use of “objective” rules and criteria, but this is not always true. In a longitudinal study it was found that an institutionalized practice of quality assessment was based on both “objective” product characteristics, as well as more subjective supply/demand considerations, making quality assessment much more complex than usually assumed. Theoretical and managerial implications are highlighted.     

Modes of innovation,resources and their influence on product innovation: Empirical evidence from R&D active firms in Norway

Evolutionary theory of the firm argues that firms follow different approaches to innovation with implications for their performance. Consistent with evolutionary theory, this paper develops a taxonomy of innovation modes which capture the variation in firms' approaches to product innovation. The taxonomy is based on the open/closed innovation and exploration/exploitation literatures and identifies the following modes: “Open exploration”, “closed exploration” “open exploitation”, and “closed exploitation”. The paper theorizes that the identified innovation modes influence product innovation through their effect on the firms' technological and market resources. Using survey data from over 1000 R&D active firms in Norway analyzed with structural equation modelling it is shown how four modes of innovation are related to actual product innovation.     

Optimal use of forecasts in economic policy decisions: An empirical test

A criterion for optimal use of forecasts of exogenous variables in a linear policy model with quadratic preferences is given, based on Johansen (1972). By calculating regressions of observed values with respect to raw forecast values used in the observation period, equations are established which can be used to transform raw forecasts into ‘certainty equivalents’. The method is applied to data from national budgeting and corresponding national accounts in Norway 1948–-1971. Especially the forecasts for the volume of exports, but also for import prices, could be considerably improved, for policy purposes in the context of the model of the type mentioned, by the transformation described. Some of the forecasts, when optimally transformed, should be permitted to fluctuate more strongly and thereby influence policy more strongly. Some tentative results for Sweden and the Netherlands are briefly mentioned and compared with the evidence for Norway.     

Credit Risk Versus Capital Requirements under Basel II: Are SME Loans and Retail Credit Really Different?

Under Basel II, retail and SME credit (R&SME) receive special treatment because of a supposedly smaller exposure to systemic risk. Most research on this issue has been based on parameterized credit risk models. We present new evidence by applying Carey's (Carey, Mark. “Credit Risk in Private Debt Portfolios.” Journal of Finance 53, no. 4 (1998), 1363–1387.) nonparametric Monte-Carlo resampling method to two banks' complete loan portfolios. By exploiting that a sub-sample of all borrowers has been assigned an internal rating by both banks, we can compare the credit loss distributions for the three credit types, and compute both economic and regulatory capital under Basel II. We also test if our conclusions are sensitive to the definitions of R&SME credit. Our findings show that R&SME portfolios are usually riskier than corporate credit. Special treatment under Basel II is thus not justified. JEL classification: C14, C15, G21, G28, G33.     

Examining world-wide purchasing power parity

We examine long-run PPP between Germany, Great Britain, Japan and the United States over the period 1930–1996 using multivariate cointegration techniques. Bilateral PPP between the four countries is examined in one system (as opposed to e.g. series of trivariate systems). In all of the statistical analysis, asymptotic tests are augmented by parametric bootstrap analogues, whereby we reduce, if not eliminate, the size distortion typically present in small-sample studies. The cointegration analysis provides support for the necessary conditions for PPP (i.e. cointegrating relations are found) but not for the sufficient conditions (i.e., the coefficients in the cointegrating relations are far from what PPP predicts). These results are at odds with results from other studies that also analyze long-horizon data sets.First version received: November 2000/Final version received: February 2003Comments by Stefan Norrbin, Lee Ohanian, Anders Vredin, seminar-participants at Sveriges Riksbank (the central bank of Sweden) and at the Econometric Society European Meeting in Santiago de Compostela are gratefully acknowledged.