Determinants of Co-operative Patronage in Alberta

Co-operative managers face an increasingly heterogeneous pool of potential members. Because these members bring a variety of economic and noneconomic demands to their co-operative, managers must know how different member characteristics and performance perceptions influence their decision to patronize a co-operative. This study applies three models of co-operative patronage to survey data from rural Alberta. A Poisson regression is used to determine the factors that explain the number of co-operatives used, while an index of co-operative patronage measures the relative intensity of co-operative versus proprietary firm usage. A third model contucts a Tobit analysis of the amount of business conducted with each of several different types of co-operatives. The results show that older farmers tend to partonize more co-operatives, and larger farms do a greater share of their business with co-operatives than do smaller fiarms. Farmers who believe co-operatives offer innovative products and services are more likely to patronize them, while a belief that co-operatives should play an active role in noneconomic matters is not important.     

An Investigation of the Impact of Interest Rates and Interest Rate Volatility on Australian Financial Sector Stock Return Distributions

Abstract:   This paper extends the existing literature by analysing the dual impact of changes in the interest rate and interest rate volatility on the distribution of Australian financial sector stock returns. In addition, a multivariate GARCH‐M model is used to analyse the impact of deregulation on the financial institutions sector. It was found that there is a consistent inter‐temporal trade off between risk and return over the different regulatory periods. Moreover, finance corporations were found to be highly sensitive to new shocks across the financial sector and deregulation increased the risk faced by finance corporations and small banks – effectively increasing the required rate of return and explaining the continued rationalisation of these sectors. Furthermore, deregulation has changed the fundamental relationship between interest rates and large bank stock excess returns from positive in the pre‐deregulation period to negative in the post‐deregulation period. This reflects the changing institutional environment from one of controlled credit rationing to a more competitive environment.     

Nostalgia versus Pragmatism? How attitudes and interests shape the term sustainable agriculture in Switzerland and New Zealand

National public debates on sustainable agriculture are often framed by the respective attitudes and interests of the dominant stakeholders involved.     

The role of renqing in mediating customer relationship investment and relationship commitment in China

There is a growing research interest in guanxi marketing, which has been considered the Chinese version of relationship marketing. However, very little empirical research has investigated the implicit nature of renqing, the underlying mechanism that explains the cultivation and maintenance of guanxi. This study examines the role of renqing in mediating customer relationship investment and relationship commitment in the insurance industry. The authors surveyed 245 car insurance policyholders in China. The findings confirm the mediating role of renqing in such relationships and show that renqing explains a very high proportion of the variance in levels of customer relationship commitment. This result offers valuable insights and suggestions as to how to increase levels of customer relationship commitment in China.     

Empirical likelihood block bootstrapping

Monte Carlo evidence has made it clear that asymptotic tests based on generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation have disappointing size. The problem is exacerbated when the moment conditions are serially correlated. Several block bootstrap techniques have been proposed to correct the problem, including Hall and Horowitz (1996) and Inoue and Shintani (2006). We propose an empirical likelihood block bootstrap procedure to improve inference where models are characterized by nonlinear moment conditions that are serially correlated of possibly infinite order. Combining the ideas of Kitamura (1997) and Brown and Newey (2002), the parameters of a model are initially estimated by GMM which are then used to compute the empirical likelihood probability weights of the blocks of moment conditions. The probability weights serve as the multinomial distribution used in resampling. The first-order asymptotic validity of the proposed procedure is proven, and a series of Monte Carlo experiments show it may improve test sizes over conventional block bootstrapping.     

Takeover activity in Australia: endogenous and exogenous influences

The present paper analyses the population of takeover bids for listed Australian companies using quarterly data over a 25-year period to re-examine the predictability of takeover activity and to determine if there is a flow on impact on macroeconomic variables. We examine whether takeover activity: (i) is endogenous; that is, determined by own activity; (ii) is jointly determined by macroeconomic and capital market variables; and (iii) has an exogenous spillover impact across the economy. We find that stock prices and takeover activity share a long-term common trend, the relative success of takeover bids is independent of sharemarket activity, and conclude that aggregate takeover activity is driven by fundamental economic factors rather than by speculative activity.     

A MODEL OF NEW ZEALAND APPLE SUPPLY RESPONSE TO TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE*

A supply response model for New Zealand apples is specified and equations for new plantings, removals, yields and adoption of an innovation are estimated. The model expands on perennial crop models previously estimated by incorporating the time pattern of adoption of a planting innovation and formulation of a measure of yield expectations given technological change.