The success of divestitures in merger enforcement: Evidence from the J&J-Pfizer transaction

Despite being a widely used tool in merger enforcement, there have been few studies of whether antitrust divestitures are successful. We help fill this void by conducting a study of the divestitures relating to Johnson & Johnson's $16.6 billion acquisition of Pfizer's consumer health division in 2006. Six brands were divested in this matter to alleviate antitrust concern. For three of the brands, their pre- and post-divestiture performances are similar, while the remainder underwent changes that do not appear to be divestiture related. Overall, the results are consistent with the view that the divestitures maintained the pre-transaction level of competition.     

Churn analysis for an Iranian mobile operator

To survive in the challenging environment of a global market, organizations must recognize and analyze customer attitudes. To be competitive, organizations must recognize and forecast customer preferences and behaviors to maximize customer retention before their rivals do so. This research identifies factors that affect customer churn, the single most valuable of an organization's assets. One year's data from call log files relating to 3150 customers were selected randomly from an Iranian mobile operator call-center database. Binomial Logistic Regression was the method of analysis used in this research. The results of this research indicate that a customer's dissatisfaction, their amount of service usage and certain demographic characteristics have the most influence on their decision to remain or churn. The results also imply that customer status (active or inactive status) mediates the relationship between churn and the cause of churn. The Iranian government's current plan to privatize the telecommunications industry without deregulation leads to a non-square competition environment. Deregulation in favor of delegating more authorities of customer care is necessary in order to develop a square private competition environment in the Iranian mobile telecommunications industry.     

The influence of executive cognition on competitive dynamics

Prior competitive dynamics research has drawn on theories of information processing to model the subjective antecedents of executives' retaliation choices. This prior work has made great progress in developing our understanding of the retaliation choices most firms will make to a given type of attack. What the information processing perspective has not been able to do is explain firm‐specific behavior to predict which competitive moves individual firms will challenge, or explain why individual firms differ in the types of actions that they are most likely to challenge. The goal of this paper is to sharpen the theoretical and empirical focus on predicting firm‐level retaliation proclivities. We leverage managerial cognition research to examine the relationship between firm‐level differences in the cognitive frameworks that executives possess, and firm‐level differences in whether and how quickly firms challenge a market move. Results from a longitudinal study of the airline industry suggest that the addition of a cognitive perspective provides important insights into competitive retaliation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of Future‐Market Focus in the Early Stages of NPD across Varying Levels of Innovativeness

The concept of future‐market focus (FMF) arose out of the debate about firm size and incumbency in the face of radical or disruptive innovations, and has been demonstrated to have a positive correlation with radical innovation (RI) success. This study examines the relationship between FMF and the processes used in the early stages of NPD for four types of innovation projects: incremental innovations, technological breakthroughs, market breakthroughs, and radical innovations. We found that the future‐market focus of a project team can influence the early stage processes used in a new product innovation project, and does so differentially across levels of innovativeness. In particular, the concept generation process, understanding of market needs, and screening decision criteria are different for low‐ versus high‐FMF projects and there are differences based on the level of innovation. In addition, we found that radical innovation projects rated low in FMF are markedly different than the radical innovation projects described in prior studies.     

Tax Limits and Housing Markets: Some Evidence at the State Level

Property tax limitations, as well as other tax and expenditure restrictions on state and local governments in the United States, date back to the late 19th century. A surge in property tax limitation legislation occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and its effects on government revenue, school financing and educational quality have been studied extensively. However, there is surprisingly little literature on how property tax limits affect housing markets. For the first time, we examine the impacts of property tax limitations on housing growth, in addition to their impacts on housing prices. Using state‐level data over 23 years, we find that property tax limits increase housing prices (indexes) by approximately 2%. Property tax limits appear to have little impact on the growth in the housing stock, but education spending limits reduce the number of building permits by over 6%. Our indirect evidence suggests that the number of housing units may grow when property tax limits are accompanied by increases in other own‐source revenues to state government.     

Supplier development and the relationship life-cycle

The mainstream view holds that over time buyer–supplier relationships evolve through a number of phases. As a consequence, supplier development as a buyer–supplier relationship management practice should also be adapted to the life-cycle phase. Supplier development activities matching the buyer–supplier relationship life-cycle phase will lead to more favorable performance improvements. However, prior studies have neglected the relationship life-cycle perspective. This empirical study shows how the length of the buyer–supplier relationship can be used to improve the explanatory power of models investigating the performance outcomes of supplier development activities. The results show that supplier development is more effective in mature as opposed to initial and declining life-cycles phases.     

The heterogenous relationship of food stamp participation with body mass: Quantile regression model

This study explores the heterogenous relationship between Food Stamp Program (FSP) participation and body mass index (BMI) for low income individuals whose per capita family income falls in the bottom two quintiles. We estimate changes in the dispersion of the entire distribution of BMI following FSP participation using a quantile regression model in both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. For women, we find that the mean OLS estimate of FSP participation underestimates the extent of the positive association with BMI at the top quantiles in both cross-sectional and longitudinal individual fixed effects models. Controlling for individual fixed effects in the quantile regression model reduces the estimated magnitude of the association by a factor of three to four, although the estimates remain statistically significant for women. For men, a marginally statistically significant positive association of FSP participation with BMI is found at the top quantiles compared to no statistically significant mean estimate although the association is no longer statistically significant when time-constant individual heterogeneity is adjusted for in the individual fixed effect models.     

Double-fortified salt reduces anemia,benefit:cost ratio is modestly favorable

Iron deficiency is very widespread, with adverse consequences for health and cognition. Iron supplementation is not popular for long-term use, and cereal fortification is not feasible where milling occurs locally. Double-fortified salt (DFS: using both iron and iodine) is an alternative. The study undertakes a literature survey to find the effect of DFS on hemoglobin, and then uses a previous algorithm to make calculations for India. The benefit:cost ratio was estimated as 2.4:1 if only the benefits to children and women were included, and between 4:1 and 5:1 if anemia levels for men also decreased. This is just a little lower than the median ratio estimated for iron fortification of cereal staples (6.7:1), for home fortification for children less than two (37:1), and for biofortification – breeding for high iron – of cereals (high, but no exact figure available). Double-fortified salt is therefore a good alternative for improving iron status in populations where fortification of other staple foods does not achieve desired coverage.     

基于孵化网络声誉的科技企业孵化器与初创企业动态合作策略研究

基于孵化器和初创企业孵化网络,应用微分对策理论,在Nash非合作博弈、Stackelberg博弈和协同合作博弈3种情形下,考察孵化器与初创企业为提高孵化网络声誉所付出的最大努力,并对反馈均衡结果进行比较分析。结果表明,双方在协同合作博弈情形下付出了较高努力,且所获收益高于Nash非合作博弈和Stackelberg博弈情形下的收益水平。     

The Trade Consequences of Maritime Insecurity: Evidence from Somali Piracy

In the past decade (2000–2010), pirates from Somalia have carried out thousands of attacks on cargo ships sailing through the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, causing what others have identified as significant damage to maritime trade. In this paper, we use variations in the spread and intensity of Somali piracy to estimate its effect on the volume of international trade. By comparing trade volume changes along shipping routes located in pirate waters to those that are not, we estimate that Somali piracy reduced bulk commodities trade passing through the Gulf of Aden by 4.1% per year from 2000 to 2010. We find smaller reductions in total trade, consistent with the fact that not all goods are shipped by sea or are targets of pirate attacks. While our estimates suggest that the trade costs of piracy are much lower than what has been suggested in the existing literature, we find that they remain significant and unevenly distributed, with five countries and the EU shouldering 70% of the total costs.