Accessibility to government resources for minority business development: A practicum

Summary This article highlights the problem of inaccessibility to available government resources designed to promote the development of minority-owned business enterprises. The problem involves an ironical situation in which an unintentionally, but artificially created, information scarcity exists which hinders minority-owned business development. Existing and prospective minority entrepreneurs are essentially unaware of the untapped resources available to them at the regional and neighborhood levels. Representatives of corporate firms are equally ignorant of available government resources that can suggest to them proper ways to “get involved” in minority business development. These individuals-the minority entrepreneur and the corporate representative-who are so in need of each other, can identify ways in which to link up. In this paper, we suggest that a scheme should be available through OMBE-supported organizations by which they are able to identify existing resources so that their ideas, intentions, and programs can be shaped into viable and profitable minority business enterprises.     

THE DISPERSION OF BIDS ON INDIVIDUAL NEW MUNICIPAL ISSUES

This paper examines the determinants of the dispersion of interest rates bid on competitively sold, new municipal issues. Theory suggests that the dispersion of prices (interest rates) on a new municipal issue depends on the expected costs and benefits of underwriter search on that issue. The greater the expected costs and the lower the expected benefits, the smaller will be underwriter search and the greater will be municipal interest rate dispersion. For empirical testing, the expected costs and benefits of underwriter search are measured by characteristics of the bond issue, the bond issuer, and the market conditions. The empirical tests suggest that the theory holds.     

Do South‐South trade agreements increase trade? Commodity‐level evidence from COMESA

Abstract .  South-South trade agreements are proliferating. Yet the impact of these agreements is largely unknown, as existing North-North and North-South micro-level studies are likely to yield misleading predictions for South-South trade agreements. This paper estimates the impact of COMESA on Uganda's imports between 1994 and 2003. Detailed import and tariff data at the 6-digit Harmonized System level are used for more than 1,000 commodities. Based on a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, the paper finds that – in contrast to evidence from aggregate statistics – COMESA's preferential tariff liberalization has not considerably increased Uganda's trade with member countries, on average, across sectors. The effect, however, is heterogeneous across sectors. Finally, the paper finds no evidence of trade-diversion effects.     

Political Regimes and Currency Crises

This paper examines the relationship between political regime type and currency crises. Some theories suggest that democratic regimes, owing to their greater political transparency and larger number of veto players, should have a lower risk of currency crisis than dictatorships. Alternative arguments emphasize the advantages of political insulation and rulers with long time horizons, and imply that crises should be most likely in democracies and least common in monarchic dictatorships. We evaluate these competing arguments across four types of political regimes using a time‐series cross‐sectional dataset that covers 178 countries between 1973 and 2009. Our findings suggest that the risk of currency crisis is substantially lower in monarchies than in democracies and other types of dictatorship. Further analyses indicate that the adoption of prudent financial policies largely account for this robust negative association between monarchies and the probability of currency crises. This suggests that political regimes strongly influence financial stability, and perverse political incentives help explain why currency crises are so common.     

Lifestyle changes and the lifestyle selection process

This paper presents an analysis of barriers to the uptake of eco-friendly ways of life that is based upon an evolutionary complex systems approach to the workings of the mind and the choices that people make. It questions the effectiveness of price-based policies for promoting change and emphasizes the role of non-price factors and complementarities in choice. Inducing behaviour change may therefore require ensuring consumers’ lifestyle prerequisites are met. In the light of Hayek’s (1952) book The sensory order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), the paper examines the systematic processes by which cognitions are formed and minds evolve, and potential for inducing changes via policy measures that aim to derail stereotypical lines of thinking. Though the paper’s theoretical perspective differs from the behavioural economics that underpins the ‘Nudge’ approach to policy, the paper’s analysis is intended to be complementary with the ‘Nudge’ approach.     

How global brands compete

It's time to rethink global branding. More than two decades ago, Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt argued that corporations should grow by selling standardized products all over the world. But consumers in most countries had trouble relating to generic products, so executives instead strove for global scale on backstage activities such as production while customizing product features and selling techniques to local tastes. Such "glocal" strategies now rule marketing. Global branding has lost more luster recently because transnational companies have been under siege, with brands like Coca-Cola and Nike becoming lightning rods for antiglobalization protests. The instinctive reaction of most transnational companies has been to try to fly below the radar. But global brands can't escape notice. In fact, most transnational corporations don't realize that because of their power and pervasiveness, people view them differently than they do other firms. In a research project involving 3,300 consumers in 41 countries, the authors found that most people choose one global brand over another because of differences in the brands'global qualities. Ratherthan ignore the global characteristics of their brands, firms must learn to manage those characteristics. That's critical, because future growth for most companies will likely come from foreign markets. Consumers base preferences on three dimensions of global brands--quality (signaled by a company's global stature); the cultural myths that brands author; and firms' efforts to address social problems. The authors also found that it didn't matter to consumers whether the brands they bought were American--a remarkable finding considering that the study was conducted when anti-American sentiment in many nations was on the rise.     

Procedural protectionism: The American trade bill and the new interventionist mode

Zusammenfassung Administrativer Protektionismus: Das amerikanische Handelsgesetz und die neue Art des Interventionismus. - Der Verfasser beschreibt die ?nderungen des US-Handelsrechts, die durch das “Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act” von {dy1988} eingeführt wurden. Er sagt voraus, da\ das neue Au\enhandelsgesetz zu einer Zunahme der Handelsbeschr?nkungen fuhren wird, weil es den einheimischen Firmen leichter gemacht wird, Au\enhandelsprotektion zu erlangen, sei es mit Hilfe der Ausweichklausel, der Antidumpingvorschriften, der Ausgleichsz?lle und Ma\nahmen gegen unfaire Handelspraktiken. Der Verfasser stellt fest, da\ die Zunahme des administrativen Protektionismus dieser Art den Rückgang des offenen Protektionismus (in Form von Z?llen und Quoten) wieder aufhebt. Die Tendenz zu mehr Protektionismus. und die Wirkungen früherer Verfahrens?nderungen zeigen sich darin, da\ die amerikanischen Trade Remedy Laws im Laufe der letzten Dutzend Jahre verst?rkt in Anspruch genommen wurden.

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Resumen Proteccionismo procesal: la Ley de Comercio de los EE.UU. y el nuevo intervencionismo. - El autor describe los cambios en las leyes comerciales de los EE.UU. después de la sanción de la “Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act” de 1988. Predice que la nueva ley aumentará las barreras al comercio al facilitate a las empresas locales la obtención de protección bajo las cláusulas de escape y las disposiciones relativas al antidumping, a las tasas compensatorias y a prácticas comerciales injustas. El autor subraya que un aumento de la protection procesal de este tipo deja sin efecto la reducción de la protección abierta en calidad de aranceles y contingentes. La tendencia hacia un mayor proteccionismo y los efectos de cambios procesales ocurridos en el pasado se evidencian en el creciente recurso a las leyes comerciales estadounidenses en los últimos doce a?os.

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Résumé Protectionisme par procédure: la loi commerciale des Etat-Unis et le mode du nouvel interventionisme. - L’auteur décrit les changements dans le droit commercial des Etats-Unis qui ont été introduits par ?The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act? de l’année 1988. Il prédit que cette nouvelle loi augmentera les barrières commerciales en rendant plus facile aux entreprises américaines d’obtenir la protection par la clause de résiliation et les dispositions concernant l’antidumping, les tarifs douaniers compensateurs et les pratiques commerciales déloyales. L’auteur observe que l’augmentation de protection par procédure compense le déclin de la protection évidente en forme des tarifs et des quotas. La tendance vers un protectionisme plus répandu et les conséquences des changements de la procédure au passé se sont manifestées dans l’usage croissant des lois de remède commerciales américaines pendants la dernière douzaine d’années.