Foreign ownership and long‐term survival

We study the relative survival of foreign‐ and domestically owned companies in Denmark over more than a century (1895–2005). Contrary to previous studies that have emphasized the liability of foreignness, we find evidence of a significant survival premium for foreign‐owned companies; however, the premium declines over time and disappears entirely in the last decade leading up to 2005. Further evidence indicates that the foreign survival premium is negatively influenced by new foreign entry, and that the long‐run decline is caused by increasing competition between foreign subsidiaries. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How Did Workers Benefit from Bolivia's Emergency Social Fund?

Bolivia's Emergency Social Fund (ESF) was established to cushionthe adverse effects on the poor of the economic crisis and subsequentstabilization program in the 1980s and to facilitate transitionthrough the phases of structural adjustment. The ESF providedtemporary employment opportunities by funding small-scale, labor-intensiveprojects that were proposed by local governmental and nongovernmentalorganizations. This article measures the impact of the ESF programon employment and income of workers in the ESF projects. Forthe average ESF worker, hourly wages were 12.8 percent higher,the work week was 9.5 hours longer, and weekly earnings were32 percent higher than what they would have been without theESF. Taking into account the probability that the individualmay not have worked without the ESF leads to larger gains. Thegreatest benefits from participating in the program were receivedby those who would have been least well-off without it.     

Consumer attitudes toward low stake risk in food markets

Consistency of quality is viewed as important for producers of consumer goods. However, there is no literature testing the importance of quality consistency on consumers’ willingness to pay for consumer goods. We use an experimental auction market to investigate how inconsistency in tenderness affects consumers’ willingness to pay for beef. We find that most consumers are risk averse with respect to sensory quality. Both the average tenderness and the variance of tenderness affected the consumers’ willingness to pay for beef. Reducing the uncertainty of the sensory quality by categorizing the beef into three tenderness classes increased the total value of the beef by 8%.