De Russische spoorwegen

Voor deze schets zijn gebruikt: Statistique des chemins de fer Russes 1869 par J. Hovyn de Tranchère. Verschillende Jaargangen van de Zeitung des Vereins Deutscher Eisenbahn-Verwaltungen. Moniteur des IntérÊts Matériels. Het Bijblad van het Amsterdamsch Effectenblad. Recueil Consulaire de la Belgique 1870. Verslagen van de Nederlandsche Consuls. Preussisches Handelsarchiv 1870. Annales du Commerce extérieur de la France 1869.     

Can entrepreneurial firms benefit from product piracy?

We examine the potential benefits of product piracy to entrepreneurial firms. Specifically, we use a resource-based perspective to show that a decrease in the inimitability of an entrepreneurial firm's intellectual property does not necessarily diminish performance when piracy increases the value of this resource, and an information economics perspective to explain why and when imitation can increase the value of an intellectual property resource. This explanation reconciles empirical studies that indicate mixed results. It also expands the resource-based view by suggesting that reducing the value of one resource can directly increase the value of another.     

The expected industrial production volume estimated with the help of data from the business-cycle test

Summary Expectations play a crucial role in economics. The testing of hypotheses about the formation of expectations is hampered by the lack of data. In this article we try to measure expectations in an independent way, using data from the Business Cycle Test. The data refer to the output of the Dutch manufacturing industry. The results indicate that both error-correcting and extrapolative mechanisms are relevant in the process of expectation formation.The author is indebted to Professors Paelinck and Siddré for their helpful comments; they are, of course, in no way responsible for any remaining errors. Thanks are also due to two anonymous referees for their critical remarks. Mrs. Elderson-De Boer translated the original Dutch draft into English.     

Analyst Report Readability

Using an extensive database of 356,463 sell‐side equity analysts' reports from 2002 to 2009, this study is one of the first to analyze the readability of analysts' reports. We first examine the determinants of variations in analyst report readability. Using several proxies for ability, we show that reports are more readable when issued by analysts with higher ability. Second, we test the relation between analysts' report readability and stock trading volume reactions. We find that trading volume reactions increase with the readability of analysts' text, consistent with theoretical models that predict that more precise information (and hence more informative signals) results in investors' initiating trades. These results support the view that the readability of analysts' reports is important to analysts and capital market participants.     

Structural and relational influences on the role of reward interdependence in product innovation

This study examines the relationship between reward interdependence, or the extent to which managers' rewards are tied to the performance of colleagues in other functions, and product innovation. It also considers how structural and relational features of the organizational context might moderate this relationship. Our analysis of a sample of Canadian‐based firms reveals a positive relationship between reward interdependence and product innovation that is invigorated at higher levels of job rotation, social interaction, and interactional fairness, but we find no evidence of a moderating effect of decision autonomy. Consistent with a systems approach to organizational contingencies, we also find that the reward interdependence–product innovation relationship is stronger when the organization's context comes closer to an ‘ideal’ holistic configuration that is most conducive to knowledge exchange within the organization, with a more prominent role played by the relational sub‐context (social interaction and interactional fairness) than the structural sub‐context (job rotation and decision autonomy). The findings have important implications for innovation research as they shed light on how the extent to which individual rewards are tied to collective performance can be channeled to enhance innovation pursuits.     

A Proposal to Compare Consistently the Inequality Among the Poor

A poverty index should be sensitive to the number of poor people, the extent of the shortfall of the poor, and the inequality among the poor. A difficulty arises when inequality among the poor needs to be assessed. The inequality may be analyzed in terms of either incomes or gaps. Depending on what side we focus on, the inequality level comparisons may be contradictory. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of the inequality component involved in the decompositions of well‐known poverty indices. The alternative indices we introduce measure equally the income and gap inequality among the poor. The comparisons in inequality as measured by these indices are then independent of the viewpoint. An empirical application illustrates the proposal.