Cartel Attributes and Cartel Performance: The Impact of Trade Associations

This paper employs a cartel policy experiment, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, to examine whether industries that have trade associations in place prior to cartelization were better able to attain collusive outcomes than otherwise. Trade associations could potentially help industries better formulate effective cartel rules and could help with monitoring. We find that industries with trade associations were more successful in achieving collusion–proxied by either reductions in industry output or increases in industry prices–than those without. In fact, industries without trade associations were generally unable to successfully collude under the NIRA.     

Residents’ place image: a meaningful psychographic variable for tourism segmentation?

ABSTRACT

While there has been a considerable body of research on tourists’ place image, there remains limited attention on residents’ place image, specifically, in relation to its segmentation utility. This study seeks to address this oversight by a) clustering the local residents based on the image held of a tourism place, and b) exploring the extent to which the identified image-based resident clusters share similar (dissimilar) demographic characteristics and attitude towards tourism development. Empirical analysis was based on a sample of 481 residents of a Greek city. The findings support the utility of residents’ place image as a psychographic segmentation variable revealing the existence of three distinct resident groups – termed “Nature Loving”, “Apathetic” and “Advocate.” Results also suggest that these resident groups exhibit dissimilar demographic characteristics and dissimilar attitude towards tourism. In comparison with other segments, the Apathetic exhibits the least favourable image and the least supportive attitude towards tourism.     

Stuck in a rut: emerging cocoa cooperatives in Peru and the factors that influence their performance

Agri-cooperatives play an important role in helping resource-poor farmers reach high-value markets. In addition to linking smallholders to markets, cooperatives provide their members with various services, such as extension, credit, input subsidies, and social programmes. While the literature contains many examples of success, there has been limited discussion on the often long and turbulent process by which cooperatives develop over time and the viable options for shortcuts. This study examines four emerging cocoa cooperatives in Peru to determine their overall business viability, the key factors that advanced their development, and their capacity to address the needs of their members. Our findings suggest that strategies for supporting cooperative development have largely failed to address major internal weaknesses and the challenges posed in the external environment. The cooperatives have received time-bound, uncoordinated, and often small-scale, interventions, which have focused on infrastructure expansion and technical assistance. Important areas related to business management and governance structures, trust relationships with buyers, and sufficient working capital have largely been ignored. Shortcuts may be achieved through improvements in access to business development and financial services, deeper engagement by private sector to support the development process, and commitment by stakeholders to monitoring and critical reflection for strategy refinement.     

Risk attitudes and the structure of decision‐making: evidence from the Illinois hog industry

Research offers mixed evidence about the risk management decision‐making process of producers. Whether producers’ characteristics drive behavior directly or through risk attitude remains a puzzle. We assess whether managerial/firm characteristics directly affect choices or if their influence occurs indirectly through impacts on risk attitude. The findings, which support indirect effects, indicate that failure to represent relationships between risk attitude, other characteristics, and behavior appropriately can mask the effect of risk attitude. A more complete understanding of the structure of decision‐making may assist economists, policymakers, and industry stakeholders in designing and targeting mechanisms to manage or transfer risk.     

“Resistance is futile”: estimating the costs of managing herbicide resistance as a first‐order Markov process and the case of U.S. upland cotton producers

A 2012 survey of upland U.S. cotton producers was analyzed to determine the factors contributing to changes in weed management costs (WMCs) after the identification of herbicide‐resistant weeds. An ordered probit regression estimated changes in WMC as a first‐order Markov process. The most important determinants of post‐resistance cost increases were initial WMCs, adoption of labor‐intensive remedial practices, and wick application of herbicides. Cultivation and mechanical/chemical‐intensive practices did not increase WMCs. Post‐resistance changes in WMC ranged between $85 and $138 ha^?1, depending on the practices adopted. WMCs increased by $88 ha^?1 when cost‐neutral practices were adopted. The in‐sample aggregate costs of managing herbicide resistance ranged between $25 and $53 million, depending on the types of adopted practices.     

Optimising adaptation decisions in macadamia production using contingent claim valuation

Altering production systems and land management of tree crops is a costly, disruptive and ultimately irreversible decision. Using traditional valuation methods to appraise long‐term land management outcomes ignores the full impact of irreversible or delayed decisions. We employ a variant of the real options decision process to examine uncertainties around climatic effects on macadamia growers and the explicit decision to adapt via cultivar replacement. We examine the trade‐offs between the timing of the decision to replace macadamia cultivars by considering both the value of flexibility as well as the value of new information that can be used to resolve uncertainty. We compare the relative responses that generate the most value for growers across four geographical locations. We show that simple switching decisions using traditional valuation methods are found to be suboptimal and initiate poor decisions, potentially undermining adaptation efforts. As the rate of orchard degradation increases, the need to transition to higher‐yielding cultivars becomes greater, especially for Hawaii, California and Australia where gross margins are leaner. Investment decisions are thus highly dependent on both local conditions and the economic structure of existing production systems.     

保持增长 赢得效率

翰威特的研究表明,企业为了应对经济危机而作出的快速反应,往往使企业不得不面对接踵而至的人力资本瓶颈。而正是这些瓶颈更加剧了企业未来改善现状,回到正轨的难度。     

Equity ownership segregation, shareholder preferences, and dividend policy in China

We investigate how listed Chinese firms pay different types of dividend to satisfy shareholders, different dividend preferences shaped by institutional factors such as share tradability and asymmetrical taxation. We find that the cash dividend level is significantly and positively related to the proportion of non-publicly tradable shares and this relation is mainly driven by legal person shareholders' preferences for cash dividends. In contrast, the stock dividend level is significantly and positively associated with the proportion of publicly tradable shares. These findings provide an empirical rationale for the current reform on the segregation of equity ownership rights in China.     

Risk Management in Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses and How Accountants Contribute*

We investigate how owners of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) perceive, make sense of, and practice risk management. Drawing on Schatzki's practice theory, we theorize on how and why risk management happens in SMEs. Thus, we fill a gap in the extant literature, which focuses almost exclusively on risk management within large organizations. We interview entrepreneurs and conduct site observations to gain insight into their risk management activities, the drivers that lead to the adoption of said activities, their attitudes toward risk management, and how their accountants may shape and contribute to risk management in SMEs. We find that rather than a specific set of formal processes, entrepreneurs view risk management as a mindset that emphasizes the preservation of key assets, creation of competitive advantages, and development of local talent and expertise. We observe practices that are mainly informal yet planned, deliberate, and fully integrated within the fabric of organizations that align with ideal forms of risk management. We also find that full-time, in-house accountants do help entrepreneurs with risk management, while external accountants, whose main activities relate to financial statement preparation and tax filings, do not systematically help entrepreneurs manage risk. We contribute to both the theory and practice of risk management by sharing empirical insights into how SME owners perceive, make sense of, and manage risk.