Factors explaining the diffusion of hybrid maize in Latin America and the Caribbean region

If future demand for maize in Latin America and the Caribbean region (LAC) is to be met from local sources, domestic production must continue to increase. Because further expansion in the area planted to maize is precluded by the limited availability of arable land, future increases in production will have to rely heavily on the spread of productivity‐enhancing hybrid technology. Until now, the diffusion of hybrid maize in LAC has been quite variable. Using data from 18 countries, we investigate factors affecting the hybrid maize diffusion rate. Our findings validate conventional profitability‐based explanations of producer adoption behavior, but they also confirm the importance of supply‐side factors, thereby providing empirical support for the life cycle theory of seed industry development. We conclude that if policy makers in LAC are to accelerate the diffusion of hybrid maize, they will have to ensure an environment in which it is not only profitable for producers to adopt improved germplasm, but also profitable for the seed industry to produce and sell high‐quality seed.     

The Spillover Effect of SEC Comment Letters on Qualitative Corporate Disclosure: Evidence from the Risk Factor Disclosure

In this study we use the recently mandated risk factor disclosure to examine the spillover effect of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) review of qualitative corporate disclosure. We find that firms not receiving any comment letter (“No‐letter Firms”) modify their subsequent year's disclosures to a larger extent if the SEC has commented on the risk factor disclosure of (i) the industry leader, (ii) a close rival, or (iii) numerous industry peers. We refer to this effect as “spillover.” Further, we find that after SEC comments on the industry leader's disclosure, No‐letter Firms also provide more firm‐specific disclosures in the subsequent year. The increased disclosure specificity reduces these firms’ likelihood of receiving SEC risk disclosure comments on their new filings. Our evidence suggests an indirect effect of the SEC review of qualitative disclosure.     

Measuring poverty and income distribution in Southeast Asia

The paper surveys the extensive research on the measurement of poverty and inequality in Southeast Asia over the last five decades. It examines the work carried out by both independent scholars and international agencies including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The paper argues that the household surveys carried out by national statistical agencies across the region, and used by most researchers, are often flawed. These flaws have led to rather misleading results both for individual countries and for cross‐country comparisons. Further problems have been found in the data on purchasing power parities (PPP) which have been used by the World Bank to estimate poverty both in Southeast Asia and in other developing countries. The paper also points out that estimates of poverty and inequality are often politically sensitive, and argues that a more accurate understanding of the estimation problems will only emerge if governments support rather than suppress open debate over measurement problems.     

Risk,uncertainty and the theory of planned behavior: A tourism example

The differential impacts risk and uncertainty have on travel decision-making were explored by examining the constructs' influence on the antecedents of intentions to visit Australia using the theory of planned behavior. Respondents were obtained from online consumer panels in South Korea, China and Japan. The South Korean and Chinese samples were general population samples, while the sample from Japan was an international travelers' sample. The extended model fitted the data well, explaining between 21 and 44 percent of the variance in intentions. Subjective norms and perceived behavioral control significantly impacted on intentions in all country samples, whereas attitudes toward visiting Australia were only significant in Japan. Subjective norms influenced attitudes and perceived behavioral control in all country samples. Finally, perceived risk influenced attitudes toward visiting Australia in South Korea and Japan, while perceived uncertainty influenced attitudes toward visiting Australia in South Korea and China and perceived behavioral control in China and Japan.     

Nested identities as cognitive drivers of strategy

Research Summary: Organizations face tensions to conform to industry norms for legitimacy yet differentiate for competitive advantage when implementing strategies. We suggest this tension is due to and resolved through organizations’ cognitive negotiations of multiple levels of identity. Through an inductive study in the recreational vehicle industry, we find that organizations concurrently draw on identities at the organizational, industry, and strategic group levels to formulate and enact specific competitive actions. Specifically, we find that organizational identity relates to decisions on product offerings; industry identity relates to downstream strategy; and strategic group identity relates to upstream strategy, firm boundaries, and expansion mode. Our findings highlight the importance of strategic group identity and inform a grounded model describing how organizations draw upon different levels of identity to influence strategy. Managerial Summary: Many managers experience tensions of differentiating their firms’ competitive actions from rivals, while conforming with industry norms and practices. In this article, we argue that a manager can navigate these tensions by understanding their firm, strategic group, and industry identities and how these identities interrelate. Through a qualitative case study of the U.S. recreational vehicle industry, we show that each level of identity influences different competitive actions, with firm identity connected to product offerings, industry identity related to managing downstream distribution, and strategic group identity related to firm boundary and acquisition strategies. Overall, strategic group identity is the most critical for managers as this level filters how they view competitors and provides the rules of competition.     

Market liquidity, asset prices, and welfare

This paper represents an equilibrium model for the demand and supply of liquidity and its impact on asset prices and welfare. We show that, when constant market presence is costly, purely idiosyncratic shocks lead to endogenous demand of liquidity and large price deviations from fundamentals. Moreover, market forces fail to lead to efficient supply of liquidity, which calls for potential policy interventions. However, we demonstrate that different policy tools can yield different efficiency consequences. For example, lowering the cost of supplying liquidity on the spot (e.g., through direct injection of liquidity or relaxation of ex post margin constraints) can decrease welfare while forcing more liquidity supply (e.g., through coordination of market participants) can improve welfare.     

Do non-profit hospitals provide more charity care when faced with a mandatory minimum standard? Evidence from Texas

Policymakers often question whether not-for-profit (NFP) hospitals provide enough charity care to justify tax advantages. In 1993, Texas enacted legislation requiring NFP hospitals to provide certain community benefits at levels set forth in specific criteria to retain tax-exempt status; this paper focuses on the effect of the legislation’s requirement that NFP hospitals spend a minimum of 4% of net patient revenue on charity care. We also study a modification of the law passed in 1995, which allows the deduction of bad debts expense when calculating net patient revenue. This change effectively lowers required charity care spending, and our study considers whether Texas hospitals responded by reducing charity care spending.     

An Optimal Product Mix for Hedging Longevity Risk in Life Insurance Companies: The Immunization Theory Approach

This article investigates the natural hedging strategy to deal with longevity risks for life insurance companies. We propose an immunization model that incorporates a stochastic mortality dynamic to calculate the optimal life insurance–annuity product mix ratio to hedge against longevity risks. We model the dynamic of the changes in future mortality using the well‐known Lee–Carter model and discuss the model risk issue by comparing the results between the Lee–Carter and Cairns–Blake–Dowd models. On the basis of the mortality experience and insurance products in the United States, we demonstrate that the proposed model can lead to an optimal product mix and effectively reduce longevity risks for life insurance companies.     

A Spatial Autocorrelation Approach for Examining the Effects of Urban Greenspace on Residential Property Values

This paper presents spatially explicit analyses of the greenspace contribution to residential property values in a hedonic model. The paper utilizes data from the housing market near downtown Los Angeles. We first used a standard hedonic model to estimate greenspace effects. Because the residuals were spatially autocorrelated, we implemented a spatial lag model as indicated by specification tests. Our results show that neighborhood greenspace at the immediate vicinity of houses has a significant impact on house prices even after controlling for spatial autocorrelation. The different estimation results from non-spatial and spatial models provide useful bounds for the greenspace effect. Greening of inner city areas may provide a valuable policy instrument for elevating depressed housing markets in those areas.