The Economics of Decoupled Farm Payments under Costly and Imperfect Enforcement

This paper builds on the literature covering agricultural policy analysis under costly and imperfect enforcement by introducing enforcement costs and misrepresentation into the economic analysis of decoupled farm payments. Specifically, the paper examines the economic causes and consequences of cheating on a stylized decoupled area payment scheme. Policy design and implementation is modeled as a sequential game between a regulator who designs the policy, an agency responsible for policy enforcement, and farmers. Analytical results show that complete deterrence of cheating is not economically efficient when enforcement is costly. The introduction of enforcement costs and cheating changes the welfare effects and transfer efficiency of decoupled area payments, the level of government intervention that transfers a given surplus to producers, the socially optimal income redistribution, and the social welfare from intervention. While the transfer efficiency of the policy is positively related to the extent of farmer misrepresentation, the incorporation of enforcement costs and cheating results in decoupled payments being generally a less efficient means of income redistribution than is traditionally believed. Nevertheless, the analysis shows that decoupled payments remain superior to coupled subsidies as a means of farm income support. Les auteurs ajoutent à ce qui s'est déjàécrit sur l'analyse des politiques agricoles dans le contexte d'une application imparfaite et onéreuse en intégrant à l'analyse du découplage des paiements agricoles le coût d'une exécution forcée et des fausses déclarations. Plus précisément, l'article examine les causes et les répercussions économiques de la fraude dans le cadre d'un programme stylisé de découplage régional des paiements. l'élaboration et l'application des politiques ont été modélisées comme un jeu séquentiel entre l'organisme de réglementation, qui échafaude la politique, l'organisme chargé d'appliquer cette dernière et les agriculteurs. Les résultats indiquent que combattre la fraude n'est pas économique quand une application forcée de la politique est onéreuse. L'introduction des coûts d'exécution et de la fraude entraîne une modification de l'incidence du programme sur le bien‐être social et de l'efficacité du transfert des paiements découplés aux régions, du degré d'intervention du gouvernement débouchant sur la réalisation d'un certain excédent par les producteurs, de la redistribution socialement optimale des revenus et du bien‐être résultant de l'intervention. Bien que l'efficacité de transfert de la politique présente une corrélation positive avec l'importance des fausses déclarations faites par les producteurs, l'intégration du coût d'une application forcée et de la fraude indique que le découplage des paiements n'est pas aussi efficace qu'on le croyait pour ce qui est de redistribuer les revenus. Malgré cela, l'analyse révèle que le découplage assure un meilleur soutien du revenu que le couplage des subventions.     

The Role of Upstream‐Downstream Competition on Bundling Decisions: Should Regulators Force Firms to Unbundle?

We develop an upstream–downstream model to analyze downstream firms' incentives to bundle. In our framework, the upstream firms are content providers (such as television stations) and the downstream firms are system operators (such as cable/satellite operators). We show that an a la carte regulation (i.e., a regulation that forces downstream firms to unbundle) leads to higher consumer surplus, if the unregulated equilibrium exhibits pure bundling (PB). Hence, our model predicts that in the television industry, which is mainly characterized by PB, an a la carte regulation will be beneficial for the consumers. If, on the other hand, the unregulated equilibrium is characterized by mixed bundling, then an a la carte regulation will increase consumer welfare provided that demand for multiple purchases is strong.     

Market and Welfare Effects of Mandatory Country‐of‐Origin Labeling in the U.S. Specialty Crops Sector: An Application to Fresh Market Apples

This study provides a new framework of analysis of the market and welfare effects of mandatory country‐of‐origin labeling (MCOOL) for fruits and vegetables that accounts for heterogeneous consumer preferences, differences in producer agronomic characteristics, and retailer market power. The market and welfare effects of MCOOL are shown to be case‐specific and dependent on the labeling costs at the farm and retail levels, the strength of consumer preference for domestic products, the market power of retailers, the marketing margin along the supply chain, and the relative costs of imported and domestic products. Simulation results for the U.S. market of fresh apples indicate that domestic producers are the most likely beneficiaries of MCOOL, followed by domestic consumers. Being unable to exercise market power on consumers or suppliers of fresh apples, retailers will lose if the implementation of MCOOL entails fixed costs. Imports of fresh apples decline after MCOOL introduction.     

Modelling the distribution of the extreme share returns in Singapore

This study aims to model the probability distribution of the extreme daily share returns in Singapore Stock Exchange over the period 1973 to 2005. For that reason the suitability of the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV), Generalized Pareto (GP) and Generalized Logistic (GL) distributions are investigated. The empirical results indicate that the GL distribution best fitted the empirical data over the period of study. Using the too much celebrated GEV and GP distributions for risk assessment could, therefore, lead to underestimation of the extreme risk which could potentially lead to inadequate protection against catastrophic losses.     

Accountability and stakeholder engagement in the airport industry: An assessment of airports’ CSR reports

This study assesses the comprehensiveness and quality of corporate social responsibility reports published by airports. A content analysis rating system is built using the global reporting initiative guidelines. The findings indicate that corporate social responsibility reporting is not a common practice among international airports and where it is done, there is considerable variability in the disclosure practices.     

Domestic firms competing with multinational enterprises: The relevance of resource-accessing alliance formations

The literature includes several papers that compare multinational enterprises (MNEs) to local firms along several dimensions such as financial strength or production capacity. Nevertheless, the focus on how latter firms compete against the former is often missing in the literature; local firms are typically seen as inferior in terms of resources and thus, unable to compete against MNEs. This paper aims at revisiting this competitive ‘battle’. Through a case-based design in a ‘multinational’ domestic market that seems to favour MNEs, we explore how local firms respond to MNEs’ purported superiority. Findings indicate that local firms respond through alliance formations that enable them to access fitting resources and counter ownership advantages of MNEs. Therefore, resource-accessing strategies spearheaded by local firms suggest that ownership advantages should not be inherently translated into competitive advantages for the MNEs. Implications for international business are discussed and avenues for further research are suggested.     

Opportunities for banks to cross-sell insurance products in Greece

The paper aims to identify whether or not there are opportunities for banks in Greece effectively to cross-sell insurance products through their branch network. In addition, it seeks to investigate the areas of insurance product portfolio that could have a better potential to be distributed by Greek banks, and to identify the profile of potential customers. For this reason a questionnaire was designed, and was completed by 720 bank customers. The analysis showed that the greatest opportunity comes from the fact that consumer awareness of the offering of insurance products by banks is low in contrast to their willingness to use banks as insurance products providers, which is very high. Additionally, there are indications that based on consumer attitudes, there are identifiable market segments which are more attractive. In conclusion, the paper discusses the managerial implications of the findings and proposes suggestions for further research.     

Fixed income excess returns and time to maturity

The paper explores the relationship between fixed income excess returns and maturity differentials. In a quest to quantify this relationship, we go beyond testing the monotonicity of excess returns, by exploring the functional form of excess returns' dependence on the maturity differential. Essentially, the paper tests whether the monotonicity of excess returns is linked to maturity differential in a linear or nonlinear fashion. The findings suggest that a quadratic relationship fits the data adequately, and therefore imply that excess returns exhibit sensitivity both to maturity differential and also to their location on the yield curve. Thus, although excess returns increase monotonically with maturity they do so at a decreasing rate.     

Revealing a region's growth potential through the internal structure of the economy

Analysts increasingly turn their attention to discover the hidden growth potential within the sectoral structure of a regional economy and to identify the most appropriate scientific tools for investigating sectoral development priorities. Advances in handling huge data electronically allow regional policy makers to garner a whole array of benefits spawning from an input-output analysis, as long as the use of fast-building input-output techniques will be sufficiently enlightened. In this paper, two of the most extensively used non-survey techniques, the Generation of Regional Input-Output Tables and Supply-Demand Pool Analysis, are applied to derive alternative regional impact indicators for the Mediterranean island of Crete. A comparison among several computed impact indicators demonstrates that substantial differences exist among them, although there is no evidence that the followed non-survey technique could lead to contradicted results. Also, results reveal that sequence and combination of the expansion of the sectors largely determine the region's growth pace.     

Containership routing with time deadlines and simultaneous deliveries and pick-ups

In this paper we seek to determine optimal routes for a containership fleet performing pick-ups and deliveries between a hub and several spoke ports. A capacitated vehicle routing problem with pick-ups, deliveries and time deadlines is formulated and solved using a hybrid genetic algorithm for establishing routes for a dedicated containership fleet. Results on the performance of the algorithm and the feasibility of the approach show that a relatively small fleet of containerships could provide efficient services within deadlines. Moreover, through sensitivity analysis we discuss performance robustness and consistency of the developed algorithm under a variety of problem settings and parameters values.