Expansion of the economic frontier: Paraguayan growth in the 1970s

The rapid growth of the Paraguayan economy over the last decade is analyzed in terms of the expansion of agricultural production and an increase in construction activity. Construction of the Itaipu Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, has provided employment and spurred private construction. A government colonization programme and spontaneous Brazilian immigration has brought new land into production. Favourable international prices for Paraguayan exports and funds from the Itaipu project swelled foreign reserves and served to maintain the Paraguayan currency at an already overvalued rate. The paper argues that the overvaluation, combined with extensive smuggling, undermined incentives for investment in manufacturing and deprived the government of revenues needed to finance infrastructure for sustained economic growth and development.     

Self-monitoring,norms, and attitudes as influences on consumer complaining

Reactions of consumers to marketplace problems vary widely despite the frequent similarity of sources of dissatisfaction. The results of two studies designed to investigate the determinants of consumer inclinations to complain are presented. Two alternative social-psychological explanations of behavior employing self-monitoring, moral and social norms,and attitudes as predictor variables are examined.     

Capabilities and (Missed) Opportunity for Women’s Entrepreneurship in Kuwait

Abstract

Kuwait offers a powerful context for investigating the entrepreneurial cultures developing in Gulf countries in response to the concurrent trends of pursuing economic diversification and efficiency, and the constraints posed by cultural narratives that maintain inequality between the sexes. Bringing a capabilities lens to the analysis of entrepreneurship promotion programs means shifting from a focus on meeting basic human needs to ensuring capabilities development. To begin, we discuss the capabilities approach to entrepreneurship with a focus on the necessity/opportunity classification. Next, we review the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Kuwait, including its focus on opportunity entrepreneurs and the legal, economic, and sociocultural framework in which they operate. After considering the impact of Kuwait’s gender-blind approach on women’s entrepreneurship, we conclude with some suggestions for strengthening Kuwait’s potential for capability expansion through entrepreneurship.     

The Financial Knowledge Scale: New Analyses,Findings, and Development of a Short Form

We use data from the Understanding America Study (UAS) internet panel to build upon the Knoll and Houts Financial Knowledge Scale (FKS). Specifically, we provide practitioners with a shorter 10-item scale, describe additional analyses on both the full- and short-form versions of the scales, and explore the relationship between FKS scores and a variety of retirement-related outcome variables. Importantly, the full- and short-form scales are developed using a statistical model that accounts for guessing, which allows us to provide more accurate estimates of financial knowledge than similar scales that do not account for guessing. The paper also provides conversion tables that can aid in the analysis and interpretation of FKS scores in practice. With the development of a 10-item short form that accounts for guessing, we hope to provide practitioners and researchers with a tool that will enable them to reliably measure financial knowledge more parsimoniously and accurately than other measures currently in use.     

Managerial Aspirations and Suspect Leaders: The Effect of Relative Performance and Leader Succession on Organizational Misconduct

Journal of Business Ethics - Explanations of organizational misconduct frequently point to declining firm performance and/or the actions of unethical or suspect leaders. Evidence that...     

Short Sales and Fundamental Value: Explaining the REIT Premium to NAV

This study explores the role of short sale constraints in explaining the variation in premiums to Net Asset Value (NAV) in REIT pricing. We use proprietary information on short sales between June 2006 and September 2008 to examine how short sales and short sale constraints affect the variation in monthly REIT NAV premiums using panel vector autoregression models. We find that variation in short sale activity across individual REITs can account for at least one‐third of the variation in NAV premiums. Short sale constraints tend to be binding when there is strong demand and limited supply of shares to short. Excess demand leads to overvaluation and the correction of the overvaluation explains the under‐performance of premium REITs.     

UK policy and the agro-food sector

The accession of the UK to the European Community (EC) in 1973 occurred during a period of economic and political change that might have been expected to exert a profound effect on the agro-food sector. This article examines the extent of the recent developments in this sector and considers the influence of policy on those developments. Some conclusions are drawn with regard to future policy.     

Internal vs. External Whistleblowers: A Comparison of Whistleblowering Processes

We conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis of 33 cases of internal and external whistleblowers wrongfully fired for reporting wrongdoing. Our results show external whistleblowers have less tenure with the organization, greater evidence of wrongdoing, and they tend to be more effective in changing organizational practices. External whistleblowers also experience more extensive retaliation than internal whistleblowers, and patterns of retaliation by management against the whistleblower vary depending on whether the whistleblower reports internally or externally. We discuss implications for organizations and whistleblowers, and we conclude that researchers need to develop different theoretical explanations of internal and external whistleblowing processes.