Sustainability ‘wars’ in a New England town

A research project into large group decision-making in a New England Town Meeting surprised us with the degree to which sustainability came to be the axis around which political debate revolved. We identified two very different yet overlapping conceptions of sustainability: one emphasized fiscal responsibility; the other asserted the merits of environmental stewardship. Each of the two conceptions had proponents, with strong views about what constituted good versus bad governing practices, each with a strong sense of what was good for the town. In this paper, we sort out those meanings. We seek to understand and expose the contours of sustainability, how the discourses around sustainability enter political processes, and to shed light on ongoing debates about the form of governance best suited for a democratically inclined New England town. Methods involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches, including data collection and analysis activities that comprised four levels: (1) participant observation of the Town Meeting; (2) quantitative analysis of voting behaviors; (3) interviews with 30 of the 240 members of the Town Meeting; and (4) thematic analysis, codebook development, and coding. Finally, in the spirit of contributing to the making of a future possible world, the authors ponder the courses forward for democratic processes and the future of a town caught in a ‘pitched battle’ over the terms and stakes of sustainability.     

The antecedents of the use of continuous auditing in the internal auditing context

The concept of continuous auditing originated over two decades ago. Yet despite its much touted benefits, its acceptance and use in practice has been slow. To gain insight into the state of affairs, we surveyed 210 internal auditors worldwide on the status of their use of continuous auditing. Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) we explore the antecedents of internal auditors' intentions to use continuous auditing technology. Employing the Partial Least Squares method, we find strong support for the model with an R² of 44.3%. Specifically, we find that internal auditors' perceptions of effort expectancy and social influence are significant predictors of their intentions to use continuous auditing. We also find that annual sales volume of the company and voluntariness of use significantly moderate the relationship between performance expectancy and social influence respectively. Additionally, we find regional differences in the significance of key UTAUT antecedents. Specifically, we find that the North American internal auditors are more likely to use continuous auditing due to soft social coercion pressures of Social Influence through peers and higher authorities. On the other hand, Middle Eastern auditors are more likely to use the technology if it is mandated by the higher authorities.     

Asymmetric Conditional Volatility and Firm Size: Evidence from Australian Equity Portfolios

This paper examines the relationship between firm size and equity volatility for two portfolios of Australian equities. Univariate and Multivariate GARCH models are used to demonstrate that conditional variance is related to firm size. There is strong evidence to suggest that the variance-covariance matrix of returns is time varying and asymmetric. A negative innovation to the return of the large firm portfolio results in higher levels of conditional volatility in the small firm portfolio than would be the case for a positive innovation of equal magnitude. News about own returns appears to determine the conditional variance of the portfolio of large firms. The conditional covariance between the two portfolios also displays evidence of asymmetry.     

Indiaʼs mysterious manufacturing miracle

Using data on formal manufacturing plants in India, we report a large but imprecise speedup in productivity growth starting in the early 1990s (e.g., 1993–2007 compared to 1980–1992). We trace it to productivity growth within large plants (200 workers or more), as opposed to reallocation across such plants. As many economists believe Indian reforms during this era improved resource allocation, the absence of a growth pickup from reallocation is surprising. Moreover, when we look across industries we fail to robustly relate productivity growth to prominent reforms such as industrial de-licensing, tariff reductions, FDI liberalization, or lifting of small-scale industry reservations. Even under a generous reading of their effects, these reforms (at least as we measure them) account for less than one-third of the rapid productivity growth in Indian manufacturing from 1980–2007.     

Going beyond Cancun: Realizing the development promise of the Doha agenda

The launch of a new trade round in Doha in November 2001 was a major breakthrough following the discord in Seattle in 1999. The Doha Round is the first set of multilateral trade negotiations in which the needs and interests of developing countries have been officially declared a priority and whose conclusion deemed essential. However, the failure of the Doha negotiations in Cancun in September 2003 was a major setback. The trade talks are now stalled in several policy domains vital to developing countries such as agriculture, non‐farm trade, access to patented drugs, special and differential treatment and dispute settlement, and in areas of interest to the developed countries such as the “Singapore issues” dealing with investment, competition, trade facilitation and government procurement This paper discusses the reasons behind the failure, its wider implications as well as the policies that member governments of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will need to make to move beyond Cancun.     

A comparative study of cross-selling practices in public and private sector banks in India

This paper is a study of cross-selling practices in Indian public and private sector banks through the case study method. The study revealed that cross-selling practices in public sector and private sector banks are quite different. These differences emerge mainly from their different philosophy, background and distinct target customer segments. However, both sectors can learn from each other; public sector banks can introduce specialised training and incentives, whereas private sector banks need to introduce appropriate control mechanisms and avoid indiscriminate cross-selling. The paper also brings out the elements of successful cross-selling in India.     

A revisitation of the savings–growth nexus in Mexico

By employing tests for long-term causality, contrary to Sinha and Sinha (Economic Letters, 1998), in Mexico, savings is shown to precede growth. This paper further explores the complex dynamics of this inter-relationship to lend clarity to this nexus.     

Forest proximity and residential land values

This study estimates a hedonic price equation for residential lands in some mountain counties of Colorado. Results suggest that per-acre price of land in a town is positively influenced by the town's proximity to ski resort and is negatively influenced by its proximity to forest. However, there is a positive fixed effect of having a protected forest such as a national park or wildlife refuge nearby, and the negative effect of proximity of forest is much lower with protected forests. Results suggest that increasingly bigger parcels of land command progressively lower per-acre prices.     

Can Producing and Marketing Healthy Foods Create a Healthy Economy?

Does producing and marketing healthy foods help create a healthy economy? The findings show that producing and marketing healthy agricultural products can substantially benefit a state's economy. While producing crops that could make the population healthier, these products also generate significant economic activity across business sectors, create jobs and labor income, and create incremental business taxes. Additionally, impact dollars and incremental wages create demand for goods and services both within and outside of the agricultural economic sector, thereby touching nearly every aspect of resident and business life.     

An Analysis of Trade Performance of the Australian Passenger Motor Vehicle Industry: Trends,Patterns, and Determinants

This article presents an empirical analysis of the trends, patterns, and determinants of the Australian passenger motor vehicle industry trade in the context of policy liberalization. Although export orientation and import penetration ratios have shown rising trends, especially since the early 1990s, faster growth in import penetration has led to a surge in the industry’s trade deficit. Econometric results appear to suggest that tariff protection, export incentives, and government assistance have made the industry less competitive, in domestic and world markets. These findings indicate that further liberalization may help improve the Australian passenger motor vehicle industry’s trade performance.