The separation of information and lending and the rise of rating agencies in the USA (1841–1907)

This paper provides a new interpretation of the early rise of rating agencies in the USA (initially known as ‘mercantile agencies’). We explain this American exceptionality through an inductive approach that revisits the conventional parallel with the UK. In contrast with earlier narratives that have emphasised the role of Common Law and the greater understanding of American judges that would have supported the rise of an ethos of ‘transparency’, we argue that Mercantile Agencies prospered as a remedy to deficient bankruptcy law and weak protection of creditor rights in the USA. The result was to raise the value of the nationwide registry of defaulters which the mercantile agencies managed. This ensured the Agencies' profitability and endowed them with resources to buy their survival in a legal environment that remained stubbornly hostile.     

Substitutability and Complementarity of Urban Amenities: External Effects of Built Heritage in Berlin

This article analyzes the impact of designated landmarks on condominium transaction prices in Berlin, Germany. We test for price differentials between listed and nonlisted properties and study their impact on surrounding property prices. The proximity to built heritage is captured by the distance to listed houses and heritage potentiality indicators. Impact is assessed by applying a hedonic model to microlevel data, and this process also addresses spatial dependency. While our findings suggest that designated landmarks do not sell at a premium or discount, landmarks are found to have positive external effects on surrounding property prices within a distance of approximately 600 m.     

Diaspora Geopolitics: Romanian-Americans and NATO Expansion

Recent years have witnessed increased interest in diasporas. In the current context of globalisation, diasporas have assumed greater prominence on the international stage. The link between diasporas and international politics, however, is relatively under-studied. The purpose of this study is to analyse the interconnections between diasporas and international politics from a geopolitical perspective. Specifically, I examine the linkages between the US-based Romanian diaspora and US foreign policy regarding Romania during the late 1990s when NATO expanded into Eastern Europe. The US-based Romanian diaspora attempted to influence the US political establishment to grant NATO membership to Romania during NATO’s 1997 expansion by reshaping the prevailing geopolitical discourse about Romania in order to move the borders of ‘sameness’ to include Romania as similar to rather than apart from ‘the West’.     

Instability in cointegration regressions: a brief review with an application to money demand in Portugal

This study addresses some modelling questions related to the possibility of structural change in models with nonstationary variables. Focusing on cointegration issues, some methodological aspects are discussed, attempting to integrate coherently the several steps of the modelling strategy. These range from unit root to cointegration testing and to testing for instability in the cointegration vector. An empirical example with Portuguese data tries to illustrate the usefulness of this approach, where a simple money demand function is estimated using an error-correction model (ECM). If a break is explicitly allowed in the cointegration vector the forecasting performance of the ECM improves.     

The behaviour of repeat visitors to museums: review and empirical findings

This study presents a theoretical and operational framework for analysing repeat visit to museums. Starting from the literature on repeat visit in tourism, the specificities of these cultural attractions are made explicit through a review of theoretical and applied works. Consistently with previous contributors, the paper suggests that the analysis of actual past behaviours has to be preferred to the one of attitudes. The application of proper econometric models is also remarked in order to put into account individual profiles. Information coming from three techniques is then used in an integrated way in order to provide a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon. Evidence from an ad hoc survey suggests the necessity to give a greater attention to perceived cultural value during the visit, promoting cultural events during the week and addressed to children, and taking care of those visitors that come from far places also through an integrated tourist supply.     

Coordinating Loosely-Coupled Work in Construction Inspection Activities

Inspections represent key activities in construction projects. They allow coordinating the work of the main contractor and the subcontracted companies participating in the project. Today the inspection activities and the coordination process are done using information recorded into paper-based blueprints. As a consequence of it, coordinating the activities derived from inspection processes become expensive, slow and error-prone. This paper presents a mobile shared workspace, named COIN (Construction Inspector), which helps the participants in a construction project to overcome these limitations. COIN was particularly designed to be used on tablet PCs, but it is able to run on several computing devices. This workspace has been tested in a controlled work scenario. The preliminary results are highly positive, indicating this proposal could have an important impact on the construction management process.     

Consumer law in Argentina and the MERCOSUR

The paper reports on the new Argentine Consumer Protection Act (CPA) which was adopted by the Parliament in 1993 but partially vetoed by the President. It aims at creating a specific system of consumer protection law, thereby extending the already existing provision of the Argentine Civil Code and special market legislation. The CPA tries to improve the position of the consumer in the marketplace and vis-à-vis public services before, during and after conclusion of a contract. It contains provisions on conciliation, access to justice, and collective redress. It attaches great importance to the establishment of consumer associations and to consumer education. Finally, the author looks at the importance of the CPA for regional integration in South America through MERCOSUR.

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Zusammenfassung Verbraucherrecht in Argentinien und der südamerikanische WirtschaftsverbundDer Beitrag berichtet über das neue argentinische Verbraucherschutzgesetz, MERCUSUR. das vom Parlament im Jahre 1993 verabschiedet wurde, gegen das aber der Präsident teilweise Einspruch erhoben hat. Dieses Gesetz strebt die Schaffung eines Verbraucherrechtes an, das über die bereits existierenden Bestimmungen des argentinischen Zivilrechtes und einzelner spezieller Marktgesetze hinausgeht. Es versucht, die Rechtsstellung des Konsumenten auf dem Markt und gegenüber öffentlichen Dienstleistungen sowohl vor, als auch während und nach Abschlu\ von Kaufverträgen zu stärken. Es enthält Regelungen zu Fragen der Schlichtung, des Rechtszuganges und der öffentlichen Rechtshilfe. Es legt starkes Gewicht auf die Entwicklung von Verbraucherorganisationen und von Verbrauchererziehung. Am Ende des Beitrages analysiert der Autor die Wichtigkeit des neuen Gesetzes für die Integration Argentiniens in den südamerikanischen Wirtschaftsverbund MERCUSUR.

     

Firms in financial distress: evidence from inter-firm payment networks with volatility driven by ‘animal spirits’

This paper elaborates an agent-based model of a pure market economy to provide theoretical evidence on how volatility-induced changes in inter-firm payment networks affect the financial distress of firms. This volatility is driven by ‘animal spirits’ in that it arises from the feelings of optimism/pessimism independently of rational decision-making, and influences the liquidity available to each firm through the inter-firm payment network; consequently, some firms may enter financial distress. The model first determines the inter-firm payment network. Then, a mean-reverting square-root process introduces volatility into the inter-firm payment network through firms’ propensity to pay suppliers according to the payments that firms expect to receive from customers. The model is calibrated for compatibility with relevant macro- and microeconomic stylized facts. According to computational experiments, financial distress in the business sector is minimized when feelings of optimism/pessimism generate the lowest volatility in firms’ propensity to pay suppliers. In addition, this volatility must materialize around an intermediate value of firms’ propensity to pay suppliers, and firms must keep this intermediate value over time.

     

The Performance Differential between Private and State Owned Enterprises: The Roles of Ownership,Management and Market Structure

abstract This article examines differences in performance between private companies (POEs) and state owned enterprises (SOEs), with an emphasis on the effects of market structure. The study uses a comprehensive panel covering in principle all registered companies during the 1990s in Norway, a country where SOEs play an important role in regular markets. Return on assets as well as costs relative to sales revenue are used as measures of performance in markets where SOEs and POEs compete with each other. Overall, POEs perform significantly better than SOEs. The study tests the hypothesis that SOE managers may learn from POE managers in environments with stronger competition, but finds only weak empirical support for such a learning mechanism.     

Multiple variable factors,demand uncertainty,and the cooperative firm

It has been shown that the risk averse, cooperative firm producing its output with labor as the only variable input and selling this output in a competitive market will produce more than the cooperative firm operating under condition of certainty. This letter proves that this result may not apply to the case of the cooperative firm facing a stochastic demand and/or employing more than one variable input.