The Internationalization of Service Firms in China: A Comparative Analysis with Manufacturing Firms

In this article, we expand upon the springboard perspective of emerging markets in the service sector. We investigate the phenomenon of service firm internationalization in China and the distinct differences between service and manufacturing firms during international expansion. Using dynamic analysis of historical data for 363 service firms and 569 manufacturing firms from 2001 to 2007, we find that the internationalization of service firms in China is different from that of manufacturing firms in terms of resource requirement and experience exploitation. The internationalization of service firms relies more on international experience than corporate resources. Furthermore, we also identify the structural differences between hard and soft service industries. In China, identifiable intangible assets are found to be more important for the international expansion of hard service firms than they are for soft service firms. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Formalisation of land rights: Some empirical evidence from Mali, Niger and South Africa

In this paper, we re-interpret three cases of research previously carried out in Mali, Niger and South Africa in light of the recent debate about formalisation of land rights that has emerged since the publication of Hernando de Soto's ‘Mystery of Capital’. The Malian case shows that lack of broad access to formalisation processes in high-pressure areas may play into the hands of those with power, information, and resources. The case also demonstrates that timing of formalisation efforts in urban areas characterised by rapid expansion is crucial in terms of distributive outcomes. The Nigerien case demonstrates how impending formalisation led to a scramble for land and increased conflicts in a context of institutional competition and limited administrative capacity. The South African case shows that the very process of surveying and registering rights may also change the rights themselves. Formalisation procedures may also amplify the tension between individual and communal rights, and boost privatisation.     

Milk sales and dietary diversity among the Maasai

In Maasai culture, responsibilities are traditionally divided between genders. Men are in charge of grazing and managing the livestock herds. Women take care of the family, administer food supplies, and are responsible for milking. For them, balancing home consumption of milk (for the family and for the calves), milk sale, and food purchase is a major task. In this article, we first investigate how different milk sales groups vary regarding the use of different food items and the respective quantities consumed by the enkaji, i.e., a Maasai subhousehold. Then, we address the commercialization decision and assess the effect of milk sales on the enkaji's food item use and food consumption. Using the data of Maasai enkajijik in the milk catchment area of a milk collection center in Ngerengere, Tanzania, we estimate the effects by employing propensity score matching procedures. Our findings suggest that milk sellers, especially those selling to the milk collection center, have a more diverse diet. In terms of per person consumption, the groups are markedly similar. Therefore, we conclude that income generated by milk sales is invested in diet diversification rather than in increasing the quantity of food consumed, hence the enkajijik appear not to make use of caloric terms of trade.     

A reduced form framework for modeling volatility of speculative prices based on realized variation measures

Building on realized variance and bipower variation measures constructed from high-frequency financial prices, we propose a simple reduced form framework for effectively incorporating intraday data into the modeling of daily return volatility. We decompose the total daily return variability into the continuous sample path variance, the variation arising from discontinuous jumps that occur during the trading day, as well as the overnight return variance. Our empirical results, based on long samples of high-frequency equity and bond futures returns, suggest that the dynamic dependencies in the daily continuous sample path variability are well described by an approximate long-memory HAR–GARCH model, while the overnight returns may be modeled by an augmented GARCH type structure. The dynamic dependencies in the non-parametrically identified significant jumps appear to be well described by the combination of an ACH model for the time-varying jump intensities coupled with a relatively simple log-linear structure for the jump sizes. Finally, we discuss how the resulting reduced form model structure for each of the three components may be used in the construction of out-of-sample forecasts for the total return volatility.     

UK UNCUT UNRAVELLED

This paper examines four major tax cases that have been the focus of campaigns by the group UK Uncut. The criticisms of the tax affairs of the companies concerned are shown to be unfounded and ill‐conceived. Furthermore, there would be major economic benefits from reducing corporate taxation.     

Jump tails,extreme dependencies,and the distribution of stock returns

We provide a new framework for estimating the systematic and idiosyncratic jump tail risks in financial asset prices. Our estimates are based on in-fill asymptotics for directly identifying the jumps, together with Extreme Value Theory (EVT) approximations and methods-of-moments for assessing the tail decay parameters and tail dependencies. On implementing the procedures with a panel of intraday prices for a large cross-section of individual stocks and the S&P 500 market portfolio, we find that the distributions of the systematic and idiosyncratic jumps are both generally heavy-tailed and close to symmetric, and show how the jump tail dependencies deduced from the high-frequency data together with the day-to-day variation in the diffusive volatility account for the “extreme” joint dependencies observed at the daily level.     

Best–Worst Scaling Approach to Predict Customer Choice for 3PL Services

This study describes a simple, theoretically based methodology to analyze the nature of customer demand for third‐party logistics provider service components. The method overcomes limitations in prior studies and enables us to examine the relative importance of product and service attributes as they pertain to the choice of third‐party logistics providers. Two distinct types of customers populate our data: those professing operational attributes and those seeking relational attributes. The theoretical and practical implications are that improved supply chain models can be developed when separate demand structures are taken into account.     

Escalating penalties for repeat offenders: a note on the role of information

The severity of the sanction for a given offense is often determined by the offense history of the offender. We establish that this policy can be welfare-maximizing if individuals are imperfectly informed about the magnitude of the sanction. Imperfect information distorts individuals’ perception of the expected sanction of the first offense. Once detected, individuals learn about the sanction applicable to their act, making this argument less relevant for consecutive offenses.