Interannual Climate Variation, Climate Prediction, and Agricultural Trade: the Costs of Surprise versus Variability

Agriculture remains sensitive to variation in rainfall and temperature. Fortunately, our ability to predict the lower frequency variation in the earth's atmosphere is increasing rapidly. While information cannot affect the underlying source of variability, it allows unexpected shocks to be anticipated and acted upon. This paper develops and analyzes an intertemporal Ricardian trade model with Bayesian beliefs. Results in this paper show that improved climate prediction reduces expected prices, but increases price variability. In addition, trade is crucial to realizing the potential benefits of climate prediction. The value of climate prediction is highest with both storage and trade, and falls by over 300% when a country is in autarky.     

在衰退中成长

如今,全球都笼罩在经济衰退之中.如果下一个就要轮到贵公司,你该怎么办?当然你要尽力保证企业财务的稳定.但更重要的是,你还必须了解公司在衰退结束后的目标设计.如果你知道企业的发展方向和如何实现这一目标,那么衰退时期是改善公司相对战略地位的好时机.     

LOGISTICS SALIENCE IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

The primary purpose of this paper was to empirically explore some of the reasons that logistics has become more important, or salient, in comparison to other functions within the firm. A survey of 296 managers across multiple industries in the U.S. found logistics becomes more important within the firm when the industry increases in uncertainty, when there is an emphasis on time‐based competition, when there is greater adoption of information technology, and when there is an emphasis on cross‐functional integration.     

Institutional design and the closure of public facilities in transition economies

As part of the reforms of their systems for financing and delivering health care, many transition economies, particularly in central and eastern Europe, have adopted national insurance funds that are institutionally separate from ministries of health. Most of these countries have also grappled with the problem of restructuring the delivery system, especially the need to reduce hospital capacity. Although improving the performance of medical care providers through a shift from passive budgeting to explicitly incentive mechanisms is important, why this change in financial relations between the government and providers could not be implemented simply by reforming the role of health ministries is not obvious. This paper presents an explicit rationale for the separation of powers between the regulator (the ministry of health) and the financing body (the insurance fund), based on the inability of a single agency to commit to closing hospitals. JEL classification: L51, P20, P35, I18.     

The New Growth Theory and Coasean economics: Institutions to capture externalities

The New Growth Theory and Coasean Economics: Institutions to Capture Externalities. — This paper presents the main theoretical arguments which lead many adherents of the New Growth Theory to the conclusion that externalities in research and development are important for economic growth and warrant government subsidies. In contrast, the authors point to private institutions like associations, company structures and industry clusters which can capture such externalities. An international comparison of private R&;D investment and special features of institutions in Switzerland and Japan are in line with this hypothesis. Thus, the argument for R&;D subsidies made by the New Growth Theory is considerably reduced.     

Syndicated Loan Announcements and Borrower Value

Announcements of syndication loans increase borrowers' shareholder wealth if they are revolving credit agreements but not if they are term loans. Share price responses to revolving credit announcements are positive and significant, whereas the wealth effect for term loans is negative and significant. The results show that announcements from both the financial press and commercial information providers can affect borrower share price reaction. Overall, single syndication announcements appear to be more newsworthy than multiple announcements reported in the financial press, and we find evidence of information leakage, post‐announcement drift, or both.     

Research notes and communications management and organizational change: A note on the railroad industry

Hypotheses which relate top-level managers' age, years of company and industry service, and education to strategic change are studied with a sample of 855 managers from 27 railroads. Results generally support hypotheses that younger managers and those with less experience are more likely to alter their strategies with changing environmental conditions.