Sea turtle interactions with Hawaii's longline fishery: an extended multi-objective programming model incorporating spatial and seasonal dimensions

The numerous discussions regarding the advantages and disadvantages of Turkey's becoming a member of the Customs Union has been inconclusive. The empirical analysis that mostly focus on the changes in the volume of trade without much regard to the conjectural changes have also been insufficient. This study attempts to shed light on this issue in a formal analysis of Turkey's international trade by empirically accounting for the changes before and after the Customs Union Agreement (CUA). In doing so, we explicitly account for the concurrent changes in the macroeconomic environment that may have affected Turkey's trade with the rest of the world. Our empirical findings indicate that CUA has not only positively impacted on Turkey's trade, but also led to changes in the behaviour of both exports and imports with regards to their responsiveness to underlying variables.     

Earnings Manipulation and the Cost of Capital

The widespread use of accounting information by investors and financial analysts to help value stocks creates an incentive for managers to manipulate earnings in an attempt to influence short‐term stock price performance. This paper examines the role of earnings management in affecting a firm's cost of capital. Using an agency model with multiple firms whose cash flows are correlated, we demonstrate that the extent of earnings manipulation varies across the business cycle. Depending on a firm's earnings profile, it can have stronger incentives to overstate its performance in good times or in bad times. Because of this dependence on the state of the economy, earnings manipulation can influence a firm's cost of capital despite the forces of diversification.     

Is Geographical Targeting Cost-Effective? The Case of the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program in Illinois

This paper uses economic, hydrologic, and GIS modeling to assess the effectiveness of the Illinois Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program in the Lower Sangamon watershed. Our results show that for a representative five-year storm event, the acres currently enrolled in the program result in a 12% reduction in sediment loading, which is below the program goal of 20% and four times the least-cost solution. We also analyze the design of alternative rental payment instruments for improving the cost-effectiveness of geographical targeting for land retirement. Policy implications for the characteristics of the land parcels that should be targeted for enrollment in the program are discussed.     

Preservation of Species and Genetic Diversity

This article presents a mathematical programming approach to determine a conservation strategy that maximizes preserved species' diversity under limited resource availability. Diversity is defined as the negative of total diversity loss given by the sum of genetic distances between extinct species and their closest surviving relatives. The model incorporates both species richness and genetic diversity as the conservation criteria when determining species preservation and site selection decisions. The article also presents two empirical applications to the conservation of 15 crane species and 208 genera including most of the endangered or threatened North American bird species.     

The interaction between foreigners' trading and emerging stock returns: Evidence from Turkey

Using monthly foreign flows data on Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) and employing a structural VAR model, we analyze the interaction between foreigners' trading and emerging stock returns. In contrast to most of the available theory and repeated previous findings on other markets, foreign investors negative-feedback-trade with respect to past local returns in ISE, however only in rising markets and especially under macroeconomic instability. Net foreign flows forecast future market returns, but not individual stock returns. Price impacts are permanent, suggesting that foreigners' trading incorporates information. Overall, results reject previous conclusions that foreigners are uninformed positive feedback traders: rather, they are a heterogeneous group dominated by sophisticated investors able to rationally adjust their trading style in line with the market's prevailing characteristics.     

Collective Action and the Institutionalist Approach to Financial Regulation

Drawing on the institutionalist approach to a capitalist economy as a money economy, I regard financial regulation and supervision as a collective action problem. I argue that, given the basic characteristics of such an economy, a financial system may be considered as a public utility and financial stability as a public good. I then maintain that the provision of the latter could not rely on private market mechanisms, such as self-regulation and price-directed incentives. As capitalism develops through more financialized forms, new institutions and regulatory rules must be designed to reframe the market’s boundaries in order to consolidate systemic stability, which is a basic condition for continuous and sustainable economic relations in society. I then suggest a precautionary-principle-based macro-prudential approach to financial regulation in order to ensure a sustainable provision of finance and financial stability that is consistent with the characteristics of a money economy.     

ESTIMATED SMALL OPEN ECONOMY MODEL WITH FRICTIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT

This paper investigates labour market dynamics in New Zealand by estimating a structural small open economy model enriched with standard search and matching frictions in the labour market. We show that the model fits the business cycle features of key macroeconomic variables reasonably well and provides an appealing monetary transmission mechanism. We then extend our analysis to examine the driving forces behind labour market variables. Our findings suggest that the bulk of variation in labour market variables is solely explained by disturbances pertaining to the labour market.     

This Time Is the Same: Using Bank Performance in 1998 to Explain Bank Performance during the Recent Financial Crisis

Are some banks prone to perform poorly during crises? If yes, why? In this paper, we show that a bank's stock return performance during the 1998 crisis predicts its stock return performance and probability of failure during the recent financial crisis. This effect is economically large. Our findings are consistent with persistence in a bank's risk culture and/or aspects of its business model that make its performance sensitive to crises. Banks that relied more on short‐term funding, had more leverage, and grew more are more likely to be banks that performed poorly in both crises.     

Special issue introduction: Historical research on institutional change

Abstract

Both business historians and organisation studies scholars study institutional change to understand the interactions between business and society. However, research approaches differ fundamentally, with organisational research focusing on theory-driven explanations, whereas historical research is rather theory-informed. The consequence of such disciplinary orientation is that interdisciplinary conversations rarely occur. For this special issue, we invited submissions that address how historical research can contribute to our understanding of institutional change while demonstrating ‘dual integrity’ in terms of being significant pieces of historical research that provide us with new insights into historiography and at the same time addressing important theoretical concerns.