Using ESPN 30 for 30 to teach economics

Education in economics has trended away from “chalk and talk” toward alternative pedagogical approaches in recent years. This article documents one such approach used to illustrate economic concepts, the use of film clips from ESPN 30 for 30. This series can be used to augment traditional principles' classes or as real world examples of concepts discussed in upper division economic courses. The ESPN 30 for 30 film series merges three different areas of interests: film, sports, and history. Through these diverse spectrums, ESPN 30 for 30 films provides instructors with another resource to use in classrooms and creates an environment that facilitates active learning activities.     

Cost of Protection: A Second Look at the Romer Variety Effect

The welfare loss calculated by Romer (J Dev Econ 43:5-38, 1994) under the assumption that certain import varieties disappear a result of increased protection are an order of magnitude larger than those obtained by any other investigator. In this paper, we will argue that the key source of Romer’s result is the total absence of domestic varieties of the differentiated product. Once we allow the differentiated product to be produces at home, the results change dramatically. This allows for the realistic possibility that domestic production substitutes for imports once tariffs are imposed.     

Gender and child sensitive social protection in South Africa

Drawing from a 2010 study of women receiving the Child Support Grant in an urban area of South Africa, this article discusses the link between social protection, women's empowerment and the well-being of children. It appears that the Grant enhances women's power and control over household decision-making in financial matters, general household spending and child well-being. At the same time, the data show that women continue to bear the greatest burden of care in the household and that these responsibilities significantly heighten gender inequalities. Therefore, while the Grant has benefits for child well-being and women's empowerment, it cannot on its own transform unequal and unjust social relations of power. It should be working in concert with other public programmes not only to focus on children's needs but also to strive for gender equality for poor women.     

Transborder data flows: Implications for multinational corporations

Transmitting data across national borders is crucial to many multinational corporations' operations, yet the issue is continually clouded by different regulations in different countries as well as the reasons behind them. The authors suggest that MNCs adopt a cooperative approach when dealing with other countries on this issue.     

Building trust in international alliances

Two facts stand out unambiguously in today's global business. One, international alliances are proliferating, underscoring the strategic importance managers increasingly attach to “competition through cooperation.” Two, trust is key to successful international alliances. Together, these two facts point to the need to better understand trust, a task that was attempted in an earlier article (Parkhe, 1998). Yet such understanding, while necessary, is not sufficient. This article, the second of a two-part series, shows how partners can proactively manage an alliance relationship in order to develop trust. Toward this goal, the discussion includes trust generation through process-based, characteristic-based, and institutional-based mechanisms, which are to a significant degree within alliance managers' control. Managers must also be mindful of several critical features of alliance dynamics. These are described in some detail, as is the need to appropriately “calibrate” trust level in an alliance to the lifecycle stage of the alliance. With proper management attention, too much and too little trust can be avoided.     

How should managers treat ethics in international business?

Business ethics concern the consideration of moral in corporate decision making. International managers may be confronted with a variety of ethical dilemmas, usually due to differences among national markets in what constitutes legal or acceptable practice. Beliefs about what constitutes ethical business behavior commonly stem from one of four moral philosophies: teleology, deontology, the theory of justice, and cultural relativism. A framework incorporating all four is presented here which should provide a useful decision tool for international managers. An application of the framework and the complexities associated with it are presented next. We conclude that an effective integration of the company's perspective on ethics and the business behavior of the employees is critical and that it depends on top management, and the entire organization, demonstrating that they are serious about ethical business behavior on an ongoing basis. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Opportunity related absorptive capacity and entrepreneurial alertness

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Extending the conceptualization of absorptive capacity, we propose the concept of opportunity related absorptive capacity, defined as an...     

Independents�� day? Analyst behavior surrounding the Global Settlement

In this paper, we examine the impact of NASD Rule 2711, NYSE Rule 472, and the Global Research Settlement on the recommendation performance of independent, affiliated, and unaffiliated analysts. We find that analysts from all three types of institutions issued fewer strong buys following these regulations designed to separate investment banking and equity research. Affiliated analysts were less likely to issue innovative recommendations. While downgrades became more prevalent following the regulations, they were significantly less informative. Independent research firms set up after the Global Research Settlement are of inferior quality; they issue more optimistic and less innovative recommendations that generate lower announcement period returns than independent firms existing prior to the Settlement. Our overall findings question whether investors will be better served via the shift in equity research to analysts at independent research firms.     

Too much of a good thing? Absorptive capacity,firm performance,and the moderating role of entrepreneurial orientation

Absorptive capacity (ACAP) refers to a firm's ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, and exploit new knowledge. Research has yet to acknowledge the possibility of limits to the financial returns of this important strategic construct. This study suggests an inverted‐U shaped relationship between ACAP and financial performance. Based on data from 285 technology‐based small and medium enterprises, we observe gains within three prospective, secondary measures of growth to diminish beyond lower levels of ACAP, even turning negative and becoming harmful beyond intermediate levels. We find that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) moderates the ACAP‐performance relationship, enhancing financial gains at lower levels of ACAP and mitigating the decline in financial performance at higher levels of ACAP. Further, with higher EO, higher ACAP can be achieved before financial returns diminish.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Instrumental Variables Analysis and the Role of National Culture in Corporate Finance

In this article, we identify and review instrumental variables used to study the relation between national culture and finance. Recognizing that an effective instrument must be correlated with the endogenous variable (relevance condition) and must not be correlated with the outcome variable (exclusion condition), we conduct analysis and provide theoretical arguments to ascertain the ability of each candidate instrument to meet these criteria. We further document where to locate the data to form the actual instruments. Overall, we design this study to help future authors weigh the strengths and weaknesses of using specific instruments and to better inform empirical strategies for addressing the endogeneity concerns inherent in the “culture and finance” literature.