U.S. national security export controls: Implications for global competitiveness of U.S. high-tech firms

U.S. exporters of high-technology, ‘dual-use’ products are competitively disadvantaged in global markets by the complexity, range, and stringency of U.S. national security export controls. This paper demonstrates that fungibility of high technology and lax interpretation of multilateral export control agreements by other advanced countries have made the existing control regime ineffective. It further shows that persistent U.S. restrictiveness of exports in non-critical, widely available goods and technologies may needlessly and permanently erode U.S. firms' competitive position in existing as well as rapidly-opening markets worldwide. The need to revise the notion of national security to include not only military security, but also its complement, economic security, is discussed. The pivotal issue of enforceability of multilateral controls is explored, and corporate strategies for U.S. high-tech firms to achieve export control policy change are suggested.     

Adoption of Bt Cotton and Impact Variability: Insights from India

There is a growing body of literature about the impacts of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton in developing countries. While many studies show remarkable benefits for farmers, there are also reports that question these results. Most previous studies consider impacts in deterministic terms, neglecting existing variability. Here we explain the main factors influencing the agronomic and economic outcomes. Apart from differences in pest pressure and patterns of pesticide use, germplasm effects can play an important role. Theoretical arguments are supported by empirical evidence from India. Better understanding of impact variability can help explain some of the paradoxes in the recent controversy over genetically modified crops.     

Bubbles and capital flow volatility: Causes and risk management

Emerging market economies are fertile ground for the development of real estate and other financial bubbles. Despite these economies’ significant growth potential, their corporate and government sectors do not generate the financial instruments to provide residents with adequate stores of value. Capital often flows out of these economies seeking these stores of value in the developed world. Bubbles are beneficial because they provide domestic stores of value and thereby reduce capital outflows while increasing investment. But they come at a cost, as they expose the country to bubble-crashes and capital flow reversals. We show that domestic financial underdevelopment not only facilitates the emergence of bubbles, but also leads agents to undervalue the aggregate risk embodied in financial bubbles. In this context, even rational bubbles can be welfare reducing. We study a set of aggregate risk management policies to alleviate the bubble-risk. We show that liquidity requirements, sterilization of capital inflows and structural policies aimed at developing public debt markets ‘collateralized’ by future revenues, all have a high payoff in this environment.     

Adopting International Financial Reporting Standards for Small and Medium‐sized Enterprises

Diverse complications and controversial issues in the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for Small and Medium‐sized Enterprises (SMEs) have been reported by many jurisdictions, prompting them not to adopt this set of standards. Conversely many jurisdictions have adopted or are in the process of adopting IFRS for SMEs. This study considers the impetus for successfully achieving accounting convergence with IFRS for SMEs in those jurisdictions. The possible transition issues that may arise when countries adopt IFRS for SMEs are also highlighted. Furthermore, to provide pioneering evidence on the problems accountants encounter when applying IFRS for SMEs, we conduct a survey on accounting practitioners in Fiji – an early adopter of this set of standards. Both the insights provided on the process of embracing IFRS for SMEs in Fiji and the opinions elicited from accountants highlight new dimensions to the inherent problems in IFRS for SMEs. Scant attention has been given to this issue so far; hence the empirical evidence provided by our study informs not only the global convergence of SME accounting but also the quality of the current suite of IFRS for SMEs.     

Is there an optimally diversified conglomerate? Gleaning answers from capital markets

Motivated by recent productivity-based theories of diversification, we argue that only conglomerates with an optimal degree of diversification can utilize their comparative advantages across various industries and achieve economies of scope by eliminating redundancies. Evidence from both corporate bond and equity markets suggests that optimally diversified conglomerates consist of either (1) approximately five equally weighted divisions, or (2) one large core business segment that roughly accounts for 75 % sales. Moreover, the relative size of divisions has a critical impact on how diversification affects credit spreads and excess values. Nonparity among divisions correlates with greater costs that increase with the number of divisions.     

Planning Science and Technology for national development: The Indian experience

Linking Science and Technology (S&T) with national development is a subject of increasing concern in most developing countries, and this has gained added momentum with the emerging technological revolution. This paper presents a historical perspective of the Indian experience in planning S&T for national development and the subsequent developments. This is followed by an analysis of the experience to bring out some salient points of relevance to India as well as other developing countries. India may have to pay particular attention to promoting participative approaches, implementational realities of plans, simplification of systems and procedures, and macro–micro linkage. For developing countries in general, the paper underlines the importance of improvement engineering, development of work ethic, flexibility and creativity, and the need to take the people along. The ultimate success would depend on the management of change and the generation of momentum.     

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.     

Forum-Shopping and Personal Bankruptcy

The dramatic increase in U.S. personal bankruptcy filings of the last fifteen years has focused attention on the wide disparities between different states' personal bankruptcy exemptions. These differences have been criticized both on the grounds of equity and also because they provide an incentive to move to a state with a higher exemption before declaring bankruptcy, that is to forum-shop. This paper focuses on the latter of these objections. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we estimate a Nested Logit model of the household migration decision. Our econometric approach specifically avoids the problem of endogenously induced bankruptcy filings by examining the effect of filing propensity, rather than the actual event of filing, on the tendency to migrate to a higher exemption state. We conclude that while there is indeed evidence that considerations of bankruptcy laws do influence interstate migration, the actual effect is relatively modest. We estimate that, in any given year, roughly one percent of moves to higher-exemption states are motivated by considerations of differences in bankruptcy laws; by way of comparison, this is roughly comparable to the magnitude of recent estimates of welfare-induced migration. This suggests that the emphasis on differences in exemptions which has been a feature of recent attempts to reform the bankruptcy code is somewhat exaggerated.