Modelling purchasing decisions of seafood products: a case study of Mumbai,India

This study investigated the factors affecting the purchase decisions of seafood consumers in selected urban areas of Mumbai, India. The primary data were analysed using binary choice modelling techniques. It was found that taste, religion, size of household and age of family member were significant factors at a 95% confidence level. The Indian seafood industry may find this baseline study useful to encourage further consumer‐based research to promote the growth of the domestic seafood market.     

Do More Risk-Averse Investors Have Lower Net Worth and Income?

This study examines the relationship between attitude toward risk and both net worth and income. The data are obtained from a financial diary kept by a national, scientifically selected sample of more than 3000 households. Results show that both net worth and income are negatively related to risk aversion.     

How market smarts can protect property rights

Intellectual property comprises an ever-increasing fraction of corporate wealth, but what's the good of that if an ever-increasing fraction of the property is copied or stolen? Faced with developing countries' limited and inadequately enforced patent and copyright laws, some companies are resorting to market-based strategies to protect their intellectual property. These include preempting or threatening competitors, embedding intellectual property in environments that can be protected, bundling insecure intellectual property with its more secure cousins, and actually entering the businesses that pose a threat. The authors urge companies coping with weak property rights to follow a decision tree when choosing which strategies to use and when: Start by thinking of the strategies that will protect your business's core. If, for example, a first-mover advantage is within reach, making yourself more committed to intellectual property could be the answer. If you and your rivals are equally matched, ask yourself, "Can those that threaten me with copying be copied in turn?" The knowledge that each of you can hurt the other may dampen the competitive intensity or even lead to voluntary sharing of property. If these solutions fail or don't apply, try forging a connection with a product or business closely related to your own. Doing so may prevent a valued asset from falling into a rival's hands or make the asset harder to misappropriate. This approach can even help you expand your piece of the market pie or reduce the cost of making the threatened product, perhaps to the point where you can compete against pirated goods. Finally, if there still doesn't seem to be a way of making money from your threatened product, you may choose to move into the very business that has hurt your own. Such strategies are behind the economics of successful companies like Intel and NBC, say the authors.     

The impact of economic reforms on R&D by the Indian seed industry

Declining support for public research and advances in technology and new forms of legal protection have induced more private agricultural research. In developing countries, this has sparked a debate about appropriate policies regarding private research. In this context, we examine empirically the consequences of reforms in India’s seed policies which loosened various restrictions on the private sector. The period since the reforms has shown a remarkable increase in R & D effort and an increase in the number of private technology suppliers . We argue these changes were largely due to policy reforms.     

Stock returns and expected inflation: evidence from an asymmetric test specification

Previous studies that examined the relationship between stock returns and inflation have used a symmetric test specification, and have reported evidence of an inverse relation. We use an asymmetric model to re-examine this fundamental relationship between stock returns and inflation. We partition the study period into sub-samples of high and low inflation regimes. An inverse relation between stock returns and inflation forecasts is found during only low inflation periods, while a positive relation is detected through high inflation periods. In combination, results from both high and low inflation regimes suggest that stocks have delivered favorable inflation protection.      

Did the banking sector foresee the financial crisis? Evidence from risk factor disclosures

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - Beginning in December 2005, the SEC required registrants to discuss “the most significant factors that make the company risky” under the...     

CEO power,product market competition and the acquisition motive for going public

This study finds that CEO power and product market competition differentially influence post‐IPO growth strategy and its economic consequences. Powerful CEOs are more likely to prefer acquisition growth over internal investment. Further, while CEO power is positively related to the likelihood, frequency and size of post‐IPO acquisitions, it is unrelated to the post‐IPO performance of acquisitive firms. In contrast, product market rivalry does not increase post‐IPO acquisitiveness but is positively related to the performance of acquirers. Finally, CEO power enhances the performance of acquisitive IPO firms only when faced with intense competitive rivalry.