Management heterogeneity,competitive interaction groups,and firm performance

One of the fundamental problems in strategic management is to map a heterogeneous set of firms in an industry into subsets of firms within which firms are homogeneous in their conduct and performance. The strategic group concept provides an answer to this intriguing question. Researchers in strategic group theory argue that firms within the same strategic group are behaviorally similar and thus tend to compete more fiercely within the group than across groups. In this paper, we focus on the question whether firms within the same group show similar decision‐making characteristics. Strategic‐choice theorists argue that top management teams in firms have substantial discretion in determining the future strategic contour of firms. Upper‐echelon theorists also argue that top managers are the strategists who set the direction of firms and the pace of competition in the industry. Further, they argue that top management team characteristics are an important element that determines the market niche in which a firm competes and the strategic direction a firm follows. Based on these arguments, we expect that there will be a significant link between grouping of firms by the patterns of competitive interactions and grouping of firms by top management team heterogeneity. Moreover, we argue that the closer the TMT heterogeneity of a firm is to the dominant heterogeneity in the competitive interaction group, the better it performs. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite Dimensional Affine Realisations of HJM Models in Terms of Forward Rates and Yields

Finite dimensional Markovian HJM term structure models provide ideal settings for the study of term structure dynamics and interest rate derivatives where the flexibility of the HJM framework and the tractability of Markovian models coexist. Consequently, these models became the focus of a series of papers including Carverhill (1994), Ritchken and Sankarasubramanian (1995), Bhar and Chiarella (1997), Inui and Kijima (1998), de Jong and Santa-Clara (1999), Björk and Svensson (2001) and Chiarella and Kwon (2001a). However, these models usually required the introduction of a large number of state variables which, at first sight, did not appear to have clear links to the market observed quantities, and the explicit realisations of the forward rate curve in terms of the state variables were unclear. In this paper, it is shown that the forward rate curves for these models are affine functions of the state variables, and conversely that the state variables in these models can be expressed as affine functions of a finite number of forward rates or yields. This property is useful, for example, in the estimation of model parameters. The paper also provides explicit formulae for the bond prices in terms of the state variables that generalise the formulae given in Inui and Kijima (1998), and applies the framework to obtain affine representations for a number of popular interest rate models.     

Tests of efficiency wage theory and contract theory with disaggregated data from the U.S.

Zusammenfassung Tests der Effizienzlohntheorie und der Kontrakttheorie mit disaggregierten Daten der USA. — Der Autor testet die Voraussagen der Effizienzlohntheorie und der Kontrakttheorie, indem er den Grad der Lohnrigidit?t in sieben wichtigen Sektoren (1-stellige SIC) und 19 gewerblichen Industriezweigen (2-stellige SIC) in den USA sch?tzt. Der Grad der Lohnrigidit?t wird anhand von PhillipskurvenGleichungen, die nach Industrien disaggregiert sind und Indikatoren für die aggregierte Arbeitslosenrate sowie die Nachfrage nach den Produkten der einzelnen Industriezweige enthalten, gesch?tzt. Effizienzlohntheorie und Kontrakttheorie werden getestet, indem die Korrelationen zwischen dem Grad der Lohnrigidit?t in einer Industrie und den Merkmalen einer Industrie, die für die jeweilige Theorie charakteristisch sind, berechnet werden. Die Ergebnisse stützen stark die Effizienzlohntheorie und scheinen für die Kontrakttheorie nicht so günstig zu sein.

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Resumen Tests de la teoría del salario eficiente y de la teoría del contrato con datos desagregados para los EE UU. — En este trabajo se someten las predicciones de la teoría del salario eficiente y de la teoría del contrato a un test, estimando el grado de rigidez salarial en siete sectores importantes (a nivel de un dígito de la SIC) y 19 industrias manufactureras (a nivel de dos dígitos de la SIC) en los EE UU. El grado de rigidez salarial es estimado usando ecuaciones de la curva de Phillips desagregadas por industria, las cuales incluyen indicadores de la tasa de desempleo agregada y de la demanda de productos industrials. La teoría del salario eficiente y la teoría del contrato son sometidas a un test calculando las correlaciones entre el grado de rigidez salarial de una industria y las caracteristicas de esa industria, relacionadas con estas teorias. Los resultados dan apoyo a la teoria del salario eficiente, mas no parecen ser tan favorables para la teoria del contrato.

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Résumé Des tests de la théorie du salaire efficient et de la théorie de contrat avec des données disaggrégées des Etats Unis. — Cette étude soumet les prédictions de l’hypothèse du salaire efficient et la théorie de contrat à un test en estimant le degré de rigidité des salaires dans 7 secteurs majeurs (1-digit SIC) et 19 secteurs industriels (2-digit SIC) aux Etats Unis. Le degré de rigidité des salaires est estimé par les équations de la courbe de Phillips, disaggrégées par l’industrie, qui incluent des mesures du taux de ch?mage aggrégé et la demande aux produits des secteurs industriels. On soumet la théorie du salaire efficient et la théorie de contrat à un test en calculant les correlations entre le degré de rigidité des salaires et des caractéristiques des secteurs industriels qui se réfèrent à ces théories. Les résultats supportent principalement la théorie du salaire efficient et ne semblent pas être aussi favorables à la théorie de contrat.

     

The cournot-nash and cooperative solutions in the harvesting of a fish stock

The questions of optimal extinction and of market imperfections in the harvesting of a fish stock is analyzed using two different objective functions, one discounted utility of fish consumption and the other discounted profit, both over an infinite horizon.