Determinants of GNMA Mortgage Prices

This paper contrasts three different arbitrage-based models for the pricing of GNMA securities, and analyzes the effect of different assumptions about the call policy pursued by the issuers of the underlying mortgages. Both the nature of the interest-rate uncertainty captured by the model and the assumed call policy have a major effect on the yield differentials predicted between GNMA securities and Treasury Bonds.     

Technological innovation in tyre manufacture

This paper discusses key factors in starting up local production of radials ahead of most other manufacturers, and how this affected comparative profitability. This led to the build-up of a viable capability for adapting basic overseas innovations to suit local conditions. It will be shown how this capability, in combination with independence in decision-making, compensated the Australian manufacturer relative to resources available to those manufacturers with overseas affiliations.     

Causality Between Exports and Economic Growth: The Empirical Evidence from Shanghai

The export-led growth hypothesis is tested using monthly time series data for Shanghai (one of the major exporting provinces in China) using the Granger no-causality procedure developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995) in a vector autoregresion (VAR) model. This paper builds on the existing literature in three distinct ways. This is the first study of the export-led growth hypothesis which employs a regional dataset (Shanghai). Second, the paper follows Riezman et al . (1996) in controlling for the growth of imports to avoid a spurious causality result; and finally, the use of the methodology by Toda and Yamamoto is expected to improve the standard F -statistics in the causality test process. The research finds one-way Granger causality running from GDP to exports     

The summer people and the natives some effects of tourism in a Vermont vacation village

A village in northern New England was the setting of fieldwork focused on the interaction between the year-round residents of the community (the natives) and their tourist season guests (the summer people). The annual round of activities is geared to the the presence and absence of the summer people; the most highly valued periods of time are the winter season when only natives are residents of the village. As the marketing of the pastoral image of their village to the summer people progresses, the natives face a dilemma. If they are sucscessful in their marketing endeavors, they will prosper financially but, at the same time, they hasten the corruption of their public ideology—the image they hold of their village. The natives are attempting to salvage their future by exploiting the summer people through a “phony-folk culture” and thereby preserving selected aspects of their traditional culture for themselves. The natives' traditional way of life becomes more and more difficult to maintain as it is distorted and consumed by the summer people.     

BOOK REVIEWS

The Venture Capital Cycle, by Paul A. Gompers and Josh Lerner. The MIT Press, 1999, 375 pages, suggested retail price $45.     

Cross-subsidization and cost misallocation by regulated monopolists

While cross-subsidization is understood theoretically as involving the sustainability of a cost allocation scheme, it is invoked in regulatory policy contexts, such as the divestiture of AT&T, where costs of serving unregulated markets may be borne by ratepayers of regulated monopolies. We analyze two cross-subsidization tactics—cost misallocation and distorted technological choice — under a spectrum of regulatory cost allocation policies. These tactics lead to higher prices in regulated markets and inefficient production in unregulated markets. Welfare effects are discussed; we conclude with observations on strategic behavior and regulatory policy.     

Modeling the effects of including/excluding attributes in choice experiments on systematic and random components

This paper examines the impact of attribute presence/absence in choice experiments using covariance heterogeneity models and random coefficient models. Results show that attribute presence/absence impacts both mean utility (systematic components) and choice variability (random components). Biased mean effects can occur by not accounting for choice variability. Further, even if one accounts for choice variability, attribute effects can differ because of attribute presence/absence. Managers who use choice experiments to study product changes or new variants should be cautious about excluding potentially essential attributes. Although including more relevant attributes increases choice variability, it also reduces bias.     

Competitive Advantage and Human Resource Management in SMEs in a Transitional Economy

The article is based on data of the study of 151 small companies in Slovenia by J. Pranikar and others. The study is the first investigation of small firms in slovenia with a sufficiently large number of cases to enable conclusions about the ways in which SMEs are managing to cope with new opportunities and problems. The aim of this article is to investigate a link between competitive advantage and human resource management in SMEs in a transitional economy. Results indicate that a link indeed exists in that human resource efforts in SMEs to a certain degree contribute to the competitive advantage of companies.     

Experimental analysis of choice

Experimental choice analysis continues to attract academic and applied attention. We review what is known about the design, conduct, analysis, and use of data from choice experiments, and indicate gaps in current knowledge that should be addressed in future research. Design strategies consistent with probabilistic models of choice process and the parallels between choice experiments and real markets are considered. Additionally, we address the issues of reliability and validity. Progress has been made in accounting for differences in reliability, but more research is needed to determine which experiments and response procedures will consistently produce more reliable data for various problems.Sawtooth SoftwareDecision Research