Seeking External Evidence to Assess Benefit Transfers for Environmental Policy

The cost and time required to produce original benefit estimates makes benefit transfers a highly valuable component of the process of assessing the benefits and costs of environmental improvements. Because of the great variety of benefit estimates, conducted at different times with different data sources and different techniques, there is concerted effort to understand the validity of transfers. The research in this paper approaches the validity issue of benefit transfers by asking whether there is indirect evidence of the benefits. The premise of the paper is that policies that give significant benefits should induce expected and unexpected behavioral changes. We look for evidence of potential indirect evidence by by estimating the effect of differences air pollutants on activities such as outdoor recreation and work, as found in the American Time Use Survey.     

Cross-sectional and time-series momentum returns and market dynamics: evidence from Japan

We test the behavioural theories of overconfidence and underreaction on cross-sectional (CS) and time-series (TS) momentum returns in the Japanese stock markets. Both CS and TS momentum returns are large and significant when the market continues in the same state and turns into losses when the market transitions to another state, consistent with the overconfidence but not the underreaction model. We find that TS conditional momentum returns exceed conditional CS momentum returns because of its active position since TS takes a net long (short) position following UP (DN) markets while CS is a zero-cost strategy irrespective of the market state. Finally, we find no relation between idiosyncratic volatility (IV) and momentum returns which is not supportive of either the overconfidence or underreaction model but implies that IV is not a significant limit to arbitrage in Japan.     

Product differentiation, cost‐reducing mergers, and consumer welfare

Abstract.  Cost synergies are an explicitly recognized justification for a two‐firm merger, and empirical techniques are now widely used to assess the impact of cost‐reducing mergers on prices and welfare in the post‐merger market. We show that if the merger occurs in a vertically product differentiated market, then the merger will lead to a reduction in product offerings that limits the usefulness of pre‐merger empirical estimates. Indeed, we further show that in such markets, two‐firm mergers will typically lead to higher prices regardless of the merger's cost savings. JEL classification: L10, L41     

国际舆论热议政府工作报告:中国成就令人赞叹 期待为世界作出更大贡献

"第十一届全国人大四次会议3月5日在京开幕的消息,迅速成为外国媒体关注的焦点,温家宝总理所作的政府工作报告引起广泛热议。国际舆论认为,中国的发展成就令人赞叹,相信今后五年将取得更大发展,期待中国为世界作出更大贡献。     

The Principle of Moral Projection: A reply to Professor Ranken

This article responds to two criticisms by Professor Nani Ranken of the Principle of Moral Projection in business ethics. In the process it enlarges upon our understanding of the moral agenda of management and the corporation as a participant in ethical transactions. Kenneth E. Goodpaster is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University. He has published articles in a wide variety of journals, including the Journal of Philosophy, Ethics, Environmental Ethics, the Journal of Business Ethics, Thought, and the Harvard Business Review. He has also edited or authored five books: Perspectives on Morality: Essays of William Frankena (1976) Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century (1979) Regulation, Values and the Public Interest (1980) Ethics in Management (1984) and Policies and Persons: A Casebook in Business Ethics (1985). Work in progress includes a monograph on management and moral philosophy (1987).     

The relative importance of social responsibility in determining organizational effectiveness: Student responses

This paper investigates the relative importance of social responsibility criteria in determining organizational effectiveness. The organizational effectiveness menu was used as a questionnaire with a sample of 151 senior undergraduates. Each respondent was asked to rate the importance of the criteria from three constituent perspectives within a service organization: (1) as a manager, (2) as an investor, (3) as an employee. Later, a subsample of students (n=61) responded to the same questionnaire acting as a manager in an assigned case study. The results indicated that students acting as managers, investors, or employees rate social responsibility criteria among the least important of the determinants of organizational effectiveness. Moreover, while specific situations may call for changes in the relative importance of these criteria, social responsibility criteria were not viewed, generally, as the most important determinants of organizational effectiveness.Kenneth L. Kraft is currently an Associate Professor of Management at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. His recent papers explore the relationships between strategy, structure, social responsibility, and organizational effectiveness in a variety of settings.     

Market and Welfare Effects of the U.S. Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act

This paper analyzes the market and welfare effects of the United States Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act enacted in 2001. The act mandates meat packers to report their transactions daily to a government agency and requires the agency to make a summary of those transactions available to the public through the Mandatory Livestock Meat Market News Reports. Considering the case of an imperfect packer cartel that uses trigger price strategies, this paper examines the impact of market information provided by the reports on equilibrium livestock slaughter and the welfare of the groups involved and identifies the determinants of the socially optimal level of information. A key result of the paper is that, even when facilitating collusion among packers, increased market information can be social welfare enhancing.     

E‐learning: emerging uses,empirical results and future directions

The use of network technology to deliver training is the latest trend in the training and development industry and has been heralded as the ‘e‐learning revolution.’ In an effort to separate hype from reality, this paper reviews practitioner and research literature on e‐learning, incorporating unpublished information from interviews with managers and consultants directly involved in e‐learning initiatives. Specific attention is given to why organizations use e‐learning, what the potential drawbacks to e‐learning are, what we know from research about e‐learning and what the future of e‐learning may hold.     

Using Information Communication Technology to Develop International Entrepreneurship Competencies

Many researchers claim that the use of web-based learning tools and information and communication technology (ICT) will revolutionize traditional learning methods in university contexts and fundamentally change the process of how knowledge is gathered and disseminated. However, there are conflicting views regarding the benefits of these techniques and actual learning outcomes. This paper posits that by using ICT and particularly the Web as a dynamic and integrating learning tool, several strategic competencies can be deployed and that the international knowledge, skills and competencies of entrepreneurship students can be radically enhanced. In light of an extensive literature review on research in the field, suggestions are provided for using the Web as a comprehensive teaching tool.