On the natural selection rule in general linear models

We consider a problem of selecting the best treatment in a general linear model. We look at the properties of the natural selection rule. It is shown that the natural selection rule is minimax under to “0–1” loss function and it is a Bayes rule under a monotone permutation invariant loss function with respect to a permutation invariant prior for every variance balanced design. Some other condition on the design matrix is given so that a Bayes rule with respect to a normal prior will be of simple structure.     

Preferences, Technology, and the Environment: Understanding the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis

We derive a simple expression for the income-pollution path using the standard static model of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). This expression makes it straightforward to identify the general characteristics of utility and pollution functions that lead to such a curve. We show that suitable preferences can always lead to an EKC while there is no technology that yields an EKC for all types of preferences, and we derive a sufficient condition for technology that leads to an EKC for almost all types of preferences. Our results hold for a model with multiple goods with different pollution intensities and for a production economy with nonconstant relative price of consumption and environmental effort. We derive our results without assuming specific functional forms and we encompass several other models as special cases.     

Cost-Effective Targeting of Land Retirement to Improve Water Quality with Endogenous Sediment Deposition Coefficients

An integrated framework that combines spatial and biophysical attributes of land with a hydrological model and an economic model is developed to identify cropland for enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Sediment deposition coefficients are determined endogenously depending on the land-use decisions on other land parcels. Application of this framework to a watershed in Illinois demonstrates that highly sloping land adjacent to water bodies should be selected for retirement. A marginal value rental payment scheme can achieve program goals of 20% sediment abatement at 39% lower cost than a productivity-based rental scheme.     

A theory of acquisition markets: mergers versus tender offers, and golden parachutes

We develop a model of the acquisition market in which the acquirerhas a choice between two takeover mechanisms: mergers and tenderoffers. A merger is modeled as a bargaining game between theacquiring and target firms; whereas a tender offer is modeledas an auction in which bidders arrive sequentially an competefor the target. At any stage of the bargaining game the acquiringfirm can stop negotiating and make a tender offer. In equilibrium,there is a unique level of synergy gains below which the acquiringfirm makes only a merger attempt as it expects to lose in thecompetition resulting from a tender offer. For synergy gainsabove this level, tender offers can occur. However, to get tenderoffers, target shareholders must give their managers gold parachutesthat give higher payoffs in tender offers than in mergers.     

Market distortions and export performance: India’s exports of manufactures in the 1970s

Zusammenfassung Marktst?rungen und die Exporte eines Landes: Indiens Industriegüterexporte in den siebziger Jahren. — Aus einem Heckscher-Ohlin-Modell mit mehreren L?ndern und mehreren Gütern werden Vorstellungen darüber abgeleitet, wie sich Verzerrungen der Güter- und Faktorm?rkte auf die Kapitalintensit?t von Industrien, auf die Zusammensetzung der Warenexporte und auf die Exportt?tigkeit auswirken. Diese Modellvorstellungen werden mit Erfolg benutzt, um die indische Situation zu erkl?ren. Die Verzerrungen der Faktorm?rkte in Indien haben eine gr?Βere Kapitalintensit?t seiner Industrien bewirkt; Verzerrungen der Güterm?rkte haben zu einer Umkehr in der Exportt?tigkeit geführt: Einige subventionierte kapitalintensive Industrien sind auf den Weltm?rkten leistungsf?higer als seine arbeitsintensiven Industrien.

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Résumé Distorsions de marché et la performance exportatrice: les exportations manufacturières de l’Inde dans les années soixante-dix. — Avec succès l’auteur explique la situation indienne gráce aux propositions qui sont dérivées d’un multi-pays et multi-biens cadre du type Heckscher-Ohlin pour analyser les effets des distorsions sur le marché des biens et des facteurs á l’intensité capitalistique des industries, á la composition des biens exportés et á la performance exportatrice. Les distorsions sur les marchés des facteurs aux Indes ont augmenté l’intensité capitalistique de ses industries; les distorsions sur les marchés des biens ont conduit aux inversions de la performance exportatrice de ses industries — quelques industries intensives á capital et subventionées révèlent une meilleure performance exportatrice sur les marchés mondiaux que des industries intensives á main-d’∁uvre.

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Resumen Distorsiones de mercado y comportamiento de exportación: las exportaciones de manufacturas de la India en los afios 1970. — Se utilizan exitosamente proposiciones derivadas de un marco multi-paises y multi-productos de Heckscher-Ohlin acerca del impacto de distorsiones en los mercados de bienes y factures sobre la intensidad de capital de las industrias, la composición de productos de las exportaciones y el comportamiento de las exportaciones para explicar la situaci?n de la India. Distorsiones en el mercado de factures en la India han resultado en una mayor intensidad de capital de sus industrias; distorsiones en el mercado de bienes en la India han llevado a reversiones en el comportamiento de exportation de sus industrias — algunas industrias intensivas en capital subsidiadas tienen un comportamiento mejor en los mercados mundiales que sus industrias intensivas en mano de obra.

     

Strategies that fit emerging markets

It's no easy task to identify strategies for entering new international markets or to decide which countries to do business with. Many firms simply go with what they know-and fall far short of their goals. Part of the problem is that emerging markets have "institutional voids": They lack specialized intermediaries, regulatory systems, and contract-enforcing methods. These gaps have made it difficult for multinationals to succeed in developing nations; thus, many companies have resisted investing there. That may be a mistake. If Western companies don't come up with good strategies for engaging with emerging markets, they are unlikely to remain competitive. Many firms choose their markets and strategies for the wrong reasons, relying on everything from senior managers' gut feelings to the behaviors of rivals. Corporations also depend on composite indexes for help making decisions. But these analyses can be misleading; they don't account for vital information about the soft infrastructures in developing nations. A better approach is to understand institutional variations between countries. The best way to do this, the authors have found, is by using the five contexts framework. The five contexts are a country's political and social systems, its degree of openness, its product markets, its labor markets, and its capital markets. By asking a series of questions that pertain to each ofthe five areas, executives can map the institutional contexts of any nation. When companies match their strategies to each country's contexts, they can take advantage of a location's unique strengths. But first firms should weigh the benefits against the costs. If they find that the risks of adaptation are too great, they should try to change the contexts in which they operate or simply stay away.     

Examining Volatility Persistence and News Asymmetry in Soybeans Futures Returns

Four alternative generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH), and three asymmetric GARCH models (EGARCH, TGARCH and APARCH) are used to examine the presence of volatility persistence and news asymmetry in soybeans futures data. Presence of fat tails in the data series resulted in applying Student’s-t and generalized error distributions in addition to Gaussian normal distribution. The results reveal that soybean return series exhibit volatility characteristics typical of a financial time series. The findings of this study indicate that the leverage effect was absent for soybeans suggesting that positive news causes more volatility to the commodity than negative news. Results further suggest that the fit of the GARCH models is improved by applying t-distribution errors. The diagnostic tests reveal that GARCH models are correctly specified and among all the competing models, APARCH (1,3) model with t-distribution performed best in capturing the volatility.     

Estimating the performance effects of business groups in emerging markets

Business groups—confederations of legally independent firms—are ubiquitous in emerging economies, yet very little is known about their effects on the performance of affiliated firms. We conceive of business groups as responses to market failures and high transaction costs. In doing so, we develop hypotheses about the effects of group affiliation on firm profitability: affiliation could either boost or depress firm profitability, and members of a group are likely to earn rates of return similar to other members of the same group. Using a unique data set compiled largely from local sources, we test for these effects in 14 emerging markets: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey. We find evidence that business groups indeed affect the broad patterns of economic performance in 12 of the markets we examine. Group affiliation appears to have as profound an effect on profitability as does industry membership, yet strategy scholars have a much clearer grasp of industries than of groups. Moreover, membership in a group raises the profitability of the average group member in several of the markets we examine. This runs contrary to the wisdom, conventional in advanced economies, that unrelated diversification depresses profitability. Overall, our findings suggest that the roots of sustained differences in profitability may vary across institutional contexts; conclusions drawn in one context may well not apply to another. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of third party certification on voluntary self-regulation of accidents in the U.S. chemical industry

We explore whether the introduction of mandatory third party certification in 2005 under the Responsible Care program has reduced the probability and severity of accidents in participating facilities in the U.S. chemical industry. Using a sample of 10,315 observations from 1136 facilities owned by 566 RC and non-RC firms between 1996 and 2010, we estimate the average treatment effect of third party certification. We find that the difference-in-difference estimate of the average treatment effect is statistically insignificant. This result is robust to various model specifications including the potential endogeniety of third party certification due to a firm’s self-selection into RC.