More leeway for unilateral trade measures?

The report of the WTO Appellate Body in the shrimp-turtle case may prove to be of fundamental importance for the development of the GATT/WTO system. It asserts that a WTO member can unilaterally condition access to its market on compliance with environmental policies, as long as the regulations are administered in an even-handed manner and do not amount to disguised protectionism. Will the incidence of unilateral trade measures increase dramatically as a result of this decision?     

Does the law of one price hold in international financial markets? Evidence from tick data

This paper investigates the validity of the law of one price (LOP) in international financial markets by examining the frequency, size and duration of inter-market price differentials for borrowing and lending services (‘one-way arbitrage’). Using a unique data set for three major capital and foreign exchange markets that covers a period of more than seven months at tick frequency, we find that the LOP holds on average, but numerous economically significant violations of the LOP arise. The duration of these violations is high enough to make it worthwhile searching for one-way arbitrage opportunities in order to minimize borrowing costs and/or maximize earnings on given funds. We also document that such opportunities decline with the pace of the market and increase with market volatility.     

The determinants of FDI location choice in China: a discrete-choice analysis

This study addresses two questions: What are the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) location choice in China? What are the factors that determine investors’ choice between ‘Economic zones’ in China on one hand, and ‘other cities’ of China on the other hand? This study shows that FDI location choice is sensitive both on the endowment conditions in different regions/cities/economic zones in China as well as on the country of origin of the FDI. Based on a data set of 1218 observations, the results of the binary logit regressions indicate that the protection of intellectual rights, agglomeration economies, investments in education and gross regional product affect the location choice of FDI in China. This choices, however, varies depending on the origin of the FDI. Policy makers can use these findings to channel FDI to targeted regions/ cities.     

Trade Flows,Exchange Rate Uncertainty,and Financial Depth: Evidence from 28 Emerging Countries

This article investigates the effects of real exchange rate uncertainty on manufactures exports from 28 emerging economies, representing 82% of all developing country manufactures exports, and explores the sources of heterogeneity in the uncertainty effects by controlling for the direction of trade (south‐north or south‐south), and the level of financial development of the exporting country. The empirical results show that for more than half of the countries, the uncertainty effect is unidirectional, either south‐south or south‐north, and the median impact is negative. In addition, while we find that financial development augments trade, exchange rate shocks can negate this effect. Last but not least, trade among developing economies improves export growth under exchange rate shocks.     

Modeling the time-varying volatility of the paper–bill spread

The spread between the rates on commercial paper and Treasury bills has received considerable attention in the literature for its role as an indicator of real economic activity. In this paper we empirically examine what happens when the volatility of the spread changes over time. We estimate a nonlinear model that enables us to discern the asymmetric impact of negative and positive shocks to the spread. We find that a positive shock has a larger impact on the volatility of the spread than does a negative shock.     

The effects of entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and marketing subunit influence on firm performance

The study investigates how an organization’s entrepreneurial orientation moderates the interplay between market orientation and marketing subunit influence on firm performance. The hypothesized model predicts that the positive interaction between market orientation and marketing subunit influence has a weaker effect on firm performance under conditions of high entrepreneurial orientation. The regression and supplementary analyses provide support for most predictions and, most importantly, for a negative three-way interaction effect: At higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation, the positive moderating effect of marketing subunit influence on the market orientation–business performance relationship is reduced. The authors discuss the managerial and theoretical implications of their findings and provide a number of directions for further research.

Retail bank selection in developed and developing countries: A cross‐national study of students' bank‐selection criteria

This exploratory research article is concerned with students' selection of retail banks in the United States and Ghana. It is a comparative cross‐national study aimed at revealing the factors determining retail bank selection among students in different environmental settings. The key objective is to establish if there are any significant differences and/or similarities in students' selection of retail banks in developed and developing economies. A similar data‐collection method was employed in the United States and Ghana to facilitate constructive comparison. The results identified four key factors—convenience, competence, recommendation by parents, and free banking and/or no bank charges—to be consistent across the two economies. The recommendation of the study is that in the context of an open and liberalized market environment, retail bank marketing strategies should be standardized irrespective of the national development stage. It concludes that retail bank managers particularly in developing countries should learn to provide consistent and good customer care. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Normative Self-Interest or Moral Hypocrisy?: The Importance of Context

We re-examine the construct of Moral Hypocrisy from the perspective of normative self-interest. Arguing that some degree of self-interest is culturally acceptable and indeed expected, we postulate that a pattern of behavior is more indicative of moral hypocrisy than a single action. Contrary to previous findings, our results indicate that a significant majority of subjects (N = 136) exhibited fair behavior, and that ideals of caring and fairness, when measured in context of the scenario, were predictive of those behaviors. Moreover, measures of Individualism/Collectivism appear more predictive of self-interested behavior than out-of-context responses to moral ideals. Implications for research and practice are discussed. George W. Watson received his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, his M.B.A. from California State at Fullerton, an M.S. in Systems Management from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, an a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Washington, Seattle. His teaching focus is on corporate social responsibility and ethics. Dr.Watson’s current research interests include moral psychology,ethical decision making, and ideology. He has published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Business and Society, and the Journal of Business Ethics. Farooq Sheikh received his BS in Physics from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. from Smeal College of Business, Penn State University. He is currently Assistant Professor of Operations Management, School of Business at the State University of New York at Geneseo. Dr. Sheik’s research interests include rational and behavioral models in business operations, bounded-rational behavioral models in population games, social norms, game theory and cross-disciplinary research involving behavioral models.     

Individual heterogeneity in the returns to schooling: instrumental variables quantile regression using twins data

Considerable effort has been exercised in estimating mean returns to education while carefully considering biases arising from unmeasured ability and measurement error. Recent work has investigated whether there are variations from the “mean” return to education across the population with mixed results. We use an instrumental variables estimator for quantile regression on a sample of twins to estimate an entire family of returns to education at different quantiles of the conditional distribution of wages while addressing simultaneity and measurement error biases. We test whether there is individual heterogeneity in returns to education and find that: more able individuals obtain more schooling perhaps due to lower marginal costs and/or higher marginal benefits of schooling and that higher ability individuals (those further to the right in the conditional distribution of wages) have higher returns to schooling consistent with a non-trivial interaction between schooling and unobserved abilities in the generation of earnings. The estimated returns are never lower than 9 percent and can be as high as 13 percent at the top of the conditional distribution of wages but they vary significantly only along the lower to middle quantiles. Our findings may have meaningful implications for the design of educational policies.