Causality patterns for Brent,WTI, and Argus oil prices

Causality patterns are analysed for daily Brent, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), and Argus Sour Crude Index (Argus) oil prices, Argus is the reference price for exports from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. Nonparametric Granger causality testing uncovers bi-directional causal links between Brent and WTI prices at multiple lags. Unidirectional causality from both Brent to Argus and WTI to Argus is also documented. If the current Saudi Arabia attempt to increase market share is successful, variations in Argus prices may start preceding movements in Brent and WTI, also.     

Financial globalization and stock market risk

This paper examines stock market volatility measured by either “beta-volatility” or by the standard deviation of stock returns over 1995-2007. In our dynamic panel data framework, after controlling for size, turnover, and real output growth, we find some support to increases in financial integration reducing total stock return volatility for representative emerging markets, with almost no impact for industrial economies. Allowing for feedback effects from stock volatility to stock turnover, we obtain a richer interpretation for the broadening of investor basis hypothesis: more integrated financial markets leads to lower stock volatility, yet these are not so strong as found previously and are not accompanied by more turnover.     

The Natural Economic Advantage of Dictatorship over Democracy: A “Gresham's Law” of Governance

We show that when democratic and autocratic governments peacefully compete for governance over the same jurisdiction the autocratic has a natural advantage. The autocratic government, which unambiguously reduces welfare for everyone except the autocrat, will drive the competing democratic government to voluntarily shut down in the interests of its own electorate. For instance, if an autocratic government allows the creation of democratic local governments, with the authority to tax and spend at will, these democratic local governments will remain inert and ineffective: A Gresham's Law of Political Economy.     

Foreign banks activities and factors affecting their presence in Malaysia

This paper assesses the presence of foreign banks in Malaysia and analyses their distribution by the country of origin. The paper uses a model developed by Grosse and Goldberg (1991) to test the determinants of the number of offices of foreign banks in Malaysia based on the country of origin. The empirical results indicate that the size of the banking sector in the foreign country, foreign trade with Malaysia, and country risk are positively correlated with foreign banks' presence in Malaysia. Geographic distance and foreign direct investment in Malaysia are not related to foreign banks' presence in Malaysia.The author would like to thank two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Factors influencing MICE tourism stakeholders' decision making: The case of Aqaba in Jordan

Although the decision to invest in MICE tourism is tentatively multifactorial, it has been also addressed as being regionally diverse. Thus, this study examines the perspectives of the Jordanian stakeholders on the attributes of the city of Aqaba that would instigate the investment in MICE. The sample of the study comprises 253 stakeholders and uses structural equation modeling for the purpose of examining the effect of destination attributes on the decision to invest on the one hand, and the relationship between exogenous and endogenous constructs of the model on the other hand. The results show a statistically significant and positive correlation between destination attributes, either weak or strong, and decision making although the former tends to augment recognition. Theoretical and managerial implications are also suggested in the study.     

Post-entry internationalization speed of SMEs: The role of relational mechanisms and foreign market knowledge

Prior research shows that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can utilize domestic networks with internationally experienced partners to accelerate their internationalization process. Yet, there is a lack of clarity and limited empirical evidence regarding the role of relational mechanisms within these networks in driving post-entry internationalization speed (PIS) of SMEs. To address this gap, this study examines the relational mechanisms-PIS relationship by drawing insights from the relational view to argue that foreign market knowledge mediates the relationship between relational mechanisms and PIS. The hypothesized study model is tested using a structural equation modelling (SEM) technique on a sample of 394 UK based manufacturing SMEs. Our results show that foreign market knowledge acquisition from domestic networks fully mediates the relationship between relational mechanisms and PIS. Additionally, the linkage between foreign market knowledge acquisition and PIS is moderated by domestic environmental hostility, such that the relationship is strengthened when domestic environmental hostility increases. We discuss the contributions and implications of our results and suggest opportunities for future research.     

Psychopathic traits of corporate leadership as predictors of future stock returns

This paper examines whether it is possible to forecast 1‐year‐ahead returns of individual companies based on the observed ‘psychopathic’ characteristics of their top management team. We find that language characteristic of psychopaths present in annual report narratives, questionable integrity, excessive risk‐taking, and failure to contribute to charitable undertakings tend to reduce future shareholder wealth. These findings imply that firms could benefit from incorporating psychological evaluation in their recruitment processes, especially when seeking to fill senior management posts. While the return predictability described in this paper supports the upper echelons perspective, it simultaneously challenges the notion of informationally efficient stock prices.     

Marketing's reputation and influence in the firm

This study examines whether or not marketing's influence in the firm is fundamentally a reputation issue. Based on a sample of 122 senior executives of Australian firms operating in a wide range of manufacturing industries, empirical findings show that the marketing function's reputation in a firm is an important antecedent of marketing's influence in a firm. Results also show that the reputation-influence link is contingent on a firm's particular strategic stance (cost-leadership strategy and differentiation strategy). Results further show that marketing's reputation was good and marketing's influence was strong in the Australian firms surveyed. Directions for future research are discussed.     

The geographic distribution of conferences in Jordan from 2014 to 2016 using predictive GIS modeling

Due to the continuous and rapid expansion of conference tourism and its paramount role in the economic growth of the host countries like Jordan, this study comes to track the geographic distribution of conferences for the years 2014–2016. The main goal of the study is to direct the locations of future conferences to less favored areas that are marginalized and poor. Spatial statistics and Geographic Information System Predictive Modeling (GISPM) are used to calculate the potential locations of conferences based on predefined criteria. The results indicate that the current locations of most of the conferences are concentrated in the northern and middle parts of the country. The GISPM results recommend the eastern and southern locations taking into consideration the socioeconomic development of host communities. The study offers other recommendations addressing managers, event planners, event organizers, conference stakeholders, and the enterprises as well as academic researchers in tourism planning and development.     

Economics at the FCC, 2013–2014

We present a sample of recent FCC matters of economic interest. These include nonstructural remedies in a number of wireless telecommunications transactions, econometric attempts to identify which schools are likely to have access to fiber broadband, and the implementation of “rural broadband experiments” to improve the effectiveness of subsidy programs to promote universal service. We close with some observations regarding the prominence of vertical concerns in FCC policy assessments.