Global gamesmanship

Competition among multinationals these days is likely to be a three-dimensional game of global chess: The moves an organization makes in one market are designed to achieve goals in another in ways that aren't immediately apparent to its rivals. The authors--all management professors-call this approach "competing under strategic interdependence," or CSI. And where this interdependence exists, the complexity of the situation can quickly overwhelm ordinary analysis. Indeed, most business strategists are terrible at anticipating the consequences of interdependent choices, and they're even worse at using interdependency to their advantage. In this article, the authors offer a process for mapping the competitive landscape and anticipating how your company's moves in one market can influence its competitive interactions in others. They outline the six types of CSI campaigns--onslaughts, contests, guerrilla campaigns, feints, gambits, and harvesting--available to any multiproduct or multimarket corporation that wants to compete skillfully. They cite real-world examples such as the U.S. pricing battle Philip Morris waged with R.J. Reynolds--not to gain market share in the domestic cigarette market but to divert R.J. Reynolds's resources and attention from the opportunities Philip Morris was pursuing in Eastern Europe. And, using data they collected from their studies of consumer-products companies Procter & Gamble and Unilever, the authors describe how to create CSI tables and bubble charts that present a graphical look at the competitive landscape and that may uncover previously hidden opportunities. The CSI mapping process isn't just for global corporations, the authors explain. Smaller organizations that compete with a portfolio of products in just one national or regional market may find it just as useful for planning their next business moves.     

Agricultural dynamics in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines

The introduction of new high-yielding varieties of cereals in the 1960s, known as the green revolution, dramatically changed the food supply in Asia, as well as in other countries. In the present paper we examine, over an extended period, the growth consequences for agriculture in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Despite geographical proximity, similar climate and other shared characteristics, gains in productivity and income differed significantly among the countries. We quantify these differences and examine their determinants. We find that the new technology changed the returns to fertilisers, irrigated land and capital, all of which proved scarce to varying degrees. Complementing technology-related changes in factor use were investments, public and private, driven in part by policy. We find that factor accumulation played an important role in output growth and that accumulations from policy driven investments in human capital and public infrastructure were important sources of productivity gains. We conclude that policies that ease constraints on factor markets and promote public investment in people and infrastructure provide the best opportunities for agricultural growth.     

Comparative evidence about the verbal and analytical aptitude of accounting students

Concern over the declining quality of accounting students has led to widespread changes in accounting education. Yet, surprisingly little evidence exists to indicate that we can draw better students by changing curricula and teaching methodologies. This study adds to the rather small sampling of work on the relative quality of accounting majors. It focuses on the retention and attraction of high quality students with both analytical and verbal skills. The results show that the accounting major attracted and retained top students from the University. Students who chose an accounting major, however, tended to be stronger in analytical than verbal skills and this gap widened with attrition. Analytical skills related more strongly than verbal to performance in the introductory accounting course, although verbal skills became more important in more advanced coursework.     

The valuation of GMWB variable annuities under alternative fund distributions and policyholder behaviours

In this paper, we present a dynamic programming algorithm for pricing variable annuities with Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefits (GMWB) under a general Lévy processes framework. The GMWB gives the policyholder the right to make periodical withdrawals from her policy account even when the value of this account is exhausted. Typically, the total amount guaranteed for withdrawals coincides with her initial investment, providing then a protection against downside market risk. At each withdrawal date, the policyholder has to decide whether, and how much, to withdraw, or to surrender the contract. We show how different policyholder’s withdrawal behaviours can be modelled. We perform a sensitivity analysis comparing the numerical results obtained for different contractual and market parameters, policyholder behaviours and different types of Lévy processes.     

The Impact of Regulatory Changes on the Risk-Taking Behavior of State Chartered Savings Banks

This study investigates changes in the risk-taking behavior of state chartered savings banks resulting from three types of regulatory changes: the expansion of asset investment powers contained in the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 and the Garn–St Germain Depository Institutions Act (DIA) of 1982, the authority to change organizational structure from mutual to stock form contained in the Financial Institutions Regulatory and Interest Rate Control Act of 1978 and DIA, and the change in intensity of regulatory oversight contained in the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989. Using data for New York state chartered savings banks for the period 1986 to 1991, the analysis found mixed results for the asset deregulation hypothesis that institutions eventually placed on the problem bank list invested more in deregulated assets. Strong support was found for the organizational structure hypothesis that stock savings banks have greater incentives to pursue value-maximizing levels of risk by using more leverage, growing at faster rates, and increasing credit risk. This finding suggests that the regulatory changes that permitted mutual to stock conversions may have had a significant negative impact on the severity of the thrift crisis. The results also suggest that increased regulatory scrutiny limited the risk-taking of New York state chartered savings banks after 1988.