Resolving Cross-cultural Ethical Conflict: An Empirical Test of a Decision Tree Model in an Educational Setting

The authors have previously developed and described a decision tree model for addressing cross-cultural ethical conflicts. The model is intended to provide an ethically sound yet pragmatic tool for decision makers facing such situations. This paper presents the results of an empirical test of the model in an educational setting with a sample of business students. Students trained to use the model demonstrated significantly more flexibility and appropriateness in their decisions on case scenarios than those who were not trained. The implications for use of the model in educational settings and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Financial liberalization,private investment and portfolio choice: Financialization of real sectors in emerging markets

Using firm level panel data, we analyze the impacts of rates of return gap between financial and fixed investments under uncertainty on real investment performance in three emerging markets, Argentina, Mexico and Turkey. Employing a portfolio choice model to explain the low fixed investment rates in developing countries during the 1990s, we suggest that rather than investing in irreversible long-term fixed investments, firms may choose to invest in reversible short-term financial investments depending on respective rates of returns and the overall uncertainty in the economy. The empirical results show that increasing rates of return gap and uncertainty have an economically and statistically significant fixed investment reducing effect while the opposite is true with respect to financial investments.     

The stock market and investment in the small and open Norwegian economy

The relationship between the stock market and investment is analyzed by utilizing a multivariate vector autoregressive model, which also includes fundamentals represented by production and the bank interest rate. Two important results appear on the basis of data from the small, open economy of Norway. The financial market has no lead effect on real activity, as neither the stock market nor the credit market can predict future investment or production. On the contrary, current stock returns correlate negatively with lagged growth in investment, and positively with current growth in production. In addition, changes in the bank interest rate have a positive effect on future stock returns, production leads investment positively, and both production and the bank interest rate become exogenous variables in our model. First version received: November 1997/Final version received: October 2000     

Major problems of tourism growth in developing countries

The following paper is an attempt to analyse the present-day tourist relationship between industrial nations and Developing Countries. It furthermore describes predictable conflict situations which may arise if these relations are subject to excessive physical and psychological strains or if the international division of labor in the field of “Vacation production” becomes unbalanced.     

Zur Frage der Produktionsplanung mit der Anwendung mathematischer Methoden in der Serienfertigung

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ESTIMATION OF EFFECTIVE RISK REDUCION THROUGH IRRIGATION OF A PERENIAL CROP*

This paper outlines an approach to assessing the benefits from in vestment in the irrigation of tea stands in three areas of East Pakistan. Irrigation aflects both the establishment and productive life of the growing crop, and therefore the analysis includes a discounred assessment of the replacement decision, as well as an appraisal of the change in technology. Since the biological and weather eflects that determine annual and long-run productivity of the stand are stochastic variables, the evaluation is made using a simulation model in which these determinants are introduced as known discrete probabilities. Using this model an estimate may be made of rhe net gains to a tea estate of the risk reduction achieved by eliminating harmful crop moisture deficits.     

Consumption and Income Inequality in Australia

Consumption may be a more appropriate measure of household well-being than income or earnings. Using four ABS Household Expenditures Surveys collected between 1975 and 1993, we compare trends in consumption and income inequality among Australian households. We find that consumption is much more equal than income. While there were significant increases in both income and consumption inequality, consumption inequality rose by much less. One interpretation of the results is that some income inequality in Australia reflects transitory fluctuations which households can smooth,'and that part of the growth in income inequality reflects an increase in these transitory fluctuations.     

Boekbesprekingen

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