Why Beautify the Plaza? Reproducing Community in Decentralized Neoliberal Peru

Peruvian development and government analysts criticize communities for irrationally using local development funds deriving from recently instituted political decentralization to beautify their villages rather than to improve infrastructural services, education and health, or to alleviate poverty. This paper challenges this critique by explaining why such cosmetic improvements are of interest to rural people. Using a case study of the peasant community of Allpachico, I argue that these projects encourage the return of pensioners and visits from migrants. Residents and migrants are mutually dependent as a result of livelihood strategies based on agriculture and the foreign‐controlled resource extraction sector over the past 80 years. The relative position of these two groups in the social reproduction of the vernacular community has changed with the Peruvian political economy. Currently, in the neoliberal resource extraction economy, residents pragmatically opt to maintain relations with those who have stable wage or pension incomes.     

Chefs’ perceptions of using convenience food products versus scratch cooking

The decision regarding when and to what extent to use convenience food products is a perennial issue in the hospitality industry. To explore this issue, a paper and pencil survey was administered to culinary managers in a large university dining setting. Respondents included 132 chefs representing 10 dining facilities/concepts. The results indicate that even though the time and labor cost savings brought about by the use of convenience food products are perceived as advantageous, the implied consistency of the final product and superior portion control are not as important. Furthermore, customer relationships, catering to special groups, and final products’ eye appeal appear to be better facilitated by nonconvenience foods. Even though it is easier to train culinary staff to use convenience food products rather than nonconvenience ones and these employees appear to be under less psychological pressure in their jobs, they will conversely be less motivated and worse paid.     

The Role of Defined Benefit Pension Plans in Executive Compensation

Abstract

Although defined benefit (DB) pension plans constitute a significant portion of both annual compensation and firm-related wealth for many CEOs, prior studies of CEO compensation contracts generally exclude these plans from their analyses due to lack of data. Taking advantage of recently increased disclosure requirements, we analyse the role of DB pension plans in these contracts. We find that firms with CEO DB pension plans grant the CEO annual compensation that is larger than predicted by economic determinants. We also find that more powerful CEOs, identified by their extraordinary pension benefits, receive higher total pay in addition to the pension benefits. We find no evidence that CEO pension benefits contribute to the pay-for-performance sensitivity of the annual pay.     

Causal nexus between economic growth,banking sector development,stock market development,and other macroeconomic variables: The case of ASEAN countries

This paper examines the relationship between banking sector development, stock market development, economic growth, and four other macroeconomic variables in ASEAN countries for the period 1961–2012. Using principal component analysis for the construction of the development indices and a panel vector auto-regressive model for testing the Granger causalities, this study finds the presence of both unidirectional and bidirectional causality links between these variables. The study contributes to understanding the importance of the interrelationship between the variables and combines the different strands of the literature. It also contributes to the literature by focusing on a group of countries that have not been studied before. One particular policy recommendation is to make the banking sector more accessible for those country's inhabitants that do not have bank accounts. Another policy recommendation is to nurture stock market development, which will facilitate the increased raising of capital for investment purposes to enhance economic growth.     

Experimenting and learning with localized direct communication

We report an experiment in which subjects may learn from each other. Specifically, a “queue” of players who are identically informed ex ante make decisions in sequence over two lotteries. Every player except the first in the queue observes (only) his immediate predecessor’s choice and payoff before making his own decision. In equilibrium decisions are identical from the first or second player onwards in all experimental conditions. However, complete adherence to equilibrium play is seldom observed in our experiment. We further analyze our data using a quantal response equilibrium approach and test for behavioral regularities related to base rate fallacy/conservatism bias, social conformity/rebelliousness, and preference for experimentation (preferring the lottery with potentially more information spillover value). Our estimations reveal a consistent preference for experimentation across conditions, and further analysis offers some support to our surmise that this behavioral regularity is due, in part, to an attempt to influence others behind in the queue.     

National borders matter … where one draws the lines too

Abstract The fact that crossing a political border dramatically reduces trade flows has been widely documented in the literature. The increasing number of borders has surprisingly attracted much less attention. The number of independent countries has indeed risen from 72 in 1948 to 192 today. This paper estimates the effect of political disintegration since World War II on the measured growth in world trade. We first show that trade statistics should be considered carefully when assessing globalization over time, since the definition of trade partners varies over time. We document a sizeable resulting accounting artefact, which accounts for 17% of world trade in 2007. Second, based on a structural gravity equation, we estimate that since World War II political disintegration alone has raised measured international trade flows by 7% but decreased actual trade flows (including inter‐regional trade) by 2%.     

Essential data, budget sets and rationalization

According to a minimalist version of Afriat’s theorem, a consumer behaves as a utility maximizer if and only if a feasibility matrix associated with his choices is cyclically consistent. An “essential experiment” consists of observed consumption bundles $(x_{1}, \ldots , x_{n})$ and a feasibility matrix $\varvec{\alpha }$ . Starting with a standard experiment, in which the economist has access to precise budget sets, we show that the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a utility function rationalizing the experiment, namely, the cyclical consistency of the associated feasibility matrix, is equivalent to the existence, for any budget sets compatible with the deduced essential experiment, of a utility function rationalizing them (and typically depending on them). In other words, the conclusion of the standard rationalizability test, in which the economist takes budget sets for granted, does not depend on the full specification of the underlying budget sets but only on the essential data that these budget sets generate. Starting with an essential experiment $(x_{1}, \ldots , x_{n}; \varvec{\alpha }$ ) only, we show that the cyclical consistency of $\varvec{\alpha }$ , together with a further consistency condition involving both $(x_{1}, \ldots , x_{n})$ and $\varvec{\alpha }$ , guarantees the existence of a budget representation and that the essential experiment is rationalizable almost robustly, in the sense that there exists a single utility function which rationalizes at once almost all budget sets which are compatible with $(x_{1}, \ldots , x_{n}; \varvec{\alpha }$ ). The conditions are also trivially necessary.     

Perception of ISO 9000 Certification: Management Perspective of Travel Agencies in China

Tourism is an intangible combination of different but interrelated elements that resulting in opportunities for mistakes and complaints. The implementation of a formal quality management program is crucial for tourism businesses. The present study implemented a full-structured questionnaire to evaluate the perception of ISO 9000 certification of registered travel agencies in Mainland China. It was found that the perception of top management plays a critical part in determining the intention of the company to be certified. The study also highlighted that the certification could enhance competiveness of the firm in the domestic market, can project a competitive company image, and increase employee commitment to quality conformance and communication with customers. Nonetheless, the barriers of certification do not play an effective role in discriminating certification intenders and non-intenders and it can be explained when both intenders and non-intenders believe the certification process to be costly, time consuming, and highly specialized.     

Corporate Social Performance, Firm Valuation, and Industrial Difference: Evidence from Hong Kong

This study addresses two issues. First, does corporate social performance matter in Hong Kong. Second, if yes, is it relevant to some industries more than others. To answer these questions, we develop a corporate social performance index (CSP) to measure the quality of corporate social performance of major Hong Kong listed firms. The criteria are based on the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance. Using the 3-year period from 2002 to 2005, we find that firm valuation is positive and significantly associated with CSP. Interestingly, this relation matters less in China related firms and firms with a concentrated ownership structure. The results also show that CSP impacts firm valuation more positively when the firm is in the service sector. We further find that CSP is positively related to the market valuation of the subsequent year.