Is agriculture the engine of growth?

We seek to address formally the question raised by Gardner (2003) in his Elmhirst lecture as to the direction of causality between agricultural value added per worker and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. Using the Granger causality test in the panel data analyzed by Gardner for 85 countries, we find overwhelming evidence that supports the conclusion that agricultural value added is the causal variable in developing countries, while the direction of causality in developed countries is unclear. We also examine further the use of the Granger causality test in integrated data and provide evidence that the performance of the test can be increased in small samples through the use of the bootstrap.     

Cross-sectional regression analysis of return and beta in Japan

This paper investigates the relationship between return and beta using the cross-sectional regression method. Regression of return on beta without differentiating positive and negative market excess returns produces a flat relationship between return and beta. Taking into account the difference between positive and negative market excess returns yields significant conditional relationships between return and beta. The conditional relationship between return and beta is found to be in general better fit when the market excess return is negative than positive in terms of the goodness of fit measures such as R² and the standard error of the equation.     

Evolution of an international joint venture: The case of a French‐Brazilian joint venture

Considering the situation of low performance of joint ventures, a certain number of studies have concluded that there is a close relationship between the initial conditions of creation of joint ventures and their success or failure. Nevertheless, other explanatory factors can be identified through dynamic analysis of the joint venture. For this purpose, on the basis of the case of the Franco‐Brazilian Algar‐Bull joint venture in the information technology sector, from its creation in 1983 to its dissolution in 1998, the aim of our research is to study the influence of external evolution processes ( partners' adaptive strategies and changes in environmental constraints) on the success or failure of a joint venture. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Choice in Interactive Environments

In the early 21st century, firms are thinking seriously and practically about an interactive marketing paradigm—one that integrates mass scale with individual responsiveness. The focus of this paper is on how this interactive environment is changing the customer decision-making process. With the increased amount of information available, the existence of sophisticated decision aids such as intelligent agents, and more latitude in how to interact beyond the basic desktop and laptop computers (e.g., personal digital assistants, cellular phones, tablet computers), customers have more choices than ever about how, when, and how much to interact with companies and each other. In this paper, we attempt to cover a few of the major areas of research on how customers make decisions in these environments.     

Public and Private Provision of Health Care

One of the mechanisms that are implemented in the cost containment movement in the health care sectors in western countries is the definition, by the third-party payer, of a set of preferred providers. The insured patients have different access rules to such providers when ill. The rules specify the copayments patients must pay when using an out-of-plan care provider. This paper studies the competitive process among providers in terms of both prices and qualities. Competition is influenced by the status of providers as in-plan or out-of-plan care providers. Also, there is a moral hazard of provider choice related to the trade-off between freedom to choose and the need to hold down costs. It is possible to achieve the first-best allocation by an appropriate definition of the reimbursement scheme when decisions on prices and qualities are taken simultaneously (as in primary health care sectors). In contrast, some type of regulation is needed to achieve the optimal solution when decisions are sequential (as in specialized health care sectors). We also derive normative conclusions on how price controls should be implemented in some European Union member states.     

Dual Technological Development in Botswana Agriculture: A Stochastic Input Distance Function Approach

To improve the welfare of the rural poor and keep them in the countryside, the government of Botswana has been spending 40% of the value of agricultural GDP on agricultural support services. But can investment make smallholder agriculture prosperous in such adverse conditions? This paper derives an answer by applying a two‐output six‐input stochastic translog distance function, with inefficiency effects and biased technical change to panel data for the 18 districts and the commercial agricultural sector, from 1979 to 1996. This model demonstrates that herds are the most important input, followed by draft power, land and seeds. Multilateral indices for technical change, technical efficiency and total factor productivity (TFP) show that the technology level of the commercial agricultural sector is more than six times that of traditional agriculture and that the gap has been increasing, due to technological regression in traditional agriculture and modest progress in commercial agriculture. Since the levels of efficiency are similar, the same pattern is repeated by the TFP indices. This result highlights the policy dilemma of the trade‐off between efficiency and equity objectives.     

The impact of cluster connectedness on firm innovation: R&D effort and outcomes in the textile industry

Recent research into the clustering effect on firms has moved away from a simplistic view to a more complex approach. More realistic and complex causal relationships are now considered when analysing these territorial networks. Specifically, this paper attempts to analyse how cluster connectedness moderates the relationship of a firm's innovation effort and the results obtained from this effort. We want to question the commonly accepted direct and positive impact of R&D effort, and moreover, we suggest the existence of a saturation effect and that the level of cluster's inter-connectedness in the cluster moderates this effect. We have developed our empirical study focusing on the Spanish textile industrial cluster. This is a complex manufacturing industry that uses relatively low-technology manufacturing and R&D. Our findings suggest that the degree to which a firm is involved with, or connected to, other firms in the cluster can moderate the effect of the R&D effort on its innovation results. More generally, we aim to contribute to the discussion on the degree to which firms should be involved in the cluster network in order to operate efficiently and gain the maximum competitive advantages. Our findings have implications both in recent cluster and network literature as well for institutional policy.     

Africa is on time

We present evidence that the recent African growth renaissance has reached Africa’s poor. Using survey data on African income distributions and national accounts GDP, we estimate income distributions, poverty rates, and inequality indices for African countries for the period 1990–2011. We show that: (1) African poverty is falling rapidly; (2) the African countries for which good inequality data exists are set to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) poverty target on time. The entire continent except for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will reach the MDG in 2014, one year in advance, and adding the DRC will delay the MDG until 2018; (3) the growth spurt that began in 1995, if anything, decreased African income inequality instead of increasing it; (4) African poverty reduction is remarkably general: it cannot be explained by a large country, or even by a single set of countries possessing some beneficial geographical or historical characteristic. All classes of countries, including those with disadvantageous geography and history, experience reductions in poverty. In particular, poverty fell for both landlocked as well as coastal countries; for mineral-rich as well as mineral-poor countries; for countries with favorable or with unfavorable agriculture; for countries regardless of colonial origin; and for countries with below- or above-median slave exports per capita during the African slave trade.     

Institutional environment and Business Groups' resilience in Brazil

This article combines the institutional theory and political economy approaches to test hypotheses about how transitions in institutional environments affect the performance of Business Groups. Its primary hypothesis is that the different types of political connections established by Business Groups have moderating effects on this relationship. A sample of 1709 observations, from 317 distinct groups operating in Brazil between 2001 and 2009, was used in unobserved effects panel data models, which included the moderating effects of political connections. Our findings suggest that the institutional environment significantly affects Business Groups' performance and that this effect is moderated by political connections, when assessed in terms of the local or federal government as a minor shareholder of the Business Group. The moderating effects of political connections assessed through campaign donations were not conclusive.     

Detecting Market Competition in the Japanese Beer Industry

We investigate various characteristics, including firm-level panel data, of the Japanese beer market over time (over 30 years) to determine the level and nature of competition. Next, we conduct two sets of regressions using market share and firm-level accounting data in a variation of Boone’s (Econ J 118:1245–1261, 2008a; J Inst Theor Econ 164:587–611, 2008b) measure of competition. While traditional indicators (very high market concentration, little or no overt price competition) suggest that Japanese beer firms do not compete, Boone-style regressions yield strong evidence of competitive behavior.